My Friend the Friar
A podcast where we learn about our faith and share what it takes to live a Catholic Christian life through conversations and contemplations with my friend the friar, a Discalced Carmelite Priest.
My Friend the Friar
The Fear of Loss with Chris Colleps
In this episode, John and Chris explore a compelling examination of the fine line between the fear of the Lord—a reverence that shapes our purpose—against the fear of losing earthly roles and relationships that often define us. This intricate tapestry of discussion leads us to question our own priorities and the true source of our fears.
Closing on a contemplative note, we probe the depths of how pain and suffering, when faced with faith, can become beacons of freedom and carriers of grace. Reflecting on the eternal peace that awaits beyond our worldly fears, we invite listeners to journey with us as we navigate the pursuit of true fulfillment in God and weigh the transient nature of our material desires. Join us for a heartfelt exploration that promises to challenge, inspire, and offer new perspectives on the fears that seek to hold sway over our lives.
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Welcome to the my Friend the Friar podcast and thanks for listening. If you like my Friend the Friar and want to support us, please consider subscribing or following us. If you haven't already done so, and if you found us on YouTube, then don't forget to click the notification bell when you subscribe so you'll be notified of new episodes when they release. Thanks again and God bless. And I hit record.
Speaker 2:And now I'm recording and God bless.
Speaker 1:I hope so. All right, welcome to the podcast. Thanks for joining me and my friend Chris, not the fryer, chris, you could be a fryer. You look like a fryer. You fry bacon.
Speaker 2:I was going to say I do a lot of frying in the kitchen, so you could call me the kitchen fryer Um father's busy, as always Again that guy, and so Chris is back.
Speaker 1:When did we do this last, like a year ago.
Speaker 2:It was a while back because it was when I first. It might not have been a year ago, but it was when I first came back, not soon after I first came back to to signify, and that was June of last year, so it's almost a year.
Speaker 1:It's almost a year, almost a year so it's been a while. Yeah, so we're going to be chatting and I'm going to use Chris a bunch. I'm going to talk to him. Every time I can't get Father. I'm just going to call Chris and be like come on, buddy, let's talk. I can't get father, I'm just gonna call Chris and be like come on, buddy, let's talk. Um, but today you want to teach us. Well, teaching is we're gonna talk about.
Speaker 1:We're gonna talk we're gonna discuss so this you've had this thing on your heart for 100 years yeah, for 101 years and you shared it with me and I was like that's, that's really interesting, let's talk about that. Yeah, so let's talk about that. What, what, what is it and how? What? What triggered it 101 years ago to kind of be on your heart?
Speaker 2:so again going, you know, starting back at what we kind of talked about at the beginning of the last podcast, kind of just right now I'm on this journey of kind of where I belong in Christ and where I belong in my life and where I belong everywhere, and so you belong in my heart, Just man.
Speaker 2:So when I think about that, there's a lot of fear that comes with it, right, because you fear man. Am I making the right choice? Am I going the right path? Am I talking to the right people? Am I believing the right people and it's something that we all face in life is fear.
Speaker 1:Yeah, let me get you to move your microphone back a little bit, because you're a booming voice.
Speaker 2:I talk too loud. I'm sorry, that's all right. Is that better? I hope so I hope so, we'll fix it in post-production.
Speaker 1:Fix it in post-production so.
Speaker 2:So we, we deal with fear all the time and so, especially as men, we don't want to be afraid of anything. So I kind of thought about all the fear and stuff in my life and was kind of running away from it or not wanting to face it and all that. And my favorite story in the Bible is Jesus in the garden. And when Jesus is in the garden I think it's a perfect picture of how we can relate to the human side of God. Because Jesus in the garden, he's afraid. We know he's afraid because he questions God's will and what God wants him to do. And so he goes to God three times and asks him hey, can we do this any other way? Of course I'm paraphrasing, but asking hey, can we do this any other way?
Speaker 1:Yeah, he said it just like that. Yeah, just like that Dude.
Speaker 2:Bro, yeah, bro.
Speaker 2:You know, so and God says no. Well, we know that Jesus was scared. But Jesus, he was afraid, he was fearful, he questioned God's will for his life. But when God said no, jesus, knowing what was going to happen to him, did it anyway. And we all know well, most of us know what happened. He went, he died and he rose again. But it wasn't when. I realized that it's okay to be afraid. That's what I realized in that moment. It's okay to be afraid If the Messiah, the Savior of the world, is afraid, it's okay for me to be afraid. And two, we have to trust God. Jesus questioned God, which we question God all the time, in everything we do, but he trusted God and he did what was right, because what God, what God says, is right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you started thinking about this recently.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But when did this first show?
Speaker 2:up. Yeah, this is where I'm getting at. So I was on a pretty good journey with Christ in a great place and the church. I went to First Baptist Church, arlington, talked about that before. They asked me if I would teach Sunday school. And I was like, man, I am not ready to teach Sunday school, like I'm not, I'm not the one Right. And then they said, teach seventh grade boys in Sunday school. And I'm like, okay, I'm really not ready to teach seventh grade boys. And that fear came in and that's when I really dove into the story. Well, at that moment, that's when I really dug into that story. But it was at that moment that this whole concept that God gave me, it's the fear of loss.
Speaker 2:That's what this little whatever you want to call it that we have on our screens in front of us. It's called fear of loss. Well, I acted. I chose to be a Sunday school teacher and I did that for six years. It ended up lasting for six years. I chose that because it was I made. I was going to make the decision not to out of fear of loss, and that's when I started thinking well, what does that mean? What does fear of loss? Mean yeah, like what do you got to lose?
