December 15, 2024 • 23 mins
Let's be honest: we all wanna win, right? The argument, the competition, the promotion, you name it -- we wanna be on top.
The hardest thing to do is to choose loving someone else (especially someone you don't vibe with) over our pride. ESPECIALLY when that person is belittling you, insulting you, or straight up attacking you.
Sometimes we don't even want to love other people and would rather see them lose more than anything else. But when this is our heart posture and mindset, we actually end up hurting ourselves more than anyone else.
In this episode, we're talking how we can shift our heart posture to one of love instead of our default posture -- pride -- and how that helps us to find more peace, purpose, and community in life.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
We are all wrestling with something.
Whether you're wrestling with your selfimage, your faith in God, or your entire
life's purpose, I'm here to tell you thatnumber one, you are not alone, and number
two, to encourage you to find both beautyand purpose in the midst of your struggle.
My name is Emlett and this isthe Wrestling With Life podcast.
(00:24):
What's up you guys and welcome backto the Wrestling With Life podcast.
Thank you so much for tuning intothe third episode of our very first
series in the New and Improved podcast.
We've been talking a lot about alot about how our self obsession
is what's destroying us.
In the first episode, we kind oflaid the groundwork for how we're all
(00:45):
obsessed with ourselves, how that'skind of leading to our destruction.
And then in the last episode, wetalked about how our self obsession
keeps us from community and keepsus from looking outside ourself.
And we talked about how we can find thatcommunity and how we can, you know, really
try to invest in the people around us.
to get out of our own way, get outof our own heads, and ultimately love
(01:09):
each other more and find more peaceand purpose and joy in life, right?
And in episode three today, I really,really want to talk about forgiveness
and how to put our pride aside andhow to put aside our need to be right.
Because I think if we're all beingreally honest with ourselves.
That is the hardest thing to do inrelationships, to put your pride aside
(01:32):
and to prioritize loving someone overwinning the competition, winning the
argument, being right, feeling superiorover them, especially people that
we're not super close with, right?
So that's what we'regoing to talk about today.
We're going to talk about how we canlove even the most frustrating people.
I saw a quote recently that was lastingrelationships require a lot of forgiveness
(01:57):
and that punched me right between theeyes when I saw that and I felt really
really convicted because I don't knowabout y'all in the past and honestly
still now I'm working on this activelybut even still now I struggle with it.
I like to hold a little bit of a grudge.
I will hold a grudge, especially ifsomeone hurts someone else that I love.
(02:20):
It's not even always necessarilyabout if you're horrible to me, but
if you're horrible to people that Ilove, I really, really hold a grudge.
And I think that it's normal and Ithink that it's a beautiful, admirable
trait even to be loyal to the peoplethat you love and to stick up for them.
And I also think it's importantto stick up for yourself, right?
And demand respect from people.
(02:43):
However, I've learned the hardway that you really can't hold
people to a standard of perfection,especially the people closest to you.
You have to have a lot of grace andyou have to have a lot of forgiveness
if you want relationships to last.
And there have been a lot of situationsfor me recently where I've had to
(03:04):
forgive people who hurt me deeply, andI've had to ask forgiveness from people
who I've hurt deeply in order for ourfriendship or any relationship that
we have to continue and move forward.
And I was looking up before thishow long friendships typically last,
and I'm pretty sure the averagefriendship lasts seven years.
(03:26):
And so that means we got a lotof relationships that are on the
even lower end of that spectrum.
And I think, especially in today's worldwhere cancel culture is such a normal
thing, and we've been taught to prioritizeourselves, put ourselves first, um, you
know, cut people off when they hurt us, Ithink that number is probably going down.
(03:48):
Like, I think a lot of us havelost a lot of friends, especially.
In this very transitional time, ifyou're in the age bucket of 22 to
35, which is kind of the group thatwe focus on at Wrestling With Life,
you've probably seen a lot of turnoverin your friendships in the last couple
years, what with graduating fromcollege or high school and moving
(04:11):
from your hometown and maybe getting anew career, starting a new job, like.
Anytime that you're in a biglife transition, it makes sense
that there would be a littlebit of friendship turnover.
And I think your real friends kind ofreveal themselves and who puts in the
effort kind of reveals themselves.
But I would like to talk not just aboutthose deep lasting relationships, but
(04:32):
just people around us in general today.
It's really, really easy to judge someonereally quickly before really getting to
know them and kind of write them off fastand be like, okay, I don't want anything
to do with this person because theyoffended me in this way or these are the
kind of things that they do or this isthe way that I feel when I'm around them.
(04:54):
And I'm not about to encourageyou to ignore your intuition and
totally just silence that part of youthat lets you know when you don't.
jive with someone.
