Live from the Pathway Studios in Johnston Proper. You are live from the Path. And you are listening to live from the Path coming from the Pathway Studios here in Johnson Proper. It's

good to be with you this fine evening. There's no reason to know. There's no reason to breathe like that. Here we go. Here's what we got going on the show. Mike's disgusted. Yeah. So I got there's, like, two articles and advice, and then we're cutting it. We're cutting it. What? Two did you come up with something? We're gonna do about that rapture article. No Filkey three articles maybe. All right. Now go. We'll see what the re okay. So we're gonna hold on. Now I gotta remind myself that there was an article out there that, oh, what's going to happen thirty seconds after the rapture. It really depends on what side you are. This is the same guy. You remember we read an article by Jeff Kinley. We did the, the, the last dumb rapture was,

was from this guy. Okay. We're gonna talk about it. What will happen thirty seconds after the rapture? And then we were going to, oh, Craig Rochelle. So he's the guy where's he from life church life church. That's right. They do the Bible app life church TV. That's that's their that's their home base. So he lists five red flags Christians for Christians are dating the wrong person. Got it. Oh, okay. So this feels like it should apply beyond dating this person. I feel like, wait, when's the last time any of us have been on a date? Just, just I was, I mean,

where you're not married to the person. Okay. Okay. Scratch that. Yeah. Oh, last week. Almost eleven years. Okay. Just just to put a line in the sand, the red flag, that's bad. Right? That means bad things. Yes. Red flag. I'm just checking. Is there any is there any sport or situation in which a red flag is good news? So there's okay. So there we have a chiller plant. Right? No. If the red light is on, it means everything's good. If the green light is on, there's that means there's been a release of noxious gas, and you shouldn't go in. I'm like, who the heck designed this thing? What? Where is that? That's the worst. Where is that at? At my workplace. Oh. And you walk I walk by it every day, and there's a red light on. I'm like, oh, no. And then I read the sign. I'm like, oh, okay. We're good to go. That's against every single thing you would think. Yeah. Here's the thing. If there's ever an actual problem, we'll lose two people right off the bat. Wow. Okay. Super embarrassing. Yeah. Yeah. Those that's this that's going to end up like design fails twenty years from now. Yeah. Right. I mean, here's the thing is, I mean, I read the sign and figured it out and I suppose in an emergency, I might go bowling in there, but I mean, most people have been there working there a long time. I figured we could probably lose a little cream off the top of the milk. You know what I'm saying? Like if you're dumb enough to roll in there after reading that sign 85 times, I don't know. Yeah. Actually, you know, it's interesting for a world that largely believes in natural selection. There's a lot of warning labels of which you could be like, you know, this should filter people out. Have taken care of some. There's no reason to have, it's the same reason that like the next time you run into the old JWs

they're like, Hey, 144,000 people make it to heaven. I'm like, then what are you doing? Like I'd keep that real close to the best plan. That's like the, you always see new videos out of a Yellowstone of people taking pictures of Buffalo. Oh yeah. And then they get flung across the road because Buffalo don't want you to go up there and say hello to them. And there's all kinds of signs. Don't do it. Don't do it. And people are like, oh, what? I just, this is friendly.

Well, how many people lost, like have fought either fallen in or lost a face to old Yeller? Cause there's stick their nose in there. It gets it. And you're like, well, I mean, I mean, as a Christian, I think, well, that's too bad. But like, I believe for just the broad scientific, you should be like, Hey, man, this is a, this is the filtering. This is how it this is how it works. We don't want that guy reproducing. I feel that way about jaywalking. I'm sorry. Say it again. Like jaywalking, like people to jaywalk. I think you should give them a chance. If they want a frogger their way across there,

I it's a no fault situation. Oh, oh, you're for jaywalking. Yeah. But it's at your own peril. Yes. Okay. Yeah. I thought you were saying we should take people who jaywalk and burn their face in old Yeller. No. That costs too much money. We don't have time for that. Yeah. But I think I think if people want a jaywalk, then think we we get rid of the pedestrian walkways, but we keep the pedestrian walkways. But anytime people are crossing it, in case it happens, something happens to them. And they say it's like this in other countries. Right? Like, The United States is one of the only countries where the pedestrian gets the right away, like almost in every other country, especially on the other side of the ocean, the driver wins. Oh, they just run you over. Yeah. So if you step out in there and you walked in front of a car, it's your own fault. Oh yeah. Yeah. I would say like having been on,

I've been in the street in, in, in taxis or whatever in the streets of Manila. And when we were in Ethiopia and both of those and you probably saw this in Zimbabwe. Like, like, you're leaving the airport or whatever. There's probably a roundabout or trying to get on the main thoroughfare. And, like, I mean, it is a free for all. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's just no cons like, people are dodging in and out. It's like Pac Man in there. In Taiwan, our our our cab hit a bike and they were all like, oh no. And then he didn't even stop. Like,

I don't yeah. We were we were here. Okay. Yeah. That was a rude awakening. There's just an arrogance to to walk out as a human being. You know what I'm saying? Like, there's there's cars traveling at forty, fifty miles an hour, and you think to yourself, they'll stop for me. I was just bold in it. Yeah. That's true. It's a natural reset. Hey, that that guy shouldn't run into me and you get hit and the police go. Yeah. I mean, you probably shouldn't have walked out there. I mean, that guy's got four wheels on you. I'm just, I think that that maybe our current cultural climate could just could do some good with some, just a reality check, right? Like a, these are consequences of actions, and then this is going to happen to you. And maybe we'll start with jaywalking. I thought that, you know, I was at a restaurant today and I ordered

a ham, it was like a pulled pork sandwich or whatever, but like, I don't know my barbecue, but whatever the, the two teams of barbecue sauces, this was the one I didn't care for. One's got like some sass to it vinegar. That's not for me. I'm out on whatever the vinegar one is, whatever the non vinegar one is. That's my camp. And so anyway, it didn't say in the menu. So I ordered this thing and I took a bite at it and I didn't like it. And then I thought the guy was going to come over and say, Hey, in fact, he did say, is everything all right? I said, yeah, everything's fine because what I didn't want him to do was go, oh, well, let me get you something else. And maybe he would've, and maybe that would've been great, but I thought it's not his fault. Yeah. Like, want I could have asked. And two, sometimes you take a shot and lose. Right. And so, like,

I but then I thought that, like, I'm sure they get that all the time where someone goes, hey, I ordered this and I don't like it. Can I have something else? I'm like, well, sorry, man. Yeah. We put all your choices up front for you to make an option. And then you just went ahead and boldly went for it. Like you don't like the jalapenos and ordered the jalapeno burger. I don't know what to tell you. Yeah. So it like it's right. It's like, I think it's all right that I just get a, I just gotta deal with the fact that I didn't, I don't, I ate it. I'm gonna eat the whole thing. I was hungry. We're allowing people to live in some kind of fantasy world where things don't have consequences. Like, once again, you can't get calluses without doing some work. And so like, we're just trying to like jettison people to the front of the line and say, look, you know, the the thing that you thought would happen or the choices that you made, they have some impact. So like you show up at 07:15 instead of seven. Yeah. When it's time to get rid of folks, you're the first one out to tour. I can't believe they let me go for fifteen minutes. I can because Scott was here at seven. Right. Like these are natural consequences of of your behavior. Yes. That's interesting because like a lot of times we're trying to find a way to influence behavior and in completely unnatural ways. Like as an okay. As an example, a lot of the worst work motivation is when like someone as opposed to just paying you more or going like, like spot a $100. Hey, you did a great job. You're here for money. I'm going to give you money as reward for you doing excellent. Or even just going, Hey man, great job. They do all kinds of weird corporate stuff to try to make you feel better. Hey, like that's

right. Brought pizza and there's a hug machine in the corner. I'm like, I don't come here for hugs. Like, this is, I'm like, this is not my motivation. And so they get a bunch of inorganic consequences, but we also do our very best to suppress organic consequences that would actually teach you something in the negative, like something that goes, look, I don't want to do that behavior again. And so I should just stop kind of acting this way. Like we suppress the right natural consequences that would bind you in and then provide weird inorganic or unnatural consequences as a positive motivation. It's weird. We probably need, I think every company needs a nun walking around with a ruler slapping. That's not natural, Dan. Oh, the natural consequence of being rude to someone on the phone. Isn't an angry nun who whips on you with a, with, with 12 inches of fury.

