Unfiltered Wisdom: What We'd Tell Our Younger Selves

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Pastor Joe Liles (00:00):
Foreign Welcome to the TNC podcast. We

(00:05):
are recorded in studio coming toyou live from the worship center
in the neighborhood Church,which is absolutely wonderful
with the bright lights on earlyin the morning. I think we're
all feeling the bright lightsthis morning. We're doing the
podcast an hour earlier thismorning, and so I see that we're
walking in and these lights nottypically in the moment of their
bright, but right now, I kind offeel it like I'd like to be in a

(00:25):
dark place sleeping. That wouldbe wonderful. And we're here
joined by podcast hosts, whichare wonderful on staff here at
the neighborhood church. To myI'm going to switch it up,
Roseanne. To my right is the oneand only pastor of care and
education, Tom. Tom, Pastor.
Tom, that's great. And to myleft, the Director of Operations
here at the neighborhood church,Roseanne, Oh, that's fantastic.

(00:46):
We and we just were having aslight conversation before,
right before we got on thepodcast about email, and we were
all kind of commenting on theemails that were flying this
morning. And Tom, you had saidthat the worst thing that had
happened to you previously inemails was that you always
forgot the attachment

Tom Helmich (01:03):
all like a habitual thing. It's like two things I
forget. I get a TO GO Box forleftovers at a restaurant, go
seven out of 10 times, no, leaveon the table. Seriously? Yeah,
oh. Like, I gotta actively watchfor that. Yeah. And I'm
notorious for sending emailsreferencing attachment that I
did not, in fact, attach. That'sgreat. So now, like, it'll warn
you, like, if you mentionedattachment, it tries to prompt

(01:26):
you. I knew that here I need

that. Yeah, that's great. I'm notorious not
for leaving my food at therestaurant, but if I'm
traveling, I forget that Ibrought it back to the hotel and
then it and then it just sitsthere for, like, two days, three
days, whatever. And then I'mabout to leave, and I'm like, I
want to eat this before I get onthe plane, because I saved it,
because it was delicious, andthen I forgot, and it just, I
know, don't know where I'll eatthings cold. I'm that kind of

(01:48):
person. Oh, I eat stuff cold,yeah, not three days. Three days
is okay. What's range? It'srefrigerated. It's a
refrigerator. We're fine.
Depends on what it is to don'task Jess, I will test anything
in the fridge. And I'm like,Look, yeah, do you get sick? Not
often, because my immunity isstrong, because you ask stuff
like that all the time. Tom, youare the cleaner of the gather
building fridge. Like, ifthere's anything that's close to

(02:11):
expired, like, we now put dateson every item because of you,
because you will throw awayanything at any point. Well,
yeah.

I mean, if it's just like for me, like, I'll
push it a little more. Yeah,other people's kids,

no, you're done. Like, I've come to the
gather building many times, andthe whole fridge is just clear,
like, whatever was in there isnow

gone. I've taken two full trash out to the truck.
Yeah, I feel like you full

sleep. It like there's a rage clean. We're
talking about rage cleaning. Igot coming to the gather been on
my OOP Tom, rage clean together,building. And I'm like, here we
go. Hadn't been there in acouple weeks. There's no telling
what? Yeah, well, we got thesummer program going on, and so
until that ends on this Friday,I'm just leaving. I'm leaving
that today. Yeah, how's thatsummer program going? You're
over at little neighborspreschool, helping out. How is

(02:54):
the summer program going? We gotkids over there rocking.

Roseann Bowlin (02:56):
It's going great. Yeah, I think next year
is going to be awesome. It is.
There was a start out alreadygot interest for next year.

Oh, seriously.
Okay, that's great. All right.
Well, it's something that we'llbuild. It was organic start. It
paid for itself this year, whichI think is absolutely that's a
good thing. So

you mean that people are planning that stuff
out, like a year out? Oh yeah,oh yeah. Parents with parents, I
think yeah, kind of have to dothat a little bit sometimes,
because it's hard. Like, there'sloads

for stuff. I told Roseanne that we should
have planned it a year out, andshe said, No, let's just do it
like a month out. And I was amonth out. And I was like,
Roseanne, we need this a yearout. Yeah, it sounds like it's
good, it's good, but we

got here, my eyes roll,

good. All right. Well, let's jump in. We
are talking through our message,and we started a new series. And
the new series that we'regetting into is dear younger me,
and it's really a wisdom basedseries that is talking to our
younger selves and the wisdomthat we would give to our
younger selves. And so we askedfor a lot of wisdom from the
congregation. On Sunday, we gotsome great quips, which I would

(03:55):
call life wisdom, right? Whichwas the measure twice cut once,
you know, do unto others as youwould do onto yourself. If
you're not five minutes early,you're late. And then they
stared at me, which, I don'tknow why that happened, but they
stared at me. Chuckle. There wasa chuckle. Yeah, there was a
chuckle. And then I had toapologize to the whole church,
like said, I'm sorry. I'm alwaysI'm always late. Well, they

also don't, except for food, except for, which I
think is it's like, Huh? It'sall about younger selves, like
it's like a teenager a little,yeah, that's right, that's
right, because they also don'tsee all the stuff going on the
background. That's, oh, this is

true. I'm never late, just out of lack of
desire or wanting to be on time.
It's because I'm with someoneelse in that meeting is
extended. That's 90% of what

is question on that. So, like, you know, if you
have like, an eight hour workday and your meetings, you're an
hour long. You can't actuallyfit eight because you got
transit time and walk the truckget in. It's like, how much time
do you put between?

I typically don't, which is my issue. So,
like, even today, I have ameeting with Roseanne after
this, and I went to schedule itat 1030 which is directly
following. The podcast. And Iwas like, and we're here
together, but I was like,There's no way that we're just
going to finish directly ontime, and all of a sudden going
to be in our meeting magically.
And I was like, 15 minutes. AndI said, even though we're
together right now and we'regoing to walk into kind of our
weekly update meeting afterthis, is that, no, we're still

(05:13):
going to take 15 minutes. Andthen if

you guys somewhere else in Bentonville traffic, oh
man, which used to be, you couldaccount 15 minutes. And now you
kind of

gotta I did, I did it all. So here's how I set
myself up. Wrong? I have afollowing lunch meeting for a
new member right in downtownRogers, right or near the
promenade, and I know that'sabout 20 minutes away. Well, I
set that 15 minutes after ourmeeting. And I'm like, Yeah, and
I'm like, and I'm banking on thepodcast is gonna finish a little
bit early. Meetings gonna befine. And at

lunchtime, that's not a 20 minutes, 20 minutes
over right now,

I know. So I'm gonna take back roads. It's
gonna be great. So, yeah, godown by the wastewater, and
you're gonna have to talk fast.
That's 100% there. So, so stilllearning, right? Still trying to
play. I think it's the, it'sthat efficiency between
maximizing time and then at andthen allowing enough, right?
Because I don't want to have anabundance of just leftover time
where I'm sitting somewhere, no,but don't, yeah, we're thinking
all other

stuff. You could get proactive stuff. Part of the
issue is we need, like, three ofyou. We need to, like, clone,

no, you don't need there's there. Never mind.
Yeah, the world does not needmore. I'm, I'm aware of that
myself. I've come to theunderstanding that the world
does not need or be only one. Inthe end, there could be only
one. What is that Highlander manthat wow, that dates you. Tom.
What's Highlander? That's thisis a real one too. Okay? The

(06:33):
okay side moment. If you thinkof Highlander as a show, what is
the other show you put rightnext to it in the same time
period? So mind you, this was bethis, be late 80s, early 90s. Is
that true? Yeah, late 80s, early90s. Highlander, awesome. We had
that actor with the long hair,Fabio style he was running
through, and then he cut hishair, and then, great, great
show. Loved it interesting,right? X

Files, time for sale. I was thinking like the
Sean Connery, like, what?
Gentlemen, welcome to the rock.
No, the Highlander.

