Hello and welcome to another episode of Upfront and Undivided with Luke and Dean'na.
How's it going?
Hi babe!
Hi!
Happy Valentine's Day!
It's been a good day!
February 14th, 2022.
Yep, just in case we need to, I guess, tell people that.
Yes, just in case people are looking back.
Yeah?
It's true, because I was told a couple weeks back, so one of our sweet, sweet friends,
he told me I was not allowed to say his name.
Ah, yes.
Okay, so you know which one I'm talking about.
And so he informed us that his podcast, Roll Out With Us, doesn't show up until Thursday.
Yes.
So, hey, happy Valentine's Day, friend!
We love you guys.
Yes.
Especially the beautiful wife of yours and those cute little baby girls.
All right.
See?
I didn't say your name though!
That's right.
See?
All sorts of people we know.
I kept, I mean, you know, that's no joke.
That's true.
Literally, that's like 90% of our friends.
True.
They come with children.
Yeah.
And they are a beautiful couple.
Yes.
They really are genuinely one of our favorite people.
They're just, I'm going to dote on them just for a second, because it's like, you know
those people that you walk into a room and they light up when they genuinely seem incredibly
excited to see you.
Yeah.
And they're just that family.
That's true.
They're just absolutely genuine from the inside out.
I agree.
They, I just, you always feel good.
They could say, hi!
And then you're like, yes!
I can conquer the world, let's go.
You know?
Yes.
And so I just, I'm incredibly grateful that we have friends like that.
Me too.
So anyway, what are we talking about, babe?
So today we're going to kind of go, it might not seem like it fits, but it does.
Okay.
So is it a painful process?
Is it a painful process?
Okay.
Because let's let everybody in a little bit about what we kept going back and forth with,
because we weren't sure.
We were like, Valentine's Day, this is something we were wanting to talk about anyway.
We thought about talking about sex on this one, but we've decided-
And intimacy.
Yes, intimacy.
Yeah.
Because, yes.
Yeah.
And we were like, last week we really talked about like the kryptonite of people's lives
and just kind of exposing those things and us becoming more familiar with the weaknesses
in our lives.
This week, I think it's more of, you know, us being a little bit more strategic on maybe
helping to undergird those things or at least maybe even purge those things out and like
deal with them, right?
Yeah.
Okay.
And not just deal with like weaknesses, but you know, life is seasons.
Yes.
You know, we're always going through seasons, you know, be it in life, be it in marriage,
parenthood, church.
Yeah.
You know, we're always, you know, God is in the Holy Spirit.
They're always revealing what's in us and what's in our hearts and, you know, what are
we feeding?
And you know, it's, and sometimes we have to go through those seasons where we need
to trim back.
Right.
We need to cut those things, you know.
Recently, I heard somebody talking about, I think it was the parable of a fig tree.
Yes.
And how, you know, it wasn't producing fruit, so let's just cut it down.
Yeah.
You know, and how I believe it was Jesus told the parable of, you know, on the vine, you
want to cut off the branches that aren't producing fruit.
Right.
Because in reality, in life, when you prune, especially a fruit tree or any kind of plant,
you actually make it healthier.
You make it stronger.
You make it able to produce more and better fruit.
Right.
It's like, I know your friend, our friend, your friend.
Yeah.
The fun story about the tomato plants.
Yes.
Okay.
So, for some of y'all that don't know, with a tomato plant, when it has the shoots and
like, what is it, basically the vine part?
Is it shoots or vines or?
Yeah, those little, yeah, somewhere in there.
Anyway, there's called sucker leaves that go in between like, I keep-
The little branches.
This is where I wish we had like, we're on video because I'm doing hand signals.
Yes.
And I am a big hand talker, but it's like basically the branches, but there's always
like this, the sucker leaf is what it's called.
And if you do not prune those things back, it will take the nourishment from that plant.
It will take it from the tomato and ultimately it'll either die or the tomato itself will
become malnourished.
It'll just, it won't grow to as full as the potential.
Right.
Okay.
The beautiful thing is that she also said, if you take that sucker leaf and then you
separate it from the tomato plant itself and you start nourishing it, you put it in water,
you can even plant it to itself.
It will spring up and create its own plant.
So it's like, kind of like what you're saying, it's not just a weakness situation.
Sometimes it's like, I need to pull myself away from this so I can produce more, or I
need to take this part of, you know, whatever is in my life.
Like I was telling on the way over, you know, cause we did our pin turning, which was so
cool.
