Live from the Pathway Studios in Johnston Proper. You are live from the path. And you're listening to live from the past from Buford of Pathway Studios in Johnston Proper. Mike, where's the we're a thrift store priest at your role in the thrift store. I'm gonna wait. I thought you had another I did. I did. Oh, yeah. Dan. Dan's got him held hostage. Put him put him in the shot. Right. Yeah. I bought I found another thrift store priest at a thrift store in Iowa City. And he was except he's like sitting.

Like sitting and praying. There we go. He seemed awesome. Hey. He's a lazy thrift store priest? I like to I like to think that he got so tired of standing because he was standing and praying for weeks on end that he had to take a sit I see. But would refuse to lay down. That was my perception of him. Anyway, so so just before the show started, Mike, you were talking about Joshua and the call, the the the the the God's call to him to be courageous. Yeah. I was I was just gonna I was just gonna look it up.

It's so a quick look into my into my thought process here is I've been trying to you know how I get all fired up about not not reading the news and and staying off of Facebook most of the time or whatever. And so every time I've had I've had an urge to to just check my phone real quick, I've I've been forcing myself just to open the Bible app and see what's what. Just basically play like Bible Lottery, you know, and and see what see what spins out. And so and frankly, it's working. I I once again, that stupid the stupid red circle with the numbers on it, I get these notifications, and when you ignore Facebook long enough, they start really reaching. You know, they're like, boy, this guy you've talked to one time, he's planning on going to this event on Saturday. I'm like, wow. Don't care at all. Better check that Why does that get a red circle? It used to be, hey. Someone put your face in in here, or you were signed up to go do this. But now it's just 17 people away from you decided maybe he wants to go to a car show. How do feel about that? I don't feel about that at all. I don't think that deserves a number. So anyway That's awesome. So I've been I've been flying out the Bible app instead, just figuring out what's what's better? I'd rather just read out He's a blubs you. A paragraph of the Bible. So anyway, it spins up this Joshua verse, and it was pretty standard

stuff. It was when Moses had died and Joshua was taking over leadership of the Israelites. And one of the things that, it stood out to me because the text had God saying, the Lord saying, Be courageous as you go do this. I was thinking about it for a minute and it's not really something that, I guess,

I attribute to something that humanity would normally do, right? Because usually, for you to be courageous, there has to be a certain mini throne in your life to be like, I am this. I am courageous because I am this. Like on the other side, we're generally like, Look, if you want courage, you need to ask the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit will provide courage. He brings all good things. So it was weird to me that God was saying to a human

to be courageous. Because what is that really, right? And I didn't check the translation to see what the root word was, just to make sure that we hadn't just made it courageous. But usually courage is like inner strength or inner peace, even in turmoil. And normally,

we would say, You farm that kind of stuff out to Jesus. Right? If you're in the straits, you go, I don't have peace here, but the Holy Spirit can bring peace, that's who I will pray to and ask for. So it was just interesting. I've been thinking about it all day, on and off, just about the Lord telling telling Joshua to be courageous. Yeah. I think there's it it gets in where we risk two extremes in life where we say God's expectation of humanity is to basically carry the whole load and impress him, or god's expect expectation of humanity is to do jack nothing, and he simply wants to puppet you around through the through the spirit. And I think both of those are too far. If you're gonna bend either way, I'd bend more towards the spirit thing. But, like,

you can't even think of it like that. Like, for the same reason I would reject reformed theology that says God has predetermined absolutely everything in my life and I have no agency or ability to make choices because love because I I trust God when he says he loves us and I think love requires the option. In that same way, you don't you don't that concept isn't replaced by the presence of the Holy Spirit either. Like it like, even Jesus describes the Holy Spirit as the helper, not as the overrunner.

Right. And so I so I think we have to and, like, I I sometimes I'm hesitant to broach this particular thing only because I think, especially in a Western context, we don't rely enough on the Holy Spirit. We don't trust it. We're not open to it. And I think that's to our own detriment. But I think it's a row of the boat too far to the West to think that some of the things that God doesn't call us to in Scripture aren't things he otherwise expects that we're capable of doing as humans. Actually, here, so let me read it. Take

the chunk of the speech in and look at the things that God is asking Joshua to be responsible for and the actions that he's asking him to take, versus what we would normally expect out of a Western Christian. Okay, yep. So after the death of it's Joshua one. After the death of Moses, the servant of the Lord, the Lord said to Joshua the son of Nun, Moses' assistant, Moses my servant is dead. Now therefore arise, go over this Jordan, you and all this people, into the land that I am giving to them, to the people of Israel. Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given to you, just as I promised to Moses. From the wilderness in this Lebanon, as far as the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites to the great sea towards the going down of the sun shall be your territory. That's a cool way to describe your territory, by the way. It's everything to where the going down of the sun is. No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life. Just as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you or forsake you. Be strong and courageous, for you shall cause this people to inherit the land that I swore to their fathers to give them. Only be strong and very courageous, being careful to do according to all the law that Moses my servant commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may have good success wherever you go. Book of law, meditate on it day and night, be careful to do all that's written, I will make your way prosperous. Yeah. Bibbidi bibbidi. So,

I mean, it's right in what you're saying. God imbues a certain amount of responsibility here. And actually, it's been that way since Genesis, right? Where He says, Look, I want to co run a world with you. It's my world. I want to give you responsibility over it. I want to give it to you as a gift, which comes with it all loads of responsibility. I want you to name these animals. That means you're responsible for them. You name things you're responsible for. Adam, name the animals. And so it really is maybe it's a line that I actually struggle with. I don't actually know where the Holy Spirit should stop and start and what I am Like, sometimes I'll give myself a pass. I'm like, Man, I stink at this. I'm gonna have to Right? And there's nothing wrong with going back to the Lord, going, I'm not doing well here. I'm letting this lie flat. I'm letting it fail. I need your help. And some of it is, stop doing that.

Stop screwing that up. Make yourself quit it. Beat your body into submission, as Paul says. There is a time where you get to stop shrugging your shoulders and go, Oh man, I let it happen again, or, Oh man, I'm turning out to be a jerk again. It's like, Quit it. You're responsible for stopping doing that. It's not a magical Holy Spirit dust that comes by. Now, if you were reading the Scriptures day and night and not deviating to the right or to the left, then I would say you're doing your part, and you would also not be a huge jerk right now. But you didn't do any of those things. In fact, that tends to be the root of almost all those things, is people look for a active and, how do I wanna say that? Like an active and interactive Holy Spirit, right, that will show up and shake things up in your life. And on my honor, I believe that's true. I believe the Holy Spirit does do that. And I believe the Holy Spirit does it in crazy, not crazy, in

anti normal ways. I believe the Holy Spirit does that. I've seen the Holy Spirit do it. It's flat out awesome. But, in all those times where you're struggling, I can almost guarantee you are not submitting to any of the things that Jesus already put down, or the things that Yahweh had already asked. Right? Like being in his Word, praying and having conversation with him on the daily basis, on the hourly basis, right? So I would say that there was a huge problem when people find themselves down and out and they're like, The Holy Spirit's not showing up. It's not doing any crazy thing in my life. You're not actually submitting to God or the Bible anyway. And so I would guess that's probably why that's not happening.

Yes. Yeah, yeah, I would agree with that. I think it's I don't know if it's a difficult line or that you even it's necessary that you discern it, I guess. Like, if if the only thing within your human control is to walk faithfully to the best of your ability and to to what God has called you to do,

then that's the limits of you what you're capable of. To the extent that you need help on trying to discern what is what it is to walk faithfully or you need help in doing that or interacting and trying to accomplish god's means, the spirit is there to to to be part of that very thing. And so and and there are plenty of things that you will not accomplish if you try to do them under your own accord. Like, that's the thing. These things are not at odds with each other and you can't kind of pick and choose them. It's your faithful walking in God's faithful provision of the spirit. And so I think it is not necessary that would that it be a thing that we feel like we have to sort out. Yeah. And so actually, it probably is a right understanding

