Live From The Path · Season 2015, Episode 29
Nine Sins the Church Is Okay With
Topics covered
- Show open — The episode's opening: host intro, sponsor read, and banter before the main content. ≈ 0:00
- Sponsor read — The on-air sponsor segment for the Eisenlauer Team realty. ≈ 2:02
- Opening banter — Pre-content comedy banter about buffets and the Brazilian steakhouse story. ≈ 2:45
- Nine sins the church is okay with — The hosts work through a faithit.com listicle of sins the church tolerates, agreeing with some items and reframing others. ≈ 7:32
- Fear and trust in God — Whether fear is a tolerated sin, reframed as a lack of trust in God's sovereignty. ≈ 8:59
- Apathy, gluttony, and dishonesty — Apathy reframed as dishonesty about Scripture's demands; gluttony and greed as idolatry and misplaced trust. ≈ 13:56
- Flattery and the need for approval — Flattery as replacing God with the crowd's approval, including social media dynamics. ≈ 20:03
- Comfort versus the church's mission — Comfort as spiritual stagnation; the biker-church tangent on authentic community. ≈ 23:32
- Patriotism and allegiance — Patriotism as a tolerated sin when national allegiance shapes faith; citizenship in heaven. ≈ 28:39
- Lying and integrity — Lying as an undetected sin; Matthew 5:33 on oaths; testimony about the freedom of blunt honesty. ≈ 30:17
- Retirement and marriage — A Dear LFTP letter about a retiring husband whose wife resents his retirement talk. ≈ 39:39
- Commitment in a blended family — A Dear LFTP letter about proving steadfast love to a girlfriend who fears abandonment. ≈ 45:02
- Neighbor conflict over wind chimes — A Dear LFTP letter pleading for quiet; the hosts side with the chimes and against cookie bribery. ≈ 51:58
- Volunteering and ingratitude — A Dear LFTP letter from a volunteer wedding photographer facing an ungrateful bride. ≈ 59:55
- Grief and animal rescue — A Dear LFTP letter about a friend who rescues dying animals; grief as healthy, and investing in heavy lives. ≈ 1:07:39
- Show close — Sign-off, guest thanks, and contact info. ≈ 1:15:33
Segments
- Show open and tonight's lineup 0:00–1:04
A host opens the show from the Pathway Studios in Johnston, jokes about his unplugged headphones causing 'audible confusion,' and tells casual listeners they can bail now or hang out. He previews the episode: Dan sent over a 'nine sins the church is okay with' article from faithit.com, and Dear LFTP letters are on deck.
- Sponsor read: the Eisenlauer Team 2:02–2:45
A host thanks sponsor Bob Eisenlauer of the Eisenlauer Team (eisenhowerteam.com as rendered in the transcript), pitching him for home buying and selling, and notes that both he and Mike use him.
- Buffet banter and the Brazilian steakhouse story 2:45–7:31
The hosts plan a future 'Life from the Path buffet,' debate Chinese versus Brazilian steakhouses, and praise the Old Country Buffet's unlimited chocolate milk. A host recounts being blindsided by a $65 meat-only bill at a Brazilian steakhouse in Orlando with no prices on the menu, and wonders whether 'Brazilian' just means an expensive buffet.
- Nine sins the church is okay with: article introduction 7:32–8:58
The hosts introduce the faithit.com listicle 'nine sins the church is okay with,' sent over by Dan. A host reads the introduction, which uses the Challenger disaster's failed O-ring as an analogy for small, undetected sins, and admits he already feels guilty of the sins before the list begins.
- Sin 1: Fear 8:59–13:56
The hosts work through the list's first sin, fear. They push back on the article's '365 times do not fear' framing (a host notes many of those are angels startling people), discuss 1 John 4:18, and reframe the sin as lack of trust rather than the biological fight-or-flight response. Congregational votes in Scripture, they argue, are usually fear-based.
- Sins 2 and 3: Apathy, gluttony, and greed 13:56–20:03
On apathy, the hosts agree the deeper problem is dishonesty about what Scripture actually asks. On gluttony, they argue the point is really about trust and idolatry: filling voids with food or trinkets, or treating God as a tool who provides turkey legs and houses. A host observes the American church is 'baptized' in greed, the list's number seven, which it avoids confronting.
- Sin 5: Flattery and the praise of men 20:03–23:31
The hosts discuss flattery as replacing God with the crowd's approval, naming Instagram and Snapchat as platforms that perpetuate it. A host notes that living entirely to avoid disapproval keeps you from ever really knowing anyone. Banter includes the Goliath roller coaster at Six Flags in Atlanta, a 'Great job, Larry' church anecdote, and a joke about looking just like his brother and collecting his praise or disdain after sermons.
- Sin 6: Comfort and the missional church 23:32–28:37
The hosts agree comfort is real but reframe it as stagnation rather than ease: a church that builds a building and sits in it is not following Jesus. One host prayed God would burn their church building down rather than let it become an idol. A long tangent praises biker churches for the natural community the church tries and fails to manufacture, with a host recalling two-mile Harley funeral processions from his Cass County pastoring days.
- Sin 8: Patriotism 28:39–30:16
On patriotism, the hosts agree allegiance gets torn when American ideals shape faith more than God does. They affirm celebrating American values while insisting citizenship is in heaven, and worry that 'God bless America' language can become disassociated from Scripture.
- Sin 9: Lying and integrity 30:17–34:37
On lying, a host reads the article's take on Matthew 5:33 and oaths, then testifies that forcing himself to stop telling small lies about being late to work was 'amazingly freeing.' Another host confesses to unintentionally lying to his daughter at 2 a.m. about shopping for a phone the next day, framing it as the common integrity failure of saying things to end conversations.
- Wrapping the nine sins: the main point 34:37–39:38
The hosts conclude the list is a bit clickbait but useful for self-reflection rather than finger-pointing. The agreed main point: the sin each person tolerates in themselves is just as sinful as the one they hammer others for. A host reframes every item as a trust question, and they criticize scare-tactics evangelism as distrusting 'God's marketing plan' of hope, love, and optimism.
- Dear LFTP: the retiring husband and the irritated wife 39:39–45:02
A listener retiring after fifty years asks what to say to his wife, who is irritated by his constant talk of retirement plans. The hosts joke that retirement invades the wife's 'kingdom,' bring in guest Brandon for straight-laced marriage-counselor takes, and read the 'Singular' and 'Secular' answers, which advise a frank, non-sarcastic conversation about why she is raining on his parade.
- Dear LFTP: Wendy, the kids, and staying 45:02–51:57
A listener in a relationship with Wendy, who is pushing him away out of fear he will abandon her children like other men have, asks how to make her understand he is staying. The hosts advise proving it by staying through the unreciprocated season: real love does not require reciprocation. They reject Secular's marriage-proposal suggestion as too aggressive while she is in protection mode, with Notebook and dairy-farmer banter along the way.
- Dear LFTP: the wind-chime complaint 51:58–59:53
A Minnesota listener pleads for neighbors to take down noisy wind chimes. The self-described pro-wind-chime Iowans side with the chimes, mock Secular's advice to bribe neighbors with cookies as dishonest, and riff on dessert wars, P.T. Barnum's tactic of hiring a bad band to drive crowds to his circus, and a radio-station break for Truth Network 99.3 listeners.
- Dear LFTP: the ungrateful bride and the free photographer 59:55–1:07:39
A listener who volunteered as an amateur wedding photographer faces the bride's insults about her free work and asks how to respond while finishing the promised album. The hosts advise handing over the raw photos without chasing vindication, deciding whether she is doing it for the bride or herself, and note that staged wedding photos can be retaken later. The 'Singular' answer: 'no good deed goes unpunished.'
- Dear LFTP: Riley and the dying rescue animals 1:07:39–1:15:32
A listener asks how to tell his friend Riley, who rescues terminal animals and breaks down each time one dies, to stop taking them in. The hosts say to let her be: crying is a healthy response, and they would worry more if she were not moved. The discussion widens into hospice chaplaincy, Christmas caroling at Mercy Hospice, and a closing charge to invest in people's lives instead of avoiding them out of fear, because 'you're a coward.'
- Sign-off 1:15:33–1:16:36
The hosts thank guest Brandon for coming on the show, point listeners to the website for clips and musical performances, give the info@ email for show ideas, and direct complaints to Chris Roloff at the Truth Network 99.3 FM. The sign-off catchphrase: be faithful to the means, and God will take care of the ends.
Bible references
- 1 John 4:18
There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear, for fear has to do with punishment. And whoever fears has not been perfected in love.
- Matthew 5:33
Jesus says anything more than our word is from the evil one, Satan.
Key questions
- Are there 'sins the church is okay with,' and do the hosts agree with the list? (host-framed)
- What should a man retiring after fifty years of work say to his wife, who is irritated by his constant talk of retirement plans? (listener)
- How can a man convince his girlfriend Wendy, who is pushing him away, that he will not abandon her and her children the way other men have? (listener)
- What should be done about neighbors whose wind chimes keep the whole block awake on windy nights? (listener)
- How should a volunteer wedding photographer respond when the bride insults her free work while she still owes the promised album? (listener)
- How can a friend tell Riley, who rescues terminal animals and is crushed each time one dies, that she should stop taking them in? (listener)
People
- Guest: Brandon
In-studio guest for the episode; consulted directly during the Dear LFTP retirement-letter discussion and thanked by name at sign-off ('Big thanks to Brandon. Hey, man. Thanks for coming on the show.')
- Jesus
- Moses
- William Wallace
- Bob Eisenlauer
- Nick
- Wilford Brimley
- P. T. Barnum
- Cheryl
- Becky
- Chris Roloff
- Driven 11
Full transcript
Live from the Pathway Studios in Johnston proper. You are live from the path.
I hope you're looking as pretty as I am. I can't hear anything out of my headphones, but because I didn't plug them in, and it's caused me it's causing me audible confusion in my mind. I didn't really need to tell everybody that, but that's what's been happening. Hey. Here here's the deal. This is a clue on things to come. This is how the show goes. It's what it's gonna be about. Now is the time to bail. You're only, like, thirty seconds committed. There's no reason you can't find something else to do in life. Go hug your wife and go to bed.
Alternatively, you can hang out on the show. Here's what we got going on the show tonight. So, Dan Dan, you sent over an article, and it was, it was about this what was it? The nine sins the church is okay with? Yeah. We're okay. We're good with. There's certain sins we're just alright with. We just don't have a problem about. We're we're we're pretty hard on other ones. But if they're ones that we might be doing, we're like, yeah, that's alright. That's not so bad. It doesn't seem like a big deal. Jesus doesn't care about that one. Is making list one of them? Because I'm in. Oh, yes. Yeah. That's number eight. Shoot, man. I hope that's not a hoax. Alright. Well, we'll take a quick spin through those, and we'll see I don't know. We'll see if we if we agree with that list, if we feel like it actually represents something we got going on. Also, we have some deer live from the past. Mike, any heads up on what's on the docket? No. They were too entertaining for me to list all of them, Ben. But I they're gonna be Cadillac.