Yeah.
So cool.
Very inspiring.
Highly recommend everybody do that at least once in their life.
We might actually have to go buy one of these things.
It's amazing.
I would not be sad.
I know you wouldn't.
I wouldn't either.
That's true.
I think Gabriel would dig this.
She was incredibly impressed with our final products.
So anyway, so we're going and we're talking about like cutting back just even in the lathe,
you know, it's we're cutting back the bulk, right?
We're not destroying, we're just pulling out the full potential of what this piece of wood
can be.
Yeah.
And ultimately shaving it down to where it's this beautiful.
I mean, like we're talking about the, what did we did?
We did three different sandpapers even you had the three, three, three, three, 20, the
four, one, and then six.
And it was like, and the more that you sanded it, the smoother it became.
Yeah.
And then it's like here, I want to give you this white piece of cloth that was felt so
good and put oil on it.
And while it's spinning, you rub that oil on it and then you start seeing the luster
and you start seeing the beautiful, even the grains, you see even the imperfections that
become beautiful just under that, that salve of goodness that's just being rubbed on it.
And it's so, and it's also with the friction, the friction because it got hot.
Did yours get hot?
Yeah, it did.
Okay.
Cause I was like, I remember I asked him cause he's like, it might get hot.
I'm like, is it supposed to get hot?
He said yes.
Cause it is like friction heat activated.
Cause we're working with wood.
I hate for this thing to like just burst in flames in my head.
But it created the most beautiful piece of artwork basically.
And so it's one of those where it's like, we have to understand that that pruning process,
it could be on multiple different levels.
It's not necessarily a bad thing.
Sometimes we think, oh my gosh, stuff is happening or oh my gosh, this person left out of my
life or oh my goodness, I no longer have XYZ or this job or whatever, you know, fill in
the blank.
But all of a sudden it's like, you're going, ah, what do I do now?
And the whole time, you know, Holy Spirit or God is just like, I'm refining you because
ultimately I know what's around the corner and I need, I need to prune some stuff out
of you so that way you can survive and thrive and be healthy.
Yeah, right.
And kind of how you were saying survive and thrive.
Yeah.
Cause one thing I wanted to bring in with this was yes, it might feel awkward.
It might feel weird.
And sometimes you might get that emotional hurt, but pruning and refining and these are
not gentle process.
No, they're not.
You know, they are not gentle things.
So sometimes it can feel painful.
Yeah.
Sometimes it can be rough.
Yes.
I know when we were having a talk about this the other day, you know, kind of setting up
our show, speaking of surviving and pruning, I went the extreme of those, you know, think
of those mountaineers and you know, those hikers that, you know, they get caught in
a rock slide or something and all of a sudden they're like, Oh yeah, I had to pull out my
pocket knife and cut off my arm.
Yeah.
Just so that I could get somewhere to get rescued.
Right.
You know, and sometimes, I mean, if you think about it, you know, Oh, we're pruning a tree.
Right.
We're cutting this branch off.
And you know, a lot of times people don't think about it because it's a tree.
Right.
Trees don't have feelings.
Right.
And sometimes when you cut that off, that, you know, especially if it's something connected
to you, connected to your life, that can be painful.
I agree.
And yes, a lot of times it's necessary.
Yeah.
Almost every time it's necessary for growth, for development.
Right.
You know, when you think about refining, you know, how is something refined?
It's usually under pressure or fire.
Yeah.
So let's, let's completely melt you down.
Yes.
To refine all the dirt and gunk out of you.
Yeah.
Tell me that's a pleasant process.
Well, let's go into that because like with gold, when you refine gold, any kind of major
metal, okay, you've played with wood or with metal before.
And it's like the dross, it's called the dross.
It comes to the surface.
Right.
And so a lot of times when we're going through something and we stand back and we're like,
literally all hell is breaking loose around me.
What in the heck is happening right now?
Yeah.
And the whole time it's like, God's going, I'm pulling all of the junk to the surface.
It's going to get worse, appear to get worse before it actually gets better.
Right.
But I promise you, if you stay in this process with me, then you're going to come out because
once you put that, refine that metal, it becomes stronger, right?
It does.
It's like you're getting impurities out, you're getting all of the weak spots out.
And then eventually you melt it back down and it's like, there's no move in it.
And so it's- And it's more valuable.
It becomes more valuable.
We as our lives become more valuable, I believe.
I believe we come from a place where it's like, you're no longer taking things for granted,
you know?
