Hello and welcome back to another episode of Upfront and Undivided with Luke and Dean'na.
Hi.
Hey babe.
How's it going?
It's good.
How are you?
I'm good.
I always look around your office and just, I fixate my thoughts.
Sometimes I close my eyes, but then there's other times I look around and I go, oh yeah,
you have that and oh, we were cute when we were at the very beginning and I mean, we're
still cute.
We are still cute.
Yeah.
I do.
That's like that picture of the three of us always kind of captures my, you know, my attention
and I'm like, aw, Gabriel was so tiny.
So was I.
You know, we were all tiny.
You had no beard.
Nope.
You just had your little goatee.
I'll have to maybe take a picture of this and like say, look, see, this is what I'm talking
about guys.
This is who we were.
This is who we are.
Yes.
And we, according to our daughter, we've glowed up.
Yes, we have.
We have.
I have to, I will absolutely.
Cause we just came back from a trip.
Yes, we did.
And got to see some families celebrated all the September birthdays.
Yes.
And we sat down with my brother and sister-in-law and our daughter always likes to hear stories,
which is fun and they gave her the one, I guess the one photo album of their wedding
because they've been married.
Yeah, from their wedding.
They've been married 35 years.
Yes.
That's huge.
Massive.
That is massive.
And to know who literally to be somebody that got to sit on the sidelines and watch, you
know, it's, I have such respect and honor for my brother and sister-in-law cause like
life has not always been the prettiest for them.
And the fact that they have decided that they were going to really dig in and just go, you
know what, this is better or worse, richer or poorer.
This is what we're doing.
And I love, I love the fact that, you know, cause they told me the story, not this time,
but I think one of the last times we saw them, you know, either a couple, few months ago
or maybe six months ago, whatever.
Yeah.
And I think, you know, how it's like how they got married in the first place because they
were talking about it.
They were, they were both in the army.
They were both stationed in Germany and they were coming to the States for like her sister's
wedding.
Her sister's wedding that fell through.
And that fell through.
And so they're like, well, we're here in the States.
And like your mom was like, well, I guess you got, you guys could get married.
She was the instigator.
And they literally threw a wedding together in like a couple, few days.
I think at tops, it might've been a week, but it was like, well, we're here in the States.
We weren't going to go to a wedding, but there's no wedding.
Okay.
Let's get, let's get you guys get married.
Yeah.
Cause it was, you know, it just, they were living together, doing all the things and
just being all the stuff.
And it's just, and I know that they kept going back and forth according to Dawn this last
time when she was talking about like the pair, the paperwork to get married had been taken
out of the drawer and put in the drawer so many times that it was like all crinkly and
just whatever.
But yeah, she's like, butch that out of 35 years, I have never heard that part of the
story.
So it was really neat to just sit and listen to people's, you know, like their starts,
like you know me, I love, I love stories.
Give me, give me the good.
I want to, I want to know the goods and the raw, like tell me the real, like tell me the,
and they are not bashful about telling you what God has done and how like their lives
should have been blown up several times and their marriage should have been called quits
on several occasions.
And, and they just kept saying, no man, like this is, this is what we're doing.
And so it was fun to, to, I said all that to say the pictures, like Gabri's looking
through the pictures and then she sees me at 13, my hair is bigger than the rest of
my body and just, you know, it was eighties guys.
Like what I, what can I say?
And I literally look like a Las Vegas, like lounge singer is kind of stupid.
It's fine.
They found out later, you know, while this trip, they were like, well, what did you,
you know, that outfit.
And I said, it was actually from my eighth grade prom is what I wore.
And so I was like, oh, we'll just wear it again.
And so I was like looking at the picture and put my finger over it and I go, now it looks
good.
And Gabri's like, mom, stop.
And she goes, but you do not look the same.
And I go, no, I do not.
I am definitely, I have, I have grown into me.
I always call it the ugly duckling syndrome.
I wouldn't have called myself an ugly kid.
I just, there's nothing, I don't know.
