Ep 1345 ｜ Going 'No Contact' with Parents： Is It Biblical？
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 4 minutes
Harmful content
Misogyny
6
sentences flagged
Toxicity
3
sentences flagged
Hate speech
12
sentences flagged
Summary
Is going no contact with your parents ever justified? What does the Bible have to say about this and much more on today's episode of Relatable? Today's episode is all about how God is never doing nothing, that his wrath against evil is growing, and that he has an eternal plan of redemption which includes defeating evil and the evil one forever and ever.
Transcript
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While it is a very pervasive trend on social media and in therapy culture today, what is
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And most importantly, what does the Bible have to say about this?
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We've got all of this and much more on today's episode of Relatable.
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Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Monday. Hope everyone had a wonderful Mother's Day
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All right, let me start off this week, this day by reminding you, God's eternal plan of
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redemption, it's going off without a hitch completely.
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Last time I checked, last time I read my Bible, I said, oh, yep, there it is.
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He's never looking at your life, looking at the state of the world, looking at our political
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situation and wondering how the heck did this happen?
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I guess I got to figure it out, get together with my angels and do this kind of huddle
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to figure out how we're going to clean up this mess down here.
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And sometimes with that knowledge, it's easy to think, wow, how does he allow all these
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If I were in charge, I wouldn't allow these bad things to happen.
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And I totally understand the temptation to think that, whether you're thinking about
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hardship in your own life or just tragedies and evils that go on in the world.
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But I always go back to Psalm 37, and I'm reminded that God is never doing nothing,
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that his wrath against evil, against true oppression is kindling.
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it is growing, and that his eternal plan of redemption, which includes defeating evil and
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the evil one forever and ever, and fully redeeming and protecting and preserving and avenging his
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people, that day is coming. His victory is sure. He is never doing nothing. And one day there will
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be no more sin. There will be no more sadness. There will be no more despair. There will be no
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more disappointment, no more cancer, no more abortion, no more injustice, no more lawlessness,
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no more chaos, no more confusion. And Jesus is going to rule in perfect peace in totality
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forever and ever. This is a light and momentary affliction, even when it doesn't seem like it.
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And the glory that we are promised as Christians, not because of anything we've done, but because
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of what Christ did for us on the cross, it's sure. And that's where our hope and where our
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joy comes from. So I just want to remind you of that. And in light of that, what do we do? What
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do we always say? We adopt a phrase that I heard Elizabeth Elliott say a lot, and then we've added
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to it over the years. Do the next right thing in faith with excellence and for the glory of God.
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Do the next right thing. That's it. In faith with excellence and for the glory of God. In light of
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this grand eternal plan of redemption, that next right thing could be changing a diaper with joy.
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It could be reading Dr. Seuss to your child. It could be writing a really excellent email to a
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client. It could be treating your neighbor with kindness. It could be cooking a good dinner.
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It could be doing some big, bold act of faith and obedience that you know God has called you to,
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but that you've been scared to do. Or it could be an unseen and unsung private act of obedience
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that you know that the Lord is leading you to do or to say. Do the next right thing in faith
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with excellence and for the glory of God, knowing that God is totally in charge and he's taking care
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of the rest. I have to preach myself to myself that every day, and I also just want to encourage
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you with that as well. All right, today is Theology Monday, and it could also be Topical
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Monday because we're really talking about things that are more evergreen, things that are less
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tied to the news cycle or something that is going viral, and rather something that is going on with
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the culture and what the Bible has to say about it. Or maybe it's just a strictly theological
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idea that I see people confused about. And it's not that I have all of the answers in the world,
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but I'm navigating this with all of you trying to go back to the Word of God to seek the clarity
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that He so graciously gives us in Scripture. And today I want to talk about a trend that I've
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noticed on social media and been very disturbed by over the past several months, but even over
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the past few years. And that is the trend of going, quote unquote, no contact with your family,
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specifically with your parents. And this really kind of intersects with the therapy culture
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conversation that we had a couple of weeks ago. I really encourage you to go back and to listen to
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that episode, watch that episode. It's proven very controversial on Christian Therapy Instagram.
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But if you actually go back and you listen to my entire analysis of it, you'll see
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that it's not black and white, my assessment, that it really is an effort to look at therapy
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and counseling in light of God's wisdom and what he actually says. And I want to do the same thing
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with this topic. So if you don't even know what I'm talking about, there's this big trend on
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social media, especially TikTok, of people proclaiming that they are no contact with
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their family. No contact means you're not talking to them anymore. There's this woman who kind of
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went viral she claims that her life suddenly started to go right that things started to
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really come together after she cut her family off completely this is thought one you want to know
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what's crazy after i went into contact with my mom and basically my entire family i started receiving
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so many blessings when i was still in contact with my mother and she was draining my life force
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like literally draining my life force out throughout my whole life and when i finally
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had enough and gathered some strength from I don't know where to leave that situation
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my blessings started pouring in like that all of my manifestations started
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coming to me in physical form just like that okay so lots of issues with this I don't claim
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to know every detail of this person's life maybe her mother really was doing completely terrible
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things to her and that she had to set some healthy boundaries. And we'll get into that
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as you'll see. But this mentality is very prominent. And this woman is wearing a cross
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necklace. She probably claims to be a Christian. And yet what you've just heard there is completely
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self-centered and completely new age. This idea that once I do this, once I fulfill the thing that
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I want to do, once I make the choice that is best for me, then all of my blessings will fall into
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place. We talked about this mentality a lot and you're not enough and that's okay. And this is
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one particular manifestation of what I call the cult of self-affirmation, which tells you
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if you learn to find fulfillment and love and satisfaction within yourself, if you go on this
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road of self-discovery, you will go so deeply inside yourself that you will unlock the manifestation
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of all of your dreams. You'll find that actually you are this perfect goddess who has the power
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to accomplish everything that you want. This is a big kind of Glennon Doyle idea. She really pushes
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this kind of narrative in her book, Untamed, and even the books preceding that. Very popular among
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women, including people who call themselves Christians. Okay, this is another woman. She
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posted a year update on her no contact policy with her parents that too. So it's been a year
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since I've gone no contact with my parents. A few months after going no contact with my parents,
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I had to distance myself from my entire biological family. I thought that I was like unique in this
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way. I never expected to ever distance myself from my parents to ever be in a situation.