Because like we can coast.
Our marriage, for instance, right?
You know, we're about to come up on 10 years and living with you is easy.
It really is easy.
I mean, it really is easy.
That being said, you and I had to prune some major stuff at the very beginning of our marriage.
There's still days that we prune things back, but once we've dealt with like the tap roots,
we dealt with the things that would literally suck the life or completely destroy us.
Once we said, God, I'm literally going to lay on your surgery table.
I'm going to let you take that scalpel and dig out those soul ties, those things that
would trip me up.
I'm going to let you literally come in and rework me and remind me that I'm not these
things.
You know, I'm not these weaknesses or I'm not these strongholds, whatever it is.
And just it's like because we dealt with these things and we continue to deal with these
things when we see the sucker, right?
The little sucker leaves, we deal with them.
We try to deal with them almost immediately.
And what it does is it just makes things sweeter.
It makes it easier to look at you and say, babe, I'm not okay right now.
You know, I'm not okay.
And then go, okay, what do we need to do?
Because now there's that strengthening between the two of us because we've both decided to
walk through a refining fire just even in our marriage, not just separately, but together.
Right.
Thank you.
And I know that oftentimes, you know, or sometimes not oftentimes, but there are times where
the pruning, the cutting, you know, has to happen so that we don't fall back into our
old pattern.
Absolutely.
You know, it's like the, I know we talked about, it's basically the same verse in two
different books, two different gospels between Matthew and Mark.
Right.
And I know you had it if you wanted to read it real quick.
So basically, this is Jesus talking, right?
And he says, it's Matthew 18, nine.
It says, if your eye causes you to stumble in sin, pluck it out and throw it away from
you.
It says, remove yourself from the source of temptation.
It is better for you to enter life with only one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown
into the fiery hell.
And I want to say, was it Luke or what was the other one?
Mark and Matthew.
But one of them even went on to say like, you're cutting off your arm.
I mean, you're sitting, you're talking about these, you know, these climbers.
You have people that, you know, way back in the day, even now, you know, you get gangrene,
gangrene in your body.
And it's like, hey, man, I don't want to lose any part of my body.
And it's like the doctor's looking at you going, dude, if you want to continue to be
breathing and to possibly thrive and live, I got to cut this off.
It seems like an extreme, but again, we got to get the thing that's trying to kill you
out of you.
And also kind of along those lines, you know, when you talk about shifting or not shifting,
but like sifting, or you think about the threshing of wheat, you know, again, I know in some
of the ancient times to when you were threshing wheat, you know, like on the threshing floor
and all that.
But what that is is basically when you harvest wheat, you want to separate the wheat kernel
from the shaft or from the dirt or the just sticks.
And the way they would do that is they would either grab sheaves of wheat and smack them
against the floor.
Or they would get pitchforks and almost like throw it up in the air and let the wind take
the trash away and the wheat kernels would fall to the ground.
You know, yes, nowadays they have machines that do all that.
But again, it's kind of sounds violent, a little violent.
Let's smack ourselves against the floor or allow God to smack us against the floor to
get the trash out.
Yes.
So it's like, so it's like there's all these words that, you know, and I know sometimes
in some seasons of church, they're like, oh, there's a shifting going on.
There's a sifting of people.
And you know, it always refers to, or not always, but a lot of times they refer to it
as, you know, when people leave, you know, oh, they've been sifted out, you know.
And yes, it hurts because sometimes those people are our friends.
But you know, sometimes they're just, they're called the other churches.
They're called the other ministries.
And so it's not really a bad thing, but we also need to allow that.
Yes.
You know, we need to allow that because yes, it's possible to go through this world and
pick up zero dirt, zero dust, zero trash.
But every now and then, I know a lot of us, we pick it up whether we want to or not.
We have that kind of butt that it's sick to it.
Like bad gum in a parking lot.
It's so cool.
But it does.
Every now and then we do.
We need to get smacked against the ground, thrown up in the air, burned to liquid.
You know, we need to have things cut off because if we don't, we can't grow.
We can't learn.
You know, again, it's like the idea of the gangrene.
As you were saying that, I also thought of sometimes the people with diabetes, that sometimes
it happens a lot in feet, but it's like their feet start to die.
Like literally die.
Yeah.
So, it's like if we're carrying around this spiritual trash, this emotional baggage that
is weighing us down that we don't need, it is literally killing our spirit man.
I agree.
