The Stories We Tell Ourselves

We all carry stories inside our heads, beliefs about who we are, what we can do, and what God can do through us. Some of these stories empower us… others hold us back.

In this episode, Tony and Robert explore the internal narratives that shape our lives, how to spot the ones that are holding us back, and practical ways to rewrite them in light of God’s truth.

If you’ve ever thought, “I’m not enough” or “It’s too late for me,” this episode is for you. It’s about hope, perspective, and taking the next step toward living the story God wants for you.

Listen to The Pulpit & Porch now, and don’t forget to like us on Facebook and Instagram, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, and share this episode with someone who needs a reminder that their story isn’t over.

#ThePulpitAndPorch #TheStoriesWeTellOurselves #FaithAndLife #PodcastLife #Storytelling #HopeAndFaith #MindsetMatters #LifeLessons #FaithJourney #PodcastCommunity #RewriteYourStory

Episode Transcript

(00:02):
Have you ever realized that you're telling yourself the same
story for years? Maybe it sounds like I'm just
not good at that. Or maybe it's that's just the
way that I am. We repeat these lines so often
that they start to feel like truth.
But here's the thing. Just because the story feels
true doesn't mean it is true. I was thinking the other day
about how powerful stories really are.

(00:24):
They shape the way that we see ourselves, the way we see
others, even the way that we seeGod.
And sometimes, without even realizing it, we start living by
the wrong script, maybe one thatsomeone else handed us.
Today we're talking about the stories we tell ourselves and
how to rewrite them in light of truth, hope, and who God

(00:46):
actually says we are. So pull up a chair, grab a glass
of lemonade and join us on the porch.
Welcome to the pulpit and porch.I'm Tony Maher and with me, as
always, is my friend Robert Kell.
Hey everybody, we are so glad you're here.
The pulpit and porch is where wekick back, put up our feet and
have real conversations about life, faith, growth, and maybe

(01:07):
even a little sports and pop culture.
If you're looking for a perfectly polished sermon,
you're probably in the wrong place.
Yeah, around here it's more about those honest heart to
heart conversations, like the one you'd have on a front porch
with good friends. Sometimes we stay on track,
sometimes we take the scenic group.
And honestly, that's half the fun, isn't it?
We dig into the highs, the lows,and all the in betweens of
living out your faith in real life.

(01:27):
Along the way, we may pull up a few extra chairs and invite some
friends under the porch to sharestories and ideas that just may
change the way that you see things.
So whether you're chasing your purpose, building your faith, or
just trying to live a little more fully, pull up a chair,
grab some sweet tea, and join us.
This is the pulpit and porch we got to see waiting for you.

(01:57):
Robert Kell, what's up? How are you?
I'm good. How quickly do we want to town
stamp this episode? You know, it's, it's a thing
that the professional podcaster say that you're not supposed to
do and yet we do it just about every single week.
So we don't, we don't, we can just pull the pull the Band-Aid.
How? Excited are you for Friday, your

(02:19):
Dodgers back in the World Series.
So excited for Friday, Yeah. It's going to be it's, it's
going to be interesting. Like the Dodgers are so good
they have 5 pitchers in their starting rotation that most
teams would kill to have. One, just have one of them.
Yeah, and, and they've got 5 in which they'll only use 4, which

(02:42):
means one of those will go to a,a, a emergency relief or, you
know, maybe a bullpen. I don't even know that.
I don't know. Here's the thing I'll say about
Seattle's fun. And I think it's they're the
only MLB team in in all of MajorLeague Baseball that has never
been to a World Series. And so they're a fun team.

(03:06):
The Jays are way better and I'm their bats are so good and they
hit the ball so well. They feel well, pitch well and
things also. Yeah, they're a good team.
And so I think they're the best matchup for for you all from

(03:27):
what was left. I don't even know if I go back
through, I'm like, you go to theTigers and you've got a Scoble
is that hey, say his name. Yeah, you've got him.
But after that it kind of drops off a little bit.
I mean, again, not not that they're a bad team.
They're incredible. They made the playoffs and I

(03:47):
just think that the the Blue Jays might be the best team to
go up against the Dodgers in 2025.
Yeah, I think the Phillies were the best team and we.
Well, but you couldn't play themin the World Series.
True. Yeah, Yeah.
I think that going into the playoffs, I felt like the
Phillies were going to be the the team that gave us the most

(04:09):
trouble, and we handled them pretty well.
I wasn't too concerned about Milwaukee.
They had the best record in baseball throughout the year,
but they had a lot of injuries and then we swept them.
And Shohay's game, Game 4 was maybe the greatest single
baseball game by an individual ever.
I think it's always hard. I can't ever remember the exact

(04:31):
years that Babe Ruth played. It's not something that long.
Time ago. Yeah.
So I mean 100 years ago, is he that far?
Back. Yeah, yeah.
And and so when you look at him,I think it's we have a hard time
like we look at the 80s and 90's, the 90s and 2000s and then
the 2000s to present and we havea hard time comparing Jordan,

(04:51):
Kobe and LeBron. There is just really no way to
compare Shohei and Babe Ruth. There's not in a full the games
different bats are different. Like players are not like
overweight, like I mean these are the most fit.
Other than Alejandro Kirk. That.

(05:13):
Dude, he stole a base the other day and it was one of the
greatest things I've ever seen in my life.
Who was who was the guy that who's the guy that plays for the
Mets, too? Like Bartolo Cologne.
It well and then there's anotherone recent the current guy that
plays he's like ADH and stuff and he's just a big old country
boy as well. But you know, I'm being a Braves
fan. We had Bob Horner in the 80s and

(05:34):
Bob wasn't a tiny little dude. I mean he was a great third
baseman. I mean, and he's he still, I
mean, probably behind Chipper Jones may go down as the best
third baseman in Braves history,but I don't know, Austin Riley's
really worked his way up there. Those three guys, though, those
are, they're incredible. But yeah, that guy's, that guy's

(05:55):
crazy. We're not trying to body shame
on the Pulpit and Porch podcast,but Bartolo Cologne, man, that
dude, I used to look at him and say how?
Yeah, I just you, you just kind of go like in a space of, you
know, I mean, it's you and I were talking this morning.
I mean, I'm 60. I'm, I'm, you know, down now to
£50 from where my doctor wants me to be.

(06:16):
But I've been the entire time we've known each other and doing
this, I've been 60 to 70. No, No 6-7, pun intended, there.
I've been 60 to 70 lbs over thatweight.
What is that? What?
What even is that? Oh, it's this crazy song that
they talk about the height of a.The ball brother Lamello.
And he's 6-7 and somehow the whole funny thing just started

(06:39):
6-7 and it and and unless I justall the research I've done and
all the things I've listened to are lying to me.
It really actually it's one of the few times that some weird
trend literally seems to mean absolutely nothing. e-mail us
tell me I'm wrong. I'd love to know that messages
on social media. We would love to hear how wrong

(07:00):
Robert is on this. But anyway, all that to say, I
love the Blue Jays are are goingto be an interesting kind of
setup for you. Shohei and Babe Ruth.
It's hard to compare. They're just different eras.
But when you're talking 100 years ago is the last time we
have anything comparable like Shohei will literally go down as

(07:27):
potentially the greatest to everto ever do it.
And and I think it's, you know, when you look at somebody that
that's the most complete player that could hit pitch, field, do
all the Shohei was a great outfielder as well when he first
came into the league. Somebody who can do it all.
I I think Shohei will literally go down as maybe the greatest to

(07:49):
ever do it and I would have a hard time arguing.
That I'm not convinced that, youknow, you remember when our boys
played Little League and you hadthe one kid who came in and he
was like 6 to 280 in the 4th grade and you're like, show me
the birth certificate. I'm not convinced that Shohei is

(08:10):
actually human. I may need to see some DNA on
this. Guy, I mean, he could he could
have been you know, he's from the his country he's from is the
leader in technology in so many areas.
They could be an AI robot that was just created and.
Are we seeing the return of the biblical Nephilim?