of what you are capable of versus what God is capable of. Right? Like and and actually, where it starts to blend over, think, is where we start to we start to have a hard time. But but when you're praying There's undoubtedly people in your family that don't know Jesus, and it breaks your heart. That is not something you can do. I mean, you can certainly not shy away from the conversations when they show up, but you cannot will it into existence that they meet Jesus in a dynamic way. You just can't. But you can pray and pray and pray and pray on that. That's the right place for that. That is exactly within the power of who God is and the work the Holy Spirit does. And you'd be amazed if what you can do is pray. And what it does is show your relationship with God is in its correct proportion. I am submitting to you things that I cannot accomplish because you are God and you are holy and you bring people to you and I can't do that on my own. It's the same thing when you're preaching or leading worship or teaching Sunday school, right? You cannot give ears to hear. You can faithfully teach the Bible for thirty years and without ears to hear, you're a weeping prophet. You're a nothing. Nothing happens. Nothing changes. Right? And so the ears to hear, that's God's that's God's area. The faithfulness to the thing he has you doing, that's your area. And so I think if you can get those things kinda straightened out on where on on what God has called you to submit to him, as long as you're not trying to take his things and make them your things, that's the problem. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think that's the core thing, is that we put too many of these things at odds that say guys like James don't have at odds. And frankly, don't even think Paul has at odds

when he talks about like what we what we believe and the ways in which we trust God and then what we do. They're not separated in the way we often try to to sort them out. And there is a there is certainly a notion where where if you wake up in the morning and you say, God, I I wanna walk faithful to you today. I'm gonna need your help. I'm likely to get tempted in this area. You know I screwed this thing up. I don't my heart's not right and I need your help in resolving that so that I may walk faithfully in the things that you've otherwise instructed me. Or the Bible clearly teaches that I'm to walk faithful in. And so like I think Joshua, it's like as an example. And this shows up in the book of Esther. Oddly enough. If you remember, the Haserus or Xerxes has

been influenced by Haman to have the Jews killed because Haman's hosed off because what's the Mordecai? Mordecai refuses to bow down to him, probably because he's an Agite. And so so Mordecai refused to bow down to him, and so the then the Jews are gonna be eliminated, which could include probably will include Esther. And what Mordecai says, who's Esther's uncle, says, look, you should talk to the king. And here's the thing.

If you talk to him or you don't talk to him, it's like, God will like, this will get solved. Mordecai's position is that God's people will make their way through this. But whether Esther makes her way through that is a different story. Because his assumption is is that God will be faithful. Where where where God's people are faithful and it's debatable whether Mordecai's made the right stand here. But, like, where God's people walk faithfully, the expectation that God will then act faithfully is is a good one, is a solid expectation.

But, like, it doesn't it doesn't take out of the hands of of the Jewish people or God's people to have also walked faithfully. So like I said, they're not we shouldn't think of them as separate things to be able to continue to do and be the things that God has called us to. We walk faithfully, and then we trust that God will provide in the means that he does. And that doesn't always mean earthly protection. It doesn't always mean that God's people are going to live in the way that maybe they want to from an earthly perspective. But it does mean that God that we can trust God to otherwise handle his affairs. And that includes helping his people and coming to the raid when it is necessary or when it is or when he wants it to be the case. And so I just we just gotta I think that there's a risk not I don't wanna find a middle ground here just so there's not contention. I actually think there's a legit understanding that like it's both. This is a both and. You have to walk faithfully and God will be with you. And it doesn't mean like you get to every

step isn't one of which you say, Holy Spirit, puppet me around today. I'm open to it. God, if you got me to go anywhere, show me. And I will gladly go. But that's me being open to walk faithfully to wherever God has me and asking God and inviting him in so that I may listen and hear and see him speak in case he's speaking in a way that I can point me in the direction of which time to walk faithfully. But it doesn't absolve us of not only personal, of human level courage. Hey, be courageous. Be very courageous. You're going to need it. Or even like I was telling the guys that there's a spot in Ezekiel I was reading this week. It's Ezekiel 18. And like, he basically like, God lays out, here's here's what a righteous man here's what here's the they're act they're all actions. They're not like, hey, he believes strongly in his heart that Yahweh is good. He's righteous. I know we tried to get there, but that's not what it is. He describes if a man acts righteously or if a man is wicked, he has what's coming to him. Now, following that, God steps in at the end of the chapter and says, if anyone who is wicked believes in the Lord is God, then his sins will be forgiven. Right? So like there is there's still a notion of you have personal responsibility for the types of things or the things that you're doing, and then God generally has a way to to interact with in one way or another. But it's it is a both and.

You don't abdicate being a human who is creating God's image to do God's work nor do you get to be able to say, I don't do anything and God will carry me around. Yeah. Where do you think people struggle the most in that dichotomy? I struggle with the spirit part. Like a lot of where I feel if my relationship is closest with God is when I've got my rhythms better, when I'm getting up and reading my Bible, when I feel like I have been intentional with my prayer time, which are good things. And I think that's okay actually. I think there's parts of that are it's supposed to feel good when you're getting relationship things right, when you feel closer to your wife because you're spending time with her and you're doing things that she asked you to do and you know that that it makes her happy, I think it's okay that those feel that way.

But there are times when that blends to me where I might be focusing on all those things and I'm not allocating time or space for the spirit, one, to help me. Like, all the responsibility falls on me. I need to do better, and I'm kind of refusing a helper. Not intentionally, but I just am. I know I am with how I think about it. I'm not inviting I'm trying to offer God something as opposed to inviting him to walk it with me. And that's what the helper is for. And so that's where my balance tends to get hosed up is that. And then sometimes, like, where I'm where I try really hard to get the spirit stuff right, I feel stymied. Like I can't do anything.

Like I don't know what to do. I didn't hear it like, if God didn't have anything special for me to do today, am I not listening to the spirit? Is the spirit not talking to Is it because I've got sin in my life? Is it like something that says I'm not getting the interaction that maybe I would expect if the Spirit were running stuff? And that I think is just a miss. It's a slight miss on what the spirit is is around to do. I think the spirit does do those things. But I think if the notion is that I I have no idea, I I can't take a step in confidence that God is good and with me today if I didn't hear or feel something. I think that otherwise ties Christians up too. And I think that's

not a right view of the world either. Where do you get tied up? Yeah, I would say it's a both. It almost feels like, say, if I wasn't keeping up on my Bible reading, like at a level of which I set. Right? I say, look, every day I wanna get up and do this, or every day I wanna spend fifteen, twenty minutes or something in the morning praying and all that, and I miss a day. I'm like, oh, that happened. And then I miss another day and I'm like, oh man. And now I just assume the Lord is angry with me and the Holy Spirit's not interested in coming to be in my life or help me right now because I'm not willing to least meet him halfway. That's a really broad misunderstanding of the way the Holy Spirit works. And we get used to this in some of the religiosity of it, right? Like, if I can't even hold up my half of the bargain, it's not like my Father doesn't see me struggling and knows that I didn't do it intentionally. I am probably being a little bit irresponsible.

But like my father doesn't just throw up his hands and go, I'm done with Micah, till he gets this handled, right? Right. And so it's a complete misunderstanding of God's character and the way the Holy Spirit works. I can tell you right now that I've had my best experiences with God when I have spent time on my face going, I cannot do this without you. I just can't. These are things that I've been worrying about or that I've been thinking about. They're sucking up emotional energy. And instead of allowing God to take that from me, I basically just ended up going, I know that I can't address this without you, so I'm open. I'm just gonna sit here and be open. And I did pretty much zero Bible reading in that time period, but boy did I spend a lot of time with my ear to the ground just letting God listen to me and me listen for him. And so think there's benefits and

risks with that type of approach, that's your whole thing. I think that to some certain extent, get to do that because I know God pretty well, because I've read his scripture a lot. I kinda know his character, I know what he's going, you know, the way his heart works, and so I don't see a bunch of things coming out of left field. But if you continue to do that, then you start to mold God in your own image because you forget to reference who his character is anymore, and then you're off on a weird, crazy tangent where you expect God to do the rain today, and if he doesn't, then you have to stay home because God didn't bless the day with rain. You know what I'm saying? It gets to be real weird real fast. So I think I get hung up on predetermined check marks of Christianity that if I don't hit, I start to feel guilty or like God is not gonna deal with me until I get them fixed. Same thing with sin. Like, if there's a sin in your life, I've talked to tons of people that this is the deal. They sin and they feel terrible,

but they don't want to talk to God about it because they think God's mad at them and he's not gonna deal with it. And they spend way longer separated from God that is necessary. Because God says, I don't need separation from you at all. I just need you to admit that you need me and then let me do what I do, which is take this sin off of you and bring you right back next to me. And people will spend months, years away from God, trying to hide a sin that God obviously knows about and is willing to forgive the millisecond after it was done. And so I think a lot of people struggle with that too. Dan, do you feel like is that a balance you ever you have or do struggle with? Yeah. You know, I was kinda all over the place listening to you guys each kinda give give your your thing. And and going back to the courage

thing, you look at what Joshua had. I mean, God gave him some big tasks. I mean, you're you're gonna take the promised land. You know, that's like a big deal. They just spent forty years wandering slowly watching one by one the elderly all die off and being miraculously fed and and, you know, I mean, these are big shoes to fill anyway, being a leader now after Moses.