Oh, but it'd be awesome. Yeah. Now what they should do is like, they should have, yeah. What would be the, I just better. It doesn't matter. Anyway, you're listening to life for the path. Here we go. I go. So I'm gonna, we're gonna roll the dice. New research reveals that a majority of pastors think about stepping away from ministry are concerns that are concerned that Christians identify more with their political views than their faith. One of several factors causing church leaders to consider leaving their professions. So this is interesting. Primarily we were talking just before the show started about how people often like, or, or, or pressured to deny things that they believe

due to like outside pressures, whether it's a political belief system, whether it's because they're funded by people who have a way of thinking. And if you don't align to that way of thinking, then maybe your livelihood is put at risk. And you know what's interesting is I think Christians, you gotta be cautious about this because, like, every Christians got this persecution mentality. Like, they're after my faith. Can't just practice my faith. But I'm tell you this. The the same thing actually exists for someone if you're, like, agnostic to the whole thing. Like, if you're not bought into something, like, it still puts your thing at risk. Like, it's it's it's a question if you don't follow kind of the prevailing thought of the day, especially when it comes to like your reactions to things that I would say are like true, true, that people are like, well, it could be not like by not affirming some of those things, it puts your livelihood at risk. It puts your ability to feed your family, puts your ability to, to go further professionally. And so like a Christian, you're not the only ones in this bucket. And so it sounds like here, one of the concerns is a, as a pastors are having is like, I'm thinking about stepping away from ministry because Christians are identifying more with outside views.

Things beyond their faith. Faith is not the paramount. I would've figured this the opposite. I guess I always had it in my mind that there were these, that the pastors were saddling more with a political party and using the pulpit to, you know, expound on, you know, political alliances opposed to just the the gospel on its own. And this article is the complete opposite that says pastors are just trying to run gospel. And, like, we can't get away from the Christians themselves in the in the pews going. Amen. There's certainly some of that out there. Yeah. I mean, I I think it's definitely a he said, she said kinda kinda situation. You you you definitely have, I think, equal from both sides.

Yeah. It says, Bart identified the immense oh, sorry. Was it was that No. Yeah. You're good. Okay. Good. The immense stress of the job as the leading cause of pastor burnout. Stop it. Right? Just stop it. Yeah. Yeah. Hey. I want to be a pastor because I'm going into a world that nobody agrees with me. So now I'm going to quit because nobody agrees with me. I want to be a pastor because I want to sit on my desk in an office for eight hours a day. My

thoughts season. Pastor Dan has zero zero time for your complaints. Gonna sit here and play church. Leave me alone. I'm with you on that. But because here's the thing, Dan, think about, you know, ignore,

ignore the structural upkeep building and lawn mowing and whatever other things have to go on to keep the machine running. Okay. Let's just talk about like the prime pastoral duties. If you if you weren't the pastor at your church today, how many of those things are a normal regular everyday non pastor Christian responsible for? All of them. Yeah. All of them. What do oh, you're bearing the burdens of people crapping on their own life done. Right? Like,

you're going to visit people in the hospital. Yes. Of course. Like, you're you're praying. You're doing Bible studies with people. You are encouraging people who are having a rough go of it. Like, how many of these things are like, do you get to let go of because you're no longer a professional. Yes. None. Yeah. None. Now the now what is most likely is as a pastor, you just get a lot more of the Randos. Like, the the problems that are hap someone could just show up with some sort of random business, and and you're more likely to get the tap to run the wedding. And there's more of them. Right. Right. Volume. There yeah. And the volume of it, I would guess. Yeah. But, like, maybe I misunderstood what they're saying, but but it's like, can you see the apostles stopping? Because in the first century, well, it seems like all the leaders are going against us. So I'm just we're just gonna quit. Well, I think they're I think the primary pressure is what they're saying is is that they're trying to encourage people to follow the faith and they, they find that their congregations are listening. Yes. They're not listening. And they're being more driven by political persuasion or something else. Yeah. I mean, right. Yeah. Is that's not new? That's that's that's

That's humanity. I mean Yeah. Tell tell me when that's not been the maybe it has been. I I don't know. Yeah. Stop it. Oh, here's the thing is I and this is especially true in America is we believe ourselves special in every situation. Right? Like, there's never been a country more divided. Every country has been divided like this that has fallen. Yeah. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Every country has been here. We've never had such an opportunity when the culture was so against Jesus. Yes. We just yes. We certainly have. Yeah. The world has seen this many a time. God produced a deluge last time, and it was trouble. Right? And so, like, like, America's

arrogance, like, it just it astonishes me. It's like, they're like, okay. The world's coming to an end of blah, blah. The fed is going to what digital currency. It's like, you kidding me? There's people getting murdered on the daily in in every poor country across the pond. And we're like, the end of the world's coming. It's digital currency. I mean, we couldn't be any more blind to our own arrogance about the way, like, God's entire world operates. I had, I was teaching an end times class and like one of the, one of the, the comments for multiple people was like, yeah, but, but Ben, don't you think this is, this is a science. Like things are getting worse. I said, look, let me tell you a story. It used to be that if in in in ancient Rome, someone got caught stealing or doing something they didn't like, they would put him in a sack, and then they would put a like a dog or a fox or some other squirrel or something. They would tie all of them in a sack, and they would dump them in the river. And then as the fox and the cat or whatever start to drown, they start to claw the crap out of this guy that got tossed in the river, and he drowns along with two other angry animals who are fighting for their life off his face. And you tell like, we do and you tell them that you look back at that and you go, oh, yeah. Things are Yeah. Things are way worse. I'm not saying they're not bad in places. I'm just saying you're relatively take my T shirt off at work. Yeah. Milk's milk's $4.57. I mean, the end of days. Yeah. People, people are finding new instruments of perversion and

more sly in sort of ways. Instruments of perversion. No. But that's a slicked up a little. That's what I'm saying. The, the, the perversion has always been the same. They're expressing it in different ways. The, the ability, actually we've actually toned down. It's, it's much more manipulative, our ability to use somebody, your power against someone else to force people to do something or for your own glory. They were just more open about it over time. Like that's, it's become much more subtle in this day and age. But like, I just, I'm not buying. I'm not buying its worse. It's same same. These people been acting like this forever. The third dude alive killed his brother. Right. Yeah. Right. We got in three people.

Four. Whatever. Four four. So he said, you know what? I I've we've had enough. I'm gonna kill him. So so so if I'm catching this article right. Okay. You got let let's just say you're an overweight pastor because you go to a lot of chicken dinners and stuff and you don't, you're not eating very healthy and you're going to quit because the people aren't listening to you. And you're going go to your doctor who you've not listened to for the past forty years who said, stop eating so much, but they should keep their job. Yeah. Right. You know what? We're going to set up a dial a counseling session for pastors. We're just getting called Dan. Hey man, I'm feeling overwhelmed by the burdens. Hey, I got time to listen to your crap today. Why don't you get back to work? I mean, you're human. Okay. I get it. There are times you get discouraged. Like, why aren't people listening? I think, well, I don't listen either. Yeah. Right. I mean, I'm saying I'm the guy. I'm the fat guy going to the doctor. They're saying, I've been telling you to lose weight for forty years. I mean, yeah, I'm thinking about it every time. Hey, are you are you are you working out? Like, yeah, I got that membership still. Yeah. I I had that talk this week with my doctor. Are you exercising? No. No. Nope. Nope. You're on. Yeah. I do have a, I have a Fitbit and it tells me I walk. Are you working out? No. No.

I don't think she should quit. Right? Yeah. But I feel I feel lethargic, doc. You don't say. Yeah. You don't wanna listen to me. Yeah. And, like, I I get it. The common the common things from pastors like, hey, it's lonely. Well, I mean, it you can go on the treadmill. You gotta figure out how not to be. It shouldn't be feeling isolated. Maybe you're doing it wrong. That seems possible. There's uniqueness to it. Sure. But like it can be done. And we, we talk to people all the time that come in and my marriage is in trouble. Have you done what I said? No. Well, why don't you go ahead and love your wife and why don't you go ahead and submit to your husband? No, we don't want to do that. Okay. Well then. Yep. Get out. I'm not going to quit. I'm going to keep telling you to do that and your marriage is going to suck. And I'm sorry. I can tell you how to fix it. Just like my doctor could tell me how to fix everything else. Yep. Yep. It's not a reason to quit. It may may just mean you maybe needed to be more creative in how you teach or maybe you need to figure something else. Yes. It's both sides. Mean Do you would you find it arrogant if because I'm not a pastor. Right? Would you find it arrogant if I said, look, I I feel like I give the same advice to everybody pastor or not. You're you're allowing this to sit on you and not roll up to Jesus where it belongs. Like, you're wearing it as if it's your crown to wear. Yeah. And so, like, like, like, there's a possibility this could be fixed or managed in a better spot If you just devoted more time with God between you and him dumping off whatever stuff you think that you have to own. Yeah. I, as a matter of fact, I think that's one of the risks. I think I've told you guys this story before, but I did an interview with somebody else's podcast and they were asking about, about being a pastor. And like, this was one of these it's, it's the guys I think are background reform guys. And so like, they're very high on like, what was your calling? And there's almost like

there's a humility to it, but also there's kind of an arrogance to how they think about the pastorate. And like, I could, I could just tell that they were so disappointed in how I was answering these questions. Cause I, cause like, well, what would you tell a, what would you tell a pastor? What's your advice to this thing? And I'm like, well, I mean, I tell them the same thing I tell everybody else. Like, I don't know, follow Jesus, be faithful in the he called you to do. Like, I think these were basic things. It's just that you just your expression of what it looks like to serve Jesus. Like you have a, you have a responsibility and some clarity as to how to go about it. I actually think it's more of a wild west for the guy who's got to work at the office building. And so like, I just, I think it's a unique thing. It's a distinct thing, but like, I think we're getting it wrong. If we've, if we've kind of overloaded it as if the problems of the pastorate aren't solved in the same way that the Christians who are otherwise executing the same broad work. It's so like, if you think of separate two primary things of past, so pastoral work, like just be a normal Christian and then CEO type of work. Okay. Well, CEOs seem to figure it out and normal Christians seem to figure it out. And so like, take whatever advice is applicable to you at the moment and go do that. Yeah. But it can't be like, oh, I got a giant burden upon me because I I've swim in both worlds. I really yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

