Why We Cannot Trust Ourselves (#553) — http://thegodjourney.com/2016/10/14/why-we-cannot-trust-ourselves-553/

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 Jam, the God Jam, the God Jam. Well it's official. Our dog is counterfeit. What? Yes. Oh yes. Poor Zoe. She was supposed to be a golden retriever. She turned into a lab. Well I think she was a lab from the beginning. Yeah somebody schnookered us on Craigslist. You can't trust it. You know she's not papered. We knew she wasn't papered but we were told she was a full-blooded golden retriever. She's a puppy. She did look very golden. Well and you look at puppy pictures for both online they look nearly identical. That would be golden. The ears kept getting longer. Now she's a little bigger. The coat's a little different. He is like, my that golden looks a lot like Labrador. We have finally given in to the reality we got the wrong dog so we're having to send her back. No you're not. I'm just kidding. You know that old expression of you there's no one you wouldn't love if you didn't know their story. Right? I don't know that expression. I like it. It's a great expression. I think it's true. When I'm dealing with a jerk that's what I'm usually thinking. They're only a jerk because I don't know their back story. But the question is there's no one you wouldn't love if you knew their story. Really? Yeah. I've met a few. I would challenge that. I'd vote there's probably a couple of exceptions in the world. I think I've met those. But I think overall it's true. And so when I'm seeing somebody act out in weird ways, I'm kind of like, yeah, see then that probably just there's something I don't know that maybe I would love them through this pain. But Zoe, we know her story. She's been here for five months. We love the little thing. So yeah, she's, she's your golden lab. Every time I look at her now, I'm thinking that was supposed to be true. But we love her for who she is. So on we go. She sits on the stairs really good. She is. Well, and she likes blocking the stairs. She didn't want us to come upstairs because then the fun they can close the door and I don't get to stop it. Yeah. Don't go up there. She does that to my daughter's dog, which is hilarious because my daughter's little what a little pound puppy. Lock and tackle. What's that stupid little thing? Things are not bigger than two pounds. And it tries to sneak upstairs and Zoe just goes and lays across the stairs and just looks at her and growls. Yeah. It's hilarious. Anyway, I'm Wayne Jacobson. I'm Brad Cummings. And this is the God Journey. Got this email last week. I thought you'd love it says in your transformation takes time podcast. You mentioned that Brad talks like James Dobson. Hey, nice. I'm going to clarify that a little bit. I don't think he sounds like James Dobson because I have never even listened to James Dobson. But other people have said that. He said, well, I've come to really appreciate much of what Brad has to say. Oh, very nice. That's kind of a backhanded couple. I appreciate much of what Brad is. Loving Zoe the Labrador. But when I first turned him, all I could think about was how much he sounded like Larry the Cable Guy. Nice. I've been accused of looking just like Larry the Cable Guy too. The fact that he laughs so much takes me back even more, makes him sound even more like Larry the Cable Guy. So for quite a while, every time I listen, Brad the Cable Guy in the back of my head was, I'm taking spiritual advice from Larry the Cable Guy. That's awesome. I'm Brad Dobson, Larry the Cable Guy. Wow. I love that. I think that is hilarious. Very good. Yeah. And this from a listener and I, are you going to say more about that? No, that's right. Just, this is a great story. I was corresponding with this guy. I met him back east a while back and he's written about some struggle he's had with a kid. He's really invested some love and time in and then the kid's kind of gone a difficult direction. It's not his kid. It's kind of a, not really a foster kid. It's kind of a brother, older brother club thing. Yeah. Kind of that. And so they've had this big falling out and he said, without an alarm, I woke up furious like a fever of anger boiled up to the surface. Just a few hours earlier, I'd received a text from someone that just really angered me. So you know what Mr. Fixett decided to do? I was going to write that punk brat a letter and set him straight. A punk brat. Punk brat. Punk brat. So here I was at 3 a.m. writing a letter all about how right I was, the better friend and defending myself. And when I finished, I looked at it and I thought of how you had written letters to defend yourself, but you never sent them. Yeah. Emails you write at 3 o'clock in the morning as inspired as they seem to be at the moment. I am blessed that I've never sent one of those. Not against your political campaigns either. You said I looked back at it and thought of, I said, then I knew I wouldn't send it. Not only did I look like a big whiny baby, but it would have hurt someone I love beyond measure. And this is the great part. At this point