And now it's like, okay. You're fine. We're gonna go. We're gonna do this. This thing we left Egypt for, we're about to do. But you gotta kill everybody. You gotta conquer all these lands. I mean, the the it's gonna take some courage. Yep. It's it's gonna take you know, it's not just a matter of god's saying, I'm gonna be with you, and you're gonna win, but he still he tells him he has to be strong and courageous because he he has to be strong and courageous. Right. I mean and and I think we we we face that all the time. I'm not I'm not conquering a promised land, but but I have a whole scripture full of instruction. I mean, I know I have a mission in life and to make disciples, and and and it's as I go. It's not like just going have to I'm gonna go to Texas and and make this you know, it's like, no. It's like, I'm I'm at the grocery store. I'm supposed to be making disciples, you know, it's like wherever I go. And and I'm not courageous enough to do that half the time. Right. And and even though I know the holy spirit's with me, I know he put me in a specific spot for a specific reason to talk to a specific person, and I'll think, I don't know. Should I say anything? Right. Is this the tapes? You know? I'm just yeah. You know, well, come on, God. Just give me a sign. Well, they're standing in front of you. You know? Right. There's a fallen world to surround you. What what do you wanna look at? What else do you want? You know, all the scripture you've read and taught for years,

and and and this person who needs me is right in front of you, and you're just still wondering, like, well, I don't know what I should do about this. Maybe I shouldn't bring this up right now. Yeah. Yeah. I'll probably say something stupid, and then he'll turn his back on you forever. And it's like, well, he already did, so go ahead and say something. You know? Goes, I'm willing to take that risk. Go ahead. Yeah. Yeah. Well, let's see how it pans out. So I need to be strong and courageous, and and so often I'm not. And even though I know that holy spirit of God is living in me and he's, you know, promised all this stuff, I mean, I'm doing his job, not mine. Yeah. Yeah. So that's a that's a struggle. And and today, I'm watching a training video

from Dean Trunes, if you know who that is, and he was talking about prayer, which he often talks about. And I'm sitting there going, this is not rocket science. We just stop. We just quit. I know how to pray, and I've had times of great prayer, and then I have times of like, yeah, I should pray. Yeah. Right? Yeah. Maybe tomorrow. I'm gonna start I gotta plan. I'm gonna make a plan and a journal. I gotta make a journal. I'm gonna get up at 04:30. Get up at 04:30. Yeah. After Lenture night. Just just pray, you know? And I don't know. Yeah. So that's kind of where I'm weak and

let's see. What's the opposite of strong and courageous? I am weak and timid too often. So, yeah. Can you imagine the type of courage it would take to go unarmed up to the walls of Jericho? Mean, on We're gonna march side around the road the wall. Some barbarians. And you show up with some kazoos. And I mean,

this is not a faith question, right? Like, God says, go up there and you go, yeah, okay. But you still have to take the first step heading towards that wall with the kazoo band. This is a drunken plot. It's like, hey boys. Grab the Vuvuzelas. We're gonna tear this joint down by marching around the city. Yeah. Like, it like, it doesn't it it doesn't hit logic. Well, you know everyone inside those walls are laughing at you. Yeah. I mean, they say you're tweeting it. We're gonna shout. We're gonna what? We're gonna shout. Are you sure shout, I say. Not till I tell you. Yeah. It's just, just, just, just, just, not time yet. Shut up, Carl. Put on the good robe today. I mean, first, I mean You tell me there wasn't, like, during the shout, there wasn't at least half those guys eyeballing the rest of them to see whether they're actually gonna do it. Yeah. Right. You wait on first. Wait until the seconds. They looked Joseph or they got Joshua doing it. He's like, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We're doing it too. I got a cop. Oh, okay. Yeah. I'm

in. They probably did a dry run and Joshua told everybody not to do it but Steven. They're like, Steven, you look so ridiculous. Told you to be strong and courageous. It should be embarrassing, actually, the level of I don't know. The lacklusterness of which we live by, Yeah. You

I mean, here's it, God designed you. He's he's he looked down and said, this is this is good. This is good. Like, what it's it's okay to feel I think we've struggled with this notion of of of guilt and sinful from our from the mother's womb that makes it feel like we cannot be confident as as God's ambassadors in the world. And that, like, if if we don't like, the humility means that we must

demonstrate at all times our worthlessness. But, like, God looked out and said, want you and I want you to not just because I want you as part of my kingdom. He also said, I want you to do some stuff and I'm telling you that you're capable of it and I want you to go do that. And then when you're gonna hose it up and rebel against me because I also am aware of who you are, I'll be there to clean that up too because I still love you and I still have things for you to do. Because like even the notion even the notion of like eternal life with

with Yahweh at the end of the book of Revelation like there's still people doing stuff. Like they're still working. They're still ruling. They're still watching over. Like there's this notion of responsibility and stuff to do. And so like, I I I just this if there's a way to get this, like, humble

holy confidence Mhmm. Like, that's the way to walk into the world, is that boy, I am free as a bird and saved as the day is long because God is good and my failure will not stop the kingdom and I will enter into any conversation, into any situation, not because I'm confident that I won't hose it up but because God created me for good things and he will help me accomplish them. And like, if we can walk in that, I think I think that's that's the world changes. That's why the the the the young church in Acts

after is it after Pete and friends get out of jail, and they're praying for boldness? They're like, just help us to be bold. Like, they wanna do the things. And so, like, I I guess that's the that's the core point. It's it's it's not really a partnership as in a fifty fifty. But, I mean, you're in it. And God wanted you in it, and he wanted to do it with humans because he could have accomplished a lot of these things in any other way. And he said, I want you humans to do it. If he just wanted to put on a show on a puppet show, like, yes, he could have done that. He could have just, like kind of this notion of how Satan enters Judas.

You could have this notion of that the spirit enters Thomas. And then now, Thomas had no control over himself and God just puppeted him around and he did everything he was asked. But like even Jesus goes to the cross willingly under his own volition as a human. And like, that's us. That's humble holy confidence is being like Jesus. We're like, I'm gonna do the hard thing that I need courage for, that I'm gonna pray and angels will attend to me as I need to be blessed and prepared for the sacrifice that's gonna be made, but they still had to walk it. Jesus still had to do it. And so like, I I just, yeah, it's it's it's finding that notion of believing both things very, very strongly that God has created you for do for doing things and it's and you need to do them. Like, he expects you to behave well. He expects you when sin comes up. He expects you to walk away. He expects you to close the internet browser, say no to the conversation, and leave the candy bar where it's at if you don't have any change in your pocket. He expects you to do that, not just like, boy, I hope the spirit stops me from stealing this Kit Kat because otherwise, I'm gonna do it. Like, it's it's not that. And so, like, take some responsibility for yourself and then pray humbly and boldly for the spirit to direct you to places to go and to be there to help you do the things that you know you want to do that your human heart and soul will struggle with. Mhmm. I love it when I was reading today

when Jesus during the trial time is before Pilate, had to be Pilate. And and Pilate's like, don't you understand, you know, who I am basically? I have the authority to to do what I want with you. And he's like, yeah, really my friend, you only have the authority the father's given you. I mean, I I give my own life. You you got nothing here. Right. And to have that kind of confidence in this world as we walk around and live our life that you know what? God's given me this mission and and whatever happens, you know, I might be a Steven and get stoned, whatever, I'm fine. Or I might be a Paul and plant a church or whatever. I mean, I'm just gonna do whatever and just let God lead and just let him do it. And confidently be okay with whatever happens. We're afraid of the outcome always, the personal outcome. I don't want to sacrifice. I don't want any discomfort in this.

