Behind Door Number Three — http://www.thegodjourney.com/audio/2009/0116h.mp3

I remember when we first started this whole podcast thing, we just came up with the name God Journey. Some people didn't like it. I think it's perfect. This is not about me. This is not my journey. I am a supporting actor in a greater drama that's going on. This is about him. Thinking outside the box isn't about whether you go to a meeting or not. It's about breaking free of the obligations of religious performance and living in the adventure of a relationship with God as our Father. Two real guys talking about life, that's good tagline. Slinging freedom all over the place and making no apologies, this is the God Journey. I'm Brad Cummings. And I'm Wayne Jacobson and it is a windy day here in Southern California. It is, but that's okay, the wind's blowing. Well half the country is freezing to death in sub-sub-zero temperatures. And we've got heat waves. And New Yorkers are trying to land airplanes on rivers before they ice over. Not exactly a good call there. We're out here in about 85 degree heat and the wind blowing and it just feels wrong at so many levels. Life's all over the map, I tell you, it absolutely is. I like the theory I heard on the news about this, I mean, this horrible tragedy, this plane hitting the flock of birds and I tell you, it's funny because we've been talking about Amy and I flying. The other day Amy and I were trying to land at a runway on the simulator and there's big flock of birds at the end of the runway and one ran right into the airplane and smashed against them. Really? Yeah, it was hilarious. And then when we were looking at the news yesterday, Sarah goes, that's kind of like you and Amy. Well, yeah, it wasn't the nearest catastrophic for us. We were on final and it just put feathers and blood all over the wind ski shield. I'm very realistic, this stupid flight simulator, but I like the thought on the news yesterday, they were saying, you know, the theory about planes and birds not meeting in the air is called a big sky theory. That there's so much sky up here that birds and planes are not likely to impact in any devastating way. That's the whole safety theory. That's like squirrels in my truck tires. Not meeting. There's a ton of road. But why is it that the squirrels run right to your tire? That's a mystery of the universe. They are saying that, you know, all the ecology things in the last few years has tripled or quadrupled the Canadian goose population. So that the big sky theory is not as valid in a post ecological minded world. And now you're going, she see, it's the Canadians again. They send their geese down here, Al Qaeda takes our planes out. Now the Canadians send their terrorist geese down here. And you can only laugh because nobody, nobody, nobody died. Nobody was injured seriously. I mean, it's amazing. Isn't that amazing? Got this from G thought you would enjoy this little letter. So I've been working on my house with your archive podcast running almost nonstop. Oh, and before I go to this, someone wrote us about our podcast and saying, what is that really corny music you guys run partway through? Is that when you take the offering? And I was like, no, I couldn't have offerings. I was thinking corny music halfway through. When have we done that? And it was way back at the beginning when we were trying to be a public broadcast system show. Remember, we do those little interlude music. Oh, for like where commercials would go. They're way back at the beginning listening to these podcasts. I'm like, oh, crud, please skip all that. Anything good back then? I don't know. The technology was horrible. And then we have this little PBS kind of music interlude really corny music. Anyway, this guy's listening to all of our archive podcast nonstop. Probably not a recommended practice by the surgeon general, he says, but it does give a high speed overview of the past several years. The journey for you and Brad, very helpful, helpful to hear the ups and downs, joys and challenges of life walked out with Jesus. Still haven't caught up to the present, but wanted to let you know what a blessing you two have been. Even though I enjoy the conversation, I have to admit that the most enduring impression from my listening marathon is your frequent bouts of uncontrollable after. Kind of amusing to notice that you two demonstrate joy as a by-product while a whole comedy industry labors to produce an artificial replica. Well, I don't know that we're worthy of that, but I like it. I do love it. I think when you realize, you know, when you try to manufacture stuff, frankly, it just doesn't come off as well. I don't know some of the manufactured comedy industry stuff. I find hilarious. So no, I do. I think it usually is out of a genuineness. Some of the funniest things you ever hear said their real life. Yeah, they are real life. And so I just go, like, gosh, when people have the dour sour approach to God, I just like, I'm pretty sure you don't know him. Because I think life is kind of funny. It better be. I mean, it's too painful. There's parts of it that totally suck. And so when you look at life, I go like, you know what? The the key for laughter for me is recognizing that it isn't all about what's happening right in front of me. You