Top notch all the way around. I haven't read them. Out of the beginning of the show may not match the end of the show. Okay. Alright. So there's a crescendo. Yeah. Type for the crescendo of the program. It's a ramp. Before
we ruin it, big thanks to our sponsor, Bob Eisenhower with the Eisenhower team. Go to eisenhowerteam.com for all your home buying and selling needs. Maybe you're just thinking, I don't know whether I wanna sell my house. You wanna see what it's worth? Bob's your man. Or you think I wanna move from here. I I hate my neighbors, and life would be better out somewhere else. Bob's your man. He could buy or sell in a home. He's the guy to talk to. Yeah. I I don't know. That's who I deal with. It's who Mike deals with.
He's just he's just a great guy, and, they do solid work, and they they're just they're really good at what they do. So go to iceandlowerteam.com. You can find lists listings out there of, what's currently for sale. And, also, just just give them a buzz. You just wanna chat and say whether you should even think about this any further. They know the house business. They're the guys to talk to. That's eisenhowerteam.com, and you're looking for Bob Eisenhower or John. Hey. Oh, man. We're supposed to those guys reminded me. We're supposed to set up a buffet. Yeah. We got we we gotta do that tonight before we leave. We gotta figure out figure out the next life in the Path buffet. Does it have to be a Chinese buffet? No. It could be just buffet. Like a like a Ryan's steakhouse? Yeah. Or an OCB? We might be able to class it up a little bit more than that, but I don't know what you're saying about the Ryan steakhouse.
I I think I did just put classy and buffet together. So But my friend Ryan runs it. Reputable. He assures me that the potato wedges are turned every hour. Oh, I went to I I went to the the OCB.
Okay. One of my kids chose. He said, you can go wherever you wanna eat. And they're like, we're going to the Old Country Buffet. And I here's why. I dig the Old Country Buffet because they have an unlimited chocolate milk dispenser. And I have not run into another buffet that was that had chocolate milk on tap. And I feel like that that speaks to me on a deeper level. Seen them refill the thing? It's like a giant bag. It's like a bag of milk. It's put it in there. It's an udder. They just cut the udder off with the milk in it and deposited it in the machine. Well, I'll never I'll never have it again. When they when they describe it as wholesome milk, that's what it means. It's in udder coming out. We need we need a Brazilian steakhouse around here. Now that's a buffet. Oh, man. Oh, man. That's dangerous. That that's that's classy. Dan and I Dan and I ended up at a Brazilian steakhouse in Orlando, Florida. And and and I had no idea what we had gotten into, and they bring in they there's no there's nothing like a prices. There's no prices on the menu. And I thought, I I'm suspicious of this. But like everyone else seemed to be alright with it. No price means don't worry about it. Yeah. It was the guy I mean, they bring, like, shards of meat up to the table and they skin some of it off. And they they don't they don't ask you. Oh, I heard about this. Oh, holy castle. Oh, baby. I I see, I never would have wandered in this thing if I wasn't completely ignorant of it. It's not a place I would ever step in, but I I I was the wide eyed doofus. It's like, this is a pretty interesting restaurant. And by so we ate, and, like, the longer the the meal is getting, the more and more I'm suspicious that there's no prices and that they seem to come with an unlimited amount of meat on a stick.
And and I thought, oh, man. This is this is gonna be bad. And I think my bill was $65 or something, like, for meat. And I That was skip without dessert. I skip dessert. Yeah. Wait minute. A Dessert is not included in the buffet. It's by the item? Another $20 or so. Oh, man. I thought and it was I felt really stupid. Because I thought, like, at what point should I have caught on? And they they had a they had a
valet up at the front. And some I just ignored it. Like, idiot man in the world. The same maybe they just do this in This would make me really angry at the guy that brought me there. Like, I don't know who you think I am. So so I think that did occur. I think the guy was like, oh, this is a great place to eat. And so no one really knew the area all that well. So, like, oh, sure. We'll go over. He he recommends it. And then everyone gets the bill, and you're looking at this guy like, come on. He had never actually purchased it for himself, though. Right. Right. Right. So when they'll say, take him there. So this dude is Dutch treated his way through this $80 buffet, and he's like, y'all should come out. It's great.
And so he didn't know, though. He didn't know that it was that expensive. Oh, yeah. Right. He really didn't. He's It's believable. He's ignored wait a minute. Okay. Okay. I'm with you. Yeah. It's it's We're painting picture of a man. I I get you It's believable. He's a good natured man, but I think he just did not know and like Not from our culture. Right? Yeah. I can't think of experience where I felt more like like the dunce. Like the guy who who ends up on this you know, like, when they have the shows with the guy that does magic, and you're the guy that was fooled? There's always these guys that are fooled by them. And, like, I and they should have seen it coming. Like, all these weird things, you feel like you should have caught on, and then it all makes sense at the end. That that was me. I was the guy that was bamboozled by a magician when I when I saw all these things. I my mind should have put it together. This is gonna be really expensive, Ben. No, seriously. It's gonna cost you, like, your left elbow or something to buy this meal. And then the bill shows up, like, oh, yeah. All those that that that wheel of mozzarella that was available on the salad bar. It it should have tipped you off. So I I talked to a friend this this week who'd gone to one on a cruise ship. You know, your cruise ship's full of buffets and food. It was an additional $20
on the cruise ship after you've already paid for all your food Oh, man. To go to one of these Brazilian steak houses. But they went once. I'm sorry. Is that is that just the name of very expensive buffets? You put Brazilian before it, and all of sudden it's very expensive? Style. Do they has there has anybody been to Brazil? Like, I mean, do they do that in Brazil? Do they got the shards of meat on a stick and a wheel of mozzarella? Or they like is it like a a a Taco John's perversion where they've made it sound like it's authentic stuff, and it's not it's not like that at all? I don't know what you're saying about my friend John, but he runs a very reputable taco stuff. He's got taco pizza.
He's got he's got a hat on. It's more than I could say for you, Johnny American. I don't purport to be that. I just wanna eat my Oreo churro and be on with my day. Authentic Mexican Oreo churro. Alright. Alright. There. That that weeded out all the all the the guys that were hanging on to the show casually. Here we we go. Let's talk about nine sins the church is okay with. The proposition here is faithit. Are you going to faithit.com,
Dan? No. The originator of the article is faithit.com. Dan clicked on a seven a list. I saw it. I saw it and said, hey. Could you read this? See if I'm okay with these. This will make it look like I did some show preparation.
Alright. Here we go. Here's the introduction. I was in an engineering class the first time I watched the tragic tragic explosion of the space shuttle Challenger. Even though I wasn't alive when it happened, I caught a glimpse of the horror thousands must have felt as the events unfolded. And the first question everyone wanted to know was, what happened? After months of investigation, here's what the Rogers Commission, the group commission to investigate the explosion discovered. An o ring and the right solid rocket booster failed at takeoff. I won't bore you with the details, but an o ring is a small device relative to the size of a space shuttle, very small. It wasn't something huge like a puncture in the rocket booster or hole in the cabin that caused this disaster. It was a small, seemingly insignificant o ring failure. I think there's a lesson here for the church. That's grandiose. What if the big sins, you know, the ones you try hardest to avoid, aren't the greatest threat to your joy in the church's mission? Maybe it's the sins lying underneath, the ones considered normal or acceptable, the ones going undetected, pernicious, that are affecting the church the most, I want to address nine of these. Okay?
Man, I feel like Eight folks worried at the list, aren't There's a lot of one if or what if type of connections going on here. Feel like I'm guilty of all these already, and you haven't even started. Yeah. Continue on. Alright. Let yeah. Let's just get into the list. Okay. Number one. The phrases do not fear and do not be afraid appear 365 times in the Bible. Ironic? I think not. And here's what I think the church misses about fear. Let me pose this as a question. What is the opposite of fear? Courage, bravery, William Wallace? Wrong, wrong, and right, but you're ruining my point. The opposite of fear is love.
And to this, the reality that God is love. So according to the transitive property of mathematics, the opposite of fear is God. If you're a child of God, the one sin that shouldn't plague you is fear. Yet Christians are the most fearful people on the earth. Would you agree with that? That Christians are most fearful. Most fearful people on the earth? No. I would disagree. In practice or in or in, principle
Or both? Like, that is not your experience? That is not my experience. K. K. Even our salvation is rooted in fear. Does it bother anyone that the primary method of bringing people to Jesus has been to scare them away from hell? We've been talking about that recently. That does bother me. Yeah. I I agree. Very much so. Yeah. In fact, it's disgusting. That's fear language. The antithesis of God, look at what John says. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear, for fear has to do with punishment. And whoever fears has not been perfected in love, first John four eighteen. The church is scared to make decisions out of fear. Christians are hesitant to step into dangerous situations out of fear. The catalyst for our obedience is fear. Where's the love? Several weeks ago, I decided to remove the words fear, scared, and terrified from my vocabulary. Maybe you should do the same. It could change how you see the world and God. Where's he going from? I don't know that I've ever, like, woken up and thought, I fear.
You know, like like, I don't know that I can remove these principles from the my daily living because I don't know that I anticipate, any of those things that he just mentioned. But out of the 365 times the Bible says do not fear, I wonder how many of those are times like, I can think of every time an angel appears. Like, some dude's out doing their thing, all of sudden, the angel appears like, woah, what's this? The first thing the angel says is do not fear because like, well, it just It would freak you out. Yeah. Something that you should fear. Yeah. It's like, you know, something totally unusual is happening here. I I I don't know what's, you know So you gotta kinda take those out, you know, of of what he's saying here. Yeah. It's kinda inflating the the statistics here. I don't know. This this I'm trying to think the scripture say anywhere that fear is sin.
It is a sin. But it's it's always put in a command form. Do not be afraid. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, I kinda feel like fear is a is a biological structure that was built into you to warn you that something funky is going down. Right? Like a lack of faith is a sign of I don't trust God I'm gonna be like, hey, there's there's something there's a car coming at me very fast. There's a sense of fear in me that I should move. Like, it's a biological reaction to something impending something, right, or something out of the ordinary, something that I need to respond to. You're talking about a fight or flight type of response. It's I I guess. Maybe that maybe and I better either run or fight against it. Yeah. And maybe that's just the category I'm putting fear in. Like like, I just I I feel like like, you know, God inated that in you to say, hey, man. You better you better do something. There's input required for you to get out of the way of something. Yeah. And I actually Or engagements. I would use Dan's example as a good one. Right? Like, I mean, realistically, right, you you find some sort of figure that appears before you. I don't think the reaction that we're supposed to read it to say, don't be such an idiot for being afraid.