it was about 3.30 a.m., made some tea and listened to the rainstorm that had swelled since awakening and something I don't know if I can type out happened. I felt this nudge from the Lord like for the first time in years, a distinctive nudge. It was like this. This is my love to truly love when rejected by those you truly love. Oh, that's good. And then he wrote, I didn't need to defend myself, but just keep loving step out of the way and love. I literally felt him give me love the anger, frustration, bitterness and a lot of fear just melted. It's hard to describe because there was no mental effort or forcing myself to believe something. It just floated in a realization, not a Bible verse, but a person called love. I hope this grows. It's a little scary thinking what it that it might leave that I might return to that place of fear and anger. But for right now, what joy it was such a sweet thing, I hope it grows and builds because I'm actually excited. That is so awesome because you know, I don't, I think most of us are always trying to will ourselves unto this thing. Yeah. You know, it's like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do that. I'm gonna make that choice. It's like the choosing is important, but I cannot pretend to have that when it's not in your heart. Yeah. You cannot send a letter and sit there and feel like a doofus and still bitter and all that. But when that love floats in, man, see, that's, that's, that's the person of Jesus showing up in our heart as he promised he would. And that's not our trying to be him. That's our allowing his love to fill our heart. I think what's frustrating for people is we don't control when that happens. No, you don't. I mean, I wish you could bottle that just suck it down because I've been corresponding with this guy for a bit and just his anger and disappointment and I've invested so much and now it's for nothing and we've been having that conversation for a while on email and then this kind of email to me just I don't know, you know, why, why did it take, you know, three weeks, eight weeks? He's been frustrated for quite a while with this kid. Why? I don't know. You're up three in the morning. You're writing stuff. You read it. You hear something. You surrender to what you hear, that nudge. There was an awful lot of honesty in that. I mean, I think. I think a lot of times when we're trying to be good Christians and I know the right thing to do and I'm choosing it, that's all nice. But if I skip over what I'm honestly feeling, I don't think it works out so good. No. And I think the power of that is when we read, you know, he Roman J came right to the chapter. John eight. There we go. Address, please. John eight. When Jesus forgives the woman caught in adultery says, go your way and send no more. I think it's that kind of a moment. I don't think he's just setting up the treadmill rules again. I think he's really saying here's the power to live free of this. I think when you don't have a benchmark where God steps in and kind of shows you what he's capable of doing in your heart versus what you've always tried to do. Yeah. This just probably is so frustrating to hear. Yeah. But as as one who has been the recipient of shooting all my bullets and trying to do all these great, wonderful things for God and then running out of that gas and then finding that God does step in when I don't control it. Yeah. I do have a framework to go like, you know what? I don't want to keep doing just the me thing. I really need his grace to walk this life out. Don't have years. I'm there to be years of that. I look at my life same way. I'm 50 pushed and pressed and where's God begged him in prayer? Where's God? Why doesn't he do this? And then some moment in time. And I just think things come together. The work he's doing in the heart, my surrender, my recognition of something yielding. I don't know what it is, but those are very, very precious moments when you really at the end of your rope and find out that God's bigger than all the stuff you've been trying to do and that your way of doing things is just kind of silly. Well, there is a someone to surrender to that loves you and that you can feel you. I mean, I look at the power of the Holy Spirit and without getting weird on people, I don't want to try to be a Christian without that. Yeah, I don't know how I can. You know, it's like it's for God, is it work in me both to will and to do. And I'm going like, that is one of the coolest promises on the planet that I get to live by the power of an indestructible life, his life in me, enabling me to love like he does. I'm going like, I don't know any humans that do that. Well, it's not in you to do it. Yeah. Yeah. And I, you know, I know people get frustrated. I want that kind of experience. I just say, you know, you just got to keep yielding, keep responding to the nudge. I think him being able to hear that thing out, this is my love to truly love what's rejecting you. And there's two ways to go there. You can ignore that and you know, defend and buy. And send your email. Yeah, send your email. And