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I thought I was nuts. I thought it was crazy. I didn't know what I was doing. It was just like
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my body and my soul were saying, you need, it's time to step away. And losing that, I gained myself.
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I've gained confidence, I've gained self-love, I've gained understanding.
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So again, without knowing the details of this, I just want to highlight what this mentality is
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and how it is echoed over and over again. I did this thing, I found myself. And remember Jesus's
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words, if you want to find yourself, you'll lose yourself. If you want to live, you must die. If
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you want to gain what I offer you, you must lose all of these things. And this mentality here is
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the opposite. If I want to find myself, it's not that you have to deny yourself, it's that you have
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to deny others. If you want to gain, it's not that you have to lose yourself in what you have,
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you have to lose others. And so it's actually this exchange. Again, the cult of self-affirmation,
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the worshiping of the God of self, this particular mentality reflects that, and it
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esteems to influence people into going, quote unquote, no contact with their parents. I know
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a lot of you out there are like, my situation is different. We'll get into all of that.
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This particular perspective is the one that I want to highlight today and all of the
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okay so what is no contact no contact this is according to psychology today it's a deliberate
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strategy in which a person completely cuts off all forms of communication and interaction with
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another individual usually means a family member so no phone calls no text no emails social media
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interactions in-person meetings and it usually is preceded by some kind of declaration and usually
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it's some kind of therapist that has encouraged a person to go no contact. I've seen people post
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and it seems even boast about this when it comes to grandparents and grandchildren. And I do just
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want to say that so often the reasons given are not actually abuse. They're very often some kind
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of disagreement. And I'm not even talking that the grandparent is like emotionally manipulating or
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doing something horrible to the grandchildren, but there's just a difference in perspective
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Very often, that is what is precipitating in these social media no-contact stories, the decision to sever all relationship between grandparents and grandkids or parents and kids.
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According to a New York Post survey, more than one-third of Americans, one-third of Americans reportedly cut off all communication with a friend or a family member last year.
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A lot of it very often has to do with politics.
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And look, I understand if someone were super pro-abortion in my life, I'm not saying that
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I'm much more concerned with this idea of almost arbitrarily throwing off all hope of
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Did the age of Trump and the polarization of politics create this?
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The truth is, is that according to polls, this no contact trend has increased in mainstream
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It exploded in the 2020s, especially with Gen Z and social media platforms like TikTok.
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So many, I think, of the harmful trends that we see today are part of a social contagion.
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Also, there's a Reddit community, estranged adult child.
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And so, you know, we've always heard of estranged parents, especially estranged fathers throughout history.
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But this isn't a strange child, a child who has chosen to go no contact.
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There are almost half a million posts on TikTok with a no contact hashtag.
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Videos featuring hashtag no contact generated 1.6 billion views in 2023 alone.
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um this is an example of someone who says that she went no contact because of the words of her
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parents thought three your millennial child going no contact with you isn't because they're ungrateful
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you fed and watered them for 18 years it's because they told you a hundred times what hurt them and
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instead of listening you played victim became emotionally abusive and then they had to set
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a boundary to protect themselves the way you wouldn't protect them. Who said that?
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I think the problem with this is that we don't actually know like so much of the reasoning that
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I see on social media for going no contact. It's so broad and it's so vague. We don't know what she
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means by emotional abuse. We don't know what she means by protection. If you're talking about
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like actual abuse, like if you're talking about actual, like harmful, hateful actions and words,
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okay, like that's one conversation to have. The problem with this is that this category of
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justification for going no contact is so large. And it encompasses everything from petty offense
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to political disagreements, to not liking your parents' tone, to your parents in your mind just
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being too judgmental. There are so many reasons that are covered under this that I think are
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awful reasons to cut off your parents. Even Oprah and her audience say that a lot of them
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have gone no contact with their parents. Stop four.
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I have been no contact with my entire family for a year and a half now.
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For a year and a half now. Okay. Chris, how about you?
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It's been four years since I've had contact with my parents and my siblings.
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I've been no contact with my 30-year-old son for two years.
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We might not know the reasoning behind it, but I find that the fact that this is a trend,
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that this is becoming more and more common and more and more pervasive. In my opinion,
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in my opinion, it often has to do with our own fragility and our own narcissism, our own
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selfishness, our own desire to avoid discomfort and inconvenience. In every case, no, certainly not
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in every case. But I think in a lot of these cases, I do not think it's a coincidence that
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as we become more obsessed with self-fulfillment and self-love, that difficult relationships and
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disagreements become more and more intolerable. One of the key shifts, according to the New York
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Post, is that today definitions of abuse and neglect have been broadened. Young people going
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no contact with parents often emphasize emotional neglect, boundary violations. Look, emotions and
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feelings are absolutely real. They do matter. I'm not saying that they don't. I don't know that
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that is a reason to say I'm never going to talk to this person again, especially a parent,
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especially the people who gave you life. The most common reason for going no contact cited by 36%
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of participants was that the other person treated them with a lack of respect. Again, so broad. What
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does that mean? Additional key reasons included the relationship having a negative effect on their
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mental health. What does that mean? 29%. And the other person being generally too negative, 27%.