I don't want to sound like I'm pulling myself apart or down or trying to fish for a compliment.
I'm not, I just, I just know that I know what God has done in my life.
I know what I look like even in this picture.
Like you're, you, you came to the front end of me coming out of the tail end of a bunch
of mess and to see the life.
I don't know.
I look at our lot, our eyes in these pictures and I go, man, like the light literally is,
is on now where it was just barely flickering, but we've grown a lot.
We have grown.
It's we've grown a lot and it's good.
And it was a good trip.
Like I said, celebrated the September birthdays and just got to spend time with family.
Just some good quality time, you know, and we laughed, we played in water, we got sun.
Yeah.
We laughed.
Yeah.
Did we cry this trip?
I don't think so.
A little bit.
My sister-in-law did, but it was because of just the heart of gratitude.
She was just overwhelmed by the goodness of God.
And again, stories of her and my brother and just going through life.
My brother, for those that don't know, my brother had, was it stage five or was it stage
four?
Stage four.
Oh, okay.
Stage four colon cancer.
And technically like four B.
Yeah.
Like, like he was exiting the building guys.
Like he shouldn't have been here to the point where, what did they say?
There was a 5% chance or 6% chance that he was even going to make it.
So, and here he is alive, kick in.
Cancer free.
Almost, almost five, six, seven.
How are, where are we?
Seven?
Is it seven years?
Somewhere in there.
Seven, eight.
Sure, he'll correct us.
Anyway, yeah, he'll correct us.
It's fine.
So Bobby, if you're listening to this, remind us, but it's fine.
It's one of those where he's alive and kicking and there's residue that he's still having
to deal with.
But the fact is that he's not given up.
He's stubborn like that.
Yeah.
And we're grateful he's stubborn like that.
Yes, we are.
And it's, it's good.
So family's good for the soul.
Most of the time.
I'm just going to say family's good for the soul.
I'm not going to give it any other thing.
It's just, it was good.
We came back refreshed.
We came back really excited about laying back down in our bed.
Yes.
And just being home.
There's no place like home.
Yes.
So yeah.
What were you laughing about?
You kind of giggled for a second.
Did I?
A little bit.
I don't remember.
Okay.
I'm sure it was probably something.
I mean, it's always something.
I don't, I mean, I do sometimes giggle for no reason.
Do you randomly laugh just for no reason?
I don't think so.
No.
It's usually because some random thoughts come into my head.
A lot of times it's like, it's hard.
It's one of those things that's like my brain has inside jokes for my brain.
It's like the compartments.
It's like, you know, like one, one, one little brain cell from one cubicle will run over
to another cubicle and tell an inside joke and then run back to his own cubicle.
Okay.
Yeah.
I literally could see that in my head.
Yeah, you're welcome.
So next time you giggle, I'll be like, so what were your coworkers giggling about?
What were your cubicle characters doing?
That's funny.
And again, it's sometimes I don't even remember.
I don't even realize what's going on.
I'm not mad about it.
Yeah.
I think you're cute, babe.
Thanks.
So what are we talking about today?
So I think it's, it's kind of fun that we talked about that.
But one of the things I want to talk about is I know we talk about, I know we talk about
a lot of stuff in our podcast and in our lives and with our friends.
And I kind of want to just, for some of the people that are new to the party or some of
the people that are, that have been here for a while, you know, I just, you know, kind
of that refresher of why do we do what we do?
You know, and it's, you know, because we're, you know, just, just with this project, you
know, the, the upfront and undivided, you know, we're, we're doing, we're doing the
podcast we're working on.
You're working on a devotional.
Yes.
You know, you're working on a little mini book.
Yes.
I'm sorry.
Yeah, that's right.
You know, you're working on the mini book based on our last episode of take your vitamins.
Yes.
You know, we, we are thinking about, you know, adding cameras to the studio here.
We're thinking about adding a shop so that we could, you know, sell t-shirts and merch
and stuff like that, you know, just trying to, to help get our name out there.
