Because You Asked — http://thegodjourney.com/wordpress/2007/06/15/because-you-asked/

It's now time to think outside the box of what we've always known. I myself will tend my sheep and have them lie down, declares the sovereign Lord. I think that's a profound turning point in somebody's relationship with God. And our hope in starting this was that this would become an ever-expanding conversation. Just two real guys talking about life. That's a nice tagline. I'm Wayne Jacobson. And I'm Brad Cummings. And welcome to another edition of The God Journey. The faithful and true funky intro. I just love it. The faithful and true. It's still there. The faithful and true. It's still there. Hey, DJ, we need some new stuff. Well, anybody. There's some other folks out there. Paul from Illinois is talking about maybe, or at least they asked him to do a lead for us. Yeah. Mix it up. Let's do some more new stuff. We've talked about kind of doing our own, but do we have any time in our lives really? Do you? I have nothing. I have no time. I haven't either. I just ran. I got back late last night from being gone for two days doing a retreat, and I've got now four days in town, five days before to do a whole lot of stuff before I fly for Europe on Wednesday. So how long you going for? This is nuts. You're going for a while. And then, yeah, I'm gone almost, almost three weeks, which is a long time to be away from Sarah. That's the one. She's not going? No, she's not. But. Oh, that's no fun. I'm going to be in England for a few days and hanging out over a weekend with the weekend of the 15th or whatever down in Bournemouth. And then Monday and Tuesday of that week, I'm going to fly over from Bournemouth to Holland, spend a couple of days with some folks in Holland, fly back to Bournemouth, hang out another day or so, and then back up to Heathrow and over to Dublin for an interesting little get-together going on. What's, what's happening in Dublin? Well, Kevin and Val, Kevin was, he had on the podcast last couple of weeks. Yeah. They're going to be in Ireland. And then some other folks were kind of wanting to come to Ireland, and then they asked if I would come and join them in Ireland, and then that brought some other folks to come. So actually. It's a family hoedown in Ireland. Yeah. It's going to be interesting to see what it is. It's one of those things you're bringing together, a lot of people, and you may have a lot of agendas kind of pushing, pulling various directions. I don't know. You hang out with people with agendas? Well, yeah. Why not? They do. Yeah. Okay. I didn't think you did that. I thought you checked, I thought you checked that bag at the door. I checked that bag. I checked my bag at the door. But not everyone else does. If there weren't people who hung out with me when I had agendas who didn't have them. Oh, there you are. I would never have learned not to have them. There you go. So yeah, I do hang out. Not that these people do. The Dublin crowd doesn't, and I know Kevin doesn't, and I think there's people that want to come together. And a lot of folks, I mean, we're talking people from New Zealand and Australia and South Africa and all over Europe and a few from the States, people who've been on this journey for a long time. Well, it's a G40 summit. And it's people who not only are on this journey, have been on it a number of years, and I know most of the people because I've been to all these places, but most of them don't know each other. And the idea was to get together for picnics and barbecues and just a week of being brothers and sisters together to see what God shows us. I've joked with people all along, you can joke with Kevin when he's here. This has all the ear markings of let's start a new denomination because they all start from things like this. I forbid you, Wayne. You get people from all over the world together and they think, look what we could do for God. And I don't, honestly, the people I know best going to this thing, they're walking out the door if that starts. And I'm going to join them. We'll do more of that picnicking thing, but I really think it's a wonderful opportunity for a lot of folks who don't know each other to get to know each other. And we'll see. We may get some good podcasting out of it. Maybe some wonderful stories to tell. If God does, when you bring people of different streams together, I think we're always enhanced because we get a view that you can't see by yourself. Yep. And a lot of these people, like I said, most of the ones we've had on this podcast are going to be there. Some of the folks we've had join us for conversations, the folks from Sacramento, the guy from Lady Smith, South Africa. A lot of those kinds of folks are going to be there. So it'll be really interesting. Jack Gary from New England and Lynette and Mike from DC. I'll highlight it. Yeah. So it'll be great fun. It'll be a lot of fun and hopefully nobody organizes it too much. And I think people... That's a Holy Spirit's job. But it's still scary. You put that many people in a room and you know... Someone else feels like they have to do the Holy Spirit's job. And I was talking about this. We did a California event a number of years ago. I did with some people and it was, I did. We're all going to