Live from the Pathway Studios in Johnston proper. You are live from the path.

Man, you're listening to Live for the Past coming from the Pathway Studios here at Johnston Proper. Okay. Here's the deal. Here's the quick here's the quick deal of it. Here's what we gotta go on on the show tonight. I wanna talk about the good news.

Ewan Gillion, the gospel. Okay? I wanna know. I I I this came up in a couple of different conversations over the last few weeks where I feel like people are saying, hey, man. Yeah. That's the good news. We're missing out on the good news of Jesus. And then their description of the good news of Jesus was not the same across all these places. And I thought to myself, we do run a risk at putting a bunch of stuff in the good news bucket like, hey, man, have a jelly bean. It's the good news of Jesus. And like, I'm not sure when he meant the good news of Jesus, he meant the presence of jelly beans. Do you have a do you have a couple examples where we can realize the erroneous ways? So well, I I don't know. I guess that's what I wanted to talk about. And and I think I think Dan's got our our our core biblical reference of where we're pulling these things from. But like, as an example, I was listening to a podcast and there was a guy saying, they were talking about what kind of gospel is that person preaching?

What what what is the good news that they're preaching? I said, oh, well, I'd like to hear about this. And their description was someone who was basically calling someone to repentance only or calling someone to repentance, and the guy goes, that good news, you know, the good news is that is that God loves us. I'm like, is it? Is that like, I it is that would just broadly lowercase good news, but is that the when the Bible says preach the good news, preaching the gospel,

is it just people going around saying God loves you? Because I that isn't actually the impression I got from it. I think it's I think it's more specific than that. But then then they also tried to tie to say, look, is the is the good news inclusive of the way Jesus says to live? Is it Matthew this man is Matthew five? Is that good news, or is that something else? Can I think about it differently?

And so it just I I wanted to sort that out of my head. So that's number one. Number two, I I I do have a principle that that I I I just wanna say out loud, and maybe I'll get you guys' feedback on. So I'm gonna say it here, then we're gonna come back to it. But but the the the the phrase that was rolling around in my mind was

don't don't make oh, I'm gonna say it two ways. Don't make macro don't take macro action based upon micro analysis.

Or phrased differently, don't take broad action

based upon narrow analysis. Are you letting it sink in? Yeah. You guys sit just sit with it for a minute. Because again, I was listening to I was listening to something, a few different things actually, and it this same principle seemed to to apply. And those are that was just the words that I latched on to. So that was two things.

What did I have a number three? Did someone else have a number three? No. We haven't come up with one yet. What what was that what was I gonna say? No. It was had to do You were talking about deconstructing. Yes. Okay. Let's come back to that. On on maybe how can we take that word and maybe think differently about what people may intend.

If there's a there's a room for some grace as opposed to putting everybody in the same bucket of, I'm just trying to run from Jesus and rebuild my own kingdom. Yeah. Which is what a lot of that feels like. Maybe that sounds ungracious, but frankly, it's what a lot of it feels like. Yes. Agree. Okay. Right on. Okay. Those are those three things. So let's start with this. Let's start with what was the actual biblical biblical good news? Dan, do you have it?

Yeah. When in Luke chapter two, the angels show up to the shepherds and they say, hey, fear not. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. How's that going? The day in the town of David, the savior is born. That's that's the good news. The savior has been born, basically. And I mean, that that's where you really begin hearing good news in scripture. Everything else we kind of add to that, I would say. Yeah. Like the base is

the savior that you've been waiting for has arrived. Yeah. We're in trouble. We've sinned. We are separated from God. He's come. The savior that is good news. Your sin can be forgiven. And and everything else that is explained in the Bible coupled with the good news is here's the here's a ramification of that, or here's a here's a door that's open because of that, or here's what the reality looks like because the savior has arrived. Because even even the cross isn't the good news. It it came because of the good news. Right. The good news is the savior came. Forgiveness comes through the blood of Jesus. So that's not the good news. The thing that came to my mind when Ben proposed that question is it it was it was Matthew five, but like it was it was the the tail end of Matthew four just before that. And it says, he went throughout all of Galilee teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction among the people. And blah blah blah blah blah. It goes on. Great crowds followed him from Galilee and the Decapolis and Jerusalem and Judea and from beyond the Jordan. And then that gets us into Matthew five and where he starts to talk to all the people that are following him at the time. Right? And all the people that are following him are

the poor and the and the and the spiritually weak and the, you know, the downtrodden of society. And the good news is is as he explains in the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, the kingdom's for you. That's the good news. It's the savior's here and like And it's where for you. Where the rest of the world says, you there's there's no kingdom for you. I'm telling you right now, this is for you. So that and that ties up a lot with like in Matthew eleven five says, the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel

preached to them. Same thing in Luke four, the spirit of the Lord is upon me because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind. So like, both of which harkening back to Isaiah types to to promises that were related to the Messiah. And so so I think that's right. So I think that then the broad notion then is when when we say, hey, man, what is the good news? Dan nailed it. The the good news is the Messiah has come and that this this word is for you. Yes. Yes. Yes. So that's that's where I think we have to be careful when we think that, hey, we're giving out water bottles on a hot day to a bunch of people that that are thirsty. That's not the good news. It might be a

hopeful opening to the good news. Mhmm. But sometimes people will think, hey, I really shared the good news today. I gave someone water. It's like, no, you gave someone water, which is good. Yep. But you did not share the good news unless you open your mouth and said, a savior has been born and you need him. So That's a good point actually because there there's a lot of times that we do sidesaddle a little bit of that phrasing on any work that the church is doing or that we are doing as We're rakesome and joe. That's the good news. Yeah. We're spreading the we're spreading the gospel by by raking yards. Yeah. And like, you're doing a good thing by raking yards. Oh, absolutely. You're revealing God's heart by being a servant to someone else and generous with your time. Yep. But, yeah, you may not have you're you're and and and maybe that's where some of our our

preach the good news, preaching the gospel falls a little bit short. We're like, here's all the evidence as if as if the good news has been here, but like no actual meeting of the good news. Yeah. Isn't that the phrase, like, preach the good news and use words if you have to? Yeah. Necessary. It's like, no. Actually, you have to. Yeah. So I and I guess I that's the thing is that like, I think Jesus did both. Right? People could believe that the good news was for them. He healed there. And like, it was one where I said, like, that's why he doesn't just say preach the gospel. He says, look, the the the lame are healed, the blind can see. It's it's something physical that represents that what he's saying is valid is that the Messiah is here and this good news is for you that the kingdom is arriving. And so like,

it those are validations that the good news has come. Mhmm. But it is both. And and it's and again, none it's not wrong. What I was trying to sort out in my mind is is not to say, hey, you know what? Like, is is is Matthew five, is the sermon on the mount good news, things that tell me what the kingdom is like. Well, it's related to it. If the notion that the kingdom is here and the Messiah has come to to to bring it in, understanding

what the kingdom is like is part of that package. Sure. But like, the good news itself is that the Messiah has has arrived. And the the reason I say that is because just like anything else, I think we can find the thing that that,

most resonates with us or we feel like we need the most for the people who are like, look, I just need to be dealt with mercifully by God. The good news is that God is merciful. Well, that I mean, God is merciful, but that that isn't the entire package of the good news. That's actually what I'd heard is someone had been this is from the the Rise and Fall Mars Hill podcast, but they were talking about, like, things that Mark Driscoll had preached, and they're like, what was his gospel? And his gospel, like, did did come off as works based a lot

and was one primarily focused on repentance, which is a right reaction to the arrival of the kingdom. But it would have been it's too narrow to only talk about that. But on the other side, the the folks that were describing it were like, you know, the gospel is a notion of of mercy. It's it's it's God loving his people. And like,

I mean, also a true attribute of God, but also too narrow. And so like, I I think we we just we we carefully hey, like, we're we're our intent, our design is to go out and share the good news.