then, whoa, you'll have trash to pick up for a long time. And I've done that, too. Not the three AME. I've only written two letters at three in the morning. I didn't send those, but I have sent letters. I have sent emails I have definitely regretted for sure because they're out of the passion of whatever and not the love of Christ in my heart. But I do think there's a part of it is there's a nudge and a listening and a yielding. And that's all part of this process. I think of repentance and surrender. Somehow that is part of this great world. I think, I do think one valuable element is God is looking for truth in our inward parts. And I think a lot of, a lot of Christianity, a lot of religion, unfortunately, has a tremendous amount of pretense around it. It's my effort to be a good guy. And it's like, it might be well intended, but if it doesn't look yourself square in the mirror and goes like, ooh, I don't really have the love of Jesus filling me right now. I have the me reacting, smarting, hurting and pain. And I just don't think a lot of people, I mean, he got up. How many people would he just rolled over and said, whatever? I would, three in the morning. I'm rolling over. But he got up. Got some tea. And he was looking to process through what was going on. And I just think those are the moments that God is likely to inhabit when we're actually trying to be honest with what we're feeling. It's sweet in there. Such a sweet engagement of his, yeah. Because those are the points where I just feel like, wow, God, you've given me that chance to see me as me and I'm not running and hiding. And then you show me you, which is very different. And I really fall in love with that, going like, oh, please, I would like the exchange. I can I give you me? Can I have some more of you? Yeah. And that works. And when you read the first part of that letter and when he's getting ready to write to this kid and he's upset and the punk brat. The punk brat. Yeah, all that stuff. How many people have shared that with you with the love of the Lord? I'm only saying this to you because I love you. I get those, those people did send those emails. Yeah, they write me too. Yeah, I get those too. But I've done that too. I mean, when you think, well, I'm loving you right now by being disgusting and accusing you. And oh my gosh. I am being honest with you. Not to mention, I forgot kindness in my being honest with you. Oh gosh. It happens. And then this from Daniel, which I really love. So I'm sitting here this morning journaling about the journey out of shame with tears rolling down my face. Thank you for suggesting the book, The Soul of Shame. No one of your, on one of your recent podcasts is I begin to see the connection between shame, listening and isolation. I can only look back on 40 years of life and begin to see the hidden veil. Shame and manipulation go hand in hand. Do they not? And fear seems to be behind it all, especially the fear that maybe father doesn't love me. And so begins the striving to earn to somehow prove we are good enough. For the past 10 years, I've witnessed firsthand my own child growing up as a young man without shame. Even last night went to one of the fall ball baseball games. I watched an amazement as he laughed and talked with his buddies in the dugout. Why is this so amazing to me? Had a baseball game? Because this is a childhood I never knew. I'm finally beginning to see how shame robbed me of many experiences, so much laughter and so much joy. But rather than go down the road of self pity and self loathing, Abba is turning my eyes to see something new. I feel like a goofy kid now stuck in a 40 year old body. My son is teaching me how to laugh. Imagine that. Could it be coincidence that his name is Isaac? Which means laughter, it's what- How cool? Yeah, Abraham and Sarah, name their boy. It's as if father's saying, are you ready for this, Dan? I've got so much to show you. An recent podcast, you and Brad spoke of how father can romance us into freedom. This could, there couldn't be a better description of this process he's beginning in me. And so I have penned a new song, yeah? Inspired by a podcast. The chorus, you romance me into freedom with love that I cannot deny. You flood my soul with such affection, desires that bring me to life. You take my failed attempts to hide in performance perfected lies. You exchange my masquerade of mercy for beautiful, beautiful life. Oh, that's, that's, that's good. Yeah, were you- That's good. Inspired by the guys or anything. They're lyrical, they're lyrical. They're good keeping. Yeah, finishes this, 40 years I've spent living behind the false pretenses that love could only be earned. As with any mask, it hurts not only the one wearing it but those on the outside as well. I cannot express in mere words the gratitude I feel. I'm so excited for the journey to come. This process seems so slow at times but every day God shows me something new. I know it will not be laughter and smile. I know it will not be all laughter and smiles on this path but the mere fact that I can laugh now genuinely is a miracle we're