And, and, you know, if people want to support our stuff or, you know, if we come up with
a really cool idea, you know, we can, we can put that on a t-shirt and sell encouragement,
so to speak, or just give encouragement out to, to wherever.
But it is, it's just, you know, why are we?
Why do we sit in my basement office and talk into microphones, not to anybody in particular?
Right.
But why do we do this?
Why do we talk?
And, you know, I had this thought earlier and, and I know you know what I'm going to
say, but I'll, I'll say it out there, you know, to, to kind of get raw and real, you
know, there, there are times that we, we hear stories.
There are times that we think of situations, you know, because we do, we see, we see what's
out in the world, we see what's in the church, we see what's around us, you know, we, we
talk to coworkers, we talk to friends, family, we see social media, you know, we, we see
how people talk and, you know, we see the movies, the TV, the politics, and it's our
own lives, our own lives, you know, and there are times where we do, there are times we
want to just, we almost get this feeling of, well, we have a platform, we should, we should
correct people and we should tell them what they're doing wrong and we should kind of
like slam them, so to speak, and, and okay, you guys are wrong, this is what you need
to do.
Right.
But it's, but it's then, it's like we have that knee-jerk reaction, but we don't actually
record that reaction.
Yeah.
You know, we never want to come off like that.
We don't, you know, because we, we do, we want to, from day one, we've always wanted
to be encouragement.
Yeah.
We've always wanted to not be the ones that give advice, but maybe provide ideas to start
the conversations in your own relationships, in your own families.
Yeah.
Because, you know, it's, it's not so much the, this is what you need to do, more have
you thought about it this way?
Right.
You know, it's, it's the, I don't know, it's, it's like, there are times where it's like
we do kind of get like upset at a situation or a mindset.
Yes.
You know, but it's, it's never, you know, we never want to come across as, as saying,
you know, well, you did, you did it X way.
So you're wrong.
Right.
You know, or, or you have this mindset.
So therefore your, your marriage is going to fail because you have that mindset.
It's like we, we do our best not to do that.
We do our best to, to never come across that way.
You know, a, we don't want to, we don't like being negative.
No, not at all.
You know, even when we're, we're getting down on ourselves, we don't like being negative.
Yeah.
But also again, like I said, we want to provide encouragement.
We want to, yes, we might not show like all the real that happens in our lives, but we
do a pretty good job of saying, you know, Hey, here's what's been going on in our lives.
And you know, Hey, we didn't get back to, you know, last week because this was going
on or Hey, we've been, you know, Dina has been diagnosed with cancer.
Come with us on the journey.
Right.
You know, so it's, you know, so again, it's like,
we want to be real and we want to show you that not everything about marriage is, is
hearts and flowers, right?
But we do want to give, you know, for better or worse, we want to provide an example.
Yes.
We want to provide, you know, not, not saying we're the best, right?
But we at least want to want to provide an example of what could be done of what could
happen.
Yes.
And I know that we literally had somebody walk up to us.
Was it a couple of weeks ago or was it last Wednesday?
Last Wednesday.
And it was a gentleman, his friend of ours.
And he's like, dude, I didn't even realize you guys had a podcast.
And now that I'm like plugging in and I'm like picking and choosing different ones that
I think like, you know, who I'm talking about that might obtain, you know, might pertain
to me or whatever.
And he says like, I really like what you guys have to say.
And he was being very encouraging, very good friend.
He's he's just precious and the whole family is just precious.
But what I had said to him was I said, our goal is always just to talk about the thing
that nobody else wants to talk about.
Yeah.
We want to we want to bring to light the thing we want to we want to bring to light the thing
that tries to hide into the closet.
And that ultimately could cause the demise of whatever relationship, whether it be your
marriage, whether it be with your children, with coworkers, with people around you, we
want to expose the thing that would try to take you out.
Yeah.
And his Do you remember what he just he says, thank you for that.
Yeah.
And thank you for that.