Oh, you're Oh, way old. Oh, the movie, yeah,
oh, my gosh, I was thinkingabout the TV series. You know
what TV series goes next to it?
Xena the warrior princess. Oh, Iremember that. Yes, one of Amy's
favorite shows. You are the sameto me,

Amy watched that

shows we named our first dog, Xena Warrior
Princess, yeah. So it was great,all right? And you referenced
Colombo yesterday. So you can'teven, you can't even say
anything against, anything about

Highlanders. I go back into a room and go
another thing, yeah, just likeColombo.

And I had no idea what you're talking about.
Oh, that is so nice. No, I'mserious. I don't know. The quote
is, do you know Colombo? Yeah,you did. Do you know what's,
what was the quote? I'm veryyou're still rolling your eyes
me. Can everyone hear her eyerolls? Is that's what's
happened. Was,

like, the investigator, like, that was his
stick, like, an investigativething that he did. That's just
kind of how he did it.
Conversation then, and he alwaysbe, Oh, and another thing. And
that was, like the main thing,Zinger.

Oh, okay, we got you.

Oh, nice.
Okay, all right, you shouldwatch I should watch it. Yeah,
we love those kind of mysteryshows. I will honor you with an
episode of Colombo. Just Peter

Falk, right? I think that's right. I'm not good
with actors names, though. Yeah,

I referenced Columbo to my Walmart manager,
who was not from this country.
Didn't know who I was talkingabout, yeah, yeah. And he's a
lot younger than me, so,

well, I'm now referencing things that the kids
have no idea about, which hasdefinitely dated me. Like, I go
back into the 90s now, what? AndI'm like, the 90s is like,
yesterday, right? Anything like,it's like, you have 90s, and
then we're in the year 2000right now, nothing is
transferred. Like, when you say97 like, that's three years ago,
you know? And, like, I was like,That's it, right? You know, type
of deal,

I was driving somebody to the county jail,
give him a ride,

because you arrested them, or because, yeah,

no, it was not a consensual thing, taking them,
taken to the county jail, and asong came on the radio, and I
turned it, I was like, oh, man,because I remember being at the
concert, yeah, and this guy hasthe audacity says, you listen to
the oldie station.

You drove him faster. You encode to the

man.

I was watching a video day on one of the social
channels, right? Tick tock,Instagram, something like that.
And guy gets into a caraccident, right? He's driving,
you can see him go, oh, and heswears right back and forth. And
he gets in a car accident, andhis car rolls right, and he has
got a dash cam in his car rollsand and he lands upside down in
the car, okay? And so, like he'supside down right. Then the

(09:35):
radio turns out, it goes Bono,bottle, bottom. Oh,

that like, was, like, the most chill guy ever,
was ever it was great. Yeah,that's, like, the epitome of
peace and chaos, yeah, yeah, it

was gold.
That's great. Well, yeah, I digthat. You listen to all these
that's fantastic. I think that'svery hard. You, bless your
heart. All right, let's, let'sjump into the message. So as
we're talking about wisdom,right? The series really was
about kind of wisdom for ourlife, but we separated the
identity right away in themessage from a worldly wisdom
and a biblical wisdom, right?

(10:16):
And what I was drawing out ofthe message was this, is that I
wanted people to understand thatthere are people in their life
that have shared Wisdom withthem, right? And it is from
people that we gain this wisdom,right? And the same thing from
God that we gain this wisdom.
But as you look around it, youcannot separate learning
something from someone else. Youhave to learn it from someone,
right? And so if we're lookingat biblical wisdom, it's from

(10:38):
God, right? It's from thescriptures. If you're looking at
worldly wisdom, it's from amentor, a spiritual advisor, a
therapist, right? Family member,right? There's people that are
pouring into your life. And so Ihad everyone write down their
wisdom and then share who thatwisdom came from, just by
relationship, not necessarily byname, but just by relationship,
so they could start to equatethis reality between a person

(10:59):
that has wisdom in their lifethat shared it with them, so
that I could bring it all backat the end of the message to say
you also have wisdom to share.
So it was kind of this wholewrap around in the message. So I
wanted to start before we getinto Scripture with where we're
at and the wisdom that we havethat we could potentially share
with others in our life. Butbefore we do that, we're gonna

(11:21):
do the jingle. And it goes likethis, 479-367-2285,
neighborhood church. Thank youso much. That is the phone
number where you can callRoseanne anytime that is our
neighborhood jingle, give us acall. We love it when you don't
know who to call, call theneighborhood or Ghostbusters.
Now with that, let's let's getinto it. Tom, can you share with

(11:46):
our group here? Roseanne and Iare looking for wisdom to learn
today from you, and I would loveto hear your wisdom that I could
take into daily life.

Sometimes some of my wisdom isn't always entirely
appropriate. Oh, yeah,

what? I'm confused. Why would you say
that, though, and legitlyconfused? Not that we didn't, we
didn't talk about one of

them yesterday, of you know, piece of wisdom that
actually got from my oldest son,okay, that he received at camp,
yeah, from a camp counselor. Oh,yeah, who was a teenager. You
did, yes, that's good guys. Socuz so current would have been
in like, late elementary school,early middle school, okay, this
point, this high school boysthat are the, the camp
counselors. And I found thisout. I heard about, I was, heard

(12:28):
it adjacent. It was on awarehouse Wednesday night, and
he's when he was at church, whenyou heard this wisdom, yes, he
was at youth group. He came into kind of help, because the
kids kind of like connectingwith somebody. You know, he's
early 20s. He's still kind ofyoung, but they, you know, more
hip, I guess, or whatever wordthey use now, and they're
talking about, you know, thingsthat we have to do that we don't
really necessarily like we'renot wanting to do it. But

(12:49):
sometimes you just have to kindof get, you know, get things
done, and, and, and I heard himsay, yeah. I remember a camp
counselor telling me once,because that a jump into Lake 10
to the his Lake tanacomo, coldwater, yeah. And they climb up
this, this cliff, and it's realhigh, and they got to jump off.
But once you climb up, you can'twalk down. It's because kind of
dangerous. So you climb up, onceyou're up, you got to go over.
Yeah? And he's like, Ah, he wasscared, you know, the camp

(13:11):
counselor is like, Look, you gotto eat a turd. Don't nibble.
He's like, Oh. Then he jumped. Iheard him saying this. I'm like,
Yeah, I'm gonna get so manyphone calls from parents.

Did he say turd? He said, he said, turd. He
said, Okay, that's great. Okay,

no phone calls from parents. No. There is some rough
wisdom in that. Like, you know,if you worry about thing, and it
comes back to worrying, right?
If you worry about things awhole lot, then you just kind of
continue worrying about it. Andsometimes you just got to get
it. That's like getting into thepool, you know, cold water. You
know, jump in. Sometimes, got toget it done. So that's stuck in
my head a lot recently. That'swisdom that I actually got from
my my oldest son.

