Take Back Your Conscience (#957) — https://www.thegodjourney.com/2024/08/30/ling-957/

Outside the box of religious obligation lies a road less traveled into the heart of the father's affection. Slinging freedom all over the place, this is the God channel. I had inspiration this week, Wayne, that actually came from my rabbi, Wayne. It was just a wonderful experience. This is not going to go well, I can tell. We'll have to drop this off. So I decided to introduce my sociology class with me wearing a full medieval kilt this morning, and it went super well. We were talking about worldview and social profiling. And, you know, I just, I have fed off of some of the inspiration of our friendship and some things that have been a part of our friendship. And so I was just very inspired to pursue this and to use this as a classroom illustration. And my students really, it really kicked off the class very well. Okay. Cause I don't even own a kilt. So I have no idea what we're talking about. No, we, I introduce every year I try to introduce my social principles class to my students in a way that gets them to think about what is sociology and their worldview and how they perceive people around them. Those things that we do and those filters that we have that are just so naturally ingrained that we don't even think about it. And it was, it was a lot of fun just to get their initial feedback and to watch some of the surprise and embarrassment of some of the students because you could tell that they were judging who I was in my attire. And they thought I was just some weird non-traditional student that was sitting in the back of the classroom. And then the previous year I came in as a, as an individual that was homeless, a transient individual and just got their feedback as well. So it was a great way to kick off the 2024 fall season. And do you realize having a drag queen teach their freshman in community college is one of those hot rails now culture wars? Well, I mean, it was a utility kilt. So it's a pretty very manly kilt, to be bluntly honest. But what's a utility kilt? One of these days I may have to just sport it one of these days waiting for you. And I'll show you. I don't think I want to see this. I mean, we are living in what Wyoming is calling the conservative Jackson Hole of Wyoming. So Jackson Hole is known for being very, very liberal because of the different individuals that have transplanted there, whereas Sheridan is in a similar socioeconomical status as Jackson Hole, but is on the very far opposite end of the conservative side. So it's interesting, you know, it's interesting to show up in some attire that is provocative and causes some conversation. So were you nervous, self-conscious? Were you? Oh, that's a good, yes, initially, especially walking around on campus. There was a little bit of pause. And the last time that I did it, I just wore the attire that I had. I wasn't, I didn't worry about it. But this time I actually had a change of clothes waiting for me in my office so that I did not have to wear it as long as I did the previous time. So. So is it a windy day in Arizona? I mean, in Wyoming? Thankfully, no, I would have definitely selected different. I would have had some type of lagging on or shorts or something to make sure that there wasn't an issue just in case. Wow. I didn't think you're supposed to wear underwear with a kilt. That's more than we need to talk about here on the podcast. So just let it go. You just took it there. I'm Wayne Jacobson. I have pants on today. And I'm Kyle Rice. So what is the best thing you heard this week, Kyle? I had a beautiful encounter this morning with my daughters. They had their first day of school. Jess got a job here at the college as well. So she's working full time. So our girls for the first time are full time in preschool and early childhood education. There was some nerves, some angst around that. And Jess and I, I took the girls to school today. And there was a little girl that was there that she was really having a hard time. She was crying. She was really scared, not doing well. And I watched both of my daughters without any initiation, walk up and just comfort her. And it was absolutely beautiful to watch their response. Eliana just tapped her on the shoulder and said, hey, it's going to be okay. We're excited to have you here. Come eat breakfast with us. And then my youngest daughter, Evie, walked up and they were the same age. Walked up and just put her arm around her shoulder and gave her a hug and walked her into the cafeteria. Wait, it was beautiful. It was one of those moments where I was like, okay, Lord, like we have been trying to create a space for our daughters where, especially Eliana with her strength and her power and her leadership that she brings a, she learns how to lead well and learns how to bring a kindness and a generosity and a care into the world, not just power and dynamics. To see that level of tenderness and empathy and then her initiate the lead out of her strengths was just, it brought me to tears. I walked out to my car and sat down. I was like, wow, Lord, I needed to see that. Thank you. That was beautiful. That is beautiful. Think of our Nita who's