They said let's see. As to elaborate, it said current political divisions have emerged as a source of stress causing them to consider stepping away from full time ministry. So here's the other thing I'd say. If, if you find that the people who you're trying to lead are primarily following political persuasion over the gospel, like great, you've got a clear line on opportunity, my man. It's just like, if I saw my, my kids are having trouble with the sweets and I say, you gotta stay out of the sweets and I catch them eating the sweets when they're not supposed to, they got a, they got a pudding cup or something like that. They're 10:11 o'clock at night. I don't go, well, all hell and go back to bed. They've bested me again. It's

it's just so stupid. I would go, now is the time that I jump in and reinforce what we were earlier talking about because there's clear evidence that we're missing the boat. And so, like, I get it's discouraging what if I've said had the pudding cup conversation 10 times, and we're still doing it noted. But because I love these people and it is my responsibility we're in for the long haul. That is what dare I say? Laziness

kind of, I, I tried four times. I guess I'm done Five. Five five. That's right. That's right. I'm I'm not actually discouraged when I have to have those conversation with my kids. I'm incensed. Like, you know what I'm saying? It's not like I go, oh, man. I can't believe I gotta have this conversation again. I go, where did you get that pudding? Go to bed now. Put it down. Right? I don't go. I'm I'm not like disheveled after that conversation. I'm like, kids. Like, I know I know what the right thing to do is. I I said it and they're in trouble. That's it. You know? This goes back to the conversation we're having a few weeks ago. Is that like pastors get some grit,

man? Yeah. Get some fortitude that like, if this is the work and if like, whatever, go back and I don't mean to be super stereotypical on you, but I assume you've taught Jeremiah at some point or another. The man had no success. Yeah. None. He was He had to eat his own words. That's right. He just he's ridiculous. And, like, to this day, for all the awesomeness, the things where God said, go say the thing. And he was obedient and said the thing to this day, we look at it like, let's cry and profit. Like, this is how we refer to the band. And so like, just He's the best of us. That's right. So like, I, and this isn't just a pastorate thing, but like, get some fortitude. Hey, people who aren't following Jesus are acting like they don't follow Jesus. Okay. People who are trying to follow Jesus are being dissuaded by other sparkles in the wind. Yes. I believe that's what you're here for. Like, all these things are kinda your gig. And so, like, if God said,

I want you to go do this thing, then get some fortitude together and just know that, like, if you're walking in it faithfully, God's happy with it even if the rest of the world has taken a a whiz on top of it and just get some grit together. 47% of mainline pastors stated that Christians' political partnership reflects poorly on the church. 42% of mainline pastors and 30% of non asserted that the church should be a place of peace, not division. That's shallow, fellas. We can do a little bit better than that.

Roughly equal shares of mainline and non mainline protestants reported the debates about racial justice issues have made it harder for me to lead. Again, if these are conversations people are having, get in on them. Yeah. Don't just throw your arms up in the air. Have the right ones. Repent where we need to repent, say true things, and call people to righteousness like you're supposed to anyway. Now you just get the flavor. Here's the ice cream concerns that regardless of what I do, congregates are dissatisfied with my choices registered at 17% among mainline pastors. Who gives a crap about that? Yeah. Hey, man. I hated that message. I don't care. I didn't write it. Now here's the thing.

Are you sure you're not bad at what you do? Is that because, I mean, that seems real possible. I think in this day and age, there are a lot of pastors who get into it for the wrong reason and who don't really have the gifts and abilities that they need to be in the position that they're in. Yeah. But yet, you know, I mean, it's so hard in this day and age for churches to find somebody they'll settle for, all right, let's, let's just throw this warm body in here and hope he does. Okay. You know? I think that's,

we're seeing that, know, in churches and the church as a whole. Yeah. Now here's what I'm gonna tell you. Let's say that's you, you listen to the podcast and you say, you know what? I'm a pastor. I don't really have no idea what the heck I'm doing. I don't know how I got in here. They just needed a guy. So here's the first do no harm. You can show up and you're going to open up the Bible and you're going to read from it. And then you're going to say, let's pray over that part. And then you're gonna read another piece. And then you're gonna say, let's pray over that part. And then you're gonna sit your unqualified behind down and see if anybody else wants to pray over the stuff you just talked about and that the Lord would do magical things with it. Cause like, that's the thing you don't expose your weakness. If you're not good at it, then don't do it. But I know here's what I know is I know the word of Lord Lord is going carry. I know the holy spirit is with people.

And I know that prayer is powerful. And so do stick to those things. And I tell you this, I think, I think you're going to go from 17% to fifty, fifty, because some people aren't going to like the word of the Lord. That's between them and God. That's not really your particular problem. Yeah. You should keep doing it. But like if I went to a church and some guy goes, hey, I got very few skills, but check this out. I'm gonna read what James said, what the holy spirit said James should say. And then he goes, and that's what we're gonna work with. I'd go 50. Yes. 100. You get my vote thumbs up. Yeah. Right. What can you imagine better? The complaint card is like, hey, man. I don't like what we went over on Sunday. I'm like, well, I mean, can you can you imagine talking to the 12 about what what this was like? I mean, all these guys who were fishermen and who were blue collar workers who were rough around the edges, you know? Mean, can you imagine to have this kind of conversation with them? It was like, dude, I freaking fish for a living, man. You want me to go out here and talk to these people? Right. You want me to start the church? Really? That would no. I you know? Really? Yep. So yeah. And just to hear the kind of

things that we piss and moan about in, you know, current day life, it's just, it's insane. Yep. Alright. Let's round up the list. More common stress, sources of stress. Let's see, Dan, what do you think? What's the top? This wasn't even the top. What, what was the top one common source of stress for pastors? I'm going to say financial.

Okay. Financial. Mike, what do you think? I don't know. John. A 100% agree. Financial. Financial. Okay. I mean, and I think there's, there's different sides to that because there's the one you have to keep people happy to keep your, your pay. And you have to keep people happy to keep in the church. Also, you know, you obviously have your own finances to deal with. Yep. If, you know yeah. And people, yeah, leave and you you don't have your own finances, well, then what are you gonna do? Yep. Yep. It's tricky. Let's see the round up the list. It said, actually the top one was lack of volunteers.

51%. Yeah. Concerns about attendance, 38% pastoral care responsibilities, 33 financial concerns. There it was 31 demands of various programs and ministries, 25 lacks You're

way over a 100 here. No, the the pie chart, right? No, it's not a pie chart. Okay. Got it. Is funny because like, it's kind of interesting. 50, only 51% or maybe it will. I guess it wouldn't be source of stress. It depends anyway. Speaker I was gonna say if the big, the biggest

concern is our volunteers two generally. And I go through those phases where we're all home and nobody's doing anything, blah, blah, blah, but it always boils down to when you sit down and have a conversation with someone and ask them to do something, they'll do it. Right. Yeah. So it goes back to laziness. Yeah. Right. They need leadership into, into, into volunteering. Like you're not coercing them. They just figure that if you're not talking to them or you've asked them to do the wrong thing because you don't know them. So sit down and have a conversation. Hey, we'll come. Yeah. You know, this person loves to bake. Hey, we happen to have some baking, you know, opportunities. I mean, they'd love to, you know, we sit here and act, you know, fight like we, we just expect these people to be able to read our minds. I'm an administrator. I need this. Why why don't you know that I need this? Why don't you know that

one knows exactly. No one knows the garbage. Yeah. Right. And actually if I have some encouragement, this is more on, the, the, the business side of stuff, pastors, a lot of, a lot of things you might be able to take some of this and roll it up to the fact that like, Hey, man, you're spread too thin and you're doing a bunch of crap. You don't want to do like, you don't like like, and so find the stuff you wanna do, the stuff that God's called you to do and rock at that. And then see if there's an there's other people who can go do the other things that God has skilled them to go do. And so like, just start just it's okay to say this is this is my weak spot, or I just flat out don't even like to do this. I don't like it. So

personally, I don't like organizing. I hate it, and I'm not very good at it. And so like, hey, I wanna put a ministry together. I'll never do it. I would just won't. I say, look, the Lord's get Lord wants to form a men's ministry. He's gonna have to tap a dude who isn't me, and he'll go do that. And then when the guy leaves or whatever, I'm not gonna go find another guy. God's gonna have to find another guy. I just it's not for me, and I'm okay with that.

