No Longer a TACL* — http://thegodjourney.com/wordpress/2008/11/14/no-longer-a-tacl/

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 to Claire's 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. You ever wondered where the faith healer is when you need one? You need one? I've been sick for like a week, man. Just total congestion and I just, I've put my hand on my head every which way forward. I can't get it to drain. Have you tried hanging upside down? I have and that just choked. That didn't happen. That always choked you. Yeah, sickness invaded our house and it stayed for a while. We were too hospitable. We should have kicked it out the first thing, but I don't know. It was. Yeah. So I'm looking for a faith healer. If anyone got one, I could put my hands on my TV screen. I could do it. I could put the phone on my forehead, all those things. You really think that's going to help? No, but you know, it's funny. I think I have migrated in the course of time. There's times in my life where I've seen God do some wonderful, miraculous, instant kind of healing things. There's times where we've prayed for everything and there's also times I know that with all that same gusto and heart, you just sort of suffer through the common cold and just go like, I don't think I'm learning a lesson. I don't think I'm being punished. I don't think it's my terrible sin. It's just the common cold and it's part of life. It is part of life. So are pinched nerves, I think. Pinched nerves are part of life? I woke up. Oh, you got one? I don't know because I didn't get to a doctor. I woke up Sunday morning and my left arm felt like somebody was drilling on it with a power drill. Oh, that's terrible. Yeah. And I'm thinking heart attack. Well, that's terrible. That's one of those things. But it was like a muscle thing. I literally hardly could move my arm all day long and went to bed that night thinking I got to go to the doctor on Monday, find out what's going on, woke up Monday, and it's fine. It's like taking your car to the mechanic and it was a problem on the drive there then it was there. It's working fine. That's why I didn't go to the doctor. I'm like, okay, I don't know what that was. I really thought something major has gone wrong with my left arm and this place where you usually get shots at that part of your left arm felt like somebody's drilling me with a drill all day long. And then the next morning it says a little soreness there, but it's pretty much gone. You know what I love about all this right now? What's that? Because I don't feel abandoned or less loved. I feel congested. Are you cold? I feel congested. Well, that's good. I feel congested. But there was a time in my life spiritually that unless the circumstances were just like rosy. Yeah. I did. I would feel less loved and I would feel like distant from God. And I'm just going like, you know what's cool about this common cold? Not that I like it. Not that I want to keep it. And it's not mine. I'm not confessing it. It's really not that you're over here to pass it on to me. Yeah, I'm going to breathe on you. I hope not. The reality is I don't feel the estrangement. You know, I still love to pray for healing. I still love to see when God does it. Yep. We still teach the kids as if, you know, that's one of the doctors we go to. After Jesus. Yep. But what's nice is I don't feel like I'm in some sort of condemnation hole. And if I was just doing something right, I wouldn't be, you know, you get a life free of these things. You don't feel like you deserve this cold? No, I don't think I deserve it. I mean, you know what, I got it for my wife and I knew I was going to get it. I knew I didn't want to get it, but I got it. So that's life. Got to watch out for those diseases. That's a Cummings household. Let's, let's, let's rip this up to a higher level here. I got an interesting email this week. I just kind of thought about it while you were talking, and it's from someone that I had met recently that's got a fairly significant birth defect, had it all their life. They're close to my age, maybe a little younger. I don't, I don't know. I hate to judge those kind of things, but he said, and we've had a little exchange about that since we talked, because I made a comment that he misunderstood and we've been kind of clarifying it out through email. I think Father's putting his finger on something that has troubled me and hindered me all my life. My judgment of my bodily situation is something bad that had to be overcome or conquered. Instead of simply resting in his love, I have thought that I needed to strive against the circumstance, rise above it in order to become, in order to lift myself up to what you've called the favor line. I'm learning from you and Brad, from Jesus himself and being born with a birth defect is not necessarily bad or good, but it is what it is, but a venue in which God wants to enter into this pain and display his glory, his sufficiency, his care and provision. His glory is the issue, not my comfort, not my sense of fairness. With Father's love helping me, I am beginning to know that regardless of my awareness of a lack or incompleteness in me, he is my life. He is surely good, really good, and he's