Disconnecting Affection From Approval — http://thegodjourney.com/2012/06/22/disconnecting-affection-from-approval/

For those looking to live outside the box of religious performance and inside the love of an awesome father, this is The God Journey. Well, I woke up this morning in an old haunt of mine, Vicelia, California. And in the home of Dave and Donna Coleman. And Dave's with me today. Good morning, Dave. Good morning. We're going to do a couple of podcasts together. And how are you doing these days? Doing well, thank you. You getting old and decrepit and all that stuff, so that's always fun. No comment. I've heard you complain now all morning, but no, I'm kidding. Not much of a complainer. For those of you who don't know or don't remember, Dave Coleman was my co-writer on The So You Don't Want to Go to Church Anymore book or what some people call the Jake Colson story. We had a lot of fun with that. Did we not? Oh, a lot of great memories. A lot of great memories. We used to, for the people that don't know how we wrote that, we used to sit around for a morning and we'd figure out how much trouble we could put Jake into in the next chapter. And we'd talk and talk and talk about all the things we could do to his life. And then we'd spend another three or four hours talking about what might John, if he were alive, say to Jake at such moments. And those were fun, fun days. And then I'd go home and try and write all that up after having 37 pages of notes from our conversation. And it was great fun. And then we'd massage the manuscript together until we said it like we wanted to say it. For those that really have to go back, we were posting a chapter of time online back in the day. And we were going to do one a month for 12 months and it turned out to have taken us four and a half years. So those of you that were reading it online, people would be at three in the morning reading the book, loving it, captured by it, get to chapter six, finish it, punch the button for chapter seven, they get a little note that says, we haven't written it yet. Stay tuned. People hated me, man. I got hate mail from that. Just, what? I didn't know what's going on. It was four and a half years, wasn't it? It was. I moved out of town. You had a little bout with cancer and we just didn't have the freedom to get together as often as we'd hoped. And my schedule was crazy for those that found it first online. When I meet them around the world, people tell me, I started reading that online. I'm going, oh goodness, how many chapters do we have up? And then I feel like I have to apologize because it was really torturous to let people do it that way, I think. But it was a fun, fun way to go. And then a couple, boy, about a year ago now, I guess, or maybe almost two, I guess. We had some of our friends out from Ireland, including Dave Rice, who was on this podcast last week. And his friend Colin Langren was with him and we were out here and we were driving through the valley. So we stopped about here to have lunch with you and Donna. And after one of Dave's eloquent prayers for the blessing of the meal, he looked over to Dave and Colin and said, so tell me, what is it like growing up in third world country? Oh man. The look on their faces was priceless. I'm sitting at the other end of the table going, I don't think they, I don't know you at all yet. We just walked in the door literally and sat down at your table and I'm thinking they have not a clue who Dave is yet. And that was a pretty good introduction. They took them a minute to figure out you were only kidding, but I think we're going to have to, I think they were afraid they're going to have to explain to you what Ireland was and that it wasn't a third world country. But you're, you're a funny man, Dave Coleman. Oh, yeah, he's also very self-deprecating, so. We've been friends for 20 plus years. You first started attending a fellowship I was pastoring at. I'm currently embarrassed to even talk in those terms, but. No. The first, the first time I really heard you was at a baccalaureate service. Your wife was talking about this this morning. I don't remember speaking at a baccalaureate service. That sounds so, so old me. No, it was, to me it was amazing. We both sat there and we were enthralled because here was a speaker who was not religious, who really had the love of God on his heart and wanted to share it with people. And we just sat there and kind of looked at one another like, you know, where has he been or where is he or how did, you know, how did, because it was a, I think it was a graduation either of one of our own children or of. It's almost that was John's graduation. Yeah. Yeah. And I said, you know, we got to find out where this guy is. And that kind of started the relationship. Yeah. We became friends pretty quickly. We did a marriage thing together, I remember, and I loved the stuff that you were sharing with some of these couples about marriage and just thinking, wow, there's a man. And I think the first time I met you, I thought the phrase that was in my head was, here's a man in whom there's no guile. And it was just that kind of just kind of ran through my head and I went, wow, I've never had that thought meeting somebody new before. And after 25 some years of relationship, I have to say, it's pretty true. I have found you to be a man without guile, a man who lives honestly, authentically, sincerely. And that's gotten you a lot of trouble over the years though, hasn't it? Oh yes. Yes. Former Lutheran pastor and got defrocked for teaching grace, something