But somebody else will do it. There's there's we we have a youth youth thing in our church because God told two other people to go do it. And so that's what they did. And if they left, we'd probably go, look, you're gonna have to I mean, go to go to somebody else's ministry or do it at home until someone else goes, yeah, God said, it's just because that's not my bag. And I usually do. I got comfortable with that because I feel like it's God's church and I'm not the only guy on the block and he will take care of what he wants taken care of if people are faithfully listening. And if they don't, the church will suffer. But that's what happens when people don't listen to what God, when he tags them to go do stuff. So I'm okay with the not liking or again, natural consequences. You take these actions. This happens. Yep. Now on the practical side, I also understand there are times you go through phases where you do get bogged down. And like I said, you're doing everything you're doing stuff you shouldn't be doing, and you don't know how to get out. And you're in this hole and you dig yourself deeper. Some every once in while, you've just got to stop and reboot and just sit down and write down five names of people around you and say, okay, I need to get help. And there are people who are there just waiting to be asked. So you got to force yourself to do it sometimes to get you out of that. If that is a big area of stress in your life. I mean, no, I've, I've seen situations where, you know, a passenger just has to drop it and let it not be done. Yeah. Yeah. In order to get someone to step up to the plate and say, Hey, why isn't this getting done? Well, do you want to help? Yeah. Okay. You know? And it's yeah. Just to the fact that you if people think, Oh, someone else will do it, then yeah. It really is getting through those things without being totally emotionally involved in them. Yeah. Yeah. Right. So like the truth is, is like one day you just don't go pick up the donuts and then everybody's hot and heavy mad. And you're like, Hey man, where's all the donuts? You're like, nobody picked them up. They're at the shop. Right? And you're like, what do you mean nobody picked them up? Who usually gets them? I usually get them, but I was out of time today. And so nobody got the donuts, you know, and with a big old smile on your face. Yeah. Like without, like, yelling at everybody, getting all hot and bothered, and they'll be like, well, crap. Someone's gonna have to get the donuts. Someone will go get them. Yeah. That's right. All right. Hey, you're listening to live from the path next. We were going to talk about the, what happens thirty seconds after the, after the rapture. Okay. Quick level set on theology here, Ben rapture.

What is it? Speaker Okay. So it's, it's, it's the belief that, that there is Jesus will return and he will remove the Christians out from the world. And then there will be a, what is probably like a literal thousand year thing

of which evil will just reign. And then Jesus will return what I think it's a being a, the third time to otherwise shut down the operation. That's the belief of the rapture. So when there's, when, when, when things are at their worst, God's people come out and it leaves a left behind part. Okay. Gotcha. Yeah. Theologically, this is not a top belief in the room. No, I'm, I'm out on the rapture, Dan. Nope. Not at all. Does that exist? Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not a when, yes, I think when, when Jesus returns, he's he's returning for good and there will be, there will be nothing like that, but there's all kinds of reasons that doesn't make any particular sense, but yeah, we're out on that. So, but the article is what's going to happen thirty seconds after the rapture, Jeff Kinley and Todd Hampson, Hampson,

he should change his name. Yeah. That's unfortunate. That's confusing. Host of the popular prophecy pros podcast. Oh man. That means you're kind of gin up all kinds of prophecy stuff just to keep your podcast rolling. Yep. That's bad. Said the pre tribulation rapture, an end times event many Christians believe will happen that involves believers both living and resurrected being lifted up into the air to meet Jesus will have a cataclysmic impact on the planet. I would I would think so. Yeah. Kinley and Hampson stressed that despite some Bible teachers claiming that the event is not in scripture, they maintain that it is the translator word. It's not there. It's not there. Harpazo and the global event will impact geopolitics, culture, religions, the psychological state of humanity. I would also assume so. Yeah. I mean, that'll be true. Let's let now here's where I let's just say I agree with him whenever Jesus does return. Yes. All those things will be true. It's just not in the way that you're thinking. I think a lot of people have seen the rapture depicted in pop culture, whether it's the left behind movies or other really poorly made movies. The rapture has become kind of a caricature or the recent phenomenon where people who claim to be believers are literally saying the Bible doesn't teach rapture.

Yes. That's what I said. It is a key aspect of the Lord's return. Just like the first coming had two parts to it, the birth and then the ministry and the death and resurrection. So to the Lord's return has two parts. And one of the ones that we wait for, Titus tells us is our blessed hope. It's the rapture. It's something we're supposed to be encouraged by. Hempstead said John fourteen one to three among the verses that highlight the coming rapture. Here's the here's the quote. Jesus says, and if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me so that where I am, you will be. Another translation says, I will receive you. Oh yeah. That's that's crystal clear. I will receive you must be in a multistage return

in the air. So not just Jesus returning and then coming back. Yes. I read, I was reading all that in times class. I, I was reading somebody who was, who, oh man, it was, it was a guy from the radio, like a radio guy said this, and he's like one of the clearest places you're going to see talking about the rapture was revelation. I think it was four was, I think it's revelation four one five one, something like that. A five one probably. And

it's, it's, it's John going. I saw, and I looked up and then I was immediately in heaven and they're like, that's it. That's the rapture. That's the clear one. That's the option. That's the clearest. It was weird. It was weird. And like, I think we might've covered this. Maybe, maybe I'll come back to it and just go through the three reasons. Been, and probably the rest of the room doesn't think that there's rapture. Then we'll hit the scriptures real quick because like, it's just, it's just a shallow, shallow reading is all.

And like, I get it. It was popular. I was like, Billy Graham taught it. Yeah. And so, and I get it. There's a, the, the, one of the main risks, I'm not actually so concerned about the, the wrong parts of the theology, like the details of it, because like, I'm sure I believe a wrong thing somewhere. I just don't know what it is. Right? But, like, it's the belief that when things start to get really bad, Christians leave and the rest of the world is left to its own. When every other posture of humanity, like Jesus, looking at the rest of the world goes, like when the rest of the world runs out, Christians run-in.

And so like, it's, it's a wrong thought process that, that like when humanity needs the hope of the Lord, the most, the people who bring the hope of the Lord are gone. I'm not buying it. It just, it doesn't, it doesn't make particular sense. And then the rest of the scripture that we use to kind of build upon that is also, I think just poorly interpreted. So I just, this is just, here's the thing is that like, what, what would you, what would be interesting to talk to some guys like this and like, what do you lose if Jesus just comes back? Like, what if I, the thing I thought was true, which is like, there's nothing else to happen. Jesus returns and the whole thing gets refined with fire. Like, what did we lose again? Oh, nothing. Okay. Well, also he was pretty I mean, it was pretty straightforward. I'm not spending a whole lot of time mulling this over. You know? Like, you're not gonna know when it's happening. And, I mean, the details are vague and crazy. You know, why don't you just do the other things I asked you to do on the whole? I told you that that there will be an end so you can have, so you can see my circular pattern and saying, look, this will stop.

This will come to an end. I will refine the world that I created. I will take back the things that sin is as destroyed. I will repair all the broken. So, so like the, this evil or the deceiver doesn't actually get to win. So I have to destroy everything I made. I will redeem this like I redeem everything. Yeah. That's right. God created a world. He said this is good. Satan cannot otherwise just, like, soil in such a way where God goes, I cannot retain it anymore. He goes, I will set it back to the good that I created it. So if all these things are true. Right? Then, like, I mean, you really wanna spend a podcast every week talking about this stuff? I mean, I you know? No. Go feed some people. And, like, and and and get new testament perspective. Like, every time they're talking about something that that can you can tell is aimed towards the future, Just, just wait, wait a sentence, wait a paragraph. It comes right back around and goes based upon that now, then how shall we live? That's the concern is based upon the hope that you're able to have the confidence in what Jesus is doing that Yahweh is with the world yet