Speaker 2:What do I have to lose, right? And so I just started pouring into God. What is it that we fear losing as beings, as humans? Well, I asked God you know what do we fear losing? What do we fear losing? And in that he gave me. There's three things that I think we base our decisions on, based off of fear of loss fear of losing physical life, spiritual life and desires Right. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So those three things, and those three things kind of, when you say physical life, right, well, physical life is death. We fear not doing something because we're afraid that we're going to die if we do it. Right, yep, spiritual life. We fear not being good enough in Christ. Or if I do this, I'm not going to be good enough in Christ. Or if I do this, then I'm going to fear losing the connection that I have with with, uh, with Christ. Um, sorry reputation, that's what it was. I was like man. I'm missing one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so say them again for me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it's fear of losing life, and in that life can be physical life or spiritual life, reputation or desires. Those are the three that we base, sorry.
Speaker 1:I've never taught this before. Yeah, no, this is something you've been thinking about.
Speaker 2:It's kind of what has been on my heart. I've never shared this with anybody, so it's just I put it in this spreadsheet, and I thought it was going to be easier than this, but we're going so we've got the right.
Speaker 1:We just take that step.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we just take the step, we see where God takes us, see where it goes.
Speaker 1:So the fear of life you're saying it could be physical, physical life, like if I do something I might die. An easy example would be like a martyr who literally is killed because of Jesus. Yeah, a martyr who literally is killed because of Jesus, yeah, things that we it could be like our reputation, right, what would people think of me? Kind of thing. It could be our desires, things that we want in life. Well, if I do this, then that means I have to give up X, y or Z, yeah, Right, up um X, y or Z, yeah, right, and like so those, those kinds, those things, the fear of losing those things, is it a concern that we're going to what? What is the fear most of the time? Does the fear drive us to Jesus or away from him?
Speaker 2:I think most of the time it drives us away from him, and that's based on reputation. Okay. Like we fear losing what the world sees us, as if we get too close to Christ.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's right. So you had said that once, this thing, so now I'm going to quote you in front of you. I guess I'll paraphrase quote you said that we fear becoming so Christ-like that the world would reject us.
Speaker 2:I have it. It says we fear becoming too much like Jesus, that the world doesn't see us for who we want them to see us as. Okay. When we should be wanting them to see Jesus. So, yeah, we fear that they're going to reject us for who we want them to see us as where we shouldn't be wanting them to see us at all. We should be wanting them to see us at all. We should be wanting them to see Jesus through us, right? So?
Speaker 1:instead of you know, or a lot of men like. We'll just talk about men, right? So, we want to be these big, tough guys. Yeah big, tough. Right, I'm a man. Man, yeah, I'll tell you, I'll show you I'm going to, like, exert my dominance over the situation and I'm going to be in charge of this thing. Yeah, that's not very Christ-like, is it?
Speaker 2:It's nowhere near Christ-like.
Speaker 1:But if you were to be Christ-like in a situation where somebody has wronged you or somebody has hurt someone you love and all that stuff, right, well then you're weak, yeah, and like you're a pushover, yeah, yeah. And so that's when you told me that quote, it obviously stuck with me I couldn't remember it perfectly. But, when you told me that you thought that I was like man. That is, that's something to really think about. So like what are, I don't know. You have a story for us, like a moment in your life where like you missed the mark you
Speaker 2:weren't Christ-like and you should have been, or something. You know what I mean. You don't have a story. I've got plenty of those, plenty of those stories. I mean you can, you can. I can think back on many, many times in my life to where I based my decision about doing the right thing off of fear of losing my reputation, and that's with my wife, with my kids, with my friends, with my job, with my parents, with whoever. So many times that I've made the wrong choice based on what I believed that the reputation that I would lose as a man. You know, I can give you just one, that, off the top of my head, I used to be afraid to kiss my son in public. I used to be afraid to embrace my son, you know, in my arms and kiss my son in public, because that's not what men do. Men don't kiss each other in public.
Speaker 1:Unless you live in like Italy or something, yeah, unless you live in Italy, and it's just like kissing everybody, right, yeah?
Speaker 2:So yeah, I was afraid what the world would think if they saw me kissing my son.
Speaker 2:And I wasn't so much worried about what my son thought or what Jesus was thinking. And so when I started going through this process of this whole fear of loss thing one of the things that I thought that I was I was afraid what the people around me were thinking about if I kissed my son in public. They think that I'm this weak, you know, man. But then when I flipped it and I started seeing it as Jesus would see it, no, I need to be showing my love for my son to my son, no matter who's around, because that's what Jesus did. Jesus showed his love to all of us, no matter who was around, and embraced us and hugged us and kissed us anytime we needed him, no matter who's around. And so I started embracing my son and kissing my son in public and letting him know that I don't care who's watching, I don't care. This is about me and you. This is about you knowing that your dad is willing to show you that he loves you, no matter who's going on, no matter who's around. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And with these three things life, reputation and desires I think each one of us there's a different part that we fear more than the other one. I just think as men and we're focusing on reputation, because I think men focus more on their reputation, their status in life, over a lot of things If the world doesn't see me as this highly successful I don't care what my family sees me as, I care what the world sees me as and if I'm not seen as this highly successful, wealthy, well put together man, then I can't make this decision to follow Christ. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So you know, and when we look at and I hate if I'm jumping around here, but I just went back and I'm looking at life and I say you know, physical life, spiritual life or things we believe are our life, that's one of the biggest things too is because we have a notion in our head to say, well, she's my life, he's my life, my kids are my life, my sports are my life.
Speaker 2:My job is my life and we get so wrapped up into that, thinking that if I make this decision, thinking that if I make this decision then she's going to leave me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I lose that thing, that I build my identity on.
Speaker 2:Exactly that's my life. I've built my life based on this, as a husband or a boyfriend or a fiance or whatever it is.
Speaker 1:I'm an athlete. I blow out my knee, I can't play no more fiance, or whatever it is. I'm an athlete, I blow out my knee.