Because it's like, I know that one of the things I kind of really a catalyst was I was
raised in church all my life.
You've been raised in church, but again, a different forum.
But the fact is that I I've been raised in church all my life, and I can genuinely stand
back and say that there are certain topics that you and I will speak on and talk about
that that is very much in the Word of God, but the church itself will not talk about.
And for for whatever reason, again, we do our best to just not be brash and not to be
critical.
Yeah.
But it's not even but that being said, we want to be able to look at people and say,
I'm not scared of this topic.
I'm not scared of this conversation.
Because when there's a fear of, you know, well, my spouse cheated on me or well, you
know, I lost a spouse or I lost a child or I lost this or this had happened.
Maybe my body doesn't function anymore.
And just the 90,000 things that we have probably kind of touched on somewhere along the way,
just just looking at people and saying, you're not an anomaly.
There's nothing new under the sun.
God very much knew what was going on.
If we look back far enough somewhere along the Word of God, we're going to be able to
find something that where God says something about something else.
And then we're but then on top of that, we're surrounded by these amazing people in our
lives that have pushed past the religious barriers and said, I believe God.
Yeah.
You know, we've got we've got people in our lives that literally have stood the test of
time and defied every odd.
I would I would say that my brother and sister-in-law, they're in that they're in that stature in
my brain.
Yeah.
Again, me being the one that gets to sit on the sideline and watch.
Yeah.
You know, and again, it's like we've we've named several people in our lives before we've
got the Knowles, we've got the Thomassons, we've got like so many the Weedmans, we've
got all these men and we've been blessed to have them even come and sit and talk to us.
And I want excuse me, I want desperately.
My brother and I were talking over the weekend and it was just he and I and it was really
late into the night.
And we were talking just family talk.
And I finally just said, because he and I are very much I mean, you know, we are family,
but we're very much cut from the same cloth when it comes to certain things.
And in the the cloth that I think that we're cut from is the cloth of just be real with
me.
Be honest.
Yeah.
Be honest with me.
Be be honest about your failures.
Be honest about your frailties.
Be honest with me, because when we're honest with people and when we when we allow the
light to come on to our weaknesses, what it does is it number one, the the sin or the
the shortcoming or the fault or the failure.
Number one, it starts losing its power.
Yeah.
But then number two, when it when it's like, here it is, this is what I'm dealing with.
This is what I'm going through.
All of a sudden, you're going to see people that go because of the way that you're responding
based off of the fact that you're still even trying or you're standing, even though they
may not know the the raw of the groveling and the crying and the the laying in the middle
of the kitchen floor, kicking like a four year old because you're mad or whatever it
is, you know, it and even being real about that.
When we as the people of God say, this is why I need a savior, like this is why I need
a god.
This is why I this is why I need people around me to constantly support me and encourage
me.
This is why I need to come up to somebody that I can trust that I can fall down in front
of and they're not going to sit here and go, well, I don't even know what to do and blah,
blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, or you should have known better than that.
Instead, you want people that you can say, hey, this is what I'm struggling with.
This is what I'm going through.
And can can you help me walk with this?
Can you can you expose the works of the enemy?
Well, you've been a Christian all your life or you've been a Christian for so you should
have.
And then we're seeing like in the last, we've been seeing it forever.
But specifically in the last six months, like these major churches, these major leaders
that like are falling.
And it's like, did did anybody was anybody close enough?
Did they feel like they could be real and raw enough to say, man, like, I'm about to
lose it.
I'm really messing up here or I'm dealing with stuff.
Or if they if they did try to open up and and all were they were they surrounded by
people that either dismissed it.
Right.
Or, no, no, the enemy is just chatting, you know, chattering to you or no, no, it's OK.
That's not a sin.
You're fine.
Right.
You know, you're just tired.
Right.
You know, you know, maybe that's oh, maybe that's the way God's going to move next.
You know, horrible as that sounds, you know.
Right.
But I've heard enough stories.
I haven't I haven't experienced, but I've heard enough stories.