It's you run into something that rightfully has caused you to fear. I want you to know that it's of God. There's no reason to fear. Yeah. Yeah. Right? That I think that's the right train. And I think maybe what he's getting at here, if I can sympathize with it at all, it would be that sometimes the things that we seem to have fear in are things that we otherwise would purport to trust god in. And so the question is is, that that is that is a counter that is not appropriate counterbalance. Like, I can't say I trust God with this and then be afraid of it. Right. That's that's think that's the nature of and and the truth is it's it's disingenuous. Like, if I meet a if I meet a person who says, I love and follow Jesus, and then they're like, I'm afraid all the time. And I say, then I don't I don't get it. Yeah. What kind of powerful God do you follow? Because it seems to me that you're kinda scared of everything. Yeah. Yeah. That's it. I I I don't that's I disagree with his word fear for the the sin that we are okay with. I I change that to lack of trust. Don't I don't trust God. The lack of faith. That that would call that that's That that that because that seems like something that we have an issue with. Yeah. And we're and we seem to be alright. Well seem to be okay when people like, well, yeah, you're just being smart. You're just being logical. You're being I I think fear is the the practical manifestation of someone who's lacking trust. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Alright. Either God is is who he is or he's not. I think I mean, that that's really what it comes down to. Right? Like, either you trust it or you don't. And, like, you're gonna have to embrace that one way or the other. Yeah. If he's not sovereign, then you better get your act together. Otherwise, if he is sovereign, then he has the act together. Right. And if he's not sovereign, then he's a liar, and it's down to bail. All all of the congregational votes you see in scripture are based on fear. Like, hey, Moses, how about we vote to go back to Egypt? Yeah. Right. You know, it it that's, you know Job for group think. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Hey, man. That's scary all the time anyway. Yeah. Groups of people are freaking me out. I have fear of groups of people. What we're talking about though? It's groups of people that get on board with, like,
nostalgia on things that have barely passed and lists with counts in them. Yeah. No doubt. Anyway, back to our nines. It's okay with it. I'm a little scared about what's next. Alright. Number two. We're gonna have truncate these down here. Apathy. Apathy's best friends are passivity and entitlement. Together, they're a vicious threesome.
There's nothing mediocre or normal about God. His power is beyond comprehension. His beauty is beyond description. His love is beyond measure. Same God who created the universe and formed stars desires a relationship with you, yet the attitude's often, okay, God loves me. That's great. What's for lunch? No. You don't get it, bro. God God loves you, and you're content with, that's great. What? Our apathetic approach to God explains a lot about why people in America aren't lining up to become Christians. I mean, think about it. How many Christians have you met that left you thinking, wow, I wanna be like them. That's also fair. But this should be the norm. Right? Am I way off here? Shouldn't you be transformed by God that people wanna ask about your life even if they hate God? In scripture, when men and women truly experience God, everything changes everything. So that begs the question, have you experienced God? Yeah. The stories are inherently outrageous. You you're if you're apathetic to it, then you just did not understand the story. Either it's something that it's so outrageous you reject it, or it's so outrageous that it just changes the way that you look at the world. But it shouldn't be something that just kinda reaffirms it's like, okay. Yeah. Everything's alright. It's like Right. That's at least dealing with scripture at face value. Like, agreed. Like, you either have to accept it for what it purports to be
or reject it, taking it in mediocrely and be like, oh, yeah. You know? Yeah. It denies what I mean, if if Jesus is to be believed as you're gonna give up your life and you're gonna take up the cross and follow me or basically follow me in what it is that I'm doing Mhmm. Either we're skipping that or we're rejecting it if we take it in such a mediocre fashion. I would agree. Mhmm. I would agree. Totally on with this one. Yeah. Yeah. And we accept it
as as a whole. The church is like I don't think it's apathy, though. It's dishonesty. Like, we're being dishonest about what we're reading. Mhmm. Right? You know what saying? Like, if you're gonna read something like that, if you're gonna be honest about what the Bible is is is talking about, you need to be honest about what it's asking for, and you do modest what it purports to do and know and direct and and call you to. And so I'm not sure that it's apathy. I I think it's actually it may be an unintended dishonesty, but, like, there's it's just dishonest to act like it is what it isn't, and that it can be kinda digested and melded with a bunch of other things that you got going on. Alright. Gluttony.
Oh, boy. In my younger days, I would literally eat myself sick. I mean, if I ordered food, I ate all of it, period. Do you do that, Nick? We were just talking about a buffet. Sorry. I once went to Brazilian buffet with a number of other gentlemen.
Oh, preachers. Oh, man. Looking back, I see that my attitude was gluttonous. And the gluttony wasn't that I ate myself sick. It was that I used the gift God gave me on myself in excess. Gluttony is primarily about the heart. It's craving for excess. Gluttony says, those voids God is supposed to fill, don't worry about that. I will fill them. Gluttony happens it seems like a redefinition of gluttony. You sing as long as long as your eyes are fixed on Jesus, your heart's desire is for him. Is the world not desperate for this message? As we gorge our stomachs with food and flood our houses with trinkets, our discontent only increases. Where are the Jesus followers who have fixed their eyes completely on him throwing away nothing excuse me, anything that treads the line between want and need? Where are the Christians who will feast in excess on God? So I think I I think I can maybe get on board with the principle. I don't know. Gluttony seems like the wrong category. I think the point is is that we
we are self reliant on things that we other that God says he will otherwise provide. And actually, that seems that's back to a trust issue. Yeah. It's kinda number two. Yeah. Yeah. I I I don't
know what exactly what he's suggesting here is, like, if you haven't, like, sold everything that you own, then, you know, you're a gluttonous fool and and and, you know, like like, you don't really believe what you say you believe. Is that kinda what he's getting at? Well, so, I mean, when he says I don't know. When we're trying to fill voids with things that aren't that aren't god things, I I don't know. Like, I I I don't feel good. I'm feeling sad, so I'm gonna eat rather than pray.
So you're talking about emotional eating? Yeah. I suppose. Is is that See, we've entered a realm that I'm not real good in, but continue on. So I I mean, you asked me, like, as we gorge our stomachs with food and flood our houses with trinkets, I think the the base level is I think is it does he have does he have this on here? Hold on. Let me look. Yeah. It's it's like number seven. So it's it's greed. Now I think that is that is something we especially the the American church is baptized. We we're okay with greed. We won't argue about who's smoking what and who you're holding hands with. But, like, you got 90% of your people walking in the door who have got a greed problem, and we don't we don't really wanna talk about that all that often. I would I would agree with the underlying premise right there. I think that's the case. And and, frankly, that's still a measure of dishonesty.
So I would agree that kind of is an underlying thing. I he kinda lost me on some of rest of that stuff. It seems like it's kinda going in the direction of an a type of idolatry where you're you're filling a where where you should be worshiping God instead you're you're worshiping something else. You're you're finding something else to give your life meaning. And and instead of replacing, you know, instead of God being the center of your life, it's like, hey, I'll have food be it. Right. Which is Well, it sounds I mean I mean, from a Christian perspective, that sounds really stupid on its face. Right? You know what I'm saying? Like like, you know, I I I believe in this all powerful god, but there's a turkey leg.
And I feel like I feel like the turkey leg has got a lot going for it. It's been freshly cooked. Well, you know, you you have your two casseroles in your car, and you're driving to the church of Pollock, and you drive past the homeless community and think, man, sucks to be them. And you just keep going That's right. To to the church potluck. Right. You you know, it's kinda like, well, yeah, but we've got this this party planned and we really need this food. See, once again, like even that example, it just makes us sound very ridiculous. Yeah. We are. You know? It's bad times. And it's you know, what's interesting is that, like, if you think about the end around the way that that a lot of, modern theology will get you there is it's not say I, I idolize, I worship the turkey turkey leg. It's I worship God because he provides me a turkey leg. And so, like, it's Yeah. It's super important. It's just an end around. Right? It is it's the same process as we just kinda use God as the bartering tool to say, actually, I really wanna worship this, and I'll call it a blessing that he gave me a turkey leg. Thanks, God, for this thing that I wanted to worship that was The Lord has blessed me with a turkey leg and a and a and a good sized house. So then God's not God. He's just my tool. He's just a guy that works for me, provides turkey legs and houses. Thanks, Jesus. You can clock out. You've done well this week. Right. These are categoric mistakes.
Agreed. Number five, flattery. I erased this like five times, but God kept telling me to put it back. So I did with hesitancy. I love you, God. I like performing. I always have. And while there's nothing wrong with the spotlight, there's a lot wrong with making yourself the center of it. If your identity is tied to man's praise, you'll be eternally discontent. So that's true anyway just because man is fickle. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. If your identity is tied to man's praise, you'll be eternally discontent. People are fickle when we said that. They're here today and gone tomorrow. They're for you one day, against you the next. They love you when you agree with them, dislike you when you don't. Yet, we love human praise. At least I do. Exhibit a, Instagram, Snapchat, boovah on Facebook.
While I love social media, there are also platforms that perpetuate flattery. You post pictures about your life hoping the world will like it. Who cares if it's not the real you? You need the approval. So even if you need thirty minutes to find that perfect selfie, it's worth the time. Jesus, however, didn't need the praise and glory of men. He didn't care what they thought. His only concern was doing the will of God. The attitude is what the world is desperate to see. It's hard to point people to Jesus if you need their approval. Let's be honest. It's hard to point people to Jesus if you need their approval. Said the same thing twice. And when you need the approval of others, your life will have more ups and downs than the Goliath at 6 Flags in Atlanta. I rode that beast. I know. Has anybody been on the Goliath at Six Flags in Atlanta? I've never been to Atlanta. No. I I I the reference is lost on me then. Flattery. What do think?
You did a really good job reading that. Sorry. Yeah. I I mean convoluted. It it kinda goes back to the basic, replace God with something else. In this case, it's just the crowd's approval. Yeah. So And like, I mean, that's a fairly easy thing to get sucked into. Like like, having people appreciate what you do or say you did a good job. You know, but like, it's it's nice. But but, like, the truth is, yeah. I mean, they can turn on you just as fast as they said that you were great. And they are fickle. I mean, that's just a that's a, I don't know. It it's hard to say that because, like, if you live your entire life that way, you will live such a protected, guarded life that, like, you you never got invested in anybody deep enough, to know them. Right? Like, if, like, I can't trust you enough because you might hurt me, you know, that then you can never actually have a relationship with anybody. Yeah.
I mean, I suppose it's it just depends on how much weight you put on it. Right? Like, every great betrayal came from being party to someone who it meant something if they betrayed you. However, every great every great love and connection relationship came because you were willing for that to be the case. Right? And so so I I don't know that you can't That sounded very wise. I I I got out of fortune cookie. At a Brazilian steak house. It cost me $8 for the fortune cookie.