Speaker 2:I can't play no more. My life is over, and so much of it is based on that that we forget that that's not what we should not fear that we should fear losing fear of God, and that will build our desire for Him.
Speaker 1:I'm glad you brought the fear of the Lord right. So what does that mean to you? The fear of the Lord, because that would be an appropriate fear, right. Absolutely Like we should fear losing, fear of the.
Speaker 2:Lord right.
Speaker 1:So what does it mean to you to fear the Lord?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So, to put it in and again, we've talked so many times about not understanding the God of Jesus, the God side of Jesus. We can't understand that because we're not God and we never will be. So I stopped trying to figure that out and go on faith that he was God. So I tried to focus on the human side of God, which was Jesus as a human.
Speaker 2:And so that fear that God had going back, that Jesus had going back to the garden, his fear and his fear of God, his fear of not following God's will, is what made him go die on that cross. Yeah, it was not. It wasn't, don't get me wrong. It was his love, but it was the fear of what was going to happen, not just to him but to the world, if he did not listen to God. Yeah, it was that fear that made him choose to go do what he did. Yeah, so to me, when I look at it as a human, it's the fear of not providing the maybe providing is not the right word not being who I'm supposed to be for God, because I'm afraid of losing heaven.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it's like a proper what's the word I'm looking for. I want to say like orientation. It's everything is properly ordered. There you go. That's the word I'm looking for, so fear of the Lord puts God first and God's will first, and what God desires for me first. That being first in my life is proper fear of the Lord. Yes, so it's like I should be afraid of the smallest sin, like the smallest offense to God should be, should be terrifying.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like I am afraid to. And it's again. It goes back to fear of loss. I'm fear of losing something because I'm not who I'm supposed to be in God. Yeah. But do I really fear it enough? Because I'm not who I'm supposed to be in God.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and there's something interesting with this too. And there's something interesting in this, because if you're acting out of fear, I'm going to do this thing because I don't want to get in trouble Again you're disordered. If I'm acting out of love, then Right. So it's like I don't Jesus, we'll take Jesus. If I don't do this, dad's going to be mad at me, right. That's the wrong, that's the wrong concept. I'm, I'm, I don't want to do. I know how bad this is going to, I know how this is going to end, but I love them all.
Speaker 1:So much Exactly, yeah, and I love God and I love them all so much.
Speaker 2:Exactly and I love.
Speaker 1:God and I love myself because he's himself right. So it's like I love so much that I fear failing that love. Exactly so I'm going to do what needs to be done.
Speaker 2:That's it. That's it right. There it's. I fear I don't know how you just put it, but however you just put it, I fear losing the love of these people that I'm going to go ahead and do it, because it's everything that God does is out of love, right? He doesn't do anything that's bad or going to hurt us. All he does is love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love. But he's not afraid to punish when we need to be punished, but punishment is love. Discipline is love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love. But he's not afraid to punish when we need to be punished, but punishment is love Discipline is love, yeah, yeah, and it's like we were talking the other day.
Speaker 1:God is love, yeah, so even his discipline is love.
Speaker 2:A hundred percent. I discipline my children because I love them, because I want them to make the right decisions in life, to not hurt them. So that's why I discipline my children, did them to make the right decisions in life, to not hurt them. So that's why I disciplined my children. Did they like it? No, they don't like it because they're like you're supposed to be my daddy and give me everything I want. Let me do whatever I want and I can do.
Speaker 2:No, you don't love me because you spank me. No, I'll spank you because I do love you. I grew up without a mom and a dad and you know they were there, but they weren't there. They were very distant and all that. And I tell my kids all the time, when I was 13, 14, 15, 16 years old and I left the house, all I wanted was somebody to give me a curfew. All I wanted was them to tell me hey, you need to be home at this time. Would I have made it home at that time? No, because I was a hellion kid and I did what I wanted right.
Speaker 2:But it wasn't the fact that I was going to make it home on time or that I wanted to make it home on time. It was the fact of knowing that somebody was there and they cared enough about me to want me home at that time. And so, yeah, god is love. And he gives us these boundaries and he tells us you know he has this. And he gives us these boundaries and he tells us you know, he has this.
Speaker 2:And I don't want to say it's a list, because it's he doesn't like oh yeah, we have the 10 commandments, all that good stuff, and yeah, there's lists and stuff like that, but it's not really like that. It's. He shows us, through Jesus, how we're supposed to live our life, and we fear lose. We fear becoming too much like Christ that we lose who we want people to see us as Like. The closer we get to Christ, the less we are like us. Well, who we are to people is who we've presented ourselves to people our whole lives. Yeah, and so if we all of a sudden come up to those people and I mean people we don't know they're going to know us as how close we are to Christ at that moment when they met us. But the people that we've known for years and years and years, they're going to be like hey, that's not Chris, that's not John, you've changed. You've changed?
Speaker 2:What is it? And then, when you tell them, well, what you tell them, and you're not afraid to tell them at that point, but they're afraid to receive it and they're afraid like man. I don't want to change like that and that fear.
Speaker 1:I don't want to be like that. You're not fun, exactly. Yeah, I know guys like that too, who've, unfortunately, who have had friends and family. And I say guys, I know lots of people, men and women who and kids where it's like no, I this, I I realized the light bulb hit or turned on, the lightning struck my brain, kind of thing, and and I was like I got to change because this way leads to death. I don't want that. This is life. I want this to its fullest, and some people don't want to receive it and and you have to, just like Jesus, you got to be willing to let them walk away.