celebrating in itself. Isn't father good? Yes, all the time. Wow, why are we so impatient with stuff? Because I want it right now, don't it? No, thank you, thank you for that. No, but anything that is like enduring, that really shifts you in a meaningful way, I don't find any of that stuff instant. I mean, it's like, it took me a while to get messed up. I just tripped forward and oh, I totally messed up. But God could wave his magic wand and make me better overnight. That's what we were taught. I know, but he doesn't. Oh, he rarely does, he rarely does. Because I do think he's not just trying to fix us, he's trying to transform us, that's different. He wants a willing available heart that as that change happens, it remains. Because yeah, and I think part of this because he really is about the relationship more than he's about changing us because he knows if the relationship gets sorted, the changing will happen and he doesn't want slaves, just oh, God told me I gotta do this, I'm gonna go do it. But people with a heart that's found a different way to live and embrace the world and gets out of some of this funk of shame and manipulation and all the things that kind of warped us pretty well. See, I don't think God is like making me do all the work to change me. Because I really don't feel like I'm capable of doing that. But I do believe he's trying to put truth in me so that as the changes happen, they actually remain. That they're built on something that I participate with and now I understand better. Because otherwise, if he just waves his wand and something's different, I feel different. How am I not gonna just reset back to my old ways? I mean, as a man thinks in his heart so easy. So God does have to invest truth and understanding in us, or we'll simply reset back to the image that we have in our head. Yeah, and how would we not be just puppets at the end of the day? If God just waves his magic wand, so now you act different, but you're not different inside, nothing changed there. I love this process of transformation. We do that, transformation takes time, we do that whole renewing of the mind thing. And I hope that helps people relax and say, you know what, it's gonna take God to help me think around his reality instead of me trying to get God to do what my reality seems to demand that he do. I think one of the things that's so helpful is I want to think differently. I wanna think like God does. And I'm starting with the assumption, maybe I don't. Okay, I sort of feel like that's a really safe assumption. Maybe I don't. And so it doesn't have to put me down, but it's like, Lord, wherever you see life differently than I do, can you help bring me to how you see it so I can walk in the stuff that you would love for us to walk in? Yeah. That excites me where it's like, do I wanna change? Yes, is change comfortable? Rarely, I don't know that, oh yes, I love change. I love how it impacts me at every point. I love the fruit of the change. I don't know that I really am all that thrilled in the midst of it when I'm kind of feeling like, oh wow, my selfish self is being exposed. Yeah, I used to tell the joke that the only one that loves change is a wet baby. And it gets a good laugh, because everybody goes, yeah, yeah, everybody has change. I actually, and I'm old, I'm getting really old. I'm actually enjoying change in my life. When something begins to move and what I do doesn't work, and I'm going through a period of that right now to be honest, I'm going through something that's, I'm just like, okay, what I have done in the past isn't working here. And now I'm going, not, oh crud, but I'm going, wow, I wonder what is. I wonder what God's gonna show me. I wonder what next step, because I actually have come to love so much the things that God's changing in me and then especially what God's changing in Sarah. And I just go, okay, cool, there's something's gonna move here. And I don't know what it is. The old lane right now would be really frustrated, like, oh crud, why doesn't, after all, why wouldn't, you know, it would have had all that. It just shouldn't happen. This should be working. And I just go, you know what? That this season may be over and a new season's coming and something moves in my heart that's gonna leave me different in the world. And I'm kind of looking forward to what that is. I don't have a clue. So I guess I feel like a wet baby. That's all good. Yeah. But you know, I think I'm starting to have a much greater sense of appreciation for the journey and the adventure of it. I think that's why the whole impatience, but why, I guess I've lost a fair amount of that going like, well, none of the meaningful stuff that's ever transacted inside me was instant. And I have a deeper appreciation for the things that have been changing. I was like, you know, we came back from a dinner the other night and I was like, so what do you think? And, you know, Kelly enjoyed it. But then she had some commentary for how I kind of, you know, dominated towards it. Is that when you were at our house? No, no, no. That goes well. Because I didn't do