Yeah, that's great. Now, the reason I don't
think you got any calls fromparents is because we all
believe that sexual wisdom, andwe hear it, and we're like, not,
not rawish, yeah, Polish, butit's not wrong either, right?
Like, and we do. You said, Whatis the word for hip? Also, when
you're talking, I don't know.
Miranda, one of our millennialsin the church, was hosting our
worship the other day, whichcomes up, and she shares the

(14:10):
vision and new neighbor, right?
And different things like that.
And she at one point said thatshe was hip, or someone was hip,
or it was a hip thing to do. Andthe congregation kind of gave a
little chuckle, like, oh, yousaid hip. AKA, like, hips. Not a
word that we use anymore, right?
I don't know what the word isnowadays, but I definitely ran
with that, because I took herout of that by saying, like,

(14:33):
well, it was a really hip thingto say. And I just kept on
referencing that ran and have agreat brother sister
relationship in the church,which is fantastic. I think it's
the Riz. Is it the Riz? Now,

anymore, I'm at the point where I rely on urban
dictionary for so much Oh,

yeah, absolutely, I can totally get
that. I try to pick up any newslang. This is, this is a total
dead move. Any new slang I get,like Riz, or anything else like
that, or I hear something, I'llask Kelly about it, right? And
she'll give me a little bit ofcontext any point. So I can
apply that. I will apply it infront of the children. So we
went to brain freeze, the snowcone place, right two days ago,
and I walked up, and there's awhole bunch of families around

(15:09):
them with the kids. And I'm justthrowing out any slang
terminology that I know from theteenagers right at the front and
both land and kill, like, Stop,just stop. But we can do it. I

think that's the thing is, like, when it belongs
to them. It's like, like,cultural appropriation kind of
thing. Oh, yeah, right, yeah.
Like, if you're, like,obviously, you know, you have
generational appropriation,yeah, if you're, like,
responsible with credit cardsand you have a mortgage and you
have children, like, youshouldn't use these words or
something, or it's not takingthe same it's cool to them. But
when we use it, it's just, Idon't know, it's just we were

(15:38):
cool at

some point. I really believe that, like, at
some point, we were cool too. Wethought we were, we thought we
were, yeah,

then I look back in pictures, and I had parachute
pants and tight roll jeans, andhe had parachute pants, like the
MC Hammer parachute pants, notlike MC Hammer, but like within
all the little zippered pocketsand

all, I just had a vision of you and an MC
Hammer outfit in a dance video,dancing. And it was delightful.

That definitely didn't happen. And if it did, it
wouldn't have been the life,yeah, and

it wouldn't have been recorded, like, let's
go. That's great. Roseanne, wereyou cool back in the day? Oh,
absolutely no, because I knowyou're cool now. So grown into
my coolness. You grown into it.
Okay, that's great. Me, allright. Was in Thomas shared his
wisdom. Do you have any otherwisdom that? I mean, that was
what you learned from your son,yeah. What was wisdom you have

(16:24):
shared with your kids? Oh,

so I actually got this from, I think it originated
with the Rogers mayor and thenwent through my second to last
police chief for I retired. It'sif you want to have an accurate
worldview, you need to have aclose, personal friend from the
generation before yours and thegeneration after yours, so they
can understand a better picture,because each generation has

(16:47):
their own kind of lens of howthey view things in society that
has its own biases. So if youwant to really understand what's
going on the world, having agood friend of the generation
before yours and the generationafter yours. And I'm like, that
makes sense, and I got a lot offriends from the generation
before mine and some associatesfrom the generation after. A lot
of I learned from my kids, butit really does kind of change
your

worldview.
Yeah, that's great. Yeah, that'sreally great. I like that a lot.
Okay, Roseanne, what about you?
What is some worldly wisdom thatyou can share and impart on all
of our podcast listeners? AndTom and I specifically, Ooh,
nice. Okay, I like it. That'sgreat worldly wisdom. That's
fantastic. What did you sharewith your kids growing up?

Um, Huntsville isn't the only place to find

that's really specific. Sounds like there's
trauma from there. Sounds likethat might be a personal story.

Um, yeah, just we were always involved in
church, and, you know, it washard, it was hard to view the
world through any other lens,but that Christian. So I think
my girls did a fairly good jobof that. Okay, that's great.

Wow, yeah, that's a personal story. So that
came out just right on the backend there. Just slide that one
in, which was great. It's good.
And then what wisdom were yougiven like when you were growing
up as a child?

My dad was really good about just giving us
advice.
I can't just pick one thing, butthe the study look, look at
where you're going, where youwant to go, kind of set your

(18:41):
goals and don't, don't screw up.

Sage wisdom.
Sage wisdom. I'm going to takethat in. I actually spent the
morning reading proverbs andjust taking time. This morning,
I woke up early and I just, Itithed my morning. Back to God,
right? I love this language thatthey shared at the men's
breakfast of tithing yourmorning to God and honoring God
first thing in the morning. Andso I just went out and sat on
the back deck, and I just openedscripture and just read through
proverbs. And it was beautiful,because the first five, six

(19:10):
chapters of Proverbs is allabout wisdom, and a lot of don't
screw up. Is what's King Solomonkept on saying. He's like, Don't
give into it. He's like,

they go from Proverbs to ecclesia, yeah,
everything

is meaningless, right? It's
fantastic. Wisdom in the Bibleis great, but I now have a
driver, right? Not a driver, abecoming driver, right? She
wants to drive. We're not evennot yet. She is trying to drive,
but she only drives sparingly,once or twice a week right now,
and she doesn't do bad. She doesfine. She has a permit, she has
her permit, right? And then shecame in and she's like, Oh, I'm

(19:43):
getting ready to take mydriver's test. I'm like, No,
you're not. And I was like,You're not taking your driver's
test. And so I'm 1,000%comfortable with it. You were
comfortable. She 16, yet, no,she's coming up, so she's 16,
like, two months. And so I'mlike, You're not taking that
test. And so I'm way comfortablewith how comfortable you are
driving, right? And kind. Meanthat because she's thinking
she's

just kind of walking, yeah, because there's a
waiting time. Like, now it's notmore complicated. It used to be,
like, you get your permit, youhave to have it for a certain
amount of time, yeah,absolutely, yeah. You got to
have it for a certain amount oftime to go do the test. And then
once she gets she does a testand gets her license. It's not
actually good as a license untila certain amount of time after
that period. You know, yeah,it's they're doing a lot better

than that.
Then they just turn us figure itout. Here we go.

But there's a lot of wisdom. My day, there
weren't that many vehicles onthe road,

and everything was going slower.