Speaker 1:It doesn't mean you stop loving them yeah. It doesn't mean you stop praying for them. Let them walk away. It doesn't mean you stop loving them yeah. It doesn't mean you stop praying for them. But they, they have to choose to walk with Jesus too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that I think that's so hard for us to do is to accept that people don't like us. Yeah, like it's hard for us to especially kids, yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean it's hard for adults too, but especially kids. It's hard for adults too, but especially kids.
Speaker 2:It's like hard, like I am fighting to be somebody that I think I'm supposed to be and you don't like me for that. That's tough man. That's like no, I'm here, I am doing what God's telling me to do, and it's supposed to be great and fun, and I'm telling people how much God love them and all this. And they're so scared of it, they're so afraid of receiving it because of one of these life, reputation or desires they're. They're afraid of losing those things that they don't. They don't want to accept it. Well, if they're not going to accept it, they're not going to accept you. And that's tough and you know, the older we get, I think, the easier it gets, because it's like you. You, your brain grows up and I'm in a point in my life to where, if you don't make my life better, I'm not going to let you in it. Bye, yeah. I'm not going to let you in it.
Speaker 2:You know I mean I could go on and on about my family life and that's not what this show is about. Maybe we'll get to a show sometime doing that I would love to, because it's so much of my journey for Christ. It's why I love Christ and I love God as much as I do is because of my journey. But when we're so excited about something, you know you get a new toy right and you're like you know the excitement of that new toy is like. But sometimes the excitement of that new toy causes you not to play with that new toy Because the heartbreak of breaking that toy, you think, is more than the joy of playing with that toy and so we end up putting it on the shelf.
Speaker 2:So I think that's how we treat our relationship with God is like man it's brand, it's new, it's shiny, it's great. But I start going and I want to play with this toy, and then, when I want, I'm like, oh no, I don't want to break it, so I'm gonna put it on the shelf. But the longer we put it on the shelf, the further we get, the further we get away from God, the closer we get to people, because now we're becoming the same person that we were before. We started changing and now the people love us and we're like oh, I like that.
Speaker 2:I like hanging out with these people again. And then here we go. We just keep slipping Right and we get caught up in that all the time. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And so. But then we realize and again I'm going to go back to age, because it does have a lot to do with it as a child. You look at kids, they kind of it's kind of a double-edged sword, because the older you get, the wiser you get, but the younger you are, you know there's, there's a reason why God says enter the kingdom of heaven like children, right, yeah, yeah, because they're so free and they're so just just, they just leave carefree. Yeah.
Speaker 2:But the moment you hurt them, that hurt stays with them longer than it stays with us.
Speaker 1:You know, man, I was thinking about hurt or pain the other day. Um, I have no idea what brought it up, but I was thinking about cause. Growing up, I played football Right and, uh man, it was you just want to hit somebody put on them pads, strap it yeah. Like you just play a certain song and you're just like on fire and just somebody's going to get hurt.
Speaker 1:Right, um, but even that, you don't know what pain is. Yeah, and as you get older, um, it manifests in so many different ways. So, like right now, like if I was having a conversation with you, know, high school me and high school me is like let's go right, let's go hit somebody. I'd be like no, no dude, don't do that.
Speaker 1:I'm just going to go sit down and watch. Oh, you're lame, right? Well, no, I understand what pain is, but it's not just that hitting. You know, in football those things didn't hurt, Because they do Like. Sometimes you get the snot knocked out of you.
Speaker 2:That's why I quit football, yeah.
Speaker 1:But even that hurt is not the same kind of pain that exists in life. Not at all when you ever experience a real deep pain, right Like for me, losing my father at a young age right.
Speaker 1:Like when you experience a pain that is like nothing else, you don't want it. Yeah, you don't. Not just that, you don't want any kind of pain because your brain connects those dots and you're like, no, it's okay, you don't want any kind of pain because your brain connects those dots and you're like, no, it's okay, I will be fat and happy on the couch versus making myself hurt constantly in the gym. Right, because I don't want the pain anymore. Yeah, but even in that example, it shows our concubiscence, right, that's the word for our desire for sin, the desire for the wrongness, and so some people-.
Speaker 2:Fear of losing desires.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, some people will want these things and some people won't. So even my fear of pain, fear of life in this case right is disordered Because I should want, for the betterment of myself and my family, to go hurt in the gym. I should not be afraid of pain, right. But when you experience that deep, deep pain, yeah, oh, you don't want anything.
Speaker 2:Nothing I can tell you. And again, I've gotten over it and I've been able to live my life and become who I am today. But I'll never forget the pain that I felt when my mom called me stupid for the first time. I'm 42 years old. This happened when I was five. And you remember, and I remember it because I never thought that the woman that birthed me, that my mom, would ever call me stupid. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I remember the pain that it caused. I'm 42 and that happened when I was five. And it's not that I dwell on that pain or I'm like, oh no, but I remember it Because that was something that hit me so hard and so deep and I thought, when I was five years old, I thought, man, I'm never going to tell my kids they're stupid. Yeah, at five I'm thinking that I'm not thinking of having kids, but I'm just thinking, yeah, kids, but I'm just thinking, yeah, instead of thinking about dinosaurs. All of a sudden, you're going I ain't going to do that when I'm a grown up, exactly Like it's not going to happen. And so, yeah, and we fear losing the comfort of sitting on our butts and not going through the pain, because it's comforting to not have to go through pain, right, yeah, but the pain is who we are. Do we have Jesus without?
Speaker 1:pain, right, and I was just saying that, like you cannot like. I'm pretty sure the two things that Jesus never said was you do you yeah. And now I'm laughing because it's just a funny thing. But now what was the other thing I was going to say?
Speaker 2:Oh, and it's all going be all right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, or something like no jesus never told you it's all gonna be all right. I'm pretty sure he said if you want to be my disciple, you must pick up your cross daily and follow me switch me in the cross is an implement of death, torture, pain, right, so that's. He's inviting you into that every day for the rest of your life, if you truly want to be his disciple?