When I say that I want to encourage usto love other people, I'm not saying
I want to encourage us to be bestfriends with everyone that we meet.
I'm not encouraging us to be fake nice.
(05:15):
I'm not encouraging us to completelyput aside our feelings and ignore
them for the sake of others.
I'm definitely not talkingabout people pleasing.
I'm definitely not talkingabout schmoozing or sucking up.
Sometimes love doesn't looklike any of what I just said.
It actually looks like the opposite.
Like, sometimes speaking love to someoneis saying a really hard truth, but
(05:40):
saying it in a way that doesn't degradethat person or bring them down, right?
And that is probably thehardest thing to do of all.
I All of us are really feeling thisright now, especially after the election,
dude, like scrolling through socialmedia, some of the things that I have
seen in the way people are talking toeach other, like it is very clear that
(06:02):
we are super, super divided right now.
And again, I want to be clear,like I'm not saying here, don't
stick up for what you believe in.
I'm not saying don't speak your truth,but I really just want to encourage
us to start doing that in love.
And to really try to put our prideaside when we are going into these
kind of conversations with people andprioritize loving them over getting
(06:25):
our point across, or being right,or being heard, or being validated.
And I think we often go intothese interactions with the
wrong mindset, you know?
So, I mentioned cancel culture, right?
We're also living in a world wherethere's a 50 percent divorce rate.
We have these two extremes politicallywhere you're either on the extreme
(06:46):
left or you're the extreme rightand when you're in the middle people
are like, pick a side, pick a side.
And everything is a competition.
We've talked a lot about thatin the last couple episodes.
And again, there's this emphasis in ourculture of it's all about you, focus
on yourself, stay in your own lane,you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
(07:07):
We are getting the message from ourculture that there are different
teams and different sides and weneed to figure out where we stand.
And honestly, I see a lot ofmessages that are encouraging this
divisiveness, encouraging this hatred.
I have actually gotten really,really caught up in that in the past.
Like, I'm thinking backto the 2020 election.
(07:29):
It was during COVID.
It's when there was a lot of politicaldivide and a lot of, you know,
racism happening in the streets.
A lot of, uh, protestsagainst this racism.
And I remember just being so passionateabout ending hate, ending racism,
ending sexism, and a lot of thosetopics were tied into the election.
(07:51):
And the 2024 election, no different.
Like the same kind of narrativeswithin our media, within the
political candidates debates, like.
It became very clear to me, at leastat that time, if you vote for one
side, you're voting for equal rights.
You're voting for love.
You're voting for humanity.
(08:11):
And if you vote for this other side,you can't possibly be for human rights,
equal rights, feminism, etc. And I gotreally, really caught up in that divide.
And I'm not here to make this episodesuper political, but I just want to
encourage us to not have this typeof extreme thinking where if you vote
for one candidate, you immediatelystand behind, you know, all of the,
(08:36):
the actions that they've ever takenor their heart posture or the way
that they, uh, treat other people.
Because let's be honest, like there'snot a politician who is perfect
and has a clear backstory wherethey've never done anything wrong.
Um, and I'm not here to endorse eitherside or say either side is right.
However, what I am saying is that,especially in these politically charged
(08:59):
times, there is such an emphasis of,pick a side, and if you don't pick
the right side, you are dead to me,you're cancelled, I can't coexist
with you, I hate you, blah blah blah.
That is such a directmanifestation and like concrete
evidence of our pride as humans.
We are so set in our ways and so rightand so convinced that we're on the
(09:22):
right side of history that we can'tpossibly love someone who disagrees
with us or voted for someone else.
Da da da da da.
And I'm not saying that you haveto be best friends with someone who
is a racist and is a hater and isactively spreading evil in our world.
I'm not saying that at all.
(09:43):
What I am saying is that youcan speak the truth in love.
You can love someone else.
You can put your pride aside.
You can stand up for what you believein and speak the truth and bring
love to any situation regardlessof what that other person is doing.
I saw a TikTok the other day of aman who was suggesting that no matter
(10:04):
what, no matter what kind of energyis brought into my orbit, I have the
choice to still bring love, regardlessof how somebody treats me, regardless
of what somebody says about me, I havethe opportunity to bring love to them.
And that doesn't mean I backdown, that doesn't mean I cower,
that doesn't mean I stay silent.
(10:24):
It means that the heart posture thatI approach them with is one of love,
of open mindedness, of understanding,of, I can't understand why you believe
what you believe or what you'resaying, but I can choose to love you.
I can choose to try to see your side.
I can choose to try to understandwhere you're coming from.
(10:44):
Many people who have extreme opinionsof hatred come from trauma or a
background where they have gonethrough some crazy things to get
them to the place that they are.