(08:32):
He's he's really, he's really incredible.
And so Friday kicks it off. It'll be fun and I hope it goes
seven games. Just because I'm a sports fan.
I can't imagine you wanted to goseven games.
I would think you wanted to be afour-game sweep and just.
You asked me before we started recording, you said you don't
seem like you've get anxious about stuff.

(08:52):
You don't have a lot of anxiety.Game seven, I, I would, I would
not be doing so well in the leadup to that.
You know, it's isn't it funny how like I will like so tell me
this and maybe these are just maybe this gets to our our
conversation today. I don't know that we're ever
getting to our conversation. I can find myself in watching a

(09:16):
game that I have no interest in either team and the game is
close. And so the 14 inning game
between the Tigers and the Mariners, right, Seattle.
And I mean that game, the Game 7between the Blue Jays and and
I'm like, I don't, I literally do.

(09:37):
I have not thought about any of those teams other than Ken
Griffey, Junior played for the Mariners and I'm like, I did not
think about any of those teams ever.
And yet you're on the edge and. I'm sitting here, my stomach's a
little like butterflies. And so no, I totally get that.
I had a few butterflies with theBama Tennessee game last

(09:58):
weekend. But but yeah, so I agree, I can
see that. Yep, I get it.
I love it. So yeah, it's, it'll be, it'll
be fun and. I have to, I have to do mental
games with myself and I have to stop and say this is just a
game. It's lit.
There's no reason for your bloodpressure to be going up in your

(10:19):
heart to be racing like it is. It's just a game.
And I'll sit back and I'll take some deep breaths and like,
yeah, but this is so cool. Heart rate right back up.
Yeah. So there you go.
Your Dodgers are going to get another shot at it.
back-to-back. When's the last time?
Back-to-back 20. Five years ago, the Yankees 3

(10:42):
peated. Do we now have to pay Pat Riley
because we just said that? I'm not paying Pat Riley, so
it's I would say they won three years in a row.
Does he own that as well? I think so.
I think he owns everything. So Robert, as I was driving the
other day, I was on my way to have coffee with with a friend

(11:05):
and was thinking about some of the things that we were going to
be discussing, conversations that I knew were going to come
up, some issues that he was having, some, some different
things that he was going to needto process through.
And I was thinking through my game plan of what I was going to
say to be an encouragement to him, to motivate him in some of

(11:26):
the areas of his life. And I was thinking through the
things that he has said to me repeatedly in previous
conversations and text messages and phone calls.
And I was thinking that he's, he's bought into this lie about
himself, that he started to believe noise that I don't even
think came from anyone. But it's just a narrative that

(11:48):
he's formulated in his own mind over the course of, of years
about himself, who he is and what he has to offer.
And it got my, my brain spinning, which is always a very
dangerous thing that we often times, I would say all of us
have these internal narratives that are constantly playing in

(12:10):
our mind. These, these stories that we
believe about ourselves and thatwe tell about ourselves.
Sometimes those stories are verypositive and they can carry us
through difficult times. Other times, those stories can
be crippling and they can paralyze us from being who we're

(12:30):
intended to be, who we want to be, and doing the things that we
want to do and being the person that we are created to be.
And so today we're just going tokind of unpack that a little
bit, the stories that we tell ourselves and how we can maybe
rewrite that narrative that we've programmed into our brain
of who we are and what we're allabout in life.

(12:52):
And so I just want to kick it off that that maybe what's a
story that you grew up believingabout yourself, yourself, that
as you grew up older, you found it to not be true.
And maybe we're surprised when you found out it wasn't true.
I don't know that. And I was going to say it's
really a complicated world because I don't know that

(13:14):
there's some monster revelation.I don't know that I've told this
story on here before, like I wasworking at a church.
And by the way, I'm not great atthe English language and I
especially when it comes to writing and I'll bounce between
things. I write like I talk.
And so a book for me, whoever edits that at some point in time

(13:35):
is going to have a real, they'regoing to earn their, they're
going to earn their money. And so I wrote, I did this.
I had gone on staff at this church and one of the, I guess
one of the things that the previous person in my role
hadn't done well was really communicate.
And it hadn't given the most, you know, clear direction of
some things. And so I'm like, a newsletter is

(13:58):
pretty easy. You can attach those things in
an e-mail at this point in time and you can send it out.
You can lay them out for parentsto grab as they're walking in
and out of the building, just all these different things.
And I did an e-mail and someone walked into my office and this
lady walked in and she said, this is the greatest thing that
has happened inside of our student ministry in years, but

(14:21):
you should never write again. And, and just in the
conversation of like, it's, you know, I probably bounced between
some, you know, like different forms of writing and I probably
didn't say this, this and this very well.
And, and for me, it was like, you got the information.

(14:45):
I don't, I don't understand why it's that big of an issue.
But to them, it was move forwardalmost a decade and I'm back in
college doing some things. And I had to write for this one
creative class that I was in. And I wrote this.
I wrote this thing and the professor was asking me some

(15:08):
questions. And I said, look, I kind of went
through this. And they said that is terrible.
No one should ever say that to anyone, especially in the
situation that you were in. Like you, you they said actually
you're a really good writer. You think creatively through
things. You put all the content there.
There is a couple of structure things we can fix, but that

(15:28):
doesn't make you a bad writer. It makes you different than the
person who read it. And and I and I just thought it
really reshaped some things about me.
I wasn't a good, I didn't it wasn't that I was unintelligent.
I was a lazy student, which mademe a bad student, which made
school really anxious for me as a kid.

(15:48):
I didn't you know, people can argue the semantics of we've
geared schools for, you know, like the thing that people say a
lot is we've geared School for Girls that it's more of sitting
and paying attention and things like that.
And I'm gonna be honest, I've got friends who've got girls
that are wide open that they're like, my kid ain't geared for
that either. It's not that it's a boy girl
thing, but when I was growing up, it's always like, oh, you

(16:10):
know, boys are rambunctious and out here and and I definitely
struggled to just go in and sit still.
And I'm thankful my family didn't medicate me that I
actually had to learn how to deal with some stuff.
But in that those things of me being a little lazy and never
really getting inspired led to some some poor habits in

(16:32):
writing, maybe then eventually led to a space where somebody
said something about me, you know, again, pushing 20 years
ago now that really shaped me that I'm going, I still got a
lot of life left and I'm terrible at this.
And this is my whole job, like my entire job is to write

(16:53):
things. Some of them you don't have to
read, but I have to communicate it.
And if I write it poorly, am I able to communicate it well?
And it really shaped me. And one professor just going,
hey, there's a couple things youneed to fix, but you actually
have a talent for this. Don't get don't get discouraged.

(17:14):
Let's let's help. Let's work really changed
everything for me and, and I don't know that I'm still the
best writer I'd know. I definitely know I don't I'm
not the best user of the Englishlanguage, but I I definitely am
more confident in the fact of like, OK, this is who I am and I

(17:36):
do my best to when I read and listen and do to kind of learn
and grow in that. So I just probably felt pretty
inadequate as far as mentally just grew up in a space where,
you know, not necessarily the most encouragement of hey, that
was that was wise. Hey, that was encouraging.
Hey, that you did a good job on that.

(17:58):
There was a lot more of nothing was said when it was good and
constant tear down when it wasn't.
And so I just don't write, you know, And so I probably always
felt a little behind. By the way, I had a very good
life. I'm not I'm not complaining of
anything, but that's just some deep things like that.
So like, you know, you and I grew up though very different
situations. What about you?