been on the podcast with us before. She talked about when her kids went to school to always look for a way to help a marginalized student find a way if they're alone in the cafeteria, whatever, really aggressively trained her kids that way. And I'm thinking, man, I wish we'd done that. That would have been pretty cool. I think my kids did pretty well with it, but they weren't, we didn't talk about that as a priority back in the day. That intentional. Yeah, that's interesting. So, Jay, did you kill Tom when you dropped her off at school? No, I did not. So you are a rational human being. There's hope yet for you guys. There is a slight bit of hope that is still holding out for me. Great. What about you? I think I'm going to use this from Try Softer by Andi Kobler. This is, I'm reading this book with a friend because he's got a lot of trauma in his life and it was so helpful when Sarah and I went through it together. So I'm kind of helping him walk through it. And this one sentence just jumps out. I wish, I wish Christianity could buy into the reality of this statement, which is no matter how hard we try, we can't hate or shame ourselves into change. And concludes, only love can move us toward true growth. I love that. If we've bought into that very deeply and just realized, okay, I'm feeling guilt and shame here, so I'm trying to change myself, that's not going to turn out well. It's far better to invite Jesus into that hate or shame and let him win us into his love and then watch the enduring change that will come out of that. So if we totally gave up on shame as a means to transformation, it would help us actually find transformation, or so I would think. The impact on society would just be staggered. That's what I think about heaven and I'm thinking about being in these spaces where being in the fullness of kingdom reality where there is no shame at all, it's going to be disorienting just because I don't even know if any of us have any idea how pervasive that is, not only in our own lives, but specifically in our culture around us and how much it is used, whether it be in a religious organization or politics or education. I mean, it's just, it's so pervasive. It is pervasive and it's not only how we feel and how we respond to it, but how we try to use it with other people. And you watch the two presidential campaigns going on right now, which shame and humiliation is a huge part of what they're trying to exploit to get votes for their side. And it's just so sad that we have a world, a wash in shame and humiliation and mocking and scoffing is fair game in the political arena when it should, if this were the kingdom of God, it would turn off far more voters than it would ignite. Correct. And yet that shame and humiliation ignites the home team. If you're shaming the people I don't like, no, I'm with you. And it's, it's horribly sad. I watch every day I see something that goes by and go, there we go. We're just using the shame and humiliation to exploit the opposition because that somehow makes my followers excited about what's coming. Yeah. I don't know what would happen to a candidate if they actually honored the humanity of their opponent and refused to go down that road. Like, I'm not going to play that game. They can play that game if they want to, but I'm choosing not to play that game intentionally. That is not a stance or a tactic that I'm going to utilize in, in this race. I, I don't know what that would do. And prevailing wisdom is they would lose. Yes. Correct. If you don't go down this road with everybody else, you lose. Yeah. And nobody's willing to lose at that level. There's too much money in play. And yeah, that's a pretty cynical view of politics, but I've watched it for the last 20, 25 years. Just trend upward that this is what we're doing now. And I see it in a lot of interpersonal relationships too. I see a lot of shaming. And I remember I was in a meeting at some point with some people and I called somebody by the wrong name. I actually didn't think their name was what I called them, but somebody walked by them and called them that name. And I'm thinking, ooh, I must have that wrong. And so I called them by the name that the other person just called them walking by. No one corrects me. No one says, ooh, no, it's not that. It's this. But I got a letter from someone who was there, actually a member of my family that said, hey, we noticed you called so-and-so by the wrong name yesterday. And our family had just had a good... It wasn't laugh. It was kind of like how shameful it was that I didn't know their name. And I wrote back and I said, you know, most people would just say, hey, you got the wrong name. No, this is his name. They wouldn't think it's a great place for family humor to enjoy your embarrassment. And I wasn't embarrassed. I've met enough people in enough meetings around the planet that when I get a name wrong and people correct me, I'm really okay with that. I appreciate it. It's a statement of maturity to go, ooh, Wayne, no, my name's this. And if people do that to me, same thing. I don't mind saying, ooh, no, name's Wayne. And you know, people are not humiliated by that, but people who think it's humiliating