Alright, welcome to this episode of Technically Short.
I'm Thomas.
I'm Sean.
And this episode we're talking about is Sean's idea.
Healthy rejection.
Yeah, healthy rejection.
Saying no, we talked about this earlier.
It's saying no to the right things, which means you're actually saying no to the wrong
thing.
It's confusing, but saying no to the right thing is healthy rejection.
That's probably even a better way to say it.
I love healthy rejection.
But yeah, Sean, so why don't you define that for us?
Okay.
So normally when we think about rejection, guys, we think of something bad, but like
let me read the definition of rejection.
So rejection is the dismiss of inappropriate or not one's taste.
That's one definition, right?
The other one is to refuse to agree.
So to refuse to agree is more what we're talking about because some tastes and stuff like rejection
that's like based off of personal opinion, right?
But we're talking about is to refuse to agree.
What we're saying is refusing to agree to the wrong things.
Sometimes it's a wrong thing.
Sometimes it's a good thing at just at the wrong time.
So we're going to dive deeper into that, but that's where I think we're landing the plane.
Yeah.
I think kind of where you were going with that, Sean, is like rejecting the good and
the bad to focus on the great things.
Absolutely.
And like with me in particular, like just a quick example for me just to put it into
some perspective with my finances, the area where I've had to say no a lot is like going
out to eat with people whenever like anytime Sean would ask, just all the time.
I know I know I do everything I can to save money and still be healthy and also be able
to pay off my student loans, which in this case is the great thing that I'm working on
doing and very close.
And so like any all the times I've said no have compounded and added up to me being able
to do something great.
Amen.
And I think like that's one thing that like I won't go too far into this yet at least,
but that's one thing I really think like I would think about this earlier today actually,
like God, the greatest power God gave us is the power of choice.
Absolutely.
And that's the greatest power he gave us.
And sometimes we choose wrong, sometimes we choose right, but he turns it all out for
his good, right?
So like we have like we have these choices to be able to reject or like Sean was saying
like not agreeing with not even agreeing even like with our internal what like what our
like internal heart soul wants to do, but agreeing with our what maybe our spirit is
saying.
Absolutely.
And okay, I shouldn't be saying I shouldn't be doing this even though I want to even though
it necessarily wouldn't be a bad thing to do.
Other people wouldn't see it as something bad for me to do.
There are other people looking outside looking down from the outside in people might even
think it's pretty normal for me to do this.
However I know what I'm working towards.
I know what my I know what the spirit is telling me.
So why should I focus on what is what is normally done?
Or should I focus on the greater choice, the greater option?
That makes sense?
It makes sense.
Definitely makes sense.
And I feel like that that right there what you were talking about, that is the refuse
to agree.
And I think that's so important because there's times in life your friends will be like, hey,
let's, let's go out.
But you know, you need to study for your tests.
There will be times in life where you there's a relationship, but you're not ready for that
relationship yet.
So you have to refuse to agree or God's telling you that relationship specifically, that she's
not spiritually equipped enough to date you.
So you should need to refuse to agree.
There's times where healthy rejection is needed and if we don't apply rejection in a healthy
way and we only think about it being negative, then we'll accept and approve everything that
is not for us.
Right.
And I want to touch on that relationship thing again real quick because I liked that.
I really did.
I think like whenever it comes to relationships, like it happens, it doesn't happen a lot,
but sometimes the girls ask guys out.
Yeah.
I don't know if they call that much, but when it does happen, the guy, like me in particular,
I don't, I don't date a lot.
I'm not like a, I'm not like maybe that will change.
Maybe that changes one day after this episode.
Yeah.
I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't need to go do a full definition what that means for
me, but the, I don't date a lot in general my whole life, you know, but like the saying
no to like saying no to somebody because it like wouldn't be good for either of you or
also saying, also saying no to yourself about a thing, no to yourself about, I was just
talking about this Andrew the other day, like saying no to yourself about a girl who maybe
you think is attractive and stuff, but when, but not just when I say like ignore me, like
maybe she means your criteria of being a Christian is good looking, but like throwback, but yeah,
but the, uh, that was one of those healthy rejections I had to reject.
Right.
But yeah, you just, like it might not be a good, it might not be necessarily on the surface
look bad, but internally you're not, you're like, yeah, there's something, God's got something
better out there for me.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
And that's my, not even being saying anything about the person.
It might just be like, yeah, I, there's somebody else out there for me.
That's might be a better fit.
And um, actually, uh, coming down to this, I think that some people might be thinking,
like, how do you know what to reject?
Oh, that's good.
Ah, I love that.
That honestly is a good question.
I feel like me and Thomas were talking about earlier.
So some things you have to like work out and you get to figure out who you are and more
about knowing yourself.
You're able to reject some things.
Like we were talking about earlier that, um, like for instance, the study thing, right?
Some people are okay to just be out all night and then still pass their test.
Other people are not.
So like some people need that eight hours before a test.
So that would be like one of those things where you have to know yourself.
But then there's times where we should just know this is not, um, the right thing to do.
And by that is like, by that healthy rejection, you need God in your, to discern like where
you're going to go.