Like, don't filter the newspaper, man. Like, don't all the other things are still important, but like, you just gotta be careful that we did not take and use a banner that Jesus gave us to talk about something that was real and true and a launching board into all the all the things, and just say, well, I can sum up the good news and it's this specific thing that I care about or that I think is most important. Like, we just have to have a neutrality or not a neutrality, a deference and say, I defer to Jesus's definition of things. This is the good news. Now let me let me expand on that and tell you what it is. It just seemed like a lightning rod where people can can then say true things but shallow things or like not holistic things. Yeah. I I can take credit for sharing the gospel having never done it. But I feel good about myself.

That's right. I shared the gospel. What'd you do? Well, you know, I gave him that water bottle. Yeah. That's right. We had Gatorade at the last community run. And I hear the thing is like We ran an ad. People they just get so sensitive about this. It's like, no one's coming down on your attempts for outreach. Right? But just realize Right. Right. Right. Like when you when you don't don't parade it around as if it's something that it's not. Right? Loving on people is good. And it's what God has designed us to do to be in community with others and share and whatever. And and but like, if you don't

if you don't make intentionality on getting down to the brass tacks of what the good news is, you're basically comforting comforting people as you walk them to their death. Right? You're basically saying everything's okay, everything's fine. I'll walk with you this way as you separate yourself from your maker and eventually walk out. You know, and like, it's in in some stark reality, it's it's not that part's not actually yours to control. You you know, you're not responsible for people's response to the gospel that that that God didn't put that on you, but you are responsible for telling them the good news. Yeah. It's yours to walk faithfully in. Correct. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You don't control again. You're faithful in the means. It's not necessarily your outcome that you can prescribe. Correct.

But anyway, I just it just it's it seemed like a way of which people can till and maybe and I maybe I've done it. Like, I could see myself going, you know, Jesus saying, look, here's here's what it looks like to live in the kingdom. This is good news. The same way that I would describe the the 10 command or the 10 words and any Old Testament law as good and positive because they provided his definition of what it is to live in in the right relationship with with Yahweh.

So it's good, but I think we just gotta be careful that we just don't overprescribe when Jesus talks about good news that we just like we hitch whatever we want to it. Yeah. And actually, suppose in that particular situation, how they were describing, say, what they were trying to point out as a narrowness to the preaching

from Mars Hill, they answered it with narrowness of the definition of the good news to make his narrowness look even more look worse. Yeah. Yeah. Their own their own narrow. So actually, that's where that that's where that second thing came up. Is is it felt like some of this came from the podcast actually, and then other things just some other things that happened or that I read or seen over the last few weeks,

is that I feel like we have a tendency to to focus in on something narrow and then make a broad decision in reaction to it. And so a few examples that that were coming through my mind. So if you guys, I don't wanna hang on on this particular topic, but just as an example, A lot of the stuff around the Black Lives Matter movement

is and the naming of it was trying to bring a specific focus on, hey, man. We we think there's a part of of society that is not being treated equitably under the law. And in in in these is societal interactions or with the police or through the judicial system. And we want we want you to focus back on that. And as an is it okay to narrowly focus and say, look, I can't I can't speak to everything all the time, but I think there's an injustice or a wrong here and we want you to focus on that narrowly. Yes.

Totally appropriate. Because you can't have every conversation all the time. You can't you can't speak about the world macro context in everything. Sometimes you just gotta go, you know what? I got four kids. There's one of them, and they're really struggling at bedtime, and I'm gonna focus on that particular thing. I can't solve the world. So for the Black Lives Matter, like, I think it was okay, and that's that's why that that movement had sometime had focused on that. Say, look, we're not saying that there's no injustice anywhere, if I'm being if I'm trying to to treat as fair as I can, but we we want you to focus on this one. That's fine.

But then the problem, the thing that caused a rub in there was to then try to to then take macro steps based upon a forced narrow focus. So like, it's okay to say, here's how I wanna focus your time, but the minute you're gonna try to make a change related to that, you have to actually include the macro information. You have to step back and go, what's feeding this? Is it true exclusively for this group of folks? Or what does it look like for different other segments of people or whatever? And so I think what where the rub came in isn't, I want you to focus on this narrowly. It's when you try to take a macro step as and and refuse the context of everything else going on around it. So don't take a don't take a broad action based upon a narrow focus.

So that related to me also is that I I had been reading some things and thinking about people who who walk away from the faith. And I either deconstruction or they just straight up left. And some of the people that we've read stories on and whatever, and their their justifications for doing so always feel so narrow. They're so

so focused. Like, I I had friends that wanted to live this way, probably sexually, and I just felt it was unloving to to to not support that. And so I left the faith.

Or I didn't feel like, I had a rough interaction with somebody at the church and blah blah blah. Or I had something go wrong in my life and I'd I'm not I don't think God was there for me. Or I I went to college and, they really hit the nail home on some some scientific principle that my parents told me to ignore because the Bible's right. And it threw me off.

But what I keep thinking about in relation to those things, and this is what this frankly would keep me, and it's happened, I don't know, a a couple of times certainly in my life where I'm like, you know, I'm not do I believe this? Do I believe all of this? Have I seen enough? There seem I've seen smart people talk about things that just frankly don't align to my worldview. I've seen people get really upset at things in reaction to parts of my worldview, And I'm like, this better be right. This better be true. But the thing that always reels me back is I sit and I I narrow focus on, you know, how do I take in Genesis right?

What do I think about we were talking about the show a few shows back on, like, how old people were. Things that I don't have great human answers for. And and I thought to myself, okay. Okay. Maybe maybe let's let's segment that piece off and say narrow focus,

I'm I got a bucket of not sure right here. But like, I I still have taken in the case for Christ. Like, I've still seen the spirit move. I've still seen God answer prayer. I've still like, the historicity of the Bible, its its textual integrity is better than almost any other historical document.

The New Testament is just a slam dunk relative to other historical documents we have. And so like, once I once I say, okay, got a narrow focus here. If I just said, I'm not quite sure how to deal with Genesis or 900 year old people, maybe this thing is bogus and God doesn't exist. That is a broad action based upon a narrow focus. But if I forced to pull back and go, okay, what do I just like you would have to someone who's doesn't want me to believe in scripture would go, what do you do with Genesis?