like that. People find it's amazing that Lutherans would find grace a little uncomfortable. Well, that was the name of the church I was pastoring, so I did a word study one day. Word study on grace? Use a little Martin Luther on him and next thing you knew, you were hanging wallpaper, huh? Oh, yes. Yeah, for years. And I've treasured the friendship. I mean, I love getting by here now and then, Sarah and I are both close to both Dave and Donna. And we get a chance to come by once in a while since they won't come visit us and get a chance to catch up and it's always good. It's always looked forward to with great anticipation. Yeah, us too. And I got here last night by 8 o'clock, so we spent a couple of hours catching up on all things wonderful. And go ahead. Yeah, I'm just going to ask how your family is doing. You know, we've shared a little bit on the blog that Sarah and I are going through a lovely moment in our life and marriage. We haven't been specific about details yet, but as much as I thought Sarah made some shifts about 15 years ago, it seems that God's making some new shifts in her. And she wants to talk about it someday, so we might get on the podcast, but I'm not telling her story. But obviously, when your wife shifts, when God shifts your wife, you either shift to make room for it or you start growing apart. So it's meant that I've had to make some shifts. And it's all been glorious. Sarah and I spent three days in Paris a couple of weeks ago while I was in France doing some other things. And I've said, and Sarah said the same thing, it's been the best three days of our life. It's the best three days we've ever had together. Oh, that's great. And then we're on to Ireland, and those were great days, and now back in California, and these are great days. It's like we've gone through this tunnel, and we're just compressing, compressing, compressing. And as parts are going, what is going on? We've never been like this. And then just exploded out into a whole new cavern. It's just more glorious than anything. And I thought we had a great marriage before. So now we're living in a different space with each other, going, I had no idea. I had no idea after 37 years of marriage that there's completely new land to discover with Sarah. So we're doing great. I mean, some of it, for Sarah, it's a little bit painful, sorting through some things in her past, but it's yielding incredible fruit. Wonderful. Yeah, we're doing very, very well. Other than I'm missing my grandkids, I've got a five-week window here where I'm not in the same country they're in, or same state now. So I'm really missing checking in with my daughter and son-in-law and grandkids. So other than that, now we're doing well. Good. So yeah. I thought we'd just look at some email, Dave, because there's one I'd love to kind of get your feel on. But I get this kind of email a lot from people who listened to some of the things we talked about last week. David Rice from Ireland and I, we talked about living in a relationship with God where we so enjoy Him that we lose our agenda, even our dreams for our own lives, and learn to walk in agreement with His and just become part of His purpose in the world. And we talked about that. I don't think David or I either one would say, yeah, we're living this totally, but we're starting to see it from a distance of what it is to walk in agreement with God and then enjoy that agreement with other brothers and sisters. And Michelle wrote up to the blog, and these kinds of letters just crush me. I love the honesty. Don't get me wrong. It's not that I don't like getting these letters. I love Michelle's honesty, but I heard from where she's at. She said, there are many things in this podcast that I flat do not get and wish I did. In particular, the idea of enjoying being God's child. I've been a Christ follower since 1988, and if I've ever knew it at all, I do not know now what that's like. I also don't really know what it's like to enjoy being a daughter to my parents. So perhaps that's where the disconnect takes place. I have no real way to connect the dots. I do know that I have had cause to regret saying yes to God. Wow, I can't imagine a sadder statement. I have regretted saying yes to God. I do know that I don't know what it's like to have confidence that love is that kind of real, that God will do good because he wants to and not because there are ulterior motives, that forgiveness is real, not just lip service to manipulate or a lot of different things that are tied into living loved. To enjoy being God's child, that would be a wonderful thing. I can't even imagine it. Sad. Isn't this something? It's not like she doesn't want to get it. I got another email from a gal this week and it was just a personal email, but she just said, could you pray for me? Could you talk to me? Could you do something? Every time I read scripture, what you see is this angry God that wants to just beat me up till I get better and I just, I don't know that I'm ever going to see this loving Abba that you see in the scriptures. And for people who listen to this podcast or read some of my stuff, I can't imagine how painful it would be to read something that makes your heart hunker and yet it feels like it's a million miles away through a brick wall and you can't get to it. Any thoughts for Michelle or the other gal that wrote me? Just at this point I want, how does someone learn to be enjoyed by the Father or to enjoy the Father and not think of them as this horrible, demanding taskmaster that's just even using