Most I mean, honestly, most of the time we don't have any of that. Most of all you might have a little just keep doing his work. Yeah. You know what, while you were talking, it made me think of the fruits of the spirit, right? And like, I was putting all these words together and it's

in Galatians, it says, But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control, against such things there is no law. And I thought, you know what all those words remind me of? Smiling. Right? They all remind me of And you know what I find confident people doing? Smiling. Smiling. Right? They're just like, Okay. And so it seems like when we sign up to follow Jesus, we're trying to apply for the job position that's the martyr, the suffering guy, right? The guy that's like, Oh yeah, man, I've really suffered for this thing. All these things in there, All the devil's already after me all the time. I don't think it's so bad. Or these people that I'm trying to help that are a burden on me. And, like, you know what saying? Like and and, like, it's not that it's not true. It's not that, like, hey, man. People are heavy and weighty, and, like, they they will eat up every resource you got. Except all the martyrs go down swinging. Read the scriptures like they all go down swinging, talking I about

think what we're talking about here is like, it's not that we're talking about not, you're facing all these things and on your own steam, it should certainly bury you. Yeah. Right? The work of the Holy Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, self control. Right? These are the things that put you in the exact same position, take the weight off of your ankles, and put you there with a smile, and let you enjoy what is happening here. Whether the thing that you're going through is horrible, it can be. It's not to say that bad things aren't happening to you or the people around you, but

certainly do have a choice on whether you succumb to it. Or whether you say, Yeah, you're right. That weight has gotta be bigger than me or the Holy Spirit. I'm just gonna go down with the ship. Right. And this is how Jesus can look at the crowd and say, Father, forgive them. They don't understand what they're doing. And Stephen can do the exact same thing. Mhmm. Like and how they how they meet those things, it's it's not that they weren't going to meet those things. It's how they're able to do it. And that it becomes even in those moments, it becomes a witness. Like, think think of that. When Jesus is on the cross, like what is it? It's like three? Is it three in in in the book of Luke? Like, the guy next to him, right, one of the one of the thieves basically comes to Jesus and the Roman guard comes to Jesus. There was like, there was somebody else too, where, like, the people are becoming The the cross carrying guy. Oh, it's Sy yeah. Simon Cyrene. Yeah. Yeah. And so, like, you've got you've got even in the story of his crucifixion, people are pulling close to Yahweh through the through what Jesus is doing in ways that they have they don't even understand.

And it's because of how he's handling a situation, fruit of spirit. Like like, they might have killed him anyway. But like, even through your faithful walk like walking in faithfulness to what God does yes. I think so. I think certainly the spirit can direct it. The certainly the spirit can can point you to different things, will give you gifts to be able to handle them. But like ultimately, it's it's it's still both. You walking in faithfulness and God being faithful in his provision so that the thing you're trying to walk faithful in can actually occur.

And I I I just if we could just wake up with some boldness. Boy, that that's me. That's that's what I that's that's what I'm I'm praying about, I guess. Is that like, as opposed to can like, constantly reliving where where I failed to walk faithfully or where I feel like I've not been faithful enough or where I felt like, boy, I'm not doesn't it do seem like the earth is shaking when I take the gospel places? Is it because I'm not listening or this god's abandoned me or the spirit's not doing or whatever? Like, that lack of confidence totally ties me up for Kingdom Ark. It causes me to be less bold because I fear what could happen on the other side. Am I gonna extend a branch that God didn't want me to? Am I gonna make a promise that God won't keep?

Am I going to step out on something that seems like my own idea and then God won't support, and then that guy loses Jesus, and then lose confidence even worse. And so it's just that humble holy confidence thing that if we could just trust that why would God abandon me there? If my heart is if my if my heart wakes up every morning and goes, I I just want I know I didn't get it right yesterday or the day before or however many days preceded that one, but, like, I'm gonna walk my very best, Jesus, within the confines of my my fallible human body and a fallible human world. I I I want to do your will here. Why would I expect that God wouldn't be there for me in that? I want I want what he wants. He'll be there. He'll show up. He'll do the things that he says he will do. Like it's just yeah. I want that. And I'm missing it chasing human level

evaluation on what I've done. And like if there's a great level set, it's like God looks out and like of all the filthy rags that I have to offer up and he goes, yeah, yeah, I saw that. I took care of. I love you. I knew that.

But I got you the spirit and boy, things are gonna light up. Go, go. And I'm like, yeah, but did you see the rags I brought? And he's like, seriously, put them back outside. They stink. Why you keep bringing that stuff in here? And, like, not only do I not have I taken care of that, but, like, it it doesn't hinder your ability to be in my presence, but it does seem to hinder your my mind to be able to do anything outside of it. And so yeah. Yeah. What a thing to be praying on. Alright. You're listening to Live From The Path. Thanks for hanging out with us. That wasn't even a Yeah. Yeah. Whatever. We haven't even started the show. Joshua. Welcome. Let's see. If you wanna interact with the show, maybe you have thoughts on it. Maybe you're is that something that you struggle with? Like, either I I always hesitate with the word balance here, but, like, acknowledging both are true. Is that something that you struggle with or something where you've, you know, had some epiphanies in this area or, like, God has kinda shown you how to think about that and it's really helped, drop us a note on the complaint line. It's (515) 517-0085.

That's the Bob Eisenlauer impression and complaint line. Here in Life From The Path, we'd love to be able to hear from you. No impressions over the last two What? Tapped the talent. Wow. Yeah. That's my guess. That's disappointing. Yeah. And I didn't hear from I didn't hear from Buva who who the second and third impressions were. He probably did not listen to that show. Oh. Even though he knew he was gonna be on it. That that that's really turned the corner. That's the height of arrogance.

I know I'm gonna be there, and I still refuse to take it in. Arrogant is to check it out. The height of arrogance is to not check it out. Hey. Speaking of Buva, Buva had Pope style this week. No kidding? Hold on. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Hold on. I gotta find it. He he archaically sent it to me via email. What a rube. Why? How would you have done it? Dropbox? Oh.

Don't want Dropbox anything. That's the way to do it. Okay. Hold on. Let me let me just check real quick and see see if I can locate this file here. Just a moment. Well, what what are we supposed to do in the meantime? I don't know. I said, I gave you a moment. Make a lemonade. Up with an elaborate story. Me and Dan are barely friends. We don't have anything to talk about. Dan's taking the word tracksuits, and I don't know what to say about it. Hey, when's the last time either of you have worn a pair of suspenders? I don't recall.

Yeah. Years. Hey, my wife tried to get me a new pair of sandals a couple weeks back. Said mine were, well, I need new ones. I'm like, I barely wear them, like, once a year. I've had them for like five years. I wear them one time a year. Yeah, it's time for new ones. I'm like, they they probably got ten, fifteen more summers in them. I bet I mean, do people wear sandals out? I've never I I don't wear sandals, really. Yeah. I don't either. I was shocked and amazed that people would need new pairs of sandals. Yeah. Never heard of such a thing. Yeah. My wife wears sandals out. Like, she'll go through a pair every year or two years and we'll have to buy more. That's outrageous. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Alright. I think I got this Pope's advice. Hold on. This

is this is happening. Hey, everybody. It's John Bubba here with a live from the path from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Haven't been on the show in a while and was just talking to Mike and Ben about what's been going on in my life. And I decided that I wanted to record a Pope style advice for you guys so that I could give you a little bit update on what's going on.

Just a real quick update. I am married now to the woman of my dreams. Can't believe it. Got married back in September, been about six months now. And yeah, it's craziness. Can't believe that that's happening, but God's been moving big stuff for me. So yeah, Really excited. But anyway, my Pope's advice that I wanted to talk to you guys about was in regards to testimony. Testimony and evangelism

and the concept of talking about Jesus to other people and being bold in your willingness to to spread the gospel news. Right? And I've been in a couple different positions in the church, not necessarily from a job perspective, but just, you I've been a newcomer in the church, I've been a kid in the church, I've been a youth pastor or a youth leader, excuse me, in the church. I've done a lot of different things when it comes to that stuff. But I've gotten a question

as a leader and I've had the question as someone who was in these kind of classes about how we're supposed to talk to people about Jesus. Right? And we've all heard that question. Like we have we have so many people that have come up with with schnazzy new ways to share your testimony. Or I always come back to that million dollar bill that's the Bible tract you're supposed to leave for your server and they're supposed to read through that and it's got a bunch of Bible stories or verses or something like that. But I've been asked on multiple occasions like how do you talk to people about Jesus? What do you do? What's that look like? And I think Mike and Ben and Dan have done a good job of explaining this on a couple different occasions, talking about the concept that,

you know, the biggest testimony that you can offer and the biggest thing you can offer for for people really, rather than just being willing to hand them a script or hand them a Bible track or hand them something that is like, rehearsed and things like that. Like this is my story. I'm gonna make sure I know it. I'm make certain I have a couple of quips in there that are funny.

