0:00

Do you love Christ with all of your heart? Probably

0:02

not. That's a hard stunt to pull off. So you

0:04

could bring heaven here. Or hell, you are not where

0:06

you think you are. And you are not talking to

0:08

who you think you're talking to. If I'm not gonna

0:11

lie in front of my God, then I truly don't

0:13

care to lie in front of you. No, I think

0:15

that's some of the least foolish things you've said so

0:17

far today. I don't even know how to take that.

0:19

Is that like- You're not getting control of my tongue.

0:22

Slavery that you've walked into. You've put the shackles on

0:24

your own hands. How many women can you stand? Let

0:26

me tell you. And that really changed me, and permanently.

0:28

I know one day I'll be answering to that.

0:30

Well, it looks like you're answering for right now.

0:39

It's not often I sit down with somebody and they say

0:41

something that makes me think. Brother, this was great. I love

0:44

you back. Well, listen, you give me

0:46

something to think about. My own damn way. I

0:48

had a lot of fun on this interview. All

0:51

right, guys, welcome back. This is, I

0:53

will say this is my most exciting

0:56

podcast I've ever done. These

0:58

two people have been with me since season one.

1:00

And you have been on my

1:03

top list because the way

1:05

you speak, the way you hold yourself, but

1:08

most importantly, your message. And this episode, I

1:10

pray it opens up the eyes and ears

1:12

to a lot of people, but I

1:15

also want to, I

1:18

want to challenge myself and think deeper because I feel

1:20

like when I watch you, when I get

1:22

ready to take notes for guests, I

1:25

study the way they speak. I study their

1:27

mannerisms and yours is heavily hard to follow

1:29

because I feel like every time you have

1:31

a thought, it's like you're truly examining

1:33

it and reflecting so deep,

1:36

it's like a rabbit hole. And so it's

1:38

very, very hard to track where you go

1:40

with things. Has that ever gotten

1:42

the way of like your life?

1:44

Does it ever get daunting reflecting

1:47

that much? Well,

1:51

it's much more of a benefit than a cost. I

1:54

mean, when I wrote my first book,

1:56

Maps of Meaning, I was about... I

2:00

started when I was about 20 and

2:03

then I wrote for 15 years and I

2:05

was writing three hours a day and

2:08

I was thinking about what I was writing

2:10

about pretty much all the rest of the

2:12

time, although I also did a PhD in

2:15

there and was doing scientific research and that

2:17

was kind of a break in some ways from from

2:20

writing the book. At

2:24

that time in particular I would say that

2:27

was somewhat overwhelming because of

2:31

the volume of thought that was associated with

2:33

that and how much I was digesting and

2:35

reading. I

2:40

straightened up my life a fair bit

2:42

probably to deal with that too and

2:44

that helped but mostly it's

2:47

a benefit as far

2:49

as I'm concerned to be able to delve

2:51

into things and to be attracted by ideas

2:53

and to be able to deal with

2:55

them. It's very exciting, it's ridiculously exciting. I

2:57

mean I'm dealing with things all the time

3:00

that are so interesting that I can hardly

3:02

even stand it. So that's really something, you

3:04

know, I mean that's what people want

3:06

in their life. There's

3:08

a question you hate and it's do you

3:10

believe in God and I love your approach

3:12

on that. People don't know

3:14

what they mean when they ask that question. So

3:17

I love you to elaborate on that. It's nonsensical.

3:19

Well because people what people

3:21

usually want, Christians do this to me

3:23

mostly, what they really want

3:26

is they want me to validate their theory of

3:28

belief. And they don't

3:30

even know they have a theory of belief because

3:32

they think what belief is is obvious and it's

3:34

not obvious at all. Like is belief your

3:37

willingness to verbally assent to the reality

3:39

of a set of facts? Well

3:42

that's what an empiricist would say

3:44

or a rationalist and most Christians

3:46

who ask me that question are

3:48

rationalist empiricists and they don't even

3:51

know it. And so they

3:53

want me to say well God exists

3:55

the same way a table exists and

3:58

that's that's That's

4:01

just not helpful. That

4:03

isn't a helpful question. It's not formulated

4:05

properly. And then there's many other forms

4:07

of belief. So you

4:10

can say one thing and do another, right?

4:13

Then you might say, well, then what do you believe?

4:15

Do you believe what you say or do you believe

4:17

what you did? And I mean, people are full of

4:19

contradictions like that. Well, and so I

4:21

would say, I love that. Generally speaking,

4:24

what you do is a much more

4:27

precise and accurate marker of what you believe

4:29

than what you say. Now

4:32

if you were fully integrated, what you say and

4:34

what you believed would be the same thing. But

4:37

that's pretty damn rare. And people will say, well,

4:39

I believe in Christ. And I think you do,

4:41

do you? Really? What's

4:44

the evidence for that? Are

4:46

you moving mountains with your faith? And

4:50

if you're not, then you might ask,

4:52

well, you know, just how deep is

4:54

your belief? Because in principle, if

4:56

you have sufficient faith, then you

4:58

can move mountains. And so, you

5:01

know, is that literally the case?

5:05

That's a stupid question. He

5:08

spoke in parables. So if you knew him, you

5:10

knew what he was saying. Well, we

5:12

move mountains all the time. We use like

5:14

earth moving equipment to move mountains. We can

5:17

move mountains. And

5:19

to some degree, that's a manifestation of faith.

5:23

If you untangle it sufficiently. But when

5:28

you read the biblical texts,

5:30

for example, there's part

5:32

of what you need to bring to bear

5:34

on the stories is a bit of imagination.

5:38

They're not, it's not a collection

5:41

of scientific texts. That's

5:43

not what it is. It's not even

5:45

close to that. That's not what

5:47

it is. And most

5:49

people who say to me, you know, do you

5:51

believe in God? This question is just a trap.

5:55

And the trap is, are

5:57

you willing to tell me that what I believe

5:59

to be the case of what I believe is

6:01

true. It's like, no, because we're

6:03

not coming at the question from the same

6:05

perspective. So, and then people

6:07

are irritated at me because they say, well, you can't

6:10

question what the person means to believe.

6:12

And it's, well, that's what they're doing

6:14

to me. So I see absolutely no

6:17

reason why turnabout isn't fair play. Do

6:19

you believe in God? Do you believe

6:21

in your belief? What

6:23

exactly do you mean? And you're

6:26

going to ask a question that

6:28

there isn't a deeper question than

6:30

that. That is the most intrusive

6:32

possible question. And what

6:34

are you just supposed to, that's just something

6:36

casual. It's not casual, not

6:39

in the least. What do they

6:41

say? By their fruits, you'll know them. Right. Well,

6:43

there you go. That's the right

6:45

answer to that question. I

6:47

was sitting and I'm praying. And my God, like, I

6:49

don't want, I know that question is pointless, right? Because

6:52

obviously by your works, I know that you know that

6:54

there is a creator out there and you're doing in

6:57

every decision you can to not only please

7:00

him. I don't know if he's out there. Not

7:02

sure exactly where he is. Well,

7:05

okay, fair, fair. But so I

7:07

was praying on and they're under

7:10

the bed. There's the question and

7:12

it came to me and this

7:14

is it. This is the question that I would

7:16

replace that question with. It's do you

7:18

love Christ with all of your heart? Probably

7:22

not. That's a hard stunt

7:24

to pull off. And

7:27

it's a hell of a demand. Do

7:29

you love your daughter with all of your heart? Same

7:31

question, probably same objection,

7:33

probably applies. Like, you know, none

7:37

of us are unblemished vessels. So

7:40

no. Does

7:42

that mean I'm not trying to? Well, I'm

7:46

probably to some degree, it

7:48

means that. That's partly what

7:50

did in the gospels. Christ says not

7:54

people were calling him good. And he said

7:56

that he said, that's right. The

8:00

God He was good. Well. You know, But.

8:03

Patronizing them. Yeah, because they

8:05

were patronizing Him. Is

8:08

it? It's not only. Is

8:10

he may have been patronizing but to

8:12

a point to with a point in

8:14

mind. And not only that. My.

8:17

Mom used always say you're the only person shall look

8:19

up to Christ and the way he moves and. He

8:22

was never disrespect for the worse thing he ever

8:24

did to somebody. Let them go to their own

8:26

decisions. And I found that

8:29

to be very powerful because you could really

8:31

take down anything in your life without being

8:33

evil. To be strong is to

8:35

put the armor of God on from my perspective,

8:37

right on the another man might not see that,

8:40

but the arm of Crisis. It's a. It's

8:42

actually pretty. Pretty.

8:45

Magnificent! When you put it to the test,

8:47

What do you mean? I

8:52

believe that when we encounter evil, it's never

8:54

the shoe minutes the spirit. And

8:57

I believe that when we deal with people,

9:01

We. Want to use emotions instead

9:03

of like logic? And for

9:05

me, The bible

9:07

verse as be angry but send not He obviously

9:09

knows you're gonna be angry but how are you

9:11

going to deal with it had that how you

9:14

deal with it will outcome where you go From

9:16

that point I believe my daughter be a good

9:18

father so vom asking him for me to be

9:20

a mighty man and a man that kid help

9:22

my family I could provide a could put on

9:24

these cameras and open up people's hearts. You don't

9:27

think he's gonna put me to a test that

9:29

could make me explain to people how to get

9:31

out of the situation. You're gonna have to be

9:33

put in a very hard circumstance free to get

9:35

out of it. but. That's what you prayed for.

9:39

So. For example, when I moved on to do

9:41

this show, the one challenging. Dilemma that

9:43

I had was forgiveness. And as a

9:45

Christian, the should be the easiest thing in the world. But.

9:48

It's really on. This is difficult. It's very

9:50

difficult. and how I stumbled upon it is

9:52

but difficult. partly because it's not easy to

9:55

understand the pre conditions under which it's appropriate.

9:58

Because you elaborate. Well you can't give forgiveness

10:01

away casually. It has to be

10:03

asked. You can't just give it to somebody

10:05

who hasn't asked. Is that what you mean by that? Like

10:08

somebody's wrongs you, but you can't forgive them until they

10:11

asked. Is that what you meant by that? Usually,

10:18

say in the context of a relationship, look,

10:21

if someone hurt you in the past and

10:24

they're out of your life, there

10:27

are practices that you

10:29

might undertake to free you of the

10:31

burden you might still be carrying because

10:33

of their betrayal. But

10:37

in the context of an ongoing relationship, it's

10:41

very difficult and likely

10:43

inappropriate to forgive without

10:45

understanding. I mean, the

10:47

process of forgiveness, say,

10:50

among Catholics, Christians

10:52

in general, but we'll stick with the Catholics for

10:54

now, is well, you have to confess, then

10:57

you have to repent, then you have to atone.

10:59

Like there's a process. And so, you

11:02

know, if I'm having a fight with my

11:04

wife, let's say, or vice versa, and

11:08

we're coming across an issue that's really quite

11:10

sticky, and

11:12

maybe there's some betrayal, real or imagined,

11:15

evolved. We

11:17

have to get to the bottom of things. We have to sort

11:20

out what happened. We have to set it straight,

11:22

and then we both have to swear not to

11:24

have that happen again. Then you

11:27

can forgive and move on. But it's

11:30

not like whitewash. It's not like you can

11:32

paint over a situation. You have to deal

11:34

with it. And

11:37

then you're a fool not to forgive under

11:39

those circumstances because otherwise you just propagate

11:42

the cost. But these

11:46

are very difficult things to manage. What

11:49

would you say in a

11:52

situation where a person has done you wrong, and

11:55

maybe that person doesn't see your point of view, they don't want to

11:57

accept your point of view, and they think that they haven't done anything

11:59

wrong, want

12:01

to level with you or come to an understanding so

12:04

that you are able to forgive them. In those

12:06

situations would you say that it would be best to

12:08

kind of reflect on yourself,

12:10

so kind of forgive them in a sense

12:12

that you're forgiving them for yourself so you

12:14

don't hold that burden, but you won't forget

12:17

what they have done so you realize that

12:19

maybe they have a specific role in your

12:21

life and you treat them as

12:23

that because of how they've shown themselves? Well,

12:26

the situation you described is a

12:28

tricky one and they'll be, it's

12:30

hard to give a generic answer, but

12:33

one of the things you can do if you're

12:35

attempting to deal with someone with

12:37

whom you're struggling and have a conflict is if

12:39

they're not listening to you, you

12:42

can stop talking. Right,

12:44

that's very effective, so there is

12:46

a biblical injunction in the Gospels

12:48

to not to cast pearls before

12:50

swine. Okay, so now that's

12:53

a very harsh statement, but it

12:55

means something very particular. It

12:58

means if you're attempting

13:01

to communicate and you are

13:03

not being listened to, you

13:06

are misperceiving the

13:08

person you're talking to and the situation that

13:10

you're in. You

13:12

are talking to someone other than the

13:14

person who is there and

13:16

that's why they're not listening. Now you might

13:18

not be wise enough to fix that, but

13:20

one of the things you can do is

13:22

stop talking. This is very useful, I mean

13:25

purely practically. If someone isn't listening

13:27

to you, you should watch for

13:29

that. If they're not listening, you

13:32

should stop talking and you

13:34

should start watching like a

13:36

hawk because what's been

13:38

revealed to you is the fact that your

13:41

understanding of the situation is

13:43

radically insufficient. You are

13:45

not where you think you are and

13:47

you are not talking to who you think you're

13:49

talking to. Now if you cease

13:52

talking and start watching and

13:54

listening, they will tell you

13:57

who they are and what they're up to. Now

13:59

that one... It might take a while, although it generally

14:02

happens faster than you'd think. And

14:04

then they'll tell you. And then the

14:07

communication will start to flow again. It's

14:10

a remarkable thing to try. I've seen it happen.

