The Mapp
Life is a journey, and every journey needs a guide—or at least a good story. Welcome to The Mapp, hosted by Michael Pursley, where we navigate the messy, beautiful business of being human. The podcast's name is a nod to both Michael A. Pursley Podcast and the "maps of meaning" that help us find our way in life.
Born during the stillness of the COVID-19 lockdowns, The Mapp emerged from Michael’s hunger for understanding. Inspired by long-form conversations that spark insights and refine ideas, Michael dives into deep, authentic dialogues with curiosity and humor. From life’s profound mysteries to its absurdities, nothing is off-limits.
Each episode unearths the treasure of human stories: wisdom, laughter, and moments of profound connection.
At its core, The Mapp is about the human story. It’s a place where problems shrink, purpose grows, and laughter and revelation often arrive hand in hand. For Michael, the podcast is more than a platform—it’s a mission. It’s an effort to create a space where wisdom is shared, ideas are tested, and hearts are healed. Whether through a profound insight or an unexpected laugh, Michael hopes listeners walk away from The Mapp with a sense that they, too, are part of a bigger story—one that is still being written and, in the words of another great storyteller, echoes through eternity.
The Mapp
The Hidden Cost of Ambition: Balancing Faith, Family, and Personal Fulfillment
What happens when a top-performing salesman trades his commission checks for a life of service? Meet Ethan Bricker, a man who stepped off the fast track of professional success to plunge headlong into full-time ministry. In this episode, we follow Ethan’s remarkable journey, peeling back the layers of identity and ambition to explore what it means to truly live. From his thriving church in Michigan to intimate reflections on faith, resilience, and family legacy, Ethan’s story challenges the modern obsession with careerism, offering instead a vision of authenticity rooted in service.
But this isn’t just about one man’s story. It’s about all of us. We take a hard look at the hyper-individualism running rampant in the West, dissecting how it distorts relationships, healthcare, and spirituality. By contrasting it with Japan’s communal ethos, we reveal what other cultures can teach us about confronting pain, embracing discomfort, and growing stronger together.
And if you think you’re stuck with the genetic hand you’ve been dealt, think again. We dive into the groundbreaking field of epigenetics, uncovering how lifestyle choices and habits can reshape your genetic expression, shattering the myth of predetermined destiny.
This episode doesn’t shy away from the tough stuff. Using the biblical story of David and Bathsheba, we explore the raw power of confession and the role of community in finding healing and forgiveness. Along the way, we tackle how technology is rewiring our lives—and why setting boundaries with our devices might just be the most spiritual act of all.
Packed with deep insights and fiery conversations, this episode invites you to wrestle with the big questions: How do we grow? What defines us? And how can we live with more grace and grit in a world pulling us in a thousand directions? Tune in, reflect, and let’s grow together.
Check out the Church Ethan Pastors: https://www.theclearing.net/
Thank you for joining The Mapp. If this resonates with you, don’t forget to subscribe and share it with others who might find it meaningful. Subscribe, leave review, and follow us on social media to stay updated and join our community of explorers. Together we navigate life’s pathways.
Welcome to the map.
Speaker 1:Today we're diving into a conversation that will linger, the kind that challenges us to wrestle with who we are, why we do what we do and how that all ties into something greater than just ourselves. I'm joined by Ethan Bricker, a man who stepped away from the stability of a sales career to embrace the unpredictable call of full-time ministry the unpredictable call full-time ministry. Together, we peel back the layers of identity, not just the one that's stamped on your business card, but the one that forced us to ask who are we really meant to be? We'll explore how choices echo beyond us, shaping not only our lives but the generations to come. We'll unpack the healing power of community, the tension between technology as a pacifier and distraction, and the raw courage it takes to confront our failures through confession and repentance.
Speaker 1:This isn't just a conversation about faith. It's about navigating life. It's about stepping back from the noise to ask questions that matter. What do we inherit, what kind of legacy are we leaving, and where do we find grace and forgiveness in a world that seems to always ask for more? So, whether you're here for stories or insights, or fresh perspective, you're in the right place.
Speaker 1:Grab a coffee, sell in and let's get started let's go, that's awesome yeah well, good morning, max for good morning on here and we're both in here in michigan. Um, yes, you guys got hit with any snow, yep nope, no snow at all.
Speaker 2:No, it's just, uh, just rainy and gray out right now. So nothing, nothing too exciting over here right now, yeah, other than the lions absolutely dominating the nfl.
Speaker 1:So that's that. That's how you really know that the world is upside down. I remember like being a kid and it was like our thanksgiving ritual is to we go to my grandparents and how we go, women would get dropped off there. Then all the men would go out. My grandpa had this 84 acre farm. We'd go, we'd kill a couple deer, you know, bring them back, we'd field dress them, we would leave them out to hang and we would if we had time. But then we would come in eat thanksgiving dinner and kind of veg a little bit. In the in the living room we watched the detroit lions get uh beat and that was like the thing, yeah, that was like it's giving, though when the lions are like crushing it, we, we know that, that the world has shifted for sure.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, the lord is here, he's coming and he has come.
Speaker 1:I mean like detroit's kind of making a comeback. I know like there was this huge, you know, economic downturn and like a lot of industry left, but I know like a lot of or this is what I've seen, at least online is that there are a lot of tech startups and people could buy like downtown property, like commercial property in Detroit oh yeah, there's mass migrations during the pandemic these places where you know people could move from somewhere like california and they sell their little, their little fortune there, their 1200 square foot ranch that hasn't been updated since the 70s for 1.2 million, and then move across the country and buy 100 and buy a whole square block of detroit um, yeah, man, uh, I appreciate you hopping on um.
Speaker 1:Before we kind of pump it, put a description out of kind of like you and your background. But if someone's like listening to this and like who the heck is ethan bricker, like, how would you say that in a concise?
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah, I so. Hi, I'm ethan berker. I have four wonderful, beautiful little children, um. My oldest is nine, um, his name is grayson, uh. My next is scarlet. She's my only girl, she's the one that made me a girl dad and she is seven. She'll be eight next week, um, and then I have Knightley. He's my third, he is six years old. And then Revere is my fourth and he is four, turning five in the next couple months.
Speaker 2:So I've got my hands full, and then I'm parenting these beautiful children with my beautiful wife, lydia, and Lydia and I are the lead pastors of our church here in Michigan. It's called the Clearing and we're in fort grash at michigan. We just got a chick-fil-a, so even more so. The lord is here. It's like right next, right by our church. It's incredible. I'm amped bro. So, yeah, we have a, we have a church, we have a church here. We started about two and a half years ago and it is growing. Sometimes I wonder if we have more children in our building than adults, um, which is a beautiful problem to have, uh, because there's children are the new life of the church, um, so it's it's amazing to see, um, quite a quite, quite a lot of young families, um, showing up to our church, especially recently. Um, and, uh, yeah, we, uh, we are very, very excited to see what the Lord's doing here in Michigan.
Speaker 2:Um, I am in the process currently, right now, of, um, what I guess I could say is retiring from my current job at the end of this year. Um, and I will be starting full-time at our church in January. So I've I've sales rep at CHG Healthcare Services for going on 11 years and, yeah, so that's been really what I've been spending the most of my time doing. So I've been in ministry, but really in a voluntary kind of role, in various churches and denominations, but this finally kind of jumped into the senior leader role, which I never wanted to do before. And here we are. I don't know how I got here, but I am yeah, well, that's quite a shift.
Speaker 1:I mean, like I think you, you carry, like you know, a similar toolbox in the sense of, like you, if you have to preach the gospel, you kind of have to be good at sales to some degree.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's some realness to that, because you're bringing something to somebody that might not want it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's exactly it. You have to create the pain and then you have to be able to quantify pain, and there's hell Island and there's paradise Island and we need to build the bridge. Yeah, so, um, yeah, it's quite a shift. So do you feel like pretty, like pumped, uh, you know, making a transition from something you've been doing for over a decade to doing something that it's not new, in the sense of, like you're, you're jumping in, like you know, blindly, but, uh, yeah, like a lot of peace about that.
Speaker 2:Or you feel like, and like a little bit like not unsure, but like butterflies, faith jump for sure, lots of it's that, yeah, that risk factor of, like you know, we, my wife and I this year she went bungee jumping, I did this crazy rope swing in Mexico and there's that drop feeling there where the butterflies come, and it's just and it's risky, but you're not really sure.