winning my trust again. Isn't that great? Yeah. God is just good, period. Being that's that major in someone's life, a birth defect has been part of being teased, growing up, feeling incomplete somehow, and feeling like it was somehow punishment or he had been bad, or that he'd had to somehow get it past that. That's that whole warped way that religion twists your way to think, even about stuff like colds or birth defects or whatever, it's like, man, I've done something wrong, I've got to fix this out. Either way, God's pushed outside of it. I'm left in here alone, and I love this, that God wants to enter into the places where we hurt. I mean, some people's, as I said to him, some people's defects are obvious, because it's a bodily thing. But we're all defected in a number of ways. It's all about God getting into where who we really are and where we really live and transforming us, not necessarily fixing everything to make our life wonderful, and I love what God's doing there. I love that they've been able to re-engage trust at a point that's been kind of tough for them. One of the most valuable things that can happen in the human heart is to find that place of acceptance of yourself as is. You know, like when you go to buy furniture or something like that, as is. You know what I mean? It's like, you looked at it, check it out, it's as is. You like it? Like, not like it? The reality is we've got to come to a place in our own life where it's like, Lord, I can experience your love as is. Not when I get more holy, not when I improve or get past these character defaults. It's more like, until I experience that and have that sense of his acceptance and my agreement with that, I don't think much change happens. But religion doesn't let us think that way. Religion has to blame something. Religion has to fix if things are not perfect, something is wrong. This is bad. You need to try harder. I'm going to ask one of these weird questions. Why? Why does that come into our brains? Because it's like a reflex. It's like, hit me in my little, below my knee and my leg's going to jerk. Why do we have that reflex that we've got to blame something or find the cause so as to affect the cure? I think because we feel too vulnerable without that. We really want to believe that if I do everything right, I'm guaranteed this comfortable, secure, all my needs met kind of lifestyle. And the religion is going to set that out. That's the promise. No, I don't believe it either. But I don't think that even brings security. That seems to breed more insecurity. I know that in my own life, I look at the last decade of how I think God is shaping me and my perspectives. I recognize that my willingness to actually embrace the, you know what, it is what it is and not have to kick against every door that I don't like because it's not just open to my wonderful circumstances. I think my acceptance of that has brought more security. Oh, it absolutely does. But where it doesn't is in the religious concept where the people up front and the people around you are pretending that you get the good life when you haven't been there for the last couple of seasons. Yeah, I haven't been there for a long time either. But I think we forget how captivating that is and how easy it is to pretend and how for most of us, through most periods of our life, things are going to be okay. They're going to be good. And it's when, and this is probably the most damning things I ever heard come out of the mouth of a friend toward me. But it was after I'd been through this huge betrayal and my life had been shredded and I was sitting in a room full of people and everyone in this room was in the middle of some kind of major need to a spouse having committed suicide, to a false accusation about something that worked. I mean, major things in this room. And I was sitting there going, my goodness, look at all the need we have here tonight. I don't think I used to know people with this much need. And a very dear friend of mine looked across the room and he said, you don't get it, do you? And I said, what? He said, five years ago, you weren't safe to be around if you had a need. If someone had a need near you, you had an answer to feed them. You had a reason why this was not right and they could fix it themselves. And you left people with all that bondage and you had a clue. And I just, it was one of those really awkward moments. I'm telling you, really awkward moments. And yet I realized, my goodness, if all that I'd been through was just to make me safe for people in the midst of pain, it was worth it. Oh, yeah. I came away from that going because I couldn't understand why we know we'd plan marriage retreats. And the only people that would come on marriage retreats are people with good marriages and we'd be counseling a whole lot of people that got some really bad stuff going on their marriage instead of spending all our, here's how we say it, wasting all our time helping people individually, let's have a retreat so we could help them in mass. And then the people whose marriage is needed the most wouldn't come. I mean, yeah, I'm going to pay 150 bucks to go here for a weekend. What a rotten husband I am or a rotten wife I am, you