I didn't know they did this in Brazil. They said, well, you kinda paid a lot for the meat, so we felt obligated to give you a cookie. Here's a scroll inside of the fortune. Here's a cookie. What an aptly name. In in preaching, in ministry, that that flattery really is pretty worthless. Know, I I used to in my very first church, you know, Sunday, the same old lady would come by. Great job, Larry. I go, well, my name's not Larry. But I'll pass it on. Job. I'm 20.
You know? Actually, it works out pretty good at our at our church every once in a while. Ben Ben will preach. And and since I look just like him, I either get the praise or the or the or the disdain on the way through. You know, I'll walk out first. They'll be like, you did a nice job. I'm like, well, thank you. Or, you know, you talk a little fast. I'm like, yeah. I'm working on it. You guys had to dress the same those days. That'd be awesome. Yeah. I'll just put myself up as a lamb to slaughter for your amusement, Dan. Ben can give you the idea. Why don't you tell you face the public for me. Hey. Can you hold this this x? And I'll put some strings on myself, and you could just puppet me around. Alright. Here we go. Number six, comfort. Comfort might be the patriarch of the church approved sins family. When the church becomes comfortable, Christianity starts to die. Christians must be extremely intentional with their thoughts and actions to avoid comfort. If not, you become resistant to change. You start making secondary issues primary.
You begin to see the mission as catering to insiders rather than reaching outsiders. Actually, I think that's a case in point on driving the casserole to the church potluck instead of stopping it given to God that's hungry. Yeah. That's that's a secondary issue. That's the problem. And here's the thing about the sin of comfort. Once it shows up, it's extremely difficult to remove. When you challenge comfort, people just don't just get angry. They get fighting mad. Comfort will even tell you to crucify an innocent man. The church can't be missional and comfortable at the same time. The church can't be missional and comfortable at the same time. It's time to make a decision. Is he doing that on purpose? I just got bad formatting on this website because it's making me look silly. Anyway, can't be miserable and comfortable at the same time. It's time to make a decision. Yeah. I think it's an honest actually, it goes back to dishonesty thing. You can't you can't say I follow Jesus. And if Jesus went and talked to
talked to people of ill repute and he and he he fed people and they needed fed and he he sought for justice and mercy and love and the truth of God to people and you're not doing that, then you're simply not following Jesus. You're following something. That's not him. We, we met for, as a as a church for like twelve years in a school. And whenever like a new family moved to town, whatever they come check out the church, always the very first question. I mean, number one question if I'd be talking to a new family would be like, when are you guys going to get in the building?
I'm like, that has nothing to do with I mean, really? I mean, what's the what's, you know, what does it matter? So we can sit in it? Yeah. It's like we just don't wanna this is this looks like a lot of work. We're not helping with setup. I know, but it sure seems like a lot of work. Yeah. We just like to heat a place that we're not at most of the week. If you guys aren't doing that, then I we can't come here. It was it was kind of a comfort thing, you know. Yeah. Mean, like, you know where it comes from, but, like, it's just it's it's the wrong idea. That was one of the I we were halfway through this building process and
things were I I don't know. Things were going they were going okay, but it was taking a long time. And I thought I thought, you know, if we're gonna if we're gonna put this building together and as a church, we're gonna come here and we're gonna sit in it, and we're not gonna be out doing the work of God, but we're just gonna be happy that we're in here. I said I I I said, God, I'll burn it down. Do it right now. I'll and I I prayed it out in this parking lot. I said, dude, if you need to burn this thing down, you burn it down. Put an endangered owl on the rafters, whatever it takes for us not to be able to to move forward with this because I don't want us to build something and sit in there. And it's it's a real risk. Right? Be and because you've introduced this notion of comfort, and it is once you get used to it, it is it is hard to pull back out of it, and it's something that I think we have to be be careful about. Not I I I think the point isn't to say God wants you to be uncomfortable, but it's stagnant. It's like, if if if you're following Christ and and and Jesus is moving, and that's what his his life and ministry demonstrates, if you're not doing that, then you become stagnant and comfortable, and that's the risk. And the I think the modern church kinda caters to comfort.
You know, when they're out there trying to market to people. Yeah. Come come and we'll make you comfortable. And and Although, I mean, we went with decently comfortable chairs. Well, because we went with oh, I never met. We could've got iron stools and we didn't. You guys have fit into this. Look at what's That was about earlier years. Here's the deal. I've made mistakes. Nobody sells a spiked communion plate.
And you're like, what does this world come to? Doesn't anyone love Jesus? We even went to bikerchurch.com. Bikerchurch.com. Hey. That's awesome. I bet they sell cool stuff. Here's the thing, though. I I I can't remember if we've talked about this, but, like, there's something about guys that like, biker churches. Uh-huh. Like, what the church is always trying to create, what bikers do automatically. Yeah. Like,
people who love each other, who spend life together, who who who there's there's brotherhood. For each other. Yeah. I mean, like, the the very thing that the church is always trying to manufacture, and that and and frankly, it's trying to do that because we stink at it. We we're not very good at that being together and creating community. Like, you go to a biker church or even just you take the biker church out of it, just a group of bikers. Like, that's the community the church wants to create. Yeah. We just stink at creating it. Like, we can't we don't create an atmosphere of which people actually naturally wanna get in relationships. I saw there was a there was a guy that did a biker church, he was kind of explaining how things went and and these interactions with the people. And I thought, man, that. Yeah. That's that's it. I used to when I was in Cass County, I I in Iowa here, I I became like the the biker funeral guy. Yeah. And it's just like one led to another because then we kinda got to know him. And and I tell you, I've seen them in their best and their worst, and and they they do. They come together. I'll never forget a, you know, a two mile line processional of of of Harleys rumbling the entire community going on a funeral. Yeah. To someone's burial and just the way those guys, I mean, they hug like nobody hugs, they cry, they they laugh, they they party, they do it. I mean, it's it's together. It's it's it's a community for sure.
How do you make the church more like a biker gang? Something to put the thought on. We're gonna handle free leathers next service. Hey, man. We get all kinds of people. We're handing out free leather. I mean Can we be discerning on the free leather? I don't want to imply anything, but I just
No, Max. Excuse me, sir. You're gonna need take two. That's not gonna do it. Number eight. Leave some long leaves. Sorry. There's
there's laws in this country. Sorry, Ben. We've derailed the community that is the biker church and made it tawdry. Patriotism, number eight. Cue the nasty emails. Maybe it's just me, but I can't picture Jesus waving an American flag while showing off his I love America tattoo.
Jesus wasn't against the government. In fact, if you're a Jesus follower, the Bible calls you to pray for your nation and for your leaders. But Jesus was very clear about how God's name would become famous throughout the world. The church, not the government, not a nation, the church. When your allegiance is torn between your country and your God, American ideals begin to shape your faith more than God. And you transpose American values onto God, believing God would be an American and think like an American. Celebrate American values. That's great. But at the end of the day, your citizenship is not with America. It's in heaven. We've talked a lot about that recently. Mhmm. Yeah. And that a lot of a lot of the things that people I feel like that they well, they're not dealing with Christianity honestly. Mhmm. It's it's because it looks like God's American.
And we've we've piloted some of the the stuff that is our that our country believes in and is founded upon onto God and said, well, he must have he's baptized this and this he and this must be honoring to him. And I'd I it's not completely mutually exclusive, but there is a lot about about our country that that is I don't I don't think I could put on to God. Certainly couldn't. So I think that is very much a risk. And we do do need to be very because we tie that like, what that's a popular phrase, like, and country. We wanna we wanna God bless America. Yeah. Yeah. And it's it's it's made its way into the nomenclature. And I think it is, at least, if we're being honest, disassociated with some of the truth of scripture with some of the things that we care about, either as a nation or as a people. Number nine. Is this is this that's nine. End of the list. Lying. If gluttony is the elephant in the room everyone sees, but no one talks about, lying is the elephant in the room no one sees. Lying is so socially acceptable even in Christian circles that often goes undetected. We're desensitized to it. And here's why this is dangerous for Christians. There's rarely, there's a rarely discussed passage in Matthew five thirty three where Jesus confronts the Pharisees about oaths. Most Americans only hear the word oath when a celebrity lies in court under oath. But Jesus isn't talking about oaths in this passage. He's talking about integrity. Here's what Jesus is saying. You should live with such high integrity that your word doesn't need attachments to make it legitimate. So typical phrases like, I promise or I swear or I put it on my mom's grave should never come from your mouth. Frank, come on, man. Aren't you interpreting that correctly? Say, you promise. These words are a kick in the pants. Right? If you're like me, you say things all the time and never follow through. You lie to make yourself sound better. You lie to stay out of trouble. You lie to get ahead. Sometimes you lie to just lie. Jesus says there's no place for it if you're a Christian. Your word matters. If you say something, God expects you to do it. It's better to tell the truth and lose your job than lie and keep it. How serious is this? Jesus says anything more than our word is from the evil one, Satan. That's real.
Hey. So like like if I'm being completely honest here, that that changed the way that I live my life. I I didn't realize how many small lies I told. Most of them were too centered around why I was late to work that day. And so and so, like, I I forced myself to stop lying about that, and it was amazingly freeing. Like, it's it's kinda one of those things where where, you know, I looked at it, I'm like, is this really that big of a deal if I said, hey, man. I just my car didn't start or something. Like, it's it's really not hurting, you know, until until, like, I actually felt the freeing feeling of, like, knowing that I didn't make up a story. Like, I just said, look. I I woke up late. I didn't hear my alarm. I've I've let you down. That's what happened. And, like, it was a it was amazingly I didn't think that it could be possible. It's one of those those promises that, you know, you hear God put out and you're like, I don't know, man. I don't feel like that's practically gonna work at all. Like, I'm probably gonna lose my job, and everyone's gonna hate me because I tell a lot of lies. And then I started giving it a shot, and, you know, I feel like I've gotten way more joy out of just being bluntly honest. And so, you know, I gotta back that one up. I feel like that's very freeing.