Speaker 2:You know, you know what you're doing, but at the same time it's like there's a lot of fear of the unknown and, um, so there's definitely that risk and that faith factor of just like leaping out into the arms of God and his people. You know, and, yeah, so it's, it's uh, it's a big adjustment, you know, especially going from the income we're going for, we're moving from to a ministry, income is is very different, um, but at the same time, I I think that, uh, the Lord uses everything, um, he uses everything that we do, everything that we worked towards, um, and we're very kind of privileged to say that, like, even though we weren't in ministry, the Lord was using the ministry of my full time secular job to really pay off bills, get out of debt, do the things that we needed to do to be in a spot where we can make much less you know, way less money in a spot where we can make much less you know, way less money, but be in a spot where we don't use the church as a career path and much more of a like no, we're here to serve. This isn't actually for a career Cause that's what I think I've seen ministry turned into over the years is ministry being a career and, um, which is fine for it to be. You know, we need full-time clergy, we need people who and we also should be taking care of our pastors enough to where they can retire and not get done with tiring and be like, oh well, they were living a parsonage and now they have no home anymore yeah you know, like I'm all about all about that, but I do think that there can be a weird attachment when you've never worked in the secular world before and and you're just in ministry too long and you don't know what the real world's actually like.
Speaker 2:Um, so you know, I think that we're kind of the opposite of that, where it's we've been able to be in the world, but not of it. But but use the benefits of what the world had, you know, to give us, to use it towards the ministry, in other words, building tents, like paul, so that we can preach, you know, at night.
Speaker 1:So yeah, I see like sometimes celebrity interviews and you can tell that they haven't talked to real people for like over a decade because of the way that yeah interview.
Speaker 1:I think if people get like too locked into um, you know, like spheres of influence and uh, they don't really have any kind of cross-pollination from any other space of society. Then it becomes, yeah, there's a huge, huge disconnect. I remember watching the the chosen, and it was at right before, uh, the roman guy ended up killing rhema, but they were like having this dispute. Uh, the Pharisees on the temple steps not the temple steps, but they were outside of the synagogue or someplace there and Jesus was just like kind of tuning them about. You guys will like measure out like dill and mustard seeds and all these like fine things, but you, you forget that this is actually about people and about God and like you're basically you're missing the forest for the trees and I think that, um, anything it can be.
Speaker 1:When that becomes your, your entire identity gets wrapped up in what you're doing. Um, it's the to have a departure point from like, for example, if you've seen a pro athlete and they like, since they were like four years old, they just like dedicated six days a week and like they become really refined, really refined there's something beautiful about that but then they get into a car wreck or they blow their knee out or something and then it's like who am I outside of this? And even people who are wildly successful people talk about, like in michael jordan's um it from being away from basketball because that's what he was like. He like he threw that into like other avenues, like he tried to like go do golf thing, he tried to do baseball, then he tried to it with business, obviously he's but um it to compete and that need to uh be whatever.
Speaker 2:So that, yeah Well, and even in my job right right now, like I'm working with surgeons, so we see it all the time with surgeons retire as soon as they're done and they're not doing surgery anymore, like we'll talk to them, but like they're like. For my whole life, from the time I graduated high school, it's all been on to becoming a doctor and doing surgery, and now I'm done and I'm 70 and I don't even know who I am and and it.
Speaker 2:That's that reality is real, no matter what, what camp you're in is like when your identity is completely wrapped up in what you're doing. It just gets really dangerous, cause as soon as that thing gets pulled away, who are you Like when that rug gets pulled out from underneath of you? It's like what's going on actually underneath the hood and um, and that's the. I think that that is one thing I'm really happy about with this transition, even for us is I've never allowed myself to get my identity caught up in. Well, I'm a senior sales rep and one of the most successful reps at my company, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, because at the end of the day, you can strip all that away.
Speaker 2:At the end of the day, I'm a son, I'm a son of of God, and that's my identity. And even before I'm a son, I'm a son of god, and that's my identity. And even before I'm a pastor, I'm a son. Even before I'm a husband, I'm a son. And if that, if that identity constantly is anchored in the right thing, it's a lot easier when life changes. You know, because I never thought I'd be a lead pastor. I never. I never wanted to be um, and I also never wanted to be in sales but, here we are.
Speaker 2:You know, it's like sometimes the the lord, just he knows exactly what you need and you, you make your um. A man makes his way, but the Lord knows what he needs, you know yeah. So yeah.
Speaker 1:I think people and we are kind of a collection of things and those things can be popping kind of in and out, but to your point if there's nothing kind of anchoring you into eternity? Uh, because this the life is what there is, um postured around a place of hey, ethan men, actually, what do you do? Oh, I'm a plumber, I'm a, I'm a doctor, oh, and like. So just think about that.
Speaker 1:You know, I plumb or I help people in medicine it's like I am a lawyer, I am a doctor, I am this, um, yeah, so in free trade, like we've kind of narrowed down on what's your specialty, okay, you teach the kids so I can go farm to get bread to feed you guys, and that guy's going to build our houses while we do those things. So that's kind of like the crux of it, to like expedite who's who.
Speaker 2:Um but which is ultimately that's a lot of pressure, you know, like, ultimately, like society, that's adding a lot of pressure for someone to uh, live up to a perception of what they've wanted to become or do. And if you're not doing the thing that you want to be doing, then now you're not living up to your full potential. Is the lie, you know. It's this idea of like, well, if I don't, if I'm not doing exactly how the thing I wanted to do all along, then I'm not truly living. And I think that's the scariest thing that our culture teaches is that like, well, you need to follow your dreams. Well, what happens if your dream is what happened if, if, if what you're living in right now is not necessarily what you dreamed up, you know. And then now all of life is subpar to this idea that you had to begin with, and you can't thrive in any season of life because you're not doing exactly what you always wanted to do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, I think that's applicable across the board. Even in, like you know, a lot of people have a perception of what family and marriage is going to be like. So part of that's like, how was my parents and how was my experience there? Or they're trying to like have this polarized reaction of like well, I went through this trauma and so I'm going to like, prepare this for my kid, basically prepare a world for my kids, and they're no, I don't think of them, but they, they have an avatar of like who their spouse is supposed to be, who they're supposed to be, how life's supposed to be.
Speaker 1:And, you know, a lot of different things can happen where that's just not going to play out. You can have a child who has special needs, or you have health issues, or you have financial issues or I don't know. Like, you kind of fill in the blank there and so when you're in the midst of of crisis, um, oh, the reality that you have, ahead with the reality that is, um, then you have, yep, basically go through like some kind of uh, burning experience. What you have in your head has to get burned up and whatever's like the remnants of that that actually can integrate with society or integrate with reality it's going to have to happen.
Speaker 1:That's a very painful, painful experience. I think for our culture at large, there's an obsession with avoiding pain. I talked about this a little bit, yeah, like with, you know, narcotic pain medications, and the way that those are prescribed in the united states is really unprecedented, comparatively than anywhere else. And so doctors, you know, um, oh, you shouldn't feel it. It's just like I just, I just cut your leg open and replace your knee or cut your back open. You shouldn't feel any pain, though After the fact it's like no, that that's part, that's part of life and your body and your body actually has natural painkillers in it.
Speaker 1:Um, that can kick in. Um that that has kind of polluted people's mind at large with with any any aspect of life, is that I couldn't, I couldn't, I shouldn't feel any discomfort. Um, it shouldn't. In pain, avoidance mode, you're just crippling yourself from transcending in the situation.
Speaker 2:Um, yeah, there, but well it's which is really kind of like. It's the individualistic, like response to life. Um, like you brought up, relationships and marriage, where sometimes we come into marriage and I meet people all the time where they walk into marriage and we've I've even seen friends of mine divorced because they came into marriage and they and they, well, this is what I wanted, or I didn't get to do my career, or I didn't get to pursue my studies, and it's really like relationships and individualism. Individualism is like an oxymoron when it's put in the confines or within the context of relationships or marriage, because you step into a relationship which requires two people and you're only thinking about my dreams, my hopes, my future, and then you end up attacking the person next to you because they're oppressing your ability to accomplish what you've always wanted to accomplish.
Speaker 2:Um, and I think that like that kind of comes into that whole, like the society as a whole. Like we struggle with this idea of like being for uh, nt right calls it like a cruciform living which is just like a. It's a servanthood unto other people and it's not what's in it for me and how can I get my my cut out, this deal, you know, and just really walking into that servanthood, low, humble, meek mindset. I think that's to me the danger of, even when we come back to church too, is it's like I feel like it's crept into church. I think it's crept into marriages and family and just all throughout America, because we tend to think as individuals and not as a tribe anymore or a people.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, I think like yeah, and part of it is there's like these micro, micro, rapid kind of reinforces things. So I'll just give you an example Like if you sat down at, let's say, you invite somebody to a Bible study, people try to water and dumb things down in a sense where someone can understand them. And I remember who I was talking to this about. But they were looking at Japanese students and American students and like there's a stereotype that Asian people are like super good at math and so they started looking into that. That and what they found is in the math class with the Japanese people there's like this threshold of where it's like hard for you to understand. They're forcing you to kind of like transcend, like where you're at. They keep people at that threshold in Japan about 40% of the time in the math class.