know, Jesus is far more glorious and life is far bigger than just what's going on. And when I when I'm able to see that, I find the lightness of my heart is able to laugh. Yeah, and I find for me, laughter is a tension reliever. I am funniest in the doctor's office or a dentist's office. I mean, I've had doctors working on me actually have to stop because they're laughing so hard. And it's just and I can you tell that story? It's a tension. No, no, no, no, not on the podcast. Please don't go there. That rakes up the top three stories I've ever heard. I don't do that. People are going to be writing me saying what was it just a little more intimate than it was very funny. Thank you for sharing. It was great. I got this from Jacqueline in South Africa. I love this. She said, just want to say thanks for putting up with me when I was so messed up. And I really don't know how we put up with her when she was so messed up. But anyway, you're welcome. She does say that she goes on to this. I really did play the make believe stage pretty well. I so pretended to be what I found. I am not at all and never want to be again. I've learned to love my family for whom and what they are, not to change them and not to rule over them. I am no longer I no longer tell them Christians just don't do this or that. Looking back, it sounds like she was one of those TACLs. Looking back over these months, I am so shocked with what I used to be and do. Sometimes it really makes me sick and sometimes still ashamed. I look back and see a person that was so lost, but was never aware she was. I think that's the saddest thing about being lost. Most people having a clue they are. Most people who are living this make believe denial kind of world. The fact and project their whole Christianity on top of whatever it is that they're doing. And everyone else around them sees through it as the ploy that it is. The problem is they don't. And she says that I'm still ashamed. A person that was deceiving herself to be something that was trying to fit a label or brand so trapped, so bounded. I find it so mysterious and unbelievable that God actually saved me. Listen to this. That God actually saved me from me. I love every moment with my father because we are living together now as it happens. But the best of all is no more guilt or condemning myself when he was not the topic of discussion with those around me. I now live life and appreciate what and whom my father gives me every step of the way without taking for myself or making it mind by force or schemes or manipulation. I would not trade this freedom for anything. That's awesome. That's a mouthful. The whole concept of pretending. I mean, I'm not some rocket science brilliant guy here. Okay, thanks for the warning. If you look at the word pre and you look at tending, I like tending. I think we do need to be tenders. I think I need to be a tender person. I do think I need to tend to things. But the idea that somehow I'm gonna do it before it actually is there. The pre. To pretend? To pretend. Okay. I'll take it with you here. I just, I don't experience God in all of my anxious preparations for things. It's like trying to manipulate it, trying to manufacture it, trying to think out my chess moves. You just end up going like, I love chess, but I somehow feel like most of my real genuine encounters happen in sort of that real, live time. They happen in the present. They happen in the now. And it's not just, oh, I'm just gonna fly by the seat of my past. It's like, you know what? I don't really encounter God in the future. And I don't really encounter Him in the past. The only place I've ever encountered Him is in the right now, the here I am. And when I'm fully available to those moments, it seems like the capacity to hear Him and to be led by Him, if I'm not pre-tending, if I'm not trying to manipulate or force something, I find I have capacities to live this life that I'm going like, gosh, when I'm trying, I can't. But when that's happening, I love what happens in my own heart. We're just going like, it's genuine, it's real. It's not forced. I'm not trying to be a good Christian. I'm just being honest, being real. And I think it takes incredible courage to do that. I mean, that's what I love in terms of, when someone's utterly lost and, you know what? I think people, when they're straining at the oars to try to demonstrate what a great, wonderful person they are, I think they know it. Or what a great, a committed Christian they are, that they're doing the right thing because it's the Christian thing to do. I think they know it. I don't know what they always do. Really? I think the power to deceive ourselves is great. Oh, I do think, you're right on the nose there, Jacob. We were talking about that the other day. The thing that you can repeat in your head so many times, a story that isn't true, until your brain actually believes that it is. Your brain will actually fire the memory mechanisms. The synapses actually are physically created in your brain. That say something happened that never did. I wanted it to happen. I hoped it happened. I told a million people it happened, but it didn't happen. But for all practical purposes, and you could probably get on a lie detector and pass it because, you know what you were saying