know, those people don't come and then it's perfect because then you say, well, no wonder they have a messed up marriage. They will put in the effort into fixing it and the people that come have good marriages. That's why they have good marriages and it creates that ongoing facade is we who work hard get the good stuff and those who are in need. Well, you somehow deserve it. And I think who that makes secure is not people in need. It makes secure people who think they've got it all. And then when your day of disaster comes and your whole thing melts down and that's I think for a lot of people here that I'm disillusioned but not gratefully, that's what we're seeing. We're seeing, you know what, my whole little dream world kind of collapsed here. And no, it's not fun. I liked it better when things seem to make sense. And I could blame people for stuff and I could feel like at least if I did things right, God would honor that and wouldn't let me no need. And gosh, it's just such an illusion. And it's a powerful one because I think I was stuck in it for years. I just I'm so disconnected from that way of thinking. I'm pretty sure I wasn't safe to be around because I did. I'm a problem solver. I like fixing problems. And I think what's different today is most of the problems, you know, when I listen to people, actually listen, I don't feel like I got to fix them. And so I don't know, you know, sometimes I don't have anything to say, which is like really bizarre for me. You have me too. You know, I'm just going like I've set there a few conversations going like, gosh, this is really different. You may like, you know, a little out of body experience looking at yourself like, dude, you're different because I used to bring my problem. Fix it. Let's go after this. And I'm just going, I wasn't that even driven by something inside of us. Oh, I want to fix your problem. So I'll feel better about myself. I don't have to feel uncomfortable around it. Sure. People who are knowing great physical need. My brother dying of MS and his best friend said, it's, you know, I wouldn't go see him because I just I was too uncomfortable there. And so, you know, I do think a lot of our desire to fix it if we're really honest, throwing some platitude on somebody doesn't fix anything. No, but if they smile at us and go away and say, thank you very much, we're good. We feel better. Even though that person now feels worse, they feel worse. And now they've got to pretend not to feel worse. They got to pretend to be better. I do like what you're saying. I think one of the great things that changed in my life over this whole relational journey is you really just get to sit down with people and weep with those who weep and hurt with those who hurt and say, I don't know how to fix this, but let's give it to Jesus. I think Jesus can fix this. I had somebody call me last week or or just crawl into it. I think the thing that I'm looking at is like, look, I'd like my cold to go away. I'm really tired of hacking in the morning. But guess what? I don't have that pain of abandonment. That's amazing. No, nor this is the first. If Jesus were really real today, the first thing he'd fix is my cold. Yeah. I mean, I just said to go, like, you know what? I don't know that. Well, you know, his death on the cross, he deserves my healing. I used to pray weird kinds of prayers that I don't know that they're completely bunked, but you're just going like, I don't feel like I like I'm being ripped off. Like, I'm not getting what's entitled to me. Like I should be cold free. You're just going like, you know what? This is part of this present existence. I'm living on planet Earth and I got a cold and I'm pretty sure I know where I got it. Not sure where it came into the house, but I know it's been passed around by everybody and you just kind of suffer through it and love to get past it, but I'm not going to suffer the needless pain of abandonment or condemnation in the midst of it. Do I like it? No, I don't like it. Dude, do I confess it away? No, I'm not at war with it, but I'm doing things that will make me better. And more importantly, I'm not at war with God in it. Yeah, because I think even sometimes I was I was hearing it last week about something going on. I'm like, there's something I got to do here that's going to unlock the key to this. And then I just I started laughing and I went, what stupid thought? I've had that thought all my life and it's never seemed stupid before. I just started laughing going, oh, so if I pray or fast or there's some little key here, if I could just figure out and do it, then Jesus would have to do what I want him to do in the situation. And I honestly just started laughing. I'm going, that's just nuts. Now, I might fast because I just love to hang out with Jesus and get past some of my ugly, fleshy stuff. So there'd be a reason to fast, but it wouldn't be a fast. So then he'll have to fix this the way I want. If it's for anything other than intimacy and growing in relationship. And it is like a little spiritual tool I'm trying to use on God to get my desired outcome. I have a whole bunch of buddies that, you know, the whole election was this was their cause, this was their rally. And they