Speaker 1:In America we do it 2% of the time and these cultures are starkly different in that in japan they're as quickly as possible trying to integrate you into the society as a whole, like they'll let. Like in daycares, the two and three-year-olds have to clean the daycare themselves, and I've seen documentary where, literally, they would send a three-year-old to the grocery store and give them a list of like three things or something and the three-year-old will go and do it and then they won't wear deodorants or perfumes because, like that you're basically oppressing other people with the smell. So if you're in a subway, you've seen how their subways are like super cramped. You want to wear like neutral things and you wouldn't eat foods like garlic and things. So anyway, that's the extreme, that's the far extreme of it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but my point anyways with like the, the threshold of like calling people to transcend, is if you go into a bible study, oftentimes what I've heard in different denominations was like okay, ethan, we're gonna read through like two verses or something. So we're not, we're not even gonna read the entire thought, we're gonna read like if through a couple verses and I want you to think about um, basically, it's like god saying something to somebody else, but put yourself in the middle of that and how is this speaking to you? And it's like God saying something to somebody else, but put yourself in the middle of that. And how is this speaking to you? And it's like I understand the sentiment there, but it's like it's not for you all the time. Like this is actually like something very specific being said to somebody very specific for a specific reason. It has nothing to do with me, so it's still true, but not putting myself in the middle of that, that hyper individual of like well, how does this affect me and how could I live this out? It's like no, you derive what was the spirit by which what was being said being said, and out of that you can engage with like what does that actually mean? And like go on a journey to integrate that into your life, the concept, the principle, whatever it was, uh, versus like I'm in the middle of it. And so if you look through the, the, the whole corpus of the bible, uh, all with people and god and we, that's something that we inherit, that that dialogue. But it's not, it's hard, isn't the dialogue that we're having? We're we're having our own, uh, individual.
Speaker 1:And something that gets really overemphasized is like you know, ethan, if you were the only person in the world, jesus would still die on the cross for you. He would still do that in a sense like special, but you're not special, because jesus said at the end of john, like father, the love that you have for me, let that be in them and let them feel it in their hearts. So what he's saying is like before the universe existed, it was me and the father, and there he only had one son, so all the love that he could give was like pointed towards, uh, this son. And now I'm bringing you into that. Where you're going to feel that kind of love. I want you to actually tangibly feel that Great.
Speaker 1:But that's as true for everybody as the person on my right, my left, okay, yeah, with that, you're part of a. You have your own individual story, but you're part of a collective, and so, look at, like the genealogy of Christ, for example, you could go through each of those individuals and there's can derive from their story, but it was all building towards something else. So it was in video guns. Jesus is the main character. You are not the main character. You are at maybe an npc, yeah, for sure, yeah, yeah, like the main character.
Speaker 2:Say um, and and your side quest. You know, really like, it's like you're part of his side quests. You know and in, but his story is the one being played out which you bring up a good point of like we, we lose. And it's so funny you even brought this up because in 2025, one of the first things I was talking to my wife about, that I want to speak, uh, to our church about, is the biblical narrative. When you don't understand that you're part of a biblical narrative, you end up making the story about you and you lose sight that you're actually part of this rich heritage of believers. But the climax is unto Jesus, it's unto this one man being made known, this holy, divine man who came down incarnate in flesh, who came down climactic, as Israel, who made himself king in the earth, and that's unto you understand that you're part of this story of God coming and making himself king. But when we don't understand that, we take the bible and we say, what is this about? This is about me, and how how does this affect me as an individual, and not realize, like this whole thing wasn't unto you, just getting a new spirituality of like. Oh well, there's, there's this new spiritual like.
Speaker 2:I think that that that's the problem in in christianity is, a lot of times, when we give people the product like you talked about, like selling people jesus right at the beginning, is like we sell them spirituality like here's a new spirituality for you, and it's it's not, it's here, here's a, here's a new way of of living that requires you to understand that there is a king who has made himself king in the earth and and it's actually unto knowing him, him knowing you, and then you being ruled over by him, like that he is the king of the earth, um, and that there's a, there's a submission to it, um, but we don't like submission in our culture. Um, but you brought I love like what you brought up too, about Japan, though, cause that's an honor shame culture, and when we read the Bible as Americans, we don't remember that this is an honor shame culture. All, from the beginning to the end of of the Bible, it's honor shame culture. And so there is this like reality of like what you do affects your community, what you don't do affects your community, and so, as an individual, we, we read the Bible and we just go oh well, my sin is my sin, it doesn't affect anybody.
Speaker 2:Well, just do what makes you happy. Do what makes you happy, it's fine, you know, as long as it doesn't hurt anybody. That's our, that's our American individualistic logic, where in the Bible it was no, what you do on your own affects everybody. The sin infiltrates the camp, you know, and there is just this lack of understanding that, like you, are part of something but at the same time you're not the main character yeah you know, I remember I read this book, uh, the crazy love book, and he gave this funny little illustration of it we just talked about.
Speaker 1:You know, imagine if somebody made a movie about life and about the end of eternity and there's, you know, the creation, everything, and he said what would they be in that that film? He's like, in reality that film is just running, and then for like a tenth of a second in that film the camera pans over seven billion people and for that half a second it panned over the back of your head.
Speaker 1:And so you're in that film. Yes, you're in that film and your mom might get excited oh, that's my baby, look, he's in a movie. But is the film really about you? And it's not.
Speaker 1:And I think when you think about things in the context of eternity and you think about context of the moment, uh, then think because you're but like, really, morality, forgiveness, love, all those things really find their full context in relationship if you're just making them abstract things that they don't really find their full context, and so you can do a lot of moral shuffling and tap dancing around uh, what's what? And to your point, and hurting anybody, um, but your thoughts become habits, your habits become, uh, rituals and your ritual, the, the course of your lifestyle and what you do or don't do, is inherited. Like the bible says, a righteous man leaves and inherits children's children. This isn't, you know, um, solely talking about wealth and monetary gain. I think that's a part of it. There's a spiritual heritage. You know, we're aware that if a parent is an alcoholic uh, one parent the chance action goes up, I think 35 to 45 percent.
Speaker 1:If both parents are alcoholics, then the chance of addiction, or the susceptibility to addiction goes up 85 percent so when you say, um, that genetics I'll just kind of wrap this up with this epigenetics has has taught us that genes can be turned on and turned off, and of the divine, like the miraculous, the mystery of God that becomes manifest in our world, where the natural order of things can be interrupted, when God will invade the natural order of things and do something supernatural, he's doing something unordinary, extraordinary in the situation. That is a reality. But at the same time, there's this natural order of things that we have to acknowledge. And so with epigenetics, this natural order of things that we have to acknowledge, and so with epigenetics, one of the things that we have is everybody is born with a certain set of genes that make you susceptible to certain things. So I just kind of walked you through addiction but I'm sure that you're aware of. So I grew up in a rural part of West Virginia, rural part of west virginia, and one of the things I would hear from my grandparents or their generation was like, oh, that boy gets his temper from his dad, or that boy gets his temper from his mama, and so like that, why do I get it from them? And if I look in their family line? So I'm not saying per se. This is a general like a, a genetics things per se, but you can do some pretty interesting studies, uh, or look into some interest. You can say what you want about statistics, but just family history petition and patterns that happen in there.
Speaker 1:Yes, so one of the one of the interesting things that they found eugenics was it was thought that diseases are just purely hereditary. So if my dad has cancer and I inherit the gene for cancer, inevitably, inevitably, I will get cancer. That's what people thought Genes were like fate. But what they found in the study of epigenetics was that true? And so there was a study with identical twins. They did multiple sets of identical twins, one twin. So clarify, identical twins. Exact same age, exact same genes. So theoretically, if they were going to get a disease, they would get it at the same time, around about the same time. So they find these twins one would be obese, one not one would have diabetes. One not one would have cancer. One not one would have an autoimmune disease, one not.
Speaker 1:They couldn't figure it out at first, and then the conclusion that they came to was that they lived completely different lives. So even though they had the exact same genes, they something in the environment. Choices they made dictated whether a gene would turn on or not. So to replicate this study, they took rats and they got identical twins and rats and they started exposing rats. Uh, in the study, one, healthy, normal life, good food, good water. The other one, they would try to expose it to toxins, things that are on a rabbit trail with this, but anyways, they would expose it to specific toxins, stuff that we find in our food supply and our medicine, and all that stuff. America, let's go all rough here.