now, what does that mean for my today? And so if your focus is primarily on the future thing and not now, then how shall we live? Then you're even misunderstanding why and how the biblical writers are using, like even bothering to point to that. Because most of the time, even, even we think about prophecy was like 70% of the time. It's not talking about a future event. They said Jesus gets, gets whooped around and they're like, prophecy, tell us who hit you. That's not a future item. That's looking back there's an, and like a prophet is a, is it's someone who brings the message of God. Most of Elijah's discussions, Jeremiah's discussions, Isaiah's discussions. These are like, sometimes it points to the future, but a lot of times all they're going is here's your current renderings. Here's how you're behaving. Here's how it runs afoul of where God pointed you to. Like it's a word from God, not necessarily a future thing from God. And any future thing there is is the same thing as you and I would say, Hey, if you keep treating your wife that way, she's going to leave. Yes. Right. Right. I'm not saying God boasts, they're going to, mean, he's just saying, Hey, if you don't repent, here comes Babylon. This is the thing. That's exactly. Here come the Assyrians. You know? Yep. And yeah. Yeah. Says, we know believers are, what did he say here? We know believers are going to go into the millennial kingdom. Unbelievers are going to have babies. And we know that in our glorified bodies, we can't do that. So you know what's interesting about this? God creates the world,

and he says, I'm I choose to use humans to take my good news into the world, to be the kingdom of priests, the folks who point humanity back to me, Yahweh. This, this belief system basically says how God created to start is not sustainable. And it pulls everybody who would have been that witness out of the world. Again, I I'm just not the pattern wise. It's not, it doesn't fit. Yeah. And we know that in our glorified bodies, we can't do that. So if all believers are glorified at the rapture at the end of the tribulation, then who's having these babies in the millennial kingdom. Certainly unbelievers are not coming into the millennial kingdom. So really the argument is between the pre trib and the mid trip. The premise is even wrong. I don't care. Describing how non Christians might react to the rapture. Okay. Here we go. Is this the thirty seconds? You're in a mall. You're at a football stadium. You're on the Let me picture it. Okay. It's picture. You're in a mall. Got it. You're in a football stadium. I'm in both places. Got it. Yeah. Dan, you're on an airplane. I'm on an airplane. Oh, yes. John, you're driving in your car. Okay. I'm walking down the street school and all of a sudden scores of people just vanish from sight. No,

Let's just let's just say there are a 100,000,000 Christians on earth and those people instantly disappear from planet earth. How is that going to impact the world? Okay. I mean, I'd freak out a little. Yeah. Whatever. A 100,000,000 people could disappear from Africa right now, and I wouldn't know. That's too I'm just, this is poorly thought out. We've got, like, 7,000,000,000 people. We're living here. I mean, it matters. Don't hear about it matters to me or whatever, but like, I mean, I wouldn't know. I just would not know. Right. You you'd locally feel like you lost like 10. You know, like for the circle of people that you actually know, you'd be like, oh, what happened to those people? Yeah. Yeah. They must beat the piggly wiggly. They the they got COVID. They're out. And granted, like they tend to fall to go in families. Right? So like you lose a whole family of unbelievers or of believers. You'd be like, I wonder what happened to the, but to the Bryonsons. They're out. Look at this guy. There'll be some aside from unbelievers speculating and coming up with false assertions to try to understand why the rapture occurred. Hampson predicts there'll be people who have heard the gospel before the rapture, and they will know that the rapture is a biblical event

only after it's occurred. There'll be some people who are close enough to Christian teaching who will realize right off the bat. Oh my gosh. This is the rapture that my sister was talking about, or my grandfather grandmother was telling me about, or that I used to make fun of for Christians. Hampson said it's important to evangelize and not to boast about the rapture to unbelievers. As we talk about this, the chaos that's going to be in the world afterward, we don't do that gleefully. God has given the church two thousand years already to realize now, hold on a minute. I'm going to, let me ask this question. Wouldn't the rapture relieve some earthly pressures, food,

economic policy. I'm just saying you, you, you cut a million people out of here, a billion, take a billion. Let's just say one out of one out of eight, you cut a billion people. I only think, I'm not sure why that causes the chaos that they're talking about except for the car accidents and the Jay walking and stuff. I mean, anything, I'd I'd say it would cause an infrastructure problem. I mean, look at how much COVID had just

reduced everything as far as, you know, supply demand issues. You know, if all of sudden you have a billion people gone out of the world, you know, how much less are, you know, people just, you know, not going to Speaker Mhmm. But Yeah. So these companies still aren't producing (1h things the way they did. Granted, there's not the the demand. You

know who would go down interstate battery. Bunch of these people were Chick fil A would close immediately. Yeah. I mean, like so I I I could I could see it both ways. It could, you know, maybe even itself out, but I'll also, yeah, still cause that weird infrastructure thing where it just, you know, things are chaotic. Yeah. Until they even out. There'd be that one pagan Randy that works for Chick fil A right and closed forever. Yeah. Closed on rapture. He's just be looking around going well, hot dang. Oddly Hillsong will be going strong and no one's at the concert. Oh, wait. Did I say that?

Ouch. Wait a minute. Alright. Here we go. That's 515. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. They're 517-0085. Let's use that live from the path complaint line. Say, now listen. Just after the rapture, Hillsong remains. Yeah.

You just start this weeks with listen, Dan. That way I know what you're calling about. (515) 517-0085. That's call or text the life in the path, Bob Eisenhower complaint line. We'd love to be able to hear from you. Okay. Last article. And then we're gonna do some advice during his sermon Sunday, mega church pastor Craig Groeschel of the multi, who cares whether the multi campus they're talking about red flags. When a person, a person is a Christian is dating is not consistently pursuing Jesus. He says a lot of people here are kind of cultural Christians. Just because someone tells you, I guess I'm a Christian. I go to church on Christmas and Easter doesn't mean they're a committed follower of Jesus.

Okay. Here we go. Is there a oh, oh, no. He's got them in separate list. Okay. First red flag is when the person a Christian is dating is not consistently pursuing Jesus. That's the title of the article. Isn't that all the flags? I mean, hold on. Let me me get let's give him the benefit of the doubt here. The man does good work. He's wearing a real ugly V neck.

Maybe he's going down. Maybe they say multi campus just to, because he's going to lose like five. If he keeps us up, Rochelle clarified this doesn't mean they need to be perfect, but that they are on a journey to get to know Jesus and be conformed to his image. You think like four, oh, what'd you say? Before or after the rapture? That's before definitely. Because you're pursuing Jesus. He didn't know where he went. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No. There wouldn't even be rectifying that. Mike, do you feel like if you were dating a lady, would you be comfortable saying, hey, I just want to get to know know whether you're on a journey to get to know Jesus and be conformed to his image? No. How would you put it?

I mean, here's the things that I think you'd go out on a date and feel it out and, like, she's not interested in Jesus at all. Then I'd be like, well, I guess we're done here. Yeah. Yeah. I did. I mean, I've, I, I used to, when my wife and I started dating, she was not a, she was not a follower of Jesus agreed. I was super, actually, it's one of those things where I don't like to tell my kids that story because it gives them the wrong impression. Said, look, I'm fortunate, not wise. Right. This area. That's right. God redeemed. Yes. That's right. That's right. But but, like, actually, she even she knew she knew when we when, like, the first time or two that we went out, she's like, would you ever marry someone who who wasn't a Christian? And I said, no. I I wouldn't

be like for and you wouldn't want to do that. Like, that causes all kinds of marriage problems. And so, no, I I wouldn't do that. And whatever we started going to church, like, there was a reaction. And so yeah, I mean, I think, know, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I've had that conversation with a girl, first serious girlfriend, and it isn't, doesn't have to be awkward. He kind of made it awkward. You just kinda, you, you can kind of the things that come up in life tell you if they're pursuing Jesus or not. Yeah. The things that are important to them, the priorities and actions, and, and, you can say like, Hey man, why, why do you do that? And have

you ever thought about, you know, church and, and, you know, I mean, you don't have to be weird about it, but it's pretty obvious if they're pursuing or not. Yeah. So he says, watch where people's main focus lies. If you meet someone and you're getting to know them and you spend some time in intimate conversation with them, if you don't hear about Jesus or you don't hear about their faith, you don't hear about God, or you don't hear about their involvement in the church, you don't hear about their ministry within the first hour of talking to, I tell you this, I started dating a woman. The first thing she talks about is her ministry. I'm out. I'll be, I'm cutting. I'm cutting. I don't like that. I just don't like that term. And I couldn't put up with that another fifty years. So I'm out. I just say it's, we started off on the wrong foot and that he goes, that seems incredibly extreme, but you have to remember that people talk about first, what they value most. And now give people now be cautious here because

it's not like people aren't aware that the things that they think, even if they feel very strongly about them, may not be taken in well. And so there isn't softening of as relationships grow deeper. They people tend to start taking you in holistically. They say, well, he's not, he's not crazy, but he also, you know, only eats hamburgers if they're purchased from Peru and that's it. And they're like, you don't start off with that even if you're super passionate about it. Yeah. So, you know, take it easy. It comes up like, Hey, you wanna do something Thursday? Oh, that's when I have small group bible study. Yeah. Right. Like, oh, you do that, Peruvian hamburger night. Fight me.