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Look, it's not good to be around constantly negative people, bad company, corrupts good
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character. That is a biblical truth that we can live by. Maybe that's true with an acquaintance
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or a coworker or a friend. When it comes to your parents, I do not believe that these are
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justifications for cutting them off. 73% of the respondents to the survey said they feel inclined
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to distance themselves from loved ones when they experience difficulty rather than openly
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communicating to solve the problem. There are actually no studies, and this is very telling,
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no studies of this phenomenon before the social media era. This trend is especially prevalent,
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also telling to me, among those who identify as gay or transgender. A recent study shows that
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half of LGBTQ people are estranged from their families. And I think that people would look at
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that and automatically assume that, oh, that's because their families aren't accepting. That's
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because their families won't celebrate them. Well, that might actually be true, but I guarantee you
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a large percentage of those families say, I love you. I want a relationship with you. I can't agree
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with you identifying as the opposite sex. I can't agree with you living this lifestyle because
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it's actually very dark, but I want to still have a relationship with you. I can guarantee a large
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percentage of the relationship dynamics in that percentage is characterized by what I just
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explained and that it's actually the person who identifies as LGBTQ saying, no, if I cannot be
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unapologetically celebrated because of how I now identify, I'm not going to be friends with you.
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That again is not a problem with the parents living by their convictions. It is a problem
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with the child who has elevated their own sexual and gender desires above the cohesion of their
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family. And also just a fragility to say, you can only be around family members that will
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assent to every single thing that you do. And that's an unfair, unrealistic and narcissistic
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therapy. And she has also talked about the trans community, so-called trans identifying community,
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uses going no contact in a cult-like manner. She argues that people who say that they're
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transgender often cut off their family and then replace them with a quote-unquote glitter family
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of accepting LGBTQ friends as a replacement. According to Commentary Magazine, another
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factor driving family estrangement is politics. So according to a 2024 survey, one in five of
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those estranged from family members cited political this is according to time magazine actually
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cited political differences um as the reason political differences among those estranged
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over politics nearly half reported that the break occurred within the year leading up to the 2024
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election and um i actually have some experience with this i have seen this firsthand and i won't
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go into too much detail but there is a family member not in my immediate family thank you lord
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But there is a family member who, over the past few years, has become very liberal.
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And I can say the conservative members of my family have tried very hard to maintain
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this relationship with this person whose values have drastically changed over the past eight
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It is this person who refuses to maintain the relationship with everyone else.
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And these conservatives in my family are not trying to change her mind.
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they're not trying to constantly talk about politics. In fact, they're okay with avoiding
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the political conversation. They just really want to maintain a relationship with this person. And
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yet this person in my extended family does not want that because politics for them has become
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so much more important than even the relationships in her immediate family. And so I'm not saying
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that that's true in every single case. That seems to be the trend though, that it is the progressive
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family member that is holding the boundary of saying, no, my politics are actually more important
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than my friendship or my relationship with my siblings, my relationship with the people
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that used to be the closest in my life. The root of this no contact trend can actually
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be traced back. So many of these things are not actually new. To someone named Salvador Mnuchin,
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he was a family therapist, and he developed the theory of structural family therapy in the 1960s.
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Mnuchin's theory was that healthy families had clear boundaries, and families where there
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weren't enough boundaries, individuals become enmeshed. For families that had too rigid
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boundaries, they would become disengaged. He was a popular secular psychologist, and his goal,
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he said, was healthy, balanced relationships between family members. But the boundaries
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concept that he popularized is now being hyperbolized. It is being taken to new lengths,
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and it is being used in a way that maybe he didn't originally intend, and it is being used
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to produce families that are completely estranged. Obviously, there are such things as good
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boundaries. Within your family, you come up with rules, you come up with parameters, you come up
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with values, and you decide what is a non-negotiable, what are the kinds of people and the kinds of
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views that we don't want around our children, that we don't want around ourselves. There is a
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healthy enforcement of boundaries. But this arbitrary or this very narcissistic, I'm going
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to push all of these blood related people in my life away because they won't affirm everything I
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believe in, that is extremely dangerous. There are many in the no contact crowd that cite childhood
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trauma as a reason for cutting off parents. But the trauma that they so often talk about on TikTok,
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it bears very little resemblance to what psychologists actually affirm is trauma.
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Most of the studies focus on physical or sexual abuse when we're talking about trauma,
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but the main focus for this no-contact crowd hinges on emotional trauma,
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which, as we've already said, is extremely vague.
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So the user Courage Coaching on social media explains parents' faults that cause no-contact, allegedly, SOT6.
00:25:29.440
It is because they haven't been able to apologise for the hurt that they've caused
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and because they continue to hurt their adult child.
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They continue to act in an emotionally immature way.
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They don't take accountability for any abusive behaviour.
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They don't go to therapy to improve how they relate to their children.
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That is why adult children go no contact, because the parent is not willing to change.
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Okay, someone acting in an emotionally immature way is not a reason to cut them off.
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I'm just going to be very black and white about that.
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Every single person, you included, you included every single person, has acted in an emotionally immature way.
00:26:24.520
I just, if you're in this crowd, I just want you to ask yourself, do you hold yourself by the same standard to which you're holding other people?
00:26:33.560
Because that's, it's giving lack of self-awareness.
00:26:40.220
There is this guy right here, right over my shoulder, whose name is C.S. Lewis.
00:26:47.640
And I think about this all the time because our sinful nature has such a propensity to
00:26:50.980
think this way is that we are far too quick to give excuses to ourselves and far too quick
00:26:57.460
to, and far too slow to give excuses for others.
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And so when we're thinking about our own bad behavior, we always have so much context in
00:27:14.940
I was overstimulated. And so that's why I acted out in that way. But when other people treat us
00:27:20.260
with the gruffness that we just treated someone else, when someone else snaps at us, when someone
00:27:25.300
else is overly emotional or someone else is immature, we don't give them any excuse. We
00:27:30.320
don't give them any context. We don't say, well, maybe they had this going on in their day or this
00:27:34.960
going on in their lives, or maybe they were dealing with that. That is just the simple way
00:27:39.480
we have to train ourselves to think differently. And so those who say, I'm cutting off my parents
00:27:45.340
because they were emotionally immature. I mean, you think that they enjoyed your temper tantrums
00:27:51.520
when you were 10 years old or when you were 16 years old and you were still acting like a six
00:27:56.640
year old? I mean, I just think we are so slow to give grace to the people who for so many years
00:28:03.260
of our lives gave grace to us. The way that this phrase childhood trauma is thrown around in
00:28:08.900
discussions of toxic parents is typically framed in terms of some kind of emotional difficulty so
00:28:21.320
that they can apply to almost anything. So if a parent was too hands-off or a parent was too
00:28:26.600
hands-on or a parent was too strict or they weren't strict enough or they didn't let you do
00:28:32.240
the things that your friends were allowed to do or they did let you do the things that everyone
00:28:37.660
was allowed to do. Everything is toxic. Everything is a justification for cutting people off.