There's a lot of wisdom that comes with a new
driver. When you're sitting inthe car. I've realized that
everything is wisdom. And theone piece I keep on telling her,
that I always reiterate, is youcan always wait to turn left.
You can always wait to turnlike, you don't have to go,
like, however much pressure youfeel you don't have to go. You
can always

wait. You know, all three of my kids, the pressure
of the people behind them, yeah,is what does it and like, let
them rear end you. Yeah, get anew car. Yeah. You know what?
Like, don't they always want totry to push, to be out in front
if they're going to eat thebumper, let them do it, don't,
you know? I don't know why it'salways such a fear with all the
Yeah, I don't remember thatbeing an issue with me, but

(21:10):
maybe it's just because I was along time ago. Yeah,

right, yeah.
We're now, what, 30 years intodriving, right? So, so

honking, the honking from

behind the radio up a little bit,

and that's it.
I have two other pieces ofadvice that I giving right now
that I remember. One is one thatI learned from a different book
that I was reading, and I'vecarried it with and Justin I've
carried it within some of ourteachings. It's about
understanding vocation, right,your calling and what that
means. And it's just a greatkind of if you understand a Venn
diagram, which is the circlesthat overlap each other, it's

(21:45):
where these three areas of yourlife overlap, and the center
part is your vocation. And yourvocation is really a biblical
calling, right? If you want tothink about that. So the first
Venn diagram, the first event ofthat diagram, is where your
heart breaks, right? So whereyour heart breaks is what you
need to think about. And if youwere to draft everything in that
circle of where your heartbreaks, and you know the

(22:07):
homeless population, and youknow world hunger and these type
of things, and write down whereyour heart breaks, great, then
the next one is, where does theworld have need? So now you're
identifying places around youthat have need. Here's where the
world has needs, Salvation Army,this for the love, right? You
know, downtown food programs,different things like that, food
banks and food pantries, right?
And now you're seeing these twothings get and then the part of

(22:30):
vocation is, Where can I getpaid, right? So you take, where
does my heart break? Where doesthe world have need, and where
can I get paid? And that littlespot in the middle, right, where
all those fit together, and it'sa little tiny box because it's
usually nonprofit, and thatlittle tiny box gets paid a
little bit because you love theworld, but it's only a little
bit, and so you take that littlebit of spot right there, and
that's vocation, and that'swhere you find and I've loved

(22:52):
that, and I've taught that forpeople who are trying to figure
out their purpose and figure outtheir path, right? I've always
said that it's, you know,ministry over money, right?
Don't worry about the money,because the calling will fulfill
you, right? And that's reallybig. And then lastly, I share
with my daughter, often now,because she's running cross
country and I'm training alsofor running in a couple events,
I share with her that food isnot food, food is fuel. And so

(23:15):
when you look at food, it's notif you're hungry, you're
training enough to fuel, right?
So you need to look at this asfuel only, right? So because
she'll always be like, I don'twant breakfast, I just mean, go
run, right? And I was like, no,no. Like, your body needs that
fuel to access the carbs, tocreate the energy to do these
things. And so it's a hardtransition to think in that way.
And so yeah, so just someworldly wisdom, sage advice from
three staff members at theneighborhood church that you can

(23:38):
take back into the world. Butlet's jump into Scripture and
look into some biblical wisdomand what that means. So
Roseanne, we're gonna be inProverbs today. Proverbs,
chapter one, just a little bitof a background in Proverbs. It
is written by King Solomon. KingSolomon is the son of King David
and Bathsheba. So that's alsoanother story that you can go

(23:59):
back and take a look into,because that has some non wisdom
points to it right, that got alittle bit lost there. King
David did. And so withBathsheba, they had Solomon.
There was supposed to be anotherking that was coming up of one
of his other sons, that otherson was trying to claim the
throne, to which God hadrevealed to the prophet Nathan
that Solomon was supposed to bethe king. So King David anointed

(24:22):
Solomon before his death inorder to have Solomon reign. And
in Solomon, King Solomongenerally known as a king that
brought in peace and prosperityto Israel, built the first
temple, kind of developed a lotof trade routes and trade
between different nations aroundalso leveraged relationship in

(24:43):
order to gain influence overother nations. That's the best
way to say he had 300concubines, which means he had
300 wives, and all those wererelationships leveraged for
leverage to other. Nations,right? So that is part of how he
expanded that empire of Israel,but generally known as the king

(25:04):
of peace. But also did not doeverything, correct? At times he
walked away from God. At timeshe worshiped other gods,
depending who he had married andwhat other nations he was trying
to access, and everything's likethat. So there are times he
absolutely fell away. But whathe is most known for outside of
building the first temple wasthat in talking with God,
literally one evening, God said,ask for anything and I'll

(25:25):
granted you, because this was agodly, ordained and prophesied
relationship to kingship throughthe line of David, he said, ask
for anything and give it to you.
And notably, Solomon said, Iasked for wisdom. I just want
wisdom in order to learn fromyou the things that I need to

(25:47):
know.

I bet at that point his life, Solomon was over 40,
just based on people I met,especially male. No, I can just
picture him like, I don'tpicture him being like 20, early
30s, like it's 40 and older,right? Little arthritis. You
know, letters getting a littlesmall, what he's trying to read
because he asked

so excited to hear him preach on Sunday, like,
just inferring everything he canthat's not in the text. He's
arthritis. Maybe

I'm like, I just assumed about that wisdom,
asking for wisdom, yeah, it'slike, Oh, yeah. That's not
necessarily what I wanted. WhenI was like, yeah, 20 years old,
you know? So years old, youknow, so I just

Well, and it's a great relationship, because
what God responds was to thethings he could have asked for.
He said, Because you didn't askfor health, because you didn't
ask for strength, because youdidn't ask for a long life,
because you didn't ask for me totake down your enemies, and you
asked for wisdom, I'll grant youwisdom, but I will also grant
you prosperity, and I will grantyou strength, and I will grant

(26:46):
you long life, and I'll grantyou dominion over your enemies,
right? So it was reallyinteresting to think about what
wisdom gives is all the thingswe would have asked for. So this
is like the penultimate versionof, like, what we can get from
God on this earth. And so that'sa huge part of what King Solomon
is about. Is King Solomon isreally part of the author of the
wisdom books in Scripture. So hewrote Proverbs, he wrote

(27:10):
Ecclesiastes. He wrote the Songof Solomon. Song of Solomon,
kind of that's some chilipeppers, right? If you're a
reader, essentially, it's alittle bit spicy, but it is a
song. It's a song. It's a Songof Solomon, which is talking
about love to lovers anddifferent things like that. And
then we get the book of Job,which is also wisdom, which I
just found super intriguing,because the book of Job is

(27:31):
compassion, narrative.
Compassion is shared. Sufferingis what literal meaning of it is
in Biblical Greek, but it is ashared suffering. But I don't
see it necessarily as a book ofWisdom, right? I see it as a
book of poetry, which might bewhy it's encapsulated in there,
but I see it more. I see itseparated from wisdom. So it's
interesting that it's classifiedthere, but with that, it's a
wonderful way to start to getinto proverbs.

Is that worried the way the Hebrew Scriptures
originally grouped it?

Yes, correct, right? So you get the minor
prophets, the major prophets,the Historical Books of Moses
and the Pentateuch, and then youget these wisdom books. And
there's really wisdom andpoetry, right? That exists,
right? With psalms too, andthen, so that's the kind of
middle narrative in the OldTestament,

because it's there because it's different than
where they group it with thelike the Old Testament, like
some of that, those groupingsare different between, yeah,
different between, yeah, theHebrew Bible used it, and then
how we group it, correct? Yeah,interesting.

Yeah, it is really interesting. So, yeah, I
wanted

more of, like, a nightmare, Scary Movie kind of
thing, yeah, then a wisdom book,uh huh, but, yeah,

yeah. So, so we're gonna read into proverbs
first chapter, and this is theinstruction on wisdom is really
what it means. And we actuallyget a lot through these first
seven verses of Proverbs abouthow to access wisdom and what
wisdom means when you have it,who should receive it and who
shouldn't receive it. So as youlisten to the Scripture, I would
just invite you to kind of openyour mind, take in it all, and

(28:58):
then we're going to break itdown a little bit as we go
forward. So Roseanne, if youwouldn't mind kicking us off, I
will

proverbs one, one and two. The Proverbs of
Solomon, son of David, king ofIsrael, for learning about
wisdom and instruction forunderstanding words of insight,

for gaining instruction in wise dealing,
righteousness, justice andequity, to teach shrewdness to
the simple, knowledge andprudence to the young.