about some of the scientific stuff you're reading, that actually creates a false memory. Yeah. And then you're in trouble. Yeah. And that's what I mean. I don't think people always know this is going on. I like what she said about it. No idea, but when you look back from freedom. Yes. And when you can say, gosh, I am so glad God freed me from me. How did I get there? Most people, I think many people that I talk to about freedom around the world really think freedom means I just get to do whatever I feel like doing. There is not much freedom in the world. There is no, there is no freedom. I mean, if you've been under the manipulation of some group or some person, I can understand why that would feel like freedom. But I wrote an article for Body Life a number of years ago. It was called The Greatest Freedom. And it really was about the greatest freedom I've experienced on this journey is being free from Wayne's agenda, Wayne's needs, Wayne's calling, Wayne's ministries, Wayne's passion, Wayne's vision, even prophecies people gave me about certain things in my life. Those all became a curse to me. Not necessarily they were wrong, and not necessarily there were certain things that God wouldn't fulfill. But I took on the agenda that I had to fulfill what I thought God had said to me. They became outside constraints. And you do it with all of your fervor and passion spiritually, and you've got to do this for God. So when you're on that mode, you can run over anybody you want to, and I'm telling you, the greatest freedom in the world is waking up every morning without having to have something happen in your life to make you whole. Without an agenda, yeah. The freedom is not the absence of rules to constrict. Now that isn't, I mean, rules will do that. But you can have reactions inside you that you take the rules away, and I still got my impulses. That's not freedom. It isn't. And it's like real freedom is that aspect inside me that it's like, you know what? I get to be me. I don't have to be something else. I get it in raw honesty, unfinished production, me. That's freedom. And the ability to rest there, not to have to excuse it, not to justify it, just to be there, that is amazing. And I think that's what the love of Jesus, his death on the cross actually brings. I mean, it's funny. I'm talking to a whole bunch of people and the whole business dynamic of what we're doing, who, I mean, they're high-powered people in there. And what I love about them is some of them don't have a religious or a belief bone in their body that I'm aware of. They're just, they're kind of looking at this, wow, that's interesting what you guys are a part of. Yeah. You know, so they're looking as an outsider and our lives of faith. And they're going, gee, that's interesting. But I love the fact that I find something marvelously integrus about some of these people. And you're just going like, it's not because of a religious conditioning. It's because of something real. How is God not a part of that person's life? They may not have the relational knowledge, but I'm going like, they have the presence of reality. That comes from God. And I've always wondered when you get to the whole hot and cold, but you're lukewarm and I must be eating my mouth, that whole warning that Revelation 3 does the church at Laodicea and that was the basis of writing the naked church, that you think you're well-clothed and you're well-fed and you're the spiritual giant. I tell you, you're just poor and naked and hungry. I think one of the things religion does is it turns people into thinking they are what their mouth says they are. Or they act in a certain way, so that must be true. And I don't wonder if that's what lukewarm is. Because Jesus said, I'd rather you be cold. I'd rather you be cold and callous toward me and live that authentically, than to live in this lukewarm state, which I think, how is that worse than being cold? Only if it's false. Only if I'm pretending, which is what the whole letter to the church at Laodicea is about, I am saying I'm one thing with my mouth that doesn't match the reality of who I am and how I'm living. And he calls that lukewarm and that whole spewing out of his mouth thing is not, I hate you, get out of here, you lousy, wretched person. I think the spewing out of his mouth is, I don't want you to be there. I would rather you be cold and callous and independent and sinful than I would have you pretend to know me and live still in the radical independence of your own selfishness. What good is that if I am or us? This is the first time I've ever thought this. Why would you ever spew something out of your mouth? I spew a lot out of my mouth, it tastes bad. No, no, no, no, but the only reason you would actually spew something out is it's not what you thought you were drinking. Okay. You intended to drink this and you thought it was that and when it's all of a sudden in there and you realize that's not what it is. Like it was actually battery acid, not a Diet Coke? Is that what you mean? Something like that. Yeah, I'd be spewing that out, right? Let me think about it. It's like, otherwise you just swallow it and go, oh, that didn't taste good. The only reason you would spew it out is you really believed it was gonna be something different. It presented