and think it's shameful in some way. And that kind of let me know, you know, that relationship is definitely sideways because they are not, they are not for me in the circumstances that we're going through. They really are pushing against. But it's interesting that, I mean, even one of the big lessons around Shane that Jess and I have gone through since parenting has been, okay, is this behavior that we need to correct or is this behavior that somehow is quote on quote a bad view on us or activating shame in us when it comes to our parenting style or our parenting techniques or our kids and are we responding to that versus just responding out of joy for who our kids are and not trying to thread the needle of social expectations when it comes to families, kids, the way the kids are supposed to behave, etc. But then you have to stop playing parenting as a competition sport because that's where that stuff has value. That's true. Oh, absolutely. If you're negotiating relationships without shame and without and just open hearted and other people are trying to manipulate you with shame, it doesn't land anywhere. So what I notice is they get increasingly frustrated because if the same thing happened to them, they would feel so ashamed that they would, I don't know, do whatever we want them to do. But when you walk shame free in a world that's shame-based, it's fun, actually. It's fun. Because it leaves you quick to apologize if you get caught going, oh, gosh, I'm sorry, I made a mistake there. And it's not embarrassing to apologize, but for that group of people for which, like, and back to political candidates again, because that's our model, right? Yeah. They never apologize for anything. I just never wrong. That's one thing that disheartened me about George W. Bush when he ran for a second term. Is there anything you did in your first term that you would want to do differently? And he said, no. There's somebody I don't want to vote for. If you, I ended up voting for him because I didn't like the opposition, but if you're voting, if your thought is, I didn't grow from my last four years in office, if that's the boast, I already knew everything when I started, then A, you're not an honest human being and B, you're not growing and C, that makes you a dangerous person in the world. Dangerous or just so naive with their head in the sand. I mean, that just shows me no self-awareness, right? To be able to not reflect back on four years and say, yeah, I did these things really well. In the next four years, I would want to be growing this or I would want to develop this more. Actually, I would want to circle back to this because I don't think our policy hit it or landed where we wanted it to land. And just shifting that. I mean, again, you have that probably unelectable, I think that's the human way to do it. I remember being a pastor, associate, and then kind of a senior and then a co, and the thing was you found your credibility and never being wrong. And so no matter what happens, you've got to reshape what was said or done to make you look like you didn't make a mistake and how stagnating that is. Oh my gosh. It was a lot of, again, shame and the manipulation of shame and you don't want to be shamed. So if you're caught something not quite right, instead of just owning it and fixing it, you deny and recapitulate. I remember this being a significant part of my life until the living love stretch of my journey began back in 94 when I was 42. So you do the math. I tell you what, one of the greatest freedoms is to realize that I'm an imperfect human being. And so I can make mistakes and I can own those mistakes and then we can go on in a healthy way rather than posturing with deceit. And that's, but you're talking about, again, being based in a foundation of love, right? And so being based in this, in a space where my identity, my affirmation, my affirmation, my primary source of affirmation is not up for grabs. That's not on the table. That's not something that can be stolen because I know where it's from. I know where it's being sourced and it's steady. It's loving. It's kind. It's bedrock. And I think that's the hard part is so often that's where, or we double down, right? Like, okay, no, like there's blatant obvious information or evidence that there needs to be a change or that my ideas are wrong. And yet it's like, no, I have to double down on this because I made a stand and it's better for me to make a stand on something ridiculous that I already made a stand on than to have the humility to say, no, I'm going to take a, I'm going to step back on this. I was wrong. Yeah, that's what wickedness always tries to do, right? It's so trying to posture myself that I have to double down on the lie even though I know it's a lie. And I know you know it's a lie, but we're still playing this game because I've got to quote unquote, save face, which is a prime mover in the shame-based world. I've got to save face. I can't admit I'm wrong. And often in relationships, you admit you're wrong and no one else is. No one else does. You make a grand apology going, okay, I realized what you did was worse than what I did, but I'm going to own what I did and