Speaker 2:Yeah, if you want to follow him. He doesn't say pick up your cross. He says pick up your cross daily. Yeah, it's not just pick it up and lay it down. When you want to, it's pick it up. There's plenty of times when Jesus was walking up the hill to calvary to to the other two crosses were there. The other two crosses were there yeah they were already there.
Speaker 2:Jesus had to carry his. There's plenty of times where he dropped it. There's plenty of times where he probably felt like dropping it, but he didn't. He picked it up and he carried it and he asked us to do the same. And so, when we look at this fear of losing, just take it out of the three things that God, life, reputation and desire. Just take those off the table. Just the fear of losing anything. He just gave me those three categories because I felt that those were the main things in our lives. Yeah, you can conceptualize them well, exactly.
Speaker 2:Those things we can. I think anybody on the planet who's lived a life can conceptualize those things into. Yeah, I've thought about losing my life, I've thought about losing my reputation and I've thought about losing desires, so that's why I put it in there. But losing anything and when? When we, when we start grasping at straws I guess to say of the world, you know, we're just grasping at the straws that the world's, world's throwing to us. We get so caught up in which, what's next? What straws coming next? What? What am I going to find, you know, next to to to pacify me, or to make me happy, or to take the pain away, or just ease it for a little bit, what is that? That's everything that we fear losing if we turn to Jesus, and that's who's going to take the pain away, that's who's going to pacify us, that's who's going to yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah that's when all that stuff that's flying as hurts the worst, because I've gone through pain without Jesus and I've gone through pain with Jesus. Yeah, and not that I not that the pain didn't hurt when I was going through it with Jesus, but man, it was dang sure easier to go through it with Jesus than it was without. Yeah, it was just, it's just better.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's just better.
Speaker 2:And and and it it's just better, and it's like pain is good, pain is good. We were meant to live in pain. We were meant to lose this world. This world was never promised to us forever. In fact, it's promised that it's going to be taken away from us at some point. And so we chase all the worldly things and fear losing all those worldly things because we only have it for such a certain amount of time, because it's going to be taken away from us. Oh, I need as much as I can before it's taken away from me, whereas heaven's forever. Heaven doesn't end and it's. I don't know what it looks like. I don't know what it's going to be like, but I know it's going to be happy. I know there's not going to be any tears.
Speaker 2:I know that I'm not going to have to worry about paying bills, and I'm not going to have to worry about being hurt, and so we can have a piece of that here on earth. Yeah, yeah, there's a freedom.
Speaker 1:Freedom is a great word when you Freedom Freedom is a great word. I love that when you are in a good relationship with Jesus, then there's a freedom. You can be in prison, you can be sick, you can be dying, you can be in pain. Whatever it doesn't matter Lost your job, lost your house, lost your dog, whatever but there's a freedom. Oh, and what does it say? I'm bad at quoting scripture the peace that surpasses understanding or something like that right.
Speaker 1:There's that peace, that freedom that comes from that and you know who you are. You're a son of God, right, you're a king, yeah, you're a king, and it's like in the Catholic Church they call it the beatific vision, right To be completely fulfilled by God. Like that's why there's no marriage in heaven, because the marriage is a sign of something that you have because you're with God.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and so all of the things that we have around us that are signs of something, of God, are fulfilled, and so man, whatever that's like, that's got to be so much better than whatever it is. We got here the best you got now can't possibly compare.
Speaker 2:It's so much better than what we fear losing here.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:We fear losing all this. We're going to lose it, no matter what. It's promised that all this that we see here and all this that we've made here and all this that we've collected here it's promised that's that's going to be taken away from us. Yeah, but it's also promised that if you follow christ and you live christ, live in and let Christ live in you, it's promised that you'll have way more than that for eternity. And yet we spend so much time worrying about what we're going to lose here. Whether than even my papa wasn't a very religious guy, but man, he was the smartest guy never made it past the third grade. He's been on his own since he was 12. He lived to be 96, but he used to tell me all the time, a port of john in heaven is better than a mansion on earth it's a good way of saying it, and I'm like it's just that wisdom right, it's that
Speaker 2:it's that that thought of I will take a crapper in heaven over a mansion on earth. Yeah, because he realized now, now he's, you know, old and wise and been through all the hurts you can ever think of and they had to. You know, like I said, grew up from 12 years old on on, uh, built his own business, all that good stuff, and he went through a lot of pain and a lot of strife and a lot of struggle and it didn't take him until I mean, it took him until he was older, to realize man, man, yeah, I built a fortune. But the older you get to realize, you start realizing your body's not meant to live a certain amount of time and you can't always be. He drove a dump truck. He drove a dump truck until he was 78 years old, until he couldn't and his body just physically gave out and he realized, yeah, I'd much rather have a crapper in heaven, because everything he built he realizes I can't take it with me.
Speaker 2:I can't take it with me, I'm going to lose it. It is promised. If there's one thing that is promised in this earthly realm is we are going to die. Yep. We are going to lose our life at some point. It's going to happen. We don't know when, we don't know how. We just know it's going to happen. And when you die, the only thing that goes is your soul. That's it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I keep thinking about the fear of loss of desire. I think it's something also that a lot of people can connect with, because we also build so much of our lives around the things that we like, right, or the things that we want Absolutely and um. So, uh, my daughter during the Lenten season season right, we do a fast before easter for the 40 days before easter and she, um, she loves music. She's in band, orchestra and choir, right, so she loves music, um, and so what she gave up for the 40 days was music with lyrics and because she's always got her headphones in and Spotify on like that's she, that's her existence, and she, um, I was like why, why would you give that up?
Speaker 1:Right, like how you tell me how that's supposed to help you grow closer to Jesus and all that stuff, right.