I should have to turn around and ask myself, what do you do with the textual integrity of the Bible? What do you what do you do with answered prayer? What do you do with the presence of the holy spirit in your life? What do you do with marriages that you've seen last that shouldn't? Like, do you do with the because I have to I have to answer that same thing. And frankly, it's what keeps me from taking two steps away from where I should be because I'm forced to go back and take in a broad notion. But like, it's the same it's the same rough problem where marriages break up for this. Marriages break up for this. I'm I'm feeling that my wife doesn't appreciate me. Okay.

Narrow focus. I get that there's a lot of tentacles to that, but like, have you broken a relationship off something super narrow? And then taken a broad action in reaction to it and not forced yourself to go back through the context of everything else that is also true than that narrow thing? And so I know this seems like kind of rudimentary, but I'll be doggone it if we don't do it all over the place. Like much of our what what we might falsely tag as an overreaction

is just too broad. It's a broad action based upon what is probably a real and important narrow focus. And so anyway, that that's just it's what I had it's what I had in my mind. What is this resonating?

Not with Nathaniel. No. He don't get it. No. No. Okay. Okay. I'm o for one. No. I well, do you think people tend to do that because it's impossible to change the narrow without it without addressing the deep, without addressing the wide? I think people do it because they really care about the narrow. At the at the moment, the narrow they're narrow basically if if you've got a bandwidth to take in a 100 things in any given day,

once you find something that really is important to you, it becomes 95 of them, as opposed to you taking in all 100 things evenly. And so it feels like it's the big thing that has to that something has to be done. This is important. But like, you you tend to to to crap on the dog while you go to rescue the cat. Like, you you you just tend to not pull yourself back up and go, you know what? I do actually have to digest this thing in its right context, in its bigger picture because it isn't the whole world. Regardless of whether I'm upset that my wife treated me x way today,

that isn't my whole relationship. And this is this is interesting. Think of it this way. If someone if someone commits adultery, like you would call them an adulterer. Basically, the rest of their lives. You would like that guy's that guy's an adulterer. He's adultereated. For like and like that could be one time. That could be fifteen minutes, eight minutes of a guy's life.

And like, that is the lens through which you describe them. Is it a is it a true thing? Yes. It is. Is it narrow? It's a bit narrow in the broad context of a man's life. And I think about, like,

any any handful of things that I have done that introduce sin and negativity in the world, and I'm like, boy, am I feel fortunate that my whole life isn't isn't isn't landed on those. Like, I could have been a great father today, and then, you know, I don't know, I stole $10 from a guy. I don't know. I'm just trying to think of an example that made sense.

Like Dirty thief. I I just it's and again, it's not to normalize sin. It's not to relativize behavior. I think it's just it's calling out a risk that says the thing that that feels like a giant bubble right in your face, in your relationships, in what the types of things that you believe in your walk with Jesus, like forcing yourself to say, am I am I taking in things too narrow? And I am I being careful about not making a broad taking a broad action based upon a narrow focus?

So that what in in of effect, I don't I solve a narrow thing, but I solve it so wrong because I didn't look at it more taken back a little bit. Yeah. Everything should be able to survive a different perspective. Right? The thing that you think or the thing that you that you are this is where we get in a lot of danger is this. Because most normally these things are brought about by feelings, like a feeling that you had. And so, like, the it should be able to survive both the feeling and the follow-up ping justification

to make sure that it was actually accurate. Right? Like I'm I mean, no one no one in the world has to be convinced that your feelings can't be trusted a 100% of the time. Everybody knows this. You know, and so like at the end of the day, when you especially some of the walking away from the church stuff, like, know, I could get how you are sad at the state of

people choosing not to be in God's kingdom. You're just your output is is wrong. Right? Your output is to blame God's kingdom for the for the the statutes that it has designed or the way that God has created the world to work, instead of being sad that people aren't choosing, you know, to head that direction. And so, like, instead, if you're hyper focused on that, you go, well, that's wrong. I'm gonna I'm gonna get out here. Instead of stepping back a couple paces and go, look at all the good and the redemption and the grace that the kingdom of God has brought into his created world. And you have to honestly put that completely to the side and ignore it to make the thing that you're saying true. You know, and acting like that grace and redemption was actually not offered to the folks that are saying no, thank you. You know? And so you're right. I think I think a a a perspective, you should be your your thought process should be able to survive perspective. Yeah. And I I guess may maybe the the the call here is just anytime you're you're getting ready, like you're landing on a decision or you're thinking through something, I think just one of the filters you should run it through is like, is this too

is this too narrow? Like, so another example, I'd seen this in the in that Mars Mars Hill podcast is like, they were they obviously had a position on the effectiveness of say Mark Driscoll's preaching, especially when it comes to guys. And they're like and I think the broad connotation was, hey, you know, maybe these guys these kids just needed they needed a hug. Maybe they just needed someone to show them some attention and and some some love. And I said, I thought to myself, like, yes, that's probably part of a of a complete interaction with them. But like calling young men to purpose,

encouraging them, and and and like trying to embolden them and and call them to something better than what they'd settle for in life, like that's also part of the same picture. And so it's too narrow to say the excesses of, you know, focusing on aggression

as a way to advance the gospel aren't fully rectified by dropping everything completely that calls people to something higher and just hugging away. Like, it's too it's taking a broad reaction to what to what was the narrow part was the overstep. It's something that's too much doesn't mean that it's gone completely. Yeah. That's the parade water bottle of of life. Right? Like, I I can't tell you how many people I have loved

and hugged and encouraged, and they still choose to ruin themselves. Yeah. Right? And like no amount of hug and love and encourage changes that. Right? Like like even when you're even when you're raising children, when they do something wrong, you know, you you show them what they did wrong, you explain it to them, you call them not to do it again, and then you reinforce that with your love and say, this doesn't change the way I feel about you. It's just not how we're designed to live. Right? So like, yeah, that's a real even handed thing. And like, I I really struggle with with the the the broad swath was like,

god like like the they used the phrase that like, god is love. And that's all we're meant to do. My my job is just to love people. That is not exactly all your job is to do. You know, yes, your job is to love people. You're supposed to look at people the way God looks at people. Right? With mercy and grace and an innate worth. That is all true. And that should equal love coming out of you for sure. But like he also doesn't leave Israel to flounder on its back like a sick turtle. Right? Like he shows up and says, this is the reason this is happening. This is the thing I called you out of, and these are the consequences that are coming your way. I will not leave you during these consequences, but they are coming.