14:13

Well, they've seen it happen. I

14:15

was just dealing with a situation like that, and it's so

14:17

funny. You guys will know exactly what I'm saying, where I

14:19

said, God just kept telling me to shut up. And

14:22

I was like, what? I'm always trying to fix it.

14:24

I'm always trying to fix it because I think that's what I need to

14:26

do. I need to fix this. And he

14:28

just said, shut your mouth. And so I shut my mouth.

14:31

And in the process of forgiveness, I'm

14:33

over here just trying to be high and mighty, right? Because I

14:35

hold the cross. And so I think I have to walk a

14:38

certain way and talk a certain way and pretending

14:40

could be exhausting. And so

14:42

I just straight up was like, I'm going to be real. I'm

14:44

not going to lie. If I'm not going to lie in front

14:46

of my God, then I truly don't care to lie in front

14:49

of you. So when I told

14:51

God, no, I don't want to forgive. But

14:54

that is not being obedient. So

14:56

I told him, I go, I'll walk in obedience, but

14:58

I don't want to walk in obedience. And I've learned

15:00

that that's still walking in obedience. So

15:02

through that, I realized that the ones that I

15:04

disliked because I've walked with God, even though I

15:06

didn't want to, it's like when your father says,

15:08

come, you're going to see it

15:11

from her, his perspective. And when

15:13

I saw from his perspective, I started to realize that

15:16

the one I'm angry with is literally me. I

15:19

am looking in the mirror. This is the same type of person.

15:22

And so I'm realizing that we all

15:24

have our own quotes, demons that we're dealing with.

15:27

And for me not to forgive is foolish.

15:31

And it throws away my, well,

15:33

why would you, one of the things you

15:35

might ask yourself is why

15:37

would you not want to forgive? Because

15:39

I've done it a hundred times over

15:42

and I'm sick of it that I've

15:44

given you my forgiveness and you keep

15:47

coming back and damaging me over and

15:49

over and over to the point where it's like,

15:51

I'm exhausted. I can't do this anymore. And

15:55

through this, where I let go of

15:57

it was as much

15:59

as I saw that. Oh, this is too stacked up

16:01

in my point of view. God's gonna see this and

16:03

he's gonna realize. All right I understand you've been through

16:05

this a lot. Well, then we could ask let's take

16:07

that situation and I realized that

16:09

the separation from hurt between me and my

16:11

enemy is meaningless compared

16:13

to the distance between me and my God

16:16

who shows me mercy Well,

16:18

let's say that you have Forgiven

16:21

someone multiple times and the

16:23

transgressions continue Well, so

16:25

then you might ask yourself. Well Well,

16:27

what did you mean? What did it mean

16:30

when you forgave them? Like if I just say to

16:32

you this is another example of of The

16:35

the shallowness of just saying Like

16:38

I could say to you I forgive you I

16:43

could pretend to myself that those words

16:45

have significance. But if the problem that's

16:47

at hand hasn't been addressed then What

16:51

those words have no meaning Like

16:54

and you can't force yourself to forgive

16:56

someone That isn't how it

16:58

works Forgiveness is actually

17:00

extraordinarily difficult like it

17:02

means making peace and now

17:06

what you could say Wisely is

17:08

that if you were wise

17:10

you'd want to be in a position where

17:12

if you could see your pathway forward to

17:14

forgive That's what you would do and

17:17

I would say you just do that practically. It's

17:19

because well here here's some questions

17:21

Do you want an enemy? No,

17:24

well, you know sometimes people

17:26

want an enemy because it gives them something

17:28

to wrestle with or it gives them a

17:30

reason to be a martyr or it makes

17:32

Them think they're doing something important or it,

17:34

you know, it's exciting to have It's

17:37

exciting. It's exciting to have an enemy because

17:39

it's a false adventure There are reasons but

17:42

it's dangerous to have an enemy and

17:44

so it's rather foolish if you don't

17:46

need to it's a burden It

17:49

it's definitely a burden and especially

17:51

has the number of enemies mount

17:53

and their seriousness Right and it's

17:55

a true danger. And so plus

17:57

it's it's very exhausting to be

18:00

angry and bitter and resentful and

18:02

it makes you hopeless and depressed

18:04

and and so that

18:06

seems to be relatively undesirable

18:09

unless you want to be hopeless and

18:11

depressed and so if you

18:14

were wise for that though people want to be

18:16

in that predicament well

18:18

people people will choose false adventures

18:20

if they don't choose real adventures

18:23

and being a martyr and being

18:25

angry and having enemies when

18:28

they're necessary those are forms of

18:30

false adventure official

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love him only if you love him you

19:39

talked about making peace and in that circumstance

19:41

when I was weak and I was at

19:43

my lowest I realized that every time I

19:46

leaned on my understanding I fell but when

19:48

I leaned on his word it would set

19:50

me free and I really took

19:52

into consideration that people will be like you believe

19:54

that God's here why doesn't he come here and

19:56

I'm like he is here he first was the

19:58

word then he was flesh and now he's

20:00

the word again. So when I went to the word and

20:02

I was angry, the only thing that I could see is

20:04

God didn't say, be a peacekeeper, he said,

20:07

be a peacemaker. So,

20:10

well, it's hard to make peace. How do you do

20:12

that when the other person doesn't wanna play games? I

20:15

can't dance with him if he doesn't wanna dance. Right?

20:20

So does that make you the evil one? Have

20:22

you not figured it out? Well, that's a good

20:24

question. That's a good question actually, because one

20:27

of the things you might one

20:30

of the things you can come to understand

20:32

is that as you become more sophisticated, you

20:35

get better at making peace. And so then

20:38

you might ask yourself if you were as

20:40

sophisticated as you could be, could

20:42

you make peace everywhere? And

20:45

the answer to that is, well, that's the

20:47

limit case. And you likely fall short of

20:49

that in

20:51

a more realistic way. If

20:53

you're striving to make peace with someone and

20:56

they reject it, then, well,

20:58

that's a good time to reconsider

21:01

your approach or possibly to

21:04

turn your attention elsewhere. There's

21:07

a time and a place for everything. And it

21:11

isn't always the case that you have the sophistication

21:15

to force peace on a situation

21:18

prematurely. Very often the case.

21:20

This is actually a great pivot to

21:23

exactly what you were saying. I'm gonna

21:25

use the reference, reap what you sow, right?

21:27

Christians love to say that you reap what

21:29

you sow, you reap what you sow. But

21:33

when I'm studying this and I'm looking at

21:35

it, I realize how much more God has

21:37

his hands on this than we understand. A

21:39

farmer, it's a beautiful parable, right? A

21:41

farmer who's reaping what he sows cannot

21:43

control the weather, cannot

21:45

control the soil, cannot control

21:48

the environment of animals coming and destroying

21:50

it. There's so much more that God

21:52

has his hands on that I've

21:54

truly came to the realization that, for

21:57

example, I'll use this interview, right? I could prep and

21:59

have this conversation. With you, but I

22:02

would rather lean on God walking before

22:04

me and take control in practice when

22:06

you're interviewing What was that? What do you mean? Well,

22:09

if you're allowing God to take control, what does

22:12

that mean? You've contrasted that with what

22:14

you might do if you were prepping So

22:17

that exactly I came to this yesterday when I

22:19

was having like a like a little difficult time

22:21

Trying to figure out the perfect questions But

22:24

then I was starting to get anxious and then

22:26

I said why am I anxious when I should put my faith

22:28

in him and not me So I

22:30

could prep for 11 days in a row But

22:33

if I give him the ability to God

22:36

is a gentleman right in every direction He

22:38

gives you the free choice So I asked

22:40

him please take this situation and

22:42

blossom it in the way that you would like

22:44

it every situation that I'm at

22:46

when I ask a Certain type of way like when

22:48

we go into prayer what I want to circle back

22:50

to because that's a very strong point that I Feel

22:53

like people don't even know how to pray When

22:55

I pray when I was not wise in

22:58

my faith I would pray and ask him what I'm

23:00

demanding and it's like a genie type of thing Yeah

23:02

But now I've realized that I'd rather be a

23:04

guy There's two men that

23:06

stand before God a one who wants and the one

23:08

who is grateful So I'd

23:10

rather be the one that's grateful why because

23:13

the one that wants is Mustard

23:15

seed it grows to be an evil evil thing

23:19

so if

23:21

you were over preparing let's

23:23

say There might

23:25

be a number of reasons for that one

23:27

would be fear the other would be the

23:29

desire to impress let's

23:31

say and You can

23:34

imagine if you were interviewing someone that you

23:36

were nervous about interviewing that those two things

23:38

might arise but then the faithful path and

23:40

I think that's likely what you were searching

23:43

for would be to Understand

23:45

that if in the situation

23:47

you admitted your ignorance properly

23:50

the appropriate questions would come to

23:52

mind This is one of the things that

23:54

you see with someone like Joe Rogan. This is one of the

23:56

reasons I like to talk to Joe is because what

23:59

Joe does and this is partly why he's

24:01

so popular is that he just asks

24:03

stupid questions, but they're real. Yep.

24:06

Right. And so he's willing to admit

24:09

his ignorance in the moment. If you're an interviewer and you're willing

24:11

to admit your ignorance, you're never going to run out of questions

24:13

and then you don't have to. I mean, you want

24:16

to prepare to some degree, right? Because you

24:18

want to know who you're talking to. You want

24:20

to be contextually aware,

24:23

but... I want to respect your time. Yes,

24:25

about two. About two. I want to respect your

24:27

time because... You had a question

24:29

earlier. Do you remember it? Just

24:31

a bit ago. I think I

24:33

was going to add on to when we were talking

24:36

about forgiveness, but I like the position where we're at.

24:38

Okay. But I appreciate you. I'm

24:40

so sorry. I'm just like... No, not

24:42

at all. But I do think that that is

24:44

very interesting because I think so many people's pride get in

24:46

the way, right? Of course, when we sit with you, I

24:48

mean, you are in doctor in psychology. The

24:50

knowledge that you have in psychology, no matter the hours

24:53

that I sit trying to learn about psychology, I will

24:55

never come to know as much as you know in

24:57

this because this has been your career your whole life,

24:59

right? So I think that it's interesting because, yeah, a

25:01

lot of people would sit here and try

25:03

and act as if they know what

25:05

you're talking about and they're on the same page and

25:08

they know this information too. Whereas when

25:10

you can be humble and you can put your pride aside

25:12

and be like, actually, I don't

25:14

know about this and the information you're

25:16

giving me is something that I'm not

25:18

well versed in, then you can find

25:20

a deeper conversation. Well, that's a

25:23

good observation because it also makes you

25:25

actually a better interviewer for your audience.

25:27

I mean, one of the things I

25:29

used to tell my students in my

25:31

classes was, if

25:33

you have a question, ask

25:36

it. Now you're going to reveal

25:38

your ignorance in the question and you're going

25:40

to be afraid because you'll think you're the

25:42

only person in the room that doesn't know.

25:45

But what you'll find out is that everyone

25:47

was having that question, assuming you were

25:50

paying attention. And what

25:52

you've actually demonstrated is that you were the

25:54

only one courageous enough to admit it. And

25:57

so you can be a very

25:59

effective interviewer. And know very

26:01

little as long as the questions you

26:03

ask are actually real questions, right? And

26:05

then they don't have that pretense that

26:08

you described of pride right

26:11

and Very good interviewers.

26:14

That's what they're like there and they're following the

26:16

thread of the conversation and so it is it

26:19

is a good example of the

26:21

path that's both divine and humble

26:24

and it's humble because You can't

26:27

walk that path without admitting that you're

26:29

ignorant and it's divine because

26:32

if you admit your ignorance forthrightly

26:36

You'll receive what you need to rectify

26:38

it and much faster than you generally

26:40

think When my daughter was

26:42

learning to run businesses

26:47

We were frequently surrounded by people who

26:49

claimed to be expert at such things

26:51

and it was difficult for us to

26:53

begin with to Distinguish between

26:55

the wheat and the chaff and

26:58

she would ask these experts Stupid questions

27:00

which they were frequently unable to answer

27:02

in any comprehensible manner and one of

27:04

the things she learned quite quickly was

27:07

that If they couldn't

27:09

answer the stupid question, it was because they didn't

27:11

know the answer And I

27:13

had encouraged her her whole life like her

27:15

brother to ask Stupid

27:19

questions because you actually only have to

27:21

ask a stupid question once Right,

27:23

right, right Unless you'll

27:25

do this. Well unless you well

27:28

Generally, well generally unless you're not

27:30

paying attention You

27:32

know now if you're I mean people do

27:35

differ in their intellect and some people can

27:37

catch on faster than others and some people

27:39

Need more basic explanations

27:42

more thoroughly developed than others but

27:44

most people who are paying attention can

27:47

learn right and so

27:50

Willful blindness is much worse than

27:52

lack of intelligence You

27:55

wrestled with that and now you pray that others don't meaning

27:59

willful Well,

28:01

willful blindness is a

28:03

great temptation, right? It's

28:06

the most subtle form of

28:08

lie, willful blindness, when

28:12

you could know but you turn away.