Speaker 1:And she goes well. I realized first of all that most of the things I'm listening to they're not necessarily bad, but they're not bringing me to Jesus, so I'm going to let it go for 40 days. And it was impactful for her because she realized one how much she loves music because she's missing it, so she's desiring something. Loves music because she's missing it, so she's desiring something. But she also realized that there could be a. Our desires can very easily be manipulated or perverted into something that's not good. A hundred, yes Right. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And you know, and I think about those kinds of things, like too, for like my own life or, and I'm sure, lots of people the same way it's our desire. We have an innate desire to be loved. We want to be loved, we want to be known, we want to be seen, we want to be understood and we want to be heard, and so we have this deep, deep longing for this, and most of us look for these in relationships with other people, and most of them are bad relationships. Right, because we're longing for something that truly, even like my wife, it's the deepest relationship I could possibly have, the most intimate, the most vulnerable, the most we know everything about each other, but she doesn't know me as well as I know myself, because that's just how it works.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I don't know myself as well as God knows me.
Speaker 1:So he knows me, he loves me enough, with all of who I am, to have died for me. And so I think about, like the fear of desires. I think a lot of time. Those desires, just they lead us to sin and that's just something that's kind of stuck out to me when you were telling me about this for the first time lead us to sin, and that's just something that's kind of stuck out to me when you were telling me about this for the first time, For sure, Because everybody goes into the and again, I'm horrible at quoting scriptures and stuff like that.
Speaker 2:But they say God tells me he'll give me the desires of my heart. Well, he does. He does tell you that he promises you I'll give you the desires of your heart. But people get that twisted. It's well, if you desire the relationship with christ and the relationship with god, then your desires in your heart are going to be right and good and holy and true.
Speaker 2:Those are the desires that he's talking about yeah yeah, not our, our earthly desires and that's why I put on this spreadsheet under desires relationships, because I think that is the most desired thing that we want on this planet is relationships. And so many of those relationships are what you said. They point us towards the wrong thing, because we seek in those people here on earth earth. We seek what god is willing to give us and wants to give us. We seek that in earthly people. We seek that in people here on earth. They're never going to be able to fulfill that. That that I know. We use the word void or whole or whatever you want to call it that only God can fulfill. Well, when we start looking at these relationships, well, what does the devil know about us that we desire relationships? Yeah.
Speaker 2:And so what does he do? He throws all these. I have a child that is not born of my wife she's my wife's stepchild was born of my wife, she's my wife's stepchild and it was because at the time my wife and I were separated, and that's a whole, nother story.
Speaker 2:But you know the story, the whole other story my wife and I were separated. Well, I could not get to my wife, I physically could not have the relationship that I wanted with my wife, but I still desired that intimacy, that relationship. So what happened is I fell to the desires of that and went and had an affair and had a child. So, yes, the desires that we long for, and right underneath it is material possessions, because I think those two things are what we desire for the most. Yeah, the biggest house, the flashiest car the most.
Speaker 2:and I'm not saying everybody, because not everybody wants material things, but they do want relationship yeah you can go to the person that says I want to be alone, I want the, I don't want anybody around me. You can go to that person and they can lie to you, to your face, and say I don't want you here, but they really want you there because they want. We're built. We're built for relationship. We're built for relationship. Whether you believe in Christ or not, that's up to you. But he built you to be in fellowship and to be in relationship with people.
Speaker 2:And it's not just the intimate relationship, it's not just the intimacy that we have. We use our wives because, yeah, they're the closest person. I will choose my wife over anybody on the planet, a hundred times a day, and double that on Sunday, right, because that's who God gave me to share in that, that relationship. But it's not just those relationships that we desire. We desire, I desire, a relationship with you, john, because I love the relationship that we have. I desire the conversations that we have. Well, you make my life better and I allow you into my life because the conversations we have make my life better. There's yeah, what was?
Speaker 1:that Spooky sounds in the distance.
Speaker 2:The ceiling's coming down. Anyway, that's the devil trying to get us off track. That's what that?
Speaker 2:is. But I desire those conversations and I desire having having a relationship with you because it makes my life better. Yeah Well, who knows that? The devil knows that. So what does he do? He puts people in my path that aren't good for me, that don't have the same want for me to be better, and sometimes I go into those relationships and sometimes I fall and sometimes I go back into that, you know, because we desire, for some reason we're born sinful. I mean mean we know the reason right, because just we're sinful people yeah we learn how to manipulate when we're babies.
Speaker 2:Yep, and I learned that because I have babies they're not babies anymore. You watched how quickly you were manipulated right, a hundred percent, because my babies cried differently whenever they needed a diaper change, and they cried differently whenever they knew that they just wanted to be held or they were hungry. Well, if they cried, if they just wanted to be held, and they cried their I want to be held, cry. Well, we figured that out. Oh, you're crying just because you want to be held, so we're going to let them lay in there. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Well then they realized oh, if I cry like I'm hungry, they're going to come get me. That's sinful nature. Oh stinking baby.
Speaker 2:Yes, and we've all done it because we've all been babies, because that's how we're born. We're born to manipulate. We're born in selfishness. I'm going to cry this way. They don't even know what they're doing, they have no idea. They just know that if I make this noise, they're going to come running. If I make this noise, they're just going to leave me in here to cry it out and be a baby, right. And so that's innate in us. And because we're born that way, we naturally run away from the people that don't give us everything that we want. We run to the people that flock over us. Pay attention to me.
Speaker 2:Pay attention to me, and if you don't, even though those people that are probably making you mad are the best for you.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So all those things kind of remind me too, like Father Stephen and I have talked about how in we, because of our disorder, we approach God the way that our worldly relationships have informed us on how to act and think and all that stuff, instead of the other way around, which is the way it should be. So I should approach my friendships the way Jesus is my friend, right? So it should start with God, come to me and go out to the world around us. I should approach my marriage the way that God approaches me, right? I should approach my role as father the way God approaches me.