Let the wise also hear and gain in learning and
the discerning acquire skill tounderstand a proverb and a
figure, the words of the wiseand their riddles, the fear of
the Lord is the beginning ofknowledge. Fools despise wisdom
and instruction.

So I want to concentrate on a couple verses
right now, and it's the samething I did on Sunday, but verse
seven is what kind of capturedme as I was reading the
scripture, and it was the fearof the Lord is the beginning of
knowledge. Now it's interesting,because. Later on in chapter
nine, it says the fear of theLord is the beginning of wisdom.
So it's very interesting allknowledge, that's right, yeah.

(30:09):
So it's very interesting how itkind of moves right in this
because knowledge is, we takeit, knowledge is separated from
wisdom, right? And I shared thison Sunday, and I think it's just
a good distinction to make whenyou're thinking about wisdom, is
that knowledge? And here's justan example that I shared that I
love knowledge is knowing,right? Is understanding that a
tomato is a fruit, right? It's,it's book knowledge, it's book

(30:31):
smarts, it's, it's learning,it's education. It's something
that you haven't applied yet,you just have stored, right?
It's so what you would read in abathroom, right? That's just
knowledge, right? Like youhaven't applied it to anything.
Is that where you know, I don'tknow, right? But you know, the
bathroom books like uselessknowledge for the you know,
okay, all right, Roseanne islooking at me again, if you
could hear, her eyes. And sowith with this. So you have

(30:54):
knowledge, tomatoes of fruit,wisdom is applying that
knowledge to life. And so thewisdom of that tomatoes are
fruit is that tomatoes don't goin fruit salad, right? That's
the wisdom, right? And so we'reapplying this and saying, Oh,
just because a tomato is a fruitdoesn't mean it goes into fruit
salad. The wisdom says, I cantake a life application from my

(31:14):
knowledge. If you're justknowledge, and you're just
reading scripture and studyingscripture without applying it to
your life, you're just learningabout God. That's it doesn't
mean that you're a faithfulfollower of Jesus Christ. You
were just learning about God.
Because we're

not called to knowledge or called to faith.
Yes, right? But the idea is forknowledge to inform our faith
100% because that's the way Ilook at anything about the
tomato and fruit salad is a goodanalogy. I look at it as like
tools. The education, theknowledge is the tools. The
wisdom is how you use the toolto build something. Yes,
absolutely and not cutting afinger

off, absolutely, kind of when sharing with
someone, the wisdom is sharingthat knowledge with someone to
apply it.

I think that's 100% what we tried to move the
congregation towards on Sunday,right, is, how do you apply
biblical wisdom in your life?
And because what we'll hear inScripture is that wisdom is more
valuable than gold or silver.
Says it over and over again,right? As you read. And I took
this morning to read throughproverbs and kind of read
through those first five or sixchapters, and it says it over

(32:19):
and over again, more valuablethan gold, more valuable than
gold, more valuable than silver,right? Here's so it's placing a
value in our life that sayswisdom is more value than the
material goods of the life thatyou would seek, right in these
things. So in your life, ifwe're hearing that wisdom is
more valuable than that, wherehave you applied biblical wisdom
in your life, right as you havegone through and how have you

(32:39):
seen that come from knowledge.
So take a piece of knowledgethat you had and what biblical
wisdom did you get from that andapply it in your life.

That's a deep one to come up with on the fly. It's
very deep, yeah, because I canlook at like, where I've lacked
the wisdom. Ooh,

interesting, okay, because in my youth, yeah,

where I kind of sought knowledge, but I didn't
know, because before you havethe knowledge, you don't know
how to apply it through, youknow, The Wiz where to find the
wisdom in it. You know, I mean,I, I used to kind of use the
Bible, almost like, uh, thoselittle, uh, eight balls. Oh,
you'd shake up magic ball. Youshake it up little thing. Like,
I remember being a kid. I wasprobably in back then. We called

(33:22):
it junior high, not middleschool, but and trying to figure
something out. And so I just,like, closed my eyes to open the
Bible, and just stuck my fingerto it and then read it, and it
made no sense, yeah. Like themagic, like the Magic Ball,
magic eight ball. But the thewisdom to to read a text and
look, forget what God's tryingto tell you in it. And then,
actually, then actually goingand doing, doing that in your

(33:45):
life, yeah, you know, it'sinstead of trying to look for an
answer, you know, like I treatedthe Bible almost like a Ouija
board or a dictionary, oh, yeah,look stuff up, instead of just
starting with the text and thenletting that, that guide me,
yeah, trying to try to drive itmyself. A little too much. I
guess

I love that you just reference a Ouija
board, a magic eight ball, andfinger pointing scripture in the
text, all in this, because I

was, like, 14 years old, and that's how I tried to,
I was trying to use it, and Iknew I'd been taught better than
that, but I was just like, Idon't, you know, understand what
to do with all this, you know,eating an elephant instead of
just read it and let it, youknow, let it be, let's Okay, let
us, let soak in and then, andthen go from there.

Do you remember when we were youth,
those, those hand things, alittle folded paper thing, we're
like, Okay, what number do youchoose? One through eight,
right? 12345678, okay, okay,you're going to be married when
you're 25 What's your nextthing? And you're like, a
271234567, you're going to have16 kids. You're like, Oh my God,

(34:47):
when you know what's your lastnumber? And it's like, oh,
three, and they're like, Oh,you're going to live in a
mansion. You know? I was like,Oh my gosh. Is this real? That's
not wisdom, that is. It's noteven knowledge, even knowledge.
It's not even knowledge. No.
Yeah, but why? Why are we sofascinated with it? Maybe this
is a good segue from knowledgeto wisdom to why are we
fascinated with things that helpprovide a direct answer for us?

(35:08):
So like Ouija, board, eightball, finger pointing scripture,
you

know, cutting out because, like, I like wisdom.
You know, you, you gainknowledge in your youth, and
then through knowledge and lifeexperience. You know, wisdom is
kind of revealed to us. Youknow, we obtain a little bit of
wisdom through life experience.
That's why not many you think ofa wise person. You think of
somebody that's older, you know,gray hair. I got some, some life
experience, but we want to cutout all the stuff we have to

(35:36):
endure, yeah, from the beginninguntil jump to the end. You know,
if you look at at media, thestuff that sells the most on the
movies, like the Harry Potterthing, right? It's all sudden.
You just wake up one day and yourealize you got all these super
special powers, and you neverhad to practice for it. Yeah,
you know, you didn't have to putin the time to train like you'd,
like you do with yourridiculously long races that,

(35:56):
like, I wouldn't run that far,that long if a bear was chasing
me, like, just go ahead about,you know, but you want the end
result without having to put inthe word yeah to, you know, to
get there. Yeah. I think that'spart of the reason we try to get
that we want. We're trying tojump ahead to where we're gonna
be one day, right? Withouthaving to work it out

exactly, exactly we want the answers. I think for
me, the answer to that questionis, whenever I've changed jobs,
I've always prayed about it andasked God to guide me to what
he's calling me to. Yeah,

yeah. I I really think, you know, even in
changing of seasons and jobs,right? What you're talking
about, about how we have thetime to really work on this and
understand what we've beengiven, right? And the gifts, if
you're thinking about that HarryPotter language, right? Like,
you've just wake up and you haveit, no, you have to train it,
and you have to work through it.
It's all time, right? Like,wisdom, wisdom is time. And I
think what we get with the magiceight ball is we don't have to