And and and it will be it will be heavy on you. But realize I have not left you. You know. And so like, that's what love looks like. That is a whole picture of love. Yeah. You know, and like like the the constant hugging. I just I I don't know. I'll take a I mean, I'll take a good hug. I just and just don't be so narrow about it. Like, I I I get I get It's it's hard. It feels like it's too much. But like, when you're going if you're gonna take a broad action, you do it from a broad perspective. If you're gonna take a narrow action,

it's okay that you folk like, take the fourth kid and they're having trouble with night times, like, my narrow action is probably that I'm gonna sit with them and we're gonna read stories and we're gonna pray before they go to bed for like a few weeks and see if we can't smooth the thing out. The broad action would be, hey, the fourth kid is having trouble going to sleep. No one gets to have watermelon after 3PM. Okay. It's the root cause. Jeez. Okay. Okay. Sugar water is causing the but like and every kid would stamp their feet. But I mean, how many times you've this as a parent? Like, I got too many kids. There's four kids in my house. We're constantly broad sweeping things. We're like, we can't sort any of this out. Everybody's out. And they're stamping and huffing. I'm like, I totally understand where they're coming from. I I do I said I should use the scalpel, instead I went with an h bomb

because I didn't want to sort it out. But like and the consequences of me as a parent, it like it gets the oldest one knows what you're doing. They look at you and go, hey, man. That didn't have anything to do with me. You're being lazy. You're being a lazy parent. I'm like, doggone it. You are correct. I'd I'd pull back the h bomb, scalpel the three year old. So like, it's it's that kind of thing where people start to mistrust you. They know you're being lazy. And and think of think of the good in the world, like, there's there's there's important we talked about this at the time. There's an important thing that focusing on the the lack of consistency

in the justice, if it's happening, it's important. Let's not lose it by by carpet bombing something and not to and and not try and trying to to take something and not do the broad focus. You can't say, I only wanna focus on this I only wanna shine a light on this part of the room and then ask you to rearrange the entire room. That's not fair. And it's and it's not right because then you don't know what you just moved out of the left corner or the right corner. You were so focused on the one thing, and it doesn't mean the one thing's not important.

It just means that you can't rearrange the whole place without stepping back and looking at the whole place. And like that's not a that that isn't harming the the fact that the the narrow focus was important. And so I anyway, I saw it in I I thought I heard it in in listening to people talk about walking away from Jesus. I thought, boy, it's just such a it's just a broad reaction to way too narrow of a focus. Like, you should have to. If this is if it's a life or death thing, if it's a eternal thing,

wouldn't I wanna run back to the wringer and go, okay, I think let's just just say I think Genesis is problematic. And the the, I don't know, the destruction of the Canaanites rubs me the wrong way. I don't know to deal with it. Okay. Is it was that what your whole faith was based upon that? Was that it? Well, no. Well, then how are you walking away from all the other things? How are they not true? Because actually, the part of this I was thinking about this a couple weeks ago, is that the the prophecies in Daniel

that that talk about the the the kings and the Epiphanes lines of and the Seleucids and stuff. There is there most biblical scholarship would for at least conservative biblical scholarship would say, look, that's told told prophecy. They said it ahead of time, and within a hundred years it came true.

And then there's the biblical scholars goes, no. I think I think we've got evidence that was written in the second century, and it was it was written after it happened. They just went through and kinda rewrote it. And I thought, that's devastating. Because like, there's things I believe about Jesus and about God that and the Jewish people and his interaction with people that are based upon the fact that like, boy, this is real clear cut. This particular notion of prophecy is the the the specificity and the lines of people and how earthly kingdoms move and shake in Daniel 11. And so like, it matters to me. It does matter whether that they wrote it afterwards and acted like it was beforehand or whether it was actually before, it's a big deal to me. And then, I think I got it resolved. I think the conservative position's mostly right. But like,

it was something where I thought like, what if this wasn't true? What does this mean? What does this mean for me and what I believe? And so again, I I get narrow focus. I was thinking a lot about it, and I thought, well, I know that God still answers prayer. I know the Holy Spirit has made his progress in my life. I've seen it happen in other people's lives. I've seen people's lives changed on the gospel. Vast majority of like, I think Jesus rose from the dead. I think the the earthly existence is for that scriptural evidence is good. I thought, you know, then then as opposed to being something that can throw me off that says I no longer think Yahweh exists, I think, well, I've got questions in the bucket. Because I was because I forced myself to take the broad perspective.

Anyway, that was the whole thing. I don't know if it's an encouragement or just a way to, like, recognize where social movements are trying or even movements in the faith are trying. Like, you can at least tag it and recognize the source. This most some of the time, the source problem is they have a righteous narrow focus of which they are trying to take too broad of an action without going back for a broader focus. They are treating a cold sore with with chemotherapy.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. And the cold and the chemotherapy may cure the cold sore, but also might destroy your liver. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that's nasty. I'm doing that. It's it's hot in there. Yeah. I'm okay.

Just for the complaint line, I know you guys, you can see them on the screen if you're watching a video. There's two options as to whether why Mike just walked out of the room. Backside pointing away. He says it's too hot. You can insert number option b. That's your option. Okay. Okay. We're down. We got I got two things down already. Mike, we're making some heck of a progress. What were you you said

grace for deconstruction. I gotta stand over here. I'd say it's I don't know. It's gotta be 87 degrees here. I I know. I was feeling I was sitting here melting over here thinking, okay. I wish Bid would show up. It's if I open my mouth, I'll do something really stupid. Bid's been on this windy it's what happens when we don't have a show for like x number of weeks. Vic comes in here full of wind. He's wearing a stocking cap and a full length sweater and talks for like nine minutes straight. And I'm over here like dying of heat exhaustion. I'm like My eyes are closing. I'm gonna fall asleep. You gotta rest. It's not that bad. Yeah. I'm gonna take drink coffee. So I was I was just thinking about,

like, the phrase deconstruction just irritates the living crap out of me. And and like, every time I hear somebody say it, I'm like, ugh. Here we go again. You know, a guy's like, gotta resort out my faith and I gotta build it back up. I'm like, there's an awful lot of you in the middle of this conversation. It does seem like a self monument. Yeah. To describe yourself under, like, under construction or deconstruction. Like, it's a weird way to present yourself. Yeah. And so in attempts

I this wasn't even my own thought. And so, like, I'm not exactly sure where where it came from, but I'm maybe it was in an attempt to understand the process and maybe inject a little grace on it from my perspective. But a lot of the folks who are using the phrase,

I'm deconstructing my faith, come from a a particular church movement or culture, you know, and a lot of them are the larger ones, you know, and a lot of them are wrapped up in they're not they're not like down south old country bible churches with 25 people in them. Right? They're church cultures that have

four or 5,000 people per Sunday with massive production and media and whatever. Celebrity pastor. Celebrity pastor stuff going on. And like, I'm not saying anything inherently about any of that. But what I am saying is is like they come their faith or where they came to faith or where they're currently serving Jesus Christ comes with a a heavy culture. One that is not easily shed. And so it occurred to me that, like, it's possible that when people are talking about deconstructing,

because the the culture that they are churching or their community is involved in and their view of the good news of Jesus Christ are so heavily intertwined. If the culture at some point becomes slightly toxic or not a place where God has called them to be and they start noticing cracks in the facade like that,

You do that there you do have to you do have to deconstruct that. You do have to pull that culture out from your view of the gospel because that's where you that's where you got the gospel from. You know, inherently, this is either where you're feeding your faith in Christ or where you understood it for the first time. And so it is heavily influenced by all the culture around it. And like, once again, like the bigger the church, the more their culture is is I don't wanna say controlled, but manicured.