forgiveness as a way to manipulate us? Wow, that's horrible. I don't know if you have any thoughts. Do you want to help us crawl into this? I think there's a few things here and it's just hard without talking with her further. No, I know we're not helping her individually. Yeah, it would be a matter of conjecture and that would be as to what is blocking the flow? Why can't God's love get through? I remember years ago in teaching a youth class in what we called in the church confirmation classes and I was talking on the Lord's Prayer and talking about the whole concept of God as Father and I watched this little guy in the back and he just started to fidget around and I was talking about how much God loves us and that he reaches out to us and was going on like that and finally this little guy just got up and raced out of the room and so I followed him out and talked to him and he just told me that his father was very abusive and his idea of the word father was someone who's just waiting around every corner to beat up on you or to criticize you or to put you down or literally to destroy you and so here's the real block. How do you help this little fellow from his concept of who God is into one who is a father who says, hey, climb up on my lap and let me hug you and love you? So it may be something like this. Yeah, how important is it in your experience for people to have a picture of fatherhood or parents? Like she said, I never had parents who enjoyed me as their daughter. I mean and they don't have it and a lot of people don't. A lot of people come from broken families and I don't mean broken like the parents split up but just broken in the sense that my parents were so broken they know how to love. And if you had thoughts about how does someone get from this boy's definition of father or her idea of God to experiencing a better reality? I mean it's possible for them, they're not just lost because they didn't get it when they were young, right? I mean you've helped a lot of people over the years kind of learn to live loved and I know we're both dealing with here much easier if Michelle were in the room and the two of us were able to talk to her and kind of help figure out where this block is. But I guess I want people who have not had good models or had an abusive parent or unloving parents to have hope that, yeah, you may have had that to overcome but that can be overcome. There is a loving father, there is a loving God in the universe and he can get through this too. You're not lost because you had a rough start I guess the way it looks. To me it's a matter of realizing where you are I think so often in a childhood like this you're taught or at least you get the concept of how can I function in all of this how can I live without pain of being beat up all the time how can I live with this whole concept of my parents will only love me if I live perfectly if I'm the perfect student and so on and so forth. So many of us, I know one of my biggest regrets with my kids when they were younger particularly is I tied my affection for them to my approval of what they were doing. The performance, yeah. Yeah, and there were times if they had to discipline them I'd withdraw my affection for a season because I felt like that's what God was doing to me that's what I'd been taught about God. So I've messed up, yeah, God's forgiven me but there's this distance from him for a season as part of the punishment to help me really learn my lesson and I did it to both my kids in ways that I've talked to both of them since and owned and looked for God to heal because I think it's a horrible thing that we link affection to performance but we do, we use it so often in our world I mean that's the way we manipulate even our friends, if our friends do what we want then we're good friends to them and if they don't do what we want or we don't think they're doing the best for themselves we can hold that affection and shun them or shame them or whatever and that just feeds the problem it doesn't offer an answer I don't think no it doesn't but just like we spoke of in the book when we get this stuff even in the church on our little painted chair if you attend Sunday school for 2,840 Sundays in a row we'll give you a Gideon Bible and that means that you're a better Christian little Susie over there who only comes once or twice a year Worse every week we give you gold stars to put up and the guys got the I had the gold stars all filled out and other kids they've got lots of gaps because they don't have the same performance ethic I had I think we all did this to our children and I grew up in the same way with this whole concept of if you don't do this or if you do do that like you say you won't be accepted and then that continues on and I think I can remember even in my preaching days I would say things like God died for you he loves you but it's like you have to prove your love for him that it just can't be something where I receive the love of the Father and say thank you but I have to prove my thankfulness and what happens then this creates all sorts of shame and sadness and the worst thing of all is that it creates a lack of trust because I never know how I stand and you're not going to even enjoy someone who's always evaluating you if God's the guy with the radar gun behind the billboard every day just trying to okay Wayne that was a bad thought that was not a good thing to do that's our concept of God there's no way to enjoy that even if you think the cops making you safer on the road because he's got the radar gun aimed at you