00:28:43.560
There was an author who has talked a lot about no contact, Lindsay C. Gibson, Adult Children of
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Emotionally Immature Parents, Anidra Glover, Tawab's Set Boundaries, Find Peace, A Guide to
00:28:57.240
Reclaiming Yourself. So these are two New York Times bestsellers that have been really popular
00:29:06.980
was kind of like called out on her own term, SOT7.
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i'm coming to the lady who wrote the book about emotionally immature parents okay absolutely
00:29:38.060
absolutely absolutely i did say that in my book but i also didn't oprah and i and i don't know
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what to say that's funny i that's one thing i do like about oprah is that she has like a high
00:29:52.900
threshold for awkwardness and so she's not afraid to say like what are you talking about like didn't
00:29:58.580
she would just say this. And so it's interesting, like you see a lot of these people, especially
00:30:03.540
the authors. And we see, you know, I was actually just watching, my husband and I were watching
00:30:08.680
the Am I Racist documentary by Matt Walsh last night. And the same kind of thing,
00:30:14.940
Robin DiAngelo was doing the same kind of thing. Like she's very forthright on social media and
00:30:20.500
in her book about white fragility. But then when you get her in a room and you try to
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like pin her on these things and make her say and do the things that she talked about like
00:30:28.680
they really walk it back and so all of these people robin d'angelo included totally different
00:30:33.640
subject but these new york times best-selling authors who have made so much money off of this
00:30:39.120
i don't even know if they really believe the things that they're saying but it's very lucrative
00:30:44.320
and it's damaging people's lives it's ruining people's relationships people are going to be
00:30:49.260
alone on their deathbed because they read these books and they thought it was justified to cut
00:30:54.080
off their parent because they said one thing that they deemed emotionally immature. That's very sad.
00:30:59.420
The American Psychological Association says that this is extremely prominent and something that
00:31:06.040
we need to pay attention to. Let me pause and tell you about our next sponsor first,
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Whatever God is calling you to give, go ahead and give it.
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so the american psychological association actually the statistics that we're going to talk about are
00:32:27.140
really just more about mental mental health and the so-called mental health crisis or those who
00:32:32.960
claim to have mental health problems seems to be going hand in hand with this rise in no contact
00:32:37.420
37 of gen z have received treatment for what they say are mental health problems 35 of millennials
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00:32:43.440
26% of Gen X. I would have thought it was a lot more for Gen Z. Actually, as a reminder,
00:32:49.460
Gen Z born between 1997 and 2012. According to the APA, Gen Z is far more likely to report
00:32:56.720
mental health concerns than previous generations. Abigail Schreier was on the show and she highlighted
00:33:03.400
how therapy actually might be making the mental health problems of Gen Z and therefore this no
00:33:09.960
contact problem among Gen Z, a lot worse. And here's the problem with, in general,
00:33:15.960
sending a bummed out kid to therapy as opposed to grandma. You send a bummed out kid to therapy,
00:33:23.460
the therapist's incentive is to treat the least sick for the longest period of time.
00:33:28.380
They want that child coming back. And there's no oversight. There's no one saying, you know,
00:33:35.080
you're really undermining her, you know, respect for her mother. No one's even tracking it. Unlike
00:33:41.340
with medicine where they're tracking harms, therapists don't even track these. Yeah. Instead
00:33:48.040
of to grandma, that is the key term there because family at one point was used as vessels of comfort
00:33:58.580
and compassion and wisdom and tough love. That is the thing that we miss when we replace. I'm not
00:34:05.060
saying all biblical counseling is bad. I've talked about my journey with biblical counseling
00:34:09.060
that was very healthy and very helpful for me at the time, but it is not a replacement for
00:34:14.240
relationships. That person is getting paid to pretend to be your friend. That's not a real
00:34:20.460
relationship. You don't have a real friendship with your therapist, probably. Maybe you have
00:34:25.380
an outside-the-office friendship, but I'm not even sure that that's right. I'm not even sure
00:34:30.040
that that's ethical. That person is getting paid to like you and paid to talk with you. That is
00:34:36.760
not a real organic friendship that goes through difficulty, that goes through disagreement,
00:34:41.560
that goes through hardship. I just think that we no longer have a tolerance for these things
00:34:46.980
and it's really hurting us. It's contributing to this loneliness problem. Your therapist cannot
00:34:52.420
fix your loneliness. Your therapist cannot fix the disconnection that you have in the world,
00:34:58.140
this lack of orientation to understand who you are and why you're here, part of family's purpose
00:35:04.440
is to give us that. Good, bad, and ugly, we look at our parents, we look at our aunts and uncles,
00:35:09.960
and we can say, oh, I understand what formed me, what formed my childhood. I learned from that.
00:35:15.760
I don't want to be that way, or I do want to be like that, or that's something that I can admire.
00:35:20.560
That's something that I don't really want to emulate in my own life. I mean, family in that
00:35:26.700
way, even deeply imperfect families, they serve a purpose in giving us fulfillment and identity to
00:35:34.260
tell us who we are. And in general, except for some exceptions where real abuse and true toxicity
00:35:41.220
is happening, there is great, great benefit to, I think, weathering those relationships.
00:35:47.060
But here is the narcissistic view. Again, Sat 9, we've got someone saying, oh, going no contact.