Right? The more that it is is because when you're trying to lead five, six thousand, 10,000 people, you have to be very specific on what the culture is going to be, you know, because you just don't have a whole lot of room for mess because you've got 8,000 people in here. You know? So anyway, I I think in attempt to try to understand that with a little bit more grace, I think sometimes when when a church culture becomes toxic or maybe something has changed within their life or something about that's not working anymore, you do have to separate your faith in Jesus Christ with the church culture that you are a part of. And that might seem

like you're deconstructing your whole faith. It could certainly feel that way. Now, once again, it's a narrow and a and a and a broad thing. Right? Like if you step back a couple feet, I think you'll realize that the church culture part is the one that's causing the issue and obviously the perfect creator of the universe is not causing the issue. Yeah. But when you start making broad strokes based on the fact that they are heavily intertwined and go, well, I'm trying to reunderstand my faith in Christ, that's that's a fair statement.

That's and and frankly, I think it's probably fair to evaluate those things, you know, on a pretty regular basis. You should be evaluating what you're you should have you should have a good explanation for your Like like if you were to rephrase and say, hey, man, I'm trying I'm I'm taking a moment to make sure that I am following Jesus around. I'm not following

Pathway Church. I'm not following Ben's house church. You know, I'm not like that Woah. Woah. When did we start calling it Ben's house church? If I say house church in general, it's it it it lacked a narrow foot. I wanted to land it on something. Well, you could be house church. Sure. Okay. Fine. Nathaniel's house church. Nathaniel. You gluttonous rube. So so anyway,

like, it's I'm not if you're saying, hey, I'm taking stock to make sure that like I'm heavily tailing Jesus in a in a surrounded by this community, not I'm a disciple of this community specifically. If that's what we mean, like that's totally healthy. You should do that all the time. And as a community, you would want it. Hey, like, are are are you getting tied up in these structures? Knock it off. Right? Like, these are human things. Am I was what I'm following of Christ or is what I am discipled of something of humanity?

And and I think I think there is a super healthy deconstruction. And like, part of that is is maybe finding ways on the other end to not have gotten caught up in that so much. Well, here's the thing. The the reason most of it comes off as so disingenuous is because it's always a big production on the way out. Oh, yeah. Right? Like, if you were honestly

deconstructing for a reason to rebuild and and view, you know, through time, peace, thought, prayer, whatever, right, you'd have just faded out. Right? But instead, it's always followed by a massive

Internet announcement and social media posts that is chronicling exactly what you got going on. And like, one, you know that's not good for you because you are actually out there seeking the commentary approval of people.

And two, if you love those people, you know that's not good for them either. They're gossip hounds, man. You're out there causing them to get world up in in in gossip, and they have their own lives to live. So it feels really selfish to me. Yeah. Like if you're looking to actually figure out, hey, what is actually true here and what is the core thing, having that be influenced by the affirmations of a fickle mob, which is any social media platform, is the wrong way to do it. You won't find truth in it. And every jerk Christian on the Internet's gonna show up and talk, and every person who who hates Jesus is gonna show up and talk. And like, you didn't get an accurate sampling of anybody that loves you at all. You got a bunch of samplings of people that love to hear themselves talk.

Yeah. I don't I don't think you have to prescribe that if you're asking these types of questions, you certainly don't have to do it alone. But like, you should be doing that with a closer community of people who love you, not an audience. Yes. Like, for anything. Like, this is true. Like, again, like, it's it's there's this thought that you're not genuine if you don't kinda make known every step of a process that you're going through, and I think that's not true. Like,

it doesn't make you a liar just because you don't share everything. Well, it's Like, I don't I don't I don't post on our Facebook Messenger chat the frequency of my BMs No. But it's because I'm not a liar. It's a it's a magnitude thing. Right? Like, you can be there's certain people that you should be pretty honest with. The BMs might be a bit far, but like, hey, man, I'm struggling understanding why I'm even involved

in Christianity anymore. Yeah. I think that's a one or two person conversation. I don't think it's out there for 6,000,000 people. It's an attention grab. You you don't actually want answers. You can't ask 10 people. This is why meetings in most office buildings are ridiculous. They're like, hey, let's invite more people. Like, oh, man. As soon as you get this room over four people, it's a melee. We never come up with anything. We just talk around in circles for an hour, and nothing ever comes of it. And the guy that had the the tick of the thing when we walked in is the guy that's got the tick of the thing on the way out. Here's what I'm gonna tell you. After twenty years doing office work,

three people to four people in a room are after truth and solutions. Five people or more in a room are after people persuasion. Yeah. That's it. That's it. Because there's no fight. You find you pick any five people, they do not have such stark

views of reality that you need five their their five unique voices in a room. People aren't that interesting. They generally fall around one to two lines, maybe three at best. And cool. So just so you know, if you got a meeting either either in your church or at your office building, you wanna solve a problem, you got three to four people in their max. Past that, now you're just talking about who can persuade other people, and you're now you're dealing with gangs of people. You're not trying to solve a problem. You're seeing who can who can, like, persuade people. And that goes for people who are good people persuaders. That's why they invite people. Stan will be on my side and I can persuade Stan. Alright, you eagle maniacal turd. Get in there and defend yourself. Leave let Stan go home and eat a donut. Yeah.

Anyway, just to wrap up that thought process, I think I I have a very negative opinion. I think it's mostly the way that they're rolled out. And mostly that it feels like it's in a attempt to gain their own celebrity. The folks that have been doing it the or that the examples at least that I'm seeing. That you know about, I guess. That I know about. Like, I'm sure there's a thousand people that are doing this exactly how we described it, fading off into the weeds, thinking, praying, whatever. But the folks that are doing it for

prestige for their own kingdom, it's it's just hard to take in and seems very disingenuous. But if you tie all that together and say deconstruction doesn't necessarily even if it feels like you're deconstructing your faith,

in in their perspective, their faith is their church culture plus the truth of of Jesus Christ. Right? And so, like, yeah, there could be a time when those do need to separate, and the truth needs to stand on its own. The Jesus stuff needs to be all by itself. Dan, you had someone ever did someone approach you in in kind of the modern times talking about deconstruction

and asking for help or discussion? No. No. I haven't. Has not happened. Because I preach the gospel. Dan, to preach the good news only. No. I mean I mean, everybody struggles with their faith here and there once in a while, but I've I have it personally. You had people say like, I'm I'm completely out. I don't know why I'm even, yeah, here. Yeah.

Okay. Hey, you're listening to Live From The Path. Thanks for hanging out with us so far tonight. If you got any comments on the show so far, we'd love to hear from them. Like, no joke, Nathaniel. Did you get up at like 2AM? You look you look rough. No. I woke up at like seven.

Oh. I'm good. Is there anything you wanna you wanna discuss in front of us and the rest of the world? No. On that well, a note on that deconstruction thing. Okay. I feel like there's several

people that I went to school with that, you know, they didn't make like a big to do about it on the Facebook or whatever, but, you know, something will come up and they'll say, yeah, I'm not really down with that anymore. And so but they didn't like publicly announce I am no longer a Christian.

Are these I mean, do they provide did you get any more information? No. I'm just super curious. Like, because I'm gonna put this the wrong way. But like, it would really take some whiz bang to convince me that the stuff that I believe isn't true. And we kinda talked about this one other, like, on a different show, you know, like if you could produce the body of Jesus, okay, fine. We're good here.