and all the drivers around you so everyone's driving safe when you get past him you're excited to feel free again and with God who's there all the time who's on the present if his job is to evaluate us constantly to see if he can give us his love that we can earn it in some way well I lived a lot of my life though I even just talking about it I get tired I get exhausted just thinking about it yeah and we read and we're taught all of these stories about Jesus treated people and how he was so criticized for hanging out with the quote sinners of his day and enjoying them and enjoying the party going on yeah and you know the bottom line to his behavior was that every person was truly loved by the father every person had worth because that person was important to the father and you know there was always these these battles going on he eats with sinners or he's a glutton he did this he did that he's out partying when he should be in church and when you have that kind of a conception of God of performance based then it destroys relationship and you can't have a relationship because as soon as I set up performance for you then expectation is brought in when you expect things from others that totally wipes out and destroys the relationship you take a husband and wife for example and I expect you to do this or I expect you to do that and we live on the basis of conditional love if you really love me you'd be home for supper at five rather than six or seven and even if the person meets the expectation isn't there a level of resentment in it because I'm not freely choosing to do this I'm being forced to do it or they're going to reign their disapproval on me and I so don't want to live with the disapproval that I'm doing what they want but it's only breeding resentment talking with a fellow we both know who's involved in counseling situations and he shared that it's very difficult to talk and to counsel with husband and wife simply because they just keep going back and forth with blame, shame and expectations well if he would have done that well she wouldn't have said this and so on and so forth and it just destroys the relationships and that's where religion has really I think disfigured the God of the Bible I mean we see God as this divine he's got the list of expectations bigger than any of us can meet he's with us every second knowing every thought we have I mean this is a recipe if you're in the whole expectation, shame mode this is a recipe for absolute and total disaster where you end up feeling like nothing I do is good enough and even one of the saddest statements Michelle has here is seeing even forgiveness as just a way to manipulate just I'll pretend to forgive you so that I can get something else from you I want and ascribing all that ulterior motive to God religion really does that and it doesn't allow God to just love us for who we are imperfections, brokenness it doesn't allow God to love us in our brokenness so it tries to shame us into better healthiness so that we could somehow earn God's blessing, infection whatever but you can't be good enough on any day to cross whatever threshold you need to cross and then you were talking about this earlier you're talking about this big video at the end of our life, talk about that for a little bit because we haven't done that here and so... Well just the thought that if when God is presented as the great judge and all of these things and that God is going to rain hellfire and damnation on you if you don't do this it puts you in a state where you just can't function by seeing God as someone who really cares for you and you can't trust him because if you're looking at the end of your life you know that there are same things that you have quote broken God's word as it's translated by some folks or had impure thoughts or have impure thoughts and then what happens is this builds up in your minds and I remember as a hospice chaplain dealing with people from religious backgrounds how so often they have what you really call spiritual pain that they just don't feel that they're worth anything and invariably the saddest words I ever heard as a chaplain is when the husband or the wife of the deceased would come up and say well chaplain he was a good person she was a good person and my heart would just weep because what they're telling me is hopefully they'll make it through because they did enough good stuff and these are all church people who had been in church all of their life and they had gotten the concept that heaven is a reward for what you did or did not do here on the earth and my heart would weep for this and when you have that idea of that's God who's waiting there with a you know with this big a large screen HDTV oh yeah you know it's just yeah he's going to project your whole life in front of all your friends and family are going to be hanging out and every thought you've ever had every bad thing you've ever done and I think the reason I really loved when you started talking about that is because I think if you grew up in this environment of this religious performance environment you really do that's how you saw judgment God's going to humiliate you in front of the rest so you're trying to do the best you can but even if you're doing good today you've got these things that happened back then that's going to be on the screen and people are going to laugh and point and we're going to feel all that and the whole idea that God the Abba Father if he makes a reel of your life wouldn't like like I've got a brother whose daughter plays softball and