And if we don't either schedule a Holy Spirit surgery and allow God to take care of us or
emergency hack it off, it's going to affect every area of our lives.
You are right.
And whether you're in a relationship or hoping to be in a relationship, if these areas don't
get taken care of, they're going to affect what you eventually want to accomplish.
You're right.
You know, again, you talked about us and a lot of the stuff that we had to go through.
I know me personally, there was stuff that I could have very easily brought into our
marriage.
And if I didn't take care of that, if I didn't let God take care of that, if I didn't listen
to the Holy Spirit, we probably would not be sitting here right now.
You're right.
Same with me.
I mean, same with me.
That's what it comes down to.
Again, you know, sometimes we say these words and we say these processes.
It's a lot of times it's for them or, you know, we maybe talk about getting prayer to
help us deal with this or help us deal with them that they haven't done it.
But again, we need to remember that these aren't always pretty, but they are necessary.
Absolutely.
You know, again, Jesus had all the power.
He still has all the power.
I said had as in when he was walking the earth.
He could have used multiple ways of going into the temple and telling the money changers
to get out.
Right.
What did he do?
He sat there and he braided himself a whip and then he walked himself in there and started
flipping over tables and smacking that whip.
He got aggressive.
Yeah.
So if our bodies are temples and our bodies are supposed to be a reflection of God, how
would he treat us different?
Wow.
If we're bringing that criminal spirit, that trash into his holy place, why wouldn't he
be as aggressive with us?
Yeah.
I think it's again, it's one of those things where the beautiful thing about Jesus in his
word he talks about where he comes with a two-edged sword.
And I think of a scalpel, I think of a surgeon's like a skilled surgeon.
Right.
So it's like when we talk about literally laying on the altar of, you know, and saying,
God, I trust you to remove this stuff.
And what happens is with that two-edged sword, with that scalpel, it cuts.
So that's aggressive.
Right.
So it's like it's taken stuff out.
The other thing about it though, it's bringing healing at the same time.
Right.
So when we allow Jesus to come and turn the tables over in our lives, you know, he's basically
saying I am going to do surgery here because I want to heal you.
He did it to the people in the temple because he wanted, he wanted his, he wanted the temple
to be healed.
He wanted the church to be healed.
And we as children of God, we carry that.
And it's like, I love that.
It's true.
So it's like, I think our big challenge for this week for everybody is just if you see
something bubbling up or even while you're listening to us and something like hits, talk
to him about it.
Ask him about it.
If, if something feels like it's extra extraordinarily hard right now, have a conversation.
How do you want to deal with this?
God, is it a pruning or is it a complete cutting off?
Because I believe that that's two different things.
A pruning back is basically, I, you know, like you and I, our marriage being pruned,
right?
We're pruning things in our marriage so we can thrive together.
A cutting off would be peace out, bud.
We're done.
You know, I don't need this part of me anymore.
Does, does that make sense?
And so that, that would be my, I could totally be wrong, but that's how I see it in my mind.
When you prune something back, you're cutting things away, but ultimately so it can thrive
and so it can live.
When, when, when we cut something off, it's like that season is done.
That it's, it's no longer, it is no longer viable in my world.
And so, um, maybe just we ask that the Holy Spirit just speaks to everybody right now
that, that he just, he speaks to you in that place and that you find comfort even in the
midst of the pruning or in the midst of the cutting, knowing that it is for your good.
It's for, it's the good of you, for the good of those around you, for the good of the kingdom.
He wants nothing but good for us.
And like any good father, discipline comes with it.
There's a lot of times we have to correct our kids and we don't want to, but we know
if we don't, it's going to create something inside of them that will destroy them later
on.
And he just wants to deal with those things so you don't get destroyed.
That's right.
Is that it baby?
I think that's it.
Yeah.
All right.
I love you.
I had the best day today.
I had an amazing day today.
Thanks for being my Valentine.
And you're mine.
I'm not trying to be mushy in front of you guys, but genuinely, I appreciate you, babe.
Appreciate you.
And we appreciate you guys.
Yes.
Thanks for listening.
Again, we're pretty much everywhere you can find podcasts.
Like, share, reach out to us if you want.
I know some of y'all do.
We appreciate it.
We love talking with y'all.
Yeah.
We genuinely appreciate the feedback.
Yeah.
Big things coming on the horizon.
Yes.
For us and for you.
Amen.
Yeah.
Have a great day.
Have the best week.
And we'll see you next time.
Bye.