that. I don't hear the backside of it. No, I didn't think you did. I was gonna defend you. Yeah. Well, no, in this one it's like, this one had a business side to it that I'm going like, well, I didn't think I did anything wrong. But normally I would fight on that one. Yeah. And I just found myself going like, okay, sure, that's valid. That's fair from her perspective. I've got to find a different way to cover some of those things that is more inclusive and aware of how boring that might have been for her while I shifted into some business side of what was going on. Yeah. I totally get that. Yeah, that's cool. I didn't at the moment, but I was able to hear that. And I was going, smart man would just smile, nod and go, I'm sorry, honey. So I did that. Wow. Oh my God. That's so cool. Also, I'm like, wow, Jesus, you did something in my heart there. I didn't feel like a need to, you know, need your have to defend that. And I'm going like, I was thinking about why, why did I choose that? Was it just, I sort of feel like, you know what, she's not saying she doesn't love me. She's actually just giving me some helpful information. And it wasn't all that, much of a blessing for her. So I go like, okay, well, is she being selfish? Like, no, she's being honest. Yes. And I got, I went, I don't need to fight this. Yeah. I just thought this like, wow, I had one of those moments in my marriage where it's like, oh, you weren't an idiot. Yeah, you know, just a genuine, gee, I'm sorry, honey, you're right. That goes a long way in a relationship. It does. It was so neat to actually feel the honesty of going, okay, I can accept that. That's, that's true. Well, I read an article a few months ago. I've been holding this for a while. I was just looking for the right time to drop it in. And I, this, this discussion may be it or it may be a total bomb, but it's not written by a Christian. It's written by a commentator on scientific things. So he's got, and he's a little, if you would go actually read the text, it's a little crusty. So I've, I've helped it a little bit. We'll include the link in case you want to go see it for yourself. It'd be crusty. The title of it though, was why you can't trust yourself. Why you can't trust yourself. And that, I mean, as people- Pardon me, I want us to react to that. Good. I want to see it. This is, I'm sorry, honey, you're right. You could just go there. All right. You convinced me to listen. The reason the title caught my eyes, cause I think, you know what? If we're, if the goal of this journey is to really learn to trust God, the opposite of that is trusting me, my perspective, what I want, what I, so I was intrigued by this. And then the opening quote was from Bertrand Russell who famously said, the whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are so certain of themselves and wiser people so full of doubts. I love that. Okay. Boy, and I- I can buy into that one. Facebook will show you that every day, right there. Man. I don't face my book. The certainty with which people speak about things they have no knowledge of continues to amaze me. And I've often done it myself. But here's eight reasons why you can't trust yourself as demonstrated by psychology. Number one, you are biased and selfish without realizing it. I true. If you're at an intersection and somebody runs a red light, you will probably think they're selfish in considerate scumbag, putting the rest of the drivers in danger to shave off a couple of seconds of the drive. On the other hand, if you're the one who runs the red light, you'll come to all sorts of conclusions about how it's an innocent mistake, how the tree was blocking your view and how running a red light never really hurt anybody. The yellow light means hurry up, you'll miss it. We all do this. And I love that idea. We do. We always compare the worst of someone else. We assume the worst of their motives and we always assume the best of ours. I was pulling a trailer, which takes longer to get through the intersections. Yes. And you went through the yellow. And I didn't really think about that. Oh yeah. The guy that I blocked so cussed me out and was enraged. How did you hear that she was flying by? No, you could see how cheap he was. I sat there going like, I am so guilty and I'm so sorry. There's nothing I can do at this moment. I just thought my truck did out of my hand. I just blew up a guy. Wow. Wow, he made him mad. Oh yeah. I mean, he was ready to blow a gasket. He was trying to come in the intersection from the other side. Yeah, I just, I, you know, I just, I was guilty. Yeah, he was. That's good to know. Most people though, they do the same thing. And I, you know, I assume my motives are great and your motives are terrible. You're bad selfish. Yes. We're biased and selfish without ever realizing and never even stop and think, hmm, maybe that's, yeah, that's good. Two, you don't have a clue about what makes you happy or miserable. This is from psychologists. And I think, what? I think I know what makes me happy and what doesn't be says in his book, Stumbling on Happiness, Harvard