Speaker 1:And so, as you're saying, we run away from the people who don't pay attention to us. Like, how many times have we ever been in our lives where we want something, maybe even thrown a prayer out to the good Lord? Hey, I need this thing, I want this thing, and I hear nothing back. And so I'm like, all right, I'm done with you. Right, I'm going to run from you. Or this thing is happening in my life, I'm going to avoid it because, even though God's maybe trying to wrangle us back in, but no, I'm going to avoid this, I'm going to avoid you avoid what because I don't want to hear what you're saying, I'd rather go do this other thing, yeah right.
Speaker 2:And we feel that that other thing is going to give us what we truly desire. We feel that going over there is going to feel the hurt or the void or whatever it is, or give us that fleeting moment of pleasure yeah that it's oh, it's all going to be okay.
Speaker 2:No, it's not. You know, walking through the pain, going back to the, you know, walking through the pain, going back to the pain of it, walking through the pain makes I just I think of Muhammad Ali. Muhammad Ali said he never knew what true victory was until he tasted defeat. The guy won all the time. He just went in, went in, went in, went in, went in, and he thought he knew what winning was. He lost and he was like, oh, that's not right, that don't feel good, I don't like it. But that's what made him truly understand what victory was, what winning was. And he's like I want to try harder to win because I don't want to taste defeat.
Speaker 2:Most of us are opposite. Like we, we run to the stuff that hurts us and and and and and and makes us worse because we, we don't, we fear losing. I just go back to the fear of loss. We fear losing. What those people are going to think about us If we say, hey, go sit on the sidelines, I'm going to somebody. That's better for me. You know, and and and again I just I, hey, go sit on the sidelines, I'm going to somebody. That's better for me and again, I rely solely on my relationships in my life and what God has taught me and everything.
Speaker 2:I put my mom on the sidelines because she was not making my life better. I would be in depression and anxiety, thinking about man. I just want my mom to love me how a mom is supposed to love me and I just let it control my actions. And I finally got to the point where I'm like I'm going to stop running towards that and I'm just going to put it on the sidelines. So I put my mom on the sidelines and I told her I love you, I'm praying for you, I care about you, but I can no longer allow you to dictate my life and hurt my family in the process. I can't do it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and man, that's a scary thing. It is Because it's your mom mom, you know yeah.
Speaker 2:But I had to. I had to because it was not making my life better, but I feared losing that relationship with my mom. I feared losing that relationship and losing the desire of my mom's love. I feared losing that more than I cared about my own health, my own physical, mental and my, my kids. If I don't take care of me, who's going to take care of my kids? Yeah. You know, if I don't take care of me, who's going to pay the bills? Yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, I was trying to fix a relationship that the person on the other side of that relationship don't want to fix. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I can't make them want to fix that relationship, but I feared losing that so much that I did what was wrong. I did what was hurting me. I did what was taking me away from what was important yeah and so I I keep grasping at the. You know, desires is something that everybody has, and that desire for the, the, I'm not supposed to do that. It's so raging inside of us that we can't control it.
Speaker 1:Even Paul wrote about it. Yeah, he said you know, I have to train constantly so that I because I would fear to be disqualified at the end of the race, because you know? And what does he say? I think he's the one who says the whole my heart is willing, but the flesh is weak, or something like that Right Like. I want to do good, but I continue to do bad, and that's it.
Speaker 2:What is your fear? What is your fear that's keeping you from going to Christ? What is it? And I believe it falls into one of the desires reputation or life. It falls into one of the desires reputation or life. It falls into one of those categories. And so, again, when I was going through this, I put it out and I was like man. What are the definitions of these words? What does the Bible say about fear? And it says the fear of man. This is Proverbs 29, 25,. The fear of man lays a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is safe. I picked that because it's exactly what we've been talking about this whole time is man is going to lay the snare and you fear losing your life. You fear losing your reputation and you fear losing your life. You fear losing your reputation and you fear losing your desires. You're falling into the snare that that the world is putting out there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's, there's another Bible verse Um, one of these days, maybe we'll be good enough to actually like have it all in our brains. But um, it says like there's a way that seems right to man, but its end is death. Yes, yes.
Speaker 2:I know it when you say it, but I can't tell you what it's at.
Speaker 2:And then the other one I think that most people know is Proverbs 1.7,. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction. So when we talk about the fear of the Lord and you asked me that before what does that fear look like? What does that fear look like? Are you just doing it out of fear of not going to heaven? Some of us, yeah, and I told you the first you know one of the first conversations we ever had. I got my ticket out of hell, I was good to go, and so, yeah, I was doing it out of fear of going to hell.
Speaker 2:But when you start building that relationship and you grow, chris, it's, it's you go close, closer to Christ and you you start realizing that that fear is not just fear of missing out on heaven and fear of missing, or or, or going to hell or or fear of missing the love and all that stuff. It's understanding. It's the understanding that you have this fear. The wrath of God scares you so much that you're not going to do it right. But it's not that he's so mean and he's love, and so you fear. You should fear losing that love more than you fear losing the desires and the reputation and the life that we have here. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, and then you go into, I put it into the biblical and then I put it into Mann's Webster's Dictionary. So Webster's Dictionary of fear is an unpleasant, often strong emotion caused by anticipation or awareness of danger. Pretty spot on of what fear is right. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So how do we not fear that stuff? How do we not fall into Webster's Dictionary of fear? Right, well, proverbs 1.7,. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. But then we go down here. It says John 14.6,. Jesus answered I am the way and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. Well, that's how we do it, that's how we beat all the snares that the world is. It's so easy, right. God says this is how you do it, you know yeah, I'm the way.