itself as something different than it was and I just like, that's not why Jesus would spew it out. I mean, you can really mess that up because I'm pretty sure he knows what it is. Yeah. But the reason I spew things out of my mouth, I mean, I've had that moment where it's like you drink this up and I was like, what is this? There's only one other reason. If somebody does a really funny line. Right. You've got a mouth full of fluid. I've seen that often in my life. I've managed to come up with just the right line. Yeah, we had strawberry milk coming out of my daughter's nose the other night at dinner because it was funny. That's another way to spew though. That's a good spewing though. That's the other way to do it. Lot of feedback on the left-handed, right-handed power thing. I just, I think we've done it down a couple of podcasts but there's a whole litany of things on the forum that people, if you haven't checked it out, you might want to check it out. Yeah, I think there's gonna be a renewed vigor to say I want to be a left-handed person. Well, there's all the left-handed people are saying, hey, you know what, I knew we were better off than the rest of you. I went over to our side. There's some of that. But one of the bones on the forum said that phrase, the choice not to use power, totally rephrased the argument. I'm gonna talk about violence, non-violence, it brings it down to the level of where we all live, not just how government deals with things is that old argument I don't want to get into. But I think for us personally, when you get into a situation, just say what will love win me here? And what will power and force and arguing for what's right? And it's not that there aren't times for that. I wouldn't even say that that's ever wrong. But living in the place of not trying to shape my life by power, but living loved, is a freer place to be. If you looked at Jesus and somehow he was resisting the whole walk up to Golgotha, if he was somehow in the, just struggling against, I'll be honest, it wouldn't look like a laying down of a life, it wouldn't look like a gift. It wouldn't look like a sacrifice. It would look like those guys won. Yeah. And I do think that in moments, you can fight for your rights and you may have the right to do so. I just sometimes wonder if God doesn't have a different economy and looks back and it's like the question of what do you win? You can have that. But it's like, remember the whole game show Way Back Win, as far as the three different curtains. Let's make a deal. Yeah. Okay. Okay. I mean, Way Back Win. Way Back Win. No, to tell the truth is Way Back Win. Okay, okay. Sorry. Let's make a deal on that far back. The Way Back For My Win is you always wonder, it's like, golly, they have something that maybe they want, but there's that sense of what is behind that other deal. And then when you know that the guy that goes like, well, I think I'll just hold on to this. And then all of a sudden they unzip the curtain and you all just like, eh, you know. I think for life, it's like, I do, I want to be able to look at God and as opposed to just being a good little Christian. Part of me is wanting to go like, Lord, can I please hear your voice in the midst of those moments when it's like, God, if you have something glorious behind curtain number two, that is not called defending my rights, seeking my own end, saving my life, justifying myself. If you've got something better, I really want to be able to feel that nudge of just going like, lay down. And you open the curtain and it's a cross. Don't do that. No, that's, no reality is. That is freedom because it's freedom from self. But wow, that's a painful cross to get there. If you're going to live left handed, that whole take up your cross, deny yourself and follow me. Really, that's the greater prize. But I can just see it now. You just, I'm trading away, what? I got this done. Hey, look what you got. You get now the cross. And most people are going to go, ah, you got zonked or whatever. I think I'd like to be a Buddhist and feel zen about that. Here's what Tina said. She said, Wayne and Brad, this podcast was awesome. See, I'm totally left handed and always felt outside the norm. It was today I realized that is one of the gifts that papa has given me. The rest of the world is just backwards. Only left handed people understand how to view the world through papa's eyes. We're finally violating, validating. Yes, the left handed people, I love being left handed. This explains why I have always looked at things and situations from a different viewpoint. I hope you both have a wonderful new year. Thank you, Tina. Appreciate that. Those dummy, roomy, right handed people. And a lot of people went back to, somebody did some research on, because we mentioned it often in scripture in the Old Testament, especially God talks about the power of his right hand. Some people went back and looked at all that, right handed stuff. And somebody had a really wonderful thought about that, if I can scroll down here and find it. Where Jesus ends up at the right hand. But he didn't get there in a right handed way. Well, somebody pointed out in that discussion, yeah, he did get there in a right handed, oh, he got there in a left handed way. Somebody talked about the right hand, sitting