volleyball plays it really really well so he'll send me occasionally video clips of her he doesn't send me clips of her striking out doesn't send me clips of her making a mistake and walking about her he sends me the highlight reel he sends me the home run she hits the pitch where she got this personnel and third strike of a sixth inning or seventh inning whatever softball is the whole idea that God if he made a reel would be a low light reel and not a highlight reel not this is what I love about you this is the videos we show at our kids weddings or even funerals for people those are highlight reels that's how we would do it but we think of God it's not I'm going to spend all my time putting together your worst moments because that's what I want you to see or know and I do know people I know I did myself labored under that for a good bit of my life oh sure we all did yeah and how to and then so you get the idea well God wants to enjoy me what are you talking that's where I think Michelle's letter just like it's a non sequitur I don't get how that God enjoys me and the reality is that God wouldn't enjoy you but that's not the God of the Bible that's not the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ he's a very different critter than the way religion has postured him to manipulate us and so you know I think people like Michelle deal with this this is what religion has done to me but they only see that that's religion this is the way God is instead of now this is the way religion is you have a better father than that and that's how to help people make that transition I find myself saying to people for one and I just had this engagement actually with a man in France and I was trying to work through a translator to talk to him and everything I tried to say before it could get translated for him because I was saying in English he's already discounting it God he's Esau in God's mind he's the rejected one I'm a Jacob God loves he's the Esau God hates and God just chosen he believes in the sovereignty of God and everything I would say to him he'd just push it off to the side just dismiss it out of hand I finally reached out and grabbed him by both cheeks I just grabbed his face and I said I need you to be quiet and he looked at me very alert I need you to just I didn't say shut up but I wanted to I need you to just shut your mouth you are dismissing truth before it even penetrates your brain you have a father who loves you he loves you more than you can possibly believe and somehow you keep dismissing it and I just need you to stop and listen and in fact I need you that's why I told him I said you play golf and he said no and I said this thing in golf called a Mulligan when you've hit a ball six or seven times and you're so deeply lost in the trees that you will never find the fairway again a Mulligan is pick up your ball bring it back up to the fairway drop it let's play from here and I think for people to get this journey we've got to take a lot of Mulligans we've got to take a lot of time where I'm lost somehow I've got God in a box that's killing me and I can't see and you know what I just need to suspend everything I think I know is true about God I need to wake up tomorrow morning and say God I think I'm wrong about you but I don't know how to change me I want to ask you would you make yourself known to me I need to know you as you are I don't need to know you as religion told me you were or as my parents failed example tried to tell me you were I need to see you as you really are and I know it's a risk for people you can live in your false conclusions about God till you die and you really want to find a way to let God help you crawl out of those false notions of him and that's why I asked David Rice last week we were talking I said where do you get this view of God did you get it from the Bible and then go see it in him and he said no I got it from him when I engaged the presence of God I know what he's like and he's not what religion told me he was and that's I hope Michelle and others who've written me similarly you know what I'm just willing to suspend my conclusion even what my parents maybe failed that you do have a father who when you woke up this morning looked at you with delight you have that father may not know it yet but you have that father and the key word there is a risk that you mentioned the the man in the in the story of the rich man and the poor man who said God be merciful to me a sinner what he was saying is this we can understand the word sin as being control what he did he took the risk of saying God I'm a control freak I control I want to control you I want to control others I want to control me but it doesn't work it just gets me more shame more blame more what I would call on peace so I'm going to take the risk I don't know what's going to be happen here that's why please be merciful but I'm going to admit to you who and what I am because it doesn't work the way I was told it would or I thought it would or I hoped it would and to me it's this was really what kind of happened in my life I just got to the point where I said this isn't working trying to get God's approval parents approval the approval of the board and the congregation the approval of the ladies group and all of these things you know I'd go into church meetings and they say well the reason we aren't growing is because the pastor isn't making enough canvas calls etc etc what we've all gone through and finally you get to the point where you say look Lord I don't know what's going to happen here be