be together and we're kind of people on this journey. And it brought together maybe 80, 90 people, I think, in Santa Cruz. 98% of the people there are just there to meet people, share their journeys, love each other. Two to three to four of them were there with not just a bit of an agenda. I mean like a big agenda, book to sell, story to tell, worship to lead, got to run the crowd. And I'll tell you what, those three, four people... Is it amazing how just one or two of those can actually derail something? It ruined the whole meeting thing. Every time we tried to get together, these people wanting to co-op the forum for whatever their thing was. And I was looking at each other going, why are we, you know, dinner time's more fun. Just hanging out was more fun. What do you do in a setting like that? Because I doubt you're the only one that has to face that. I mean, I think that can happen when you just try to have like a little... Home group thing. No, absolutely it can. So what do you do? I mean, when all of a sudden you see someone, you know, the agenda monkey pops up and it's got someone. You guys start beating them with a stick. That's about to kill a finger. Bring out the shovels. No, I think... Here's the battle with this. And I've talked about this with a lot of people. I don't know that I'm settled yet on how to do it. If it's in my home, it's very easy for me to deal with it. Even if we're in a group and I was one of the quote-unquote facilitators for the event. And, you know, even when I would... And there's some things you can do to say, hey, listen, let's not do that here. And if other folks want to hear that story, why don't you do it in the other room? And most people would say, yeah, okay, after dinner, those who want to hear this, part of this, we're going to meet in room 36A. But the person looked back at me and just said, no, I want everybody to hear this. I think God wants everybody to hear this. Well, I was pretty sure God didn't want me to hear it. I was pretty... And I look around the room, I think about 90% of the people are going, I don't want to hear it. And when it gets belligerent like that or forceful and God's told me and I'll tell you what. And that's what really burns me out on the whole thing. You've got to have somebody control the event you trust, who really just wants to facilitate it so that people like that don't take it over. Or the whole group has to be honest and you don't say, okay, brother, thanks for offering that. How many of you really want to do that? I think... And that takes people to be honest. That's the key right there is, I think people do have to have the courage to not just sort of abdicate that. But they don't. I've been in rooms... I know. I know. I hear this people going, you know, we've got to be courteous. They're not saying that, but that's what the religiously, politically correct stuff. We don't want to be rude, oh my gosh, because Jesus said, nice is better than honest. That's of course what he said. Okay. I haven't read the Gospel that way. Well, Paul said, it's only by speaking the truth in love that we're going to grow up. And if people can't speak the truth in love, it's got to be in love. And that doesn't mean that you're not firm, does it? No. You're not in absence of love. But it's also mean that people who are being spoken to with the truth in love have a heart to honor the environment they're in and even if they feel really called to do something that other people don't see, that they're willing to back up from that and not just keep forcing it home. And that's when people are already pushy. It's hard for them not to think outside of, look, God has told me, I know you don't see it, but I'm going to serve you by ramming this down your throat. That's what gets complicated. It's like a whole failure of parenting. And I think it's because there has not been enough of this done when it needs to be done. It's no different when you just look at little kids, preteens and teens that obviously they have been given a tremendous amount of freedom without much discipline or consequence to how they behave. And they don't learn a courteousness of how to prefer others or even to consider them. It's like me and mine all the time. Yeah. And it's Jesus so modeled at that he would say, even the son of man didn't come to be served, but to serve. He was here for us. He wasn't here to force, to push, to cajole, to say, I'll get behind me, Satan. It's to Peter. It's a pretty strong stage, right? That's not quite what we're talking about, but I hear there were moments he was like that, but for the most part, he was not forcing his way on people. He was there to help. And if you want to help, I'll help you. But I think that's the way God is. And I think the more we get to know him, the more gracious we're going to be with you. And like you said, no less firm and no less honest. But gracious. It does take courage though. You really, when you're silent in those moments, you suffer. You suffer at someone else's agenda. But you know what most people do? They'll be silent in the moment and then they'll leave coming. And they vote with their feet. So yeah. I'm not going back next week because that was just really horrible. But you know, I got an email from we haven't had