It's more about making certain you're there for people. Right? Like like the gospel happens in a lot of ways when you're able to create a relationship with people and when you're able to work with them in a lot not just like one off situations. No. Those definitely happen, and I think that there's biblical evidence of those things happening where it's just a one off thing where somebody hears it and then it gets changed or something like that. But I don't think we do that a lot. I think I think we do either the the Bible track and the rehearsed story or we work in the concept of of developing that relationship with people

and then really meeting their needs. Like people people see Jesus in your actions a lot more than they hear Jesus in your words sometimes. And I think that they push on that. But what I'm coming from and where I'm talking about is I I really was, like, heart punched recently

about how the Gospel moves and how Jesus works through us and and that kind of stuff. And and it came from I was reading Fox's Book of Martyrs, actually, the other day. Opened it up and started reading through it. And and it's got the the first accounts of the apostles and what happened to all of them. Most of them were violently killed and murdered for the good news of Christ to continue. And then you go into the first century church and what's happening

all over Rome and into Asia Minor and things like that. And and the people are just being persecuted truthfully over and over again in so many different communities and in so many different ways by by Jews or by the Romans or mean, just all over the place. These people are being just murdered

for their faith in Christ. They're followers of the Way and and that's a problem. God or excuse me, Jesus at that point in time was subversive to what culture was in that area. Both to the Romans understanding that at that point, I believe Caesar was just king. Caesar was meant to be like the the son of a god or a god himself. And and here comes Jesus saying, well, I'm the son of God. I'm the Messiah, which was a word that that would have been thrown around. And that was big. That was crazy. And so people are like, no, you can't follow that guy. He was he was literally a rebel against Rome. You're gonna kill him. We're gonna kill you. Same with against the the Jewish people. I mean, honestly, it was it was blasphemy that was being offered and they were they were being killed for that. And so

I'm reading through this book and it starts to hit me that regardless of these murders and this persecution and people being killed for for just stating that they believe that Jesus was the Christ and and and was the Son of God. And they're being killed for this. But what really struck me was

the people that are around them that are hearing either their boldness or their testimony and are being converted to Christ. That's what was crazy to me, was these people are living their lives and are being persecuted at the end and are being told, you know, you have to forsake God. And these people are saying absolutely not. That's not gonna happen.

And instead, not only am I not gonna forsake God, I'm going to at the time that you're attempting to murder me, I'm going to take this opportunity, excuse me, the pulpit that you've given me, I'm going to talk about my father and my king and my God and tell you who he truthfully is, what he means to me in life. And it floored me. I think it was Polycarp specifically had said that, you know, I've been in this life or I've been in this earth like eighty and six years, something like that, and never once has God forsaken me, so why would I forsake him now? I'm paraphrasing, obviously, that's not a direct quote. But it was essentially that. He was saying, I'm 86 years old. Throughout these eighty six years, God has never forsaken me once.

How could I possibly turn around to him at the end and forsake him? And that made a lot of people angry to where they they put him on on the stake and were going to burn him alive. And usually the person is nailed to the stake. And I think that that Fox's Book of Martyrs comments on, he wasn't even nailed to it. He was just kind of tied to it because he was so resolute in the fact that he was willing to accept this end that he wouldn't even really fight it or need to be nailed down. He'd be willing to stand within the flames with no issues. And the story goes that the the flames didn't touch him. The flames didn't kill him in any way shape or form. They didn't burn his skin.

What happened was he ended up having to be taken by the sword and and what came from him extinguished the fire around him. Like, what an insane way. Imagine being a person that witnesses that kind of faith and that kind of boldness in Christ, that you are willing to truthfully die, not be persecuted from the perspective of, oh, I can't go to church anymore, or at least what I consider to be church, which is the building that I go to, or not from the perspective of I have to wear a mask and therefore that's infringing on my rights as a Christian. This is against Christianity and persecution because then I you can't see my face and that's eliminating whatever.

These are people that are literally being murdered violently. And they truthfully look at this as another opportunity to be joyous in Christ. That's advancing the gospel. That's movement in hearts for Christ.

And Fox's Book of Martyrs records that on multiple occasions where people are are being put to the stake, they're being killed by swords, they're being beheaded, they're being boiled in oil, they're being crucified, they're being thrown off of of buildings, dashed onto the rocks throughout all these different things. And these people are taking this persecution in Jesus' name and count it as joy. Because it's the ultimate test of them being able to say, yes, he is my God. Yes, he is my king. Yes, he is my father. I follow him unto death and I take this on myself

with joy. Because it was a truthful opportunity for them to show that. And to advance the gospel that way because people saw true bold faith when they saw these people. True bold faith when they saw these people. They saw these people willing to die

for a god that they claimed. And the people around them are going, well, if these people are so much more well off and so loved by their god that they're willing to endure this with joy, then who am I to deny that creator? Who is this Christ? Who is this Jesus guy? Who is this messiah of the Jews? Right?

How do I get to know him more? Because obviously there's something real here and there's something happening. And my postdoc advice kind of stems from that, from the perspective of we pray for boldness and we pray for this thought of truthfully living out the gospel. And it's not just a public style advice that I want people to take into consideration for themselves. I need to hear this too. I have never once in my life come even close

to that kind of faithfulness to God. I've never once come close to that kind of boldness in the testimony and the gospel of Christ in the good news of our Lord. Never once have I come close to that. I've I've spoken to people about Jesus. I've done the mamby pamby stuff. Like, I've done done Bible tracts. I've done even relationship building. But it was never like that. It was never from the perspective of this is something that I cannot even hold

onto at all. It has to be shared through my life, through my experiences, through my testimony, through my my my death. I want people to know through my persecution that I have a king that loves me, that cares for me, that is merciful to me for my sin to the point that he did send his living son to be murdered on a cross so that I have the opportunity to have relationship with him, and I have the chance at everlasting life, and the chance at being with God. Truthfully,

have that opportunity. I don't live out that kind of boldness. I don't live out that boldness in my testimony. I don't live out on my boldness in my daily. The people around me certainly do not have that perspective on God because of their interactions with me, and that's a problem. That's a failure on my part. I owe it to them and most certainly to God to start being truthfully bold in a real sense. Not just a church camp concept of boldness, but real boldness.

When it comes to living out my faith so the people see me and then are astonished and have to know God. Get off my lawn. Alright. Yeah. It's it was weird, like, I saw some some interaction. So I didn't I didn't listen to it. I felt like it was when cheating or something to preview the Pope's style advice, so I did not listen to it ahead of time.

And we're right into that well, mean, chapter one of Buva's oral history of the bible. But from but after that, yeah, we're we're we're into two themes that we just gotta got in there for, which is walking with confidence and boldness, and that the notion of doing so faithfully is is is part of the the the major thing that compels people to want to know Jesus. Aren't you at least half interested

in in what it looks like to boldly do this thing? You know what saying? Like, aren't you aren't you at least half? Like, what do we wait. Hold on, Mike. Are you talking? Start talking again. Yeah. Okay, there you go. Sorry. Okay, thank you. I said, aren't you at least half interested to see what this looks like if you were to do it boldly? Right? Like, as you get older, like, I don't know, I'm about 40, I guess, and I always think to myself, I wonder what I'd look like if I'd let my hair grow long. I never did it. I'm 40 years old, it's too late now. I can't do it. It's too far gone. The time has gone and passed. And then sometimes I'll watch a pretty sweet action movie and I'll think, you know, at least one time in my life it'd be nice if I was decently physically fit and I didn't look like a beer bottle that was broken somewhere down at the bottom. You know what I'm saying? And you think, I'm gonna get in shape at least once, and just at least I could say I know what it looked like. Aren't you at least half interested in whether you just bought into this thing a 100% and what your life would be like? What people around you would do? Like what your work life would be like, what your family life would turn out, what your kids would walk in, what would emanate from you as you just buried your entire life in this thing. And you know you have not done that. You know you haven't. You've you've you've kinda You've had glimpses of it, and you can agree right now that, like, those times were great, but it wasn't enough to hold you. And you should go, but why? Why was that an audit Like, if you just jumped full into this deal, just out of sheer curiosity on what God would do. It would I mean, it just sounds awesome. Yeah, boy. It'd be kind of fun to be able to see, like, even with your just pick a week in the last four weeks, one that felt mundane,

that felt like your life was just kinda playing playing the same same song. Not a bad one, but you know, just rel relative ease or or or simple or or just banal. And like like, if you got to look at that same week and said, look, this if you would here's what could have happened. Here's what letting loose

with confidence and and the spirit moving what you're weak, what if now here's the thing. It probably could some of us, it's gonna look the same because what you're still gonna spend at home with your family. This doesn't mean you're gonna go setting people's houses on fire. No. It does not mean that. Hugging people as they come out and saying Jesus rescued you. But, like so some of that, like, will feel the same, but maybe your maybe your how you speak is different. Maybe how your even the even the interactions with the same people in the same places just has a it has those elements of the fruit of the spirit in it that you missed we just didn't have in fullness or in boldness. I think the way that you take this world in changes.