were not looking for the outcome we got. I've heard from some of those people. OK, it's not the outcome. And I've heard. And I sit there, I just go, OK, it's not that I don't understand where they were coming from, but it's like, gosh, what spin do you put on it now? Because it isn't as if you didn't go the full nine yards and do the whole hog of if there was anything that could be done to affect it within the human realm. They put themselves all out there. Yep. Now that they don't get their outcome of choice. I just go, like, gosh, I'm really glad I'm not there to have to somehow sort through all of this, is did we not do enough? I mean, it's like, isn't it a dynamic of, you know, do I get my outcomes? If I'll do these things, God will do those things. And he's going, like, I don't know. Isn't it easy out for that, though? Because not enough of us did those things and people like Wayne voted the wrong way. And there's a reason why we're now being punished with the end. No, this is what I've heard. We're now being as a nation because of our sin. In spite of all the prayers for mercy, God's now given us the Antichrist to punish our nation. I mean, I'm getting emailed and I'm going, so there's a fix for that, too. But I know this having been one of those people. That's not a very satisfying fix. There's nothing satisfying about that. Because I end up on this golf distance from God going, I thought this is what you wanted. I did everything you asked of me. And now it's like I've got to be one of those wicked step sisters looking at all the dirty rotten everyone else that didn't pull their way. And just there's no peace there. There's no. Well, there's no peace there for some. I think some do find peace there. Really? They find freedom. Big old self-righteous peace. Yeah, no, find freedom in finding something else to blame. OK, it's not my fault. I did what I was supposed to. So somebody else didn't do what they were supposed to. So it's the whole Adam, the woman you gave me, you know, it's just it's the way to blame it, push it off on someone else. And it's just it's no fun to be around that kind of angst and anger and attitude. I mean, I've gotten tons of email for the blog that I wrote. I would have done it just for the fun of it. It has some roast wane for for what you did. Yeah, and I got some people misunderstood or at least I thought or somebody just said I was just really angry. They weren't concerned with what I said. I said I must be really angry about and I'm not really angry. I'm I'm passionate about the injustice I see in this country. I am passionate about how most people in politics just use it for their own gain. I am really angry if you want to get to anger. I don't know how you vote out selfish ambition. Well, you could at least be aware of it. You know, this article from Timothy Rutten in the LA Times. He quotes Alan Greenspan. This is when he was in front of the Congress testifying, you know, how could this whole insurance company melt down? How could that happen? And he said, I made a mistake in presuming that the self interests of organizations, specifically banks and others, were such as that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders and equity in their firms. So this writer for the LA Times says over the last two decades, fortunes have been made and lost parsing Greenspan's Delphic declarations. But there's a breathtaking, but here's a breathtaking example of ideological blindness embedded in the first sentence. Did Greenspan really believe that the people in power presented with a chance to make a killing would put the interests of their institutions and the stockholders ahead of their own? And this conclusion, there is no recovery from moral bankruptcy. That's true. There's no bail out there. Now, if you want to get my passions up, because I don't think it's just the financial people that. But I know enough just the stuff we're doing with Winblown and business people and movie people and all that. There are people willing to make a killing at anybody else's expense. You know what I mean? Yes, I do. To think that, wow, there's people up there and they're really going to be responsible. But the fact is, and here's what maybe others heard last week, I think our politicians have been in bed with that. It's I think that's true. It's just people say, you know, sides of the aisle, right? You're blaming the Republicans and I'm not. I boy Democrats, Republicans, everybody in the middle. And why? Because they are making a killing to in not in terms of money, though, sometimes they are. But in terms of political power and prestige, that's what they want. So this is a nation of takers right now. And, you know, it's come home to roost. Yeah. And I know that I mean, I get emailed from people who I've been with on the road, stayed in their homes, losing their homes now because of this crisis. I realize that this is not just about these fat cats in Washington and New York and LA, they're just ripping people off for their own gain. I realize it's not just about that. Real people I love are losing their homes, are losing their jobs because of cutbacks in industries that they're in. And my heart, I hurt for that. At the same time, I'm not sitting