28:15

That's why there are none so blind as those

28:17

who will not see, right? That's

28:22

a form of failure to ask the question when

28:24

it comes to mind, you know? You

28:26

said it in a beautiful way when she brought this up. You

28:30

said you led with fear, the same way that

28:32

I may have started to lead with fear when

28:34

I was preparing for this. I

28:37

journal a lot and the reason I journal a

28:39

lot is because I feel like I have so

28:41

many flutter thoughts that I know that if I

28:43

write it down, I have to choose the most

28:45

important thought that I have. And

28:48

through my journaling, I found that I'm

28:51

at my strongest stage when I fully focus

28:53

on my fear of the Lord. And

28:56

that's where wisdom begins. I

28:59

believe that when I fear the Lord

29:02

in any direction, failing Him as a

29:04

son to my mother, failing Him as

29:06

an interviewer and an opportunity to share

29:08

the gospel, in any direction

29:10

if I focus on failing Him, no

29:13

disrespect to you, I wouldn't care about

29:15

failing you. So my fear that I

29:17

had right here, when I challenged it,

29:20

changed my perspective on who I should

29:22

care more of failing, and

29:24

I end up the load of failing this

29:26

interview. So would

29:29

you not say that a man who

29:31

fears the Lord is fearless to the earth, making

29:33

Him the strongest in the room? I

29:37

would say that, but I don't know

29:39

precisely how you derived that conclusion from

29:41

that introduction. That's

29:43

not a criticism. No, no, no.

29:46

I'll explain. So yes, I believe

29:48

that. People tell me upon occasion,

29:51

frequently, that they admire my

29:53

bravery. But they're

29:55

not right about that. That's not

29:57

right. I just... They

30:00

are different things than they do.

30:02

Yes. So,

30:04

and I think it is related to

30:06

the point that you're making because you

30:08

need to know what to be truly

30:10

afraid of. Okay. So

30:13

you could be afraid of the opinions of men

30:16

and there's reason for that. But

30:19

you shouldn't let your fear of the

30:21

opinions of men let the

30:23

cat get your tongue because

30:25

then you're not afraid of the right thing. When

30:28

I objected to

30:31

what my government was doing seven

30:33

years ago, the part

30:35

that I objected to was compelled speech.

30:38

It's like, you're not getting control of

30:40

my tongue. Why? Because

30:43

there's nothing worse than

30:46

you can do to me that you can do to

30:48

me than that. Nothing. Now you

30:50

might not know that, but that

30:52

doesn't, that means nothing as far as

30:54

I'm concerned. So I was much

30:57

more afraid of losing control of my tongue

30:59

than I was afraid of losing my job.

31:02

Why would I want a job if I had

31:05

to lose my tongue to keep it? That's

31:08

insane. It's far worse than

31:10

insane. It's the very pathway to insanity.

31:14

So because one of the things you might ask

31:16

yourself, for example, is, well,

31:18

when should you not have your job? No

31:22

job is worth an infinite price. Well,

31:24

here's a criteria.

31:27

If you have to lie to keep it, well,

31:30

why would you want that job? Unless

31:33

the job you want is like

31:35

professional liar. So

31:37

for me, once entertainment, this was

31:39

even true with the university is that

31:41

if the cost of me maintaining my

31:44

university position is that I had to

31:46

falsify my language,

31:48

well, then what that means to me is that's not a

31:51

place I want to work anymore. So

31:54

and that is part of that is say

31:57

fear of God, the fear of God. That's the beginning

31:59

of. wisdom. No, there's a, one

32:02

of the most powerful presumptions,

32:06

proclamations in the biblical

32:09

corpus is that there

32:12

is no better guide than the truth.

32:16

And that's meant practically

32:18

and theologically. It's actually

32:20

meant. It's like, it's the

32:23

statement is very straightforward. But whose truth?

32:27

Well, it's got to be your

32:29

truth in some sense, because all

32:31

you have access to is your truth. Now

32:33

you can try to orient that truth to

32:36

truth itself. You can struggle

32:38

to do that. And you do

32:40

that in a variety of ways. And you should do that.

32:43

But you have to start with the truth as it reveals

32:45

itself to you. But

32:48

the notion is, and it's a very practical

32:50

notion. And you

32:54

could think of it this simply. It's like,

32:56

how are you going to guide yourself through

32:58

complex territory with a faulty map? I

33:01

mean, if your presumption is, well, I

33:03

need to lie to get through this. Well,

33:06

fake it till you make it. Well,

33:08

that's slightly different. That's slightly different.

33:10

That's an interesting variation. Because sometimes

33:12

when you adopt a new position,

33:16

you have to act out the position before you're

33:18

expert at it. And

33:20

so sometimes fake it till you make

33:22

it isn't a lie. It's just what

33:24

you need to do when you've made

33:26

a status transition. But often people will

33:28

fake it instead of making it. And

33:31

that's a very bad idea. I

33:36

think they fall into this trap when it comes to vanity. For

33:39

example, this industry that I'm in, they'd rather live

33:42

out an idea in front of

33:44

people. I mean, it doesn't

33:46

even have to be this. It could be anyone else. Like

33:48

when it comes to credit cards and chasing a life that

33:50

you don't even deserve yet. And

33:52

just to show people that you're there, you're

33:54

setting yourself up in your own bondage. It's

33:56

slavery that you've walked into. You've put the

33:58

shackles on your own. by

34:01

pretending and punishing yourself trying to

34:03

keep your head above water to

34:05

please the people around you. Yeah

34:07

that happens to people. I feel

34:09

like that happens a lot when you chase vanity

34:11

so you were saying perspective and every time that

34:13

you came to the conclusion of making

34:16

a good truth in your eyes your perspective was

34:18

most likely in the perspective that God was seeing

34:20

in it. Well I

34:23

don't know if I would I don't know if

34:25

I would be presumptuous enough to assume that but

34:28

what I did try was to and

34:30

I do try it was to make sure that I could

34:33

feel firm ground under my feet. Now

34:35

you can feel that and if

34:38

you're careful with your words if

34:42

you're if you're putting on a show

34:47

you will become self-conscious and

34:49

the reason for that is because putting

34:53

on a show is an expression of self-consciousness.

34:55

Putting on a show means it's about you

34:57

by definition.

34:59

Right. You're displaying yourself

35:02

for status for example to be

35:04

the smartest person in the room

35:06

for for whatever short-term

35:08

self-centered gain you're currently after. Well

35:11

that makes you self-conscious. Okay so

35:13

one of the things you can

35:15

do while you're speaking is you

35:18

can feel whether or not what

35:20

you're saying is making you

35:22

self-conscious and if it is you

35:24

can stop saying that and

35:27

that's a great relief because

35:30

there's actually very little that's more

35:32

uncomfortable than being self-conscious. Now

35:35

if your words aren't

35:38

designed to suit

35:40

yourself then they

35:42

won't make you self-conscious and

35:44

that's there's

35:47

nothing better than that and

35:49

then people will trade that they'll trade that

35:51

it's like the pearl of great price you

35:54

know they'll trade that for

35:56

something of much lesser value and that's foolish.

35:58

Now you know sometimes

36:00

there's a conflict because maybe you're

36:03

called upon to say

36:05

something that's going to cause you

36:07

trouble in the short term. It's going

36:09

to interfere with your perceived status or

36:11

it's going to cause you financial

36:14

trouble even in the short run and

36:17

so you won't do it. You don't do

36:19

it but all you're doing is sacrificing the

36:21

greater to the lesser and see

36:24

I learned this partly by being a clinical

36:26

psychologist. So one of the things I learned

36:28

from being a clinical psychologist also in my

36:30

own family was that if

36:33

you have a disagreement with someone and

36:35

you pretend that you don't all

36:38

that happens inevitably is that the

36:41

disagreement deepens and multiplies and

36:46

extends over a much longer period of

36:48

time even forever. Resundment. Yes

36:51

that's certainly one of its manifestations. Yes

36:54

well resentment and lies you know like if we're

36:56

in a relationship and I have to see you

36:58

every day and there's something you

37:01

do that annoys me well let's take

37:03

that apart. So there's something you do

37:05

habitually that annoys me. Okay there's two

37:07

possibilities. One is you're annoying.

37:09

One is I'm there's something wrong with

37:11

how I'm looking at it or some

37:14

intermingling of those. Now I

37:16

could bring that up now you might say well how would

37:19

I bring that up and I would say something like when

37:25

this happens I find myself irritated.

37:29

What do you think about that? And now

37:31

I have to really want to know because part of

37:33

me is going to think well I'm down I'm hoping

37:35

that it's you. Yeah. That's annoying

37:37

and not me that's stupid but I

37:40

might be stupid so

37:42

I'm I'm going to put it out there neutrally

37:44

it's like let's sort this out because I'd rather

37:46

not be irritated with you and so

37:48

if you can figure out why I'm

37:50

blind and you're fine you tell

37:53

me and I'll do what I can to sort

37:55

that out but if we figure out that you're

37:57

annoying then let's

37:59

see what we can do about that so that I

38:01

don't have to be annoyed with you every goddamn day

38:03

for the rest of my life. Right?

38:06

And that's a war, right? And that's often the sort

38:08

of war that people don't want to have. And it's

38:10

certainly the sort of thing they'll turn a blind eye

38:12

to. But if you have 30 of those

38:15

things with your wife,

38:17

you're done. Your marriage is

38:19

done. You're not

38:22

being, well, you're not being honest with

38:24

one another. And I mean, it's

38:27

because it's difficult to bring something up to somebody

38:29

that then they feel like they

38:32

need to either fix or change. Or

38:34

as you said, if maybe it's the way that you're perceiving

38:36

it is wrong, then you need to

38:38

fix and change that. And you

38:40

don't know how deep that goes. That's

38:42

the other thing. You see this when couples are trying

38:46

to communicate and often. So

38:49

let's say just for the sake of argument,

38:52

let's say that you are doing something habitual

38:54

that you don't know about that is actually

38:56

annoying. And it's not just annoying, say to

38:58

me, but it's annoying to other people and

39:00

you really don't know about it. And

39:02

so I bring it to your attention and now

39:04

we have to delve into it. Now this could easily

39:07

be reversed, but we'll use this example. We

39:09

have no idea how deep down into

39:12

your structure of assumptions we're

39:14

going to have to go to find out

39:16

why that's happening. And often

39:18

what you'll discover is if you do

39:20

this with people, you'll go

39:22

down the rabbit hole and

39:25

first to anger because people will get angry

39:28

and then to tears. Right. And

39:30

then that often fixes it. If you can get

39:32

to tears, the

39:35

person will have a realization and

39:37

sometimes a transformation that will go

39:39

along with that. But people don't

39:41

like that. They don't like that.

39:43

No wonder. Definitely. And would you say that

39:45

then it comes back down to both parties

39:48

being humble in that situation? So if I found

39:50

out that I'm the one being annoying, I need

39:52

to humble myself and have an open mind to

39:54

what you have said and realize that, okay, I

39:56

am being annoying. And I know it's embarrassing, but

39:58

I need to figure it out. Yes,

40:00

well and also you do that with

40:02

a certain kind of clear-headed realization like

40:05

this is the thing that's So

40:07

you're bound in a marriage. Let's say now the

40:09

binding is you don't get to run away Like

40:13

seriously. Well, so then

40:15

you have a dilemma which is Well,

40:18

you're either gonna confront this or you're gonna live with it

40:20

for the rest of your life now That's

40:23

not wise because if

40:25

there's something your wife is doing that you don't

40:28

like if Enough

40:30

of those things accumulate you won't like

40:32

her Well, then that's

40:34

terrible for her And one of the

40:36

things a wife might think if a

40:38

husband is expressing his annoyance is She

40:41

might want to get to the bottom of that

40:43

too because maybe he needs some tooling and that's

40:45

certainly possible But maybe she needs

40:47

some adjustment too because the alternative for her

40:49

is to live with someone who pretends to

40:51

like her Yeah, well, you

40:53

know if you want a hell, that's a good one. Oh

40:57

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42:00

know, it's like having a child who's very

42:02

badly behaved and you take that child out

42:04

in public and everybody fought smiles

42:06

falsely around them and pretends

42:09

they Enjoy the child's

42:11

company when you're not me bro. I'll

42:13

call that out. Well, I tell that

42:15

there all the time control your kids,

42:17

bro Yeah control your kids annoying. Yeah.