(36:56):
take the time. We just think wecan. You know, it's the easy
button from Staples, right?
Like, right? You know, like easybutton. Here we go. We're just
gonna take this route. And Ithink what wisdom asks for is to
spend more time with God. Wisdomsays, I'm willing to devote my
time to you in order to learnfrom you and and honestly,
wisdom a lot, even in thescriptures, listen, listen,

(37:18):
listen to the wisdom, right? Youknow that

makes sense. You said that, you know, Solomon
with the type between Proverbsand Ecclesiastes, which makes
sense, because then all the, theall is folly thing. He ends with
the, you know, the only thingworthwhile is, is putting in the
work. Yeah, you know, just thatidea of putting in, putting in
the work to get, you know, getthere and trust the process.
Yeah, right, yeah, allow God todo what God's going to do in our

(37:41):
lives. And not try to fastforward?

Yeah, it's interesting, because I don't
think we can actually is, I'mprocessing what we're saying
about time and fast forwardingand the seasons. I don't think
we actually can be a witness towisdom or see wisdom. I think
wisdom might be something wealways recognize, in retrospect,
right, where we look, yeah,where we look back and we can
see that there was wisdom there.
I mean, there's times in my lifewhen, you know, I've done

(38:07):
something and thought, oh, maybethis will work later on, right?
And if we do this now, thensomething will come about later
on, but I'd never know, right?
And so I'm entering into thisthing going, well, this could be
a route. This could besomething, right? And and I'm
gonna let this play out, andthen I move forward, and then
later on, somethingmaterializes, and I'm like, Oh

yeah, that's the difference, like, wisdom,
between, like, tomato as a fruitversus fruit salad is, it's that
time and experience, right? It'slike you don't know it, like
what you say, you don't know itat the time. Like when you look
back and you see what the resultof something is allows you to
know, not to put tomatoes in afruit salad, right? Or, like,
you know, whatever, whatever itis, somebody had to have gone

(38:48):
into that not knowing what'sgoing to happen. And then you
see the result after the fact onthe back end, to know, and
that's how we learn, right?
Yeah, we know that that's what'sgoing to happen. So it's, you
know, we know that's a goodidea, which is, I think we more
we think about the lifeexperience aspect of it, and
when we do stuff and we're like,Well, that was, that was a dumb
idea. Don't do that. We try topass that wisdom on to our kids,
but sometimes they've got a newthing anyway, just so they can

(39:10):
understand the wisdom. Yes,yeah,

watch. It's hard to watch your kid, oh my gosh,
make mistakes,

especially now, because we know, like, how fast
they're driving on theinterstate through like, 60
whereas, like, my parents had alittle more peace because they
had no idea the dumb things Iwas doing, whereas I have a
better idea of the dumb thingsmy kids are doing. Yeah, you

know, but it's so funny how my daughter's
older, so she's starting toconfess there

is a point when you become peers and then
it's like, you're not gonna, I'mnot gonna get in trouble
anymore. Yeah, that's great. But

you think about, like, when you talk about people
say things, we look as likethings that are, you know, wise
sayings, yeah, it's always inthe past. Yes, correct. It's not
like anything we say right now.
It's like, Oh, that's reallywise. Yes, no, it's not proven
yet.

No, we have.
To live into it. Yeah, I thinkabout these, the interesting
thing that happens, like yousaid, your daughter's confessing
now and being a part of that,right? My parents always thought
it took steroids when I was inhigh school, right? My mom still
thinks it right, and she's justwaiting for this confession. And
I'm like, Mom, I never tooksteroids. And I was like, she's
like, I know you did. And I waslike, No. I was like, I'm my
peer to peer with my mom rightnow is like, the confession of

(40:21):
like, it's still true that Ididn't, you know. Like, like,
it's right. Then she's like, butshe still doesn't believe me.
She's looking for this moment. Iwas like, No, we're there. But I
look down now with Kaylee comingup, right? And I always tell
her, like, if she ever saysanything through, I was like,
I'll always know. I was like,you can't. And it's weird,
because you think about theparents who we thought we were
shifting things by and then thatwas a parent, I'm like, I can
immediately see, yeah, whenyou've done something that is

(40:43):
going to cause trouble and I'mjust making a decision as a
parent, if I want to deal withit or not, like that, pick your
pick your battles. Pick yourbattles. That means our parents
always knew. They're just like,I don't want to deal with

that one. Yeah, if I could go back and tell myself
at 19, all the stuff that I knowmy parents knew I didn't think
so, terrify me at 19.

Oh yeah. Well, I get to Kaylee. Now, the funny
thing is, like, Jess and I,right as we talk about our kids
and what they're doing and howthey're like, we'll laugh,
because we're like, man, we talklike, did you go through this?
And she's like, I went throughthis. And I was like, I went
through it. Was like, why don'tthey listen to us? And I was
like, we both have been throughthis, and we have experience in
this. And we're just like, we'rejust laughing to each other.
Because I'm like, we can't doanymore, yeah?

But when you go rewind, it's like, Oh, your
parents probably went throughthat, yeah? And they told me,
and I yeah, I get it now, yeah,that's part of wisdom, right?
When I look back and I'm like,oh, that whole period from like,
15 to 19, yeah, so sorry aboutthat, like I did I get it. I get
it. I got it now, yeah,

one of the biggest moments that I had in my
relationship with my father andmy parents, right? Was when a
time when we went to battle,right? Just big battle right in
the living room, right? We justwent, I think it's one of, like,
the most pivotal points in ourrelationship that really formed
us together, because it was that15 to 19, where I was, I was
becoming a man, and I needed tostand on my own, even though I
lived in his house and I didn'thave to pay for anything and

(42:00):
everything. Was like, but Idon't have to clean, you know, I
was like, because I'm, I'm incollege now, right? And, nope,
that's not the reality. Thereality was I was still under
his house, and is, I'm like, mykid said I'll put him down.

You know? It reminds me of a was gonna date
myself to Bill Scott, Bill Cosbyskit, oh, yeah, you're way dated
back, back when he was, youknow, that's like, 70s, maybe
60s, popular. He wasn't like,Persona manga non grata yet.
Yeah, and it was a skit. It'stalking about his kids acting.
He's like, boy, I brought youinto this world. I can take you
out, make another one just likeyou like, I understand that

(42:36):
feeling. Yeah, I get that. I getthat. We're get on the back side
of it. It gets a whole lotbetter. But, man, I look back
now my parents, I'm like, Oh,I'm so sorry,

yeah. So as we think about this wisdom, where I
defined wisdom on Sunday, andwisdom was really It integrates
knowledge, right? So it's thisapplication of knowledge. It's
an understanding and moralinsight and reverence for God.
So when they talk about the fearof God, and that, you know, the
fear of God is the fear of Godis the beginning of knowledge.
The fear of God is the beginningof wisdom. It wasn't fear. It
isn't scary or terrifying. Itwas fear as an awe inspiring