Speaker 1:They were that effect and that would then develop cancer, even though it was identical twin, the other one would not. What's my point? My point is, when we talk about what you do in life echoes through eternity. The choices that you make are going to have an effect on generations of people who you'll never live to see. And if you can turn genes on in your body simply by the actions that you're taking, right, yeah, right so so people, people try to play that like, oh, this doesn't have an effect, but like realist, uh, you know, in that vein of thought, um, I will put a strain if I turn on a gene, for this of a disease is basically avoidable in that sense, a chronic illness, that is avoidable. Um, forces and time and energy, whatever.
Speaker 2:So, um, have you ever read? Uh, jk Smith's you Are what you Love. It's a phenomenal, phenomenal book. We're reading it in seminary right now or we read it my semester's done. But he says this phenomenal quote. He says the things we do do something to us, and it's this beautiful book about exactly what you said. The language you were using was even. I was like, yeah, he's got to have read this book because he's talking about, like the things we do, our habits, our routines, our rituals, our liturgies, like they are all unto worship.
Speaker 2:And in a lot of people you hear worship. You're like I don't worship every day. It's like, no, you do, it's just. Are you on your phone? Are you eating more food than you should Like? Are you shopping too much? Like you are worshiping. It's where you're putting your heart's attention on and so I mean Black Friday's right around the corner, and you know some people listening like it's like even myself. It's like you go through Amazon and you begin to worship because you're putting all your attention, your focus, on what best deal can I get next and it really is.
Speaker 2:But like those are such simple little things where we think this isn't doing anything to me, but like hours and hours of scrolling. It is doing something to you and it's doing something to your soul. It's doing something to your heart and it may not be as extreme as alcoholism, but it is doing something to you in a sense that you're youice versus uh, pro-life like, and you get this we versus them kind of thing in you and then all of a sudden you start acting out of it and it's exactly what you said, where it's like we don't take into account, because of these individualistic ideas, that, like the way we are being and the way that we are going, it is affecting the world around us. And I think that's the, that's the supporting role. I think, like I love that this example of Jesus being the main character, but the main character always has to have supporting roles around him and and I think that's what we are as Christians is, we're the supporting roles unto the star of the show, where we're unto him, being made known, his grace being made known, the love and kindness of Jesus being ushered in throughout the whole world through that cruciform identity of I'm not here to get what's mine, I'm here to serve unto the people around us so that Jesus would be known, and I think that's the, that's the gospel that I think we need to have a return to.
Speaker 2:Is that that final, even that final, kind of like what you said, that the eternal, almost judgment of it, where it's like there's an there's an end to this, there's a there's a final consequence or there's a final outcome that's already been in the works, like, uh, I heard it said, I read it this this week aw tozer he said if, if, life.
Speaker 2:He's kind of making the argument between calvinism and arminianism and he's like life is like god's got the boat, the trajectory of the boat, this massive freighter or cruise ship, whatever it is, it's already set, like the, the outcomes, the end is already in play, like the boat's headed to the dock, but what goes on on the boat, that's up to us, and and so I I look at it that way where it's like the supporting role that I have and as a christian in this world, is to serve the needs of others, to love other people, to show them the grace and kindness of jesus, so that on this boat, as we're all moving towards this ultimate end or ultimate beginning however you'd want to say it, because I know St Augustine he says is it really life?
Speaker 2:We live and then we die, or is it really we die and then we live, is kind of the question he proposes in his confessions. But it's that it's like, as we're on the ship, as we're part of this biblical narrative, this thing that's headed somewhere, the things we're doing, they are doing something on this ship, um, so what are we doing? And asking that question, um, and being honest and real with ourselves, because that's the the hardest part, is just being honest with yourself, because we like to tell ourselves everything I'm doing it's not actually doing anything to me, it's not affecting my genes, it's not. You know, I don't know anything about the genetic stuff that you just laid out, but I love that you brought that up because it is so true. Like everything we're doing, it's not just a spiritual thing, it gets down into our literal blood and genetics, you know yeah, if you don't believe it and you know I love technology, I think it's awesome.
Speaker 1:Like with anything, though, you know electricity is great, but if you don't wire your house right, you're gonna burn your house down. So you know we all like refrigerators, we all like lights. But if you don't believe that, you know streaming and you know using your phone or device as a mental pacifier doesn't do anything. Watch little kids have a tablet for a couple hours.
Speaker 1:Then just take it away from them and and watch what yeah like with our, with our kids, like, literally, we had to create this entire system of commerce around tablet time, where it's like, okay, you get 30 minutes if you clean up your room and if you do that, like you have to work your way into it and there's like a definitive time. You have to set timers so that even the content that they watch you they're just like little regurgitators, so they'll, they'll take something in and it just comes back out as they're like working out, like getting the words in their mouth, but also like what they don't even know, what they're saying in. Whatever you are, like in what you, what you're giving your time to, you're coming underneath that. And um to again to our point earlier is is, with technology, specifically entertainment, it is a, and I think if you talk to them like they're kind of like evening rituals is, they're like kind of spent from the day. They're, like you know, just worn down or worn out and they like I want to turn my brain off.
Speaker 1:I've definitely been there before. There's been seasons where, man, I just like I'll just string thing for like three hours or something like that, and then in retrospect like what did this, what did this do for me and I frustrated. I've gotten frustrated as older because I felt like was I just dumb as a kid and I could just absorb everything, like when I was younger, or is it really that just movie quality and like content quality just went like down, or is it that it's just so saturated, or did my expectation, what is it? But I feel like really I remember like leaving movie theaters before with my friends being like whoa dude, like that was like sickle For real.
Speaker 2:And now, like when I leave pretty much when I leave the movie theater, uh, if I go see a movie it's just like man, that was all right, that was good, yeah, so I don't know if it's for endgame, and endgame was the only one where that was the most recent one of like oh my gosh, yeah, but other than that it's like yeah, I, I'm, I'm the same way. I think it is. It's a oversaturation. I guess in my mind is you think about like, like Lydia and I, we put out music and we've done what we haven't put on music in put it out, put it out, get it out, get as much out as you can. It's the same for YouTube. It's like you got to have a video out every consistently. If you look into any social media like strategy, it's you got to be consistent, you got to have it coming out all the time because that will get the algorithm to get your attention. And so if everybody's doing that all at once and if creating is easier than it ever has been, you know it's everybody's doing it. And so it is just this oversaturation, like oh my gosh, I can't handle any more. And so I think that's why putting limits on those things of like no, these things are doing something to me, even for even like good things, like the even the good things, where it's like if we're oversaturating ourselves with the good things, but then we have no mental capacity left for our families to give our children and our wives our best. How is that helping? Is it actually spiritually deep? Is it actually growing you If you've got nothing left in the tank mentally to give to your the most meaningful people in your lives? You know, and that's the, it's always that balance of like Lord, what do you like? What do you say about this? Is this helpful for me?
Speaker 2:Um, there was a season in my life, after I went to school ministry, where the like I felt like God was like no, you're not allowed to read theology right now. And it was because it became. It became like an idol for me, like it was, became something where it was, because it became. It became like an idol for me, like it was, became something where it's like I'm trying to build an identity around, I know things. And it took me, I think, two to three years of just not reading theology and just be like I'm only going to read the bible, I'm just going to spend time with god, and eventually it just kind of rooted that out of me where I was like you know what I'm?
Speaker 2:I do want to know these things. It's good to know these things, it's not bad. I mean, I'm going to seminary right now to get a master's degree in biblical and theological studies, not because it's bad, but because I want to know God to a deeper level. But if I shape my whole world around, I'm, or anchor my life in, I know these things, I'm, I'm smart, I've have these things, then or even just pulling in as much data as I can into my mind because I've listened to all these podcasts and all these different studies that eventually it gets to the point where it's like am I even human anymore or am I just a regurgitator of information?
Speaker 2:I think it really does boil down to that. Can I, can I give my family the most meaningful, present version of myself? At the end of the day, you know, and I would say most of the time, social media and the things that we're doing tend to take us away from, move us further away from that goal. At least I find in myself. I know that's not the same for everybody, but yeah, I would agree.
Speaker 1:I think, um, what's hard is a that our school system is structured is it's more about memorization than learning. So it's like scratching that very edge you're talking about, like consuming information in bulk, regurgitating it out through a test, and so you kind of create that neural pathway in your mind and like that's even what success is, because what, what do you do in school? You get rewarded on an a to f scale or one to six scale, if you're in europe, of how, how you regurgitate this information and how I told you what, oh well, can you say that back to me? And so, even within like self-help space, like where people write these kind of books, people will, people will like any into like courses or mentorships or books, and they'll learn the concepts, but they don't actually go do the concept.