But like, you know, it like, if I went down to the line of things that that don't that will not allow me to walk away from my faith because I have seen them or experienced them, it makes me wonder, like, if someone who's given it the real holy holy ghost go and goes, nope. I checked. Never seen the holy spirit move. Prayer is ineffectual. I think that I've come to the conclusion that the manuscripts are a sham. Like, really?

Yeah. I and most of the folks that we've had in here that I think have gone the same route has generally worked because they the reason turned out to be that God wasn't working for them. Right? A disappointment in their personal goals. They were almost sure or they said that God had them set up to do this, and then God didn't fulfill his end of the bargain. And so either, you know, forget him, I'm mad at him, I'm gonna go off and do what I want, or he never existed in the first place, I'm gonna go off and do what I want. Yeah. They they like, we do see a lot of, hey, I think God has sent me in here to glorify myself. And then it turns out that God did not support that particular glorification and they're like, I don't know what happened. And the funny we could have called it. That's like like, we almost knew every every band that we had in here that was claiming something like that and you're like, you know I don't think so do. No. I I if there's one thing that Life From The Path is fairly decent at, we can smell the holy spirit on people. And so, like, you can tell when people are just phoning this thing in looking for, you know, glorification of their own their own style.

I was gonna say, I think it's the same with some of these bigger deconstruction people you were talking about. It is it's it's a disappointment there too. Like, I sold x many millions of books while people aren't buying my books now. So maybe God doesn't love me. Maybe I don't love him. Right. Maybe I'm maybe I'm out, you know, or a musician or a preacher and the church is declining. It seems to be connected to personal ego and goals from the outsider's view. Yeah. You know, I I'm not in there wrestling with their mind. And some of this stuff is so difficult because the people that are getting the most disappointed are like like the people playing in a worship band. A bass player for a church is not a job. Yeah. It wasn't even available a hundred years ago. It's a new job. Right? And so it's not like, hey, man, you know, the biblical writings have always pointed me to be a bass player here, and then it didn't quite People love me. People love everything. I mean, the holy spirit can't flow without me in the fog machine or whatever, and like, and this is not knocking on modern worship sets, but like honestly, fellas, this you know, you're way too wrapped up in this thing. The things that you're saying is like, this is the vehicle which God created me to worship him and it was very specific to me. This didn't exist since the start of the world until like

sixty years ago. Was this an available position in the church? You know, and now you're like, sustain me, feed my kids off of it, glorify me, give me my worth, you know, let me travel. Like, you know, like, this is you're asking all this wrapped up in the God that also saved you from all your sins. And you're like, but that's not enough. I need this. I need you to do this other stuff too. And once you don't, then this wasn't everything that I wanted to Yahweh is not real because I can't I can't pluck the four strings of thunder for the Holy Ghost. That's right. That's right. I wanted a new bass amp or they cut my cut me down to only three seconds on the video. They focus mostly on the people raising hands in the audience, and that's a bunch of crap because they didn't even practice. And I practice all week. The three chords that are in most modern worship tunes, bass man.

All that guy do all that all that bass man has to do is basically play single notes the whole song until the breakdown comes, and then he gets to double it up. But until the drummer goes, okay, everybody's back in. Yeah. And then we're back to singles. I mean, the guy's gotta memorize four notes the whole the whole show. And yeah, it is so like,

may maybe we've maybe we've beat this this topic up before. I just like, what is it that that gets people to so intermix human worldly measures and their understanding or their

perspective on their god's reality? It's wait. I know what it It's a humility problem. Like, it's a putty it's it's a used like, God is real when he otherwise supports and does the things that I expect. God is not real or is bad when he doesn't support or doesn't do the things that I would expect. It's a humility problem. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. That's true. Because, like, I I I think I have would probably point to the times of my life where I know God has pointed something out in my life that was not good to where I was most convinced that he was real. Because I'm like, this actually should not be a big deal. Almost everybody that I would currently know outside of who who followed Jesus would have let this thing go. Yeah. No big deal at all. I should be able to tell a little white lie to get me out of a little bit of trouble at work if I want to. Everybody else would have done And Jesus come after me going, no no no. No. You can't let the god look. And I'm like, there's has to be a god because I wouldn't beat myself up over this. I would let this go, you know. Yeah. Actually, that's interesting is to think like what kind of evil do people have to believe in in the world if God is not real and he's not the source of the the the Holy Spirit isn't the source of your conscience at times? Like,

boy, what kind of evil mechanism is the human body for people to be wracked with guilt without if there's not really a moral system of which you actually should have to adhere to? Like, there's some people who, like, don't love Jesus at all, but have a but a nagging guilt on things that the world may or might not even have a problem with. I'm like, this is what evolution has done for you? It's destroying you for no particular moral purpose if there is no God. And like, that seems like a bad jump. I don't know why we're surviving on this thing. True. It's just that it's an evil mechanism you live in. Now, if that guilt is associated with a nagging internal

implicit morality that God has given you, it's why everyone like you know, most most people when they go to if you go to, I don't know, stamp on a rabbit or something, like, you feel it. I don't know if you like there's things that I've had to like, what if we've we've killed chickens at Mike's house? And

like, you know it's alright to kill. We kill the chickens all the time. You eat chicken all the time. But like, the the very first chicken, you you grab and slit the throat, you're like, oh, man. I feel something about that. And then you get to chicken 15, and you don't care. There's just chicken heads flying everywhere. It's murders. But like, it's just but you feel but there is something there's an inherent value in life around you. There's an inherent value in other people that you have to become callous to. But like, you didn't you didn't earn that. I've I've heard I've heard kind of evolutionists try to explain where these things have come from, but they're wildly inconsistent. There's all kinds of human behavior that is personally destructive, like notions of of of anxiety and depression and some of the moral loads, if they're not tied to Jesus, I don't know what functional good they're doing. They seem like a real waste of

a of a gene pool. Yeah. Even even non critical stress. Right? The things that you're stressed about that actually can't hurt you. Yeah. Right. You know, like, I mean, there's okay to be stressed like, hey, I'm about to fall off this cliff or whatever. But like, hey, I'm not gonna meet this deadline at work. There's no value for you to have that stress. You won't do a better job because of it. You know, like, there's no survival instinct that to have that stress be there. It's merely a moral load

that you would have put upon yourself because of the consequences of what's happened. You know, so it's not a good evolutionary step. If if if unnecessary stress could be wiped out of your personality, you would say yes. Please do that because I'm tired of being worked up over stuff that doesn't matter. You know what's and what's interesting on this bucket is that like from that perspective,

if you think you over, you know, hundreds of thousands of years or millions of years, like those things should weed themselves out. Except as a society, we have found ways to make sure that lowest common denominator stuff is supported, does not die off, and does persist generation to generation, which seems like a real backwards

evolutionary thing as well. Right? Like like, we find so okay. I'm trying to think right the right way to talk about this. It doesn't this is like super offensive. But like, what what you would consider a weakness in humanity,

we find ways to make sure those people feel supported for the most part, and persist, and procreate, and create more people with the similar proclivities. None of the natural world is doing this. Only humans look at other humans in their frailty and go, this is important and should be kept alive.