Okay. Boy, I mean, they could have made okay. The second red flag is to look out for is if a believer's devout Christian family, friends, and other loved ones disapprove of their dating relationship. Says when those around you that you really try oh, so if you're trying to date someone and everybody in your family, close friends or whatever, who are Jesus people go, Hey, man, that's not the, it's not the right person for you. Yeah. I hate to I hate to mention it. You're ahead to do that. Yeah. How did it go? Poorly. Eventually advice was was heated. Okay. It came around. John, have you had to do that? So I don't have a great relationship with my in laws. Okay. Right. It's it's gotten better over the last ten years, but it started off very, very poorly. And my wife is a Christian. I met her at Bible college, but her her parents

and her, the rest of her family do not put a whole lot of stock in that. Yep. Yep. And, you know, in their their faith. And so, yeah. So it was it was the opposite problem. They're like, yeah, it was, they, they didn't want her with me. Okay. Okay. You know, I mean, she was very devout in her faith and, you know, I think I them too. So I think we obviously we've been married for almost eleven years now, so it's, you know, doing something right. Yep. At least thus far. But, but yeah, it was, yeah, I found myself on the other other side of that. It, it was our, our wedding day was ugly, you know, and my wife came home from buying her wedding dress crying or came back to campus, I should say, crying because

her mom, you know, insisted on continuing to try to talk her out of going through with our wedding. And yeah, it was, it was a mess. Yeah. That's what I said. That makes Thanksgiving a little weird. Hey, I'm going up there on Friday. Yeah. Oh, Like I said, things have gotten better over the last ten years. They're just still not perfect. Yeah. Yeah, man. I, you know, I get it that you think, you know, someone just so much better. No one else understands them, but like

it's, it's, it's possible, but not super likely. And so, yeah, here's the thing is it's a, there's a level of arrogance to it. And there's also a man, you just don't understand our love. Our love is like no other love. That's like every other love. Here's the thing, man. You just ain't as special as you think you are. You know what I'm saying? Like, God laid out what this looks like. Right? And so like people just assume that their thing is is different than everybody else's in the way that God has set up marriage in general. Right? Or the relationships in general. They're like, you just don't know how he makes you feel. Yeah. I I bet I do. I bet I got a good idea about this. You know? And so I think it's just people want something to be true so badly

that they're willing to turn blind eyes, you know, to a lot of different situations to be like, well, you know, everybody's got a little bit of stuff that they don't, you know, that they have trouble with their spouse. But for the most parts, like 60%, we're pretty good. I'm like, man. Yeah. What are you doing? And we're not, again, we're not talking about just like anybody. And I don't even care whether they're your family. We're talking about people that, you know, are like faithful, humble followers of Jesus who go,

I don't know, man. I don't know. Like, that's what you're saying is you're saying that like, you're not pitting. If you're not just presuming that they don't have a line on something it's being willing to know that you might be, you might be blind. It's a humility. It's humility issue. And here's the thing. If I would honestly recommend something for you, like there's a possibility you gotta take your dad out of the equation. He don't want you to marry nobody. Know, You as far as your old man is concerned, if you're a daughter of mine, for example, if you could just stay out of this entire situation,

I'd be happier, man. I'm going to like, I'm going to dislike whatever slack jaw donkey you come home with most slack jaw donkeys. Now you find me a guy that smells like Jesus. I'll roll out some carpet. We'll get this thing moving. But like, it it's, I mean, some parents have a harder time letting go and their standards are ridiculous and hard to meet. Now. Now, Dan, you've had two, two ladies find fellows. Did you, were those hurdles you had to get over? Do you feel like it was, it was pretty easy for you? You know, I prayed for them literally,

literally since before they were born for this specific issue. And and it it it I had green lights with both of them and, you know, I just had no issues. Nice. I mean, they're not, you know, they're they're guys. Right? I mean, they're they're they're human beings. I'm sure they're not perfect, but but I, we love them that they're a, we were in full support. Even out of the gate, out of the gate. Nice.

Yeah. Okay. Dan's got a line on it. What if you haven't prayed for them since before they were born, Dan, Let's say they're a little older now. Is it too late to start praying for them? Nope. That that because it appears that what you're saying is it's the amount of time of prayer you've put in that is really hard. Yeah. Yeah. I probably should be careful how you say that. I mean, I dunno how often you have to pray or how long you have to pray, but I think if you are praying about it and not just trying to get a hunch, you know, like, oh, I don't like his hair, you know, whatever. And we prayed when they began dating and when they, you know, those first initial few weeks and months and

had conversations with them and they had with us about things that we could kind of give guidance to. And I don't know, it was, it was, with both of them, were, we were very pleased. Also we kind of would step back thing is it's not our choice. So I wasn't going to be the one to say you can't, you shouldn't. I mean,

there were probably people in the past were like, oh, that's probably not the person, but, but I don't know if I ever said it because they never got, they figured it out. And if they were getting married, I might've said it initially. Like, have you thought about this? This this year's red flags. I would, I would say it that way. Here's some red flags. What have you, have you considered that?

And then you trust them. Know, do you do? What do you do? Right. You know, and actually don't have a situations where like, you remember very clearly in laws not liking you. It's like, we didn't want to have that. Yeah. It's interesting. Cause I think one of the things by, by praying

in the way that you have Dan, like it, it, it, it prepares you for it. It didn't mean that God did a mad, like magically grew a man somewhere. It prepares your heart to say, I'm not looking forward to a time where I'm trying to play defense. Right. I'm preparing my heart and mind, and God is working through me to go when the right guy comes along. Like you're going to recognize it because that's the thing you were praying for. Just like as you sometimes you pray for something and something that seems innocuous to somebody else sticks out for you. Yeah. That, you know, that makes sense to me. Pray for future boyfriends, not knowing how many they would have before marriage, just, just for certain things about them, that they would, would have a godly role models in their lives to know how to be a man and, know, things like that. There was, was pretty in-depth list of things we prayed regularly for. Oh, Dan's praying into the bench. Oh yeah, absolutely. I don't even need it. I'm not asking for a godly man. I want his dad to be a godly man. Oh yeah. Yeah. Because that's what they learn, you know? And so definitely. Definitely. Okay.

Third red flag is if people aren't experiencing healthy conflict with the person they're dating. He says, this is not saying that you won't fight. You will fight with the person you're dating and you will fight with the person you're married to. It's not if you fight, but it's how you fight that really, really matters. Okay. I would say, I mean, 80% of the marriage has got a red flag in it. People don't know how to fight. Right. Like, I actually, I I'm a poor marriage counselor. Other people should do it, but like, that's the one thing. One of the things that I would say is that like, you guys got to know, you gotta be prepared to fight well, just know you're going to do it, know how your parents fought and don't do that.

Cause whatever it is like, you're to use it incorrectly. And like just set some ground rules, do it topless. I don't care how you gotta do it to keep it healthy. But like, I mean, you got, you gotta learn to do it. Was praying for these boyfriends for such a long time. I missed this topless fighting thing.

Shoot. Gotta go start an argument. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Totally. And so I'm not sure this is a red flag that you can't proceed, but it is a thing that you need to figure out. Right. You know, I mean, I guess personally, that's that's one thing that I guess I would say almost drives me insane about my wife is she is such a pacifist and a quiet person that she she would rather just shut down and not have an argument. Mhmm. And it's like me, you know, if I say something she doesn't agree with, I can tell something bothers her, but yet she won't actually say the thing. So it's like me pulling teeth, getting her to talk to me to hash this out. And it's like, come on. I, you know, and there are times where she says something that ticks me off and I'm all, I'm, you know, all in it. I'm just like, no, no, no, Let's figure this out, you know? And, and she just backs off and it's just like, you know, sometimes you just, you need to have that Yep. Ability to have that conversation. And if it's not there, it's, oh, it's and that's definitely something I've had to learn over the last, you know, ten and a half years to

figure out. So again, yeah, like you said, I don't think it's really necessarily the red flag that disqualifies everything, but yeah, there's, there's some learning that has to be involved there. Yeah. I eat one of things he says here is healthy couples tend to fight fair. I'm gonna tell you this Healthy couples eventually fight fair. And I don't mean, like, in the first year of the marriage onto the twentieth year. I mean, sometimes within the notion of an argument, you will come around to getting to the place where you fought fair, but most most arguments become arguments and not just comments because somebody didn't fight fair on the second response.