Right? I think you see the effects of a broken, fallen and lied to world and you have pity and love and grace for those. And you reserve your anger, not for individual people, but the brokenness in general. Right? Like the evil that is pushing, right? And the force that is against what God is. Right? Like, you can reserve your anger for and not pockets of people that disagree with you or that are fooled. And let's be honest with each other, they're fooled. There's not like We had articles we had lined up. And the more I thought about it, the more I don't care. The more I absolutely don't care about picking fights with one guy or a group of people or this thing or that thing, which I disagree with them and I think it's ridiculous, and then the Christians reacted poorly, blah blah blah. Everybody's fooled in here. Everybody's lied to,

and everybody's believing it. And instead of weeping for them, I wanna be mad at the one guy that's fooled. I already know he's fooled. Right? You know what I'm saying? Like, this is Yep. It's just so dumb, you know? And so maybe maybe your perspective changes as as you as you take the world in, and you could take it in honestly, and you look at, the people around you that you know are walking down a completely fooled and lied to path, and instead of going, What an idiot. I'm so tired of that guy. And he couldn't be more wrong. And I disagree with him, and he's against the Gospel. And the truth is he's lied to and he's believed it, And he's on a full horse run the wrong way. Yeah, right. Can I look at it and say, as opposed to, I hate Ted, Ted sucks? Yeah, Ted sucks. Can I say, Boy, pray the thunders of heaven against the powers and principalities that are deceiving Ted? God, get Ted in his dreams. Yeah. Do Like that. Do that. I wanna hear that. Yeah. And like and I mean, and it's both. It's both like

when when you when you recognize when you're when you're willing to say actually, I we're running through some of the same stuff in my house with with we we we just suck. The Foust the Foust household are not encouragers. We're not. We're really bad at it. We're sharp tongued. We're like real quick assessors of a situation. Be like, I know exactly what's going on over there. And it's right even. A lot of the time, my kids are even good at it. But it's we're not encouragers. And and like we've been, just as a family, been been struggling through this for at least two years worth of like, trying to focus prayer on it and like

spend time together about it. And like it's getting better, but like we're we still suck. We're still not good at it. And like the broad point was is that like a lot of times it's because the way that we take each other in as a family is is an assessment. And it's a personal as opposed to looking at someone and go, to react the way that they did, they really need some encouragement to be built up so they don't this isn't how though they take the world in. Instead of doing that, we just called we call the world for what it was.

Hey, you reacted so poorly to your sister. You need to apologize. You need to be kind to her. She's your sister. Right? As opposed to like, boy, did this kid that I know and love just really sharp toned something that didn't deserve it at all. What the heck is going on over there? Are you alright? Yeah. What's what's what's caused that? What, like, what caused you to kinda react that way? Are you are you feeling low today and you're taking it out on somebody? Are you has has has that person has your sister offended you? Like, if you was a sister, like, did have you offended her in some way that has caused her to to lose patience in a bad way with you? And, like, sometimes, evil's just present. People are bad. But, like, sometimes they just need it encouraged a little bit And to recognize that, like, whatever it is you're holding here, let go. No one's thinking that about you.

We're I'm I'm glad you're up and about this morning. It's so good to see you. Yeah. I saw you yesterday. I still love to see you this morning. What do you what's on your mind? Like, there's just this notion of of encouraging as opposed to just being the person that called the assessment on and recognizing that sometimes people are are a result of the exterior pressures around them and their historic and their thinking about themselves and anxieties and all these things. It's not just they had a moment, they thoughtfully said, I'm gonna be an acid tongued witch right now, and I and then they executed on it. That's very rarely what people are doing. And so, like, when we view the world in too shallow of a way that says Ted sucks, or the guy even the guy we couldn't go through the article, that guy With the devil shoes. With the demon shoes. Right? Like the six six six shoes or the the blood and the like, it's it's so asinine. Here's what I'll tell you this. Satan is not behind that. No. That is a human endeavor. Yeah. That's a human going, you know what would be cool and draw attention to me? This thing. I even buy the biblical description of Satan, you think way too less of him if you feel like he's got time and effort involved in like a basketball shoe.

Right, it's just it's pretty low rent. Right. It's it's it's cartoonish now. Here's where the success the success of the opposer and the accuser has has landed is for us to is for people to treat that so shallowly. It's like the influence of that type of thing where we're like, devil. Right? You're dumb. This is the powers and principalities that are taking out Nas and Ted. And like, we we we spend so much time assessing how much Ted sucks and how much how much the shoemaker gives. But like, that guy that guy's also been deceived. He thinks it's a joke. He thinks he's party to a joke. He thinks it's something to fool around with. Right. Something that can be used to gain attention

and that's that's where it's wrong. There's a there's a confusion. There's a powers and principalities problem in there. And there's a boldness that says, I'm open to to taking that on head on today. And that's the broad influence of evil. That's the pervasiveness of the lack of justice in the governments that surround us and the laws that surround us in the the power structures of how we think about our money. It's all of that. It's all of that that we so passively interact with that's

that's hose and tad, who who can't even hear the gospel because the because these other things are kind of oppressing his ability to kind of take it on. Shoot. I shouldn't have said oppression. It's gonna give the wrong impression. It's not what I was after. But like it's just like there's there's these other these bold things that need interacted with and we don't we play in the wrong level by simply being comfortable that we were able to assess where sin was located. Yeah or attacking the output. Yeah. Right? Like looking at

the fruits and we're mad at the fruit, Right? We're not looking at the tree, we're mad at the fruit. We're like, you're a fruit, you're a bad fruit. And you know where this is coming from. The tree was lied to. The tree was convinced that this was the fruit to make, and that happiness will come, and joy will show up as a result of these decisions, and you will feel better about the tree that you are. And they're all lies. You're being lied to, and you've convinced other trees. And once again, we're yelling at the fallen peach on the floor. And I just feel like, to round that all up, right, having a godly perspective on this thing and god's view on the world is like, thank Jesus he doesn't look at me this way. Because like, find me on the wrong day and I'm the fruit. Find me in the wrong minute, really. You know what I'm saying? Like, so if there's one thing this show is certainly guilty of, because I know the individual characters of this play,

we're above it all. Right? We see it, we call it for what it is, and we got the thing to fix it, and the heartbeat of the deal, and we're gonna tell you the best way to route it back through the Gospel and get it straightened out. And it's not like that doesn't have a place. But there has to be a heart behind that to match what God's is. Because God does the same thing. He's really good at cutting the room in and going, This is actually the deal. 10 out of 10, it's a heart problem and a perspective problem between you and him. It's always that. And God is willing to show up with

the fruits of the spirit, with the confident heart that says, it doesn't matter how many times you slap my gospel in the face, I will show back up with it smiling, wanting you to come back to it. I am not offended. I am not running. I'm going nowhere. I I will I will pay this price again and again and again. And you cannot offend my self esteem or how I how I feel about what I'm offering you by your actions. It changes never. And like, what is that? I begin can't to try to think that I can live that way. Right? That's one of those things we ask the Holy Spirit to do. You are not capable of doing that. And the sooner you realize that, follower of Christ, the sooner you get on your face and go, I'm not capable of this.

I can follow your statutes. I can spend time with you. I can read your word. But I know I am not capable of grace upon grace upon mercy upon grace upon mercy upon grace. I know I'm not. I will get right back on there and build a mini throne right behind your throne when you're not looking. Help me to stay off of it. And so that's the thing. The godly perspective is just not swearing less or being nicer to the guy that cut you off in traffic. That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about taking that guy in differently so you weren't even upset that he cut you off. You had five excuses in your head that you were willing to give that guy on why he was acting like a jerk. Oh, man. I bet he was late for work. Oh, man. I wonder if somebody at his house is sick. Whatever. Right? Your immediate reaction isn't, that guy wronged me. It's, I wonder what's wrong with that guy. I hope everything's okay. You know what I'm saying? Like, it's a completely different way of taking in the world. So you're not trying to fight back your anger. Your anger doesn't even show up. You just took him in differently.

I think that's the perspective change. Instead of trying to say, help me have less anger, let's go with no anger. Let's go for grace for that guy. Because that's easier than trying to battle every single little thing and try to handle it better. That's not gonna work. You've already tried that. You failed at it. Right? But if you take the guy in differently and he doesn't make you mad in the first place, then that's a it's a total win. It's a total score. I think it's a I I think it's a tall order, but I think it's a Holy Spirit deliver. That's what I think. Yeah. Alright. Hey, you've been listening to Live From The Path. Let's see here. I'm gonna tell I got a joke and then we're gonna do some advice. Okay. Call it a day. Okay. This is the quality you would expect from clean heaven jokes.