And not even people that are comingfrom hatred, but maybe even people
that are making really Poor choices fortheir life, whether they're dabbling in
really bad things that they shouldn'tbe dabbling in, or they're just spending
(11:08):
their time doing things that you wouldn'tpersonally do and you don't agree with.
A lot of times people are filling thevoid and doing things from a place of
pain and hurt and trying to get by.
I'm not saying that to excusethose choices, but I'm saying
if we're all really trying tounderstand someone and how they got
(11:29):
to the position that they're in.
I think we can find understanding.
I think we can look at what they'vebeen through or trauma that they've
experienced and be like, okay, so and sowent through X, Y, Z, it makes sense that
they're struggling in this way, right?
It's really easy for me tosit here and preach this.
What's a lot harder to do isactually act this out in your
(11:49):
own life on a daily basis.
And it's something thatI have to consistently.
lean on God for support in.
Because in my own strength, there aretimes when I want to backhand somebody who
is just spitting nonsense and spreadinghate and not being a person of love.
And I don't want to love them.
I want to silence them.
I want to shut them up.
(12:10):
I want to correct them.
And there are times where I have to juststop myself, take a deep breath and say,
Lord, Please help me to love this person.
Help me to not backhand the crapout of this person like I want to.
Help me to show this person Jesus.
Help me to give them a glimpse of whatthe Lord is like by how I conduct myself.
(12:33):
If what I'm saying is justlike, not doing it for you.
I want to tell you a story aboutsomeone in my, in my life recently.
This is a good friend of mine.
And he told me that he recentlywent through something in his life
where he didn't know if his lifewas ever going to be the same again.
He had a real come to Jesus moment,like life kind of flashing before his
(12:55):
eyes type of moment where he realizedthat All of the stuff that he typically
spends time worrying about and frustratedover and feeling anxious about, he
realized how little that stuff mattersbecause he literally almost had life
as he knew it taken away from him.
(13:15):
And he experienced a type of forgivenessfrom people in his life during this time
that he knew he wasn't deserving of.
He, he saw that forgiveness in action.
He received that forgiveness completelyunexpectedly, like he did not expect
to be forgiven for what he did.
And he watched peoplein his life forgive him.
(13:36):
And because of that forgiveness,He didn't have to pay the price
for what happened in his life.
And so his response to that was, wow,look at this forgiveness that I've
been given when I didn't deserve it.
All that matters to me is love.
All that matters to me is tryingto love other people, to try to
(13:56):
forgive other people, to try to makeother people feel seen and heard.
Like that is what thatexperience showed him.
And as he was recounting this to me,I just thought, wow, like, We have
the opportunity to have that sameheart posture every single day because
we've already received that exactsame kind of forgiveness from God.
(14:18):
Like, we didn't deserve any of this.
Like, life as we know it is a giftand we've been forgiven for all of
our crappy, ugly, dark, evil parts.
We've been forgiven and we have the chanceevery single day to live that out and
to take advantage of that forgiveness.
And so, I don't know about you guys, butwhen I hear that, and I'm brought back
(14:42):
to what matters is love, what matters isforgiveness, what matters is showing Jesus
to other people, that really changes theway that I go about my day to day life.
I'm going to be quickerto forgive other people.
I'm going to be slower totake things personally.
I'm going to be quicker to look at someoneand the way that they're treating me
(15:02):
and other people and try to understandwhere that energy is coming from.
Are they hurting?
Are they sad?
Are they going through something?
Like, what can I do to love this person?
What can I do to lighten their loadrather than taking the way that
they're being mean to me personally?
How can I help them?
also have a heart posture of love?
How can my energy bleed off onto them sothat they can feel encouraged and that
(15:28):
they can feel like, wow, even though I'mgoing through this dark time, there is
joy, there is hope and, and point themto Jesus and remind them life is a gift
and not to invalidate what they're goingthrough, not to ignore that sometimes
life is really hard and life can reallysuck sometimes, but to show them light.
(15:48):
to show them that they have a choice,that they can choose love, they can
choose forgiveness, they can choose joy.
I read a book last year calledImagine Heaven and this book recounted
near death experiences of severaldifferent people who claim to have
experienced heaven when they died.
(16:08):
And they, you know, medically confirmedhad died, either, you know, on the
table at the hospital in an accident,whatever, all these different stories.
But they had Jesus encounters, claimed tohave Jesus encounters when they were dead.
And The common theme of all of thesedifferent stories was that these people
had the exact same wake up call thatmy friend that I just mentioned had.
(16:32):
That the only thing that matters is love.
And when we get to the end ofour life, we are measured by
how well did we learn to love.
How well did we learn to understandhow well did we learn to give how
well did we learn that this life wasa gift and that the the entire point
(16:54):
of our existence now is to prepare usfor eternity to prepare us for what
life will be like on the other side.