No. And I think that's that's the that's the misunderstanding of some of these things. Right? Is that we, we look at some of stuff that God says is a shackle. He's when when when what Mike is describing is because you're living in truth, there's freedom in that. It doesn't sound right. It's gonna make any sense. I'm telling you. I'm I'm with you. I I agree. It sounds like it's not gonna work out. But, like, it it just really has. I can just testify that it has. Yeah. Yeah. I I I think I've had that same experience. The things that other people would look and say that's that's shackle. I said it is through those things in which I actually have feel free. And not not like a high spiritual, I found freedom. But, like, literally, I feel that there there is a there is a lack of a weight Mhmm. Upon upon my life and the things that I do when I am when I have integrity in my life. And frankly, mean, that's true even even outside of the Bible. But the Bible helps me I mean, provides my levels of how I understand what integrity is when otherwise,
without some sort of fixed point, it becomes very difficult. It's a moving target. And people's level of integrity is comes to, well, no one else cares, so is it a big deal? And the truth is, yeah, it still is. You're still shackled. You just you didn't have a party who pointed it out at you. My biggest problem is an unintentional lie. I made my my daughter very disappointed in me today. Evidently, at two in the morning as I was going to bed, she kinda sat under her bedroom door like her light was on and she heard me. She goes, hey, are we gonna go look for a phone tomorrow? I'm like, you know, I didn't want to talk about it. Yeah, sure. Know, just that'll end the conversation. And somewhere in there, evidently, had 09:00 was her plan. We're going to at 09:00 we're going to the store to look at phones. And my brother's in town like he was leaving that morning. I thought, don't know what's going on that morning. You know, just, yeah, whatever, you know, okay. So, I was just ending the conversation and going to bed. And so, yeah, kind had to live with that today. Like, I mean, I guess I lied. I couldn't even tell you I said that. Yeah. But I did. I mean, I can remember, you know,
sure, yeah, we'll look for a phone sometime, you know. Anyway, it's that's it's usually I do stuff like that. I'll say something to end the conversation to just agree to
let's move on Yeah. And then not follow through with what I said. Because I forget it. I discard it. Yeah. And it wasn't a lie. Just but I did but to them it was. Yeah. Then they're on the other side of something that you said that you otherwise didn't come through and it That's common integrity. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. So there's an integrity issue. Yep. Alright. You guys okay with that? Yeah. I didn't. Yes. Yes.
It says sometimes the undetected sins are the most toxic. My hope is you will see this as an opportunity to grow. I also realize there are some church approved sins I didn't mention. It's your turn. I don't know that you
I don't know that you had to I mean, it's a little bit of a clickbait thing. Right? Nine sins Christians are okay with. Like, I think I I think this is this is an interesting conversation
and an opportunity to be kind of self reflective on what we seem to be okay with. It seems a little bit more heady than the introduction seemed a little bit more heady than maybe what it was. Yeah. Helpful or otherwise. Clickbaited by faith.com. I I think I could've seen that. You gotta learn to play the game, bro. Alright. Well, if you have more that you that you think I I to be honest with you, I I don't really want you to share them with us. It's No. Unnecessary. We've gone through nine. That's enough. Yeah. It's I think we're good there. I mean, talk about it among your friends. But here's the deal. I mean, don't invest in finger pointing here. Just I mean, use it to filter. That's what God's word is help you do. Read it. Believe like, be honest about what it's asking and then react accordingly. I don't know if we need to spend a bunch of time on it like, well, Chuck is a this and this.
I think the point is my my sin that I most of us accept is just as sinful as the one we will protest against. That. Yes. That is probably the main point. It's still the one that I like to swing the hammer at people about, you know, and and then I'm over here like, well, mine deserves at least to just a pat on the wrist. Like, oh, do better. You know? Yeah. But the one everyone else is willing to to grab a hammer out and beat a guy with, you know, that's the big ticket item. And then the one that you that you're committing, you're like, well, the Lord has grace for me. Because I me. I don't know if you I was in the Bible. It's a little weird. It
was like it's somewhere in the middle. It's like, Mike is okay for most things. Yeah. Yeah. And so that's what we gotta That's kinda that's the embarrassing part, and that's the part that really, like, it it it makes God unbelievable. Right? Like, it makes that whole thing that you said you built your whole life on, your whole belief structure in a God that gives you a past act like a jerk and act like you don't love anybody. But the stuff you do that stinks is, you know, it's it's probably fine because you're you. Well, who would want to get involved with a god like that? He sounds terrible. And like he like he doesn't care for anybody except for special old you, you know. And and that was probably I mean, that's probably the main point is is if you can look at that and and, like, if you're gonna if you're gonna attempt to say that you're following Jesus in any capacity, and you're gonna present a god that's basically a lie from what the Bible said so you look better, like, you you're not following Jesus. Right? You're trying to create a you plus Jesus situation, and you're you're bucking it up. You're making it look silly. Yeah. Yeah. I'd look at this as and not so much, hey, how how is everyone messed up? You know, they've got their sin that I don't like, and I've got my sin that I like, and and so we're we are all, steeped in shame. I I don't see that as being something so useful as much as just kinda looking through this and saying, alright, in what way have I not been trusting God as fully as I should? Like, for example, lying at it's like, I don't quite trust God's reality, so I'm gonna fabricate my own and try and come up with my own story about
why I was late or why whatever. And now that's on me and it's like I I don't trust the reality that God has already created that I apparently live in, and so I'm gonna try taking it from him and and doing that. It's like, you know, what is it about this list? In the things that I'm failing in, in what way am I just not trusting God? And how can I turn that around and actually learn to trust him? You know, we we were talking about that in relatives to some related to some of our in time discussion stuff is like,
the the reason people are trying to scare people into heaven is because they seem to just flat out not trust God's marketing plan. Like, well, Jesus didn't communicate these things. He communicates them in in, frankly, hope, love, optimism. This is this is what we have for you. And we've decided, well, Lord, it's just not doing it. Let's go scare them. Yeah. Let's go threaten them. Let's go make sure they understand. I mean, we we just we don't care for God's marketing plan and say, well, we've amped this up a little bit. We gotta make some headway. We've added a spiritual vacuum that sucks people up prior to big devastation. So much for the good part of good news. We'll just, discard that, and, we'll just go with the news, the straight up news.
There's I mean, there's there's times where there's people talking. I'm like, I don't wanna spend an attorney with that guy. Yeah. No doubt. If he's getting it, I'm out. That seems real difficult to deal with this. This is what fires him up? Yeah. And that's that's the thing. It's like this has come up in conversation a couple times. It's like, I I get to heaven because Jesus gets in and then he's the only legitimate guy invited to the party. And then he turns around and he looks at me and he looks at you and says, yeah, he's with me. And then I get to go in. I get to go in because Jesus gets to go in. He's a legitimate character. And the the people other people are trying to try and say, like, here's how you wanna spend eternity with God because I can scare you from wanting to go to this thing and rile you up enough that you just go hightail it in past Jesus and hit the punch bowl. Yeah. I'm like, I realistically, that just doesn't seem appropriate. No. It doesn't seem like how eternity works. Alright. You're listening to life from the path. Nine sins the church is okay with. Try not to be okay with that stuff. You know? Yes. A yes. Yeah.
Alright. Just tell it like it is. Mike, what do got over there? You ready? We're ready for some round table Yeah. Yeah. Dear life from the path. Okay. Here we go. Dear life from the path. I'm retiring at the end of this year after fifty years of full time employment, and I'm very excited about it. Looking back over my life, I see there have been several life changing events, marriage, the births of our children, buying a home, and now retirement. My wife gets irritated every time I say, about twice a week, when I retire,
I'm looking forward to all sorts of activities that I'll have time for. Why can't she be excited too? She makes snide remarks like, well, when you retire, you won't have anything to say. The implication is that all I talk about is my retirement, which isn't true. And if it were true, it's a big deal to me. What should I say to my wife? Was she afraid of this? I mean, something something's up. A lot a lot of women don't like it when the men retire, then suddenly they're they're inviting their kingdom. Mhmm. That's been their kingdom for fifty years, and now all of a sudden, you know, John's coming home. Sitting in the chair. And he cares about what kind of spoons we have? Or Go out to the garage, John. Yeah. Leave my home alone. Brandon,
you have your your marriage counseling. These these fellows, they're in front of you, they say, hey. We just we just don't know. I don't know how to tell my wife. She doesn't seem to be supportive of me. What do you what do you say? I mean, she's gotta deal with it. That's a that's a whole, like that's a vows, right? You know? Well, that's true. You know. Here's the deal. I like Brandon's straight laced marriage counselor. Hey, look, man. You made vows. I feel like you're not getting out of this deal.
You know, straighten it up. Yeah. You know, it's bought and paid for. It's married, you know, married. You own the cow buddy. You
made it this far. And now you're at the retirement side. There's no, there, I mean, it should be on the downward slide. Yeah. Now, is it, is it, is it possible that like, that, that maybe the way that we run marriages that, that they, they create such a, a separate lifestyle that when they, the two of them have to meld back together with no kids to bank on or no job to, to find identity in that you basically don't know each other. This is a legitimate crisis in every marriage. Retirement, it really is. Well, I don't want to look forward to this, Dan. Tell me that it doesn't have to be so. You don't think it has to be so. Okay, good. It won't be for Cheryl and I. We have a better relationship than that.
Then Crap. What are you saying about me? I'm not saying you. I'm talking about this guy. This gal. So, wait, wait, wait. So, to try to sympathize with the wife here, what are the dudes doing when they're retiring? Is it just that they're hanging around the house? They're following her around, you know, just like, would you just leave me alone? I hear that a lot from I'm like I don't know I don't know what I don't know that many people, but the people who have talked to me over the years, that's the that's the thing. It's like, he follows me around, he's always home, he's always asking questions. I, for fifty years, I've folded the towels this way. Now he's saying, do you fold them that way? Or you know what? It's just things that are really dumb. Okay. I But it's annoying. I think I'd totally do that. Right? Like, I mean I bet you would. My wife totally takes care of most of the grocery shopping. You're doing that now? And then I start digging my plates in there and I'm like, hey, What do mean? You didn't get any combo pizza rolls? Yeah. I mean, that should have been a standard all these years. What's happened? You know? I could see how that could be very Yeah. Oh, yeah. That's a big deal. When you you're so used to doing something on your own and then all of sudden someone wants to put their input and you're like, I've been mowing the lawn for like twenty years. You wanna tell me how to mow it now? That seems really unnecessary.
I I kinda feel like I went through some of the same sort of discussions when Becky and I first got married just because, you know, I I I think I've got some kind of great idea about how to do things. And Becky's had a way that works and she's a she's a legitimate adult. She knows how to do things. And here I am coming in trying to, you know, teach her how to do it. Come on. Really? She's an adult. She knows how to do it. So are we saying the man is in the wrong? I'm not comfortable with what you're saying. Kinda. Yeah. I'm saying that's where her anxiety is coming from. Yeah. She's seen this in other couples. Am I hearing that the advice is to say he should have started earlier following her around and getting up in her affairs so this isn't such a surprise? He's a look at the crap. He's a lay down the wall right away. He needs to ramp it up a little bit. You're just not a smooth character. That's his problem. He needs to get some hobbies, and he needs to make sure she knows he's not just gonna be following her around every day. Yeah. And and This is a weird picture of marital bliss. Here's
how you keep a marriage running strong. Keep away from each other. Get a hobby and leave me alone. You know, I like having a puppy, but when it follows me everywhere I go, I'm like, would you just go take a nap or something? You you know, I'm it's the same way with a wife and a husband. Go take a nap. Listen here, wife. Let me put this to you this way. You're like a a dog, really,
that follows me around, and I want you to take a nap. Marriage advice from Dan. I think the guy is more the dog. See what Singular had to say versus Dan's animal analogy. Dear see, Singular says, you might start by asking why her reaction is to rain on your parade about something you're clearly looking forward to. She may be worried about how her life will change once you retire, or she may be a tad jealous. But you won't know until you have a frank conversation with her that isn't passive aggressive or tends to a sarcasm. That takes out every conversation I've ever had.