a meeting in California since. So that'll tell everybody's afraid like, okay, let's have a gathering in that. No. Unless we're going to figure out a way not to have certain people come. It's not going to work. I think this, this, this question from this email relates really well. It's like, I got this from Mike from, I think it's Arkansas. Really? Yeah. He said, thanks for your podcast with Kevin Smith from Australia. I appreciated your transparency. It was fun brother to have, wasn't it? Oh, absolutely. That was great. So I treated, I appreciated your transparency as all of you shared during the program. You spoke gently yet loudly to the cry of our hearts. And then he asked this, what recommendations would you have for someone who wants to facilitate change moving from institutionalism without amputating all of the limbs of a body in order to see that change take place? He says, I'm just trying to minimalize collateral damage. Your thoughts would be appreciated. Wow. So what would you say? I mean, here's obviously a guy that's, his, his heart's cry is, you know what? I don't want to get stuck in the traditions of men and the systems and all that other stuff. So he's trying to respond, you know, he's obviously on this journey into measures, but he got, he's got a form of people around him. Yeah. What do you do then? Well, to me, it depends on, on what the, what the goal is here. If the goal is, can I live in an environment like this and yet live free relationally and not get caught up in the, the bondage talk, the, the guilt system kinds of way of doing things. Can I live among people and just be different? That's, that's, yeah, absolutely. I know people who do that all the time. And I, No amputation necessary. I don't think you need to have a perfect environment to be in. I really don't. Know that I've ever been. Yeah. The other question is how do I change these other people? Becomes quite a different question. You shouldn't. You shouldn't. Yeah. Don't even go down that road. That's going to be painful. Well, one of the things I recognized in the whole like new wineskin wine thing, it's like, you know what, that isn't my job. And I get the rest of them to buy into it. Yeah. And I think that I think what we've got to have some hope in is if I live free, that's enough of encouragement. If folks want to come, they'll come. If folks find more security in a system, then they'll stay in there. I don't mean leaving the system in terms of leaving a building or leaving a group of people, but where they're going to stay stuck in systemic ways of thinking about God or come to embrace God more relationally. I think the best thing we, the best overtures we make to those people is just living free and living honestly. And folks will ask you questions, folks will see it in you. And it's real in you. They'll talk to you about it. They'll decide whether they're going or not. And I do know big groups of people who've chosen to go together through some kind of transformation that they got disillusioned together with the ineffectiveness of the system. And so I have big groups. We've had some of those people share those stories on past podcasts. So is it possible for larger groups to just say, you know, gosh, we're just burned down on all this stuff. And let's get back to just loving Jesus and loving each other and not the conformity dynamics of trying to build an institution. Do people choose that? Yes. Do, there's a whole group of people choose it at the same time. That's rare. See, I think in, in this situation, maybe to help Mike with some tangibles is, you know, the key word is facilitate change. You cannot dictate change. And you really got to be in dialogue to see that, you know, what God is perhaps doing in you is not necessarily what he is doing in other people. It may not be the same timing. It may not be the same expression. And so the challenge is, is how do I facilitate an unfolding of the equipping of others to make decisions for themselves? It's not me, the man of God telling us the people of God where we all must now go in order to obey the spirit. Isn't that the advantage that Jesus said, you know, from being a pastor, like we both were, and feeling the responsibility to move a certain direction. Up to the pastor. And it used to, I keep reading the Gospels going, Jesus has not got a group of people that he has the angst of moving in a certain direction. I mean, he certainly wants to invite them into the Father's life. But there, he's, he's offering that to people. And the most powerful moments are moments he's with individuals having that conversation. And even with his own 12, he got 11 of them to somewhat move that direction in various degrees of effectiveness. But he didn't have the angst of, I've got to move them to this point other than, I want to make God's life available to them and find out those who want to come. It's very different for me to touch hungry people and encourage them on a journey as opposed to have responsibility for a group that you have to move together to some reality, because that's just like herding cats. Well, isn't it interesting that you get Jesus looking upon, you know, the mass of people as sheep, without a shepherd, as cast down. And yet you don't see him trying to do herd