And sometimes if you can't feel God, your alignment should be what Thomas said.
I love this where he said like your stomach should be aligned with God.
So that way, like, um, how did you say it was so your gut, your, your gut, your gut
filling, right?
It was really like, uh, I'll say like, tell you what, like this is from a pastor, pastor
Ed who he said, we love you, pastor.
We have to have him on the show at some point cause we shout him out so much.
I think he said that.
I think he mentioned that to me, but, uh, but, uh, it was that let me think about it.
If I'm truly aligned with Christ, if I don't know what, what I'm supposed to do, if I don't
know what God's telling me and I know though that I'm aligned with Christ, then my gut
inadvertently would be aligned with him too.
So if I listen, if I, and I've done this since then, I've done this a lot and just kind of
sat down and like, what's my gut telling me in this situation whenever I'm not sure.
And like, I would say 9.5 times out of 10, if not full 10 out of 10 times my, my gut
and my initial feeling, like that's initially, that's purely like without emotion, how, like
how I, I, how the, how the core of me believes I should move.
And so that's the direction I move and it's worked out.
And if I've gone against that feeling, like it does not work out in my favor.
So I think that for me, that's whenever you're not sure what you reject, whenever it's not
obvious.
It's not for every stage.
Like sure, every situation your gut's going to be in play, but some situations you won't
need to go that deep into yourself.
Like some situations are going to be very obvious.
Like whenever sin is involved, whenever, whenever you might go to that website and you know that
you want to, you know you want to, you've never done it before, you know plenty of other
people do it and, but you know it'd be bad for you.
Right.
Or you know, you know it's bad in general.
And that, that goes for like, I would go that go even deeper onto that.
That would be like, if you know that you can't go to a bar without drinking and going crazy
and sleeping with somebody, then you shouldn't go to the bar.
Like that's where healthy rejection comes in.
Right.
So it's like learning what you can do and what you can't do.
If you know that you got a wife, that if you get a phone number from a lady that you're
going to be texting her inappropriately, then you should not get a girl's phone number when
you have a wife.
Period.
It's just like you're learning yourself enough to know like these are the things I can't
do.
These are the things I can't do because the things I can't do is going to bring me beneath
what God's called me for.
The things I can't do are going to cause me to sin.
The things I can't do are going to destroy my calling, purpose, family, community.
Those are type of things where you got to know healthy rejection.
This is where it comes down and why it's so important is because you have to know yourself
to know what you're capable of and anything that is going to take you away from God is
an automatic rejection.
Yeah that's really good.
I had something.
I started writing a word, I wrote how and then I did not write anything else.
I got lost in thought.
I know I wanted to kind of give another personal example.
So I wanted to touch back on what I was talking about before about my personal example of
saying no because I wanted to save money so I could pay off my student loans.
In the moment of doing those things sometimes it felt like it sucked because I wanted to
be social.
I wanted to see like in those moments like maybe that wasn't the only opportunity to
be social but me in my mind I was like well either I do that, go home and do this and
sometimes I'll figure out a different plan but like sometimes though regardless like
sometimes like whenever you have to be making the right choice is not easy and it's not
fun a lot of the time.
And I don't want to say the majority of the time but I would say I will.
Majority is fair.
Yeah majority.
But like making but you know though after the fact when you get further down the road
and you can look back and you can sit there and actually be proud of yourself like you
can be like man like sure I could have went out and went out sure I could have I could
have spent my money spent my money and bought myself a couple more nice things but I decided
not to.
I decided to say I decided to I decided not to I decided to save I decided to not I decided
to not stay home by myself because sometimes I can feel uncomfortable you know then making
the decision to I'm going to shift like making the decision instead of being antisocial to
be social because making the right decision making the right decision isn't always it's
like very in a lot of situations like we're already talking about like it's doesn't feel
good but it's for your good.
Absolutely.
It's like you there's a feeling you had like maybe I should be doing this maybe I should
go out and do this more maybe I should like this is one thing I tell people a lot like
if you if you're part of a church like amplify and you haven't joined a small group yet
then you need to get in one because you need community in your life.
And if you're like me who it who is like somebody that like spends a lot of time by themselves
just that's kind of like the road my life took me on has taken me on like then like
you really need community and you need to make that choice and that's a choice that
you need to make and maybe that's the decision there's this I know there's a decision in
like this is directly to the listener.
They know there's a decision in your life right now that you've keep putting off because
it's an uncomfortable decision to make but you know inevitably it would be a good decision
and it may be a decision that you have to do over and over and over again like saying
no to the doughnut.
Say it's when you go to church on Sunday like the more the same thing applies the more if
you feel like you need to get healthier and you want to go to the gym or actually you
don't want to go to the gym you like let's be real you don't want to go to the gym you
want to stay at home and be comfortable being yourself but you know you need to get healthier.
So do you do what's uncomfortable or do you stay do you say no you reject what you want
to do and essentially confront yourself and say no I actually will go out and do the uncomfortable
because that's going to make me better.
That's so good.
Honestly where I am I'm going to touch on that that is perfect.