(18:18):
What was your upbringing? What's something that maybe
early on you believe that somehow shifted and changed as
you got older? Yeah, I don't.
It took a long time for it to shift and I don't know where it
came from. As I was processing through this
episode and really trying to think through this.
The one that I came to is for the longest time and I still

(18:38):
struggle with it, is that I feltlike being good.
Admit that you didn't disappointanyone and I lived my life
trying not to disappoint anyone and I mean anyone.
I didn't want to let anybody down.
I didn't want to disappoint anyone.
And what I found is that that just becomes a trap and you find

(19:02):
yourself went for me at least living in that, that mindset.
You're you're not living a life of purpose.
You're living a life well of pressure that there's this
pressure to perform, there's this pressure to always be on.
There's this pressure to say anddo everything correctly because
if you disappoint someone, then you've done something wrong.

(19:24):
And maybe when you disappoint someone, you haven't done
anything wrong. It's just their perspective on a
situation. Maybe the problem is with them
and not with you. And that took me a long, long
time to figure out. Do you think inside of that,
this may be a weird question to to ask inside of this And you
can go, yeah, that's a terrible question of me using the English

(19:47):
language poorly. But did you get to a space kind
of, I don't know when you realize that.
And then when you realized it, you looked back and saw, oh,
this started here. And a lot of times things start
so young. We don't really, we can't go
back. Oh, I was 4.
I mean, I mean, sometimes something starts when we're 1618
years old and we go, oh, that's,that's something I get.

(20:09):
But. Was there a moment where you
kind of looked back and, and yourealized that maybe there was a
stretch of your life that you were kind of almost living a
life that wasn't your life, thatyou were trying to be someone
that you weren't, that God hadn't designed you to be just

(20:30):
to be a people pleaser, to help make every and, and maybe people
pleasing is the right word there.
But to make everyone happy, to kind of to move through that
space you were just talking about.
Did you ever feel like you got to a moment where you were just
man, I don't know that I'm really being true to who God is
designed and and being inside ofme.

(20:51):
So I defining moment that I had and I don't remember how old I
was. It had to have been early middle
school, 6th, 7th grade. I was a troublemaker, but I was
not the kind of troublemaker that I didn't smoke, I didn't
drink, I wasn't out running around having sex, you know, at
6th grade. You were graffiti in the I.
Wasn't I wasn't but I just pranks and mischief, you know,

(21:16):
just. You were graffiti in the size of
schools. But I, I went to a very large
church that I grew up in, that my dad was a leader in and my
friends, dads were leaders in, and one of my closest friends at
the time was very, very involvedin Boy Scouts, Eagle Scouts.

(21:39):
His dad LED a troop that met at our church.
And his dad was also one of our leaders, one of our youth
leaders. And I had done something, I
don't even remember what it was.And his dad pulled me aside in
the middle of the hallway of thechurch, pulled me over into a

(21:59):
little conclave and said, Tony, you are the greatest natural
born leader that I have ever met.
And he said, and you are squandering that.
And I'm like 6th grade, 7th grade, and he said, I need you
to come join my Eagle Scout troop.
And I'm going to take that leadership that God has given

(22:22):
you and I'm going to harness it and turn you into an unstoppable
force. And he proceeded to go on and
tell me all the ways that I was not living up to my potential
and not being the person that God had created me to be.
But I always thought that it wasinteresting that his son was one

(22:44):
of my closest friends. His son was the leader of just
about everything. And he said, you're the greatest
natural born leader that I've ever met.
And you're, you're not living upto what God has gifted you to
be. And it completely changed the
way that I viewed myself. And I viewed myself.

(23:06):
Wow, I'm I'm a disappointment that I've let you down.
Who else have I let down with mychildish antics and the the way
that I'm conducting myself? So it I started doing things
that I didn't want to do. I started joining things that I
didn't want to be a part of. I started participating in

(23:30):
events and going to things that I had no interest in because I
didn't, that I wanted to be thatperson, that someone who wasn't
my dad. My dad didn't say that to me.
And it's not a bad thing, right?No, you're a great leader.
You're a natural born leader. We should, we should do this.
But it was the way that he said it, that it was like you've been
given this and you're squandering it, You're

(23:53):
destroying it. And I wished it wasn't until I
was an adult and influencing young kids myself that I
reflected back on that conversation.
Now, I reflected back on that conversation a lot in life.
It's one that that I replayed over and over and over, not from

(24:13):
a positive thing that, oh, you got has gifted you as a leader,
but is you're failing miserably.You're disappointing people all
over. And so it really that
conversation with a guy that I don't even remember his name.
I remember his son's name, but I, and so I remember his last
name, but I don't, I actually doremember his name as I'm

(24:33):
thinking about it now. But, but it influenced me in
such a way that it really shapeda lot of the decisions that I,
that I made going forward in, ina very negative way because I
didn't want to let people down. I didn't want people to look at
me and think he's a disappointment.

(24:54):
And so like you said, something that wasn't even necessarily a
negative thing technically. I mean, as a 12 or 13 year old
kid, it might have been hard to really fully grab maybe even 11
or 12. I mean, somewhere in that range.
Like it might have been hard to get your brain around that to

(25:15):
where at 20 to 32, you might have actually, if some would
have said something like that toyou, like you could have gone,
wow, you know what, I see what you're talking about.
You could have had a more adult conversation around it, work
through some things and and seensome stuff in your in your life.
Like for me, I, I think that because like I get nervous

(25:40):
around about how things will play out.
Sometimes it's just easier to not necessarily engage the the
process. And so like if I'm in an office
building, it's a lot easier for me just to have my door open and
anybody that walks by like create a conversation and just

(26:03):
kind of always be like a party. I mean, everybody's just hanging
out, everybody's just talking. You're working through stuff,
you're doing things, but the work you need to do still has to
get done. And, and one day a guy just
walked into my office and he satdown and, and again, I was 30 at
this point in time maybe. And he's just like he said,
you've got to find a way to close your door.

(26:23):
And he said you like you are so the life of the party and you
were just, you've been given some gifts and abilities that
you need to do those things. You need to lock in that time
and then go be the life of the party.
He said, but the thing you've got to understand is you're not
only slowing you down, is everyone else is getting slowed

(26:44):
down as well. And he said, that's not your
fault. That's their fault.
They need to go shut their door also.
But he said this it is so he dida good job of looking at me and
going, hey, this isn't all on you.
There is a whole slew of people who need to learn to close their
office door and they need to go sit down or they need to go,

(27:06):
hey, it's good to see you and just keep walking.
And just because you've got peanuts and M&M's and sodas in a
fridge and in the in the drawer in your office, they don't need
to be coming in there and just hanging out like they need to go
and get their stuff done. And then y'all go to lunch
together. You can take a long lunch.
Ain't nobody cares. But go to lunch, find a window,

(27:27):
set up a meeting, because y'all all kind of work together.
Set up a meeting to where you goand you, you plan and you
storyboard and you talk about stuff intentionally.
You like get together for dinner.
You all like each other, have people over at your house.
Your spouse is like each other. Like this isn't a problem.
But he did such a good job of, of helping me a little.
Again, 20 years difference in our age and in the things, but

(27:51):
doing what you said, he kind of brought it in and said, Hey,
this isn't all on you, but what is on you?
You need to fix and you need to take some responsibility for.
And you know, I mean, it just kind of went from this thing of
like, I could have been really negative and I could have been,
oh man, he's just being mean. But I really ended up kind of

(28:14):
going, no, what actually no better than this.
And it gave me this opportunity to step forward.
And I find myself I have to actually, I have to fight a
little bit to, to still close the door.
But I find myself in moments going, when's the last time I
actually talked to somebody? And I kind of go, OK, it's it's

(28:38):
been a week. I'm just kind of hunkering down.
I'm hiding. I've gotten a lot more
introverted, maybe inside of some of my ways, even though I'm
still clearly extroverted. And so yeah, I I get that.
It's been really good for me. Yeah, I went.
So I I lived with that for quitea while.
I can't imagine that narrative. And then when I graduated from

(29:01):
undergrad and I got hired at a church plant back in my
hometown, and the guy who hired me that was the lead pastor of
the church was my youth pastor for several years that was now
starting a new church. And so he hired me to move back
out and be the student ministries pastor for this new

(29:22):
church plant. And we were sitting in a group
with people that were going to come, another guy that had just
been hired as the associate pastor, the executive pastor for
the church. And we're all sitting around
talking and getting to know eachother.
And the lead pastor. When introducing me to the
executive pastor, he says this is this is Tony.