at the right hand of the father. Notice that they're both sitting. Yeah. They're not standing for battle. They're not standing to execute. I don't, that's a cute thought. Never seen that one before. That really at the right hand of the father. You know, the greatest warrior and David's little, you know, mighty men. You know, he has like these 30, you know, awesomest warriors kind of stuff. The chief amongst all of them, his name translated directly out of Hebrew is the Israelite who sat down. I've just always marveled at, that would be the transliteration of his name is the Israelite who sat down. And that whole posture, it's not the posture of a warrior that you would think. You know, it's like he's seated. That sense of strive so as to enter into the rest of God. Talk about real power. When life is happening all around you, they were talking about the miracle on the Hudson and how come people in panic jumped in the river. Everyone else is just being instructed to stand on those wings, you know. Why shiver in the river when you can stand on the wings that are there and just going like. And wait for a boat. Yeah, the calm collected wisdom and power to go against that sense of instinct. You know, the self-preservation instinct I don't think is outnumbered by anything else. Just going like that one takes over everything. It does. And it would only be the freedom that's found in the love of God because of the cross of Christ that enables me to say no to that. You know, when Jesus says, if you seek to save your life, you're gonna lose it. But if you seek to lose it for my sake, therein you will find it. I just go like, gosh, I mean, when you say, yeah, behind curtain number two is the cross. Yeah, I just go like, that's not what I wanted. I just go like, you're ruining my picture. But it's like, I do realize that is the challenge that's in front of so many of us all the time is that that may well be God's greater intent not in a suffering motif, but in a freeing me from myself stuff. And that's where life happens. You can say all you want about freedom and doing what you wanna do. And you just, all those religious restraints are now gone and I'm just living to me and doing what I wanna do every day. And I really do just look back and say, there is no freedom in that space. I certainly feel freer than being in a prison somewhere. But it's a whole nother prison where we get to just do whatever we think is best. And at the end of the day, I think we still end up serving ourselves, are still gonna end up empty, are still gonna end up at some moment of honesty going, God, this isn't as real as I hoped it would be. So where is that reality? And when Jesus is talking about taking up your cross, deny yourself and follow me, I don't think he's trying to say, look, this is a horrible, awesome, ugly, nasty. Welcome to the Ruzzle-Fruzzle people. Yeah, because even when he talks about all that you might give up to live in the reality of this kingdom and Peter's going, oh yeah, we've given up so much. And Jesus just left him like, you've not given up anything. You've not given up anything but what you have not. And that's the way I feel. I've been through some very rough seasons in my life, undoubtedly. I've walked away from some things that were mine to take and walked away only because God said, I don't want you to walk away from this. I have more to deal with you if you do than if you don't. And in following those things, I look back now, and I can say this, I'm 55, I can look back on my life right now, even those really tough moments where you feel like you laid it all on the cross, on the line, you know, you really died to yourself. You gave up what you wanted for some other glorious, full thing God did. I do, I look back at 55 and say, there is nothing I gave up that God has not filled that space in my life with something more real, more precious, more powerful, more vital. Because he does it. And that's not circumstantial. Yeah, he doesn't fill it with stuff. He fills it with him. I mean, I look at, you know, just some of the challenges of, say like the last week. And for me, my most real moments have come out of those moments of, I'm not trying to pretend I'm feeling anything different than what I am. I'm just dealing with what's in front of me. And a lot of times, it's simply to be functional. We kind of, you know, stuff things aside. And I'm just going like, gosh, Lord, it takes a whole lot more courage to live with this, just an open heart to what's happening and to just deal with it. But I find that's what he inhabits. And that's where I'm changed. When I'm not trying to protect myself, it's like giving the doctor, the physician access to what's there. I mean, think if they didn't use anesthesia for most surgeries. And the guys fighting, the guy trying to help him. That's good. I think a lot of times in life, we're like that because of, I'm afraid of what's going on or I'm afraid I'm not in control or I'm afraid I'm not going to get my desired outcome. I think we just do have to kind of lay that down. I said, God, I need you to inhabit this space. Yeah, and that's freedom. No sturdamus, we got no sturdamus on our forum. We do. Yeah, I thought the guy died. I thought he was dead. He's been back. He said, I really like this podcast