And then it'll like the more you married, I think the better you get, the more you recognize problems that you don't want to particularly have. Choose the path of patients and, and, and grace, and then the stuff doesn't last as long and you get to the end a lot faster. That's glory. But, but I, I don't, I don't even think that it's right to think that a healthy couples always fight, always fight fair. I think they just come to a point of fairness quicker. It's a skill. Yeah. It's a skill that does take time to learn to fight pretty fair. Yeah. Well, because like, and some of it's unique to who you're dealing with. Like you have to know your partner

and you recognize when you're not fighting fair, which might be a totally fair thing to do in a different situation with a different person. But like, like, especially if you're dealing with someone who's, who's a, who's a pacifist, then like you ending an argument just, like, forcefully

or firmly, like, it'll end with them, but, like, you actually didn't fight fair because you knew that they wouldn't fight back. And so, like, part of what you wanna do is actually allow our iron to sharpen iron, not marshmallowed iron. And so you gotta try to encourage them and say, look, I want you as opposed to shutting the thing down, encourage them to participate in something that they don't wanna participate in so that you can actually grow from it, which is difficult. And just like, you know, if you're a pacifist that you bowing out, that's not fighting fair because that's not getting to a place of resolution. That's you just trying to avoid a situation that you don't wanna be in, and that doesn't serve your partner very well. So alright. What was it? Got two more. Goodness me.

Red flag number four. If someone is consistently worried that they cannot trust the person they are dating, maybe he's always sliding up into girls' DMs, and she's always snapping old boyfriends, or he's liking every bikini pic of everybody. That's not you. I mean, I wouldn't get away with one. I don't know that I need a pattern two: here. Like, don't think so. You can't trust them. It's over. Yeah. That's a red flag. I'm with you. There may be a reason. If there's a reason you need to pay attention to that said, or it could be that you're the problem. It could be that you're overly possessive or too insecure.

I mean, maybe, but I mean, none of these examples you gave me, I would blame on the other person. I'm like, Hey, you can't send no P no DMS, no snapping old boyfriends and no liking bikini pics. What kind of arrogant doofus is out there actually physically liking bikini pics? No kidding.

That's wrong. I I'm somewhat surprised. Yeah. Pictures people will post on social media. Like, I don't, I can't like that because that would be like, yeah. Yeah. They're like, just ignore,

just keep going and scrolling, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Enjoying the day at the beach. I mean, okay, leave a tear. The final and most important red flag he said is if a Christian is not growing spiritually alongside the person they are dating, it's a warning when the person you're dating is leading you away from Jesus instead of closer to Jesus. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. That's right. That's right. Any, any relationship, any friend. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Totally dating. Right. Yeah. Right. It's just any close relationship with what you have influence or being influenced like as, are they, are you getting closer to Jesus through this thing? Are you getting farther away? Okay. All right. Maybe, Hey, do you have any more? Maybe you got some more. You're like, Hey, you gotta watch out for this thing. This is the thing I told my kid. This is the thing I, my dad warned me about and I ignored whatever. Let us know life from the path. Bob is not complaint line (515) 517-0085 call or text. We would love to hear from you and and get your I don't know. I'd just be interested if you got any more flags.

Unless they have to do with the rapture and then I I don't care. Then we don't care. Yeah. You call you call the prophecy pros 8888. We ain't gonna be here thirty minutes after it happens. I got I lost it. Mike, you're up. Wow. Dear life from the past. My strongest quotes love language is physical touch. For twenty three years, my husband gave hugs galore to any and every woman, but never to me.

The word never is not an exaggeration. What? He has recently begun to change and try to be better. Now he does hug me as much as I want. But when he hugs other woman, it still feels like a knife through my heart. He says the hugs mean nothing to him, but I question why if they were so insignificant, he couldn't give me one or one for more than two decades. How do I get over feeling hurt when he hugs other women? Is there something wrong with my perspective on this? I'm not sure if I'm too being too sensitive. Hold on. I just wanna reset the scene to make sure I got it right. Married for twenty years. Twenty three years. Twenty three years. Doesn't hug his wife ever. Two decades worth. Hugs other ladies. Constantly. No. She's not overreacting. Not at all. Now now wait a minute. Wait a minute. Is there any possibility, any acceptable situation

that you can think of of what she might be causing this? Smell bad. She has just a funk. Got the bow. Okay. She's yeah. She didn't mention it. She wears very spiky clothing. K. Yep. She's got a skin skin condition. Having,

like, are you having intimate relations? You mean like I think she'd be bringing that up because that's that's part of physical touch too. But part of physical touch is just also just, yeah, just the, the, I mean, the man's a wizard. No. I don't know how it's. How do you not hug your wife? I just, I, I don't know. Does that seem like a real awkward thing to say no to? She goes in for one. He's like, man, yeah. What if they're doing the old fool embrace you're saying like this, none of that even counts. I don't understand how you,

first of all, you have not, are not hugging your wife or you don't need a hug from your wife. Right? Like that fit there. The physical exchange of a hug, it's a god designed thing. Right? It does something. It's not an innocuous nothing. You know? Mhmm. It's not the same as a handshake. And so the fact that the man has not needed a hug in twenty years, I find suspicious. Hug another lady. He's hugging people. Yeah. But, But I mean, think of it from her perspective. Like, assume the dude goes to work during the day. Like I assume when she says hugging other ladies, it's like when they go out for or were during family functions or like, I mean, how many people do I hug actually?

You know, six. It's maybe six. Yeah. I mean, I have a select few friends that, you know, we'll hug when we meet or, you know, say goodbye or whatever. But yeah, I mean, not not a lot. It ain't more than 10. Right? Yeah, exactly. I think there were times during sit up and tear down, I would hug Mike just because I knew he hated it. Yeah. It was the most awkward moment. Oh, you just looked like your your skin was crawling. It was horrible. I loved it. Sometimes I'd pee my pants hoping Dan would leave. Dan is undeterred. Dan will not be dissuaded. No. Okay. Watch this. I'd have people watch.

Okay. So See, not evil. It's it's what am I trying to say? It is it is a it is a dagger to her heart to see her hug other people. Yeah.

I wanna Oh, that's how I was gonna say, what, what, what kind of hug a front on sideways arm? You know? I mean, what, I don't know if it even matters, but, but like, she doesn't really, you know, it's Not even a I mean, you don't ever just saddle up to your wife while she had bet the stove, give her the side hugs. I don't know. I don't know, dude. I don't know about this. I don't think you're being too sensitive. If that's the question, I think something's afoot because this none of this sounds right. But but it says he's doing it now some.

What does it say? She kinda he's improving. I mean, here's the thing. It's like, I'm willing to give some level of husbandry a pass for not understanding exactly what your wife may or may not want. Right? There's some there's some foggy areas in there. But the fact that you cannot tell that your wife needs your hug affection and the fact that you are not seeking your wife's hug affection for your own existence, that's just suspicious as all get out for I mean, it would be one thing if he just wouldn't hug anybody. But that would be one thing. I'm just not a hug. Yeah. But it's a real Gilbert grape grape kind of character. You know, if he's, you know, Sheldon over here, just don't touch me.

Lysol bottle, you know, it's just that that would be one of VIPs over there. Yeah. That's that's that seems yeah, red flag. Agreed. He's causing her to dry on the vine. Yes. And he's a dry vine once again. I mean, like, let's say let's say the man's not cheating on his wife, which I'm finding harder and harder to believe at this point. Mhmm. But, like,

can random hugs to, let's say, the 10 people that you would hug women, for sure, I guess, fulfill you enough that, like, through your steady Eddie home life, you're not going in for a hug for any reason? So I don't like this. I think the dude's fishy. No. I something's not right about this story either. Mhmm. Like, are you telling me they like

natural course? There's no way. I think she's I think she's jealous that he's hugging people. I think you should stop hugging people, but I don't I'm not buying. I I know she reiterated the never, but I'm not buying the never, but I guess here's what I'm missing. Here's like, when did you talk about it? Like, you have got to be able to say, I've I've discussed it with him over twenty years.

Yeah. It's a hug. And he said fundamental interaction that you're like, I should not have to explain why I need a hug. No. I I wanna know what he said. I wanna know when she said, hey, man. We've been dating for x months. Why won't you hug me? We've been married for two years. What's with the not hugging? Why are you willing to hug Janet and Barb,

but not me? Like, what did he say? I like, I'm missing a very it had to have come up. It had to have come up. Yeah. Something just doesn't add up the entire thing. Yeah. So you we we're saying that based on the story that you've told, it's there's there's not enough information

to be able to help you because either you're gonna have to admit that you never brought this up and neither did he. And that you're when you say that you haven't hugged and there's when twenty years went by, I mean, nobody's grandma died. You know what saying? Like, no no no fight with your best friend on the phone and your husband give you a hug afterwards. You know what I'm saying? Like, your kids weren't staying out later than they shoulda, and you were freaked out about it. Like this dude had no physical reaction to any of those situations. Right. You're you're telling me this Clark Gable has got away with two things. One, he never hugs his wife.

Like she goes in for a hug and he just walks away and yet he still maintains his relationship. And two, she's asked him about it. And he also walked away from that conversation unscathed. I'm not I'm just not buying it. Yeah. There's another one of those. Why don't you know I need this situations. Mhmm.