00:35:53.500
it's compassionate to yourself cutting people off and going no contact leaving when there is harm
00:36:01.720
and disrespect present is so incredibly compassionate it truly is so corrective
00:36:09.680
and grounding for everybody involved because for you it deepens the trust that you have
00:36:16.740
in yourself it deepens the trust that you have in your ability to take care of yourself and to
00:36:24.200
save your own life there is no good beautiful delicious quality of life without self-trust
00:36:33.320
without a strong relationship with yourself and leaving when harm is present deepens that bond
00:36:41.600
okay I don't know what that means I don't know what that means there's so many words that have
00:36:47.040
been tiktokified that like therapy has become tiktokified and so words that used to have
00:36:53.120
a substantive objective meaning like harm like compassion like abuse that they've morphed
00:37:02.660
they've become so broad that they don't actually even mean anything and they're creating weak
00:37:08.460
people and weak relationships. There's this video that I always think of when I think of Charlie
00:37:14.780
Kirk that went around and when people call him, you know, divisive or mean or vitriolic or
00:37:22.020
whatever, I always think about this video. This is very important, everybody. Even if your parents
00:37:26.700
share values and views and a worldview that you do not have, you are biblically obligated to honor
00:37:32.560
them, which means to spend time with them and to love on them and to go visit them, even if they
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are wearing a black lives matter and in this home that we have no hate and trans lives you still go
00:37:44.040
and spend time with your parents because if you are incapable in this case of honoring your earthly
00:37:49.940
father you will never honor your heavenly father gosh that is such a good reminder and i have
00:37:56.300
gotten messages from you guys over the months saying that that video changed your perspective
00:38:01.820
It is our commandment as children to honor our parents.
00:38:06.600
It is not our parents' commandment to honor us.
00:38:11.340
Like if we look at Ephesians 5, there are dynamics there at play.
00:38:16.320
Like God through Paul says, hey, fathers, don't provoke your children to anger, but
00:38:20.780
also emphasizes children, honor your father and mother.
00:38:24.500
This is the first commandment with a promise that it may go well with you and that you
00:38:30.620
Exodus 20, 12 is what is being emphasized there. Honor your father and mother. This command to
00:38:38.540
honor our parents is tied to a promise that we live a long life and that our life goes well.
00:38:45.040
Now, obviously there are people who are obedient to their parents. So I wouldn't even, I would
00:38:49.760
call it a principle too, that there are people who are obedient to their parents that don't
00:38:56.340
live a long time. But I believe that this is a principle that is being spoken to, just like we
00:39:02.180
see in Proverbs, that this leads to abundance. This leads to longevity. This is good for you.
00:39:09.180
This leads to your provision and your protection. So how do we honor our parents as adults,
00:39:16.120
especially parents that you might disagree with? I am so thankful that my husband and I share
00:39:21.460
values with my parents, that we share values with his parents. I have a ton of sympathy and
00:39:26.360
compassion for those of you who don't have that situation. That you have parents who really are
00:39:30.820
diametrically opposed to you, that you have in-laws that are diametrically opposed to you
00:39:34.900
and opposed to your kids. I am not trying to negate the complexity of something like that.
00:39:41.640
But we are called to honor our parents. Part of honoring our parents is remaining open to their
00:39:49.180
wisdom and to their advice, being respectful to them, being kind to them, serving them even when
00:39:56.920
it's difficult. Proverbs has a lot to say on this subject. Proverbs 1.8, we're instructed,
00:40:02.540
hear my son your father's instruction and forsake not your mother's teaching. Proverbs 23.22 reminds
00:40:09.080
us, listen to your father who gave you life and do not despise your mother when she is old. And
00:40:15.440
there's nothing there that says, as long as they're still nice to you, as long as they agree
00:40:20.660
with you, as long as they're not emotionally immature, as long as they don't do anything to
00:40:25.700
you that makes you angry, as long as they don't send short texts to you, as long as you can't
00:40:30.140
think back in your life to any time that they didn't treat you fairly. Look, our parents,
00:40:35.180
just like every single human on earth, they're fallible. Like they've sinned in their life.
00:40:40.720
okay like they have their own stuff that they grew up with they probably had a harder upbringing than
00:40:46.780
you did in a lot of cases okay we're just talking generally and eventually as adults again i'm
00:40:53.020
talking about not you know true abuse and continued abuse but as adults like eventually we have to
00:41:00.540
stop blaming our problems on our parents eventually you have to grow up and that is also i think one
00:41:06.220
detriment to people purposely putting off having kids as long as possible because you having kids
00:41:13.480
really gives you new eyes and a new understanding for your parents because you see like all of the
00:41:19.640
sacrifice and all of the love and all of the failures and foibles that you commit as a parent
00:41:26.740
like you have a lot of grace for your own parents and how they did things and I I would guess that
00:41:32.920
a lot of these people that we see in these TikToks, they probably don't have kids themselves
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00:41:37.480
and they also probably preach a lot about empathy, I would guess, but they have an utter inability
00:41:43.000
to put themselves in their parents' shoes. And we can't expect non-Christians to understand
1.00
00:41:49.920
this concept of grace and to understand this concept of sacrifice for the sake of cohesion
00:41:55.600
and honoring your family, but Christians should do everything that we can, everything that we can.