(29:45):
He's one of the greatest leadersI've ever met to be so young.
And he said he's going to be speaking at Promise Keepers one
day. And this is back when Promise
Keepers was massive. He says this and I.
Didn't speak at Promise Keepers.No, no, no, no, no, no.
Are you kidding? And he said it.

(30:06):
It was a compliment. And immediately what flooded
into my mind was, Oh my gosh, now the pressure's back.
For years lived under that. Well, I'm I haven't spoke at
Promise Keepers. I must be failing.
I'm failing. Oh, wow, I'm failing.
I haven't spoke at this. I'm not doing this.

(30:27):
I'm not doing this. I'm.
I'm failing so much so Robert, that here's the ridiculous
narrative that played in my headfor so, so many years.
Even saying it is embarrassing. This is going into my 20s, into
my my mid and then late 20s thatfrom early on I knew that I was
a church planter. I've been a part of several

(30:49):
church plants and knew that a calling that I had was to plant
new churches and communities. I can remember feeling like my
timing was counting down. My biological clock was ticking
because I was quickly approaching 30 and I hadn't done
a lot of the things that I wanted to do.
And Jesus started his ministry at 30, so I had to at least keep

(31:12):
up pace with Jesus. You know what happened when he
was 33, don't you? How?
First off, how arrogant, egotistical is that?
Yeah, I felt like I needed to keep up with Jesus.
Jesus started this life changingworldwide ministry at 30.
What am I doing at 29? And it honestly, and it was

(31:34):
because I didn't want to disappoint people.
I didn't want to disappoint myself.
I didn't want to disappoint the people that I hadn't talked to
in years. That said, this is who Tony is.
This is what he's going to do. This is what we see in him and I
I felt like I wasn't amounting to any of those things.
I hadn't lived up to their expectations of me and and so

(31:57):
therefore I'm a disappointment. Never in my life did my family
say that I was a disappointment to them.
In fact, they were incredibly proud.
It was just this internal narrative that I had, this story
that I told myself and it impacted, it influenced my
relationships, the things that Idid, the choices that I made,
because I didn't want to disappoint people.

(32:18):
I was so worried about disappointing people.
We're not on video and so I feellike I need to talk, just not
leave it in Dead Space. So I'm trying to process through
a couple of things as well. And, and I think though, Tony,
like the reality is, is that whether it's you feeling a way

(32:43):
to, to do things and, and like to accomplish or it's me
actually almost being a little fearful of what happens if
something's successful. So maybe I just hold the trigger
back. I mean, I hold it back a little
bit and kind of keep it from moving forward so much.
There is definitely this level of insecurity of like, I don't

(33:03):
know if there's anything like ifyou would have been speaking at
promise keeper, someone would have said, Oh, you should be
speaking at the passion conference and next.
And and this if you didn't get to passion conference, you would
have felt like that you were, you know, Oh, hey, you should be
writing ten books a year. I mean, like you're, you're
incredible, man. I love your stories.
You should write all this in a book and you're going, Oh my

(33:23):
goodness, how much work would that be?
Like there may be a level of like you were you, you would
have never been satisfied. Well, and that's my wife now.
She says we had this conversation just the other day.
That's her biggest fear in beingmarried to me.
And she says, Tony, you will never be content.
You're always striving and thinking there's there's more to

(33:45):
do, more to be more to accomplish that you'll never be
content. And that scares her to death.
And I'm a little, This is going to be the dumbest sounding thing
ever, but I'm almost a little bit on the other side is that
I'm super nervous. If things go well, am I capable
of of keeping up? So I would rather continue with

(34:09):
the pace. I'm a great ideas person.
Put me in a room and, and I'm a I'm a good present person.
Like if you need me to be present and to be available and
to be around, but I'm not alwaysthe best catalyst to move an
idea forward. And so like, I just have folders
and folders and folders of things that are pretty

(34:32):
incredible, I think. And I've actually had some
people tell me like, you need torun with that.
And it's just some things in my brain and in my heart that have
a whole lot of whole lot of traction and ability to their,
you know, opportunity, I mean, not ability of opportunity to
them. And my ability to do them is
slowed because I'm, I'm nervous of if it clicks, do I have the

(34:56):
ability, the the character, the knowledge?
Am I smart enough? Like do I have those traits to
keep it going well? So some of those, some of those
internal narratives that you just mentioned, am I smart
enough? Am I talented enough?

(35:17):
I'm not enough, God can't use me.
It's too late for me. I'm too old.
You can't teach an old dog new tricks.
I'll never recover from my past.What I've done can't be forgiven
or I'll never make up for that. All of these internal negative
stories that we play in our mindabout ourselves.

(35:38):
Why do you think that we tend tocling to these negative self
narratives even when we know better?
It's something I I've thought about a lot recently and you can
push back on this or ask more questions or whatever.
And I don't know that I have a lot of deep thinking around it
is I think I would rather be theperson that I know than to

(36:05):
wonder who I might could become.And I'm just being really, I
mean, again, like you, you, you know, you're, you travel and you
speak to other churches and things.
And so you can't be at church, but you're probably at church
3540 weeks a year. And you, I mean, I'm pretty
vulnerable and transparent on, on stage and, and stuff as well

(36:25):
when I preach. And so I mean, I'm just being,
you know, pretty transparent. Like I I'm I am nervous of like
that thought of how do I how canI navigate that that out in my
life? Why do you think you have those
thoughts? You think it feels safe.

(36:48):
You think it's because it feels safe.
It's familiar. Yeah, I do.
I mean, it's just and then I don't, I'm so I'm so weird.
Like I don't know, I don't necessarily care.
Like somebody wants to cancel me.
I don't care. I mean, I don't feel like I'm
important enough to be cancelled, but like those types

(37:10):
of thoughts and that type of thinking and how that kind of
plays out. Like I, I don't have any real, I
don't know that I have any real like clear thought on it.
I just, it's, it's easy to be comfortable in inside of.
And so I, I've got all the ideasin the world and I will be more

(37:32):
than happy to help you succeed with them.
But me running with them feels like a weight and a burden that
like it's just easier to sit with what I know than it is to
maybe try and push forward. But having that narrative in

(37:53):
your head that that's painful. Oh yeah.
So do you think that maybe sometimes it's easier to have a
painful explanation than to facethe unknown?
Absolutely. And I think for me, the only way
I know how to fix and I think I've ruined my kids with some of

(38:14):
this, I think bad parenting. The only way I know how to fix
is to become the version of you that you talked about.
Like I just don't stop. What's next?
How am I? How do I met?
How do I do and do and do so Like I've had to find this
balance recently and it's created some tension and some
things, but I'm probably a year,year and a half journey of OK, I

(38:36):
can't go with the pace I was. I'm just not going to be able to
live like it's, it was at least 19, if not 20 hours a day.
I mean, I would be up at 4:00 AMand I just, and I would try to
go to bed at 10:10, 30-11 and I would just lay there and I would

(39:00):
turn on ATV show, I'd turn on a ball game.
I would do something that I would just try and go.
And I was like I said 1920 hoursa day.
I would do that for weeks. And then I would just, I would
come home one day and I maybe I got home a little early and I
would sit down at like 3:00 and Melissa would wake me up to go
to bed. And let's like once a month I

(39:21):
would sleep from like 3:00 in the afternoon till like 5 the
next morning. And that, and then I would do
the same thing for a month and I'm going, I can't do this.
It was the most unhealthy physically, mentally,
emotionally, spiritually I had ever been in my life.
And, and I just so yeah, no, it's absolutely, it's terrible.