I don't even know how to talk to people. You're gonna have to hire a guy. Here, baby. I got Larry to talk to you before. I've hired Wilford Brimley. He's having a good diabetes month. He needed some work.
Here we go. Dear, that's terrible. Dear life from the path. I've been in a relationship with a woman, Wendy, for more than a year. She has one child whose father isn't the boys isn't in the boys' life, so I feel the role of his daddy. We are now expecting a child together. Wendy had had a bad experience with her ex not wanting anything to do with his child. She also has a friend who has had kids with different men who ended up not treating them the same. Lately, Wendy has been pushing me away and trying to get me to leave. I have no plans to leave, and I don't want to. My question is, how do I make her understand that I'm not the same as the other men, and I want to be there for both children? That's just kind of simple advice, man. Just prove that you're not them. Stay.
You know what I'm saying? Like, understand what she's like, I I understand that's that's hard to take. Right? Like, it's hard to take that that that but you can see what she's doing. Yeah. She did that to the first guy too, I'm guessing. You can see what she's doing if you love her you I mean, love her completely. Mhmm. Let her go through it. Let her battle. She's trying to protect herself and her kids. That's an honest response. Right? But, like, prove that you're not the other guy and stay. Yeah. Don't let it get to you. Don't let it don't let it beat you down, you know. It's it's hard in relationships, whether it be marital relationships or friendships or between husband or mother and father, like kids and stuff,
is is being in relationships where you're not reaffirmed. Right? Where it's where it doesn't feel mutual, where you're you're putting in effort and you don't feel like you're getting it back. But the truth is is that from her position, I think that's good just gonna be your situation for a while. Right? She's she's trying to protect, and so you're not gonna see some of this reciprocation. But it is disingenuous to act like
that you don't know where that's coming from, and it's it's a matter of it's it would basically, it's unloving to say, I know why you're doing this, and I'm gonna ignore that and take it personally and and and not invest in this relationship. So I think I think you're gonna have to just know that this is there's gonna be a time in your life of which you're gonna love and it's not gonna be reciprocated, but the nature of love doesn't require that. Mhmm. It certainly makes it easier. It does. Makes it easier to love someone when it's coming back. But, I mean, the the true nature of what love is means that it doesn't have to. That's right. I will love you even if you're not being loving to me. Yeah. Right? And that that is I mean, there's no doubt about it. That's draining. It is emotionally draining. Yeah. You have to really love somebody to know where that's gonna stick. But if you could if you can rock that and realize that, like, you can truly say I love you despite how you feel about me,
that's that's that's a very pure form of love. And we committed to that for the long term too. I mean, it's not gonna be three weeks and suddenly everything's better. He's gotta just Right. It's gonna it'll be difficult, but it it is doable. Yeah. It's just hard. Right? Yeah. It's just it's it's just very hard. I didn't think that that shows out in even in and maybe this isn't true for you guys, but like, mean, the the times where I feel like I am the most unloving acting towards my wife is when she has treated me in a way that I didn't appreciate. Right? And so my my honest reaction is, like, it it opens up a floodgate and says, well, that's what we're doing. Yeah. I get to treat you as a living stuff. You've been keeping. And, like, and and that's that's foolish. Right? Because the the truth is every argument
stems from two people who are willing to engage in argument. If you could find one reasonable person in your given your day to day who wasn't willing to engage on that level and was able to just kinda take it for a little bit because if there's no reason to say, hey, man. My wife's really acting unreasonable today. She's acting like I don't do x y z. And then my reaction is to then become unreasonable myself and show her the what for. And, like, what what did we just do? All I did was volunteer to be the the unreasonable party that broke the camel's back. If my wife is being unreasonable, if I think that. Right? And but she's not tend to be that way, then I should have some sympathy on my wife and say, something's up. Something's going on in her life that's causing her to react to me in this way. Why would I affirm that by acting the way that she just is accusing me of to prove the point? Like, it's so stupid. But, like, that's what we what we wait for someone to act like a fool. Like, we're waiting for the floodgate,
for the idiot parade to get to launch out so that say small fool inside of you that's been wanting to get off the bench, you're like, just give me a reason. Yeah. I got a fool ready to come in. If normal relationships are the blacktop only of elementary school recess, like, soon as soon as somebody makes a false remark, it's green flag, and everybody's out and about acting however they wanna act. Alright. Let's see what Secular says. Secular says a marriage proposal and and joint premarital counseling might go a long way in helping your girlfriend understand that you aren't planning to disappear in a puff of smoke. It might also give you more insight to why she wants to push you away, just in case it's because she isn't as serious about you as you are about her. Do you think that's wise?
You think it's wise to the marriage proposal? The room is aghast. He seems like he's already committed to it. Yeah. Yeah. No. That's what I'm asking. Like, I want where would it start at? Is but
he he might lose any opportunity. Right? Because if in her if her current position, he says we marry me, she could just flat out say no when it's done. What do you mean it's done? No. Doesn't mean you're broken up. Just means you're I feel like if she's trying to push him away, this gives a good sense of finality. Think we just described
a strong willed love even if you're you're not loving to me, man. He will stay without a marriage proposal. Now hold on. He's loving so just have to come back and ask her every week. Yeah. I mean, if somebody becomes a creep Haven't you seen whatever romantic comedy I have in my head? I don't know. What's the one where they they kiss in the rain? It's some kind of epic. That's all of them. The letters. What's it called?
I don't know. I don't watch those. Don't I don't know what letters. Oh, The Notebook. The Notebook. Yeah. Yeah. There's less parts. Yeah. That's what I'm talking about. See? I'm I'm in the culture. Crap. I'm not. Anyway Hey. Anybody that has to go, yeah. I'm of the culture. Yeah. There's not a guy in the culture.
Unless he's a dairy farmer. Hey, man. That plays. That does play. Like the one time he told her at the gas station at 05:30 with the rest of the farmers, you know. I'm in the culture. And he tries it the next day, I come on, Phil. Hey. You know what you know what'd be funny, though? It's like, you know they hear that, and they they give a little chuckle on it, and then one of them tries to pull it off, like, three days later and slightly makes company. And he just doesn't have the personality for it. I'm in the culture.
What? Alright. Let's see what we're ready for another did I have a secular answer to one? Oh, yeah. She she said pump out a marriage proposal. I'm hesitant on that. I mean, I get that it reflects where he's going to. I just wonder like, this this may be the wrong time to push it. Yeah. That's bold move time, Ben. You're saying he's doubling down when he's got a weak hand is the problem. I I think he's doubling down when someone is when she would take it as
she wouldn't see it as a strong ploy for her love. I think she would see it as an aggressive stance. If she's in a protection mode, the last thing you wanna do is kinda puff up. Sure. So I I think you I think you stay the course for a while. You live your life in fear. We just talked about this. Marriage. Hello, woman.
We shall be one. Here we go. You you will be like dog who follows me around. Love dancing. Dick, this one seems to has the word cacophony in it. Oh. So it might be a okay. Here we go. Dear life from the path. After the long winters in Minnesota, we look forward to summer to open our windows and enjoy the fresh air. However, we are unable to do that because of wind chimes.
Apparently, wind chime owners don't understand or care that the noise carries throughout the whole block, especially on windy nights. Please, folks, take down your chimes and hang up something quiet instead. You know, I have a hard time moving my my feather wind chimes because they don't freaking do it, and they're stupid.
What's the what's the what's the right what's the advice here? It's just a call to everybody. Take down the wind chimes. Yeah. Yeah. Be be be be be yeah. I'm not responsible. Considerate of your neighbors is what what they're asking. Are you serious? I'm just saying that's what she's asking. Oh. Mean I thought you were proposing that wind chimes need to go. This seems less like advice and more of a public service announcement. Yeah. From the anti wind chimes side I I have Blame for the chimes. I have attempted many times. That's right. Wait. You've had moments of hesitation while picking up a set of wind chimes. I'm looking at those. It's some nice wind chimes. I'm thinking, I don't the neighbors don't need to hear that. I could put them in my house and put a fan on it or something, but They're actually not allowed at our apartment fan on it. Oh my god. Yeah.
Preschool dad with the oscillator fan. Yay. Oh. Yay. Oh. That's a little bit redneck, Dan. Just to put a put an oscillating fan on someone chimes in your place. Well, that doesn't doesn't annoy anybody else that way. It's the that's that's the way to solve a problem that did not exist at all. Yeah. People
don't create irritating noises. Wind chimes do. I don't think I've ever, like, sat in my bed at night and been, like, horsed off because it's a guy rocking wind chime somewhere. That's true. You're walking down the block and you're like, I can't believe this. This is an outrageous. So soothing. No respect. We're forming a committee. What does society come through?
I think the church has done that. That's right. This is one of the sins the church is okay with. Wind chimes. Noise pollution. Hey. Here's the deal. I kinda like those ones made out of wood, though. Like, because the metal ones are a little bit annoying, but, the I don't know. The soft A bamboo. Arabian Peninsula ones? Yeah. Yeah. They're cool. They I like, wind chimes give storms some atmosphere. Yeah. Well, that's how you know they're coming. I know it makes it more ominous. Seems like something big is gonna. It's like the the start of the Twister movie. Yeah. Okay. So we basically, we're saying we have no support for this woman.
Well, we kinda like the sound of wind chimes. Yeah. I'm sorry. We're we're pro wind chime here. Yeah. Maybe that's what happens when you get to Minnesota. People hate wind chimes. Boy, that's I don't know. I'm I'm trying to find a way to sympathize here. Just I'm really having trouble. I mean because we're all Iowans and we have to listen to locusts all week. Of is true. So we're like we just like those, like, you know We like random noises coming from the outside. Yeah. In fact, when it's very quiet outside, you get very suspicious. Like, what's happening? Yeah. Yeah. There's there's I like either a tornado coming or the place blew up. I like the thought that like, you do feel that way. When stuff's quiet, we automatically think something nefarious is afoot. And I like the thought that there's a criminal sitting somewhere who's waiting till all the noise dies down
before he creeps the streets. Well, cut down all the wind chimes so he can break in. Now that's genius. Right? Like, you could prove you could probably burglarize an entire neighborhood by hanging wind chimes everywhere and let that cover up your breaking activities. Wait. Is it true, though? Like, do do Iowans have an like like sound machines? Is that not widely regarded? Because it sounds like like, you're right, though. Like, I don't you you get used to locusts and and breezes and chimes and stuff. And is is there is there pockets in Minnesota where they just they don't tolerate sleep noises?