movements. You know, it's like he, he isn't trying to move them in mass. You get the application of the, you know, the good shepherd basically going after the one. Absolutely. Leaving the 99, taking the time to individualize this journey. And that's the thing that's always was a disconnect for me in quote, the pastor it is because you're just going like a good pastor would let the one go because of the demands of the 99. That's right. And yet the Bible example is the exact opposite of leave the herd, take care of the one. She used to drive me nuts too, that pastor. He was going like, whoa. How are we doing this? We're not doing this. This is completely backwards. But you do see that Jesus never got caught up in the masses that were around him. Probably because you can't live off the tithe of the one. Yeah. Probably that has an element to it. Yeah, funny you should mention that. But it would seem to me that what's missing from all of this is I don't think God is trying to do anything other than individualize each and everyone's life as this journey gets walked out. He isn't trying to do something in mass. Which love doesn't do. I think we get down to what love really has to move people individually. Something love has to capture. It's almost a substitute for love. It's a personal context. Yes, and inviting people into that reality is very different from, okay, here's what we're going to do. Here's the program, here's the obligation, here's the commandments, follow these. He was trying to capture people with affection and we don't all respond to that at the same time or in the same way. So his ability to love people into that reality and take those who come and not be angry, forceful, whatever with those that aren't saying, well, you should come anyway. Some of the more helpful people in my life have been the people that have expressed a tremendous amount of patience with me where I'm at, not trying to tell me I'm wrong and get me into a different place, but just trying to understand me where I'm at and then have related to me on that basis. And dropped in those little nuggets of thoughts that work you over, over time. Yeah, and just going like, those have been the most helpful things that might to answer you in particular, I think you got to not look at the whole group mentality and I think you perhaps got to do the individual work of what's happening in this person's life, what's happening in that person's life and where are they at in their journey as opposed to where are we at in our corporate journey because I just think you're going to make mistakes when you go for that mind meld thing, you know? It's like the board of resistance is futile. It's like, you know what? Or we're going to get enough people together and go convince the church leadership that we all want to move this direction. And what those things usually do is it is that forcing a split. Even those people that want the right thing are going to alienate those who feel more secure in whatever system they're embracing that they're not ready to question yet. And it's up that then at some point the hungry group has to move out and do their own thing. And then the other apostates are, you know, it divides people almost by names and identity that's not helpful. Jesus was pretty, I think, clear and in the whole kind of like parable passage where he's saying, you don't put new wine in an old wineskin. He isn't recommending like, well, gee, you know, it's just, he says, you don't do that. The reason you don't do that is you're going to ruin both. And I think it does bring an unnecessary fight. It took me a while to understand that as God has been doing new things in me, I think out of our own zeal and excitement, passion, you know, there's, I'm probably not the only one like this. We want to convince everyone else, this is the best, you know, here's where we need to go. Because we're excited about it, exactly, yeah. And as opposed to just realizing, you know what, maybe this is God, maybe this is something that God is doing with me. As opposed to, I must now take everyone else. I think we do that for validation. Yeah. You know, it's like, and I think the danger is, if I don't rightly discern, God, what am I supposed to do? How am I supposed to relate to quote, this body? You will end up amputating people, groups, parts, and just dissecting the whole thing. If you don't do that with wisdom to say, Holy Spirit, direct me. Yeah. If the question isn't, how do I live here in love? And instead is, how do I change this group of people? That's where it's going to be a problem. But as long as that, say that again, because those are profound difference. Oh, it's just the difference between saying, how do I live here in love? And how long, God, give me the courage and the faith and the grace to live here that way. And as long as he does do it, is a very different question from, how do I change these people to get them to where I think God wants them? Even with the best of intentions, you're going to wound people and you're going to amputate things. Yeah. It's not going to be helpful. But I think for a lot of us who said, yeah, I think most people I know on this journey have tried to live in that environment and love. And you can do that, particularly if the