Speaker 1:So when jesus said, yeah, um, the truth, uh, what he was into this, like we can notice, going to know, but basically like knowing the truth through experience is what sets you free, meaning the only way you would know truth through experience is you actually have to go do it. So if I set a workout plan for you and you scroll on tiktok, you didn't know the truth, you're not, but if you go and actually do the sets and the repetitions, then you're going to do it, and so I think the way that my brain works is I'm definitely guilty of that it's like absorption, absorption, absorption, synthesized, weeded out, and then I kind of have my little like all this stuff that I've assimilated.
Speaker 1:And I can serve people out of that. But it really begs the question of like I need to audit my life, I need to take an account of my life and I need to look at where, where am I at right now? Like, where am I at in terms of, like, my role as a husband, my role as a father? Uh, within you know, finances, within my relationship, my ministry to God, like to him directly, like where, where am I at? And if I had to quantify it, what would I say? And then, obviously, you can't do that in the vacuum of assessing yourself. Like the reason why audits work is because a third party comes and looks over your finances for you. Yeah for sure, obviously, like the whole.
Speaker 2:But you can curate it though, right, it's. It's kind of like it's like a Spotify playlist. You can curate it though, right, it's. It's kind of like it's like a spotify playlist, like you can try to curate it, though where you say you know what this song? It's not actually adding value to my life. It's actually helping me become the best husband, the best christian, the best dad I want to be. So I'm going to remove it out, but I'll add this instead.
Speaker 2:Or even john he says this. He says like the to be an, an apprentice of Jesus, is actually way more about subtraction than addition. Like some people get so intimidated about coming to be known as a Christian because they think I need to do more, it's actually like, no, it's really just curating the playlist and it's removing the songs or the things that are like really just not helpful or not doing anything for you, really just not helpful or not doing anything for you. And, uh, it it's about implementing those things that require less of you, not more of you. Really, um, and it is that it's. You can't have a third party audit unless it's the Holy spirit, right, but, but there's that curation process of like you get with the Holy spirit, you, you pray, and there's a removal of those things.
Speaker 2:And I, for my wife and I, this year it's been Sabbath. We practice Sabbath every week. Every Friday 5 pm, we Sabbath, and Sabbath is the. It's the removal for us of it's not us doing more, it's us doing less for God. And so we do no screen time.
Speaker 2:As a family, we sit down and eat and when we eat, I bless every single one of my children, like I lay hands on them and I and I pray for each one of my children. We break bread together, we usually do communion and we say the lord's prayer together, um, and we have an amazing high calorie dinner on friday night and then, for 24 hours, we do no screen time, so that we're just together and it's and it's just the way that we pray, we worship and and and love god and love our each other every single week. But it actually doesn't require more from us. It actually it requires less of us, because we have to say no rather than just oh well, we need to do more. It's like no, just do less, but do it with the people that you love. I think that's that curation that you're talking about, or that audit of removing those things that just aren't helpful.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think what's what's difficult now culture is like you have so much information that could be completely conflicting. Uh of what I mentioned is like hey, I'm actually like a workaholic or to like being a doer and executor, and so someone could take that and they're like, well, that's what I need to do in my life. So maybe someone you're conning but maybe that person's actually lazy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, you have to have self-awareness. Hey, what, what is this? And like, and that. That becomes difficult because, again, like, if we do get into group think, we're trying to toe the line of what the collective, maybe there's a collective prepackaged idea of like, what, what successes or what we should be doing.
Speaker 1:But again, like, again to your point, like, if you don't have any, any kind of guidance from God, cause, god knows um, you know, it's our um, and I think, like one of the big references to God, as as as a fire is, is is relevant of like, if you stick something in a fire, it's going to burn, obviously, and there's certain things that just burn up completely. Like, if I throw a wood log in the fire, it's going to burn up completely, but if I put certain kinds of metals in the fire, there's certain stuff that's going to burn off. There's certain stuff that it's going to separate things, so there's going to be impurities and things that are going to raise the surface and then you can pull that. That's what makes the metal precious and is how much have you been able to skim off the top of this stuff? And so that only really comes from being in the fire long enough and that just never feels. It never feels good to anybody.
Speaker 1:I remember like when I was being mentored in my early twenties by a guy who I still have contact with, I dearly love, uh, jim kelly. But I remember I went to him once and kind of sheepishly asked him hey, jim, like you know me fairly well, like we meet on a regular basis like where do you, where do you feel like, uh, where do you feel like I need to improve or what do you think that my weaknesses are? And he just kind of looked at me, kind of smiled then like, took a long pause. He's like he just said very gently at me, kind of smiled then took a long pause. He just said it very gently. He's like well, humility is not your strength and that's all he said, I was like oh, that's painful.
Speaker 1:He's like am I like an egotistic, narcissical blah, blah, blah off on that rant? He just said, no, humility is not your strong suit and I just kind of laughed and laughed and so I had to go away and like, take it, take an inventory of that. But I think again, like we have to live in a place where there needs to be self-awareness. So I'll just give this example. Some people would say, even you need to be around people who love you and support you and you don't want to be around toxic people. But like, when they say toxic people, they basically say anybody who would give you any opposition or any kind of like criticism or anything like that. So there's periods of life where, like for me, like I, I need encouragement, like I'm in the trenches by myself, I'm, I feel like, I feel like off in the sense of, uh, I'm just, I'm trying to be a good husband, trying to be a dad, but there's, like all these like moving parts of life and I just feel I just need somebody to tell me that I'm not sucking real bags. It feels like it. And then there's other times, uh, where I need people. Hey, you're completely out of line here, or I wouldn't really do it like that, or, you know, we need some, some feedback. So, to deal in absolutes, to not have, uh, self-awareness that's where the internet becomes a dangerous thing is like I can immediately plug in to hear the thing I want and people do want.
Speaker 1:There is a power of agreement and people want agreement. They want to feel validated in what they're feeling. But what you're feeling could actually be betraying you and sending you in the opposite direction of what's going to be the absolute best for you. And so you know, yeah, all people are good. There's one gender that does this more than the other. Uh, but but uh, you know no boy and say, uh, hey, what suzy did? Blah, blah, blah, blah. Oh my gosh, I can't believe suzy, we're looking for that, that validation of outrage or that validation of offense, versus just go talk to the person, squash it right there, move on, but it it feel, it feels good, like no, you're totally right, you should be upset about that, and and blah, blah, blah.
Speaker 1:So it just creates this like intention. It creates whatever um, but well and it builds loyalty.
Speaker 2:It comes back to what you said like you're, you're really looking for somebody to say I love you, you're meaningful to me. You're building, you're trying to like, stack the ranks, like, oh, I'm most important for you in your life and and so you know that hot gossip that's spilling the tea or just building loyalty with friends against each other. It's so dysfunctional because you're you're really. What you're trying to do is you're trying to add worth for yourself. It's what you said. It it's like I just need encouragement. Well then, just say you need encouragement. You don't need to to create a fire, create a problem in the midst of it. Um, yeah, it's so real. You, you had mentioned, like you have having a friend to tell you, to expose those things.
Speaker 2:Like one one thing one of my friends, uh, his name's Nate Thompson. He wrote a book called between Sundays. It's great. He says in his book he's, he, he would, and I've implemented this in my life, both in work and out of work. Um, he said, go find a friend and ask this question what's it? Well, I say it this way what's it like being on the other side of me? Uh, he asked the question what do you know about me that I don't know about me, and that is such an important question for us to ask the people that are our community and the people around us. What do you know about me that I don't know about me? Because they're experiencing us. Whether we like it or not, they're experiencing a version of us that we might not even know we're portraying, you know, and until we get eyes on that, it's really hard to make those curated adjustments to life. You know, in the middle of it all, yeah, I remember.
Speaker 2:I had a.
Speaker 1:I did a driver in Germany. I had to do a driver's license for, like, hauling a trailer because I was working on jobs. So you had to specifically go and just get the license to the trailer and, um, somebody in the car, you know, obviously with you and you do a theoretical test and then the driving test. You have to parallel park with the trailer, all this stuff. But the guy like uh, windy roads and in west virginia and stuff, and we just I don't know like I just look and I have pretty good peripheral, but he like chewed me out hard about he's thinking about failing me because we were on the highway or somewhere and need to switch lanes. And I'm like cool, so I'd switched the lanes.
Speaker 1:I looked in my mirror and then just through the corner of my eye I just looked for motion. I didn't see it, but I didn't look hard. He was sitting in the back seat and so we stopped the car and everything. He's like I don't know if I could pass her or not and like this is this is typical german. Like I was like what did I do wrong? He's like you made one mistake. You're gonna fail me on one mistake. What did I do?