here saying government should be bailing everybody out of this disaster. Yeah, I mean, I think I've I've wondered if I needed to have another double ferrisectomy because you're looking for another one. I don't know. I'm just wondering. I'm asking the Lord is like, wait a minute, what's popping up in my heart? Because I look at all this bailout stuff. Yeah. And I feel a little bit like the, you know, older brother in the prodigal story, just going like, wait a minute here. All the people that are getting the freebie bailouts or at least the talk of it, you just go like, wait a minute, we're going to somehow rescue irresponsible choices and that's going to bring what solution. And I'm pretty sure you ought not to paint with a massively broad brush because I think that there's a crisis that's sucking other people that, you know what, and in different conditions, they were fine. The decisions they made were OK. Now everything's changed. It's made it really upside down. But I look at some of this and just like, gosh, the idea that you're going to take tax dollars and for those people that took out that subprime interest rate and they they bought that house that they never knew, you know, never in the wildest dreams could have gotten into, got into it and and and now this whole thing's turned upside down. You just go like, I'll be honest, there's something that grates against me that I do find very consistent with my older brother sense of just going like, that's not right. That doesn't seem fair. I mean, what what are the people that they did live within their means? They did save. They were acting servanthood or sacrificial. There's no package that's going to be given to them. It seems like the only ones that are looking at is how do we help those people in crisis? And it's like, well, how do you diagnose of whether they got in there? And then I'm looking at the whole gospel of grace and just go like, Lord, am I really off base here because I look at our sin and I look at the wages of our sin and then I look at the fact that Jesus death on the cross cures that and just going like, well, how's that fair? That's not fair. And I'm just going like, I don't know, Lord, I just need you to come do some deeper work here because I'm finding a whole myriad of responses going on in me. I'll be interesting to see how that sorts out. Sure. I'm not sure I can help you sort it out. I sit here and commiserate with you. It's incredibly painful, but I feel no urge to fix it. It's really, you know, I look at the just the embedded institutionalism and selfishness that sucked people into these loans and created a housing market that was false. I mean, all that's true. It created a false. People are fighting for houses because it seemed like you could get it for nothing. You know, they're worth massive amounts, which you go like, I don't even think that's false. And I think anybody will say, look back three or four, you bought a house three or four years ago. You just made a huge mistake. You did, particularly if it was your first house. And man, my heart goes out to those because those are mostly young couples who really believed that this society was working there. There are people inside the institutions, financial institutions that knew this was not going to work. That knew hell would come to pay one day, but they were going to get their money and get out and bail out before before that happened. And I think there were some of them that really were deceived into thinking this is a real real real estate really is worth this much. We're really this is great. But there were others in the industry that knew, you know, all the speculation and borrowing and money and the fact that it wasn't going to be secured if there was a tank in the housing market. Now we're there and what are we going to do? Are we just going to bail everything out to again, borrow more money? I mean, see the fix that, you know, I'm hearing from all the national political leaders and what they're saying is, well, we have to you don't understand if we don't do this, the collapse is worse. But the fact is we're borrowing more money to pay for borrowed money. And any just any individual person with half a sense of financial stuff says, if you're borrowing money to pay for borrowed money, you're dead, you're in trouble. Yeah, there is no good fix out of that. Heard this from Sherry. This is a podcast we did about the Unshakable Kingdom. I said, do you know how much the last podcast meant to me? I think it is absolutely incredible that you guys really get it as far as monetary system and government's concern. So hey, we get it. Hi, at least for Sherry, we get it. She said, there are so many people still riding in the America is number one bandwagon and forgetting that God's Kingdom is the Unshakable Kingdom. That's not America. It is so true that our economy has been propped and propped for so many years that we no longer equate our money supply with production, but rather with debt. Debt is what drives the current economy. Yeah, I know. And that's what you hear. How do we, you know, we're not saying how do we bring more money to fix this? How do we bring more debt to fix debt? And she says debt is what drives our current