I'm really scared. This 85 year old couple, having been married almost sixty years, had died in a car crash. They had been in good health the last ten years, mainly due to her interest in health, food, and exercise. When they reached the pearly gates that's a that's false, by the way. That's a the Revelation talks about it as like a giant pearl, not like gates made out of pearl. Anyway, Saint Peter took them to their mansion, which was decked out with a beautiful kitchen and master bath suite and Jacuzzi. As they ohed and awed, the old man asked Peter how much all this was going to cost. It's free, Peter replied. This is heaven. Next, they went out back to survey the championship golf course that the home backed up to. They would have golfing privileges every day, and each week, the course changed to a new one representing the great golf courses on earth. The old man asked, what are the green fees? Peter's reply, this is heaven. You play for free. Next, they went to the clubhouse and saw the lavish buffet lunch with the cuisines

of the world laid out. How much to eat? Asked the old man. Don't you understand yet? This is heaven. It's free, Peter replied with some exasperation. Well, where are the low fat and low cholesterol tables? The old man asked timidly. Peter lectured. That's the best part. You can eat as much as you like of whatever you like, and you never get fat and you never get sick. This is heaven. With that, the old man went to a fit of anger, throwing down his hat and stomping on it and shrieking wildly. Peter and his wife both tried to calm him down, asking him what was wrong. The old man looked to his wife and said, this is all your fault. If it weren't for your blasted bran muffins, I could have been here ten years ago. Health is bad.

Sing. You can act like a total ape on earth and it's no problem. Heaven will cater to your needs. Dear, lie from the path. Oh, what is this? I have meddling in laws. Anytime my husband of twenty years and I have a disagreement, he calls his parents to complain about me. Woah. On six different occasions, I found messages and Facebook chats between my husband and my in laws in which they called me a bad mother, terrible person, crazy evil, the devil, and disparaged my family. Because of this, I have cut off contact with his relatives and they cannot come to our house. My husband insists on being around them and we argue because I want our nine year old son to have only limited contact with them. I don't want them tearing me down in front of him. I also expect my spouse to spend time with me and our son at holidays, but my husband says I'm being unreasonable and I should just move on and let it go. His parents refuse to apologize. They say they have done nothing wrong. I need some objective advice. Yeah. You don't have meddling in laws. You have a deficient spouse.

Yes. Yeah. Agreed. That that's that, madam, is your problem. I mean, what what they they bear some liability in not handling themselves correctly, but the core issue is that you have a husband who was soliciting advice, feedback, or otherwise exposing your weaknesses to his family for purposes of

feeling emboldened that he is in the right. And that is a shallow desperate man who is doing nothing to protect his marriage or his wife. Yeah. It's awful. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's just like awful. Yeah. Here's the thing. I think you get one guy. I think you get one guy to talk about married things with. Maybe two. But I'd stick to one as long as you can. Because here's the thing, you're there to encourage and build up your spouse.

That is part of your gig. And disparaging them to multiple people is not that. And so I think if you have legit marriage concerns or legit behavior issues that you're struggling with or need to talk to somebody about, I think you absolutely should do that. I think you should keep that to probably one person. And cannot be people in your family. That's right. It needs to be someone who has an interest of protecting your marriage. And loves your spouse as well as you. That's right. That's right. And finds and and and frankly, I generally like that that person or people in my life would be someone who is most likely to go, yes, Ben, you're in the wrong on this one. And you would you should not treat your wife that way, you need to apologize directly. Like, if that's not the first thing that incur like, actually, I would expect any man that I speak to about my marriage, the first thing to do is spend a good twenty minutes thinking, Ben's in the wrong here somehow. Where is it? Yes. And then if that doesn't shake out, then he says, well, your wife might be being maybe just weed this one out. Right. Take her easy. But, like yeah. Yeah. This dude's a real hose monster. Yeah. Now

so the follow-up I don't know. What do you do about this fella? I mean, because the I I could see how the holidays are gonna be a problem. I could see how the kids are going to be a problem. Like, people that would disparage me as a parent, I would not let my kids hang around because I actually have kids to raise, and I don't need outside forces telling them that I'm not to be listened to, especially people of my own family. Yeah. And so I would very much cut that off and say, look, sorry. Unless you can find other things to bond over, like catch or piano lessons or something, me as a topic of conversation for bonding is not available. So and and if they if they're not gonna follow that, then I guess you don't have much of a relationship with my kids. Sorry. Yeah. I think her perspective's fair. Dan, what do you say to this woman? What does she do? It's really tough because you wanna just say, well, leave the jerk. But it's like, no,

that's not an answer. Because he's the problem. Yep. The husband's the problem. I guess you have a good, solid, honest conversation say you've got to be the protector of the family and you're the opposite of that. You're oppressing us,

turning your extended family against us or against her. Gosh. It's rare that I can't think of really good advice, but it's like you're between a rock and a hard place. Other than you need to have the good honest conversation, and I don't know, you need some type of I

don't want to say punishment, but I mean Like consequence? Consequence. There we go. For doing this, but I don't I don't know what it is. I don't know. I mean, it's Yeah. I mean, I I think it's probably fair to recognize that based upon his family's willingness to jump on board this, this is doesn't feel like abnormal behavior to him. Right. So like Yeah. His like, he needs a world shift change. And he I mean, this is not gonna be a surprise coming out of this room, but I feel like Jesus is gonna do that. And so Right. I would recommend if if you're not currently connected to Jesus and or a community of faith, and I would suggest that right off the bat here. Because I like, the only way that this changes

is for him to recognize the behavior. Like, can't imagine it's not come up in your conversation so far that this is hurtful. Like, he cannot reasonably think that his parents calling you the devil is is is a normally acceptable thing unless he feels just personally emboldened. He's just a selfish turd. Yeah. And so I would say you can only be faithful in the means and so I would recommend that.

He he needs a couple guys in his life that will meet regularly and keep him accountable. Yes. Maybe that's some some advice. That's a reasonable thing. It's just they have to be the right types of guys. Yeah. Yeah. Because he's he's blind to it. That's right. He just he just missed it. He doesn't realize He what he just thinks is he's finding his justification. He obviously I mean, everybody on any argument believes that they're right. Right. And so it doesn't seem wrong to him. It's just affirming that he was right and how wrong you are. And like, here's the thing. The more practice you have in disparaging your spouse, the more it's gonna feel true Mhmm. Even if it's not right. And so, like, this is another reason why, like, you I don't know. There's some probably modern psychology that would disagree with me here. But, like, I I don't know even if you have close fellas who can be trusted with this thing, like, you don't bring every lament to their doorstep. Mhmm. Because it's because it gives even if you know it's not true, like, oh, this is just how I felt about it. Like, I you almost justify some of that stuff by its frequency. It's why it's why praying more matters. It's not because it's magic for you to pray 10 times in a week. It's because as you get in the habit of constantly opening yourself up and inviting God into your time, you will notice that he is more often in your time, not because he wasn't willing to but because you are more willing to.

And you just you get in habits of things and it soaks up more of your day and it starts to have a tangible impact on your life. And so yeah, this is just unhealthy behavior by your husband. I think you're going to have a hard road here on trying to stick to what is right because their opinion like, it's easy to say the truth, which is just ignore their opinion. It's not founded well. Like, they're obviously not getting a full story. He's doing it to get support. And so who gives a flying pelican what they think? They're not informed. They're misguided. But you're still dealing with the impact of that, which is

you're having to tangibly block them from coming to holidays. And you're having to like, I don't know. Do you get along with this man in the everyday? Because like, this seems so egregious that it might be difficult to have a relationship with him on a Wouldn't it color, like, your day to day? Wake up and like, yeah, this is the guy that goes behind my back. Yeah. I think that would be very difficult. Yeah. Like, I I don't know. Like, maybe my I don't have I don't we I don't think we have anything like this major, obviously, in in in my marriage and haven't that I would but like, I mean, even some of the the things that have felt big at the time but weren't big, like, colored our relationship for weeks. Yeah. A week or two and beyond that, like, someone remembers being offended and someone remembers having not handled it well. And like, it just in in small ways, it still like colors how you take something in and your willingness to do something even if you're trying to force yourself not to. And so like, when the guy's a legit,

you know, doofus on wheels. For twenty years. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know how that how do you I mean, here's the deal. How how does intimacy even come up with this man? I don't know with what confidence he approaches this woman. Yeah. He like, I would not that I would, like, advocate for her to, like, shut it down as as a punishment, but, like, I don't know how he can, with any confidence, or or how she could even force herself to spend time intimately with this man. Yeah. Yeah. Secular says, the person who has done something wrong is your husband. He should not have gone running to mommy and daddy when you had a disagreement. What a pansy. What they did was accept his side of the story and support their wounded child.