group's fairly healthy for quite a while. But if the group is really motivated by performance and guilt over time, I think freedom becomes a threat to that environment. And also, particularly people who are just learning how to live in the freedom of grace, I think they find it very difficult to be in guilt-based environments or performance-based environments that they finally have to take a step away from for a time. But if you take a step away from the environment, what I keep telling people is, you don't take a step away from the people. There's lots of ways to keep being with people you love if you don't sit in the same building together on a Sunday morning. Yeah, but you know what? That is such a mindset bender in terms of on both sides of the fence is because I have friends that, a lot of good friends are still leaders of different big huge deals. Me too. And because I'm not a part, they don't exactly know what to do with me. You know, I can maintain relationship with them, but they're looking at me like, ooh, renegade pester there, troublemaker. It's, ooh, I don't want his infections because it'll affect my base, you know? And you're just going like, I think even if you want to maintain relationship for some folks who are entrenched within that system mentality, your departure is really, you've left the arc, you know? Warning, warning. Right, your salvation is at issue. And it's like, to some degree. And that can be a scary time for people. And that's hard. And I think you just gotta realize, you know what? Your job is to follow the shepherd who's leading you. And it's not my job to get all the other sheep to follow me. No, that's exactly right. And that's a powerful difference and a great freedom for us to learn how to live that way, which may be difficult. I think when people first get on this journey and you've lived by guilt all your life, it is hard to be around voices of guilt and performance while you're learning to live in grace. But I do think it's also true over time that when you learn the freedom of grace, it is stronger than voices of guilt and performance. And you actually can live around that as you grow on very easily without being threatened, without it tearing you down, without taking a week trying to dig yourself back out of this hole when somebody's bombed a lot of guilt on you. You can just kind of walk away and go, man, I'm sorry for where they are. But it doesn't impact you. And I think that's a great gift. That's a great freedom. Jesus came not worried that his holiness would be tainted by our flesh, but that his holiness would stain the world's flesh with its life. He didn't see it the other way around that holiness is so fragile, it just can't get it near bad stuff. He was like, no, no, my stuff's not fragile. My stuff is life itself. What the world has sin and guilt and performance, that's fragile. That falls in the face of God's love and affection if we can just learn to live in it. It was interesting. I think being in a place I'm at now, at times I tend to be a magnet for other leader types that are within the system that are wanting to see change happen. And it's usually they come with kind of a rallying cry where they're trying to enlist my support of how they're gonna bring change to their environment. And man, they're full of angst. It's like frustrations and this, that and that. And I'm just going like, I see my former self. I'm going like, ooh, I know that person. And what's so fun for me right now is I don't feel any of that. I don't feel the agenda burden as if it is my job to change that group of people. I don't not love them and I don't not care. I just recognize, I don't really think that's my function and role in that thing. And so I can wonderfully relate to what's going on on either side, just going like, you know what? It'll be interesting to see how this sorts out as opposed to I've got to sort it out. Yeah, good. We've got lots of stuff because we've had a lot of guests in here for a long time. We've not caught up on some of the other things going on. I noticed on our forum the other day, I'm not sure I'm pronouncing this right all. Israela posted something. It just caught a tender place in my heart. And I don't think we have all the answers to this, but maybe we have some comments that might be helpful. Shall I listen to the podcast daily and I've thought a lot about relationships and I'm wondering for the shut in, she uses quotes. How does that relationship flesh out? I'm a single parent at home with a multi-handicap child. I have no family and can't work outside the home. My getting to see others is rare. We do get to see some friends once a week at a home Bible study. Their journey is very different from ours. Once a week for a meal is not much fellowship time. So I struggled to make sense of my particular journey. And she asks, are there any others out there who are separated from community? If so, how do you make sense of that? Now, I don't think you and I live there. So I would second her what she's asking for others on the forum. If you have some experience with this and found some things that work for you, help her out if you've got some insight for that. But as I was reading this, one, I think this is why thinking about the body of Christ as meetings