And so in this very, very limited amount.
limited amount of time.
How well do we love others?
That is the extent to whichwe are being measured by.
That is all that matters.
And when I bring myself back to that,winning the argument against some
(17:19):
random person or against even my bestfriend or against a family member,
the importance of that, the weightthat I hold onto that, really shrinks.
And instead it becomes, howmuch can I love this person?
We talked a lot about competitionin the earlier episodes of this
series, how we all want to compete.
(17:39):
We all want to win.
We all want to be on top.
We all want success, right?
And success looks different for all of us.
But we all have thattendency to want to win.
And when we let that trump ourwillingness and our desire and our,
our craving of love and communityand relationship, when we let winning
trump that, that is when we suffer.
(18:03):
That's when our pride flares up.
That's when we get caught up in so manyanxieties and so many worries that at
the end of the day don't get us anywhere.
I saw a statistic recently that waslike 85 percent of the things that
we worry about never actually happen.
Freaking mind blowing.
Freaking mind blowing.
(18:25):
So when we have that heart posture of,wow, all these things that I'm, I'm
angry about and I'm, I'm frustratedabout and that make my skin crawl
actually don't matter as much as I thinkthey do compared to loving someone.
Man, that just changes the way thatyou move and the peace that you
have and the purpose that you feel.
(18:47):
on a day to day basis.
I want all of us to think right now aboutthat one person we have or maybe two
people that we have in our life that arejust really really difficult to love.
I want you to imaginethat person right now.
I know we all have one.
I know I do.
And I want you to think about howfrustrating it feels to be in their
(19:09):
presence or to hear them speak or to heartheir opinions or whatever it is that
just ticks you off about this person.
I want you to to reallyreally imagine them.
And then I want you to realizethat you are that exact same
person for someone else.
I know, I know, it's tough becausewe can't possibly be that person
(19:32):
for someone else, but we are.
The way that that person that you reallystruggle to love ticks you off, you tick
someone else off that exact same way.
We're not meant to be bestfriends with everybody.
We're not meant to get alongseamlessly with everybody.
But we are called to love everyone else.
(19:53):
We are called to bringunderstanding to everyone else.
And when I remind myself that the waythat certain people really frustrate
me, I frustrate other people thesame way, it makes me feel a lot more
inclined to give grace to others.
How I'd like to close out today is justby leaving you with some questions.
(20:15):
Who is it in your life that youfind really hard to love and why?
And based off of that, the next timethat you see this person or interact
with this person, how can you love them?
How can you bring Jesus to them?
How can you bring love to their life?
How can you bring positivity?
(20:36):
How can you, just by being you,just by being a person of love,
how can you encourage that person?
to also be a person of love.
Because I don't think we ever pointpeople to Jesus or point people to love
by sitting there and screaming at themor winning the argument or convincing
(20:56):
them that our perspective is right.
I think we get peopleto think differently.
about love by being aperson of love to them.
So I challenge you this weekin your daily interactions with
other people, how can you do that?
How can you put your pride aside?
How can you stop being so self obsessedand so convinced that you're right or
(21:19):
that your perspective is superior or thatyou're a better person than someone else?
How can you cut out judgment?
How can you lean into love?
And how can you ultimately just encourageother people to spread more love and light
and positivity and goodness in this world?
I guarantee you if that is yourperspective going into interactions
(21:42):
rather than, oh my gosh, how can I competeand win and rise above this person?
Instead, how can I love them?
Woo.
That is a powerful position to be in,and wow, the kind of change, the kind
of ripple effects that that can causefor not only one person, but then
that person to another person, right?
(22:03):
Like, you have no idea the rippleeffects that you can make just by
being a person of love and showingkindness to one single person.
So let's get out there andlet's do that today y'all.
Make sure to tune in to the nextepisode in this series for more on
how our obsession with ourselves isactually making us all so miserable.
(22:24):
We'll talk soon.
Bye.
Thank you for listening tothe Wrestling With Life.
podcast.
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(22:47):
your thoughts on what we covered,and I want to hear about what God
is doing in your life, so tell me.
And if you're hungry for even moreinspirational content just like
this, You can give me a follow onInstagram at em underscore led11.
I am always posting polls to get agauge on what everyone is struggling
with out there, sharing everyday littlelife moments, and encouraging all of
(23:09):
us to find both beauty and purposein the midst of our daily struggles.
So come and join in on the good vibes.
And real quick before you go, thisis just a little quick reminder
on what this podcast is not.
A Wrestling With Life podcast andany content posted on my channels is
presented solely for informationaland educational purposes.
(23:31):
The use of this information is at yourown risk and should not be substituted
for the advice of a therapist,pastor, or any qualified professional.