economy, but we cannot keep feeding the debt monster forever. It will eventually turn on us. Frankly, a part of me is really looking forward to a financial collapse in a spiritual sort of way. I think it will really help focus people on the truly important things in life. It always does. Well, you know, we lived in Malibu for decades and some and talk about a magnet for disasters, mudslides, earthquakes. We got three fires and it was so strange. You're just waiting for the frogs to come down the down the hill one day. And but there was always this like two week kind of honeymoon of an awakened reality of what's really important. And it wasn't stuff. It was people. It was relationships. And I sat there going like those were some precious moments collectively where you just go like, you know what, the big aha at least happened for two weeks. It rarely lasted beyond two weeks. But I almost was sort of addicted to disasters because you just go like, I love the two week post event awareness that just kind of says, you know what, this is an invitation to re look at life through the lens of what really matters. And I just so enjoyed the people and the conversations that would happen in that space. And you said they're going to leave. How do we get lulled into thinking? Why do you need a disaster to know that? And how quickly see what I'm hearing you talk about. And I'm thinking how quickly that goes away. It does, we all get in those moments where just everything seems trivial. Football games, baseball games, everything's trivial, except relationships and people we love and, you know, having something we value greater than ourselves in the life of the kingdom and Jesus. And all that gets really centered in that time. And then even like if you go on a mission trip to the third world, you come back going, I will be forever changed. Yeah. And it lasts about two weeks. Yeah. And then it just fades away. The two week conversion. And we're still back with us. I think at the end of the day, our even inner transformation doesn't come from any outside impetus. I mean, fresh insight can. We can see things freshly, but we'll get right back to just the work a day world and responsibilities and and these trivial little entertainments we use to to distract ourselves and we get lost right back in that again. And I think the only enduring transformation has to come in. There's something about Jesus I know that's captured my heart and that makes me live in that space with him, loved and loving that is the only enduring transformation I know. That's what's changed my life. The other things I used to come away from events and revivals and I'll be forever changed. And then I just finally it never works. Two weeks I'm back living with me because I'm the only constant. And until Jesus changes that, which I think I've enjoyed even recognizing in the form of what else can I do to make this happen? And then just like start laughing at myself going, well, who is hilarious? I'm supposed to make it happen. Like it's all up to me. And like I'll just do one extra thing. Jesus will say, OK, that's it. That's what I've been waiting for. But we all want this one little just that one thing you phrase that prayer just right now. That's exactly the word I was looking for in the spiritual temperature. Heart was just that critical boiling point. And it lasted over to the answer. Best line I've heard in the last three weeks. What I was in Virginia, a lady from Texas flew to be with some friends in Virginia, but to be there the weekend I was there to be part of what we were doing out in Charlottesville. And she came up to me and we were talking about and we got a lot of email here and one of these days we're going to talk about kids again because I nothing more I get them. What do you do about teaching your kids this journey? You know, grace versus responsibility and, you know, all that whole thing. She has adult children now and some of it. And she grew up in a very I'm just talking about your normal traditional congregation. She grew up in a very legalistic denomination, incredibly legalistic. And it's driven most of her kids to distraction and adult kids not even interested in all that kind of stuff. And she was talking to her kids one day, standing in the kitchen. She said to a couple of her adult kids, I am so done being the tight ass church lady. I know, I know, I just defended some folks. Almost almost defended me in using it. Not me, but the quote. I saw that on it just I you know how healing. Here's my first thought is how healing would that have been to those kids? Oh, yeah, who've grown up with that TACL as she calls it now. And he mails to me growing up with that church lady kind of do it all. You've got to get exactly right or God's not going to move. What is it like for kids to hear I'm done being that? And if it really lives out that she loves differently, lives differently. I got this from a man named Per, which interesting name, P.E.R. California. Say listen to your podcast today for the need in Kenya. He starts out as I contemplate where I will enjoy my evening tonight dining with a friend. I wanted to send along a donation. I hope that wasn't guilty and juiced. But we appreciate it. If