00:42:02.920
in a safe way, like truly actually safe to maintain that relationship with our parents
00:42:09.000
and to continue to honor them. Even if your parent is a wild liberal and always wants to
00:42:14.100
talk to you about how much they hate Donald Trump and how they think abortion is great,
00:42:17.400
it is still your responsibility to honor your father and mother. I still don't think that
00:42:22.000
that means that you go no contact with them. Maybe it means that you don't allow them around
00:42:26.060
your kids every single day and there are some boundaries there. I don't think that you cut
00:42:29.940
them off. I don't think that you say no relationship with them. I think it's your responsibility to
00:42:34.860
share the gospel with them and to show them respect as much as you can and showing them
00:42:39.100
the dignity that sometimes it might feel they don't deserve. I don't think that you understand
00:42:43.840
what kind of seed that could be planting in their heart. We honor our parents by caring for them as
00:42:50.660
they grow older, just as they once cared for us when we could not care for ourselves, and even if
00:42:56.180
they didn't. Even if they didn't, because I know some of you out there, maybe you were abandoned
00:43:00.900
by your parents. And it takes a lot of the power of God to say, even if you didn't treat me well,
00:43:08.380
I am going to treat you well. That's what Christians are called to. That is the radical
00:43:12.800
kind of love that the world who says they know what love is, does not understand. That even if
00:43:18.340
you did nothing for me, even if you hurt me deeply, I am still going to serve you when you
00:43:23.720
are weak and you can't help yourself. That is Christian love. Because while we were yet sinners,
00:43:29.500
Christ died for us. While we were God's enemies, he sought to reconcile with us. Even when we sinned
00:43:35.340
against him, he who knew no sin became sin so we could become the righteousness of God.
00:43:40.600
Even when we were spitting on him and mocking Jesus, even when our sin placed him on the cross,
00:43:46.640
he said, Father, forgive them for they know not what they do. That's the craziness that Jesus
00:43:53.580
brought forth. He said, you've heard it said, eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth. I say to you,
00:43:59.120
turn the other cheek. Like you've heard it said, I'm paraphrasing here, like get revenge on your
00:44:05.200
enemies. I say to you, love your enemies and pray for them. Like that is what Christians are called
00:44:10.620
to do. I would say not only including for our parents, but especially for our parents. Okay,
00:44:16.840
we've got more on this in just a second. Let me tell you about alliance defending freedom. So
00:44:21.600
America is celebrating 250 years of freedom this year. Our friends at ADF are asking you to take
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this opportunity to pray for America. You know, they're not even asking in this sponsorship for
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you to go and donate. I want to ask you to do that though, because I love ADF so much. I want
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them to keep doing what they are doing internationally forever. We need smart
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attorneys to be standing up for our religious liberty, for our freedom of speech, for a right
0.96
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as women and girls to have access to our own sex-exclusive spaces, and that is what they
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are on the front lines fighting for all the way up to the Supreme Court, all the way up to the
00:44:57.060
European highest courts every single day. So they need our support. But what they are asking me to
00:45:02.920
ask you for is prayer. They want you to pray for our country. They want you to pray for the fights
00:45:07.460
that they're in, protecting Christians, fighting for Christians every day. And so they just want
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you to have a commitment to pray for America and God's protection over us. So go to joinadf.com
00:45:19.120
slash Allie, sign up to pray with them, or you can text pray250 to 83848, 83848, pray250,
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or joinadf.com slash Allie. Romans 12 tells us, if possible, so far as it depends on you,
00:45:40.060
live peaceably with all. Jesus says this, and gosh, this is so radical. It's radical,
00:45:46.600
then it's radical today. It's radical in my own heart. I think it's radical for the world,
00:45:51.260
certainly. Matthew 18, 21 through 22, Lord, how often will my brother sin against me and I forgive
00:45:56.620
him? As many as seven times? Like that's as much as that person could think. Seven? Like surely
00:46:01.240
you're not going to say seven. And Jesus is like, I do not say to you seven times, but 77 times.
00:46:07.800
And I don't think that's an exact number. I think that he is making a statement. I think that he's
00:46:14.060
making a point there. Like however many times you think is too many times to forgive someone,
00:46:18.740
you have to forgive them more than that. That's what I'm calling you to do. Now forgiveness and
00:46:23.940
allowing a person who is truly dangerous to you and your family, either by maybe you have someone
00:46:30.740
who is constantly trying to tell your kids that God doesn't exist. Certainly if you have someone
00:46:35.380
who is like endangering you or your family physically.
00:46:40.540
You don't have to bring that person into your life.
00:47:05.180
then I think that as far as it depends on us, we have to try to seek peace and reconciliation with
00:47:12.320
them as hard as that might be. Proverbs 18.1 emphasizes the importance of us having these
00:47:17.880
relationships. Whoever isolates himself, seeks his own desire. He breaks out against all sound
00:47:24.060
judgment. Wow. That is so important. Those of us, those people who truly are cutting off,
00:47:29.720
especially the wisdom of parents out of just disagreement or just personal fulfillment,
00:47:34.240
He is isolating himself because he is seeking his own desire.
00:47:44.540
Now, there is this concept of chosen family that I think a lot of people want to say is biblical.
00:47:52.100
This idea that, well, you don't have to be family with your parents.
00:47:58.380
You don't have to be family with your siblings, that this doesn't really matter.
00:48:01.920
what matters is the people that you choose to surround you. And there, of course, is value
00:48:09.500
and friendship. I believe, again, C.S. Lewis talked a lot about his friendship with Tolkien,
00:48:15.180
for example, and how when Tolkien died, he actually lost more of his other friends. You
00:48:23.380
would think that you would gain more time and more of, say, you have a group of three friends
00:48:41.140
that that person has ever interacted with and touched.
00:48:49.820
he talks about the different kinds of affection
00:48:57.640
So he talks about storge, that is the affectionate kind of love in Greek.
00:49:03.380
As a love for someone out of fondness or familiarity, especially of parents to offspring, but also of offspring to parents, affection pays little attention to the qualities seemed valuable in most relationships and is therefore one of the most transcendent and selfless forms of love of this familial love.
00:49:18.940
C.S. Lewis writes, it is this kind of love, the love that you have with your family that is not the same as friends.
00:49:24.680
He says, it is not discriminating. It can rub along with the most unpromising people. Yet, oddly enough, this very fact means that it can, in the end, make appreciations possible, which, but for it, might have never existed.
00:49:39.140
We may say, and not quite untruly, that we have chosen our friends and the woman we love for their various excellences, for beauty, frankness, goodness of heart, wit, intelligence, or whatnot.