too. I like what he said. It put my experience into words, good words. The thing that bugs me though is that people totally buy into the idea that people using right-handed power are the ones to follow. And those who live left-handedly don't know how things really work. I have tried to show some people left-handed living by example to help them out with some of their demons and it just doesn't take. They can't seem to get their minds or hearts around it. Of course, I then had to force them into it. Big smile. Oh man, sturdamus, whoever you are, you have put your finger on the problem. It is an interesting dilemma in our religious culture that religion rewards right-handed power. Oh, totally. Life rewards right-handed power. To live left-handedly toward people. Appears weak. It appears weak, but I'm thinking you can't do this if you don't know God has your back. You can't. You won't. You can try it. You just won't. And then you gotta force your way into doing what you need to do. But it is difficult when some people in a group are living left-handedly. I think this is the great dilemma of how we ever gonna gather as believers. Because if believers, I'm serious. I am laughing because I know. If left-handed believers come together who are loving, not self-serving, and I know it's flawless in this, but just that the ethos is, let's not manipulate the room, let's not force things on others. It takes only one right-handed person in the room. It does. That's why I'm just kind of like, I'm really... And then all the lefties have to resist using the right hand to stop him. Yeah, and the only thing I think works there is if the lefties, if we're gonna affectionately call them that, if the lefties all together, and I think this is what God gave us to deal with that, is that we grow up by speaking the truth in love. We all grow up to him who is the head. So if the lefties will say, whoa, boy, I think you got more agenda there than this group's meant to serve tonight. And others back that up and go, yeah, I think that's true. Then you may have a moment of somebody repenting, storming out, throwing rocks, casting, again, casting a sp... I tried to go to that group of people, and you know what, they're just mean to me. They were just mean. I don't like mean people. The courage that it takes in those moments for a group to say, now, wait a minute, you can find one or two, and then they become the lightning rods for the conflict. And then everyone else kind of backs off like, whoa. I've had that sense. Wayne, when are you gonna deal with that? I'm like, what? Why don't you deal with that? But I think the reason things go off track is I don't think this is meant to be a power play between one or two. I think that's where there's a sense of going like, look, the honesty and the heart of the whole really does have the capacity to loving, lovingly bring someone like that around. I mean, you told a story of when you were visiting down with a group down in South, not South Africa, but Australia, I think, where they were talking about listening to God together and how this young kid kind of got up in the midst and sort of gave his sense of what he thought God was saying, and then how one of the older guys kind of said, you know what, I'm not really sure that's really the place tonight or in how the group kind of backed that up and how you sort of thought the guy would have been devastated and how the guy actually felt like, you know. Felt loved. Actually felt loved, because how else am I gonna learn? See, that's the power of a group being honest, I think, because it can say to someone that comes in with agenda. And for the most part, they don't even know they do. They're just God's gift to themselves and everyone around them. So they don't have a clue. They really, most of the people I've known like that really are in there to fix the group for its own good in their thinking. That's the framework. And when a group turns around to somebody and says, hey, we love you, we care about you, we're not on the road you're on. Yeah, and they're not rejecting him. And you're welcome to be here if you can throttle that back a little bit so you don't destroy who we are. You're welcome to be among us and we care about your spiritual life. But then that person is just open door number three. There's a cross. Do I humble myself and embrace that? Or do I storm out mad to defend myself? And 90 times out of 89, they'll go storming out the door. I mean, that's the reality. And it's awkward and it's ugly. But I think that's the challenge in this day and age. How do we become in a community, what would church using a term look like if left-handed people gathered at the foot of Jesus instead of a group of people dominated by... Right-handed power sitting in thrones. Yeah, yeah, there you go, in big chairs on the stage. But the right-handedness that you would almost say almost is necessary to keep the rabble from overtaking and ticking everybody else off and dominating a meeting with their own selfishness. So we almost need someone to be in charge or in control. And I think that's why when people say, what's the body price gonna look like? I said, I don't think we know yet. Until you get enough lefties in a room who love God enough and are committed not to manipulating each other, but