doesn't work. Absolutely. But thinking about as relationships, and I know this takes a little more on people's part, particularly, and I know people who, multi-handicap child, you just don't get out, you can't get out. Oh, she's pretty consumed with the demands of what her day is. And my heart goes out to that. I would hope people around her, if they would, would take note of that and drop by and be helpful and find ways to build on that relationship just as part of sharing life together. As people, I think that's what Kevin was talking about a couple weeks ago, that the life of the body of Christ is not going to meetings, it's sharing life with each other. And here's somebody with a multi-handicap child, or this could be a caregiver for a dying parent or people that just, their time demand is just fixed for the entire week because of the people they're caring for and they can't leave to anyone else. And how do our hearts, the shut-in ministries of a lot of fellowships was, we'll send them an audio tape of the Sunday morning deal, which isn't what- It's not like having skin around where there's an actual flesh and blood person. Cause I think one of the most profound things is, I do think we're meant to relate to flesh and blood people, you know, here you got Adam in the garden. Before Eve, before Mr. and Mrs. Adam, just Adam, and you got a perfect environment, and God makes a comment, it's not good for man to be alone. And he's like, well, but he's got you Lord, and it's like, well, yeah, but it's not good. And so I do think that, you know, validating, gosh, this hurts, this is hard. I think, yes, it is. And on the one hand, you wanna say to people, watch out for folks like this and get involved with them as friends. Don't make them ministry projects, I'll go there once a week and do my thing, but make them a friend and you know how to respond and relate, and you wanna say to people who are there, and I know it's not always easy, but fellowship outside the walls oftentimes means, you've gotta take some initiative, pick up a phone, invite somebody over, you know, right on the menu. It just isn't going to come to you, that's a recipe for disappointment. It is. If you have expectations that others are gonna reach in, you know what, none of us has any control over that. I think here's where the joy of the present day communications capacities comes in. You can pick up the phone. You can use the internet to dialogue. I mean, the very fact that she can send us an email means that there is a conversation that's beginning to some measure. And while those don't replace, I think, our need for flesh and blood face to face contact. Because I think, I mean, that's part of who we are. God didn't just create us as a consciousness to be filed in some, you know, hard drive out there. The reality is, in all of that, you can initiate. And I think the biggest challenge is, I don't think anyone enjoys being needy or being perceived as needy, or even if it's really helpful coming across as needy. But to be able to say, hey, you know, I would like to, to be able to express your needs and your desires and your risking disappointment every time you do that, your risking rejection anytime you do that. But I don't think there's any way to get fulfillment apart from reaching out and saying, could you help me? Or I'd like to see you. Yeah, and the one comment about that, people aren't in the same place we are. The demands on a caregiver in a home are huge. And most people have the foggiest idea and can't relate to it. And I would even encourage her to look at, maybe there's some community support groups around whatever particular need her child has. Almost every community, you know, they're not Christian. They're often very secular, but you meet wonderful people there who are struggling and you get to be a light and you get some people around you who know what you're dealing with. And many of them are believed. I know my daughter's got really not having, you know, a four-wall thing that she meets in on Sunday. She's got real involved with Moms Club in Simi Valley. A lot of friends, with some that end up being believers, some that aren't, but her light is among those women and their children when they're doing their activities and they're doing whatever. And I think that's so much healthier than just, you know, we have a Moms Club at our fellowship where it's just our kind of people. I think it's so much healthier to get involved in the community and find out how God wants to use you. So that's even, if you really want specific fellowship with people who are dealing with what you're dealing with. And I know Sarah found that very helpful when she was dealing with her dying parents in our home. And the demands and the emotional turmoil that she was facing and the expectations of her parents at times, she found it incredibly helpful to sit down with other people who had been through that or were going through it. So there's lots of options. And in all of that, I think too, we want to say, obviously God needs to do this. It needs to be a thing that God provides, but be part of that with him. Look what he's putting on your heart. Absolutely. But also I want to add one other facet. You know what? I think so often times we're trying to