It's crazy.
Of just like, what was it?
There's I heard a story years, years, years ago of like apparently there was like a group
of gentlemen that were married that they went to their wives and said basically like, oh,
we feel like God's calling us to minister to women at strip clubs.
Shut up.
Yeah.
It's like, how do you how do you even get gutsy enough for that?
You know, and I just wow, you know, and it's like probably nobody called him out.
Yeah.
You know, or, you know, somebody somebody told me some pastor told me there was a church
where all of a sudden, like all the leadership, they were like, oh, yeah, God told us that
we're supposed to swap wives.
I do remember that story.
You know, it's like it's like, no, no, nobody said, hey, I think that's a bad idea.
I don't think that's biblical.
Hey, where is this in the word of God?
Right, right.
And I think that and that's so that's kind of where we're at.
We're we're we're in that space of, you know, you have leadership, you have people around
you, maybe, you know, some authority or you have people above you and and they're saying
something and there's something inside your spirit that just doesn't it just doesn't hit
like you're just standing there going, there's just something not right here.
Like there's just something not okay.
Yeah.
Or, you know, you're going through a situation and then you've got people that are looking
at you going, well, I never could have gone through something like that.
Well, that's okay.
You're not going through it, but I am.
And watch me.
Yeah.
Watch what God can do in the midst of this.
And let us, you know, let us encourage you with the word of God.
Yes.
You know, with with the wisdom of the word of God.
Yes.
You know, again, not that we're perfect.
Now we have the answers, but let us get you thinking along those lines.
Yeah.
And instead of the the fleshly lines or the worldly lines or the, you know, well, I just
want to be surrounded by people.
You know, again, I I've got the example in my head of, you know, there are there are
good things out there that you that we could do.
There are a lot of good things that the people of God could do.
Yeah.
But if that's not what you're being called to, it's not going to be blessed.
That's right.
You know, that's right.
And again, one of my favorite examples is, you know, going out and feeding the homeless,
you know.
Yes.
Feed the homeless.
It is a good thing.
Yeah.
But to sit there and say, well, that's my calling.
That's my ministry.
Because it's a good thing.
Right.
It's like, but if if God's called you to, you know, to go be a teacher.
Right.
So why are you why are you spending so much time with the homeless and feeding the people
versus doing what God has told called you to be?
Right.
I saw a really cool reel.
It was a musician.
And he said, too many people.
Oh, this is kind of a side note, but just I want to say it because it is important that
too many people say this is my calling.
This is who I'm supposed to be.
Or this is what God had told me to do 10, 20, 30 years ago, whatever it is.
Right.
And this is what I'm this.
This is basically this is my identity.
Right.
And in the word of God, and I do not know the scripture, but the gentleman actually gave
scripture and I loved it.
He says, now, listen, I'm a musician and people would say, oh, you're working out your calling.
You're actually walking out your calling.
He says, OK, what happens if my fingers get broken?
Yeah.
And if I lose my voice and I can never sing again, am I no longer walking in my calling?
Am I being out of the line of God?
And he says, what our calling is, is to love God.
To because there's going to be people that stand in front of him and he's going to go
depart from me.
I never knew you, but I did all these things in your name, God.
That's great.
But I didn't know you.
Right.
I didn't get to know you.
And so don't get caught up in doing so much as opposed to becoming who he is, a relationship
as to having a relationship with him.
You know, and so but back to and that's just a real right.
That's just that's a real conversation.
That's it's it's you know, because too many times, you know, that people talk even about
like fight for ministry or or this is, you know, I'm a healing ministry or prophetic
or or all of the things.
And I just want to go, I just I'm just a child of God.
I'm I'm a king's kid.
And I'm going to do what he tells me to do when he tells me to do it.
Because if he tells me to go feed somebody today, I'm going to go feed somebody today.
But if he tells me to go prophesy or just to go give a word of knowledge or maybe go
flip over to table tomorrow, then that's what I get to go do.