(39:41):
It's a terrible place to be. But the only way I knew how to
fix those things was to just to be like, OK, I'm not going to
let that win. That one thought win was to take
another negative thought of if Ido more, I'm I'm, I'm better.
And, and so, I mean, yeah, I mean, it's just that whole
thing. And the reality is, I mean, is
whoever's listening, somebody's going, you're crazy or

(40:04):
somebody's going, I may have to pull the car over because like
I'm getting anxious because he'stelling my story.
And that's the thing. You and I both are.
I mean, I realized that people are going through that same
thing. And I just had to go, OK, I'm
going to exhale. So how do these stories that we
tell ourselves show up in our relationships, in our work, in
our faith? How do they show up in our

(40:26):
lives? I was reading a book today and I
can't remember which one. I'm reading a couple and
basically the concept was as a pastor, if you don't handle
these types of emotions and dealwith them properly, you'll

(40:49):
pretty much just get up and preach a sermon where you're
dealing with your own junk and you're not actually helping
anybody that's there. And I thought I remember being
there. I remember being in a space
where I'm going, I know what I'mgoing through would help every.
And I mean, people have told me like, oh man, I'm struggling
with this. I'm going, I am too.

(41:10):
I'll just preach on that. And like, you know, it's just
like, hey, here we go. I think that it, it just depends
on your phase of life. Like for me, it came out in my
job. It came out in my leadership to
people around me. It caused me to neglect people.
It it came into a space. It, it, it, it caught, I mean,

(41:35):
it just so many at home. It just put me in a place of
just being really upside down onsome things.
And I just never really knew like how how available was I?
Was I really there for my familyeven though I was present?
And so it just really kind of sat with me in some weird

(41:57):
spaces. And it was something I was
incredibly aware of. I didn't know how to fix it
because another thing I knew howto do was to keep doing because
I still had jobs, plural. I had other things I was doing
that I thought, well, if these get going, I could maybe limit
the jobs back. But those are still jobs.
And and kind of working in that space.
So I mean, how did you, how do you deal with it?
What did you become aware of in things?

(42:18):
Well, I think that it makes us defensive.
First off, having these thoughts, how it impacts our
relationships, how it impacts our faith.
It makes us passive. I think that it can make us
insecure, definitely makes us insecure.
If if you believe that you're not enough, if that's the the
narrative that you're telling yourself, if you believe that

(42:39):
you're not enough, then you're either going to overcompensate
or you're just going to give up.If you think that it's too late
for you, then you're going to stop dreaming.
And so I think that. It.
These narratives, they do that. The stories that we tell, they
filter over into every single aspect of our lives.
They deeply impact our relationships.

(43:00):
They impact our work. They they for sure impact our
hope, our faith, our belief. Yeah.
So I think it's it's learning how to rewire.
Romans 12 has this verse that says be transformed by the
renewing of your mind. And so it's it's that daily

(43:21):
renewing our mind to tell ourselves a new story, have a
new narrative about who we are and whose we are that that can
begin to transform some of that.But do you think, Robert, that
some of these stories, when they're not true, so First off,

(43:42):
they're not true, but they're culturally reinforced?
Absolutely. I I mean it, it's.
The world we live in now, our culture celebrates and rewards
comparison everything is about comparing myself to this person

(44:03):
that I see on the TV screen or on social media are the only
things that we post on social media are the highlight reels of
our life we don't show the real stuff and so you don't see the
dirt, you don't see the grime and.
You nobody ever posts like just finished yelling at my kid for
20 minutes. All we show is is how we've

(44:24):
arrived, right? The life is great, life is
grand. I've arrived, I've achieved.
And so it just reinforces those narratives that I haven't
arrived, I'm not enough, I haven't achieved what I had
hoped to achieved. I'm not as good as that person,
even though that's not their truth.

(44:47):
It's just what they're portraying on the Internet and
it's definitely not my truth. And so it becomes hard to
internalize that. But but Jesus didn't call us to
compare our stories with other people.
He he called us to live our truestory faithfully with the dirt,
with the imperfect chapters thatthat we all have in our stories.

(45:13):
No, absolutely, absolutely. And, and the thing about culture
is we live in a metric society and so everything is measured.
And so you've got people, well, you know, and whether that is,
hey, I want to do a podcast and how do I get the numbers of Joe
Rogan or, you know, it's whoeveryour favorite podcasters are.

(45:37):
Like, hey, if I wanted to do this, how do I get numbers and
things that are at that level and connect with people to where
I can make this my full time joband do this and this and this or
it's like you talk. I mean, it's like at my job,
like I see so and so doing this and they do this and they do
this. And how do I become that flashy
or that, you know, well manicured or put together to

(46:01):
where I could do and post this or do that or say this or say
that. And even when it comes to home,
it's like you said, everybody else is posting their highlight
reel and you're living real lifeand you're judging your life
based on someone else's high. Life doesn't look anything like
what I'm seeing from other people.
No, and and and that's that's the problem.
And so like we continue to this world of comparison and and you

(46:27):
and I both know we were both alive pre social media.
We're we're from the 1900s and it's AI get it and and things.
But the phrase keeping up with the Joneses has been around for
decades and decades. It's not something that just
popped up in the last few years because they're going well.
This social media comparison. We've we've always been in a, in

(46:49):
a, in a, in a phase and in a movement of we walk in, we pull
into our driveway one day and welook the two driveways down and
they've got a new minivan. I have a better job than them.
They can't have a new mate van and may not have a new van and
so we have to get a new van. Now.
What we may not know is they might have been saving for 10
years and paid cash for that or.They might have just put

(47:12):
themselves in debt that they'll never recover from.
And, and then, and then either aone of those two things is true
and then we go and put ourselvesin debt to keep up with somebody
that we really don't even care what they think in the 1st
place, but we care what everyoneelse thinks about how we match
up and measure up to everyone else.
But listen, I laugh sometimes. We'll be driving through a
neighborhood and I'm going and she's like, Oh, that's such a

(47:33):
cool house and it's a cool house.
And I was like, could you imagine if we lived here?
It's like, you know, I drive, you know, I drive a 20 year old
van. And you know, I mean, it's just
like, could you like, could you imagine like if, if that's.
And she's just like, we would betalking about a lot because I'm
just going, I don't care about those things.
I don't care about the fact I want I want my car to be, you

(47:54):
know, I want my family to get from point A to point B safely
and but like, I don't care aboutme in that space and stuff.
And so I like what we've got. I like not having car payments.
I like that things are in that place.
And so it's just always funny because it's there certain, but
there are other things. I get super nervous when I watch
other pastors post things on social media and I'm going, I

(48:17):
should do that better. I should take pictures of my
food and post it so that all thepeople in the world know that I
ate dinner today and they won't be worried about me.
I should. Oh, I was at a conference and
instead of paying attention to the conference, I should have
been snapping 200 photos and putting together a gallery and a
little a little montage at the end.
And again, there's nothing wrongwith people doing that.