you don't know, we just heard they need about three thousand bucks and you know, to help in a whole new area of the country where they've been given some touch and so we're kind of helping there. But he said, thanks for ever. And then he goes on. Thanks for your ever unwinding the truth for the truth seeker in me. Learning to love again in all realities I am faced with today. I'm traveling home to New York to be with immediate family who has characterized me as a Bible thumper. And my highway or hell type of guy. But after listening to your podcasts and readings, I am experiencing love all over the place and can't wait to try it out on my family. Oh, wow. Yeah. How cool is that? Isn't that and I'm totally cool. I get excited about Jill's kids, who's the former tight-ass church lady. I apologize for the language for those of you offended by it. I get dinged for sure. New term. This is great. I was thinking there's got to be a t-shirt. I like it. I got like it. I actually signed her when I signed her book. She asked me, signed her copy of He Loves Me at the end of the day. And I just said, Hey, from one former tight-ass church lady to another. And I didn't sign it. Jane, wake up. I thought I'd been fun to even do that with her. I just think that such a relief to friends and family around us, when you can live inside that space that is love, I am loved and I get to love. And that doesn't hinge on circumstances. And I don't figure that out by do I cross the favor line? Because I've got this need in my life somehow gone or my cold got healed in a day and a half instead of endured it for a week. I think that's the kind of thing people are really hungry for. You can just be real. My life, my life doesn't go my way every day. It doesn't go my way in those days. And I'm not entitled to it. I think you look at the ultimate deliverance and it isn't from those knuckleheads out there, it's from the knuckle, selfish knucklehead in here. To be able to be free from, quote, me in my overwhelming self-interest of always looking through the world through, how do I get mine? That, I think, is one of the bigger works of God in the human heart. It's like, you know what? God, because I feel like you care for me. I don't have to have the full time job of caring for myself. I can care for others because you love me and I am I am pickled in awareness with that. And I don't have to wait till my whole life is perfect to know I'm loved to do that. Exactly. I can be tried out of the crud going on in my life and love you with the crud going on in yours. I can be defective in it, too. And take it. Yes, absolutely. You know, I just I do think that's when I when I look at all that's going on. It's like, I don't go like, oh, how dare you bail out those people? They should really suffer in there. You said that's like, you know what? I think I look back and just like, well, that may not be the fix. If it furthers that sense of entitlement, if it furthers that sense of poor decision making, if it furthers that sense of I'm just looking out for self interest, they're never going to be free until that gets addressed. And I don't know what else is going to address it. But that's for me in my house. I don't need to play the policeman for everybody else. It's more like, you know what? We're going to live with that view of the unshakable kingdom and the glorious king and please be in our lives, governing our hearts and minds as to what we're supposed to do in this world. And what is it that's right in front of us? Who it is that we get to love? Who is it? I did one scripture that just come back and meant a whole lot to me in the last week or so, and it was something I was sharing with a group Saturday night here in town, that whole he that lives in God, the he that lives in love lives in God. And it's just the simplicity of the fullness of when I live in that space of being loved and loving, that's where God's life is rich. Yeah. And when I live in that space of being unloved and therefore unloving or demanding or acting, you know, I don't want to live there, that doesn't work out so well, how's he placed to live? And you can live loved in the face of some of the most desperate needs known to man, because getting out of need is not proof that we're loved. And you can live loved in the face of some of the most unloving people. You actually can. Really? You can. It's a challenge. I still find some knee-jerk reactions to them, but I do too. But the reality is you can't because someone else is behaving in a way that irks me, doesn't remove the fact that I'm loved. And if I could remain centered in that, then perhaps I have a little more long suffering for the people around me that don't quite get that. Long suffering is good. Being abused by people, not so good. No, no. And I do think we can take some distance at times. Totally. There's one thing to love somebody who doesn't know they're loved. I get that. To love someone who wants to pound you over the head with a stick. No, I'm thinking you can step back. I think you can love them by stepping back. Yeah, and but just not taking a stick and whacking them. Yeah, I just don't think you have to jump into the fight. Yeah, I know, but sometimes it's hard not to.