But ultimately, I want to be so close to his chest that I can literally hear his voice.
And then I just speak what he has me to say.
Yeah, that's that's who we are supposed to be.
Yeah, period.
Everything else is just fluff.
Yeah, right.
Like, just it's just fluff.
So if if our identities are getting caught up in, you know, what is your position or
the prestige or or even your relationship, you know, with your your spouse, with your
family, with the people, if your identity rests in that, reevaluate that identity.
Yes, that that gets you get to be one of those people that that's kind of a description of
you, but that is not the definition of you.
So I'm just I'd say that that's probably the number one thing.
We just want to remind everybody, you know, we want to remind everybody just be authentically
you.
Be be who God has created you to be.
And if this season of the journey is over, then bless it and then be excited for whatever
the next round is.
If if you're in the middle of the muck and the mire and some of the heavy in the heart,
then buckle down and know where your source lies, where your help comes from.
It comes from the Lord.
Yeah.
You know, ask him to direct you, guide you, give you wisdom.
You know, be real, be be open, be transparent.
You know, that's who we are.
That's who we are.
And that's and we're just trying to create a space and almost give people permission
to be those people, too.
Yeah.
And it is you can, you know, it's like I always want to go to, you know, be prepared, you
know, you know, like I know kind of in my in in my own personal box and bubble, I, you
know, I look at some of the stuff about, you know, you know, what if what if this happened
and what if this happened in the world and what if that happened in our country and all
that?
Well, I don't ever want to be a prepper, but I want to be prepared.
You know, I want to know what's going on.
I want to be able to handle what's going on.
And it's the same thing with with the kingdom of God.
You know, it's you know, I know there's a lot of people focused on on what's going to
happen when the end comes.
Yeah.
You know, and they they do their best to stockpile and prepare for all that.
But it's like, what if you just instead of focusing on how you're going to deal with
the end, be prepared for what might come tomorrow.
Come on, sir.
Be prepared for what might come tonight, because, you know, we can we can all get in the word
of God and we can all, you know, again, we can focus on what does God say?
What is God like?
What does God hate?
You know, how does he want us to act to each other?
How does he want us to treat ourselves even?
Yeah.
You know, and we can do all that.
And so that way, we're better prepared for when some of these situations do come up for
for when some of these speed bumps, optical traps, right?
You know, voices of the enemy, you know, all these things, you know, for when they come
up, you know, even the opportunities or the good things in life or the, you know, hey,
I want you to speak.
You know, so that way, if you know, my my running joke is, you know, well, what if you're
at church and during worship or something, you know, the pastor or somebody all of a
sudden, you know, grabs a microphone and puts it in your face and said, what do you have
to say about God?
You know, it's like, I don't I don't know.
I don't I have nothing good to say about God.
Well, why not?
Why?
Why do you not have anything good to say about God?
So it's like so it's kind of that, you know, be prepared and fill yourself.
And so that way, when these things do come, you're at least have you at least have something
on your you have some kind of foundation for where to to step out and where to start
for for when this happens.
Yeah.
And and with all that, it reminds me kind of of the you know, and I said this upstairs.
It's one of my favorite quotes from I believe it was Mike Tyson that said it.
Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face.
That's it.
You know, so when the enemy does come and punch you in the face, you know, yes, you
can you can be prepared and you can say, oh, man, if I if I was ever, you know, downtown,
and and the enemy came up to me, this is how I would ward him off.
And I'd be awesome.
And I'd be like soldier of Christ.
Bam.
Right.
You know, and it's like you probably won't.
You don't know.
Yeah.
You know, it's like it's like with soldiers, you know, no no soldier knows how they're
going to react until all of a sudden bullets start flying.
That's true.
You know, I a lot of people know this.
I don't know if I've said this on our podcast or not, but it's like I'm on the security
team.
Yeah.
I can sit here and work out plans and ideas and talk to my people about, you know, what
if what if something bad happened?
What if there's an active shooter?
What if there's this?