If you're struggling with yourmental health, please consider
seeking professional help.
or contacting the 988suicide and crisis lifeline.
Please don't try to getthrough this by yourself, okay?
(23:52):
You are not alone.
We are all wrestling with something.
Whether you're wrestling with your selfimage, your faith in God, or your entire
life's purpose, I'm here to tell you thatnumber one, you are not alone, and number
two, to encourage you to find both beautyand purpose in the midst of your struggle.
My name is Emlett and this isthe Wrestling With Life podcast.
(00:24):
What's up you guys and welcome backto the Wrestling With Life podcast.
Thank you so much for tuning intothe third episode of our very first
series in the New and Improved podcast.
We've been talking a lot about alot about how our self obsession
is what's destroying us.
In the first episode, we kind oflaid the groundwork for how we're all
(00:45):
obsessed with ourselves, how that'skind of leading to our destruction.
And then in the last episode, wetalked about how our self obsession
keeps us from community and keepsus from looking outside ourself.
And we talked about how we can find thatcommunity and how we can, you know, really
try to invest in the people around us.
to get out of our own way, get outof our own heads, and ultimately love
(01:09):
each other more and find more peaceand purpose and joy in life, right?
And in episode three today, I really,really want to talk about forgiveness
and how to put our pride aside andhow to put aside our need to be right.
Because I think if we're all beingreally honest with ourselves.
That is the hardest thing to do inrelationships, to put your pride aside
(01:32):
and to prioritize loving someone overwinning the competition, winning the
argument, being right, feeling superiorover them, especially people that
we're not super close with, right?
So that's what we'regoing to talk about today.
We're going to talk about how we canlove even the most frustrating people.
I saw a quote recently that was lastingrelationships require a lot of forgiveness
(01:57):
and that punched me right between theeyes when I saw that and I felt really
really convicted because I don't knowabout y'all in the past and honestly
still now I'm working on this activelybut even still now I struggle with it.
I like to hold a little bit of a grudge.
I will hold a grudge, especially ifsomeone hurts someone else that I love.
(02:20):
It's not even always necessarilyabout if you're horrible to me, but
if you're horrible to people that Ilove, I really, really hold a grudge.
And I think that it's normal and Ithink that it's a beautiful, admirable
trait even to be loyal to the peoplethat you love and to stick up for them.
And I also think it's importantto stick up for yourself, right?
And demand respect from people.
(02:43):
However, I've learned the hardway that you really can't hold
people to a standard of perfection,especially the people closest to you.
You have to have a lot of grace andyou have to have a lot of forgiveness
if you want relationships to last.
And there have been a lot of situationsfor me recently where I've had to
(03:04):
forgive people who hurt me deeply, andI've had to ask forgiveness from people
who I've hurt deeply in order for ourfriendship or any relationship that
we have to continue and move forward.
And I was looking up before thishow long friendships typically last,
and I'm pretty sure the averagefriendship lasts seven years.
(03:26):
And so that means we got a lotof relationships that are on the
even lower end of that spectrum.
And I think, especially in today's worldwhere cancel culture is such a normal
thing, and we've been taught to prioritizeourselves, put ourselves first, um, you
know, cut people off when they hurt us, Ithink that number is probably going down.
(03:48):
Like, I think a lot of us havelost a lot of friends, especially.
In this very transitional time, ifyou're in the age bucket of 22 to
35, which is kind of the group thatwe focus on at Wrestling With Life,
you've probably seen a lot of turnoverin your friendships in the last couple
years, what with graduating fromcollege or high school and moving
(04:11):
from your hometown and maybe getting anew career, starting a new job, like.
Anytime that you're in a biglife transition, it makes sense
that there would be a littlebit of friendship turnover.
And I think your real friends kind ofreveal themselves and who puts in the
effort kind of reveals themselves.
But I would like to talk not just aboutthose deep lasting relationships, but
(04:32):
just people around us in general today.
It's really, really easy to judge someonereally quickly before really getting to
know them and kind of write them off fastand be like, okay, I don't want anything
to do with this person because theyoffended me in this way or these are the
kind of things that they do or this isthe way that I feel when I'm around them.
(04:54):
And I'm not about to encourageyou to ignore your intuition and
totally just silence that part of youthat lets you know when you don't.
jive with someone.
When I say that I want to encourage usto love other people, I'm not saying
I want to encourage us to be bestfriends with everyone that we meet.
I'm not encouraging us to be fake nice.
(05:15):
I'm not encouraging us to completelyput aside our feelings and ignore
them for the sake of others.
I'm definitely not talkingabout people pleasing.
I'm definitely not talkingabout schmoozing or sucking up.
Sometimes love doesn't looklike any of what I just said.
It actually looks like the opposite.