Like, we have barn cats. They'll have babies and they'll be one there was one that like was in rough shape and the mom just ignored it. It said, look, it's a goner. It was not dead. It it lived for another two days because we're over there trying to, you know, resuscitate it and keep it alive and feed it stuff we bought from Walmart to try to keep this cat alive. And the mom gave up on it a long time ago and just watched it die. I had no problem ignoring it. And so like, I that makes sense to me because humans have inherent value and worth because they're made in the image and likeness of God. If if that's not true,

like, we're totally counter to our own existence by trying to prop up and sustain the weakest among us. True. It's a it's just a weird position. Anyway, I'm sure there's smart people who who who follow that train of thought who will give me some better explanation than what I currently have. But like, it just I don't know. Just something you get something to reckon with. I don't know why we're talking about it. You're listening to Life From The Path. Mike, let's do some advice as the wing get out here. Dear, Life From The Path, I was in a relationship nine months up until about a month ago. Without going to a lot of detail, the guy I was seeing ghosted me without any warning. Okay. We had a great conversation on a Thursday night, and Friday morning, he blocked my calls, email, etcetera. I have no idea what happened.

The night before, I accidentally FaceTimed him. My phone was in my pocket, And his son answered. And I thought he had called me, but apparently I called him. Keep in mind I had never met his son the entire time we were together. What do mean you don't have any idea what happened? I know what happened. Yeah. This is this is taking a turn. Is this the end? I hope you know. This isn't the first time he has stopped speaking to me for reasons only he knows, but this is the first time he has gone this far. I'm trying to move past it, but I'm having a hard time. Even though we dated for only nine months, I talked to him about everything, and we had such great times together. I want to understand why he did what he did to get some closure, but I don't know what to do. Do I need to just let this go? Yes. Yeah. Mhmm. Yep. The guy's a jack wagon. He's not telling you the full truth. You don't he didn't even spring a kid nine months in. You accidentally found out about a kid, and he's multiple times taken the action of completely cutting you off and not saying anything. Now, you could be a psychopath, but I'm gonna go with either way, you should be glad of this. She knew the she knew the kid existed. They just weren't meeting. Are you sure? Yeah. Oh, because I was gonna say, I'd be happy the wife didn't answer. But Wait.

That's what I thought. You're doing like, I thought she didn't know that the kid existed. No. No. She knew. She had just never met him. Okay. Well, that's a little bit better. I thought he was hiding the kid. Yeah. But still, if you've never met a person's child after nine months Nine months? That that that that's that's saying something. I mean, maybe they're recently divorced and they thought, you know, I need a I need a year separation. Now, if that's true, you should not date him anyway. Yeah. I I think he's just using this girl for a conversation on the side. And should

just not engage in that conversation anymore. Yeah. I think Dan's being generous with that conversation. I think you're right. I think he's using her with some. In either case, I think That's a lot of body language. You should be glad of this. Thankful he's forced you in a position that you should have taken on your own, and you need to let this go. Trying to rationalize or understand deceptive or irrational behavior will not provide you any any benefit. Because you're just gonna come to the conclusion that like, hey, that guy acted irrationally and deceptively to me. I'll I'll just tell you that's the truth right now. Yeah. I wouldn't even take it personally. It's just just who he is. That's right.

Nathaniel. Yeah. He's a big dumb dummy. Big dumb dummy. Leave him alone. Caper d. Caper d dumb dummy. Here we go. We go. Segular says, your ex may have been upset because until your FaceTime call, his son didn't know he was seeing anyone. Now that's possible. Mhmm. His son didn't know. Well, yeah. But like, that's one, his fault.

And two, I you can't really blame her for having called. Yeah. Unless again, she's weird. Unless she's not admitting to like, actually, was stalking the son because he wouldn't answer my phone calls, and so I got ahold of this the kid. And then whatever. You should be done with this relationship anyway. You're unhealthy. Secular continues. Yeah. I'm not a mind reader and neither are you. Thank you. You stated that this isn't the first time he has clammed up and given you the silent treatment. A relationship based on such immaturity and poor communication skills would not be healthy for you anyway. Mhmm. Staunch your bleeding and move on. You have my sympathy.

Okay. Alright. Weird. I don't like we aligned. It makes me feel suspicious about what we said. No. Yeah. I think people's instinct is to be like, I gotta know what happened. Right? And sometimes the answer is it's a it's mess.

And sometimes mess is just mess. And if if you're a Mike flavor character, I want you to take the word mess out and insert a profanity that's like poop. Yeah. Because sometimes that's just what it is. That's all it is. And there's no reason to understand it. You don't have to get your hands in there and feel it out and whatever. It just is. And so don't don't try to figure it out. Just call it what it is and be done with it. Yeah. I had a I had a guy leave me a a nasty message to hear this last week, and he's swearing at me and accusing me a bunch of stuff. After And the message got done, I got real worried about it. I'm like, what happened here? I I wanna know what caused all this, and why does this person react to me in this way? Then I got about three to four hours afterwards, and I thought, I don't I don't care.

This says, I don't care. What do I wanna go to? What so? Like, either way, regardless of what what because I knew it was what the things were not true, this person has jived up a bunch of stuff, and like to what value do I get for having sorted out the source of all of it? Either way, this person was willing to treat me like like Jungola for no particular reason without talking to me about it first. I thought, I don't what is this? Why I don't need the details. I I'm just gonna deal with the situation as it lies. And frankly, the rest of the week was a lot better because of it. Yeah. It just sometimes just mess. Yep. Okay.

Last one. Dear life from the path? Yep. Oh, boy. Hold on a second. I don't have my old man's on. My mother, who's 85, lives under the domination of my 88 year old father. Oh. After retirement, dad has remained active and has taken up hobbies that fill the entire house.

Mom was an award winning photographer, but medical issues now prevent her from enjoying the activity the way she used to. She has always enjoyed music and had a keyboard she felt comfortable playing, but only when dad was away. My father tends to be very critical, which is all which is why I think she would only play in private. Recently, thinking mom no longer used it, my dad donated her keyboard. He said it was taking up space. Mhmm. Mom recently confided to me that she was devastated when it happened. I would like to purchase another keyboard for mom for her birthday, but I don't want her to feel betrayed. Why? Why would she feel betrayed? I don't know. I'm not sure if I should talk with dad about it beforehand. Yeah. He assured to ask mom why she hasn't more vocal hasn't been more vocal about her feelings in the first place. Thus, putting her in an uncomfortable position. Do you have any suggestions? Boy, dude, you're the creator of eggshells. I feel like you just walk around spreading them out and be like, hey, be careful of this. Hey, don't mention this. Hey, what if this happens? I mean,

what was the gist of the problem? I mean, he might be way over selling his dad his dad's doll The in house with his hobbies? What does that mean? He's like creates balloon animals and you can't walk into the spare That does the trains, model trains. I those could go anywhere. Yeah. Those are awesome. And everyone knows that. There's no reason to say bad things about model trains. What about when they've thrown out mama's piano?