find, our preference would be to find people that we can relate to that somehow can understand our context. And if that was a prerequisite for a relationship to happen, you've greatly diminished the number of relationships you can have. Because so many of the people I relate to, are they going to understand my content? I'm a pretty unique bird in terms of my own history and what's brought me here. There's not very many people who have walked the road I particularly have, but I'm more interested in understanding a little more about them. And it takes a certain level of freedom to be able to say that though. Yes it does. I think when we first start out on this journey and God's trying to strip away some of our preoccupation with self, it is very, it's almost impossible to think taking an interest in someone else. But increasing growth and freedom, I think does change that. I just, I want to add the element that I think that I think when we do take the focus off our situation and our needs and I just simply make an investment of friendliness, my experiences is those seeds that I'm sowing, they do reap the reward of returned love and affection and focus where you're just going like, you know what? It didn't about me. I don't come across as needy. I'm not trying to get something. If I start with just the initiative of, you know what, this is what I'd like as opposed to waiting for someone to give it to me. My life's response has been, well then I'm going to give that to somebody else. And I may not get it back from them. But my experience in God is that, the reality is it comes back from somewhere. And I think when we did the authentic relations books, one of the things I said in there was that, you know, you might love 100 people in just being generous and taking an interest in them and get back from a dozen maybe that same kind of concern. But it's worth it. Oh, absolutely. It's still worth it. Absolutely. And I agree wholeheartedly with what you're saying. I guess I just want to say too, it's easier to talk like you're talking, the healthier you get. Sure. And it's more difficult when you just, I can just see this poor, when you go through the pain of swamped and in need, it's just so great that her life is selflessly every day caring for a child, then there's something that she needs to fill up on from others. And maybe this helps us. I mean, we can't all rush over to her house this afternoon, probably a little overwhelming. But maybe if it makes some of the people who are listening just think, who in my community might feel like this that I could reach out to? That'd be a valuable thing. Oh, that'd be huge. That'd be huge. And then I got this letter from Louise and I got it just the other day. I thought this was hilarious. It's something that Brad and I have talked about and I just loved her for writing and she does it with a certain degree of wit. So let me just read what Louise says. She said, I've been listening to the podcast for some time and I just had to write and tell you how much I enjoyed them. Thank you, thank you. But at the risk of sounding a little like Cranky McCrank pants, whoever that is, I have a slight problem and I know that you all come from a male perspective. It's glad to know we come from a male perspective. Thank you. And many of your guests are of that persuasion as well. I never thought of being male as a persuasion, but it's an interesting thought. I am fully persuading. I kind of born this way. Yeah, not much I could do about it. However, the podcasts are rather male. Well, imagine that. That's just who he is. Do you got me wrong? I love the male perspective on things, but once in a while it'd be nice to hear from the female side of things. I agree. It seems like within Christendom we either swing to one side or the other. This is where it gets interesting. Either things are so passive and feminine that makes you want to hurl, or things are so dogmatic and dictatorial, one wants to run. Is that male? I don't think. It's the second one male? The way it writes that. Even the passive feminine, I could always hear people come on. What? What? It seems the best we can do is strike a balance is to have a dictator upfront while everyone sits passively and listens. That's hilarious, Louise. I'm sure you don't mean that. I have this hope that we can come to a happy medium. We can mix the receptive feminine with the active masculine. I'm not sure I'm gonna go with those deals there, because I don't think necessarily feminine's receptive. They're not exclusive stereotypes, but I think there's some truth in it. I know some very active feminine that's very healthily active feminine. Anyway, love to hear the female perspective every once in a while, just a thought, and then she PSs this. We tried though. She PSs this. Wayne, you've met my husband a couple of times. Just so you know, I'm the brains in this operation. He's just the pretty face. I'm sure her husband appreciates that a ton. But no, we've talked about this. In fact, I just said to Brad a couple of weeks ago, wouldn't it be great if we had a co-host here that was like a 25-year-old black Asian Hispanic woman and they would give us a greater diversity of age of. All in one person? Yeah, that'd be great. Black Asian Hispanic woman. And