(48:38):
And there's also absolutely nothing wrong with me going to
my kids ball game, watching my kids ball game, enjoying
watching my kid play ball feeling in this it, you know,
it's just like really grateful that he has the health and the
ability to do that. And I didn't post one picture
about it. And there's also nothing wrong
with the mom that somehow has itin her ability, or the dad that

(49:00):
has it in his ability to shoot 20 videos and take a hundred
photos and put a montage together that goes out and rolls
through and talks about what a beautiful day and has all the
pictures and all the things. There's nothing wrong with
either one of those. And I shouldn't have to feel
guilty because I choose to live 1 and not the other.
So how do you notice? Be aware of this, the negative

(49:26):
stories that are running throughyour head.
I'm intrigued to hear your thoughts on this.
The thing I would the thing I would say is even going back to
the verse you just quoted a minute ago.
I was just looking at that when you're talking about Romans 12,
I mean, and you were talking about verse 2, but just verse
one, just in view of God's mercyoffer your body says a living

(49:48):
sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God.
This is your true and pop properworship.
So in view of God's mercy, that Greek word kind of translates
out compassion on the miserable and afflicted.
And so in view of God's mercy for me as someone who needs him,

(50:09):
like just sit with him, worship,like living a life that's there.
Like for me, it kind of comes down to that space of, of, of
being in a place where I just can trust him and sit in a
moment of going, OK. And in that it gives some
clarity to how I step forward and how I move.

(50:35):
It requires a real slow down on my part.
But what about you? I love Second Corinthians.
Second Corinthians 10 take everythought captive to obey Christ.
And so I think that's where it starts is that you have to pay
attention to the patterns, the ways that you're thinking,
because these stories that we tell, these lies that we buy

(50:57):
into about ourselves, we repeat them over and over.
We filter our life and our actions through those.
And So what do you tell yourselfwhen things go wrong and things
will go wrong? And So what do you tell
yourself? What do you tell yourself when
you're alone? What are the thoughts that you
find yourself come consistently repeating over and over?

(51:19):
Those repeated thoughts that youhave are the script to the story
that you're telling yourself. And so identify those things.
Take some time, take note when you're driving by yourself.
What are these things that I consistently say about myself
just in my mind, you know, in myhead that you probably don't
even realize it that you're doing, and then name it, you

(51:42):
know, name those things and replace them with the opposite
of that. If I think it was Brené Brown,
is that right? That's the right, that's the
person. Who said I'm going to get this
quote wrong? You can't fix what you can't
what you won't name or somethinglike that.

(52:03):
You can't heal what you what youwon't name something along
those. And, and I think that's, I think
there's a lot of truth in that, that when these narratives are
repeating in our head over and over, oftentimes playing in the
background, there's a soundtrackto our life that you don't even
notice that they're there a lot of times, but they're driving
the mood, they're driving the experience.

(52:25):
And we don't even often hear them, but they're pacing us.
They're they're driving our pace, stopping, identifying,
naming them and then going the opposite direction is, is, I
think, something that's huge. Call out what is true about you.
Speak that over yourself again and again and again.

(52:48):
Practice it until it sinks in. Do you?
So I love the fact of that. Like the 2 verses you've you've
mentioned today talk about this capturing our mind, our
thoughts, our mind. I, I love, I love how in, in the

(53:08):
birth story of Jesus, you see a couple of moments in his younger
life, kind of pre ministry Jesus, where Mary is his mom is
there. And it says one point in times
and, and, and Mary remembered Mary thought about these things
and, and another time it says she treasured these things in
her heart. And, and, and the whole, that's

(53:31):
the whole, that's the whole working of Scripture is that God
is wanting us to shift our thinking, to shift our mind, to
shift our hearts to what he saysabout us, not what the world
says about us. And then how, how do we then
reflect in those moments when not if, when those thoughts

(53:54):
start to creep back in, when that struggle, that sin, that
worry, fear, anxiety, stress starts to creep back in and we
have that day where we're going.I feel like I'm fighting this
more than I should be today. I feel like I should be past
this. That is exactly what you said
that God reminds us as we and I think This is why it's important

(54:19):
to memorize Scripture and to to open our Bibles and to read them
and to have conversations, spiritual conversations with our
friends and talk through stuff to, you know, to carry one
another's burdens and all these things.
Because in that space and that moment is where we find healing
as our minds are transformed andshifted into the thinking and

(54:42):
the mind and the heart of of Jesus.
And that can't happen until we start to take thoughts captive
because we can't transform our minds until we take captive our
thoughts. Melissa read a book a few years
ago by Jenny Allen called Get out of get out of my head.
Get out of your head. Get out of your head.
We were in her head. That would be weird, but get out
of your head, get out of your mind, get out of your head and,

(55:04):
and just so many things about, about, about that book.
Melissa just talked about how wecapture thoughts and minds.
As I, I would highly recommend that I just like, you know, I'm,
it's when I'm praying and, and going through different things
and moments like just in Bible studies and stuff like that.

(55:27):
My prayer many times is give me eyes to see, ears to hear and a
heart that will obey. And I just like in those spaces
and moments, I believe God hearsthe prayers of our heart and
that he answers those things. So I love, I love what you said
there and how you just, you know, kind of connected those
two verses that you've mentionedthe day and it's just was you
were talking. I thought, man, that's, that

(55:48):
just really feels like the mother of Jesus going, Hey, I,
I, she treasured these things. She thought, I think, I think
she treasured when he was born and everybody showed up and she
thought about these things that like she, she kept these things
in her mind and thought about when Jesus had gotten left at
the temple and they went back toget him.
And I mean, I can't imagine theyresponded like Jesus in that

(56:11):
moment, like, where are you? What are you doing?
But. Yeah, yeah, let's play that out
a little bit more. How do you think that Scripture,
that prayer, that community can help us in rewriting this story?
I mean, for me, and we, we spentsome time talking about this, it
comes down to spiritual disciplines.
I like how John Mark Comer callsit the practices of Jesus.

(56:34):
I think that in that I mean, whether it's Dallas Willard,
John Ortberg, Richard Foster, John Mark Comer, or a myriad of
other men and women who have written on this topic, I think
that when we talk about these disciplines that we train
ourselves to follow more closelythe ways of Jesus is like in
that way, we start to shift intothat.

(56:58):
And so I think that, you know, when you talk about prayer, I
don't there's days I don't have,if I didn't have a list, if I
didn't have people, if I didn't have stuff that I was praying
for, there are days that if I just sat down, I would have
nothing to say. Because maybe I'm not the most

(57:19):
grateful person at times. Maybe I'm not the most
thoughtful person at times. I can get really introspective
at like into my life and just what's going on with me.
And if I'm going, well, I don't want to be selfish.
So I guess I'll just sit here and actually like just sitting

(57:39):
might not be a bad space, but I think like that starting with
prayer and and being in that space of just going, you know,
God, I want to shift my mind to you opening the scriptures.
I just like it's there's parts of this I'm really succeeding at
and parts I'm really failing. I'm working.
I've kind of committed to the next four months to work through

(58:01):
a a specific book of the Bible each month.
So I'll cover 4 books of the Bible for 3030 ish days over the
next over these four months. And I'm kind of failing and and
winning in some areas and I've had to give myself some grace in
a really busy season of life. To add this on probably wasn't
the smartest thing, but it was something I felt needed to do.
Part of that is I'm trying to memorize as much of that book as

(58:23):
I can and in that, in that space, like when I sit down and
I listen to that book or I read that entire book daily, I'm I'm
just letting those scriptures run through.
And so I just think prayer and scripture are huge.
And the other thing you mentioned, and I'm sure you've
got some other ones in your thought, in your thoughts as

(58:44):
well. And I'm, I'm excited to hear
your things. It's just you and I talk a ton.
And I think this is important, talking to people who care.
I had something I don't know, itwasn't, I don't know if it was a
year and a half ago or like 6 months ago.
That's just going through. And you and I had talked about

(59:06):
it and I had shared it with a couple other people and like for
you, it was like almost to the point I'm going, OK, I get it.
You care. Like you don't have to text me
three times a day. I'm not jumping off any roof
tomorrow. I'm I wasn't, I wasn't at that
near that bad of space, but it just had something going on.
But you constantly checked in and I told a couple other people

(59:28):
that I would have felt like honestly should have been more
invested than you and I they never they still to this.
I mean, like I said, I think it's like a year and a half out
and have never said a word and they never like they didn't act
when when we were talking about it.
Just hey, here's what I'm going through it almost like I don't
even they never even show like any real interesting caring in

(59:51):
that space. And and so the thing I would say
is that when you go and I think sharing with other people is
incredibly important. Be wise with who you share with
because everybody doesn't care about your story, because
honestly, you struggling could be the biggest win for their
day. And I think that's something
that we've got to understand is that talking to people who

(01:00:13):
actually care about us succeeding and us moving into
the likeness of Jesus is way more.
Important. But I'll tell you, I've got two
or three people that one of themis my wife, but she can't carry
the weight of everything. Like she needs to be able to
walk into the church and and notgo, Oh my goodness, Robert's
struggling with this today and be worried about that.