merciful and I think the journey has to have these stages what I call vulnerability where we just stay it's not working I don't know if you can handle this or want to handle me I've got to risk it and I think that's one of the key aspects of it for me before I could really realize God's love and when you say this and you're waiting for the heavens open up and lightning strike you and to find out just the peace of God flows over you that becomes one turning point after the other and I think that's the stages of our journey internal shame it's like this huge brick wall that we're behind and in some way we kind of think it protects us if I stay it makes me try to do better so somehow it's my friend but really it's not your friend and God's on the other side of that wall and I think the risk to walk away from the wall to not use it anymore is that moment where you're going to find out if God really is the tyrant bully of the universe or whether he really is Abba and maybe there's no way to save people from the risk of that other than I need to do it I see God's heart in Scripture I see Jesus never manipulating someone's sense of shame which is easy to do you know how easy it is to manipulate shame to get people to do what you want to do almost any parent knows how to manipulate shame to get their child to do and the whole shame on you fingers scratching thing the whole I mean anybody knows that shame is the easiest thing to manipulate someone to get them to do what you want but shame is the most destructive force in the universe and you see Jesus in the gospels never exacerbating someone else's sense of shame in fact he's overriding it he's going beyond it he's getting behind the shame with them the woman at the well great example of a gal it's just feeling so shame is that he is another great example of Jesus cross I'll go to lunch at your place I'm going to come behind the wall I want to find you there and I want you to know this God is not who you think he is they in fact really really loves you and I think until we stop clinging to the wall and believing that it's true believing that God will only love me if I fill in the blank you're not going to find him to be the lover that he is but there's always I think there's always a risk where you kind of crawling the kayak and push away from the dock and it's quivering like crazy you don't know you're not going to roll over but when you commit yourself to the love of the father you'll never be disappointed because his love can hold you his love is that's I think what I want to keep saying to people is to risk it because he really is there because if not then you're on a vicious cycle because if you believe that you won't be accepted or approved of unless you perform in a certain way what happens is that you don't in your own mind achieve that so then you have shame and then the shame of course only serves to strengthen the fact that you are no good and that you aren't worthy then the only release of all of that is some form of addiction and in other words that with this whole concept of performance shame it only leads to addiction if we don't have the courage and ask father to help us step away from that and take the risk of saying hey father I ain't the perfect guy I think you want and then you know to let it as you say just go from there and let him smother you with it one of the craziest things you've ever said to me among all the crazy things you've said to me you said things I always talk about the things you've said to me are the things that just a lot of me put in John's mouth in the book but just were things that I knew when I first heard this is going to blow up my world I don't know that I want to embrace this whole view you asked me in the midst of the whole promise keeper deal from maybe 10 years ago and it was in its heyday maybe longer and you asked me one day we were having lunch and you said so what do you think this promise keeper thing is going to produce and I said I think it's going to produce you know some guys that are going to go focus on God for a weekend maybe come back and do a little better for a while but in the long run it's not going to be real fruitful and I knew that wasn't the right answer I said what do you think it's going to produce pornography and spousal abuse and alcoholism I looked at you with what how do you get there and you talked about that whole cycle of shame that if I go away and I make all these promises to God and I come back and actually do them well for a couple of weeks actually come home from work earlier and play with my kids and treat my wife better and then after two weeks it's not as much fun as I thought it was going to be and I start sliding back into my old patterns my shame is multiplied because I could do it for two weeks so obviously I could if I really wanted to and then it just multiplies into more shame and that shame has to be medicated, addicted or it comes out in violent explosion of anger or whatever and I'm just going wow when you went through all that I went oh my gosh I believe that that's true but here's how religion something that can be I don't think promise keepers was designed to increase drug addicts no or alcoholics but the whole intention of religion to try and make people better on their own effort ends up backfiring in the most heinous of ways and I just until we see that's why we talk about not shouldn't on yourself and the whole religious obligation thing it looks good on that God does ask us to do certain things God does have expectations of God you can argue that