I mean, I'm assuming that she This seems like an old school relationship where he's probably a little bit domineering and she's probably a little bit meek. I mean, you can't enjoy photography,

that's a low impact physical activity. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Oh, yeah. So I'm assuming that you can't enjoy a whole lot physically. There's not a whole lot of your ability. So if you can't click a camera, then I don't think you can probably play the piano. Well, it sounds like she only plays it when he's gone. And so like, he may According make to her. Well, right. But like if that was the case, he may legitimately not know she even enjoys it. And she she may not know she plays it at all. And it could be an eye thing. Like, maybe she just can edit them like she used to and she can't see it well. Yeah. So let's This is play. Let's say let's say the mom is more

more handicapped than maybe she's the the the boy is letting on. This is the dude? Yeah. The son. This is the son. I thought it was the daughter. Sound like Boy, I I can't pay attention to anything. I respect this dude. You're right. No. Sorry. It's the daughter. Okay. You're good. Okay. Yeah. So she she the mom might be less capable than she's handing on, you know. And the dude might not be as much of a curmudgeon because he knows his wife and knows what she's capable of doing. And then maybe she was running into the piano, like, whatever. Or he thought it depressed her to look at or something. He's maybe he's trying to do it for her benefit. Correct. And I here's the thing. It's it's so sad that you can't take people at face value here. Because the way she's telling the story, it's purposely being told to make you think the dad is is in league with Satan himself. You know, and the mom is an angel of some sorts. And you're like, it's just I can't take that in as being completely true right now. Right. He's got model cars and Laffy Taffy all over the house. Yeah. He's just he's just twisting his mustache looking for crap to throw away to secretly hurt her feelings. Like, it just don't sound right, you know? But I then again, if she's completely right,

then, yeah, I'd have your mom move in with you. She you don't wanna live without the rest of her days with a crazy domineering Hitler man. I mean, a lot of this was like it's one of those things where I just need one more line. I asked dad about it and he said Yes. Okay. Yeah. Because there, let's give me that and then we can all do whatever we have to do. Yeah. I confirmed my dad is a domineering turd, or I found out that I way overreacted and that my mom can't see anything.

Like, just start with I asked dad about it. Yeah. And dad said, that keyboard, she never plays it, and she's terrible. And It's broken. It's broken. It's broken. And she just says bad things about you when you're not here. So she don't like you very much, daughter. Plus, I mean, this lady's probably in her sixties. Eighties.

The the daughter. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know? It's like talk to dad. Yeah. And And that was one of the questions. Should I talk to dad before I replace the keyboard? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. He should talk dad months ago. In fact, you should talk to dad about a wide variety of topics. Right? Like how's it with her? Dad? Is mom okay? Dad? You know I'm saying? How did you survive the Nuremberg trials? This guy. Okay. Let's see what Secular says. You don't you don't think so? Secular says, have a chat with your dear old dad. Tell him what you plan to do and why. If he expresses puzzlement about why you're doing it, point out that between the two of them, he is the dominant personality,

which may be why your mother didn't speak up on her own behalf. While you're at it, suggest that the next time he has the urge to dispose of your mom's property, he should first ask how she feels about it. It may be a wake up call that he needs. I mean, he's 88. Maybe he forgot. That he had a what? Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. That might be a little too gracious. There there is a lot of there's a lot of ifs here. I don't know about keyboard is this. I don't know. I live here alone. Yeah. I want it out. I want it out of this house right now. It's do we think is there a concept at all

well, no. Never mind. Never mind. I take it back. I think it's weird for them for to you to say, dad, you need to remember that you're the dominant personality. Yeah. I mean, that's not a bridge maker. You're I thought that was awkward. Yeah. Yeah. Look, you're being weird. I think you should just tell him, like, he's being a jerk, look, that meant something to mom. And and so, you know, we need to get it back. We need to both get it I mean, whatever. There's there's an easy way to play. Like, just show up to the house and go, hey, what happened to that keyboard? And then dad will say something. I got rid of it. Oh, seriously, why? Oh, your mom never plays it. Mom, do you ever play that piano? No, honey. It's not a big deal. Your dad threw it away. He was right. I said, oh, well then what do we have a problem with?

Wait. I I can't remember. Was it clear that the mom the mom said she was upset about it? Yeah. But she only told the daughter, not the husband. Yeah. I mean, I go I guess you gotta make sure you stay out of a rat's nest here. Like, if you don't want I mean, it would come up. If I just got rid of something in our house that my wife liked, I she would bring it up. Hey hey, Ben. What'd you do with that dinsta pot? I mean, these were marriages from a different time. So like, you're you're in the same house. How do you not have a conversation about a keyboard?

Yeah. True. I mean Actually, as as as the a married couple gets older, like, get real sweet around the the eighties. But in between like the fifties and the seventies, boy, they fight awkwardly in front of other people, and it's hard to take in. You think it's because they're being unshackled with all the other things that otherwise kept them apart like work and and children? And all of a sudden they gotta deal with themselves? I think they just yeah. They just don't they don't I maybe it's just a pattern I've noticed with a lot of folks, but like, yeah, by the time a married couple hits about 50, they just don't have any problem blaming the the spouse,

you know, straight up in a conversation. And whatever Brian was supposed to pick the thing up and he let us down again, you know, and you're like, oh. Oh, boy. It's hard to tell you. I guess, Dan, have you have you have you noticed that your marriage has shifted over time? Like, longer you're married and either matured in some ways, regressed in some ways? Nothing nothing like that. I mean Mike, it might be the crowd you hang around in. Could be. Yeah.

I mean, I can't imagine just saying, think I'm getting rid of this couch. My wife loves it, you know, or or whatever. Piece of furniture, you know, a keyboard, any anything. My wife doesn't need this dress. Yeah. Stupid. I can't even think of a guy that I know who would even care. Yeah. Like, would say, just gonna stay here until my wife decides we don't need it anymore. What do I care? Yeah. Unless I need room for my hobbies.

Yeah. I got the hobbies. My train My hobbies are put away every night. I wanna I wanna set up my dagger throwing rig over here. I gotta gotta have this piano I mean, if he's a real jerk, he'd just put his trains on top of the piano. Yeah. Cover up the keys with it. Yeah. Yeah. There's something weird about this story. Yeah. We're we're missing some key detail. Either way, the first conversation is, dead. What do you think about the following situation? Okay. You've listening to Live From The Path. Thanks for hanging out with us. We very much do appreciate it. And maybe you've got something to say. You've got something to say? Maybe you got something to say. You can call the Live From The Path. Bob Eisenhower complaint line. That's (515) 517-0085.

That's call or text (515) 517-0085. We'd love to hear from you whether you think the show is good or not. And, just leave us a leave us a hit there. Also, if you could, whatever podcasting app you use, if you wouldn't mind giving us a a rating, you don't have to give us a five star or whatever. Just be honest about it. But, we just like to see a little action going on and people talking about the show. Makes us feel like we're, you know, doing something good in the world. And, I think we'll be back next week. I guess we'll see. But in the meantime, be faithful in the means. God will handle the ends. You've been listening to Live From The Path.