Speaker 1:He said, you didn't look with your eyes, you trusted the mirror. You didn't look fully with your eyes to see if somebody was coming. So when you merge over, it's a blind spot and you have to look and see if someone's there. So that's what we all have. There's these blind spots that we inevitably develop because we're having a human, subjective experience and we're living life through our lens, and people are completely experiencing us different than how we're experiencing ourselves, or they perceive it. And our spouses are pretty good litmus tests. Yeah, they're pretty brutally honest for the most part of of letting us know, uh, that we're not everything. Potato chips, um, there and um, having you. You have god there, but then you, you, there is a necessity for other people to to be that, that person, that confidant, uh, with you, and it works. It's not a like.
Speaker 1:Some people have misconceptions about christianity and and faith, and, and they think that not a like. Some people have misconceptions about christianity and and faith, and, and they think that these are like superstitious or archaic ideas that don't have any merit to them. But to to the point I made uh, what's, what's the purpose? What's the purpose of a police investigation? What's the like? This is, this could be applied. What's the purpose of science? An investigation of things and an account of things, and you want to see what's actually there. And if I actually want to know what's there, I have to make myself uh subjected then, or to other people around me, and that individualization is a kind of thing to aim at of like I'm not, I, I define who I am. No one else can define who I am. We're absolutely terrified of the idea that something else could define or someone else could define any aspect of of who we are, and that is a stick, uh kind of uh pattern of thinking. But um, yeah yeah, that was.
Speaker 1:That was one thing that we we were toying with the idea of talking about. Was this, this idea of of confession and opening yourself up to that, I guess, like from from and like, because everybody comes from their own kind of streams and like this. You know you have to assimilate in different streams, so you kind of bounce around, but what do you feel like your life experience has been like a pretty significant misconception around the idea of confession. How does that kind of express itself? And yeah, maybe even like people like coming in and like looking at confession, like oh yeah, I'll just kind of let you run with that.
Speaker 2:Well, I, yeah, I, um, when we started seminary, we we started just kind of getting into church history, church traditions and things like that. And as an evangelical Protestant, I'm I'm thinking man. I have never been in a church culture that highly values confession. Why is that? I don't understand. Because in the charismatic Pentecostal world there's definitely this like, well, you need to have a good reputation, you know, it's all. It's very image-based, which is very individualistic, which is honestly the devil, like it's a me, me, me, focus, not a we, we, we focus. And so in that pursuit I was like man, I really want to look into this. How do we understand confession as evangelicals? Because if you have Catholic listeners, they already have a value for confession. Or somebody who's more orthodox, they understand the value of confession because there's a, this weight that gets brought off of a, that gets broken off of a person, by just naming the sin to a brother and or a sister, or to a priest or to a pastor, and just bringing it before the lord.
Speaker 2:I think a really good case study in the bible is dav, when David does what he does with Bathsheba kills Uriah. That is such a good case study because, as David starts to go down this path of doing all these terrible things from, you know, sleeping with Bathsheba, finding out that she's pregnant, and then he's like, oh, hey, uriah, you should sleep with her to try to cover up his tracks. Oh, I can't get him to do it because he's too loyal to me, to God and his country, which is, honestly, that is a terrible, terrible story, not just from a standpoint of, oh, david helps murder Uriah, but David, being king, basically steals. It's one of the greatest injustices of the bible, because he is king and he goes into a man who basically has nothing other than a wife in his home and he goes to serve his country. This rich king who has everything he needs, comes in and steals the only thing uriah has, and then you're, and then he kills uriah and god knows, and what happens is Nathan comes, the prophet, nathan comes in and convicts David. But there's an important kind of thing there where it's like, if God can't get David's attention through conviction, convicting his heart, through getting to his conscience and saying, dude, this is wrong, shouldn't be doing this, this isn't who you are, that I've made you King, what are you doing? You know that that was all happening behind the scenes, in David's heart because he has a conscience. He knows that this isn't right. If God can't get to you through himself, he'll get to you through his people. And that's where Nathan steps in and operates.
Speaker 2:One of the theologians I read. He said God likes to operate vicariously through his people, and when we confess to people, the person that we're confessing to is vicariously partnering with God to forgive your sins. Um, it doesn't mean that they carry the weight or the divinity or ability you know necessarily to say, oh yeah, you're washed clean, that's only through the blood of Jesus. But they are vicariously partnering with God and pointing to the cross, saying, no, you're actually forgiven for this. And what we see in the account of David is, as soon as David has found out, he confesses his sin to Nathan and literally it goes verse Nathan tells him. And then in the next sentence it's David was forgiven of all of his sins that quickly.
Speaker 2:And so I think in my experience, like we we often in the evangelical circle we don't like confession, because we either believe an individualistic idea of the telos of our life, which is the trajectory of well, the good life, is everybody thinking highly of me, the good life and the best life that I can have is people not knowing who I am really underneath of it all. But it's actually all a lie, because if if you know who I really am and what's happening under the hood, then you know all of who I am, which means that now you can love me for all of who I am, not just the surface version of what I'm presenting to you and I think that's the scary part of confession is you have to bring your darkest shadow side, the evil in you, and bring it to the table and offer it up. We'll bring it back to the fire example and throw it in the fire so that it can burn. But at the end of the day, the only way you can throw it into the fire of god's love or the heat of who he is, is it has to get exposed in the process. And the exposing is what everybody wants to avoid. Nobody wants to, nobody want to experience that and but they? The only reason that you don't want to experience it is because you don't know the healing power of bringing it to a brother or a sister.
Speaker 2:And so at the clearing, like when I'm speaking this Sunday, I'm speaking on confession because I think it's important. We're kind of a charismatic, non-denominational church, like even us. Talking about the practice or the sacrament of confession is not normal in our circle. Like I've never heard anybody in my, the stream that I call the Christianity that I'm a part of, I've never heard anybody talk about confession before, which is kind of crazy, because confession is how we repent, it's literally step one to repentance. But I've literally never heard most people I don't think I've ever even heard a sermon taught on it until maybe the last like six months. So it's it's pretty bizarre.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, I think there's this perpetuated idea and I've heard people, even my family, say this and different people like, um, I'm sure you've heard this kind of thing, but yeah, I'm a very spiritual person, I have a relationship with God and it's me and God and I pray by myself and blah, blah, blah. There's a lot of things you can do by yourself. That's not wrong or bad. Like I can go and I can. I can, I can put on a YouTube video, start worshiping, I can pray by myself, whatever, um, but you weren't in community by yourself.
Speaker 1:And one of the traps that you can fall into is, if it's just you and you, you at some point, if you stay in there long enough this is an inevitability you will create God in your image. You will 100% create God in your image. You will 100% get the buffet line of what you can feel is okay or not. The reason why, when we have multiple transcripts going on at the same time of letters through, like the church, you could always compare and you okay, non-hearing emphasis, and what's going on here in galatian, what's going here in corinth, and so if you have a group of people and one of the five does something, totally just out there. It's like you have four other people who have dude like what are you, what are you doing? And so we do have to question ourselves if we don't subject it to other people. In some sense we hiding, or why don't we want to do that now? Some people have experienced trauma.
Speaker 1:Some people have experienced like tyrannical kind of oppressive um parts spiritual abuse or even within their family, like maybe their dad was a bully and he was just like, uh, bullying their, their mom and and, and you know, bullying the children. And then they, they experienced something in school or whatever. So I'm not invalidating that, that's a reality. But when your trauma becomes like the lens by which you're going to view on how you need to operate yourself, you are you're like driving your car, always looking in the rearview mirror, not looking at the road that you're going, and you're you're trying to navigate what to do in front of you by what's in the rear view mirror. And there is a utility to like pain and fear do kind of teach us like of things to avoid, but we move forward with courage and not with naivety. Obviously, well, that's never gonna happen again, but you move forward with courage to like try, take an attempt. Um at it again.
Speaker 1:And that lewis said cs le Lewis and I wanted to kind of pull up for you here. He's talking about confession in the terms of community. He said a Christian community in which we confess our sins to one another and pray for one another is essential. And he was sharing further on that. When we forgive, to be a Christian means to forgive inexcusable, because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you.