to be honest, Louise, there's rarely a time we have a couple here visiting that we're gonna put on the podcast that we don't also ask the wife to join us. But they don't always say yes. But there's a lot of wives that don't really care to be in front of a microphone like their husband. And we find some women who might be willing to where their husband might not be. So that's just not a male-female deal. We have probably asked in the course of this podcast over the last couple of years, I've probably asked 12 to 15 women that I've talked to, been in my home at various times with Sarah and me. Well, I've asked them, well, it'd be great to get on a podcast. You're like, talk about that and we'll get Brad here, we'll tape it. The only one has said yes. And that was Lynette we had about a year ago. Our wives have both done it a couple of times. I'm not sure it's their favorite thing, but I agree with you. We'd love to have more female perspective. I think we get a lot of that on the form and a lot of the emails we get actually come from that perspective. But yes, if there's some of you out there that have gone through a great journey and like to be part of adding some of that to this mix, we're all for it. Oh, make yourself known, absolutely. But the other side of it is this, we're not thinking and we don't want you to be thinking that this podcast is a cover, everything there is to cover about the life of Jesus kind of thing. It really just started as Brad and I have a conversation. It's a couple of guys talking. It's a couple of white guys. I'm older, Brad younger. So we get a little bit of more bad language from Brad because of that. I'm a contractor. Little bit different perspectives. We're different places in the journey, but that's really all it is. And it really can't be more than the people that's in the room. But, and Louise, if you wanna be on it someday now, the Skype thing is not the best way to do it. So we're hoping you'll come to Los Angeles and sit down with us and we'll do a podcast someday. But yes, yes, yes. We would love to have more of that feminine perspective, although I'm not sure it's all that receptive and passive. But a lot of this is not meant to be, here's what we think therefore this is what is, I think we're trying to provoke thought and questions and dialogue. So my hope is that this is a conversation starter that just sort of like throwing a stone in a puddle, all of a sudden it ripples to the outward edges and takes it beyond anything we're doing. I love that, but I tell you, I like having, we've had your wife in here or mine or we've got to talk to Lynette. It's always been wonderful having women talking alongside this journey with us. They see things different. Yeah, and if we had a third co-host, somebody, but this is something God just kind of put on our hearts to do and we're open to it changing or ending or whatever it does up the road. But so good on you, Louise. We'd love to have it too and we'll see how God might provide up the road. But really even the guests we have on, these are not people Brad and I go out and get. It's people that God just kind of sends by. It seems like the wind blows them through. Blows them through and we have a chance to do it. And we've loved the perspective, so fabulous. Well, anything else on your heart? No, but blessings on your journey and travels. And just for a little truth in advertising because I'm getting ready to leave for a fairly lengthy time. The next two podcasts are also gonna be prerecorded today. So we'll do some other stuff. So we won't be feeding back to anything you're saying for probably till July rolls around because I'll be gone the rest of June. But yeah, I'm looking forward to the trip. It should be a lot of fun. I hope I'm healthier this flight than the last flight. Yeah, that'd be fun for you. You got the transatlantic deal. I'm gonna trip it now not to fly without a plastic bag in my case. You know what? I do wanna encourage something on the forum. I can't wait for this next, which would be last week's podcast to get up because I thought what we talked about with Kevin was pretty dynamic in terms of just a challenge of how do you go about living this life in the simplicity of trusting Jesus? So I'm hoping that stirs a fair amount of forum discussion. That'd be fun to see what takes place out of that. Yeah, and we wanna invite folks to do that. We know the forum, sometimes there's lots of folks on it that kind of take it a lot of different directions, things we haven't even talked about on podcasts, and some we may, some we may not down the road. But yeah, really, if those of you that wanna interact about things specifically said on a specific podcast, there's room for that. And I think that's so healthy to add to the conversation. And especially questions that might come out of that because I just think the practical application of, gosh, how do you embrace this? Yeah, and we're Brad and Major Mad. I think we wanna hear more of that. Yeah, let that too. Send those cards and letters coming. Thanks for traveling with us today on The God Journey. If you'd like to join the conversation, we'd appreciate your comments or your questions by email or at our website, thegodjourney.com. Stop by today and join the conversation.