Speaker 1:I am right. Instead of the, the relativistic. Like which person? What thing exactly right? There's only one, it's jesus.
Speaker 2:I am the way. That's what jesus says. I am the way, not your wife, not your kids, not your job, yeah, not your, your, your, your, your, your life, your physical life. I am the way. That's how we do it. Well, why, why do we do it? And this is all on this little spreadsheet, and and john, please feel free if you have a way to upload this and and people to it. Feel free. If people want to look at it and dissect it, please feel free. Well, why do we do it?
Speaker 2:Well, romans 6, 8 through 11 says the death he died. He died to sin once for all, but the life he lives, he lives to God. In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. That's why Because he decided that he was going to listen to God whenever he was saying I don't want to do this, god, I don't want to do this. Please take this away, pass it to somebody else, figure out something else. He said no, I'm going to listen to God. I'm going to march my rear end up that hill carrying my cross, getting beat and spit and slapped and punked and pushed and bruised and battered all along the way, and I'm going to put that cross in the ground, I'm gonna hang on it and I'm still gonna say forgive them. Yeah, because they don't know what they're doing. Yeah, that's why has my wife done that for me? Has my kids done that for me? Has the world done that for me? No, god did that for me.
Speaker 1:That's why yeah, I love the the. The next one you have is classic john 3, 16, right. Like for god so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that that's. That's my favorite verse in the bible and I've had so many people tell me that that's a scapegoat. That's a scapegoat verse. It's so easy to remember and everybody, it's on every shirt and everything and I'm like, if that's a scapegoat verse, I think I picked the right scapegoat verse. You know what I mean. I'll take it as a scapegoat because you know what Jesus is the goat. He's the, the goat there's nobody better.
Speaker 1:He's the goat. He's the goat. Shepherd yeah, wait. No, he's a sheep. He separates the sheeps and the goats. Yeah, the sheeps go to heaven, the goats go. Maybe he's not the goat, maybe he's not the goat. No, wait, he wait. He was the goat. He died, he went to hell, he conquered hell and rose from the dead. There you go, he's the. He's the goat, he's the goat. He redeemed's the goat.
Speaker 2:He redeemed the goats. So, yeah, he redeemed the goats. So if he can redeem the goats, yeah. So that's why it's my favorite, because it's so simple. And again, I stopped trying to figure out the God side of Jesus. That's really when I started to understand the true love of God and the true love of Jesus. Because Jesus, do you think God could have put Jesus here at any age? Yeah, he could have put him here whenever he wanted to, but he chose to have God born of a human, live as a human. The kids in seventh grade I told you I taught seventh grade for six years. They loved it, because I would always say do you think Jesus took dumps?
Speaker 1:Do you think Jesus farted? Yeah, he was a dude.
Speaker 2:Do you think he burped? Do you think he sweat? Do you think he bled? Do you think he went behind a tree and peed when he was out in the woods? Yeah, he did because he was human. Well, there's a specific reason why God put Jesus as here, a human because we can understand that. So why don't we dive into? Don't get me wrong. There's a place, absolutely 100% a place for the God side of Jesus. Yeah, or it wouldn't be so adamant about. He was fully God and fully man. Yeah.
Speaker 2:But we get so wrapped up in trying to be the God side of Jesus yeah Whereas we just need to figure out how we can be the man side of. Jesus.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Got to connect first.
Speaker 1:Yeah, got to connect.
Speaker 2:Because that's what it's about. It's about the relationship. It's about that. Jesus chose us. He didn't have to yeah, he did not have to do what God called him to do In order for God's plan to be right. He had to, but he didn't have to. He chose to. He decided that I'm going to fear God and love these people enough to go and get beat and slain and stabbed and die. But guess what? I'm gonna take it a step further. I'm gonna love me more than that. I'm gonna choose to live for them. I'm not gonna go and die for them. I'm gonna choose to live for them and I'm gonna come back and I'm gonna give them the same opportunity to live where I live with my father in heaven. Yeah, come on man, it's good.
Speaker 2:It's so good. Why is it so hard for us?
Speaker 1:yeah we we talk about that all the time too. Why is it so hard like? Why can we not comprehend even no matter how many times we've heard it, how many times we've seen it, how many times we experienced it. It's like we have the worst short-term memory ever, ever, and it's like we just have to keep coming back to it. But god's good and he brings us back all the time yeah what's that movie 10 second bob?
Speaker 2:never seen it's uh no, it's, he's a character um 51st dates it's 51st dates and there's 10 second tom or 10 second Bob or whatever, and it's like hey, how you doing. And then he turns around and says hey how you doing that's fine. Hey, how you doing. Well, that's kind of how we are with Jesus, right, we're like 10 second Tom with Jesus. Hey, jesus, how you doing. Oh, get empty. So I have to run way back over there to fill my cup up yeah instead of having you walk with me and and and man turn around.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, my cup's full, yeah you know why.
Speaker 1:Why is that so hard?
Speaker 2:it's so hard for us, it's so difficult yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, man, this has been good. Yeah, so I think I think what we're gonna do, we're gonna go ahead and wrap this up, um, but you and I have more things to talk about yeah so, um, we're probably just gonna end this and just sit around and talk for a little bit. Um, so everybody joined us. Thanks for joining.
Speaker 2:Thank you.
Speaker 1:I appreciate it and, um, I guess we want to encourage everyone. Think about the things in your life that you fear and then think about how you can properly order your life to where God's first and those fears can become second off. Give them, give them over to Jesus right. Let him be Lord of the things that you're afraid of and just see what he can do in your life. Absolutely All right, man. Well, I'll see you next time.
Speaker 2:Everybody Thanks for joining us. Yeah, thank y'all. See you next time. All right, bye.