Like, sometimes speaking love to someoneis saying a really hard truth, but
(05:40):
saying it in a way that doesn't degradethat person or bring them down, right?
And that is probably thehardest thing to do of all.
I All of us are really feeling thisright now, especially after the election,
dude, like scrolling through socialmedia, some of the things that I have
seen in the way people are talking toeach other, like it is very clear that
(06:02):
we are super, super divided right now.
And again, I want to be clear,like I'm not saying here, don't
stick up for what you believe in.
I'm not saying don't speak your truth,but I really just want to encourage
us to start doing that in love.
And to really try to put our prideaside when we are going into these
kind of conversations with people andprioritize loving them over getting
(06:25):
our point across, or being right,or being heard, or being validated.
And I think we often go intothese interactions with the
wrong mindset, you know?
So, I mentioned cancel culture, right?
We're also living in a world wherethere's a 50 percent divorce rate.
We have these two extremes politicallywhere you're either on the extreme
(06:46):
left or you're the extreme rightand when you're in the middle people
are like, pick a side, pick a side.
And everything is a competition.
We've talked a lot about thatin the last couple episodes.
And again, there's this emphasis in ourculture of it's all about you, focus
on yourself, stay in your own lane,you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
(07:07):
We are getting the message from ourculture that there are different
teams and different sides and weneed to figure out where we stand.
And honestly, I see a lot ofmessages that are encouraging this
divisiveness, encouraging this hatred.
I have actually gotten really,really caught up in that in the past.
Like, I'm thinking backto the 2020 election.
(07:29):
It was during COVID.
It's when there was a lot of politicaldivide and a lot of, you know,
racism happening in the streets.
A lot of, uh, protestsagainst this racism.
And I remember just being so passionateabout ending hate, ending racism,
ending sexism, and a lot of thosetopics were tied into the election.
(07:51):
And the 2024 election, no different.
Like the same kind of narrativeswithin our media, within the
political candidates debates, like.
It became very clear to me, at leastat that time, if you vote for one
side, you're voting for equal rights.
You're voting for love.
You're voting for humanity.
(08:11):
And if you vote for this other side,you can't possibly be for human rights,
equal rights, feminism, etc. And I gotreally, really caught up in that divide.
And I'm not here to make this episodesuper political, but I just want to
encourage us to not have this typeof extreme thinking where if you vote
for one candidate, you immediatelystand behind, you know, all of the,
(08:36):
the actions that they've ever takenor their heart posture or the way
that they, uh, treat other people.
Because let's be honest, like there'snot a politician who is perfect
and has a clear backstory wherethey've never done anything wrong.
Um, and I'm not here to endorse eitherside or say either side is right.
However, what I am saying is that,especially in these politically charged
(08:59):
times, there is such an emphasis of,pick a side, and if you don't pick
the right side, you are dead to me,you're cancelled, I can't coexist
with you, I hate you, blah blah blah.
That is such a directmanifestation and like concrete
evidence of our pride as humans.
We are so set in our ways and so rightand so convinced that we're on the
(09:22):
right side of history that we can'tpossibly love someone who disagrees
with us or voted for someone else.
Da da da da da.
And I'm not saying that you haveto be best friends with someone who
is a racist and is a hater and isactively spreading evil in our world.
I'm not saying that at all.
(09:43):
What I am saying is that youcan speak the truth in love.
You can love someone else.
You can put your pride aside.
You can stand up for what you believein and speak the truth and bring
love to any situation regardlessof what that other person is doing.
I saw a TikTok the other day of aman who was suggesting that no matter
(10:04):
what, no matter what kind of energyis brought into my orbit, I have the
choice to still bring love, regardlessof how somebody treats me, regardless
of what somebody says about me, I havethe opportunity to bring love to them.
And that doesn't mean I backdown, that doesn't mean I cower,
that doesn't mean I stay silent.
(10:24):
It means that the heart posture thatI approach them with is one of love,
of open mindedness, of understanding,of, I can't understand why you believe
what you believe or what you'resaying, but I can choose to love you.
I can choose to try to see your side.
I can choose to try to understandwhere you're coming from.
(10:44):
Many people who have extreme opinionsof hatred come from trauma or a
background where they have gonethrough some crazy things to get
them to the place that they are.
And not even people that are comingfrom hatred, but maybe even people
that are making really Poor choices fortheir life, whether they're dabbling in
really bad things that they shouldn'tbe dabbling in, or they're just spending
(11:08):
their time doing things that you wouldn'tpersonally do and you don't agree with.
A lot of times people are filling thevoid and doing things from a place of
pain and hurt and trying to get by.
I'm not saying that to excusethose choices, but I'm saying
if we're all really trying tounderstand someone and how they got
(11:29):
to the position that they're in.