Okay. Say let's see what Secular says. Secular says the question was, I wanna make sure I'm not being too sensitive. Secular says too sensitive. There is nothing wrong with your quotes perspective. For twenty three years, your passive aggressive husband chose to withhold the gesture of affection you requested while showering other women with it. It's nice that he's finally willing to make the effort to hug you, but frankly, it seems a bit late. It may take a therapist to help work through your justified hurt and anger over this. My advice is to start now. So her advice is you need you need therapy. This is messed up. Yeah. I if if if she the perspective she's saying is true and somehow this guy has behaved this way for years, then, yeah, he's a manipulative turd.

I'm with I'm with I'm agreeing on that. Mhmm. But, like, I just I'm I'm just shy of one even just one. When I asked him about it, he said, what? Like, it just there has to be context to it. Interesting. I don't like hugging you. Okay. Well, then then I know what we're dealing with. I like hugging Janet.

Okay. We got time for one more. It's a married another marriage issue. Yeah. Let's have it. Dear life from the path. I married for the second time two years ago to a younger woman. Seven months after our wedding, she announced she didn't like any like my dominating personality, which is why she was stepping out of the marriage. She then went back to her deadbeat ex boyfriend for six months.

I went for counseling and have made a major change in how I treat, talk, and make decisions with her. I love my wife with all my heart. I want to protect our marriage and move forward from the affair. Our second anniversary is approaching, but she has been interacting with other men. She takes her daughter with another man on play dates along with his daughter and goes to the park with another man for three hours. He was a single dad having a barbecue. The third one is a guy she goes with to the park, splash pads, public swimming pool, and a water slide park. They text each other often. One guy is a married stay at home dad. He has cheated on his wife before. Am I wrong to think that this is unacceptable for a married woman? Any advice would be absolutely appreciated. How old are you, dude? I'm married for the second time two years ago to a younger woman.

Seven months in, she decided he was domineering and terrible. He went to therapy and agreed he was domineering and terrible. And now he's changed a bunch of his ways. Now she's hanging out with a bunch of dudes. Wait. Did they get back together? Yeah. Where where was that? She had an apartment or yeah. What's Yeah. She she cheated on him. Yep. And then they got back together. Oh. Oh, so she ran off to her ex boyfriend.

Yeah. The marriage still happened. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. But she still hangs out with other dudes. A lot of other dudes. Yeah. What's his question? Am I wrong to think that that this is unacceptable for a married woman hanging out with a bunch of other dudes? No, that's not wrong. No, it is unacceptable. Yeah. I mean, I don't know. I, I kind of did like, I'm not convinced that you are Johnny changed his ways yet. Why aren't you going to this barbecue?

Where are you at fella? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, if the bounds of normal marriage would say, you don't get to get the full embrace from somebody else.

She's probably hugging that other cat, cover the barbecue. Yeah, no, no. It's not out of bounds. I mean, does she know you're back together? I kind of went through my mind. Yeah. We're

back together. I completed counseling. Everything's right as rain. Like this kind of gives off the vibe that he doesn't realize how much of an egotistical lizard he was. And so he's like, okay, check that. I got it done. I went to counseling and now we're good to go when she didn't actually come back. Yeah. Yeah. I don't yeah. I mean, we can only speak to this from the way that God designed a man and a woman to interact. Right?

But there's there's, like, 10 parts of this that are not right. Both of you could understand God's perspective on marriage a little bit more. Counseling is not out of the question. But, like, right now, you're not in a functional marriage, buddy. It seems like she cheated on you. You assume you're still married, but she's acting like she has hanging out with five different dudes. I mean, I just I I I don't seek the the company of solo women ever. Yeah. Because

my wife is more than enough. Right? It's it's like she fills that entire role for me. Now does that mean that, like, if I'm going to if I'm dropping my kids off or taking my kids to a party and there's a single mom there that I'm, like, gonna turn around and run and hide. No. Because there's no risk for me because my wife covers all of this for me. Our that's that's what God created the relationship for. And so but you're saying that if you're worried about it, then you know something's already up. Yeah. So that you're yeah. You're you're in big trouble, friend. And it sounds like you're a bit of a turd. I can't quite check the I I can't get the whole gist of it. You said a lot of iffy things about your wife and then casually skip packed exactly what your dominating personality means, but I'm sure it's not great.

Okay. You want secular? Yeah. I don't know. Anybody else? Any other advice for this man? Good fellows. It seems like another inconclusive to me is there's, yeah, there's obviously more, more going on behind the scenes that we don't have or that we're not privy to information of. Think this is how everybody tells the story though. Exactly. It's always one-sided. Know, there's always two sides to a story, you know? Speaker because we're not, we're not hearing how he's engaged in the relationship. He's assuming they're back together, but she's definitely not engaged in the relationship. She's moved on. Yeah. And she takes her daughter with another man on play dates along with his daughter. I mean Not our daughter. Right? So, like, she brought a kid into the relationship. And I don't know that you're owning that either

just by the way that you're explaining this. And once again, like, if there's barbecues going on that you that the kid goes to, I don't know why you're not going, mister family man, mister I'm involved in this marriage. I don't know. My wife don't go nowhere without me apart from when I'm at work. Other than that, wherever my family goes, I'm going because it's my family. We go places together. That's what makes us noticeable as a family. Yeah. Because he he gives interesting details. Like, does it matter that she's younger, or is that part of the issue? Right. He's not entertaining her enough or whatever. He doesn't feel like going to the pool associated with other people or Yeah. Right. She's like, hey, let's go hang out at the pool. And you're like, no, man. Don't wanna go. Cross stitch. Well, I mean, how much younger? I don't, I know. So it would be nice to have a conversation with them to see more, but I can't, I can't say that I think he's a jerk other than, okay. She thought he was, but

maybe she just wasn't having her, entertainment value, you know, goals met because he's a little slower, more of a homebody and she's more of an outside person. I don't know. Yeah. I think it's fine for him to go for him to say, look, if she's cheating you on you in any regard, then yes, you have a problem. It's all right for you to be cautious. Yeah. What I won't render is anything beyond that, given the fact that I don't know anything else about you. And it seems like you're missing key parts of what you told me. Mhmm. Yeah. Secular says it's time for joint counseling with new therapists for you and your wife. I can't think of a better way to drive her away than continuing to obsess about what she may be doing on these outings.

It's hard to envision her carrying on flagrantly with a child in tow. The activities you described seem distinctly family or oriented to me. It appears you still expect her to conform to your idea of how a married woman should behave or you're having serious trust issues. More counseling for you may be in order if your marriage is going to last. No. I agree. He described a lot of family oriented activities of which none of these of which he's attending. Mhmm. And you're right. It would probably be high hard for her to carry out a tour at a fair at a family barbecue.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah, whatever. You still trust each other and the state of your relationship is innocuous. And yeah, I see. Actually, that's maybe that's what you need right now is this is a good, this is counselor time or, or somebody who's not YouTube

who can go, Hey, let's get at least get the, get all the stuff on the table. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's right. And we talked about that before. Like, doesn't have to be someone who's gonna give you any particular advice. You just need a third party who can, when you say something go, hey, what you said didn't make any sense. Yeah. Or no, shut up a minute. Let that person finish talking. And then you can go, like, you just need a traffic cop for a bit so you can get all your stuff out on the on the table. Yeah. Because I actually when you when you spit out the bull weasel in three people in the room, it feels different. Like, that? What's that? Sorry. When you spit out the bull weasel? Yeah. When you tell them lies or say something ridiculous. Okay. Got it. And then it's just you and your lady. You, like, get passes. Right? But then you say it with you, your lady, and then even one other, even non nonimportant person in the room, you're like, boy, that sounded dumb. Yeah. I shouldn't have said that. I can't now everybody knows how dumb it is. Yeah. And so, like, even just by getting another person involved in the situation, I feel like some of these ridiculous things will come to an end. Yeah. I think that's right. Hey. You've been listening live from the path. Thanks for hanging out with us tonight. We really do appreciate it. If you got any feedback for us on the show, make sure to hit up that live from the path. Bob Eisenhower at Bateline. (515) 517-0085. Call or text. We would love to hear from you. Any comments you got on the show? Also, hey. You listen to me. We're coming up on the five hundred show. I need your help with something. I want you I'm gonna tell you what it is next week, but just just be thinking about it. Say, Ben needs my help, and I'm ready to give it. That way your mind you start praying on like Dan did. Yeah. Like, your mind is pumped. You're ready to go. That way when the when the when the request comes in, you're like, heck, man. I was I was I'm ready to give the farm away already. Yeah. K. So be be jazzed for that. We do have I think we're maybe 15 episodes away from our five hundredth episode. So, yeah, I'll, I'll let you know what I need from you next week. In the meantime, be faithful in the means. God will handle the ends. You've been listening to live from the path.