42:19

Well, you know, there's there's a certain

42:21

utility in calling that out But the

42:24

problem for the child in that situation Especially

42:26

if people say won't call it out is

42:29

that the child lives in a world of

42:31

false smiles and your marriage your marriage Can

42:33

easily be a world of false smiles and

42:36

that's brutal brutal

42:39

then you can't even complain because Well,

42:43

everyone's smiling after all What's

42:45

what's the problem? The problem is hatred

42:48

in the guise of love. That's the problem

42:50

and that iciness that's underneath that

42:52

It's awful. People will lock

42:55

themselves in like a Homicidal

42:57

embrace for decades because of

42:59

that. It's brutal

43:02

better to have the scrap I have to

43:04

ask you this because in my relationship here

43:07

With this incredibly beautiful girl inside and

43:09

out Extremely

43:12

blessed to have you I'll probably say

43:14

it often What

43:17

did you think about you I Appreciate

43:25

that But

43:28

I had to humble myself to be the correct man and

43:30

so how's that going? Incredible

43:32

when you realize that I ain't shit without God,

43:34

you know, I mean and so when you realize

43:37

that I Walk,

43:39

I treat this relationship truly as if

43:41

God gave this me but also can

43:43

take it away So if I do

43:45

not honor the gift that he's given me which

43:47

in the scripture says a good woman is one

43:49

of the best gifts From God, then obviously he

43:51

will remove me and give her to a man.

43:53

That's more deserving And

43:55

how I had to come to that conclusion is that I'm

43:58

not right and I'm not always in the right path And

44:00

so that's scary when you love somebody and then you

44:03

realize that you're bringing them along to

44:05

hell if you're going the wrong direction that could get you

44:07

know daunting and My

44:11

question is our relationship found a very

44:14

beautiful path when I said hey, I'm

44:16

gonna lead this house But

44:19

also God's gonna control it So

44:22

if I'm in the wrong direction, she prays about it

44:24

God will open up my eyes and ears and then

44:26

I'll try to fix it vice versa But we have

44:29

this counseling that we come to the Lord with how

44:31

did you manage to have a

44:33

beautiful successful? Relationship without a counsel

44:35

from God if your wife didn't

44:37

believe in God while you did

44:40

how was that not? Oh, I

44:42

don't I don't think that wasn't the situation.

44:44

I mean first of all people

44:47

Believe in God to a greater or lesser

44:49

degree in some ways regardless of what they say

44:51

or think So even

44:54

people who are atheistic It's

44:57

a surface presumption mostly. What do you

44:59

mean? Well,

45:02

I mean partly that we're opaque to ourselves and

45:04

so you can say you're an atheist but that

45:06

doesn't mean you are one so

45:10

that's that just like Saying

45:12

a woman saying you're a woman doesn't make you

45:14

are what make you a woman if you're a

45:16

man Just like that. So, you

45:19

know my wife My

45:22

wife I wouldn't say my wife ever was

45:25

atheistic in her orientation she

45:28

certainly agreed when we Decided

45:31

to get married that she was gonna tell me the truth

45:36

At minimum a form of faith in the

45:38

truth and that's like that's a good start

45:40

Can I ask before you like peel

45:43

the layer on that so that way I make sure

45:45

I'm following Are you saying that with her mouth? She

45:47

said that there's no God but with her actions She

45:49

said there is a guy. Well, she never said that

45:51

with her mouth either I mean, she

45:54

never she was never in a vowed atheist.

45:56

She just she didn't go to church. She

45:58

had drifted away from church But

46:01

where is your counseling? And how

46:03

do you... so your beliefs are in a

46:05

higher God and you run your household. How

46:07

do you run your household when one doesn't

46:09

want to play ball with the fact that

46:11

there is a Creator out there that gave

46:13

you a set of instructions to have

46:15

a beautiful fruitful relationship? If I...

46:17

Well she did play ball. Okay.

46:20

She agreed to tell me the truth and she

46:22

did that very, very

46:25

diligently I would say, very diligently. And

46:27

so... And how is her faith now?

46:30

I know her... your new program is...

46:33

Is that what opened up her eyes? Because that's what I was

46:35

reading that you wrestle with God coming out

46:37

of her. People's eyes open for all

46:39

sorts of reasons. I mean one

46:42

of the things that happened, multiple

46:44

things happened to Tammy. I mean

46:46

she spent a lot of time

46:49

meditating. She did yoga for decades and

46:51

that trained her ability to

46:53

attend quite remarkably.

46:58

She's a very physically disciplined person and

47:01

then when things blew up

47:04

around me she

47:06

decided to climb

47:08

on board more professionally

47:12

and started working with me and touring

47:15

with me. And one of the consequences of

47:17

that was that she sat

47:19

in the audience while I lectured like 200 times

47:22

and some of that

47:24

made a difference. And

47:27

then she became very ill

47:30

and just about died and like every

47:33

day for eight months and just

47:35

about starved to death. So you

47:37

had to deal with that? Well that was just

47:39

one of many things that was happening at the

47:41

time because I was also very ill. And my

47:43

daughter was very ill. Yeah well it was quite

47:46

the ringer and so that also

47:52

forced her and invited

47:54

her to take

47:57

herself and her life more

47:59

seriously. But

48:01

it wasn't just the suffering because one of

48:03

the things that happened too, as a consequence

48:05

of her developing

48:08

a fatal illness, was

48:11

that she came to

48:13

the realization that her life meant more than

48:15

she thought it did, not

48:18

least because she saw, especially

48:20

in her son's reaction to

48:22

the news, how much her

48:25

absence would mean to him. And

48:29

so that's a lot of factors that were at

48:31

play simultaneously. There's more than that. There's

48:34

a factor that I just can't stop thinking about, and

48:36

it's, as a Christian man, what did

48:39

it do to you to see

48:41

your loved one, God forbid, almost leave,

48:45

without knowing God, and we know the

48:47

repercussions of that? Was

48:49

that terrifying? Well, I

48:51

didn't formulate it that way. I mean,

48:53

first of all, I didn't, I

48:56

wasn't, was I not

49:00

judging her? I never formulated

49:03

what was happening to her in those terms. I

49:06

mean, what was horrifying

49:08

about it? Well, it was horrifying. It

49:10

was terrifying, painful. Not

49:14

terrifying, painful to see

49:17

her suffer. And

49:24

that was

49:26

terrifying to see her suffer in the absence

49:28

of sufficient faith. No, I'm

49:30

just saying it's not because she developed

49:32

that very rapidly as it became necessary,

49:35

increasingly necessary. I mean,

49:38

Tammy decided very early

49:40

on in the process that she was going to

49:42

accept what was coming her way, and

49:44

that she was going to make whatever

49:47

changes were necessary

49:49

and were offered to her, and

49:51

that she accepted

49:54

what happened to her with incredibly good

49:57

grace. She's a very strong person. And

49:59

so she was different. discipline before that so it's probably

50:01

easy for her to... Well it

50:03

certainly helped, yes definitely. What do you think

50:05

a man needs to be

50:07

able to go to Heaven? What

50:16

do you mean? What do you mean by

50:18

Heaven? Heaven is God's home. So it's

50:20

not our choice. Truth. Yeah, truth?

50:23

Sure. What truth? Yours

50:25

or God's? You

50:28

asked that before so I'm not sure what distinction

50:30

you're drawing. Reed has a truth,

50:33

but in the eyes of God that's lies. So

50:35

in the grand scheme of things... Well some of it might

50:37

be. Some of it's probably... Hypothetically

50:39

we'll say that one's a lie. You

50:42

mean he misses the mark from time to time?

50:45

Well I'm just talking about the who is

50:47

in charge, the Creator, right? So

50:49

that truth is not a... it's not a perspective

50:51

thing. It's either you know or you don't know.

50:55

Well the question is to some... okay so the

50:57

question you're posing to some degree is... When you're

50:59

knocked on God's door what grants you into his

51:01

home? Because

51:03

that day is coming every knee shall bow willing or

51:06

non willing so your truth or the man next to

51:08

you's truth is meaningless. What

51:10

is the truth to let him come into the kingdom

51:12

of Heaven? Well

51:18

it isn't that your truth is meaningless.

51:20

It's that... You're

51:24

not a Christian. You're a

51:26

Christian. You're

51:29

a Christian. See this is where the words

51:32

get tricky because modern

51:34

people tend to think that truth

51:36

is a set of descriptions of

51:38

facts. But that's not

51:40

what the truth is. The truth is for

51:42

example the truth is the process by... The

51:46

truth is your willingness to

51:51

make manifest the process that enables

51:55

you to learn in progress. Right?

51:59

That's close. to what the truth

52:01

constitutes. A process. That's why

52:03

the truth is often represented

52:05

as a spirit, rather

52:08

than a set of descriptions. This is partly

52:10

why I take offense,

52:12

let's say, to some degree, when people ask

52:14

me if I believe in God. It's the

52:16

same problem. People think

52:19

of truth as something like fact. And

52:22

that's not what it is. That's one tiny

52:24

aspect of what it is. I

52:26

think that's the first thing that... So in the first thing

52:28

you said, truth, you know, my truth, your truth rather than

52:30

God's truth. Well... See,

52:35

whether those two things are distinct to

52:38

some degree depends on how you conceptualize

52:40

yourself. It might be true

52:42

that you want something right now, let's

52:45

say. And you might say, well, that's not

52:47

a want that's in keeping with the

52:50

ultimate and transcendent truths. And that could

52:52

well be. But the problem

52:55

there that you're facing to some degree

52:57

is that you've identified yourself with that

52:59

local want. So when

53:01

you say, you know, when you say

53:03

my truth, when you're talking about, I

53:05

don't mean mine personally, I mean personal

53:07

truth, and you say that's in opposition

53:09

to God, I would say, well, personal

53:11

truth is in opposition to God in

53:14

proportion to the degree that that

53:17

person is self

53:21

obsessed. See

53:25

because yourself, the way you

53:27

conceptualize yourself could be much broader. And

53:32

then your truth would be more tightly aligned

53:34

with what was transcendent. So

53:37

for example, look, look, at it this way, let

53:39

me make it relatively straightforward. So when

53:42

you get married, the

53:45

difference between you and your wife is supposed

53:47

to disappear. Okay,

53:49

so let's think that through like

53:51

really practically, not theologically, just practically.

53:54

Well, why should that

53:56

border be erased? Well,

53:59

the reason is, is because the border will be

54:01

erased. Because if you're going

54:03

to live with someone for the next 50 years, they're

54:07

as much you as you are. Not

54:09

least because, well, there

54:11

they are, like right beside you. There they

54:13

are talking to you. There they are walking

54:15

with you on the beach. Like, they're literally

54:18

part of your experience. Literally.

54:21

And they're certainly a part of

54:23

your experience that can make your life hell if

54:27

they're not attended to properly. So

54:30

like, once you're married like that, the

54:32

difference between you and your wife is

54:35

insignificant. And

54:37

so if you don't

54:39

act like that, then all

54:42

hell is going to break loose. If

54:44

you do act like that, now imagine what you've done

54:46

to your conception of

54:48

yourself. Now it's broadened to

54:50

include someone else. And

54:53

so then I would say, insofar as you serve

54:55

that more broadened self,

54:58

you've stepped quite

55:00

a long ways out of your

55:02

narrow self-concern into something that much

55:04

more closely approximates a relationship with

55:06

God. That's why marriage is a

55:09

sacrament. That's why marriage is a

55:11

Christian sacrament. Is because

55:13

entered into in the proper spirit.

55:16

It's a step up Jacob's

55:18

ladder. But

55:21

is your truth, and

55:24

say you have accumulated a whole population of

55:26

Canada, to be all on

55:28

your truth? Yeah. Is that greater

55:30

than God's? That well,

55:32

that's a reasonable question because, and

55:36

what you're pointing to there is the potential.

55:38

I see what you're at, what you're after

55:40

there. Well, people

55:42

will find truth through consensus. And

55:45

there are people who claim, especially

55:47

in a morally relativist, from

55:49

a morally relativist perspective, that there

55:52

is no truth other than consensus.

55:55

But that brings you to a problem very rapidly

55:57

because you can end up with a consensus like

55:59

the Nazi consensus, right,

56:03

where everyone believed, for example, that well,

56:05

the Jews were the great enemies of

56:08

the German state and all of the

56:10

atrocity that came along with that, everyone

56:12

played along with at least, even if

56:14

they weren't active agents, so that was

56:17

a false consensus. Your question is, well,

56:19

what is there to protect against that

56:21

false consensus? That's a very good question.

56:23

And I would say, well, certainly traditional

56:25

conceptions of God are one of the

56:28

things that protect us against false consensus.