Speaker 1:And so confession to another person will create this cycle that when we confess and we know that we're forgiven, we're inspired to extend forgiveness to other people by spreading grace there. The other default to that is an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, which, as that old rabbi said an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth leaves the entire world blind, and we live in a culture now that wants to even retroactively, punish people for things that they've done, in the sense of like someone will post something on Twitter eight years ago or say something eight years ago, and people want to dredge that up and then define that person by that thing. So there is a valid concern about confession of things like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and people can use it against you in the future. That's, that's the heart. That's the hardest part about it is, if you're confessing to the wrong person, they will use it against you and that is that's the hardest like. I've had experiences with different pastors that, like we, we went through a serious spiritual abuse situation, uh, three to four years ago and I remember, after walking through it, going I'm so glad I confessed to this person and I didn't confess to this person because this person would have used any kind of way to say, oh I know, if you only knew the things this person did or the things this person thought of or you know, I mean, like in certain people, can just they'll take, can just they'll take it and they'll run with it. And that's why there is such an importance of picking the people that you know will love you through and through and endlessly, really not just somebody who's like a stand-in, you know.
Speaker 1:And that I think that's the hardest part about confession is navigating well who's safe and who's not safe, because there's a real that there's people who are not safe to confess to well again, like and that kind of comes to the self-awareness when you we talk about like safe and who's the right person, like there's a tightrope walk of I need somebody who loves to tell me the truth.
Speaker 1:I need somebody who loves me enough not to try to control and manipulate what I'm doing in my life, and there's like really a nice edge there and that's not common. It's just not common. But like, if it hurts bad enough and you're in a place where your life it's hurting bad enough, the way to who you are or who you need to be is through the person who you are and the way the person who you need to be is through truth. And you have to. You know that blind spot, kind of without um, an examinal vision on how we think we need to fix things, but you have somebody come in and give a third-party perspective and assess the damage and you're in triage right now.
Speaker 1:You think you're in third degree burns, bro, you need to be. This is what you actually need to be doing, versus the strategy that would have bubbled up for you of what you should be doing or not doing. Uh, in that sense and yeah, make somebody again, I can't stress that enough that, um, they're not trying, they're not trying to control you, they're not trying to, you know, get things twisted, because that becomes hard, because sometimes that's somebody in our family, sometimes that's our pastor, sometimes that's, um, some of a authority or a position of like close relationship that you have to still coexist with that person, but that's not going to be your, your person yeah, this yeah, uh, yeah so yeah, but the yeah.
Speaker 2:The beauty of it when it's done right, is all of that guilt, all that shame, who you really are underneath of it all is all brought into the light. And then, when it's brought into the light, it becomes light itself. You know it. It brought into the light, it becomes light itself. You know it. It really just. It gets burned away in the heat of god's love and then also now you can actually be free to be who you really were meant to be.
Speaker 2:But dallas ward in his book renovation of the heart beautiful philosophical kind of perspective of how do people change what's going on in the inner workings of a person Incredible book, highly recommend it. But he says he says a lot of times people confess their sins and we respond and we go well, that's just not who you are, right, like I. We both went to the same ministry school. So it's like that was it. It was like well, you confess your sin If you said oh well, I admit I really messed up the natural responsibles, that's not who you are, it's okay, that's not who you are. And the and he says he's like no, it's actually the exact opposite. That is who you are, that's who you believe yourself to be true, or that's there's something in the inner workings of who you are, or the genes or whatever, that is saying this is what we believe to be true, or we believe this to be the best thing for us, and so the best thing we can do is come to our community and say this is who I am, and I know it to be a problem. Help me to help me to navigate or to to know how to work through this so that I don't become this, because I don't want this to be who I am. And that's really difficult because there's the I grew up in like this, the grace culture, where it's like you know, it's you know hard, like a lot.
Speaker 2:I love grace. I'm not, I'm not opposed to it, but there there's there's kind of a this like sector of christianity where it's like, well, if you have to try to work, to do something or express any kind of effort of like well, you know, try harder not to sin, like obviously that doesn't work, but this like well, effort is wrong. Um, and Dallas Willard in that book he said this this quote has forever ruined me in the best way. Um, he said grace is not opposed to effort, grace is opposed to earning to effort, grace is opposed to earning. So we're not earning forgiveness in confession. We're not earning uh right standing. We're not earning anything from god, the catholics keep going yeah, there we go.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right, what what we're doing is we're expressing, we're now deciding to to put some effort in right, and that's the catholic version is you confess your sin and then they give you penance, right, and the penance is go do this. It's essentially, go put some effort into the opposite of what you've been doing so that you can become this version. I don't know that I necessarily agree with it from the catholic. Well, no, I do know I don't necessarily agree how the catholics do it, because if you don't do the penance, then it you're not considered forgiven, and there's some truth to that, 100% truth to that, but I think it can get taken too far. But anyways, I think that coming to our community to say this is who I've actually been, and then your community to say you know what? I don't think you should be following these people on Instagram. Or you know what? I think you need to delete social media for a period of time.
Speaker 2:That requires effort, even if we don't want to admit it. Or I think you need to get a stupid phone, not a smartphone. You know where you. You can't be on the internet. Or I think you need to. We'll hold you accountable to not drinking anymore or to whatever it is. It requires effort, but in christianity sometimes we can turn it well. Now you're trying to earn your salvation, you're trying to earn righteousness or earn holiness. It's like, no, it's not that at all. It's I'm trying to put effort into remaining in Christ and being hidden in him and not hidden in sin over here. You know that's. You know that's. I feel like what I'm discovering through this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think, like things can a lot of times people want to deal in loots and then they kind of get things misconstrued. So I'd say, like when people say, oh, that's not who you are, that's not who you are, like both, uh, rich mullins he was a worship leader back in the 1990s and was like, famously wrote the 80s and 90s, famously write the awesome god song, like that's who wrote it. But he once said you are not what believe you are. What you believe is doing to you, which Carl Jung said basically the same thing. He said that you know you're not. It's basically the same thing.
Speaker 1:And so, look at you, know this element of confession. Obviously there is an element to your identity you need to unburden, you need to take an account of. This is actually who I am. This is where I'm at. I can't actually be the person who I need to be in terms of like. My thoughts and my actions and my words are not lining up with who I am right now. So I'm doing an audit of who I am. Does that make me farther away from God in the sense of like what I have access to, with relationship to him? From God's perspective, no, but from ourselves we can create those kind of barriers where we're not going to engage an interface, so it becomes an interrupt, a disruptive thing for intimate, oh true. And so it's like yes, that's not changing that.
Speaker 1:I think like the phrase that we've both heard is like if you're not good enough to earn grace, you can't be bad enough to lose it, but will. People will take that as a kind of uh, permission to ever, and that's why paul says like should we send so that grace will abound? And he's like hell no. In the cotton patch bible, the bible version of why, we says hell no. So uh, all that being this account, why? Because they are.
Speaker 1:We are called to relationship, but then we're also called to purpose, and there is purposes that god is calling us out to different seasons and we're not making that singular like I'm called to be a doctor. There is purposes that God is calling us out to different seasons and we're not making that singular of like I'm called to be a doctor. There's just purposes in different seasons and you're not going to be able to walk that out through a misprioritization of whatever you're giving yourself to. And so it's about having that understanding of like I misprioritized here and I need to restructure and then I can move forward. Yes, and I know how to integrate these things in an honest way into my life, and then how to to get rid of things there. And so I don't think like, and I'm going, I'm gonna guess to you and then, why do you have a? Like penance is like punishing yourself for past deeds, like, but what?
Speaker 1:if I'm if I'm I'm missing the mark, it means I'm aiming at something and hitting the wrong thing, or I'm aiming at the wrong thing and hitting it, and so maybe that's towards God, maybe that's towards myself, maybe that's towards other people, but I need to correct. So what's the point there? The point is acknowledging not hitting the right thing. I'm aiming at the wrong thing. It's not okay, it's not good. I don't want to do this anymore. I want to be different. You're acknowledging it. I want to be different.
Speaker 1:That's the starting point. Then it's like, let's lay out a roadmap of, like, realistically, how do I break this in my life? And there could there might be a set of rituals that you have to implement, like what you were saying. There might be some, some things that you have to do to set your up, to even circumnavigate your own willpower. Like, if I'm gonna go up and run in the morning, I have to lay my shoes, my socks, the shorts, all theirs, that when my feet hit the floor, it's all there, because if I don't, I'm gonna, I know myself, I'll find the excuse of not to do it.
Speaker 2:Um, but yeah and you need to not eat a pizza, a large pizza and two beers the night before right, so so.