(43:07):
Right? Like you fear because youknow the place you have in the
kingdom. And that was a bigpoint that I made, is that when
you have wisdom with God, youunderstand your place in the
kingdom, right? This is kind ofthat vocation reality, right?
You understand that God is acreator of the cosmos, the
heavens and the earth, you arein creation, right? You are part
of that creation. Now you are cocreator with God. We are
beloved, so we co create withGod. We still have a place in

(43:30):
the kingdom. Then it is underGod, right? And it is right. So
when you understand that, youbegin to have this wisdom in a
really wonderful way. But if yougo back into verse four and
five, it says, we're going toteach shrewdness to the simple
knowledge and prudence to theyoung. Let the wise also hear
and gain and learning. Soreally, there's this aspect of
hearing, there's this aspect oflearning, stepping away from

(43:50):
simple faith, which is onlyconcerned with self, I'm
concerned about God, and myrelationship with myself, only
not with relationship to theworld or to others, right? And
then understand that it comesback to the young right. Teach
knowledge and prudence to theyoung, right? And so as we're
thinking about this last week, Ikind of went generational this
last week, like worldly wisdomand biblical wisdom, and kind of
started the series. Tom thiscoming Sunday, you're going to

(44:11):
be talking about kind ofyouthful wisdom as kids get back
into school and high school hitsand everything else like that.
But I'm wondering in our lives,was there a point of wisdom that
we would have now to look backand change the decision that we
made when we were young? Somany, so many.

Okay, is there a limit, like, on how I mean, so
many? Yeah, but I think that'spart of what where we get our
wisdom of

being older from interesting wisdom, from
not having wisdom. Well, becauseyou think about it,

you don't, you never. You don't you never. You
don't learn in your successes.
You learn in your

failures.
Yeah. Oh, that was a wisdom fromSunday. One of the youth spoke
up on Sunday, right? I offered,and they said, you win or you
learn. You don't ever lose. AndI was like, nice. I was like, I
could take that one. I see thatone often. Yeah, yeah. So a lot
of decision you want to walk.
Through some of those decisionsthat you

would, you know. I mean, I remember, I remember
thinking, I'll never use this,yeah, like math, like I, you
know, and I did, I did, like aAP math, which is a, also a
horrible mistake, because Iwasn't good at math, but it
sounded cool, and that was hugemistake, yeah, because AP math
is harder than regular math, andI belonged in the regular math
class, yeah, yeah. I spent somuch. I had great teachers

(45:24):
though. I mean, I was strugglingso bad, but I wound up going,
like, every Saturday, everyother Saturday, to my my math
teacher, AP, math and AP,chemistry teacher, were husband
and wife, and I wound up goingto their house, Oh, wow. Like on
weekends just to learn, to gettutoring, to try to, you know,
pass that class because I wasnot good at math, so I have no
idea why I signed up for AP,that was, yeah, that was, that
was dumb, yeah. But if I couldgo back and tell myself to

(45:46):
actually pay attention, it washard for me because I didn't do
the homework. Oh, okay. Like, Ijust showed up and daydream the
work. Then, yeah, I didn't dothe work. I just showed up and
daydreamed and thought, well, ifI'm in, sign up for the class.
I'll somehow get, like, theknowledge, like, just kind of
zapped in somehow, yeah, and Ididn't want to be bothered to do
the work, and so I sucked atmath, and continued to today to

(46:06):
a certain degree, and then Iwound up getting sent to sniper
school, and everything we didwas math, and I had to sit there
in the hotel at night with atutor and other cop trying to
figure out how to because it wasgreat. None of it's super cool,
like on TV, it was all math,yeah? And I'm like, and then
working accidents, oh, man,absolutely right. And, and so

(46:29):
many things. And I'm like, Iwish I could go back and tell
myself, you're actually gonnaneed this. Yeah, right. Not all
gonna be a calculator. Payattention now, it's not all
gonna be a computer. You'reactually gonna need to do this.
Just do the work. Yep, you know,just, just do the work.

That's great.
What about you, Roseanne, isthere anything that you would go
back with the wisdom now tochange when you were young?

Yes, well, I was painfully, awkwardly shy. Oh,
interesting. And I would go,

I would never would have known that from who
you are now, 100% honest andnever would have known that
serious. Yeah, that is the firsttime you say that, and it's hard
for me to believe

he seemed like a extremely confident person. So
that seems very real. Yeah, oh

yeah. No, you are confident. And at times you
are very strongly confident,right? You just bring it in. And
I love it. So, yeah, it'sfantastic.

So, but I was, I think I missed out on a lot of
stuff because I was awkward andshy and, you know, I mean, I
remember I had long hair and Iwould have it in front of my
face, yeah, so that I didn'thave to see anybody. Oh,
interesting. Yeah, that's whatDavid remembered about me from

(47:44):
high school, because we went tothe same high school. Yeah. And
he said you always had your nosein a book and your hair
curtained

and curtained.
Okay, yeah, yeah. And that wasintentional. You did that so you
wouldn't have to, but

no one took the time to break through that,
yeah, and so I would go back andshake myself and break out of it
yourself, yeah? Because there'sno you don't gain anything from
being shy. That's true. And Ithink that had I had that

(48:17):
confidence back then, I wouldn'thave made some of the stupid
decisions I made later.

Okay, that's good. But now, where do you
think your confidence comesfrom? Now, God, oh, okay, great.
That's a great

Unknown (48:29):
answer. I can't go on my ears.

Laugh experience, yeah. I mean, lots
of them, I think you do look Imean, like, Tom, you said you
learn wisdom from not wisdom. Imean, like, there is a there is
a moment to that where the timesyou didn't have wisdom, we
actually learned from Well,

you look at all the warning labels on things,
there's a story warning

labels, you know what that would be a great
podcast, or, like, just like aread through book, like warning
labels and where they came from,right? Like, who was the person
behind this warning, who was theperson behind this warning,
right? And what happened, andwhat did they do, and why does
the world have to abide by it?
Now, like eating Tide Pods, noone would ever considered when
you made a Tide Pods, why wouldyou ever, why would you ever eat

(49:09):
a tide pod? Because, no,

these, these are there because somebody did that.
Yes, there's a story, yeah, youknow, and they're probably died,
and wisdom has come from it thatwe've had to broadcast to other
people, yeah, through all kindsof stickers and labels and
warnings on things, yeah, youknow.

So if I look back on my younger years, I kind
of go back to college and and Ithink as I look at college,
there's, there's probably twothings that I would have
changed. And Tom and I you weretalking about this briefly, you
and I were before the podcast. Idon't need to change anything,
right? I think wonderful whereI'm at now. Love where I'm at
now. Don't need to change it. Iwould go back through all the

(49:49):
hardships again in order to bewhere I'm at now, because I
think that the people I've met,the family that I have, are all
evidence of the wisdoms andlearnings all throughout the way
i. So this is really kind of acursory glance at life, saying,
like, Oh, whatever. But as Ilook back, it's some of the
smaller things, not the major

things, yeah. So it's not the big, the big, no,
we got no regrets, but the thelittle,

yeah, like I would have joined choir in
college earlier, like, I love tosing, and I just didn't. And I
loved it, and I realized when Igot back into it after a three
year hiatus that I

missed it. So why did you not start earlier?