56:30

There's no doubt about that. It's a double-edged sword because

56:33

also tradition fights back on what God

56:35

wants. Well, that's sure,

56:37

sure, and then you might

56:39

see in that eternal conundrum

56:42

faced by liberals and conservatives, because

56:44

the conservatives would say, watch

56:48

out for the now because it can get

56:50

out of hand, and the liberals

56:52

will say, yeah, but you can make a

56:54

dogma out of tradition and wield it like

56:57

a hammer, and both of those

56:59

are true, and

57:02

well, that's partly why also why the

57:04

truth has to be a dynamic process

57:06

rather than, say, a statement of a

57:08

set of statements, set of

57:10

factual statements. So my

57:13

truth growing up was that you need to be baptized,

57:15

and then my truth grew into you need

57:18

a relationship with Christ. And then

57:20

when I actually started looking for Christ, not because

57:22

my mom and dad told me to, but because

57:24

my heart yearned for it, I

57:26

fell into this part

57:29

of the Bible where they did talk about

57:31

a man who goes into heaven, and it

57:33

was the thief on the cross, and

57:36

that man never went down into charity, that

57:39

man never went down off the cross and

57:41

got baptized, that man never shook his neighbor

57:43

and says, it's good news, Christ is coming

57:45

back. But he looked at Christ

57:47

in his face amongst everyone who stared at him

57:49

and he said, ah, he

57:51

is the King of kings, he is the

57:53

Lord of Lords, he is the

57:55

one true God, do not forget me

57:57

when you go to heaven, and

57:59

God God said, I tell you today

58:02

you will be with me in paradise. What do you think

58:04

that means? Because he knew who God was and what he

58:06

was doing for him. Okay,

58:08

and what's the implication of that? Implication

58:11

is, regardless of how much you

58:13

emphasize or manifest your truth, your truth

58:15

will never be bigger than God's. Okay,

58:18

well I would say, with all due

58:20

respect, that's close. Fair.

58:23

Well, I think that with respect. I think

58:25

that with respect. Yeah, well I think that

58:27

you're on the trail of something there. So

58:31

there's an idea that no

58:33

matter what your sins, if

58:36

you confess, then you can

58:38

be forgiven. And

58:40

in some ways to confess is to

58:43

admit to, it's

58:45

to admit your insufficiency in relationship to

58:47

something higher than you. That's a

58:49

good way of thinking about it. That is what happens to

58:51

that thief. So he's

58:54

a bad guy. But on

58:56

his deathbed he recognizes the truth.

58:59

And that's sufficient to redeem him. Now

59:02

in practice, people criticize

59:04

that sort of idea because you

59:07

might say you could play both ends against the middle

59:09

then. And so your best bet is to be

59:11

like hedonistic

59:14

mafioso until you're 85

59:17

and then to, you know, repent

59:19

on your deathbed. And that's a cop

59:22

way out because- I know, I know. That's

59:24

my point. They love to say that. They love to say,

59:26

but remember God doesn't judge your actions, he judges your heart.

59:28

You can't hide your heart from God. So

59:30

in the scripture it says it's better for you not

59:32

to know and do that crime than

59:34

for you to know. Yes, definitely. Exactly.

59:38

Well, so the problem with

59:40

a deathbed confession is that in

59:42

order for it to take you have to

59:45

get to the bottom of things. And if

59:47

you'd accrued up a whole hell of lifetime

59:49

catastrophe, you'd have to face all that.

59:51

It also comes with regulations, right?

59:53

A judge, per se, is standing before you

59:55

and you and your heart of heart and

59:57

your truth. I was checking on my toddler.

1:00:00

He was choking and I accidentally

1:00:02

hit a red light and the

1:00:04

judge does not care because you hit the red light

1:00:06

So he's judging you on what your

1:00:08

crime was now he could show you grace, but you

1:00:10

still did the crime So

1:00:12

it is in the hands of the judge So

1:00:15

when you stand and tell your truth to the judge It's

1:00:18

in his hands So when he gives you

1:00:20

rule books like for example how you judge

1:00:22

your neighbor will be measured to how I

1:00:24

judge you That's a very big standpoint when

1:00:26

it came to forgiving other people. I asked

1:00:28

God God Why should I forget other people

1:00:30

like why? Because respectfully

1:00:33

after that dude, I tried over and over

1:00:35

and over again Why would I and then

1:00:37

when I get hit with a fierce statement

1:00:39

of how you measure how much you forgive

1:00:41

somebody? I'm gonna take that same measurement

1:00:43

and measure you. Yeah. Well, that's an inevitability That's

1:00:47

another that's another example of the

1:00:50

pragmatic utility of those

1:00:52

injunctions So you could imagine

1:00:55

if you're habitually

1:00:58

Imagine you're a habitually

1:01:00

harshly judgmental person and so

1:01:04

Everyone around you that interacts with

1:01:06

you comes to experience that they'll

1:01:08

reflect it So you

1:01:11

will be judged by the standard that you

1:01:13

used to judge others that happens almost immediately

1:01:15

Yeah, but there's more to

1:01:17

it than that because if

1:01:19

you develop a very harsh

1:01:21

set of judgmental standards And you apply

1:01:23

them to others You

1:01:25

will use the same tool on

1:01:28

yourself because the probability that you're

1:01:30

sophisticated enough over any reasonable amount

1:01:32

of time To conjure up

1:01:34

one set of standards for everyone else and

1:01:36

another for you It's like no

1:01:38

one can handle that balancing act

1:01:41

that juggling act those things will interpenetrate

1:01:44

So part of see that and that

1:01:46

is relevant to an issue that we discussed

1:01:49

earlier, which is the issue of forgiveness I

1:01:51

mean part of the reason that you want

1:01:53

to Do what you can

1:01:55

to set yourself up so

1:01:57

that you can forgive is so

1:01:59

that The same grace will be

1:02:01

extended to you. So for example, if we

1:02:03

go back to a concrete situation, so

1:02:06

you're married to someone now you're going to

1:02:08

interact with them tens of thousands of times,

1:02:10

right? And so you

1:02:14

will encounter problems together and

1:02:17

sometimes there'll be problems that you cause

1:02:19

and sometimes there'll be problems that he

1:02:21

causes or some joint contribution. Well,

1:02:25

whatever grace he

1:02:27

shows you in

1:02:29

the negotiations when you're at fault,

1:02:33

that's exactly what you'll reflect back

1:02:35

as the marriage progresses. Obviously,

1:02:38

because obviously how

1:02:40

else could it possibly be? And

1:02:42

so you debt you do

1:02:45

and the marriage is a very good example of

1:02:47

this. Great. The tightest example is you

1:02:50

will receive

1:02:52

what you deliver in a marriage and

1:02:55

often very rapidly.

1:02:57

And that's a very

1:02:59

useful thing to understand because then

1:03:03

you can ask yourself and this is

1:03:06

the same gospel injunction about

1:03:09

wanting to be treated like you would. Treating

1:03:13

others like you would want to be treated. It's like

1:03:17

that's something you really want to apply to your

1:03:20

wife, not least because you're stuck with her. Like

1:03:22

she's a mirror. She's a

1:03:24

mirror. So you're saying it's kind of

1:03:26

when we're in a situation and if he's

1:03:29

not showing me quite grace and he's taking

1:03:31

things very harshly and he's being very hard

1:03:33

on me and it's kind of the way

1:03:36

that he's treating me in a situation, I'm

1:03:38

going to remember that for when the world

1:03:40

will reverse. Well, partly that, partly it'll be

1:03:42

conscious, but partly you'll just

1:03:45

come to imitate that and even unconsciously

1:03:47

because it'll become the pattern of your

1:03:50

relationship. So sometimes you'll

1:03:52

wield that like a club, you did this to

1:03:54

me so now I'm going to deal

1:03:57

that way with you, but often it's just

1:03:59

more subtle. You don't even know

1:04:01

it. No, well, and you practice what

1:04:03

you become. You

1:04:05

also become what others near you practice.

1:04:09

Because we're very imitative creatures.

1:04:12

And so, we're sheep. We

1:04:17

certainly have that aspect. We can

1:04:19

also be shepherds, you know. So the

1:04:23

metaphor extends in all sorts of different directions.

1:04:27

And it is also good to know. One

1:04:31

of the things my wife and I learned to do,

1:04:33

and we literally do this, is if

1:04:35

we're caught on the

1:04:38

horns of a dilemma, and

1:04:40

we can't get out of it,

1:04:44

we'll stop arguing if we have

1:04:47

enough sense. Because, you know, if you get angry,

1:04:49

both of you want to win. And that's not

1:04:51

helpful. You can't. That's another thing to

1:04:53

know. You cannot win an argument

1:04:55

with your husband. And he

1:04:58

can't win an argument with his wife. Not

1:05:02

unless he wants to defeat her. In

1:05:04

which case... He defeats himself. Well,

1:05:06

he lives with a defeated woman. I

1:05:08

thought he was going to go so deep with

1:05:10

it. What good is that going to be? That's

1:05:13

not helpful. And you guys are one. So

1:05:15

if you defeat her, you defeat yourself. Well, not

1:05:18

least, because now you're living with someone who's

1:05:20

defeated and bitter. That's not helpful.

1:05:23

You can't win an argument with what you have to do.

1:05:27

You can't stomp around and insist

1:05:30

that you were right. Look, this happens to

1:05:32

couples all the time. So imagine that

1:05:34

one person in the couple is better at verbal

1:05:36

disputes than the other. That doesn't mean they're smarter.

1:05:38

And it doesn't mean that they're more correct. I

1:05:41

just said this. You're just good at your skill

1:05:43

of talking. Yeah, exactly. Now, so one of the

1:05:45

things you want to do... So

1:05:47

imagine in a relationship that...

1:05:51

So what do you want to do about that? If you happen

1:05:53

to be the person who's better at making verbal arguments, one

1:05:56

of the things you want to do is... If your

1:05:58

wife has a problem with you... You

1:06:00

want to help her make her argument. Just

1:06:02

on the off chance that she's got

1:06:04

something to say because maybe she's right.

1:06:07

You know, and it's going to be in her interest

1:06:09

to straighten you out if she has any sense. And

1:06:11

it would be in your interest to listen. And

1:06:14

so that's part of giving

1:06:16

the devil, that's part of loving your enemy. That's

1:06:19

part of giving the devil is due. It's like,

1:06:22

you want to find out. You want to find out. So

1:06:24

you don't have to bring the trouble forward. We're getting deep.

1:06:27

I would love to be vulnerable. And if you want

1:06:29

to cut this out, we can absolutely cut it out.

1:06:31

Because obviously, when I get vulnerable, it's disgusting. You

1:06:35

can rightly so. But

1:06:39

before I do, I'm just going to go

1:06:41

pee real quick. Could you refill his drink?

1:06:43

Of course. I'll just be right back. I'm

1:06:45

sorry. I drank a lot of Celsius to

1:06:47

get ready. No problem. No explanation necessary. So

1:06:49

now are you participating in all of these

1:06:51

podcasts? Yes. Yeah, I'm his

1:06:53

co-host. I wasn't able to go to

1:06:55

the Andrew Tate one because obviously, he

1:06:57

was going to Romania. He didn't know

1:07:00

Andrew Tate because of that reason.

1:07:02

Then he thought we thought it would

1:07:04

be better for me to stay back on that one

1:07:06

and for him to go in. Thank you. Of course. And

1:07:10

then, so usually for the most part, I'm always

1:07:12

there with guests, unless it's something that speaks to

1:07:14

George's heart, where he feels like he wants to

1:07:17

be there one-on-one. But he enjoys having

1:07:19

me. How long have you been doing the podcast

1:07:22

together? I started with him when

1:07:24

he started this by himself. So about a year. I

1:07:27

see. I see. And are you enjoying it? I'm absolutely

1:07:29

enjoying it. Are you getting better at it? I

1:07:31

think so. She is. She is. And

1:07:34

how is she getting better? What's

1:07:37

better? I

1:07:39

think just knowing

1:07:42

when things don't get fully

1:07:45

articulated. Yeah. And because George can be

1:07:47

very linear and just go, and Bell

1:07:49

will sometimes be like, don't forget

1:07:51

about this part. Right, right.

1:07:54

So she's tracking. Yeah,

1:07:56

that's helpful. Yeah.

1:07:59

Being another. being another perspective. Thank

1:08:01

you. Yes,

1:08:04

well you ask pretty clear-headed questions and

1:08:06

they're quite personal. Thank you. I

1:08:08

don't mean that they're personal questions that you make of

1:08:10

your guests, but they're not

1:08:13

abstracted. Oh, thank you. I appreciate

1:08:16

that. Yeah, well that's useful. That'll

1:08:18

also help, that'll

1:08:20

make it easier for your guests to

1:08:23

also see where you're coming from. Thank

1:08:25

you. I know it's all very new to

1:08:27

me, but I've been really enjoying the process of insting down

1:08:30

with people and having these conversations. I'm

1:08:32

not somebody who's as well

1:08:34

burst in certain debates and things like

1:08:36

that, but I have a great interest in

1:08:39

how people think. My first love is acting, so

1:08:41

I'm an actress. The

1:08:44

reason why I got into acting actually is because

1:08:46

I'm so interested in the reason why people do

1:08:48

the things that they do and understanding what's built

1:08:50

them up to be the person that they are.