(01:00:35):
So I don't talk to her about every little struggle that goes
on in the church and every person that sent me a mean
e-mail or texted me something hateful or like doesn't like me
today. She doesn't get all of those.
Like she doesn't know about thatbecause I need her to be able to
walk in and not have to worry about that, that thought and
that action. But I 100% think those three

(01:00:57):
things have been critical to me.Prayer, scripture and
relationships, conversations about where I'm at, where
they're at, and how we can come alongside each other have been
huge. You and I are both heavy into
movies. We love TV, we love the theater.

(01:01:18):
I just went this past week, my wife, daughter and myself went
to see one of our daughters thatshe was the stage manager for
the big fall production at the the college that she's attending
school at about two hours away from us.
And what does every good story start with?

(01:01:40):
Once Upon a time. Every good story.
Every, I wouldn't even say everygood story, because a lot of
them are not good. Every story, every story starts
with a script, right? You have a script that that's
and literally scripture. So when we have these stories in

(01:02:01):
our mind, these negative storiesthat play over and over that
guide and direct us and, and take us down paths that we don't
want to go down, immersing ourselves in scripture literally
rewrites the script. It rewrites the narrative that
we have. And so I think that's so

(01:02:22):
critical that we are diving intoscripture, that we're diving
into the word consistently because it is rewrite.
It gives us a new script. I think that prayer then
personalizes it for us. That prayer makes it real.
Prayer takes this, this story, this script that we're trying to

(01:02:43):
rewrite and it makes it ours. It gives us ownership in it.
God's not done writing our story.
And wherever you're at today, whatever you're listening to,
whatever that narrative is, thatstory is that that is driving
you. That is owning you.

(01:03:04):
God's not done. So stop trying to end the
chapter early. The stories we tell ourselves,
they either build bars around us, They either build prisons or
they give us the road map for, for where we're going and what
we're going to be. And so stop trying to write a

(01:03:27):
story to tell yourself a story that's just simply putting you
in a cage. And the way to do that, I think
the practical way is through scripture, prayer and and
relationships like you were saying.
I think the interesting thing about that is there's times in
my life and, and I'm just speaking to me.

(01:03:47):
If you're listening like I'm not, I'm not telling you, you
have this stuff. There are moments and times in
my life to where sometimes it's pretty glaring and sometimes
it's something that, oh, I hadn't really thought about
that, that maybe that's a sin ormaybe that's something that God
would prefer me to go a different route with or handle
differently. And I think the thing about when

(01:04:08):
I, when I sit in prayer and I ask God to, to reveal things and
to, to help me to see things, that's maybe causing the
struggle and tension when I openthe scriptures and I read it's
the hard thing about the Bible is that we can, you know, you
think it's, you have, you have these things that a year ago

(01:04:34):
your life was facing something and now you read the exact same
thing a year later and you're going through something
different. And it doesn't change the
scripture. It doesn't even take it doesn't
take it out of context, but God speaks to you and grows you in a
different way. And then just having people
whose voice you trust to speak into.
But like, I, I think that the reality is that in my life,
sometimes there's things that that God isn't pleased with and

(01:04:56):
he doesn't agree with and he wants me to change.
And, and for me to get past someof these thoughts, I have to be
willing to align to his word, not my path.
And, and I think that's something that's really, really
hard is that when you sit, when you sit down and pray, when you
sit down and read the scripturesor you sit across the table from

(01:05:17):
somebody who loves you enough totell you the truth, you've got
to be willing to go, Oh, I actually may have to address
something that's good pretty bigin my life.
And so it doesn't mean what you're going through isn't real
and it doesn't mean it's going to be fixed tomorrow.
But I do think, you know, the journey of 1000 steps starts

(01:05:39):
with one. I think I said that poorly, but
it's close. I think it's a step, It's taking
a step and it's trusting that his word is a lamp into our feet
and a light into our path. And, and that's a step at a
time, not like, you know, a million lumen bulb that's
shooting out and we get to see everything.

(01:06:00):
It's trusting him that if we take one step of obedience that
he is journeying with us in thatand he'll show us the next step
of obedience. And, and sometimes, you know, it
can be things that are really small and sometimes it's going
to be things that are really hard.
And I just feel like that's beenthe hardest thing.
And so I love all the stuff you said there of how you connected

(01:06:21):
prayer, scripture relationships.And, and I just, that's the
thing I was just thinking through as you were talking is
like, I'm going, there's momentspeople say things to me that I
don't like to hear. There's moments scripture says
things to me that I don't like to hear, but it doesn't make it
wrong. It makes me needing to makes me.
This is my brokenness of the English language.

(01:06:42):
It requires me. It doesn't make the scripture
wrong. It requires me to realign my
life to what God says, not look for somebody to cosign my sin,
struggle, worry, fear, anxiety, which I guess all those things I
said after sin or still sins based on the Bible.
I have to realign my life to what God says, not realign the

(01:07:03):
scripture to what my life would want.
Let's take a quick break and when we come back, we're going
to wrap this up. Is your ministry ready to reach
new heights? Higher Ministries is here to
help you grow, lead, and serve with excellence.
From leadership coaching to practical resources for church
management, they offer everything you need to take your
ministry to the next level. We're proud to have them as our

(01:07:26):
sponsor. Visit higherministries.com today
and see how they can help you make a greater impact.
All right, so we're back from the break.
And Robert, let's let's wrap up this conversation that we've got
going on, on the stories that wetell ourselves.
One of the things that that I wanted to spend just a few
minutes talking about last week,we spent our whole episode

(01:07:48):
talking about hope. And I think even when we live
with stories that are negative, stories that are limiting, hope
allows us to step into that nextchapter.
Hope allows us to keep going, tokeep moving forward.

(01:08:09):
So how does hope help us to rewrite our story?
I think that one of the things Ithink about and is the verse
that you actually brought up last week in Isaiah that, you

(01:08:30):
know, even youth get tired, tired and weary.
Grown men stumble and fall. But those who trust in the Lord,
those who hope, I mean, the Lordwill renew their strength.
You know, I mean, I think that'ssomething that's so big for me
that in a moment where I'm just struggling with what does it
look like for my story to align to, to, to get to where maybe I

(01:08:55):
feel like it needs to be or the scripture say it needs to be.
It is that it says those who hope in the Lord, he'll renew.
And so it's a, it's a, it's a kind of a fixing.
It's a rewriting of the story that we've been living, that,
you know, when we grow weary, when we stumble and fall, if we
hope, we trust in the Lord, he renews our strength.