And and as much as we can train and prepare and think about these things through, we're
not going to know how we're actually going to act.
Correct.
Until bullets are flying.
Correct.
You know, until you hear that pop, pop, pop.
Right.
We don't know.
Right.
We don't know what we're talking about.
Right.
Same.
Yeah.
But it's but it's true.
But but what I do think is just to piggyback on what you're saying.
Yeah.
One of the things that we can say when it is a spiritual thing, when something is coming
at us, that there's something coming at your marriage, there's something coming at your
children.
Right.
What I will say is make sure I think what you're talking about is like the preparation.
It's making sure that foundation is built underneath you.
Yeah, it's it's knowing the word of God.
It's having scriptures that you can stand on.
It's it's being able to even maybe step back for just a second.
You know, like one of our favorite scriptures is be quick to listen, slow to speak, quick
to understand and slow to respond.
Yeah.
And you don't have to even respond immediately.
Right.
You know, but even if it comes out raw, if it comes out, what would be considered to
others, very secular or very carnal, like your cousin, like a sailor, trust me, I've
done it.
Yeah.
You know, what you do is you just go, OK, after you're done blowing up and doing whatever
you got to do, even if it's a throw and a fit or if even if it's not even throwing a
fit because in my mind, there is times where I'm screaming.
I'm not throwing a fit.
I'm I'm just flat mad, you know, and it's OK because even God says, you know, here's
Christ saying it's OK to be angry.
Just don't sin.
Yeah.
Right.
Like, absolutely.
We tell our daughter like because that is, you know, she gets loud, you know, or she
wants to throw something.
OK, throw something.
Just don't sin.
Like maybe be careful what you're throwing and pretty much what you're throwing it at.
But you work it out.
You figure it out, you know, and it's it's it's again, giving people permission to be
human, giving people permission to have the humanity of Christ, even because he got mad.
Like he was angry.
We're walking around thinking that like, you know, he's just like so super calm and whatever.
And he probably sat there and made a whip because he was angry at people in the temple.
But he did it with a smile on his face and he did it with joy and praise in his.
I doubt it.
You know what I mean?
Father, if I'm wrong, forgive me, but I doubt it.
I don't I see Jesus just going, all right, God, here's the deal.
This is what we're doing, Dad.
We're just going to just want and even with that.
Yeah.
Example, you know, or anything else, you know, if somebody does something wrong, if somebody
wrongs you in some way, you know.
If God is able to forgive the people that were defiling his temple, his tabernacle,
if he's able to forgive them and then we sit there and say, well, you wronged me and I'm
going to hold it against you or I'm not going to give you a second chance.
Yeah.
Or that's an that's an acceptable sin.
I can I can forgive that.
But it's not.
But it's one of those things.
No, no, no, no.
So, you know, it's like when we do that, it's like all of a sudden it's like we're putting
ourselves more important than God.
And I know that's not a right word.
No, but I want to say it to stress it.
Yeah.
You know, and it's it is it's.
Because when somebody wrongs us, if some I'm not going to say if when when somebody wrongs
us because we are human, we all err.
We get to give them second chance.
We get to we get to give that forgiveness.
We get to to let that forgiveness flow.
You know, it might hurt at first.
Yeah.
And yes, we can.
I'm not going to forgive you yet.
I need to I need to be hurt.
I need to feel this hurt for a little bit.
Yeah.
Then I forgive you.
But I'm wounded.
Yeah.
Give me I need to heal.
It's time.
I got to heal.
Yeah.
You know, but it's like I do.
I think I think a lot of that, you know, and especially when it comes to to to relationships
and marriages and stuff like that, because we are going to do stuff wrong.
We are going to step on each other's toes.
But it's like our first response.
Yes.
Take that beat.
You know, be quick to listen, slow to, you know, slow to respond.
Yeah.
But be quick to forgive.
It's yes.
You know, because with as much as we might do to each other.
How many times have we sinned to God?
And if we if God held it against us and said, you sinned, I can't forgive that or I'll forgive
you, but I won't give you another chance.