00:49:49.800
The special glory of affection is that it can unite those who most emphatically, even comically, are not.
00:49:57.520
People who, if they had not found themselves put down by fate in the same household or the same community, would have had nothing to do with each other.
00:50:07.800
This modern tendency that we have, this social media, social contagion to replace our biological
00:50:14.380
family with a chosen family or just ourselves, it totally misunderstands and takes for granted
00:50:21.320
the important nature of familial relationships.
00:50:25.980
This nature of those in our family is that we don't choose them.
00:50:32.740
It is easy to love people who are just like you, who affirm everything that you believe,
00:50:39.520
It is much harder to love the people whom God has providentially placed in your life
00:50:44.040
who don't have your same personality, who you just don't get sometimes, but out of
00:50:50.540
loyalty to them and gratitude to God for placing them in your life, you choose to love them
00:51:01.180
So much of this, I think, is just about us taking the easy way out.
00:51:04.840
C.S. Lewis also talks about in The Four Loves, this growing in affection for people that
00:51:09.140
we might not choose to be around actually expands our ability to love all people.
00:51:13.980
And again, I think it's so interesting that the empathy crowd, the hyper empathy crowd
00:51:19.700
No empathy for the people in their family who have a different perspective.
00:51:23.940
That's the problem, actually, with emphasizing empathy, putting yourself in someone else's
00:51:28.400
shoes feeling how they feel. It's not always bad. It's not always bad, but it's actually very myopic
00:51:34.460
because if you can't put yourself in someone's shoes and you don't understand their perspective
00:51:38.900
at all, then you end up not loving them. What we are called to as Christians, what C.S. Lewis is
00:51:44.080
talking about here is actually something much harder and much deeper and much more powerful.
00:51:48.000
It's saying even if you can't get them, even if you can't feel what they feel and you don't know
00:51:52.420
their pain, you can't see what they see, you're called to love them. You're called to feel a
00:51:56.820
godly affection for them, even when it is difficult. That is what builds character.
00:52:01.560
That's what makes you a better person. So my message there is, and I think C.S. Lewis's message,
00:52:07.720
love your family. Love the people that God has given you that maybe you would not have chosen.
00:52:12.280
Love is much more powerful than your ability to feel what someone else feels. It's much more
00:52:16.600
powerful than community that is based on a shared interest. And I actually think that these online
00:52:22.840
forums like reddit like discord becoming a replacement for community for friendship yes
00:52:28.700
but especially familial relationship um and people uh young people and in teens i think that's a huge
00:52:37.440
part of this i think it is so incredibly toxic i think satan loves that look satan hates the family
00:52:43.580
He hates marriage. He hates that God made man and wife and said that they were very good.
00:52:53.420
He hates that people are made in God's image. He hates that marriage is protective of women
00:52:59.080
and protective of children. That relationship between a godly and providing and protecting
00:53:07.860
husband and a loving, nurturing wife and an obedient, loving child. I mean, that is the
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strongest force. That is the strongest earthly force that we have. And of course, Jesus himself
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was born out of that. And so there is no question why Satan hates marriage and hates the family
00:53:31.160
and hates those relationships. And of course, he hates love. He hates real sacrifice because
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that's what Jesus himself embodied. Satan loves narcissism. He loves convenient relationships.
00:53:44.580
Anything that is good and excellent and worth doing, Satan hates. He wants you to be isolated.
00:53:49.760
We just read why in Proverbs, because it's easier to be tempted and to do stupid stuff when you're
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by yourself. This video is of a YouTuber where he talks about going no contact with his mom
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for it seems for emotional reasons but then he reconnected to her and just listen closely to why
00:54:08.880
he says he reconnected to his mom sat 12 i cut contact with my family and it was one of the
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toughest decisions i ever had to make about a year and a half later i decided to reach out to my mom
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and we reconnected even though things aren't perfect and our relationship could be rocky at
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times i'm glad we did honestly i don't feel like our relationship would be as good as it is today
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without the time apart think my time alone and finally taking care of myself for the first time
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really helped me to start becoming the best version that I am today.
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Okay. So obviously I don't agree with all of that. I think that the selfishness is still there. Oh,
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I went a year and a half without talking to her. I became myself. I discovered who I was.
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I think that's a coping mechanism because it's really hard for us to realize I lost a year and
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a half of life with this person. You're a year and a half closer to death. Your parent is a year
00:54:56.980
and a half closer to death and so that's difficult but the reconciliation there i'm thankful for that
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and i'm thankful for the realization that that is needed look like we have a desire for a need for
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our parents they are our source of life and you can talk to people who were given up for adoption
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i know they're very thankful for that redemption in their life but people who don't know their
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biological parents people who were abandoned by their parents and they can tell you that they
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would have settled for imperfect parents as long as they knew where they came from as long as they
00:55:33.660
were able to have a relationship with them like that mother father hurt that so many people have
00:55:39.140
the fact that so many are narcissistically choosing to bear that wound like it's a problem
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it's a sickness in our culture and so I just encourage you like if you have this distance
00:55:51.200
from your parents to reach out, if at all possible, and to rekindle and reconcile that
00:55:57.740
relationship and put it on yourself. Maybe for a while you have to say, you know what,
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your parent is not going to be the mature parent that you want them to be. And maybe just say,
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you know what, God has given me the power as a Christian to withstand that. God has given me a
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spirit of power and self-control. God has given me the ability to love. The love of Christ compels
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us, not our feelings, not our past, not our therapy. The love of Christ compels us to love
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other people. Is it possible for you to take this first step to forgiveness and reconciliation?
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It's difficult. It's really difficult, I know, but I do think that that's what Christ calls us to.
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All right. I have time, I think, for just one voicemail. I was going to do a couple voicemails.
00:56:40.520
I just don't think we have time for it, but we have a new segment, and I want to do it as often
00:56:44.680
as I can. And that is taking voicemails from you guys and giving you a little advice based on the
00:56:51.220
thing that you asked me. And so you guys sent awesome messages. I wish I could play all of
00:56:57.300
them and maybe we will play more of them and have an episode dedicated to that at some point.