What Thomas is talking about is healthy rejection at its finest and when that happens it leads
to discipline and it leads to self-control and it you know what's really good about those
two things on the other side of all the things you're rejecting is your goals your dreams
your achievements and it all happens when you have self-control and when you reject
things that you should.
Honestly sometimes my biggest financially is rejecting small things right.
All these small things add up for me.
If I could reject all this stuff that I normally do on a daily basis I'd have a lot more finances.
I've had a lot of wise people like Pat Williams, Brandon, Pastor Ed, Thomas, my sister Shamira,
a lot of wise people tell me to do better with my finances and honestly my biggest issue
is finances because I don't reject enough stuff that like most of them do because they
have such great discipline and such self-control on that area.
Like spiritually I'm good at rejecting a lot of things spiritually but when I get like
pride fall I fall of course because I'm not perfect so anytime I think I'm like the man
and forget who God is is where I fall and that's what happened to me recently at work
where that while I'm in a new area a new job and stuff it's because I let the pride get
to me and the enemy gets you when he lets that fall and so like rejection if I would
have just been on my normal rejection level I would have helpfully rejected the thing
they got me fired and it wasn't nothing criminal or nothing stupid it was just something that
was very stupid.
It wasn't anything criminal or something stupid it was just something stupid.
Yeah it was just something stupid.
Oh man.
No.
That's good right?
Yeah.
Are you done?
Yeah.
Okay sorry I didn't want to be like are you done talking to me?
No I'm not.
No but uh.
No.
I think like acknowledging those things is good.
Right?
Acknowledging what you've done wrong so that you can then do right.
Like and actually like that's a actually a huge step because if I feel like people know
inwardly like inwardly like what they're doing like I felt like the whole time you knew like
every time you made a small transaction you're like man what would people are going to be
so mad at me right now because they knew I was doing this.
I know.
And like you know it you know like oh I shouldn't be doing this but you did it anyway and now
you're actually acknowledging it and be like yeah actually maybe I should listen to that
voice in my head.
Yeah.
And that happened so much to everybody.
Like maybe and that's your gut.
That's the spirit in you being like hey what are you doing?
Knock that off.
Like I get that that's not really necessarily a bad thing but it's leading to a bad thing.
True.
You eat too.
You eat.
I don't know Twinkies are bad but I just saw a picture of Twinkies a little bit ago.
But donuts taste good but you have a hundred of them and you have to eat one every day.
Three every day.
Probably going to get fat.
Yep.
Which isn't good.
But now I want to touch on actually your what you said what you were talking about about
your finances earlier.
Yeah.
Because I would because I think like personally I feel like that's why you and I are one of
the reasons why you and I are roommates.
Yeah by God.
Like God's designed.
Yeah we've already talked about how we lined up.
The divine appointment.
Yeah.
I agree with that.
And by the like you like you teach me some things to say no to and some well you actually
teach me more things to say yes to.
So I have to say no to this to be honest.
But the main thing you teach me the main thing you taught me just by being around you is
how to be more social.
Because you are like whenever you're around people you're the social butterfly.
I saw God then.
And like I'm not.
And I'm OK with that.
But you know way better.
Like I'm way better than I used to be.
And like and I but I blame you know it's necessarily a bad thing like I can blame that on you and
on you and other other people in my other good people in my life.
I watch and I admire the certain things about them.
And like with with me to you like I know I'm pretty good with my finances managing my money.
And like that's one area where I feel like being around you enough kind of being around
you enough and also you being around other people who are good with our finances.
But enough people have planted enough seeds that eventually they took a little bit of
a root.
Yeah.
I would I would say so for sure.
And.
So like again I think that happens with anything.
I want to do a whole episode about planting seeds.
That's something huge.
I really want to talk about that.
I think it was a great episode for sure.
But like whenever I talked about that the image in my head that popped up was.
Like a pile of like a giant pile of seeds and like them being blown away by the wind.
And then there's a couple that get left behind.
That's fair.
That's the image that popped up in my head.
And like it's not the bash you.
It's just what's been happening.
You're not wrong.
We have a lot of people who are great in finances have been like giving me wisdom.
And at the time I was just like I was the hard ground I would say.
Where the Bible talks about like the hard ground where the seeds just get put on the
ground and it wouldn't go inside the ground so they get blown away.
So like your analogy would be spot on.
Yeah.
When blown away crows picking it up you know.
But the.
I don't know I feel like.
I think that's a good place to end the episode.
I mean it's a good episode.
Yeah I feel like this was a great.
I said this last time.
This is these.
I feel like these keep getting better and better.
Honestly.
Healthy rejection one of my favorites.
This was definitely a really good a really good topic.
So if you haven't already guys we're going to wrap it up.
Oh wait did you do anything.
Well that was kind of fun in itself.
Yeah it was good.
Good stuff.
But yeah guys if you haven't already we're going to wrap it up.
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I don't use Spotify that much.
I use Spotify all the time.
I think you're right.
I think there is a Q&A after them.
I know there is.
I guess Dave Miller commented on one of them.
Oh yeah yeah.
He did.
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Goodbye guys.
Almost.
Oh man this is another awkward ending isn't it.
Sorry for the no edits.
All right.
See ya.
Bye.