apologize. And the other person's going to say, thank you, it's about time you discovered that. Okay, well, the relationship is not growing here. It's obviously tanking. Well, I think just again, walking around with egg on your face, right? And owning the egg like, okay, so now I'm going to clean the egg off of my face. I'm going to call it out for what it is. I'm going to show it. I'm going to own it. And then I'm going to wipe it off, right? Versus the people who are like, no, I've got, I've got three eggs splattered all over me, but I don't care. This is the new trend. This is the new facial mask that I'm going to wear. Yeah, you're not wearing egg on your face because then you just aren't in with it. You really aren't cool anymore. You're on the out now. You're no longer socially acceptable. It's like the first book I wrote, The Emperor's New Clothes. You know you're naked, but you're going to keep pretending you're not because now you're out here in a kilt and people are laughing at you and you don't have any idea what to do with it. Nice, anyway, to stick with that back. I like that. I like that little callback thing there. There we go. Let's do some email, man. I got this from Ian on the blog and I really appreciate it. I wrote a, I wrote a, it's not on the God Journey blog, it's on the live stream. I wrote an article a while back about is God vengeful? It kind of contemplated some different things about vengeance. And Ian wrote this, I am absolutely with you on this. It made me think that in Luke 4, when Jesus quotes from Isaiah 61, he ends with, and to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord. And then he sat down. But he did not finish the quote, which contains the words and the day of vengeance of our God. I think that's significant. Go, my gosh, that made me really think because Isaiah 61 is such a powerful package to define the gospel of reaching out to the brokenhearted, the captive free, the blind to see. It's just this beautiful patch of God coming to redeem. I have noticed this before. I've never noted it before. I've noticed that when I compare Isaiah 61 to Luke 4 and go, he stops a bit early. Now, first of all, he didn't have verses, so I guess he can stop wherever he wants. But in our versions, the second verse ends with and the day of vengeance of our God. So is Jesus self-editing the Old Testament maybe giving us a clue on how we might want to deal with the Old Testament? Is he saying some of this really expresses God's heart? And either some of it doesn't or your understanding of vengeance, which might also be true, is so offline that to say it and put it on God is going to put you in the wrong context. That because as we talked about, I think on the cross, it's not God executing the vengeance against us on the Son as has often been interpreted. But instead, it's Jesus taking the vengeance of the world into himself so that he can repay us with grace and with joy, which puts a whole different spin on vengeance's mind. I will repay this Lord. Let me take it here for you and now I have grace to repay you with. I have love and life that you get to experience because you've taken vengeance out of the equation. Rather than so many of my Christian friends still think that God is a vengeful God and you better clean up your actor, get out of his way or whatever, because the whole idea of redemption was God was so mad he had to kill his own son in the worst hostile way so that he could look on us with love, which is so false, idlish. Oh, it's disturbing. Like again, it's like the deepest level. Why would you want to be in any kind of connection or association with somebody like that? You know, because you'll throw you into hell if you don't. So, OK, I get that, but then now you're, I get that thought, right? I get that understanding. But now you're like the little abused puppy that's walking around the throne room of God. Like, don't look at me. I'm going to hide in the corner. I'm going to avoid you as much as I can because I know that you're all knowing. I know that you're all powerful, but I don't trust you because you're kind of satirical slash a sadist. And so I'm going to hide out from you and hope that you don't notice that I'm even in the room. It's the kidnapped Stockholm syndrome thing. The girl's kidnapped. They got to suck up to the guy who determines my well-being and so many that defines their relationship with God. When I think if we could really see it, I think it's significant that Jesus doesn't quote the whole of it. He lets it go there because either it's not all that that was meant to say from Isaiah or because we were misinterpreting if we heard it, that we see vengeance as payback for darkness and God's the ultimate payback guy. He's the deity that needs to be sated by violence to tolerate us, which is what all false deities were about. Oh, absolutely. I just I think that's a breathtaking thought. That's one I'll kind of live with for a while. Could have been the best thing I heard this week. It's one of those. I want to also do another email. This from Mary. We made the statement a while back. It's one of the chapters in the book I'm working on. I haven't released it yet. I haven't written it