1:08:52

So in a sense- So you can explore that through

1:08:55

acting. Right, and crewed characters. Yeah,

1:08:58

and picking apart their lives. That's

1:09:00

what interests me. Many people told

1:09:03

me not to have her as my co-host when I started, but

1:09:06

the two things that hit me in the head

1:09:08

was my friend told me, when you do podcasting,

1:09:10

we were going to grow rapidly because you start

1:09:12

monitoring how you speak, how you talk, and it

1:09:14

just makes you have to hold yourself at a

1:09:16

level of respect. And

1:09:19

then two, I truly think she's this incredible

1:09:22

woman. I learned so much from her and

1:09:24

my goal was to teach people things

1:09:27

that I'm learning as I'm growing. So if I'm

1:09:29

going to grow stronger and wiser and I have

1:09:31

a platform, why not bring my partner? Well,

1:09:34

you know, one of the things I've learned- So,

1:09:37

Hammy started to do the intros for

1:09:40

my lectures when we're touring. And

1:09:43

to begin with, she was just announcing some

1:09:45

of the endeavors that we

1:09:47

were engaged in, this essay app that

1:09:50

my son and I developed to help

1:09:52

people learn to write, and Peterson

1:09:54

Academy, this university that I'm- online

1:09:56

university that I'm launching with my

1:09:59

daughter. And so Tammy would

1:10:01

describe them, but then she started to talk about

1:10:03

the rules in my book from a personal perspective

1:10:05

and started to develop a corpus of her own

1:10:07

stories. And so that's been fun. But

1:10:10

also I had her, I invited

1:10:14

her to ask me

1:10:16

to take questions from the audience and

1:10:18

ask me the questions because

1:10:20

there's a Q&A at the end. And one of

1:10:22

the things we found, which was very interesting and

1:10:24

that we didn't expect was that the

1:10:27

audience very much appreciated

1:10:34

our the fact that we're

1:10:36

together on stage and interacting that. And

1:10:39

we learned part of that was, and this is something

1:10:41

to know too, is that there

1:10:43

are a lot of people out there

1:10:45

who've never really watched a civilized interaction

1:10:48

between two people in an intimate, a

1:10:50

man and a woman in an intimate relationship. They

1:10:53

just don't have that in their repertoire. And

1:10:56

so the fact

1:10:58

that we were doing this and could

1:11:00

do it together and that she could

1:11:02

ask me questions and tease a bit and

1:11:04

play and listen, let's

1:11:07

say, and chime in from time to

1:11:09

time. People found

1:11:11

that intriguing

1:11:14

and they also found it comforting in a

1:11:17

way, you know, because if

1:11:19

people are hoping, if

1:11:21

people are gathering something of value from your

1:11:23

words, they're hoping that the

1:11:26

source is real. They're hoping that

1:11:28

it's not an act, that it's not show. And

1:11:30

one of the ways that you

1:11:32

can test that

1:11:34

is by watching the person

1:11:37

interact, let's say, with their wife. It's

1:11:40

very direct, right? And it's a hard

1:11:42

thing to fake, especially continually. And so

1:11:44

I think it was

1:11:47

good for people in relationship to example,

1:11:49

but it was also. It

1:11:53

also helped them ensure

1:11:57

that their trust wasn't misplaced. That's

1:12:00

very interesting. That's a lot. Yeah,

1:12:02

it was very interesting. We didn't expect that at

1:12:04

all. And I'm sure for your audience, the people in

1:12:06

your audience, you know, a lot of people don't come from homes

1:12:09

where their parents are still together. Or

1:12:12

where they ever talked. Right. Which

1:12:14

is why often they're not together. Right.

1:12:17

Because they didn't communicate, right? Exactly.

1:12:19

Communication is key. All

1:12:22

right, time to get vulnerable. Oh no. And

1:12:26

again, babe, if you want me to take this out. Oh

1:12:28

yeah. And if we don't, then

1:12:32

it'll just be something that I at least got blessed with

1:12:35

an opportunity to have a conversation with you about. When

1:12:39

I wasn't in a relationship, I

1:12:41

would, you know, have fun because the people that loved

1:12:43

me, even though they were Christians, are like, hey, go

1:12:45

have fun, go have sex, go like enjoy before you

1:12:47

get married. And they would build up marriages. And like,

1:12:50

this is like, okay, that's it. It's final. You only

1:12:52

get one woman. So when I lost women,

1:12:54

can you stand? Let

1:12:57

me tell you. It was a

1:12:59

turbulence of life and it's a lie that they try

1:13:01

to sell you. The music, the movies, all that stuff.

1:13:03

It's all full of shit. But I had to learn

1:13:05

that the hard way, sadly. And God willing, I could

1:13:08

teach my son that that's a bunch of bullshit. Sorry

1:13:10

for my language. I know I'm trying to speak. What

1:13:16

was wrong with it? What

1:13:18

was wrong with it? It was emptiness.

1:13:20

It was me searching for love

1:13:23

where my perspective,

1:13:26

my POV now is love

1:13:29

is your dance with God,

1:13:31

right? So you could find love in the

1:13:33

worst case scenarios in life. But if you

1:13:35

bring God involved, you could be in the

1:13:37

trenches and still have peace and joy. Well,

1:13:39

in these relationships that were primarily aimed at

1:13:41

sexual pleasure. Yeah. Well, what

1:13:43

exactly was the problem with that? Specifically?

1:13:47

Why was that? I mean, I've

1:13:49

talked to other people about this and some people. Yeah, yeah. I've

1:13:52

talked to Russell Brand about this, for example.

1:13:54

And Russell had plenty of opportunity for, you

1:13:56

know, extra casual sex. Yeah,

1:14:00

right. I think what was wrong with that? I think everybody

1:14:02

every man will have his own version of why it was

1:14:04

wrong for him, right? Russell might have a different version of

1:14:06

why yeah for my version was I Loved

1:14:09

God and I knew that I wasn't walking in obedience.

1:14:11

So how did you know my mother

1:14:13

told me? Okay, why

1:14:15

did that stick? Because

1:14:18

the scripture says to honor your mother's teachings. Yeah,

1:14:20

but it must reflect must have ref. Okay. Okay.

1:14:22

So, okay So there's a calling my mom saying

1:14:25

my condom broke I think I got a whole

1:14:27

pregnant and now I think my actions are gonna

1:14:29

be lame in front of your mother Yeah And

1:14:31

I'm embarrassing last my mom to fast so that

1:14:33

way I don't have a baby With

1:14:36

a girl that I never met and I don't want anything to do with

1:14:38

it's shameful So why did you care what

1:14:40

your mother thought? Because

1:14:42

if I fail to care what my mother thought

1:14:44

then what kind of son of a bitch well,

1:14:46

it depends I mean, you know, no, but but

1:14:48

you know, there are people whose relationship with their

1:14:51

mother is disturbed enough So they

1:14:53

don't care what exactly why did why did you

1:14:55

care what your mother thought? Because God blessed me

1:14:57

with two parents that I should kiss the ground

1:14:59

that they walked on let alone care what they

1:15:01

think of Okay. Okay. So so you had a

1:15:04

good mother a great mother. Yeah better than I

1:15:06

even deserve a God bless me with one Right.

1:15:08

Okay, so it mattered to you what she thought

1:15:10

and you felt that well, you can imagine what

1:15:12

that means too because your mother's a woman

1:15:16

So if you were mistreating other women they

1:15:18

never did never I was good at that. I was good

1:15:21

at that good I was good at being

1:15:23

able to be honest with them and like hey, this is

1:15:25

a fun time Oh, even if they were like a girl

1:15:27

like a random, you know quote unquote like Whole

1:15:30

from the streets like I would still take them

1:15:32

out by the flowers open the door from I

1:15:34

never disrespected no matter What class girl was up

1:15:36

for the sex? And I say

1:15:39

my slang my my line is I'm a

1:15:41

gentleman until the bedroom door locks and

1:15:43

so that that's the That was the

1:15:45

cover story I told you I was gonna be very vulnerable

1:15:48

But this is the best part is that she knows everything about

1:15:50

me. I know everything about her. Well, that must be horrible You

1:15:57

know, I thought you're gonna bring up something about us and no

1:15:59

no I have I'm just walking my way to it.

1:16:02

But for this part, I mean that's... No,

1:16:04

no, no, no. Trust me, this is the easy

1:16:06

part. Alright, okay, so then an

1:16:08

atheist actually said that you believe in God and I

1:16:10

go, yeah, of course, I don't have these conversations that

1:16:12

I have behind cameras. And

1:16:16

he goes, I don't get... Why do you go

1:16:18

around sleeping? And I said, I'll treat

1:16:20

the right girl right when God brings me the right

1:16:22

girl. And he says, well, if he's your father

1:16:24

in heaven, he goes, why would he bring you the right girl when you're

1:16:26

acting wrong? And I was like, whoa. So

1:16:30

I changed my approach, became abstinent. And

1:16:33

through that, I was blessed with the opportunity to meet her.

1:16:36

But my behavior didn't change. We didn't wait

1:16:39

till we were married. And this is what

1:16:41

I'm circling towards, because you're a scholar and

1:16:43

I know that you've dove into the Bible

1:16:46

in a sense of faith-based examination and also

1:16:48

logically understanding what a parable might be. Like,

1:16:50

for example, get up, move a mountain and

1:16:52

go that way. When

1:16:55

I would have sex with Belle, Shawna,

1:16:58

where's AK Belle, this

1:17:01

is... I'm so uncomfortable. This is like a...

1:17:04

I would ask her to remove her cross

1:17:06

from her neck because I wouldn't be able

1:17:08

to even perform. That should have been

1:17:10

a hint. Yeah. And

1:17:12

while she would always... She got to the point where

1:17:14

she would take her cross off. And

1:17:17

sometimes when we carried on through the day, I realized that

1:17:19

her cross is off and that's because of me. Oh,

1:17:23

yeah. And that rocked me because I

1:17:25

knew that I voluntarily...

1:17:29

I pushed the person that I love the most

1:17:31

in the wrong direction and I know one day

1:17:35

I'll be answering to that. Well, it looks like you're

1:17:37

answering for it right now. And

1:17:43

it was something that was really challenging for me.

1:17:45

Did you learn? I'm

1:17:47

getting there. Okay. And

1:17:51

I would have conversations with God and there would be times where

1:17:54

we would go a long time without doing it. And

1:17:56

then I would break down to the stupid

1:17:58

man that I am today. And

1:18:00

I would fall again and I would get up. But

1:18:03

the one thing that I can't get off

1:18:05

my chest is stuck there. When

1:18:08

I asked her to marry

1:18:10

me and I made a promise to

1:18:12

God first and then I made a

1:18:14

promise to her father on earth that

1:18:18

when she is mine, I will

1:18:20

honor her like my church. And

1:18:23

there was this

1:18:25

thing in my chest, man, like immediately

1:18:28

when I had his blessing, it left me. And

1:18:31

I felt like this, like God forbid

1:18:33

I had cancer in me and it

1:18:35

just died and left and

1:18:37

I couldn't unshake it. And so

1:18:39

we had our relatives over and she

1:18:41

had to go with her father. I had to go

1:18:43

this way. So the magic was still, we were dancing

1:18:45

between just being engaged. And so finally I was like,

1:18:47

we made a promise. Like when we get engaged, we're

1:18:50

not going to do anything until marriage. And

1:18:52

then we were distant. And

1:18:54

finally when we saw each other and we

1:18:56

were in the moment, obviously we were going

1:18:58

to fail and have sex. But right

1:19:00

before we had sex, I looked at her and I had

1:19:03

no shame about the cross being on her anymore. And

1:19:05

I said, leave it on. I don't know why, but

1:19:07

it was so there. That feeling of like, I felt

1:19:09

like when God looked down at me before he wasn't

1:19:11

pleased with me, but at that moment he was pleased

1:19:14

with me. Okay. What had changed?

1:19:16

So I searched for it because I was like, I feel

1:19:18

it. It's a spirit. I feel it.