00:57:02.380
But if you have a question, if you want advice, especially life advice, but if you've got a
00:57:06.800
topical question too, feel free to call us, leave us a message. It's 844-755-5252. And so I will get
00:57:15.580
to that piece of advice in just a second. Let me tell you about our last sponsor for the day. First,
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that is Fellowship Home Loans. Home improvement season is here. If you've been putting off that
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Brian and their team. Go to fellowshiphomeloans.com to get $500 back at closing. Fellowship
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Home Loans, Equal Housing Lender, NMLS number 81932. Okay, let's listen to voicemail one.
00:58:21.800
hi Allie I am calling because I am 30 and I have a lot of friends in my age range we're all girls
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and we are not married we want to be married I feel like it's hard to find a good guy when we're
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30 um or above so what life advice do you have for us um the 30 somethings who are conservative
00:58:47.700
we're Christian and we just haven't found the person. Thanks so much. Bye.
00:58:53.500
Okay. This is a great question. I'm so glad you asked. I also have friends in this same boat,
00:58:59.400
lots of beautiful, accomplished, godly Christian women who want to get married and just have not
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found that person yet. And I just wish that I had a formula for you that was going to change
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it for you tomorrow. Here are three things that I would say. Number one, a lot can happen in a year.
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I would just say that. I say that all the time, and I have seen it happen over and over again.
00:59:26.020
And so don't look at your circumstance today and assume that's how it's going to be in six months
00:59:32.220
from now, in a year, two years from now, at this point in your life, if you find the right person,
00:59:37.140
the right godly person, and there is a conviction that, hey, we're supposed to be together,
00:59:42.760
and we are going to get married, things can happen very quickly. You just never know.
00:59:48.380
Number two, go where the men are. It's a go where the men are. Are you currently going places where
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men are? I'm not saying to pursue men. I'm not saying to reach out to men. I am not saying to
00:59:59.420
ask guys out. That is not what I'm going to recommend you do. But are you working out at a
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place? Are you going to get coffee at a place? Are you working remotely at a place? Are you going to
01:00:09.480
church at a place where there are single men in your age group. Yes, it is possible for God to do
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absolutely anything. And I guess you could be sitting on your couch all day and God could bring
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you your future husband, but he uses particular human means to bring people together. And it
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seems to me that if you look at the statistics of how people used to meet and used to get married
01:00:32.320
through friends, through family members at school, that God uses community and God uses people being
01:00:40.040
together physically, usually, in order to bring husbands and wives together. So I would say,
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go where the godly men are. He's probably not at your bar class. And then number three,
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here's what I would say. Of course, in addition to praying, praying is the ordained means by which
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God uses to accomplish so many of his purposes. He doesn't need our requests, but he commands us
01:01:06.820
to pray. And so somehow he divinely orchestrates things to happen through the power of our prayers.
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The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. That is James 5. Of course,
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you can be honest with the mentors in your life. If you don't have older mentors in your life,
01:01:22.200
you should have older mentors in your life, not just parents, but people within your church
01:01:26.060
who are counseling you, who are mentoring you, who are discipling you. Tell them your desire
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to get married. Say, I really want to find a husband. If you know of any godly men,
01:01:35.720
like, would you mind keeping me in mind and introducing me to them? But this is the last
01:01:40.240
thing that I would say. There is a lie of the devil that sounds really true, as most lies of
01:01:44.980
the devil do, that your life doesn't really start until you get married. You can't really be a
01:01:51.280
biblical woman until you get married, until you have kids. That is not true. That is going to be
01:01:56.580
a lie that makes you procrastinate being bold in your faith. Because you think, well, if I am
01:02:03.920
in marketing or I'm an employee or I'm a teacher and I'm single, then I don't have the fullness of
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being a woman, of being a Christian woman. And that is not true. Psalm 16 reminds us where the
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fullness of our joy and purpose comes from, and that is in the presence of Christ. The fullness
01:02:20.680
of joy is at God's right hand. And if you are a Christian, you have bold access in confidence
01:02:26.740
to God, to the throne of God. So that means you have the fullness of purpose and the fullness
01:02:31.940
of joy right now in this second. You can fully live out your life as a Christian woman with the
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fullness of a Christian woman identity right now, no matter what stage of life that you're in,
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even if you never get married, even if you never have kids, even if you never get all of the things
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that you so desperately want. The truth is, and this is difficult, and you might think, well,
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it's easy for you to say that because you are married and you have kids. It's not easy for me
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to say because there are lots of things that all of us desire in life that we have to come to terms
01:03:03.580
with the fact that we are not promised. It doesn't make it easy, but don't believe any health and
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wealth message that says if you just believe it, if you just want it, if you just pray for it,
01:03:12.440
you're going to get it. We live in a fallen world. We will die with disappointments. We will die with
01:03:17.900
unmet expectations. We will die with unfulfilled dreams and desires. I hope that is the case,
01:03:23.560
that every single person who desires to be married will be married one day. I pray and hope that. I
01:03:29.660
pray and hope that you'll have kids. We're not promised that. We are promised heaven as Christians.
01:03:36.080
We are promised to one day have no more want and to have no lack. Psalm 23 tells us that we have
01:03:42.780
no lack if we're being led by God. That means even in your singleness, even in infertility,
01:03:47.500
we have no lack because of Christ. Much easier said than believed, but God told us these things
01:03:54.380
that we may believe them. So that's what I would say, some practical things, some spiritual things,
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and then just like some difficult truth that I think that we all need to hear, no matter what
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stage of waiting or expectation or disappointment that you're in. So I hope that helped. And thank
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you so much for sending in that voicemail. And thank you for all of you who did, and we'll get
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to more of them in the coming weeks. You guys are so awesome and always have really thoughtful
01:04:18.040
questions. All right, that's all we got time for today. We'll be back here on Wednesday.