yet. So that's kind of that comes first. I write it and then I release it. So it tends to be the train of thought on that. Some things do crop up in the podcast from time to time. And I talked about taking our conscience back, taking your conscience back. And she says, what a powerful statement. It has a domino effect. I have replayed the podcast and spent hours meditating on the content. I am intrigued by the fact that it is seldom discussed or even mentioned. Why? And then she offers us about eight or nine questions about conscience. I think it'd be really, really great to tackle. OK. What I meant by it on the podcast was take your conscience back. Most of us have given our conscience to a religious leader, an author, a speaker guy, a good friend, where I don't know enough of what's right or wrong. So I have someone I trust to tell me that, which is giving your conscience away. And it's also a really bad perspective on negotiating life by what's right or what's wrong. Is there a right way to do church? Is there a wrong way to do this? And people are motivated by that because our religious history has stolen our conscience from us. We're told by a catechism, a religious leader, somebody, this is the right way to think about this. And I get emails like that all the time. What's the right way to think about this? So the idea of taking your conscience back is not letting other people decide what's my best course here. Because the scriptures really enable us to see our conscience as the place where God interacts with us about what's the most healthy way to live versus what is the most expedient way to live. Conscience is never what I want. That's a different part. Desire is a different part of us. Conscience is when I'm convinced this is the right way to go here. I don't mean right versus wrong. I just mean this is a healthy course through this situation I'm involved in. And it takes into account the other people around us. So it's not just a self-expedience kind of approach to life. And I think so many of us have given our consciences away to I'm only doing what so and so said. And as we see from the Pharisees, there's no even religious law that can't be written, that humanity can't exploit to still fulfill its own ambitions. Jesus talked about you declare things Corbin so that they're dedicated to God so you don't have to share them with your parents, which is what I had in mind. Now you get to keep them for yourself. And so there's nothing, no system of righteousness that we can't exploit for our own gain. And so it's important for us to stay in touch with our conscience. Otherwise we'll just find somebody who says what I want to hear. So I feel justified following my want when my conscience inside is saying don't go that way. Well it's interesting that if we surrender that or if we give away our conscience, how quickly after that our agency follows. Right? Like our sense of self, our strength, that courage to be able to stand, to say no, to create boundaries. And so if we've given over our conscience to the guy, the guru, the rabbi, whatever it is, the person or the system or whatever it is out there, very quickly our agency follows. Then all of a sudden we're in a space where we look back through history and say how could they do blank? Or how could they justify blank? Or they were given in order to do blank and how could they get there? Well if your conscience and your agency had been surrendered over to another system, another person, another voice, what are you left to stand with? Yeah. So she asks, the first question she asks is how do you take your conscience back? And that is not make decisions from other people's conclusions. I can weigh other people's thoughts and ideas, but when I sit with my conscience, this is where I really respect people who have made life-altering decisions, not because it was the best thing for them to do. In fact, often it was in opposition to their self-interest, but they were constrained by something inside that said this is the way to go. This is the right way. And again, I'm not trying to do the right wrong garden at the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. I'm just talking about there's something in us that God provided in humanity that challenges us to move in a way that fits His order of the universe. And there's something else in us that fallen us that trends toward I want to please myself. Thank you very much. I want to be the divine. I want to take the path of least resistance. I want to do its most expedient for me. So learning to take your conscience back is just simply that. I'm not looking for what does so-and-so say about this or what should my passion is, but I'm going to sit down. I love the language from Acts 15 at the Council of Jerusalem. What seems good to me and the Holy Spirit? That both are in the context of that discussion. And if your conscience is set wrong, as sometimes we are. I mean, people that do things out of conscience that are unconscionable because their conscience is set wrong. And Scripture even covers that too. You're better off following your conscience if it's wrong than ignoring your conscience because that's how God will teach us. You follow