1:19:20

And I dove in and I dove in the

1:19:22

Bible. Where in the Bible does it say a

1:19:24

priest has to ordain it or there has to

1:19:26

be another man that tells me, do you, do

1:19:28

you take her? Do you take this? And I'm

1:19:30

trying to dig and dig and dig. And then

1:19:32

I call my friend Cliff, him and his son,

1:19:34

Stuart, they go around and they, they talk about

1:19:36

the gospel and he's a great man that I

1:19:38

could call and he always answers. And I'm crying

1:19:40

on the phone. I go, Cliff, I can't find

1:19:42

where the marriage ceremony is that God blesses a

1:19:44

man. All I could find is that when the

1:19:46

father gives permission. And

1:19:48

then I thought as humans, when we corrupt God's

1:19:51

word, we always place a man in between us

1:19:53

and God. That this man has to

1:19:55

finish up God's work. And then I thought,

1:19:57

well, it just makes so much sense that if I would

1:19:59

have taken. a woman for her house, all

1:20:02

I really truly need in God's eyes is

1:20:04

the permission of her father. So

1:20:06

now I'm looking through the scripture and I

1:20:08

can't find anywhere besides showing the world that

1:20:10

I've made a promise to her and that

1:20:12

is now my covenant with her. So

1:20:15

what I'm going to is now when I look

1:20:17

at her, I don't feel like I have to

1:20:19

wait for a man to tell me that you're

1:20:21

now married. I made that promise to God and

1:20:24

when I look at this woman, I almost feel

1:20:26

guilty telling people that that's my fiance when truly

1:20:28

I feel that's my wife already. I've made that

1:20:30

promise to God. I've already showed it to the world that

1:20:32

that is my woman and that's my covenant. What

1:20:35

is your thoughts behind this? Am I just

1:20:37

a fool trying to look for another way

1:20:39

into having sex without any guilt? No, I

1:20:41

think that's some of the least

1:20:43

foolish things you've said so far today. I

1:20:46

don't even know how to take that. Is that like a

1:20:48

good thing? No, no. Well,

1:20:51

yes, it's a good thing. It's a

1:20:53

good thing and it wasn't an insult to the other things

1:20:55

you said. It was an answer

1:20:58

to your question about what

1:21:00

I thought about what you said. Okay, so what do I

1:21:02

make of it? Well, the first thing I would make of

1:21:04

it is that you were and

1:21:07

are far more traditional than you

1:21:10

wanted to think. I mean, because

1:21:12

the story you just said had two components

1:21:14

that you just told me. Number one was

1:21:17

when you were casually sleeping around, you

1:21:19

were actually violating your covenant with your

1:21:21

mother. Yeah. Right. And

1:21:24

you were violating that, not least because she was a good woman.

1:21:26

She was a good mother and that

1:21:29

meant in some ways, what would you say?

1:21:31

She was emblematic of women as such and

1:21:33

you were violating that in your behavior and

1:21:35

so you couldn't face her. My

1:21:37

truth was that I told her already.

1:21:40

So I told my parents like, hey guys, I'm just going to be doing this.

1:21:43

And I thought that that's my truth. Right. That's

1:21:46

why that's my truth was garbage. Well,

1:21:48

that's what I meant earlier when I

1:21:50

said that truth is not merely what

1:21:52

you say. Right. That's a

1:21:54

good example of that. Now it turns out that

1:21:56

you were traditional in more than one way deeply.

1:22:00

One was that you were traditional in relationship to

1:22:02

your mother, but you were also traditional in relationship

1:22:04

to the father. Because some

1:22:07

of what you were doing with women, given

1:22:09

that it wasn't smiled upon

1:22:11

by the father, violated the

1:22:14

basic precepts of your conscience. Now, you

1:22:16

might say, why didn't you pay attention

1:22:18

to that? That's easy. It's like, well,

1:22:21

you can't pay attention to that and

1:22:23

have casual sex. So, you know, people

1:22:25

will choose the hedonic root in a

1:22:27

second. And that's

1:22:30

particularly true in a culture like

1:22:32

ours, where that's celebrated. And

1:22:35

any objection to it is, in some

1:22:37

ways, even demonized. Who are

1:22:39

you to say that, you know, there's something wrong

1:22:42

with casual sex? It's like, for me, casual sex

1:22:44

is a contradiction in terms. I

1:22:47

just think it's a preposterous concept, because

1:22:49

I don't think that anything that intimate

1:22:51

can be casual. Intimacy

1:22:56

and casualness, it's

1:22:59

like the unity of diversity. It's in

1:23:01

the word intimate. Well, yes, that's right. It's

1:23:03

exactly. It's already in that. And

1:23:06

so, okay,

1:23:09

now the next part of it, you said, was that

1:23:11

as far as you're concerned, at

1:23:14

some deep level, you're already married. Well,

1:23:16

that could be, you know, I

1:23:18

guess what I would ask you then is, why

1:23:21

bother with the ceremony? Now, I'm not saying you

1:23:23

shouldn't at all. I'm not saying that in the

1:23:25

least. Well, I could answer that. Please,

1:23:27

my parents. Yeah, okay. Because the

1:23:29

scripture does say honor your mother

1:23:31

and father. Right. Even if

1:23:33

my mom and dad were like, yo, we're going

1:23:35

to hang a tree from the ground and light

1:23:37

it on fire, and that will be your ceremony.

1:23:39

Even though I don't find that to be true,

1:23:42

I'm honoring my mother and father to the

1:23:44

sacrament that they want. Well, you can imagine that

1:23:46

there's multiple reasons. But my mother always taught

1:23:48

me to love God more than her. So

1:23:50

I have no problem denying her will if

1:23:52

it's under God's will. Right. So like, if

1:23:54

God says do something, and my

1:23:56

mom says, does something my mom has trained me

1:23:58

to be a man. to look at my mother as

1:24:01

the fullest woman she is in that

1:24:03

moment and to lean on God's understanding,

1:24:06

not my mother's understanding. So what I

1:24:08

wanna ask from you is whose understanding

1:24:10

is the truth? Is it my mother's

1:24:12

understanding of I need a priest to

1:24:14

ordain this and to make it finalized

1:24:16

or do I lean

1:24:18

on what I'm reading in the scripture? But again,

1:24:21

I'm 31, yeah, I'm sitting on a camera and

1:24:23

I'm explaining my deepest thoughts and people are following

1:24:25

and they're thinking I'm wise. I'm not wise, I

1:24:27

don't tell people this, I'm not a

1:24:29

preacher, I'm a man who fears God and loves

1:24:31

to talk about it. So my fear is that

1:24:34

when I say something like this and another man

1:24:36

in Ohio is like, yeah, I feel the same

1:24:38

and then he goes that direction, well

1:24:40

then it's better. Well, okay, I would say

1:24:42

that to some degree you're

1:24:44

falling prey to the same

1:24:47

temptation that I heard many young

1:24:49

men, for example, in my clinical

1:24:52

practice tell me in relationship

1:24:54

to marriage. They would say,

1:24:58

why do I need a piece of paper? Like,

1:25:02

as far as I'm concerned, I'm married, right?

1:25:04

Now their partner didn't

1:25:06

always agree with that sentiment. In fact, generally

1:25:08

not. And that's generally the case with women,

1:25:10

but their claim would be, well, my heart's

1:25:13

already in it. And I think

1:25:15

the proper objection to that, and I think you've

1:25:17

already touched on that by this proper objection, is

1:25:19

that marriage is

1:25:21

not only a private

1:25:23

and subjectively defined state,

1:25:27

no more than identity. As you know, in our

1:25:29

culture, we clamor to

1:25:32

insist that I am

1:25:34

whoever I say I am. Well, you're

1:25:37

not. Your identity

1:25:39

is negotiated with other people. And

1:25:42

a marriage is also not only

1:25:44

private. It's also the

1:25:46

bedrock of society as such, but it's

1:25:49

also an institution that even in the

1:25:51

personal case of you two will have

1:25:53

a branching effect on many, many other

1:25:56

people, your parents, your siblings, your children,

1:25:58

your cousins, the people who. watch

1:26:00

you. And so that part of

1:26:02

it, your commitment to

1:26:04

the social part of your marriage,

1:26:07

which would include the honoring of

1:26:09

your parents, that's also important. There's

1:26:12

a reason that since

1:26:15

time immemorial, people stand in front

1:26:18

of their community and make their

1:26:20

vow. Now it also may be that

1:26:23

as far as you're concerned, your heart's

1:26:25

thoroughly into this, but your marriage is

1:26:27

going to go like this, you know,

1:26:30

and the down times where

1:26:32

you might be tempted to straying, you

1:26:34

may need every bit of reinforcement

1:26:37

against that string accessible

1:26:40

to you. And one of those means

1:26:42

of reinforcement is, well, you didn't

1:26:44

just tell her, you

1:26:46

told her and everyone

1:26:49

else publicly that this

1:26:51

was your decision. And that I already did that.

1:26:53

I already did it. It's

1:26:56

already public. That's the thing

1:26:58

that I'm wrestling with. My wrestling is

1:27:00

even if she herself, the one that I look

1:27:02

at and now I see as one, my

1:27:04

covenant, right? If she's like, I want to get

1:27:07

married. I'm not wrestling with

1:27:09

if I want to please her or please

1:27:11

my parents. It's the thing that we were

1:27:13

saying, their truth, right? If everybody here says,

1:27:15

no, George, it's meaningless to me what they

1:27:17

feel if it goes against what

1:27:19

my Christ feels. So I'm

1:27:21

trying to see what is your thoughts in the Bible.

1:27:23

Why not bring it all together? Never

1:27:25

thought of it that way. You know, I mean, you

1:27:28

know, fair enough. I'm so worried.

1:27:30

I'm like tunnel vision because every time

1:27:32

I widen my perspective and I lean

1:27:35

on what they would like, it always

1:27:37

ends up the problem. Oh, I see.

1:27:39

Well, no, no, no. Okay. That's that's

1:27:41

okay. I see. No, that's a reasonable

1:27:43

objection. But look, imagine you're looking for

1:27:45

the optimized solution. Yeah. Okay. Then bring

1:27:47

everything together. Yeah, right. So what you're

1:27:49

saying is you don't want to sacrifice

1:27:51

at least to some degree, you don't

1:27:54

want to sacrifice your like

1:27:56

intense preoccupation with leading an

1:27:58

appropriate and God. The life. You don't

1:28:01

want to sacrifice that even to consent, not

1:28:03

even for a little bit while been. Don't

1:28:05

sacrifice it. Bring it, bring them together, make

1:28:07

the consensus, work in in the same direction.

1:28:10

With that's what a good look. If you

1:28:12

have a good marriage day, that's what will

1:28:14

happen. Like and so I

1:28:16

can tell ya to do that. I

1:28:19

had a good marriage day and and

1:28:21

I've officiated a number of weddings and

1:28:23

I've seen ones go well and badly.

1:28:25

It's what to do at a wedding

1:28:27

is quite straightforward is. Invite.

1:28:29

The people you want and maybe even some

1:28:31

of the people you don't want that your

1:28:33

parents was right, honor them while right because

1:28:36

that's part of but does rare son yes

1:28:38

right. That's right. You bring you, bring your

1:28:40

community around you. And your

1:28:43

hospitable to them so they're welcome

1:28:45

You, you. You lay out your

1:28:47

vows in good faith. You feed them. They

1:28:49

dance. They get a chance to see each

1:28:51

other. It's. A celebration the

1:28:53

Union. Of bullshit communities. That said, the

1:28:56

onion of my community in his communities

1:28:58

deleted all. Be why would does that's

1:29:00

right? Time to evaluate each other to some

1:29:02

degree into seats you know. I went to

1:29:04

one wedding for example that was just funny.

1:29:07

Capacity was absolutely obvious to everyone there that

1:29:09

the wedding was going to. That

1:29:11

of the marriage was a complete sham

1:29:13

and there wasn't a possibility that this

1:29:15

that this com. Peddling.

1:29:17

Was going to. City. And.

1:29:21

That. Would be a good example of. In.

1:29:23

Some ways the false consensus that you just

1:29:25

described because it was obvious is in this

1:29:27

case, but the groom was completely uncommon to.

1:29:29

The process that was just shown was so

1:29:31

blatantly obvious, it was really quite ugly and

1:29:33

so that would be the ultimate example of

1:29:35

the thing that you were concerned about where

1:29:37

there was no real commitment on the part

1:29:39

of the participants in there was just the

1:29:41

social show. But there's no reason you can't

1:29:43

have your cake and eat a too at

1:29:45

a wedding. You. Can bring everyone together

1:29:48

in the proper spirit? Well, you're aligned with

1:29:50

the proper spirit and then should I feel

1:29:52

guilty as sex before, should I nip it

1:29:54

in the but. What? what

1:29:56

would an honorable man of god do as

1:29:58

he knows and is hop I

1:30:00

feel like this is my wife, but now I'm

1:30:03

playing the game of like I have to wait

1:30:05

until she's my wife in public Okay, I would

1:30:07

say two things about that The first is you

1:30:09

could experiment and find out two things There's

1:30:12

two approaches you could experiment and find out

1:30:14

because you might want to find out given

1:30:17

that you've already played to some degree with

1:30:19

Abstinence and found it useful under circum some

1:30:21

circumstances. You might want to play with that

1:30:23

and see Where that goes

1:30:25

because you don't know it might be better for

1:30:27

both of you if you didn't have sex before

1:30:30

you were married Now I'm not saying

1:30:32

that's the case But I'm all I

1:30:34

am saying that you don't know if that's

1:30:36

the case Yeah, like it might be the

1:30:38

kind of sacrificial offering that cements your marriage

1:30:40

in place Who knows but

1:30:42

who am I sacrificing it for my parents or

1:30:45

God? Because if I think God sees it

1:30:47

in a way that all I need is the permission of

1:30:49

the father Then I don't care to

1:30:51

play the dance. Well, that's why I said you

1:30:53

could experiment because you could find out that way

1:30:56

I guess that I see this way in the same with

1:30:58

baptism right and oh my god This might piss a

1:31:00

lot of people off, but hey Baptism

1:31:04

I was baptized as a baby But

1:31:07

then I read the Bible and this is baptism

1:31:09

is like a proposal and it's like a marriage

1:31:11

and it's a covenant before God So my mother

1:31:13

arranged that without my permission nor my heart. Yeah,

1:31:16

so is that meaningless? So

1:31:18

when I want to have I don't think I

1:31:20

don't think it's meaningless, but it is missing something

1:31:22

that you're pointing to it's not

1:31:24

meaningless because It was

1:31:26

part of a ceremony for your mother,

1:31:28

right and it was part of her

1:31:30

hopes for your future It's part of

1:31:33

the family lore. You know this happened.