psychologist, Daniel Gilbert shows us that we suck. I told you it was crusty. Years ago, I got so much trouble for saying that. That's normal. It's a professor. No, you said piss. I don't think the professor said suck. I think Mark Manson said that. He may be Charlie Manson's brother. I don't know. But he says, Sweet, I love this. We suck at remembering how something made us feel in the past and guessing how something will make us feel in the future. When we project into the future, we overestimate how happy good things will make us feel and unhappy bad things will make us feel. In fact, we're not even aware of how we're actually feeling in the present moment. This would explain why when you try to recreate something in your life and it doesn't live up to your memory. Yeah, I probably remember that as better than it was. Part of me was to say, well, kind of agree, kind of, but I think. I'm not looking for your review. I just think it makes an interesting, if psychology is saying you don't even know what makes you happy. There's a lot of truth in that. And isn't the happiest moment you've ever had, I would say it's true of me, were surprises. I wasn't trying to make the moment happen. Something just happened and it was delightful or hilarious or wonderful. And I think that would kind of invite you more into the moment. And I'm not really trying to get my happiness because I'm starting to know what it is. Yeah, I like that line from God Almighty, we've got the God care to say, after Bruce gives everybody everything they've ever wanted in prayer and it makes chaos everywhere. And the God figures the sense when people know what they really want. Yeah, I think that's a great comment. You are easily manipulated into bad decision. Okay. You know, I've never met, I'm not gonna get to this quite yet, but I've never met anybody that made a deal for a car that wasn't the best deal ever. Whether they're buying it or selling it. Nobody I know has ever gotten a bad deal. Everybody's, we got the best prize ever. While they're on the lot. Okay, the minute you trip off, reality hits you, I just been hosed. How did I get hosed? But we don't tell that. We tell all our friends, man, I got the special deal of this. So it turns out people's decision-making can be easily manipulated in a variety of ways. One is, which is by giving someone a gift before asking for a favor in return. It makes receiving the favor more likely, or try this, next time you want to cut in line somewhere, ask someone if you can cut in and give a reason, any reason. Just say, I'm in a hurry or I'm sick. And it turns out, according to experiments that about 80% more likely to be allowed to cut in line. Just by having an excuse. And then he had these three things three bottles of wine. I think it was 10 and 30. Which one would you buy? And if they add a $50 bottle, almost everybody buys the $30 bottle. If I'm adding a more expensive bottle, people will buy the more expensive wine they wanted to buy in the first place. Because we're easily, because we think we're getting a deal. I saved 20 bucks. Okay. Wow. I don't want you four of them. This fourth, you generally use logic and reason to support your preexisting beliefs. Yeah. Yeah. That's a reason not to trust us. Yeah, yeah. Funny quirk about the human mind, knowledge and the feeling of knowing that knowledge are two completely separate things. You can all have... Okay, just got break grip. Say that again. Okay. Funny quirk about the human mind, knowledge and the feeling of knowing that knowledge are two completely different things. Yes, they are. We can all have knowledge without the feeling of knowledge. But the opposite is also true. You can feel you know something even when you actually don't. This is basically the foundation of all sorts of biases and logical fallacy. And communication on the internet. Motivated reasoning and confirmation bias runs rampant when we don't acknowledge the difference between what we actually know and what we just feel like we know. We've talked about this before a little bit. There are opinions and there are educated ones. There are. Yes. But they're not distinguished. I was in a conversation yesterday which I would love to have with you some time when we have more time. It was got on this inerrancy question because some guy made a comment about inerrancy that ran afoul of the doctrine police. So they were out to hang him. So he was walking it back. He was. And it's funny to me, because one of the things I said in that conversation was you know the people I know who most defend the inerrancy of scripture live less to the reality of scripture. It's true. It's true. And that fits into number four. But we'll talk about that inerrancy thing because it's not even the biblical concept but it along with hell is the third rail of evangelical theology. If you're not orthodox on hell or inerrancy, now you're a heretic and you need to be burned at this day. But that's another podcast. Yeah, that's another one or two. Number five, your emotions change your perceptions way more than you realize. Most people tend to make terrible