something you think is conscious. And He does that on the food sacrifice to idols where He's saying, hey, there's nothing wrong with eating food sacrifice to idols. Isles are nothing. Food offered to them are nothing. And this is one of those things at Acts 15. They decided abstain from meat offered to idols. Just abstain. I think because of the scandal of it, among those whose conscience is. But Paul's already saying, there's not an empirical right or wrong here. Idols are nothing. Food offered to them is nothing. If you're free to eat, eat. But if you're not free to eat, don't eat. And what's more, when I'm with you, I'm not going to eat meat offered to idols either because I don't want to cause your conscience to stumble. Even if your conscience is wrong, I'm going to honor it when I'm with you because that's how God changes us. It's through our conscience until you come to see that idols are nothing. Then there's something to you. And if there's something to you, then honor that until you don't have to anymore. And I think about that. Like the idea of honoring it, like even if they're wrong. And I think about it like, okay, I would say or where my mind went is even if they're not wholehearted yet. Right. Even if they are at the very opening doorway to the conversation of moving towards healthy wholeheartedness, still honoring who they are and who they are as a person and the process that they're in. Because I think that's when we're pursuing that and we're allowing kingdom to come in. Again, our versions of creating and catalyzing change in people's lives tend to fall in the area of manipulation, coercion, shame, fear, right? Yes, there may be behavior modification that takes place for a period of time. But is it going to be long lasting? Is it going to be intrinsic? Is it going to move them into the flow or into the windswept space that is moving them into that wholehearted place? I don't know. And even Romans 14 talks about you who are stronger give way to those who are weaker. The idea is not, hey, I know better, so I'm going to run heard all over your conscience. The freer you are, the more latitude you can give people around you. And the more captive you are, the more you have to manipulate people to get their validation. So you want them to believe what you believe. You're trying to take their thought captives. Yes. Yes. So she said, is it just saying no to external controls? Is that what it means to take it back? I don't know if that's all it means. That's certainly a part of it. It means weighing decisions alongside the Holy Spirit. And oftentimes we've been taught, you're not sensitive enough to the Holy Spirit, so you need to do what we tell you. So take it back. If you've got a favorite author you quote or a pastor you follow or whatever, you need to take care of those external controls and begin to just say, what do I think is the thing God has for me here? And make decisions out of that. So that's the third question is, what does it look like? I think that's what it looks like. What do I feel is good to me and good to the Holy Spirit? It makes sense. Maybe not necessarily the expedient thing to do or the most favorable thing to do for me, but this is the right way to treat the people who are involved in this other than myself. Fairness would be a great thing that Conscience would be based on, which we'll be talking more about in podcasts to come. Then she asks, what part of us houses our conscience? I think this is a question for behavioral science. First of all, I think we have to look at it through a holistic perspective, right? So we've got the spirit, the mind, so motion, thought, and our body. And I think all three of those are very active and encapsulated in the process of this experience, of taking your conscious back, of learning how to follow your conscience, and learning how to honor your conscience. And how many people, when they go to do something, there's this visceral physical reaction, and we just ignore it or we give ourselves drugs to try to null it down or dull it down a little bit for us or whatever it might be. And yet that's our body trying to say, no, this is wrong. This is not life-giving. This is not drawing us into a more healthy, wholehearted space. And so I think even that is a part of the process of bringing our consciousness back on board as something that we can connect with and engage with and is a compass in our life. Yeah, that's a good word for it. I think it'll compass the idea. Physiologically, is it in the brain or the heart or the, no idea. But it does seem to exist in contradistinction to our innate desire. Like David, when he cut off part of Saul's robe when he was hiding in the cave, and then he walks out, and it says his conscience bothered him because he cut off the other. So there's a thing about, okay, this is a pretty good deal. I could show him, man, I was here, you were here. But then his conscience bothers him, so he goes back to help resolve that for himself, which I think it's a valuable thing. When you give weight to your conscience, and we probably best know when we're going to bed at night, when we feel bad about something we did in the day or felt like we took advantage