I think we can find understanding.
I think we can look at what they'vebeen through or trauma that they've
experienced and be like, okay, so and sowent through X, Y, Z, it makes sense that
they're struggling in this way, right?
It's really easy for me tosit here and preach this.
What's a lot harder to do isactually act this out in your
(11:49):
own life on a daily basis.
And it's something thatI have to consistently.
lean on God for support in.
Because in my own strength, there aretimes when I want to backhand somebody who
is just spitting nonsense and spreadinghate and not being a person of love.
And I don't want to love them.
I want to silence them.
I want to shut them up.
(12:10):
I want to correct them.
And there are times where I have to juststop myself, take a deep breath and say,
Lord, Please help me to love this person.
Help me to not backhand the crapout of this person like I want to.
Help me to show this person Jesus.
Help me to give them a glimpse of whatthe Lord is like by how I conduct myself.
(12:33):
If what I'm saying is justlike, not doing it for you.
I want to tell you a story aboutsomeone in my, in my life recently.
This is a good friend of mine.
And he told me that he recentlywent through something in his life
where he didn't know if his lifewas ever going to be the same again.
He had a real come to Jesus moment,like life kind of flashing before his
(12:55):
eyes type of moment where he realizedthat All of the stuff that he typically
spends time worrying about and frustratedover and feeling anxious about, he
realized how little that stuff mattersbecause he literally almost had life
as he knew it taken away from him.
(13:15):
And he experienced a type of forgivenessfrom people in his life during this time
that he knew he wasn't deserving of.
He, he saw that forgiveness in action.
He received that forgiveness completelyunexpectedly, like he did not expect
to be forgiven for what he did.
And he watched peoplein his life forgive him.
(13:36):
And because of that forgiveness,He didn't have to pay the price
for what happened in his life.
And so his response to that was, wow,look at this forgiveness that I've
been given when I didn't deserve it.
All that matters to me is love.
All that matters to me is tryingto love other people, to try to
(13:56):
forgive other people, to try to makeother people feel seen and heard.
Like that is what thatexperience showed him.
And as he was recounting this to me,I just thought, wow, like, We have
the opportunity to have that sameheart posture every single day because
we've already received that exactsame kind of forgiveness from God.
(14:18):
Like, we didn't deserve any of this.
Like, life as we know it is a giftand we've been forgiven for all of
our crappy, ugly, dark, evil parts.
We've been forgiven and we have the chanceevery single day to live that out and
to take advantage of that forgiveness.
And so, I don't know about you guys, butwhen I hear that, and I'm brought back
(14:42):
to what matters is love, what matters isforgiveness, what matters is showing Jesus
to other people, that really changes theway that I go about my day to day life.
I'm going to be quickerto forgive other people.
I'm going to be slower totake things personally.
I'm going to be quicker to look at someoneand the way that they're treating me
(15:02):
and other people and try to understandwhere that energy is coming from.
Are they hurting?
Are they sad?
Are they going through something?
Like, what can I do to love this person?
What can I do to lighten their loadrather than taking the way that
they're being mean to me personally?
How can I help them?
also have a heart posture of love?
How can my energy bleed off onto them sothat they can feel encouraged and that
(15:28):
they can feel like, wow, even though I'mgoing through this dark time, there is
joy, there is hope and, and point themto Jesus and remind them life is a gift
and not to invalidate what they're goingthrough, not to ignore that sometimes
life is really hard and life can reallysuck sometimes, but to show them light.
(15:48):
to show them that they have a choice,that they can choose love, they can
choose forgiveness, they can choose joy.
I read a book last year calledImagine Heaven and this book recounted
near death experiences of severaldifferent people who claim to have
experienced heaven when they died.
(16:08):
And they, you know, medically confirmedhad died, either, you know, on the
table at the hospital in an accident,whatever, all these different stories.
But they had Jesus encounters, claimed tohave Jesus encounters when they were dead.
And The common theme of all of thesedifferent stories was that these people
had the exact same wake up call thatmy friend that I just mentioned had.
(16:32):
That the only thing that matters is love.
And when we get to the end ofour life, we are measured by
how well did we learn to love.
How well did we learn to understandhow well did we learn to give how
well did we learn that this life wasa gift and that the the entire point
(16:54):
of our existence now is to prepare usfor eternity to prepare us for what
life will be like on the other side.
And so in this very, very limited amount.
limited amount of time.
How well do we love others?
That is the extent to whichwe are being measured by.
That is all that matters.
And when I bring myself back to that,winning the argument against some
(17:19):
random person or against even my bestfriend or against a family member,
the importance of that, the weightthat I hold onto that, really shrinks.
And instead it becomes, howmuch can I love this person?
We talked a lot about competitionin the earlier episodes of this
series, how we all want to compete.