It it seems like this pocket apparently does tolerate wind chimes, and here we like our locusts. And maybe in New York, they like car horns. I don't know. I assume people that are like me are normal, and people that are not like me are abnormal. Is that not the right way to look at the world? No. We all look at the world that way. There's either Ben or there's everything else. Yeah. And this wind chime lady has stepped outside of her Aren't you driving a '98 Blazer? Well, you're a real freak of nature. I don't know how you even got in this country. Oh, you're a church goer, you say? Absolutely not.
Alright. Here we go. Secular's advice or basically I I she didn't even ask for advice. It says, if your solution to this problem is writing to me hoping your neighbors will see your letter, please allow me to offer a better one. Bake a batch of cookies or another confection and take it to these neighbors. When you hand your gift to them, explain that their wind chimes are driving you and some of the other neighbors to distraction. Then ask if they would please be kind enough to take them down and suggest that they perhaps they hang a basket of flowers in their place. I I feel like the cookies are a little dishonest. Yeah. And the transparently. Neighbors too. Yeah. Exactly. People are talking. You've gloviated a story. You've done exactly what we talked about not doing. You're not living an integrity driven life. Like, I just if this was actually a problem for me, I can't imagine I couldn't walk up to my neighbor and say, hey, man. It was wintertime driving me bonkers. Do you how do you listen to them at your place all the time? Like, I would have to sympathize and see like, hey. Do you have a hearing problem? Or, I mean, if it was enough to drive me insane, I feel like we can have a regular conversation apart from making cookies be like, man, we don't really know each other very well, I secretly hate you because you're wind chime. But here's some cookies. Can we talk about your wind chime? Like, that's terrible.
That earned your trust. Yeah. That's right. Nothing says trust like suspicious cookies. Or better yet, hold the cookies back. Let them smell them and say, hey. If you take down those wind chimes, I got some cookies for you. How are you with the American art of blackmail? You've been listening to live from the path. It's more of a bribe. What did I say? Don't you? You don't know what the distinction is of nefarious deeds. You've listening to Live From Thanks for hanging out with us. If you're on the Truth Network ninety nine point three, we can only afford so much time. So we've got to let you go.
If you're hanging out on the podcast, we'll be right back with you. Here's the deal. Be faithful in the means. God will take care of the ends. Thanks for listening to Live From The The Path. Yeah. I don't know why people can't solve problems just by saying, hey, man. I'm running into a problem. Yeah. Here's the deal. Here's the honest take on the situation. I would feel guilty about bringing the cookies. I I would have to bring the cookies and then bring them back a couple, like, talk about the chimes two to two, like, two weeks later to make sure I didn't feel like I was trying to buy their
agreement. Because here's the deal. All you're encouraging let's say he takes them. Now you know your neighbor's fickle. Maybe the guy next door to on the other side loves wind chimes and brings over some brownie bites or something. Yeah. And now he's bought the wind chimes back in, and you're some sort of dessert war with your neighborhood. And nobody wins there. Except for the fat guy in the middle who cut all these desserts and the wind chimes.
Alright. Actually, if I thought that was the case, I'd put up a bunch of wind chimes just to try to get people to bring me free cookies. Yeah. Yeah. Like, I would purposely do irritating things that make my neighbors try to buy me out. Here we go. Actually, wasn't it wasn't that something that PT Barnum did? Is he would have he would he would hire set up a circus, then he would hire a really crappy band somewhere else in town that would drive people away,
like, away from where they were at to where the circus was. I think I I think I remember reading about that. That was like a PT Barnum deals. You put something junky somewhere else and so people decide to go to the circus. That's awesome. Yeah. It is. Yeah. It is. I'm starting my own agency. Hey. Hey. Hey. We need to we need to recruit for an even more lame radio program. I got a guy in mind. To go on before us. Yeah. That that's kind of the the whole lion approach, you know. The the male lion roars and scares all the game into the pack of women lions and then they eat them. See? That's what you can do in retirement.
Get a lion? I'm not sure where I was going with that. Scare the neighborhood kids into the trenches. Is the lion the star of your low rent Internet radio show? No. No. I had some dudes in mind, but I feel like it would be gossipy to tell you their names. That's fair. Okay. Yeah. That's I have to verify they're lame and available. Alright. Here we go. Dear life from the path. Recently, my husband was asked to be the best man at his friend's wedding. The happy couple did not have the financial means to hire a photographer, so I was asked to take pictures of the ceremony and reception. I'm not a professional photographer, and the bride knows that. I gladly photograph the nuptials on the couple's big day. Of course, I charged them nothing for doing it. I am now on the receiving end of insulting comments regarding the photos I took. When the bride rudely voiced her displeasure, I was taken aback. I did nothing less than my very best to accommodate her, and I have received nothing but ingratitude and disrespect for my efforts. I believe in keeping commitments I have made. I tend to complete the edits of the original photos and create a wedding album as I promised. However, how do I tactically address the situation with the bride if she reminds me again of my lack of professional photography skills?
Let her finish the project. You think it's time to bail? It might be. Or, you know, finish it and wrap it up in some nice little paper that says that you get what you pay for. You're in charge of Dan. Yeah. I mean, too far away from She's
not gonna lie. She's gonna fulfill her obligation and and the other gal is being ungrateful. It's like, well, you didn't, you know, you you get what you paid for. You didn't you didn't hire a professional. You hired you asked me to do it for free. I'm doing it. I did it. Guess Decide why you're doing this. Are you doing this for you or are you doing this for the bride? If it's for the bride, then it sounds like you're done. If it's for you, then go ahead and finish. Okay. I can I think I can jump on that wagon? Right? I mean I mean, here's the deal. I I don't know if there's anything that you're gonna say or do at this point that's gonna substantially change her mind. Right? Mhmm. And so so I think I think what what would sound rational to me is I I turn over the the pictures and say, you know, I think you might get some I think you might get more of what you're looking for if you here's the here's the raw pictures if you have someone kind of professionally work on them.
Just like kind of the base photography, this isn't my skill area. And I think to to get the most out of what you're looking for, here's what I would do. So here's all the pictures. Mhmm. I hope you find someone that can that can, you know, work with the photos. Yeah. Mhmm. Yeah. I mean, and, like, there's a way to do that without being insulting. But the the truth is is that, like, you're not you're not gonna be vindicated here. Mhmm. I mean, you gotta know what you're walking into. She's you're not gonna be vindicated. She's obviously thinking about this irrationally. She's probably gonna come to terms with it after this the emotion of her wedding comes and goes. And, like, that day becomes less important. Like, her marriage is important. That day becomes less. And it's probably all gonna be fine. And so I think you have to kinda just chalk that up with knowing that she's acting improperly, but there's no reason to meet her there. Just kinda like the husband and wife experience. You there's no reason to amp up and and try to convince her. Just hand her the stuff, say, I think you're gonna, you know, you might have some success with someone who's got some better skills at this than I am. I'm sorry I couldn't produce what it is that you were looking for. I think that seems completely fair. Realistically,
they're only gonna need one good picture of the two of them, and that's about it. You know, a year from now, that's all they really need for their wedding album. They'll just take one, make it an eight by 10, stick it somewhere in their house, and that's the picture that they're gonna keep. Yeah. So they can, at this point, go hire a photographer, go out to some location somewhere and just get a picture of the two of them. How am I gonna get Uncle Brad doing a keg stand? Again, he's not gonna recreate that. That's not a good picture that they want. They want the picture of just the two of them in their wedding clothes. Okay. Go out to ledges or somewhere and get a picture of that.
Yeah. That's true. Stage photography is overrated anyway. Yeah. It was staged when it happened. It's not like you captured a moment. You stood there for a moment while I took a picture. Yeah. There's no reason you can't do that after the wedding. No. Paul, we should've done that. You're cheapening it. In fact, a lot of people have do pictures after the wedding. Mhmm. They they continue to do the the photographs and stuff. It was like, you know, it's a staged photo. Let's take it for what it is. If, like, I can never recreate that moment again, You staged it to begin with. I feel like just put the same things in place. How did you become this way? Me? Yeah. I don't know. I'm I'm callous about it. I had a bad experience when you're done. Our our writing pictures were were a disaster. We we actually had Cheryl's, my wife's dad, who was a professional photographer do them. But it's like, not only was it his daughter getting married, but he was also in the middle of a divorce. He was not mentally in a place.
And the other guy was like showing up at the wedding and there was He a big battle going was not in a place. And so like, something was wrong with the camera and like we had like no pictures. You know, like, maybe two and maybe some snapshots from grandma type of thing. Yeah. But then, you know, we weren't it's like it was disappointing. We were like, well, we should have hired someone that, you know, we weren't mad at him. We weren't like, we certainly didn't Have you ever done something free from somebody and they have and like just to be to be nice and they and they hated it? Or it went really, really bad? I think most things I do. Most most of them I disappoint a lot of people. I have a very long list of people that are upset with me. I had so I have had the experience of agreeing to to someone who said they would help me out on a project, and they did they didn't do a very good job, I wasn't very happy with it. But, like,
it was actually an illustration. I wrote a kids book, and someone had volunteered to kinda do some of the illustrations. And I thought, yeah. That's cool because can't do anything. And so they did it, and and I just I didn't care for them. Like, I did I don't think it fit fit very well. But, like, I didn't blame them. I like, just did what they did. They they did. That was their output, and and that's on me either a, because my I I just didn't care for it and it's not really necessarily their problem. I just didn't care for it. Or I didn't do a good enough job of kind of vetting some stuff out to make sure that I had found the giving them the best chance to be successful. Right? Like, you bring the wrong person in to do something they're not qualified to do, how can you reason be upset with them when they do what just what they do? Mhmm. That's not fair. And so I remember I wasn't very happy with that, but I was more disappointed in myself because I felt bad because I let this person
do some of these things and, like, I didn't I wasn't actually very mindful of them and what that's that reality that circumstance was gonna be for them. And I felt bad about that. I thought I could have done a better job making sure that I didn't put them in a position where they it was possible they would wouldn't succeed or that they would have a bad experience. And like, that was actually on me. That was my fault. And I learned my lesson from that. I've done a better job of even people that are willing to help and say, I want to be helpful. I'm responsible for being discerning in that circumstance and saying, hey, figure out to make sure that it's actually the right fit for them so I don't set them up for a bad bad circumstance that I could have done something about.