of somebody or did something, that's a good time to measure. Am I satisfied? Am I content with how I acted in that situation? Yeah. And if not, then part of taking your conscience back is to the next day say, okay, how can I repair that? How can I call somebody and say, hey, you know what, I shot my mouth off, and I shouldn't have, and I apologize, because I know it was hurtful. And I was, to be honest, I was trying to be hurtful. I felt hurt, so I was hurting back. Not, hey, if I did anything to offend you yesterday, I'm sorry, that is not, that's a passive-aggressive, failing apology. Never works. It never works. But I think that's where, it's somewhere, there's this distinction between what I want or what I want to justify. I think that's a good way to know when we backed apart from our conscience. I mean, you have to spend a week justifying what you did. There's something in you saying, no, no, no, that wasn't, and I'm not talking about the right or wrong standard stuff. I'm just talking about treating people with fairness and kindness and generosity in my life. And I think the more you lean into that, the more you give space for that, the more you're able to actually be present and be able to learn what it means to follow that compass. Because I think so often, again, looking at different spheres of influence in our society and our culture, it's like I have to ignore that there even is that compass there. I have to try to smash it, blast it, dumb it down, eliminate it, whatever I need to do, because if I listen to that, will I actually be able to be successful in, successful, and I'm using air quotes there in the world? Would I be able to achieve what I want to achieve or get the desires that I want to be able to get if I actually take the time to not only honor, but to cultivate my ability to be able to follow those nudges from that compass? And the answer is no, you can probably get more by experience of external stuff. But having, treating people well, doing things that are wholehearted living in the world, Paul was very aware of this, he even talked about his ministry, striving to keep my conscience clean, have a clean heart before God. That was a big part of Paul's motivation. He mentions it a number of times, that I wouldn't do anything to violate you or take advantage of you because I want my conscience clear before God. And that's, I think that's a great compass to live by. If my conscience clear about things in my life right now and if it's not clear, how do I clarify it? How do I do the repair that needs to be done so that I can live, I can sleep at night, my head on the pillow, not having regrets and not having guilt feelings? And it's not a matter of just, well, Jesus died on the cross, I don't have guilt anymore. The kind of guilt that's not shame, that's not I'm a bad person, but simply I did something that was hurtful. That's a good kind of thing to feel, that's what the Holy Spirit does. He convicts, maybe that's a better word than guilt, but the convict word, when you're defending yourself, that's a good time to look back and go, okay, what did I do here that I have to fight so hard? And they obviously, because he talks about alternately our conversation, this way said in Romans two, the law of God is written on our hearts or our conscience ultimately accusing us or what's the other word he uses, or accusing or defending them. It's really, man, to take your conscience seriously without being a works-oriented, bashing depressed person, just take it seriously enough to follow your conscience, even if it means you get to make an apology, even if it means you have to own something, or definitely not choosing a part, not choosing for your self-interest, but choosing for what conscience leads you to do. It honestly really makes me think, I've been watching a new TV series and called Seal Team on Paramount, and it follows this squadron and I won't get too deep into the weeds on it, but I saw this very powerful scene last night that literally had me in tears, and that caught me off guard, even that, and it was this picture of there's a loss in this family, and this dad is like this legend soldier, whatever, leads the team, and the situation that happens in the family, he chooses not to go on mission. So there's a tragedy in the family, and his kids are left behind, and they're left with some grandparents and some extended family, but he's sitting about ready to get on the plane, and he looks at his number two and he said, I can't go, I can't go. Out of the hundreds of missions, the hundreds of times that I have ignored the needs of my family and put mission first, I'm picking my conscience this time, and he walks back in the door, and his two kids are sitting on the couch trying to figure out what they're going to do or how they're going to navigate the next season of life, and he sits down in between, and both of them are just in shock, and they're like, what are you doing here? In the entirety of our lives, you've never not gone on the mission, and he said, no, not this time, and I was just in tears because it's like this beauty of that idea of, no, I'm taking this back, I've had this voice in this situation, I've had the