It's like nobody would be able to get into heaven.
Even the most spiritual, saintly pastor would not be able to get into heaven if God did
not give us second chances.
So God is willing to give us umpteen chances.
As long as we come to him and say, I'm I was a bonehead, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
Please forgive me.
Yeah.
He would in a heartbeat.
Yeah.
So why are we not doing that for each other?
Yeah.
Why are we not willing to have that stance, even even entertain the idea with each other?
It's a fear of getting hurt again.
It is.
It's a not willing to let go.
Yeah.
You know, it's I think it's also those places where it's like, well, if I forgive them,
then they're gonna that gives them permission to do something like that again.
And you want to go.
I don't know how many times I've told the story that if it wasn't the thing, the things
that I was caught up in, if when I came to you and said, this is everything that I have
done.
And if you yourself had just been like, well, nope, you're too far gone.
And there's just no way and all the things I probably would have walked right back into
what it was that I came out of, because all of a sudden what happens is you don't give
somebody an opportunity to to try again.
You've just basically given them a life sentence of you shouldn't even try.
You are always going to be who you're always going to be based off of what you've done
as opposed to believing that God could literally remake, restore and rebound this person into
the fullness of what it was that they were created to be.
And and we're not willing to walk through the hard.
We're not willing to.
And I think sometimes it's also because if we do that to somebody else, like it's exposing
something inside of us.
Like if well, if God really could forgive you, then that means I need to deal with some of
this stuff inside of me.
Or you're dealing with a prejudice or you're dealing with a bias.
You're dealing with you're dealing with your own shortcomings, your own religious stuff
that says there's levels of sin where God says anything that takes me away from you
and you from me, that's sin.
Anything that separates us is sin, whether you're lying, whether you're cheating, whether
you're stealing, killing, all the things, right?
All the things coveting, whether you're gossiping.
These are all things that separate you from me.
So don't do it.
It could get you caught up and lost and then cut off.
And it's like we need we need to be people of God and friends enough to each other that
are willing to like you and I are doing right now to sit down and look at each other and
say, come on, like let's let's get into the real about this because you're you're wanting
to stay in the shallow water where God wants to take you into the deep.
Let's let's not let's not just be in the healed, but let's be in the hole.
Let's not just let him.
What did Heather say that one day about the mechanic?
Oh, yeah.
It's like the difference between a mechanic and somebody that restores.
Yeah.
I mean, again, it's you can fix the problem because a mechanic will just maintain it or
just fix it enough to just get you back on the road.
Whereas a restorer, somebody that's going to restore a car will, you know, it's it's
going to involve tearing it apart, getting new parts, you know, knocking out all the
debts and basically getting a vehicle or whatever back to new or like new.
Yeah.
And that takes time.
That takes effort.
Yeah.
That takes getting dirty.
But it's worth it.
Yeah.
Because in the end, it's going to be better than what it was before.
Yeah.
Period.
Yeah.
That's it.
I like your thoughts.
Thanks.
This is good.
Appreciate it.
What did you title this?
I was just saying, why do we do this?
Why do we do this?
Yeah.
We do this to give you guys space.
Yeah.
We give you guys permission.
It's not even a permission to fail because I've had somebody say that to me once before.
They're like, well, you know, I'm going to do this.
I'm going to do this.
Yeah.
I just want to say, guys, if you get back up again, because I've had this experience
before, they're like, when you tell people your stuff, you've just given them permission
to sin.
And I said, no, I gave them permission to fall and to get back up again is what I did.
It's not a thing of sinning.
It's a thing of, I'm giving you room to grow.
And with growth comes bumps and scrapes and stuff.
So be that person, guys, this week.
Give people room, give people room to grow,
and walk with compassion and mercy, love justice,
seek mercy, walk humbly with your God,
do those things, and then watch God,
watch what God can do.
Yeah.
And it's gonna be good.
It's good.
All right, guys, have the best week.
Enjoy the journey.
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