(01:09:18):
We mount up on wings like eagles.
We will run, not grow weary. I'm walking, I grow faint.
However, there's I think I've mumbled those up a little bit,
but I think that's the the thingfor me is I just as much as my
life sometimes wants to fight against the goodness that God

(01:09:38):
does. I find, I mean, it is really the
only place that I, I find the hope of getting my story
rewritten is through the belief that if I trust in God of what
he says and who he is and I follow the ways of Jesus at the
work of the Holy Spirit in my life, has the ability to move me

(01:09:59):
away from who I am into who God wants me to be.
And he's rewriting my story thatway.
Your thoughts, how do you end those rewriting?
And I I know you're going to agree with most if not all of
what I just said, but like, you know, what's your thoughts and
how you rewrite and do? One of the biggest lies that I

(01:10:19):
think that we tell ourselves, this is just the way that it is
that things are never going to look any different.
And when you get to our age, I think that's something that
plays a lot, that life just becomes a series of routines.
Can't teach an old dog new tricks.
And, and it just becomes monotonous and mundane.

(01:10:40):
And is life ever going to look any different?
And so often we just resign ourselves to the fact that this
is what life is. And this is my day-to-day, day
in, day out. This is what is going to happen.
And all the hopes, the dreams that I had in my youth, all of
the great aspirations have just given way to reality that this

(01:11:07):
is what I have to do to put foodon the table.
I have to keep going to this jobthat leaves me unsatisfied,
unpurposeful, drains me, doesn'tgive me strength, that I find
myself staying up late at night because I don't want the next
day to happen. That I go from one thing to
another to another. And at the end of the day, today

(01:11:27):
looked a lot like yesterday, which looked a lot like the day
before, which looked like a day before that.
Hope gives us the outlook that tomorrow can be different.
Hope gives us the optimism that there can be something else
there. It gives us the belief going

(01:11:49):
back to Ted Lasso above the locker room door.
Hope permits us, can I say that permits us to believe that
tomorrow can look different. Without hope, the story just
stays the same. Without hope that the page never

(01:12:11):
turns, we're stuck. And that's man, that's a
difficult place to live in, thatplace where life will never look
any different. This is just who I am.
This is just what we are and this is just what life looks
like. And, and I don't, I don't want

(01:12:34):
to spur on another 30 minutes ofconversation, but do you not
think that on some levels, that's what the world is telling
us is, hey, this is who you are.Just embrace it and go as far as
you can with that. And, and it doesn't.
And so if that's, if that's something that you consider to
be good, then that's a great thing.

(01:12:56):
But if it's something that you consider to be hard or bad or
negative, and, and here's the tension.
There are things in our life that are really that that that
that we consider to be good thatare incredibly bad for us.

(01:13:17):
And there are things in our lifethat are incredibly hard that we
would like to remove, but they are so good for us because they
build us into the person we wantto be.
And I just think that's, that issuch a hard line when you talk
about like, without hope, we can't move forward.
And if we don't have hope, we'restuck.

(01:13:38):
Yeah. It it's that whole idea is, is
really, really hard because whenI think about it, like, man,
maybe I don't want to change because the world just tells me
that, hey, I'm, I'm OK. I mean, I just think about the
greatest showman. This is me.
I am, you know, you know, it's just who I am.
And it's, it's who I'm meant to be.

(01:14:00):
And that can feel really good ifyou're moving down a path that
is aligned to scripture or you're moving down a path that
whether you, whether you alignedto scripture or not, you're,
you're happy with now you and God who have to have some
different conversations around that.
But if you're happy with where you're going, that's great.
But if you're struggling and it's a tension and maybe the

(01:14:23):
world's telling you like now, this is just who you are.
You're, you're just that person and you're never going to be
able to fix that. That can lead you to a really
dark space and a really hard place where there is no hope, at
least at least from what the world tells you is is there.
I think so often we forget Philippians 16 who began a good

(01:14:45):
work in you will carry it on to completion and then God's done
with me. This is who I am.
This is this is all that life isgoing to be.
This is it. This is this is my story.
This is my story. My story has been written.
Oh no, he's going to carry on. He's he began writing your story
and he's still authoring it. And there's many, many chapters

(01:15:07):
to go. Regardless of where you're at in
life, regardless of what the story is set up to this point,
that there's another chapter coming and he who began a good
work in you will carry it on until completion.
Absolutely. We'll be honest.
I always have things to say. I don't have anything else to
say. This has been, you know, it's, I

(01:15:28):
think it, you know, of course started very, very personal and
I think landed in a place of of really some some good thoughtful
kind of conversation around how you and I deal with some things,
how we've seen others as we've pastored and LED people and
worked with people for years navigate and deal some things.
And I think just looking at me, what's the scripture say about

(01:15:50):
how we deal with that? So.
And if you're struggling with this story, you don't have to
rewrite the whole story today. Just start with the next
sentence. You know the the next word,
maybe even of your story can start today.
Yeah, if you've, I mean, if you've been going through and
you're just like, I haven't prayed in years, like today,
find a time where you turn off the radio in your car, shut our

(01:16:11):
podcast off. And you know, like just drive in
silence for a minute. Like take the Airpods out and
walk through nature. Walk down your street, go, you
know, if the kids are going crazy, go hide in the bathroom
for two minutes and just sit andjust confess like God.
We haven't talked in a while. Yeah, and you, you said earlier

(01:16:33):
Baby steps. And it got me thinking, you
know, what's the the movie Baby Steps?
It's Bill Murray, and he goes tothe psychiatrist and he tracks
the psychiatrist. Oh.
What about Bob? What about Bob?
There you go. Sorry, I had to say I started.
There's so much truth to that. That what you were saying there.
Baby steps. And what about Bob and Bill
Murray and all that? That, that each small step, each

(01:16:56):
baby step that you take tells your brain the story's changing.
Yeah. See, it's it's happening.
Something is being different than it was before.
Something is changing. And momentum builds our
faithfulness. It's, I love the the phrase and
it's not mine and I don't remember who said it, but it's
so much easier to steer a movingcar than a parked car.

(01:17:21):
And so if you're struggling withthe direction that you're going
in life, if you're struggling, it's a lot easier to steer a
moving car than it is to steer aparked car.
And so those baby steps, maybe it's just one at a time like you
were saying earlier, just keep you going and build that
momentum one faithful step at a time.
Yeah, I mean, I think it can be something literally as simple as

(01:17:41):
saying, you know, like when you go to pray like God, I haven't
done this in a while. I just need some help.
I think it's it can be as simpleas going and open up the you
Version app or Bible app on the phone and reading the verse of
the day. And just in that give me eyes to
see, ears to hear and a heart tobe obedient.
And it can be as simple as you don't have to share the whole

(01:18:03):
recipe of how you developed and made the person you are, but you
can share a couple of ingredients with somebody that
you trust. And, and it doesn't have to to
be everything in your life, but you can share a couple of things
and just start some conversations, some dialogue
that I believe can really help and shape and change your

(01:18:24):
journey and give you some hope. Well, that is all the time that
we have for this edition of the Pulpit and Porch Podcast.
The stories that we tell ourselves matter because
eventually those stories tell uswho we are.
But here's the good news. No matter how long you've
believed the wrong story, it's never too late to rewrite the
script. Romans 12/2, as we talked about,

(01:18:46):
says be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
And that's not just about positive thinking.
It's about replacing lies with truth.
God's still writing your story, and He doesn't need your past
permission to do something new in your present.
So this week, pay attention to the voice in your head.
When you catch it saying I'm notenough or I'll never change.

(01:19:06):
Stop and ask who told me that story.
And remember that you're loved, you're capable, and you're not
too late. Thank you for joining us on the
porch today. If this episode encouraged you,
share it with a friend who mightneed to hear it.
And don't forget to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts
that you never miss an episode. You can also find us on Facebook
and Instagram. Just search the pulpit and Porch
podcast. We'll see you next time right

(01:19:28):
here on the porch.