I don't blame you for not wanting your son subjected to any smack talk from his grandparents. Wanting to shield him from that doesn't make you crazy evil, etcetera. Bury the hatchet with them if it's possible and drag your husband to a licensed marriage and family therapist so he and you can learn to disagree like adults. Yeah. I mean, that's a good that's a good thought. Right now, he's using a a false arbiter. And so if you could find someone who could I mean, I can't even you you would pass even a secular counselor would say, this is unacceptable, dude. Mhmm.

Yeah. Okay. Okay. We got time for one more? Yeah. One more. Dear life from the past. Mhmm. My mother keeps buying me and my now teenage daughters clothes from a catalog for elderly women. Think lots of bird prints, florals, elastic waist pants. She's an amazing mother and grandmother and an inspiration in my life. Yeah. I appreciate her generosity and that she thinks of us. However, none of us wear the clothes, I and don't want to hurt her feelings by telling her we are pretty particular when it comes to style. We're very frugal and even shop secondhand stores for some clothing. Well then, I guess I am very frugal. Should I speak up or quietly continue donating the clothes? The last thing I want is to hurt her. What are you donating them to? You're subjecting other people to this? Senior center.

Yeah, I guess. Okay. So question number one is do you bring it up to the old lady? Yeah. Yes. Yeah. We're full up on clothes, Ma. Yeah. We're good. I was gonna get you guys some clothes for your birthday. Hey, by the way, my birthday's coming up. The kids' birthdays are coming up, Ma, but we're solid on clothes. So do whatever you want, but we're good in the clothes department. Gosh, we did that. I mean, we didn't have that issue, but when our children were getting clothes

from family members that were like, we just said, Hey, you know what? The kids are really picky. Let them pick something out and send it to you. Then you can if you want that, you know, you can get it for them and Right. You know, a little text link or something to a story, you know, whatever. Yeah. You gotta have the conversation with that. You can do it without being rude. You don't have to be a jerk about it. Yeah. I mean, it just assumes that when people buy you a gift, that it's more important to them that you

like what they picked out versus you just like the gift. You like getting a gift. Right? To say, not only did I get you a sweatshirt, but it's the best sweatshirt ever and you'd love it because I picked it out. Right? And if you're missing the mark on that, I mean, unless she's close to dying or something, and it's, you know, that it ain't worth bringing up. But, I mean, this is gonna go on for another ten or so years. I mean, yeah. I I would say something. She's not gonna care. Yeah. She's getting, like I mean, we've had this so, you know, like, kids go through phases. You know? Yeah. Yeah. First first, they like wolves, and then, like, a year later, they don't care about wolves anymore. And, like, you know, there's a pair there's always gonna be somebody in the family who's like, oh, yeah. Your kid loves wolves, and they're gonna show up with stuff. And you're gonna, like, some point, someone's gotta go, yeah. That we've moved on past the wolves. We're done with the wolves. Yeah. Because, like, no one wants to be the guy who shows up with, like, real excited, like, dude, check out this wolf shirt. And you're, like, three years past it. Yeah. Oh, boy. And I think it's the train. A Harry Potter wand. Yeah. You know, it's like, mean, you missed the boat by, like, ten years, buddy. I mean, we're we're done. We're done with that. Yeah. And I I don't know. Like, actually, I thought, like, one of our our kids' great grandma is always real great about that. She's like, I mean, I don't know what to get. I don't know. She's like she's, like, might have a toy catalog there and go circle.

Circle. Yeah. Yeah. Tell me what you like. What am I gonna pick it out for? I don't you know? Yeah. Really good about that stuff. And, like, some people get super invested in their own opinion of what a kid should like. Now that would be a problem, but I don't that doesn't appear to be the case here. No. I think, yeah, definitely. Just tell her. Yeah. I agree. Oh, here we go. Segler says, do not tell your mother you and your daughters have been donating the clothes she orders for you. I might not bring that part up unless she asks. Do tell her that teenage girls these days dress much differently than women her age and yours, and that it would be prudent to ask them what they might like or gift them money to buy something of their own choosing. It's the truth, and she should hear it. As to what she's ordering for you, thank her for her generosity and point out that since the pandemic began, most women have been wearing jeans, sweats, leggings, etcetera. And while you are grateful for her, you think she should be aware of it. Fashion changes, and there's nothing so constant as change. You know, that's a little cheap. I agree. Because it blames it blames it on not your taste or what you really want. It just says, that's what the world's doing. Yeah. And if I was grandma, I'd be like, I feel like what the world's doing is turning you into a harlot, so I'm gonna go order you these flower prints. Yeah. These balloon pants. Yeah. I think you just lay down the truth. It's difficult. I get it. Nobody wants to spill the hard truth and then wait for that three second of awkwardness where you have to see what their reaction is. But, I mean, eventually, you're gonna have to do it. I've I've found, especially with with older older folk, they just appreciate people just just telling them the truth about stuff. Yeah. I mean, they don't wanna waste their money. Yeah. I mean Yeah. They don't. Like, they actually because, like and it I mean, it always depends. There's different personalities out there. But, like,

a lot of times as you're getting older, like, you just you're just not so invested in yourself anymore. And so if someone goes, you know, I don't just that that that what you got me makes me look like an old lady. I don't want I don't wanna dress like you. Yeah. And then you laugh a little, and she goes, I guess I didn't even think of that. What would you like? Okay. Great. We have a great conversation coming up. So so here here's here's a little helpful thing. We told both of our children as they became adults and and, you know, got to the point where they're moving out and stuff, said, hey. We we don't ever want you to to be afraid to tell us something. We gave them permission a long time ago. If you if we're doing something that that you think is just ridiculous, just just tell us. We Yeah. I mean, you're not gonna hurt our feelings. I mean, we we we don't mean to be ridiculous, and but we might be. You would like to know. Yeah. I just want just tell us. And they're like, okay. So you got a promise. And they say, yep. And so we've had a great relationship. They sometimes things come up. They're like, hey. That's really dumb. Like, oh, okay. I I had no idea. Yeah. I that I think it's great. None of the pork. I don't know. I mean and there's probably a there's a there's a lesson. The sooner you can get to that in any of your relationships, probably the better Mhmm. Where it's like people just trust you where, like, it's not I don't hate you as a person, but I don't love that shirt. Yeah. I mean, okay. Well, did you manufacture the shirt in your basement? Basement? No? Okay. Well, then what's the deal? Actually, I had that come up at work today, in fact. I walked in and we were doing some work or whatever, and I turned around and there's an Acano sized tub of pork rinds.

I mean, it's gotta be 18 inches tall and probably eight to nine inches wide. Tub. Clear. Clear tub. And I said, who brought in this Akano tub of pork rinds? It's a little over the top, isn't it? I mean, that's a lot of pork grinds for a man in a day. And their response was, I did, and I enjoyed them. I said, I think it's too much. And they they didn't care. But at least I got the opportunity to speak honestly. Yep. And so did he. I don't care what you think. I love these pork rinds. Well, then great. And it allowed you be generous to me and gave me one, which I don't like. I think they're gross, actually. Alright. Did we solve that problem? I think we did. Okay. That one was easy. That other one's hard with the doofus husband.

Doofus husbands are always difficult. Hey. You've been listening to Live From Path. I really appreciate hanging out with us this week. Hey. Remember, it seems like other podcasts say to do this, so I'm gonna ask you to do it, is leave a review for the old Live From The Path on your favorite podcast provider, iTunes or whatnot. I don't care whether it's a one or a five. That's up to you. Just tell the truth. But, you know, if you wanna warn people away from the show, that's your civic duty. If you think other people should listen to it, I mean, God bless that. Go ahead and put that in the comments. I think that'd be great. It also helps for every once in a while, we're just super encouraged to find out that everybody listens and likes the show and have been we've the ComplaintLines helped for that. We've got a lot of really great encouragement in the past. And so, you know, either way, just do that if you find find yourself in the the review area of your favorite podcast app. We'd love to do that. We also love to hear from you. You can send us an email, [email protected], or use that complaint line, (515) 517-0085. That's the Bob Eisenhower impression and complaint line. (515) 517-0085. We do have plans, I think. Hey. Is Boofer coming back? This is the Samsung Galaxy z I wonder. Okay. I wonder if we'll work out and get them all.

I don't know. I'll check the dates again. Oh, that'll all We'll we'll do some shows in between now and then. But the meantime, thanks for hanging out with us. Be faithful in the means. God will handle the ends. You've been listening to Live From The Path. There's nothing worse than overhype, so we won't go overboard telling you how Taco Bell's case