(17:39):
We all want to win.
We all want to be on top.
We all want success, right?
And success looks different for all of us.
But we all have thattendency to want to win.
And when we let that trump ourwillingness and our desire and our,
our craving of love and communityand relationship, when we let winning
trump that, that is when we suffer.
(18:03):
That's when our pride flares up.
That's when we get caught up in so manyanxieties and so many worries that at
the end of the day don't get us anywhere.
I saw a statistic recently that waslike 85 percent of the things that
we worry about never actually happen.
Freaking mind blowing.
Freaking mind blowing.
(18:25):
So when we have that heart posture of,wow, all these things that I'm, I'm
angry about and I'm, I'm frustratedabout and that make my skin crawl
actually don't matter as much as I thinkthey do compared to loving someone.
Man, that just changes the way thatyou move and the peace that you
have and the purpose that you feel.
(18:47):
on a day to day basis.
I want all of us to think right now aboutthat one person we have or maybe two
people that we have in our life that arejust really really difficult to love.
I want you to imaginethat person right now.
I know we all have one.
I know I do.
And I want you to think about howfrustrating it feels to be in their
(19:09):
presence or to hear them speak or to heartheir opinions or whatever it is that
just ticks you off about this person.
I want you to to reallyreally imagine them.
And then I want you to realizethat you are that exact same
person for someone else.
I know, I know, it's tough becausewe can't possibly be that person
(19:32):
for someone else, but we are.
The way that that person that you reallystruggle to love ticks you off, you tick
someone else off that exact same way.
We're not meant to be bestfriends with everybody.
We're not meant to get alongseamlessly with everybody.
But we are called to love everyone else.
(19:53):
We are called to bringunderstanding to everyone else.
And when I remind myself that the waythat certain people really frustrate
me, I frustrate other people thesame way, it makes me feel a lot more
inclined to give grace to others.
How I'd like to close out today is justby leaving you with some questions.
(20:15):
Who is it in your life that youfind really hard to love and why?
And based off of that, the next timethat you see this person or interact
with this person, how can you love them?
How can you bring Jesus to them?
How can you bring love to their life?
How can you bring positivity?
(20:36):
How can you, just by being you,just by being a person of love,
how can you encourage that person?
to also be a person of love.
Because I don't think we ever pointpeople to Jesus or point people to love
by sitting there and screaming at themor winning the argument or convincing
(20:56):
them that our perspective is right.
I think we get peopleto think differently.
about love by being aperson of love to them.
So I challenge you this weekin your daily interactions with
other people, how can you do that?
How can you put your pride aside?
How can you stop being so self obsessedand so convinced that you're right or
(21:19):
that your perspective is superior or thatyou're a better person than someone else?
How can you cut out judgment?
How can you lean into love?
And how can you ultimately just encourageother people to spread more love and light
and positivity and goodness in this world?
I guarantee you if that is yourperspective going into interactions
(21:42):
rather than, oh my gosh, how can I competeand win and rise above this person?
Instead, how can I love them?
Woo.
That is a powerful position to be in,and wow, the kind of change, the kind
of ripple effects that that can causefor not only one person, but then
that person to another person, right?
(22:03):
Like, you have no idea the rippleeffects that you can make just by
being a person of love and showingkindness to one single person.
So let's get out there andlet's do that today y'all.
Make sure to tune in to the nextepisode in this series for more on
how our obsession with ourselves isactually making us all so miserable.
(22:24):
We'll talk soon.
Bye.
Thank you for listening tothe Wrestling With Life.
podcast.
If this episode sparked something inyour brain or made you think of someone
specific, please share it with them.
Let someone else know that they arenot alone in their struggles today.
And please rate the podcast onwhatever platform you're listening on.
If you're a Spotify listener, you canleave a comment on this episode with
(22:47):
your thoughts on what we covered,and I want to hear about what God
is doing in your life, so tell me.
And if you're hungry for even moreinspirational content just like
this, You can give me a follow onInstagram at em underscore led11.
I am always posting polls to get agauge on what everyone is struggling
with out there, sharing everyday littlelife moments, and encouraging all of
(23:09):
us to find both beauty and purposein the midst of our daily struggles.
So come and join in on the good vibes.
And real quick before you go, thisis just a little quick reminder
on what this podcast is not.
A Wrestling With Life podcast andany content posted on my channels is
presented solely for informationaland educational purposes.
(23:31):
The use of this information is at yourown risk and should not be substituted
for the advice of a therapist,pastor, or any qualified professional.
If you're struggling with yourmental health, please consider
seeking professional help.
or contacting the 988suicide and crisis lifeline.
Please don't try to getthrough this by yourself, okay?
(23:52):
You are not alone.
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