voice of the military as this dominant thing over my conscience for as long as you kids have been alive, and yet in this situation, in this moment, I chose to step towards you instead of listening to that voice. It was powerful, it rocked me. I didn't even realize what was going on, and I was sitting there, and then all of a sudden just, tears are coming down, but it really resonated with that idea of, even if you have chosen the mission or the other person's voice 100 times, you can choose once to move in a different direction and start that process of, what does it look like to follow a compass into wholehearted life? Yeah, I like how many times I'm ready to make a decision, clear what the decision is I want to do, and then when I get ready to pick up the phone or get ready to do whatever I'm going to do, there's something in me that can't do it, and I can't explain it, I can't say it's not wrong what I'm doing, it's not a matter of right or wrong, it's just, this is not the way God has for me, and I've stopped on a whim, just the last minute going, yeah, no, what, if I don't do that, yeah, it's going to be harder on me, but if I'm wrong, it's just harder on me. Yeah, if I'm right, and usually those moments of conscience have opened some incredible doors to touch other people's lives, because it just wasn't about doing what's best for Wayne, but trying to find a way to do what God had on his heart. She has a lot more questions, but we've run out of time, and I think we've covered as I look over, and we've covered most of it. I wanted to end with this statement from Mary, this, she wrote this as part of the email. She said, when a lie is rationalized, this is living against your conscience, when a lie is rationalized, it becomes logical. When a lie becomes logical, it's accepted as true. What was once a lie becomes the truth. That's deception. By accepting it, your conscience is compromised. With repeated occurrences, does the conscience become seared and unable to discern? And I think the answer to that is clearly yes. The more we resist our conscience, the less we'll be in touch with it. Now we're just left with desire, and living by our own desires at the expense of people around us is one of the worst ways imaginable to live. You will hurt yourself and so many other people. I think it's really important in those moments where conscience speaks to us, and we can't stop and rationalize why, but it's not going to be hurtful to follow my conscience other than to me. It's not in my self-interest. When you follow those, you become more aware of them. And when you resist them, as Paul says, you can sear your conscience. So it no longer functions. It no longer works. You've ignored it so much that all you've got left is doing what's best for me. And that's down the narcissistic pathway, and that's down the pathological. That's where you're going to really, really hurt people because there's nothing in you that restrains your activity. God gave us all a conscience. And if we honor it, hold to it, and if you've given it away to somebody else, take it back to yourself where you and God sit in your conscience together and decide what's the best way forward on these things. And then follow that to the best of your ability. And I think this is such a gift of how the Holy Spirit leads and guides us. We don't always need a word from God. We've got a conscience that helps us navigate away from the destructive way of living for myself or others and into a more healthy way of living in the situations around me. And hey, could I have you one more minute just before you go? We just got word at the end of this week that the orphanage we originally built, many of you were part of that with us some 15 years ago in Kenya, rescuing 45 to 50 orphan kids growing up in their own filth in a slum in Eldorette. We were able to procure some land and built a petrol station so that the profits of the station could support the orphanage. So they wouldn't have to be dependent on anyone else. Well, if you look at my recent blog, they've had quite a disaster. These torrential once in a thousand-year reigns like they're hitting the U.S. in some places is hitting Kenya. They just don't have the resources to put things back together. They're going to need about $42,000 to put this orphanage back together and set the hill it's on to be stable so it won't slide down. And if they don't do that in the next couple of weeks, the government's going to shut them down. I hate to see that happen as we were contemplating whether we go back to this audience yet again to use some kind of disaster relief in Kenya. I got a check for $10,000 for someone out of the blue, didn't even know the need existed and just said it was for Kenya. Can you put it there? So if you can help us come up with the rest of the $32,000 to help them do that, I'd be honored. I'd be blessed. I'd be so grateful. So you can find the details out on lifestream.org or there'll be a link at the bottom of this podcast. Check it out. If you've got some extra, you can help us. I'd be grateful. Thank you. Thank you for traveling with us today on The God Journey. You can join this conversation by visiting thegodjourney.com.