1:31:35

It's a way that you were brought

1:31:37

into the community Technically, it's

1:31:39

a pattern But

1:31:41

then it's missing What

1:31:43

you're pointing to is something that's

1:31:46

missing was that well that no

1:31:48

it's more voluntary conscious participation Right.

1:31:51

And so there's an element. There's certainly an

1:31:53

element of baptism That

1:31:55

you could point to that's quite concrete. That's

1:31:57

a matter of making this Decision

1:32:00

to open yourself up to the pathway of

1:32:02

God because that's what you're doing when you're

1:32:05

baptized Right. So I'll tell

1:32:07

you something about baptism. That's quite interesting. So

1:32:10

When Christ is baptized in the gospels, it's

1:32:13

right before he goes into the desert Partly

1:32:18

because when you open yourself up to the

1:32:20

descent of the Holy Spirit so to speak

1:32:22

when you open yourself up to God One

1:32:25

of the first things that will make

1:32:27

itself manifest is all the ways that

1:32:29

you're not there, right? That's the same

1:32:31

as the desert now It's not

1:32:33

by fluke by the way So the story continues

1:32:36

right because Christ is in the desert for 40

1:32:38

days and that's where he meets

1:32:40

Satan himself gets tempted well, and so what

1:32:42

happens is that if you Once

1:32:45

you orient yourself upward once you allow

1:32:47

yourself once you open yourself up to

1:32:49

that possibility The

1:32:51

desert makes itself manifest And

1:32:55

if that's a form of what would you

1:32:57

say? That's a form of alienation from God

1:32:59

That's a good way of thinking about it

1:33:01

the ultimate extent the ultimate manifestation

1:33:04

of that is Dwelling

1:33:07

in the presence of Satan and that's exactly

1:33:09

what happens. And so what that means practically

1:33:11

is that if you Once

1:33:14

you orient yourself upward and you

1:33:16

start to understand How

1:33:18

you're lost If you

1:33:20

dig to the bottom of that You'll

1:33:23

find the author of all evil Right

1:33:27

dwelling within you and

1:33:29

so that's right. That's that's true So

1:33:32

it's the same to tie this back to

1:33:34

what we talked about earlier is when

1:33:37

I Was curious fruit.

1:33:40

I'll tell you a story. So it's relevant to this

1:33:42

So when I was in

1:33:44

Edmonton doing my first degree, I was about

1:33:46

20 20 21 something like that And

1:33:50

I had this professor is a very strange

1:33:52

guy adjunct professor. So he wasn't a full-time

1:33:54

professor at the University. He was a part-time

1:33:58

Specialist they brought in he was the prison psychologist

1:34:01

at the Edmonton Maximum Security Prison. And

1:34:03

the Edmonton Maximum Security Prison was a

1:34:05

bad place. It was full of like

1:34:08

monstrous people. And

1:34:10

he took me out there a couple of times. And

1:34:15

one of the times, the

1:34:17

first time I really remember, he

1:34:19

left me in the gym with these guys

1:34:22

and they were all like weightlifting monsters and

1:34:24

scarred up and they all surrounded me and

1:34:26

offered to trade. I had a kind of

1:34:28

a fancy coat on like

1:34:31

a cloak and they

1:34:33

asked me to trade clothing with them.

1:34:35

And he had vanished somewhere. I was

1:34:37

surrounded by these like monstrous characters. And

1:34:40

so that was rather unsettled. But then-

1:34:44

What did you say to them when they asked you to change clothes?

1:34:46

Well, I wanted to ask, but I was

1:34:48

gonna interrupt. That's exactly the question. I

1:34:51

actually don't remember. I

1:34:54

think what I did was tell them

1:34:56

the truth, which is what you should always do

1:34:58

in a situation like that. Like if you're dealing

1:35:01

with, if you're on very, very shaky

1:35:04

ground, that's when it's

1:35:06

very important to be very humble

1:35:08

and do nothing but tell the truth. And that's

1:35:11

especially true if you're dealing with dangerous people, especially

1:35:13

if they're paranoid. Because

1:35:16

if they're suspicious of you and you lie, it's

1:35:19

over. You are in such trouble. Anyways,

1:35:21

this little guy came out and came

1:35:24

into the group where I was. And he

1:35:26

told me that the psychologist had

1:35:28

asked him to, for

1:35:32

me to accompany him, this guy that came up. And he was

1:35:34

just a little kind of un-prepossessing guy.

1:35:36

Was he a lot of the monsters or

1:35:38

was he part of you guys? He was

1:35:40

one of the prisoners. But he wasn't one

1:35:43

of the more monstrous ones. Well, at least

1:35:45

not by appearance. Well, he took

1:35:47

me out into the yard. It's

1:35:49

kind of like a high school. That's what this

1:35:51

place looked like, except with hanker doors and so

1:35:53

forth. He took me out into the exercise yard

1:35:55

and we got about a hundred yards away, probably

1:35:57

something like that. And then the psychologist showed back.

1:36:00

Gop and back in this back and so

1:36:02

we went back and I went into his

1:36:04

office and he told me. About

1:36:07

this guy. He said that

1:36:09

guy. He's.

1:36:11

In prison for life I said. Boy said

1:36:14

well here. Too copy

1:36:16

up Cops pulled him over to got pulled him over

1:36:18

and he was armed and he took both of them

1:36:20

out into the. Ditch. And he

1:36:22

shot the both and back they had while they were begging

1:36:24

for their lives. And

1:36:26

and they told me that they had

1:36:28

little kids and i thought oh and

1:36:31

he just he was perfectly like harmless

1:36:33

looking. Not script person so

1:36:35

that was interesting. And then I met

1:36:37

another guy there who are. He.

1:36:41

And one of his friends found out

1:36:44

that another prison was snitching. Prisoner was

1:36:46

snitching and they. Took him.

1:36:49

Down. And. Pulverized,

1:36:51

One of his legs with lead pipe. And

1:36:53

just beat it to a pulp

1:36:55

and. I. Thought about both these

1:36:57

guys for like three weeks. I just thought about

1:36:59

them like. And nothing else. mostly

1:37:02

to try to figure out. I thought

1:37:04

I'd I'm. Out of

1:37:06

this guy do that. And the ditch. How did

1:37:08

and how did these people. Hold

1:37:10

this guy down and. Pulverize.

1:37:12

His leg. And I

1:37:14

tried to imagine. Doing.

1:37:17

It imagine. Putting.

1:37:19

Myself in a position where I could do

1:37:21

it Acting was acting, trying to a body.

1:37:23

That and after about two weeks I had

1:37:25

a realization and the realization that I could

1:37:27

do that. And that

1:37:29

was quite a shock. And that really changed me. And

1:37:31

change me a lot. And permanently

1:37:33

Because I thought that before that

1:37:36

I had kind of a deep

1:37:38

belief that. Those

1:37:40

sorts of things were. Off

1:37:42

the table for me that that was, The

1:37:45

people who could do that were some are qualitatively

1:37:47

different than me. And and that

1:37:49

turned out not to be the case. And

1:37:52

so. now i forgot what

1:37:55

was still oh yes oh yes i

1:37:57

remember why degree so well that is

1:37:59

see that realization,

1:38:02

that realization of the

1:38:06

capacity of malevolence

1:38:08

to dwell within you, that's no different

1:38:10

than what Christ encountered in the

1:38:12

desert. It's the same thing. If

1:38:15

you get to the bottom of your weaknesses, what

1:38:18

you find, your true weaknesses, you'll find the

1:38:20

author of all evil. That's

1:38:23

literally the case. Now what does that mean

1:38:25

metaphysically? I think I went through

1:38:27

what you're about to explain to me, and I explained

1:38:29

to them this. I think that's why fasting is so

1:38:31

important, because when you're hungry and frustrated, you realize who

1:38:33

you really are. When you separate yourself

1:38:35

from ... I explained this way. How

1:38:38

long did you fast? I

1:38:41

only fasted for a little bit, but it

1:38:43

was the example of while I was irritated,

1:38:45

the term hangry, or just not dealing with

1:38:47

it. I'm too tired, or I'm exhausted, and

1:38:50

you're not performing at your highest level. I

1:38:52

basically wrote it this way. A good

1:38:55

man is not a good man when

1:38:57

he's only good when he's good. Right,

1:38:59

right, right. Exactly. Definitely.

1:39:01

This is where I'm coming to. Definitely.

1:39:04

I think this is why God wants you to fast, not only as a

1:39:06

sacrament, but he wants to reveal who

1:39:08

you are in front of yourself. Under conditions

1:39:10

of deprivation. Yeah, that's a good point. I'd

1:39:12

consider that. That's a good point. Because

1:39:17

you're pushing yourself to a kind of limit,

1:39:19

and you can understand the strength of your

1:39:21

appetites more profoundly in consequence of

1:39:23

that. Yeah, that's a good point. Thank

1:39:25

you. So

1:39:28

how do you pray? Are

1:39:32

you asking for instructions, or are you asking

1:39:34

for me personally? Both.

1:39:37

Both. I

1:39:39

want to know how a doctor

1:39:42

in your position, because I feel like not only

1:39:44

are you good with new words. Well, first you

1:39:46

confess. Yeah. Okay, so

1:39:49

let's walk through that. Do you start

1:39:51

by confessing? You have to. Okay,

1:39:54

because you said that asking even a question

1:39:56

is a form of confession. That's right. Good.

1:40:00

why? That's exactly why. Well, so if

1:40:02

you have to be humbled in the podcast, if

1:40:04

you're in a podcast, and something comes to mind

1:40:06

that you don't know, the question

1:40:08

is a confession. The question is,

1:40:11

I don't understand that. That's an

1:40:13

admission of ignorance. Okay, so now,

1:40:15

in a conversation, if

1:40:18

you admit ignorance, then in theory,

1:40:20

an answer will be delivered to you. That's

1:40:22

what you're hoping for, because you, okay, so

1:40:24

it's the same thing, psychologically

1:40:27

or spiritually. Like once you

1:40:29

admit that you have the insufficiency, and

1:40:34

you do that on your knees, which means

1:40:36

not only do you admit the insufficiency, but

1:40:38

you admit that you

1:40:40

would, you would, you

1:40:42

admit the insufficiency, and

1:40:45

you indicate simultaneously that you would like

1:40:47

it rectified. Both of those

1:40:49

require humility, right? It's like, I'm

1:40:51

stupid, and

1:40:54

I'd rather not be. Wisdom's

1:40:57

again. Right, okay, so now, now there's

1:40:59

a sacrifice there. There's a sacrifice of

1:41:01

pride, for example. There's also the willingness

1:41:03

to sacrifice further, because you

1:41:05

know this, everyone knows this. If

1:41:08

you want to learn something, you might,

1:41:10

and it might not be pleasant, and

1:41:12

likely it won't be, because if there's

1:41:14

something that you've really got wrong, and

1:41:16

you learn how wrong

1:41:18

you are, that's going to hurt. Okay,

1:41:21

so, so the prayer, confession,

1:41:25

that's first. You have to have a problem. The

1:41:27

next is, it's something like

1:41:30

knocking, you'll, knocking the door will open. See,

1:41:33

right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Asking you a receipt,

1:41:35

seeking you a find. Right, so, so let's,

1:41:37

let's think about that, practically. But also give,

1:41:39

you just want to pin that. A lot

1:41:41

of people think that's just biblical, but I

1:41:43

think, I think you could use that for

1:41:46

anything. So when people go, why do

1:41:48

bad people have good things? I think because they were

1:41:50

working in the, in

1:41:52

the realms of how God would want a

1:41:54

man to work to thrive. So he, and

1:41:57

for example, you said a greedy man, right? He'll get the

1:41:59

job done, because He's seeking money

1:42:01

and he will find that money. So

1:42:03

a lot of people would rather seek money

1:42:06

than god into me. It's pointless. The has

1:42:08

since I was as.net also might be a

1:42:10

lot better than seeking nothing. Exactly.

1:42:12

But also here's another thing that if

1:42:14

you eat is all perspective. if you

1:42:16

zoom out, everything besides got some is

1:42:19

nothing because unless you're deities, endless and

1:42:21

eternally. Like. It like the

1:42:23

space that continues like for example

1:42:26

like your opinion in. Regardless,

1:42:28

Of how I see your stature is so much

1:42:30

higher than mine but as end of the day

1:42:32

you will be forgotten about and everything that you've

1:42:35

done will turn into dirt was at some of

1:42:37

it. Developing that

1:42:39

some of that to matter of

1:42:41

definition it's in a sense it's

1:42:43

like why would you not turn

1:42:45

your attention always to what is

1:42:47

highest. Why? Would you

1:42:49

do that? Israel? Which. We. I know,

1:42:51

but. That's

1:42:54

the same problem again is that if you