decisions based on emotions. Your coworker makes a joke about your shoes. You would really get upset because those shoes were given to you by your dying grandma. And he decides screw these people and quit your job and live on welfare. That's a bit extreme. Oh, yeah. He makes the point. I tell you something. That's awesome. Not exactly a rational decision but wait, it gets worse. It turns out that just avoiding making important decisions while emotional isn't good enough. It turns out that emotions influence your decision making days, weeks, even months later. It turns out most people don't make intelligent decisions. They make emotional ones, they do. I know, it turns out the emotions influence your decision making days, weeks, or even months later even after you've chilled over and analyzed the situation further. What's more surprising and more counterintuitive is that even relatively mild and short-lived emotions at one point in time can have long-term impacts on your decision making down the road. Emotions you don't even remember having three years ago could influencing whether you stay and watch TV or go out with your friends tonight or join a cult. What? Join a cult. That's what he says. I think that's hilarious. And then your memory sucks. I like his multiple use of socks. Elizabeth Loftus is one of the world's- This is a guy younger than me. Elizabeth Loftus is one of the world's foremost researchers in memory and she'll be the first to tell you that your memory sucks. Not only do your memories of events fade with time, they also become more susceptible to false information as time passes. The more empathetic you are, the more likely you are to incorporate false information into your memories. Not only is it possible for memories to be altered with false information, it's possible for entire memories to be planted. We're especially susceptible to those- Just invented. When family members or other people we trust are the ones planting the memories. And so you might be asking, well, Mark, are you saying that who I think I am is just a bunch of made up ideas between my ears? Yes, yes I am. Wow. Wow. And to make matters worse, your memory sucks and seven you aren't who you think you are. Consider this, the way you express and portray yourself on say, Facebook, probably isn't exactly the same way you express yourself offline. The way you act around your grandma is probably pretty different from the way you act around your friends. You have a work self, a home self, and a family self and an I'm all alone self and many other selves that you use to navigate a- Super natural powers of a chameleon. And survive a complex world. By which of these is the true you? Perhaps the idea of finding your identity or finding yourself hinders us as much as it helps us. Wow. Yes, you know what? This dude's pretty insightful. Yo, I think it's- And what I love about this- It's funny, I'm laughing because there's quite a bit of truth. That's why he's a popular conglomeness. He's funny and then he shares good stuff. Yeah. But what I loved about when I read this is I just came away with the idea of no wonder it's so important that we learn to live by the spirit. Because when we're just living by our own thoughts, conclusions, ideas, emotions- You get pretty lost. We're pretty uninformed. And then if you're going to make it even worse that I'm going to make God, I'm going to judge God's love based on whether he meets my ideas- And how I'm navigating. Now you're in the weeds deeper than any of us ever need to be in those weeds. We blame all this stuff on God all the time. Well, let's get the number right just so we can deal with it. The physical experience of the world isn't even real. Isn't even- Oh, excuse me, I left that word. Isn't even that real. You have an incredibly complex nervous system that is constantly sending information to your brain. By some estimates, your sensory system, sight, touch, smell, hearing, taste, and balance send approximately 11 million bits of information to your brain every second. Wow. But even- That's why it's overheating. Even- Yeah, I've noticed that. Even if this is unfathomably infinitesimally small slice of the physical realm around you. Not mine, I'm ours. The light we're able to see is laughably a small band of electromagnetic spectrum. Birds and insects can see parts of it that we can't. Dogs can hear and smell things that we know, that we don't even know exist. Our nervous systems aren't really data collection machines as much as data filtering machines. So at least, at best, you're only consciously aware of about 0.0005454%. Yeah, that's a real number that someone came up with. Right. You're gonna blow it. I don't wanna read that number again. Of the already heavily modified information your brain is receiving every single second your way. That's BS. How did they come up with that precise number? This is research, dude. Okay, of course. To put that in perspective, imagine that for every word you've seen and read in this article, there are 536 billion, oh yeah, billion other words that were written that you cannot