I I was trying to do this social thing in
college. I was already so I wasopposite of you. I'm very
social, outgoing, this flow intogroups. I did not need more
social, like there is a level ofto which I don't need more. I
don't need more. I don't needyou to put me in a social
environment to be social. But Ithought that's what college was.
So I went to be social, and Itried to insert myself in all

(50:48):
the social environments, becausethat's what I had read and
that's what I had seen, andthat's what the movies I had
watched were, is that you needto be this kind of social in
college. And I'd heard thestories, and so I tried to be
that social in college was notnecessary. So I removed the
things that were not antisocial, but were maybe minority
style groups in college, youknow, like the theater groups
and the choir groups, right? Itwasn't the popular social things

(51:11):
that were happening, but thosewere the affinity groups for me,
that I actually truly it'sright. Isn't that weird

how we built this idea of like of image we work
for these like image, thingsthat don't fit our personality,
and we don't get to being okaywith that until, until later.

That's right, that's right. And so I would
have gone back to choir. I wouldhave done theater. I did theater
and choir in high school, right?
Loved it. Absolutely loved it.
Yeah. I mean, I've been toldjust now we've gotten saw some
Broadway shows. Like, anotherpath of my life would have been
Broadway or something like, Idon't have that kind of crazy,
amazing voice, but I love theacting, and I love the over the
Topness, and I love that kind ofportrayal, and different things

(51:48):
like that. Yeah, I would havecome back and I would have done
some of those different things.
One of my

favorite series things we didn't remember. We
did one on, I think it's when wewere at the old building on the
greatest showman. Oh,

yeah. It was fantastic. Yeah, for the movie
series, I just pulled that Hollyand Jones and I just sent each
other a video, like, two monthsago, right? Because it came back
up

on our feet on Facebook, and I'm like, Oh yeah,
that was awesome, ladies

and gents, this is the moment you've waited
maroon coat. Yeah, I got himstarted, right? I was great. We
dressed up. We did everything,right? We had it all going on.
Mary poppin, we think we did.
Mary Poppins that time, it wasmusical movies

somewhere. I've got a picture of you in Tinkerbell
costume. No, you don't. We'renot Tinker But Peter Pan. He
said, Tinkerbell. Peter Pan,because you spray painted your
legs green. Why do you have animage of me in your head, and
it's pictures, like on my phoneor somewhere at home, we have a
digital image. You know

what I did?
Spray paint my leg screen.
Because I went to where thetights, and the tights ended up
being so tight that they weresee through, and I it's like,
it's not gonna work. Paint mylegs. Yeah? I just went for it.
I wasn't like, I did you paint?
Yeah? Yeah. I never said I'mcommitted. When I go in, I'm
committed, yeah, the other timewas I when I dyed my hair all
black to be or all frost white.

(53:07):
Yes, be Jack Frost, yep. Andthen made a stick with Calvin.
Yeah? He helped me make a hugerod and staff. Yeah, yeah. It
was really good. It was reallygood. So those things

that I learned, the theater aspect totally makes
sense. Yeah, it's good.

So wisdom. So the last thing I shared is that
fear is the awe of God, but ithelps you know your place in the
kingdom. And what I shared, thefinal part about knowing your
place in the kingdom is that ifwe do have wisdom, we're meant
to share it, right? That's why Iwanted us to share a little bit
of our wisdom today is becausethe challenge to everyone going
out was to write a piece ofwisdom that they would share

(53:45):
with others, and then to write aname next to it, who they would
share that wisdom with. I thinkeveryone should think of that.
Who would you share your wisdomwith and who needs it? But I
mean, gets the imposter syndromewhere we don't believe we have
that wisdom to share, which Itried to take away on Sundays,
to convince everyone thatthrough Scripture and through
our relationship with God andthe testimony of our story with
God, we have wisdom, we havelearnings, and it's meant for

(54:08):
the sake of the world. And so,yeah, we're taking the series
forward,

I think this point of Christian discipleship,
right? We take this wisdom offaith and then share that as
like a mentor for other peoplearound us. You know, mentorship
and discipleship is not all thatdifferent,

correct, correct. So that's where we're
at coming in. Tom, you're upthis Sunday. We're talking with
the youth launch. We're talkingwith kids getting back to school
next Tuesday, Wednesday. And soyou're really leading for
youthful wisdom. What would wetell our youthful selves about
going back into kind ofeducation timeframe, and what
are we learning? So thatdifference between where they're
getting a lot of knowledgeright? Lot of knowledge right

(54:43):
now, but they don't know how toapply it yet, so we're missing
all the application in the rightways, but they got all the
knowledge right, and they thinkthey know everything, which is
kind of incredible, that ouryouth know everything in the
world which is really good.

And given a few more years, and then they start
realizing that they know verylittle. It's interesting seeing
that. And then kids. Did, yeah,I remember that when I hit
current humbling, I'm like, oh,here comes back around. Yeah,

maybe the difference on that, maybe the
pathway from knowledge to wisdomis humbleness,

humility, Oh, yeah. See, and humility, don't
know what you don't

know, right, correct? And I think humility is
not something that we like, welook for or gain. It's almost
like something that happens tous. We get humbled, oh yeah, you
know, we get hunger,

like, Oh yeah, okay, who? I think there's
something there. Oh, that'sgood. You apply

the knowledge, and it doesn't quite turn into
wisdom.

So, yeah, have you ever heard of the dumpling, the
Dunning Kruger effect? Oh, Ihave, but I can't recall it
right now. Yeah, man, that'sthat life cycle, right? We're
like, if imagine a subject youdon't even know what's called,
you've never heard of it, yeah?
Like, there's just blank slate,nothing there. And then I teach
you a little bit about it, yeah,now all that you know exists
about that is what I taught you.

(55:53):
Yeah? So there's a tendency tothink, oh, shoot, I know so much
about this. Oh, great. Becauseit's just a little bit, yeah,
because you don't yet know whatyou don't know, all the rest,
yeah. And so people go into newknowledge overconfident, Oh,
yeah. And then they realize allthey don't know, and then the
confidence drops, and then theystart to get life experience
with it, you know, more and moreexperience, yeah. But then they

(56:15):
don't give themselves credit forthe experience they have, and
they underestimate their, youknow, their knowledge and their
skills in that area, untilhopefully, ideally, they come to
the point where it's, it's, youknow, confidence and their
actual mastery of whatever.
That's great thing is the wisdomthat becomes that, that wisdom
because a moment where youthink, man, I got all this, but
then you hit the part wherelike, Oh, I know so little about

(56:37):
this. Yes, absolutely it is. Butthen we want to stick in there
too long, and you leave yourselfthinking that you're, you're
down here. But reality is,you've got a lot more to share
than you realize you do. Andpeople will think, Well, I'm not
a pastor, like, I don't haveanything to share. Well, the
reality is, I've got a lot,yeah, a lot to share, and
they're just not givingthemselves credit for it,

huh? That's great. So I'm excited to hear
you preach now. I mean, ifyou're bringing Dunning Kruger
and all these great things,

I had thought about bringing that into that's really
good, it might be part of it,yeah, that's really

good. Well, now you got wisdom, you got
humbleness on the pathway, yougot the Dunning Kruger. I mean,
we got a hot message coming inon Sunday with Tom preaching.
It's gonna be great baptism. Andit's baptism Sunday, which is
gonna be great. The followingweek is back back to school. And
so we have friends and familySunday, and then we have back to
school blessing tags coming out,which is gonna be really
exciting. So that's the 10th and17th. So things are exciting.

(57:29):
Things are kicking up as we kickinto the fall. And so that is
our podcast for today. And allGod's people said, Amen. You

Unknown (57:40):
you.

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