I've had this happen to me quite a bit. Like, I will offer to go help someone do some electrical work or something at their house. And like, it it sounds like it's gonna be an easy deal. They just don't know that much about it. And you're like, well, I'll just come over and help it. No big deal. It should take couple hours. And it turns into like a three day nightmare. You broke something. You you put a hole in something. Now you gotta call a guy, and you're like, need you to help me fix. And, like, it just and they were they're now they're irritated. They're like, I thought you said this was gonna take two hours. And you're like, oh, man. How did I even get involved in this? You know? I should've just shut my stupid mouth. And, like, it's funny, but, like, a lot of those a lot of the and and boy, it happens all the time. Like, it just it it just has seems to happen over and over and over again. Almost to the point where you wanna call us up and say, look, I'm just not gonna do it anymore. It's just not worth the the hassle, you know? But, like, I I still keep saying yes. Yeah. I'll come over and help. Shouldn't be anybody. My time frames are always like, yeah. It should take a good hour or so. Really, it takes six hours, you know, and you end up in an attic somewhere. You know, it's a 150 degrees outside. You're like, why did I I could've said no. I could've just said no. People can pay for things, you know? That was ridiculous. Anyway, here's what, Singular says. Says, alas, it seems that no good deed goes unpunished. The next time the bride reminds you, all you have to do is suggest that for the next happy occasion, she spends some money and hire a professional instead of hitting up a friend for a freebie and then complaining about the result.
Yeah, I suppose. Yeah? I don't know. Like like the the person that I would wanna be, the answer would be, look, sometimes you just gotta love people even when they are unlivable. And just muscle through it. Right? You said you'd do it do it. Produce the thing. Give it to her, and and try not to let her, poor attitude sink into you and let you turn out to be a disgruntled person. You know, it's you're better off just letting us lie. Alright. You wanna do one more, Ben? Yeah. Let's do one more. Okay. Here we go. Dear life from the path, I have a friend, Riley, who is the sweetest woman I know. She's in her mid twenties and has a stable job. I wonder if she works at a hort at a at a farm. That'd be funny. Stable job is funny. Uh-huh. Cancel.
No one likes me. I get it. Prairie Meadows. She rescues animals that are terminal or nearly so. She's she's great with them and should become a veterinarian. Apparently not. All of her animals die around her. A few, she has brought back to health, but others just can't be saved. My concern is that when Riley loses one, she breaks down. She cries for hours on end, but the minute she gets a call, she willingly takes in another one. She's like a sister to me, and I respect and admire her determination to care for these creatures and give them love when no one else will. How can I nicely say to her that I think she shouldn't accept any more rescues because she will only continue to get more depressed? What is
I'm gonna blank here. Yeah. Let her do it. I mean That's her thing. Yeah, man. It seems like a weird place to insert yourself. Right? Like, I see the way you're living your life. I hate it. Stop everything. Let's have a burger. Actually, I had I had a weird circumstance. Like, I, at my on my day job, I write I write correspondence.
And I put a phrase in in a letter somewhere, and, someone came up to me after having looked at this letter and they said, hey, you know that phrase you put in there? Like, then they gave it to me and said, yeah. They go, I hate it. I'm like, well, seems like a little dramatic, doesn't it? Like, I mean, you hate it? You Sometimes I react poorly to correspondence. And they're like, yeah. And I talked to so and so, they hate it too. Like, well, this seems really you're really invested. I just I just didn't see that coming. I I wish I cared a lot about what you were saying. I actually think it's alright. So I feel like it's gonna stay, but I feel like you need to get a hobby or something. It's you're way too invested in that sentence.
I do you do you guys get the feeling that this man wants to date this lady? Yes. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Wait. Really? Yeah. Oh, it's a guy? I'm such a Dillard. I didn't catch it at all. I guess I thought they were with girls or something. Okay. Me and men don't Okay. It doesn't say either way. It doesn't say whether it's a man or a woman. But I feel like hold on. I feel like every bit of this letter is, I love this woman. Yeah. And I don't like to see her hurt. Yeah. She's a close friend. That's that's exactly what I caught from her. I mean, she she obviously has a coping mechanism for when an animal dies. Is she cries her eyes out and then she gets over it. And that's not inherently bad. Yeah. Right? When an animal dies, go ahead, shed it to her. No. It's it's a it's a cry. It's a sad time. Yeah. Crying is a natural way. It's preparing you for a life without the thing that you've lost. Like, it's Mhmm. If you were a callous dude that looked at him and like, all's well that ends well and move on. I feel like that's a problem. Yeah. One more prop for beanbags. I mean, you're a bad person.
Can you make leather out of giraffe? Yeah. You should be more concerned if she was not crying. Right? If she was literally taking terminally ill animals in, watching them pass away, and then, like, bringing more into her internment camp. Like, that's just a creepy existence. Right? That's you write the letter. That's right. We need to talk. If she went into, like, a fugue and did beat poetry every two months after an animal died, I feel like you have a protest. Yeah. Other than that, she's dealing with it in a normal healthy way. Move on. Mhmm. Yeah. And she I mean, yeah. She's trying to prevent it from dying. She I mean, she saves some. There are some successes, I'm guessing. Yeah. You know what mean? Are you gonna take down the whole, you know, retirement home health care facility?
It's like you're gonna stop work. You gotta stop being a hospice worker. Yeah. You're just you're just so sad all the time. This is futile, man. Get out. Everybody that comes in here dies. Everybody. Hey, that's not funny. But I mean, is true. Right? Like, it put There's a high turnover there. Like, mean, put a lot of meetings. I was a chaplain. Yeah. You know, for years. And it's so weird when when success is death, but you're sad.
Yeah. I mean, not success like we killed, you know, but Right. But you have Let them go peacefully. You know, you know, and and it's just like, oh, we lost it. Yeah. Oh, you know, I mean, it's weird. That's that's sorting through emotion right there. Yeah. Now, to act I mean, to be fair, that is a different life style that is not everyone is built for. Yeah. You can't build like I couldn't work in a hospice. That is there's there's a a very I mean, not not only to the person that's that's in the hospice but like their family like No. Some heavy situations going on. Yeah. I listened to like one This American Life episode of that and I couldn't make it through it. That's what I'm saying. I was trying to wire up lights at work just finding materials like, it was too much. Look somewhere else. Yeah. I gotta go to the. Somebody write a letter about me. I can't handle that. Yeah. I'm falling apart here. I wrote the following and I hate it. That's that's what I love about when we do our Christmas caroling pathway. We we'll we'll always go to the Mercy Hospice place. Yeah. And and sometimes a family member will come up and sing. And you know this is the last time these people will hear, you know, Christmas carols. Yeah. You know, and it's just it's just a deep, meaningful,
wonderful, sad It's pretty emotional. Like like, I I don't, I have I have trouble, like, when we when we do that Christmas carols thing, just kind of keeping it together because, like, you're right. Not only is that it's a very limited situation, and you're right. They're they're not gonna hear it again. But but even though in these moments of pain, you find that the families will come and they'll sing along, and, like, they'll be excited, and then there's there's tears. They're smiling, and they're and they're crying. And it's just it's just a very it's a very a lot of things that are being processed kind of in that moment. It's a very cool thing. You know what? It's stuff like that that, like I I don't know. Sometimes it just opens it like a like a a peak to what
living a little bit outside your normal life can be. You know I'm saying? Like, actually investing in people, investing into what they're doing, and just getting involved with other people's lives around you. Like, there's so much going on and so much of the like, you callous yourself to a very stuck existence, you know. Like, do this, I do this, I do this. I don't wanna get involved over here because it could burn me. I don't wanna get involved over here because I, you know, I might get hurt or that seems like really heavy and annoying and and whatever. And like, man, involved in some of that stuff, you're missing some of the some of the joy. You know, like, you're missing some of the joy of of of people that have stories to tell and interactions to have. And like, I mean, god's given you some of that as a gift. And granted, there are some burdens that come with it. But like, there is inherently some joy in there that you're missing out of because you're a coward. Because you you're too you're too afraid to get involved in people's lives. Mike, build it. You gotta have joy because you're a coward. I'm just saying, like, it's the truth. Half the things I don't get involved with is because I'm scared to death they're gonna they're gonna take over every minute. You know what saying? And like and like it's it's easier for me to sit in my calloused room and go I don't it's the same reason that, like, I that I had a hard time getting involved with with some of the homeless stuff. Right? Yeah. Like, I knew as soon as I went down there that I'd be in, that I'd see what's going on and be like, it was easier for me when I did not come down here. Now it's not near as easy. Now it's not easy for me to drive with two casseroles right by and act like it ain't no deal. You know, or when backpacks are on sale for, $3, you're like, I know some fellas. They could use some backpacks. Yeah. You know? And, like, it just it makes it completely different. And, like, while it seems easier at the time to not get involved with any of that stuff, like, man, you're just missing out on so much joy by saying no every time. Let's talk more about my wisdom.
Secular says. Secular says, there's no nice way to say that to your friend. What you can say is that you are concerned about her because of the depression she experiences when she can't save one of her animals. For an animal lover, the loss of a pet is painful and personal, and her reaction isn't is not unusual. Okay. I agree with that. Yeah. That wasn't near as heartfelt as I'd say that the No. I mean, it it was short of the send it home cowardly thing at the end of it. Your Abby never pays off the way he wants. Yeah. I mean, that's too long to put on a bumper sticker, but I'll save a buck.
Maybe a Pinto will let me do it. Let's go invest in people because you're a coward. Love my bumper. Alright. You're listen to Live From The Path. Thanks for hanging out with us tonight. Always always a good time. We very much appreciate you listening. If you're you are on the podcast, which means you're already signed up. I appreciate that. If you wanna see clips of the show, video stuff, make sure you go to lifeinthepath.org. We got past clips, past musical performances. There's stuff from Forever One out there.
We got the driven 11 stuff. I at least got one of his things posted. Lots of lots of cool guys coming through the show. Yeah. So very excited about that. Make sure you check that stuff out. Give those guys some love that, you know, they art is very difficult when people aren't react when you don't have the ability to like love. Right? Like, when people aren't reacting to it, it's hard to continue to press on that. So if you got some time to show them some love, say hello, follow them on Facebook, that kind of stuff, please do that. Big thanks to Brandon. Hey, man. Thanks for coming on the show. Oh, yeah. Appreciate it. Lots of good conversation tonight. If you have anything that you think is interesting for us, shoot us an email at [email protected]. If you have complaints upon the show, you are wise and discerning person, but I probably won't read them. Send them to Chris Roloff at the Truth Network ninety nine point three FM. He's the guy that's responsible for this ragtag affair being on the air. Thank you so much for listening live from the path. Be faithful to means, and y'all take care of the ends. We'll see you next week.