Speaker 1:So there's like some lead you to correct that thing. That's there and that's the purpose of like go and do the Hail Marys, go and do the Holy Vows. It's getting your mind in a set of like there are little rituals that I can do to get myself set up. I'm not Catholic, I don't like gribe to to. You know the palpacy and some of those things, but I think like if we miss the forest for the trees on on sacraments and why some of that stuff was was leveraged, um, just by saying like you throw the baby out with the bath water, um, we, uh our own kind of history and negate our own um measurably, uh, change our life.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yep, yeah. One of one of my favorite prayers uh, I think it's from it might be like the Episcopal liturgy prayers or something like that. I heard it and I wrote it down because I just loved it, but one of it it's a prayer of confession, and the prayer of confession it goes like this it's basically I confess for the things I have done and the things I have left undone, and I love that just dual, like it's not just the things you have done, it's also the things you failed to do. Um, and I think that's the like. Sometimes we look at confession like it's gotta be these big, dark, huge secrets, and maybe it's literally just I didn't do the right thing when I needed to because I saw this person in need and I I was greedy. You know what I mean. That's pure good confession. I think that's the like it has to be, this exchange of reconciliation to each other, and that's why I love this whole idea. It's like when I confess to you as a brother in Christ, you get to declare the reconciled reality that Jesus came and bore my sin on the cross and that I've been reconciled to God in Christ and that his spirit lives in me and that there's a higher degree of forgiveness and identity that I'm not aware of. But if I do that for you, as I declare the forgiveness of God over you, what I'm actually doing is I'm forgiving the forgiveness of God, I'm declaring the forgiveness of God over myself and I'm reminding myself of the salvation I've experienced. And so it's not even just a sacrament that impacts just the person confessing it. It impacts the person who's forgiving, who's declaring the forgiveness of sins and the forgiveness of God over the person. Because in doing that, I get to participate in the reconciliation of God and remind myself oh my gosh, that was me and I was forgiven of much and my account was over-withdrawn and the Lord deposited in me everything I needed in Christ Jesus and I've been made holy, I've been made righteous in Jesus. And so in me declaring to my brother or sister no, you're forgiven for that, and here's what you should do to move forward from that, and here's some steps, the effort that you might need to do. But in doing that, I get to participate in the reminder of oh my gosh, look at the gospel, look at all that God has done for me. And it's this beautiful back and forth between his people.
Speaker 2:I think that's why Jesus said he's like, when you pray, pray like this Lord, forgive me, as I forgive those who have done wrong to me. And then, in the same sense, later. He's like if you forgive, whatever you lose in heaven will be loosed on earth. If you forgive you, whatever forgiveness you you forgive, it'll be a withheld or withhold, um. But it's like, if you forgive, it's taken off of them, but if you don't forgive, it's held on to them, um, and I don't. I have not even gone into the depths of that theology of just like being able to walk through this, you know. I mean, I do think there's a reality of walking through the earth and just like. For me, this election cycle was literally just like Lord, forgive them, for they don't know what they're doing. Like Lord forgive them, like this is crazy, what in the world? And just trying to forgive the other side of the aisle, in the same sense that I probably need forgiveness on my side of the aisle, because I'm thinking me versus them. Yeah, and not just yeah.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean it's an absolute whether you know on the political spectrum if you're like right or left, anything in the extreme, journey it and the susceptibility there and both parties are. Both sides are kind of aware of that.
Speaker 1:But I was kind of laughing at you, uh, because you said it doesn't have to be this deep, dark thing. I remember, like when I was in university, there's this little, little philip uh, he was puerto rican kid, he was a wrestler, um, and so always a jovial, like happy guy, and I remember one day he was like jose is his name, he's just really down and I threw my arm around. I'm like, man, like you're really down today. What's going on? He said to me. He said, michael, to live is Christ and to die is gain. I didn't live that today. I didn't live that today. I'm like I don't know what that means. Don't say it. What?
Speaker 2:happened.
Speaker 1:He got some bump on himself there. But to wrap up, that's actually one of the most terrifying verses in the Bible that you account in the Lord's Prayer, forgive me the way that I forgive other people. It's like the only place in scripture where you're actually asking God to mimic your behavior, to mimic your ability to do something Absolutely terrifying, and it's like sheds light on why it's so essential in our culture. And there's a you should go watch. But there's a guy named Gary Ridgway.
Speaker 1:He murdered like 40 women in the court trial. He just faced the entire time and on there so their relatives and mothers of the women who he brutally murdered, and they're like you know, you know, understandably vehemently just saying they were allowed to say whatever they want. And they're like I hate you, I hope you die and go to hell. I hope you burn in hell forever. I hope, like you, live a miserable life in prison, just person after person. He just sat there like just kind of stone faced and this big, big bellied, santa Claus looking dude gets up with a he's got a big white beard right, yeah, yeah rainbow suspenders.
Speaker 1:And then he was like yes, oh my gosh a lot of people here hate you, but I'm not one of them and you've made it really to do what I believe to do. But Jesus tells me that I have to forgive, so you're forgiven, sir. Yes, bro, when I watch that I still cry like a little kid every time when I watch that, because a parent to lose a child is just so crushing I can't even wrap my head around that is just like so crushing to. I can't even like wrap my head around that. But the just him, you know, owning it like this is like easy.
Speaker 1:For me, this is super hard, but this is and most people you know outside of like grace, like we're not gonna understand how to do that. We just simply do not have the capacity to do that. What we uh like is like we like vengeance, we like we build films around that, we build narratives around that. What you want, they want the person to get it in the end. But in the end, like we're thinking in the lines of eternity and there is a judgment and why.
Speaker 1:Why people have really connected to and that idea is even are they may control people for generations, but at some point you have to take an account of what you do and and so, like that's our, that's our role with forgiveness is we're not the person who's going to execute uh vengeance, are going to on on somebody really hard, because we need to validate that justice button inside of us. We need to validate, uh, that that being taken advantage of and we feel like we are weaker or or what transparently like I I I don't know if that, until I'm in these kind of situations, I don't know how I would react.
Speaker 1:I don't know, if somebody just harmed my kid, I don't know how I would. Uh, I mean, I'd probably just beat the teeth out of their head and then like forgive them later. It's kind of like the kid who says I don't I for a bike, but then I stole a bike and asked god for forgiveness, even though I know it's not, but yeah yeah, it's like, it's like the classic republican, like I have always had this, this idea.
Speaker 2:I'm like, uh, you know if what jesus? Well, you shouldn't have gone, you shouldn't have guns, because jesus said you know, if you live by the sword, you'll die by the sword. And I'm like, okay, well, if I, if I live by my guns, I'll just, I'm just prepared to die by a gun I guess yeah, and and there's, you know I mean, and that it's that mindset of just like, oh well, the loophole, um, even though it's exactly the opposite.
Speaker 2:Sure, you know, I mean of the I own guns, but that's always been my mind. So I'm like, if you come into my house and you attack my kids, you're going to experience the wrath of Ethan and I might need to ask for forgiveness afterwards and be prepared for the consequences of my actions, but you're going to die if you come after my kids and that's so hard. But then you experience that's true grace, right. The other is just all justice, no love, no grace. True justice is actually forgiveness of sins, is what the Bible tells us and that's the only part we get to share in injustice from a theological perspective, is my understanding.
Speaker 1:We're going to wrap up here in a second. It's a good place to stop. We'll pick this up and we'll pick it up on the on the lens of this elite and like some political conversations. But there is a form of ungodly mercy that people have kind of like to your point, like they'll take a scripture, they'll deal in an absolute, like oh, jesus said you live by sword die. So jesus also told people if you don't have a sword, sell your cloak and carry a sword and luke. So just pump the brakes like we're. We're all trying to deal in absolutes here. It's not like that. So there is a form of ungodly mercy.
Speaker 1:And if I was the mayor of a town and there's a serial killer in the town, I have some option Either put the guy in prison and risk him breaking out and doing it. I could ostracize him, risk him coming back and missions of moral authority, more superiority, I should say, and then try to reverse engineer what people should do. And he didn't tell the tax collectors to stop being tax collectors, he just said just don't exploit people. But it was still gross. You're being oppressed by. It was gross yeah.
Speaker 1:You're being oppressed by a force. Oh, all, right, we'll wrap up.
Speaker 2:I wanted to meet him anyways, I just started following him on Instagram, okay.
Speaker 1:I'll edit this part out, we'll chop this off the end so we can't hear oh Okay, I stopped According. We'll just talk then, and and we're done. I hope this conversation left you with something to think about, whether that's a new idea, a fresh perspective, a little inspiration to carry forward with you. If you enjoyed the podcast, do me a favor, hit the like button, leave a review on Spotify, on Apple or wherever you consume your podcasting habit and share with somebody who'd appreciate it. Your support helps us reach more people, helps us keep this conversation going, helps me train the algorithm to get in front of people who are most likely to listen. So remember, the best journeys are shared, the best ideas are wrestled with and the best questions rarely have simple answers. So until next time, may you find joy in asking, the courage in seeking and the grace in growing. See you guys, then, bye.