see. That's basically how we're going through life each day. So you're clueless. Oh, man, I love being clueless. I think learning not to trust yourself and going, you know what? I may not even know, I know the things God shifted in my life. I had no idea they would make me as fulfilled and happy as they make me. It makes me anxious for him to get the other stuff shifted. But yeah, I think that's a brilliant look. There's two sides to that because I do think we need to be able to embrace that reality that, you know, left to our own. We are going on such tiny little fragments of perception and information. It's like we have such a little true information of everything that's there. And so we do need to have that given to us. And so in that sense, I don't want to trust myself. I feel a butt coming on. Yeah, there's a butt here. As I learned to be in relationship with God, I want to be able to trust in that. It's like there is a sense of where it's, I don't want to be left with this place of I can't trust in anything or I can't trust. It's like, I want to trust that I can be led, but that's a developed relationship. Yeah. And there's a wonderful place to get to where it's like, you know what, I can trust those nudges in my heart. I can trust the communication that develops with God. I don't want to be constantly second guessing myself and everything that's going on. If I buy myself in that, yes, but if I'm in relationship with him, I want to start leaning in and sort of settling into, you actually can lead me and I can be led and I can trust that internal sense of direction. Yeah. Cause I like about it is it seems to give us this greater sense of humility about what we think on our own. Yes. It doesn't lead to, oh, I just I can't, I didn't know who I am anymore. I'm just sitting in the corner, baby, baby, baby. You know, that's not, I don't think the point of the article, the point of it is, cause I think that starting line was really key. The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are so certain of themselves and why are people so full of doubts? I really, and many people have said this, it's true of my life. I have more questions now than I had answers when I was younger. I mean, I thought I knew, I remember when God spoke that word to me, I have more to teach you if you walk away than if you stay. My first thought was, what more do I have to learn? It's just as arrogant as a 42 year old religious practitioner could be. Well, I know everything already. I'm the boobah. I saw a video on someone's Facebook page this week, a friend of mine, and it's actually from a mega pastor speaker type. And what he said was actually fairly interesting, but the way he talked down to his audience made me want to throw up. I just went, what? He just looked me, look at me here, look at me here. You acting like kids, and you're scolding people in their 50s and 60s, I just went, ooh, yeah. There was something that Sarah and I read this week. First Timothy 1.89, I thought this was interesting. He said, Paul's writing to Timothy, and he talks about these false teacher guys who think they know what they're doing. They set themselves up as experts on religious issues, but I haven't the remotest idea of what they're holding forth. And with such imposing eloquence, it's true that moral guidance and counsel need to be given, but the way you say it and to whom you say it are as important as what you say. Nice. Yeah, that's what Paul says to Daryl Timothy. Is that for the message? Yeah, and I wasn't trying to apply that to the mega preacher earlier, saying he's one of those experts on religious issues. I think the whole expert, I've got it all figured out, is a dangerous place to live. And I think that, I don't know anything, and I'm an idiot, that's a dangerous place to live. I think somewhere in the humility of, I'm a child growing in connection to my father. And as I grow in that connection, man, I wanna become more certain about his stuff and less certain about my stuff. Yeah, because I do think God wants us to grow in that settledness of trust, of the relationship. Like, I do recognize he's able to lead me. Not because I'm such an amazing follower, he's a great leader. And I'm coming to trust the fact that you don't leave me to myself, thankfully. And I sort of feel like that's like one of the worst judgments you could undergo, is when he just says, okay, you can have what you want. No, no, no, don't do that to me. I've done that to my kids a couple of times. And that's probably the most painful thing of rejection that they interpret like dad. Well, you were fighting me. That's right, don't fight me, not good. And it's like, but they realize, it's like, no, no, don't leave me to myself. Because I don't want to be in that place. That's a dark, lonely place. That's where you send letters at three in the morning. Yes. Instead of make a cup of tea and sit down in your chair and experience something more powerful than yourself. It's that well said. Thank you for traveling with us today on The God Journey. You can join this conversation by visiting thegodjourney.com.