from scripture all you want the reality is God has freedoms he wants to give us absolutely but there's not things that we can do to get there on our own particularly if it's shame that's motivating the change because it the change won't happen the shame just grows right and then you've got to medicate it somehow you got to punch someone in the face you got to go shopping eating drinking something to medicate the pain in your life and I think man that if that doesn't expose the fallacy of religious performance I don't know what does I remember when we had finished the book and you were attempting to do some marketing things me I don't do marketing well you talked to some religious publishing houses and they weren't interested in the book and the reason was they said the only thing that really sells in Christian bookstores today are the how to books how to be a better wife how to be a better husband how to be a better child and so forth that was he loves me not this book that was he was it okay and they wanted to change it in a way yeah it was the opposite yeah well one of our favorite one of my favorite people and you were reading me a book this morning we were having breakfast and you were sharing some thoughts from Brené Brown and we have we she's been a guest on the God journey before not because she's come to our studios but because we used some of her Ted.com videos and if you've never heard her go to Ted.com and just put in Brené, B-R-E-N-E Brown, B-R-O-W-N and her things on guilt and shame and vulnerability are just some of the best recordings you ever want to hear you were reading out of a book The Gifts of Imperfection and you found this book to be right in line with what we're talking about here for people who struggle with this I haven't read it yet I actually gave me a copy I'm going to take it home and Sarah and I are going to read through it together but you got any comments about it because I just I want to aim people toward that resource if that's going to be helpful to anything you want to say about it well the book is great because it's not what you would call a spiritual book but it's so practical and she applies a lot of scriptural and spiritual principles in it to really help people people understand the blocks in their life and as to why they can't live a free, joyful and open life and so much of this stuff has become not only part of us but part of our society look at the whole political climate in which we live everything is being taught on shame you know you ought to be ashamed of yourself because you're white, black, yellow, green or red look you got to pass this bill because if you don't you know what's going to happen next year you bring grandma into the emergency room and she'll just lie there and die because there's no funds available to help her out so the whole thing is just functioning on shame and fear and guilt and so forth and I think to me this is the message of the church today we have to address these things to help people to say there is something more to life than living these closed in narrow life being afraid to talk to your neighbor would that it were the message of quote unquote the church today oh boy I'll say and Dr. Brown to her credit she writes to a secular audience but she's a woman of faith a lot of this is academic research but it's born out of her own personal faith which I've got people who know her people that I know know her and just talk about the depth of her faith thought we'd end with this because we're right at the point of people having to get off the bus and get out of their cars or whatever but Paula wrote us this over and over I keep seeing how much I get all worked up and concerned with doing or not doing etc it has been such a relief to know that I can just be a child and climb up on his lap and let him be my father so many times it seems like it just is all too much to be all too good to be true how can a person not fall in love with a god like this thank you Wayne and Brad for helping us all listen in on your conversations I discovered this site a couple of months ago and it brings much delight to my heart that's where Michelle that's what I'm praying that you'll find your way into that space and that reality and and a lot of the Michelle's out here that listen to this and man there's something in your heart that hungers for it I want to say that what's hungry in your heart is a God thing and you don't have to worry about it being frustrated that God does want to find whatever these blocks are to you believing knowing I had a long conversation with some kids when I was in New Zealand recently and one twenty one twenty two year old medical student was in the car taking me to the to the airport at the end of our weekend there and her and her fiancee were asking me questions getting to the airport and just as we arrive at the airport she leans up from the back seat and she said you know what I'm beginning to think she said I'm beginning to wonder that this only seems hard because it's more simple than we dare to believe neat isn't that good yeah wonderful because that's what I want to say to people I want to say to Michelle I know it looks impossible I know this wall looks insurmountable I know your view of God and whatever you didn't get from your parents looks like you can never get past this the fact is it's more simple than you yet believe and God wants to lead you into that simple place of believing and then you can know the same freedom that other people are beginning to discover as well that's our prayer for you you bet