to encourage and stimulate one another, loving good deeds. Then at some point we're gonna find out. Here's that letter I was looking on the forum from the scripture thing. He said, there's always talk about Old Testament God versus New Testament God. Good cop, bad cop thing, but here you go. I did a quick scan of the use of the term right hand in the Bible. The Old Testament is overflowing with that term. And in most instances it is in reference to some sort of punishment type context. And I would say probably almost always somebody's getting punished. It may be Israel's getting the right hand power of God, but it's the Aminox getting slapped upside the head. So he said, then lo and behold, where does Jesus end up? Sitting on the right hand of God as if to say, this stuff is finished. Use your left hand. Now Papa's living left handed with us. This is just a simple minded person, simple minded view of God. That's Scott from Texas. I like that thought because there is a change. People who say there's not, somebody else suggests later in the forum that the change is partly how God's perceived. Every bad things happen is God right hand whacking people. But Jesus doesn't come living that way. So did we misunderstand God? Which is, I think, my conclusion, I think most of the Old Testament writing are people who are misunderstanding who God is in that whole power context. And now Jesus comes to say, this is who Father really is and what he'll win in your heart. He's not gonna win through law and punishment. He's gonna win through grace and affection and love. I got a funny story. I can see you were trying to not say something. I'm making this poignant point. Hey, no, no, I'm sorry, no, I'm really kidding it. I think it's wonderful. I'm remembering a time. I took a group of young college kids to India for like a month and we're fellowshiping over there. And again, I hope this is received correctly. But the whole right-hand left-hand thing has takes on different meaning over in countries that don't... Don't go there. You're right here. I was so hoping you wouldn't go there. I have been there too. I know you don't touch anybody with your left hand. No, no, no. And there's a reason. Yeah. The culture has no toilet paper. Right. But I sat there and it was... One moment in all of this is that they're having communion and it's actually the breaking of bread stuff. And that is so ingrained in that culture. How do you break bread one-handedly? No, I know. The whole right-hand, left-hand thing is so ingrained in that culture. Here's one of the young girls that are mixed and she reaches out with the wrong hand to the holy communion bread and the guy... American girl, huh? Yes, American girl, yeah. Drive you American, then get it. And he holds out the bread and all of a sudden he sees her reaching with the wrong hand. He pulls it back. And I remember I just busted up in the corner because I was more aware of this. And I sat there going like, what was striking me so funny is that if we actually were brought up to understand the protocol reality of, you know what? This really is how we're meant to live in the kingdom. When someone all of a sudden tried to act with their, you know, right hand or something like that, it would be so marvelous if this was understood more clearly in the body in such a way that the body could be like, no, no, no, don't reach with that hand. We're not going there. That's all I was thinking about. It's just the hilarity of going like, gosh, if we could learn as a body. See, that's why it's like it's not enough as just an individual. I love my friendship with Jesus. I really do. But I don't think we're intended to know God just on my private watch. God is known when I can see him really reflected in the relationships around me. Yeah, as powerful as living left-handedly is alone and the things God lets you experience and know, it doesn't hold a candle to having a brother or two or three or four or 10 or 12 who live this out together communally in a sense of, even if it's just fellowshiping together, if it's tasking in some way, the whole idea of living alongside people who aren't trying to manipulate, aren't trying to grab, aren't trying to force their will, force their way, but just wants to let Jesus be revealed among us in his glory and trusting him to work through these things in people. Those are the best experiences of my life, hands down. Having tasted that truthfully, I'm ruined with the thought that you can't live that way. It's like, no, you can. I don't see it happen a lot, but my deepest longing is there is a way that we can live on this planet with all of these frailties that can be so glorious and so beyond what most people have suffered under when it's not, when it's not being lived out that way. Those things are, we're just like, God, that's why we're here is to live that out, to reflect that. That's where he lives and that's where we can in this world. It's where he's invited us to live, but by definition, it's not what we can produce. We can only recognize it when God gives it to us and guard our part in it because we can't guard the other persons. So true. Thank you for joining us today on The God Journey. If you'd like to participate in the conversation, you may do so at our website, thegodjourney.com.