Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 203 ｜ Three MORE Myths Christian Women Believe

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. I hope everyone had an awesome Christmas and an awesome new year.

00:00:06.560 We really didn't do very much. We got together with my family and we kind of reflected over the

00:00:11.320 past decade. So much has changed. I don't know if you guys kind of took the time to think about that,

00:00:16.860 especially if you're my age. Like 10 years ago, I was still in high school. You were still in high

00:00:22.040 school. But I guess for anyone, a lot can change over the decade. But especially those of us who

00:00:27.140 are in our 20s over the past 10 years, you have probably graduated from high school,

00:00:31.960 graduated from college, maybe gotten married, had a kid or two. I could not, I don't think I could

00:00:38.260 have anticipated or planned everything that has happened, even with my career. Just personally,

00:00:43.420 I wouldn't have been able to guess it. So it's been kind of crazy to be able to look back and then

00:00:47.920 think what's going to happen from now until 2029. What is the next decade going to hold? I am very

00:00:54.640 hopeful, not just my personal life, but just in general. I am optimistic. As crazy as things are,

00:01:02.280 I'm optimistic about the future because we always kind of have to be at least to a certain degree.

00:01:08.300 Okay, that's not what we're talking about today. We kind of already talked about a recap of the past

00:01:12.860 year and like what our goals are going to be and resolutions and different things like that.

00:01:16.380 I asked a bunch of you guys on Instagram what your goals are for 2020. You have so many wonderful

00:01:22.580 goals and I share a lot with you. And actually the goals that I don't have that you guys have,

00:01:27.740 it made me rethink my priorities and maybe add some to my list. I think we all have the goal of reading

00:01:33.860 the Bible more, becoming more joyful, more loving, more hospitable Christians. That's certainly true

00:01:40.940 for me. I want to do a better job of being a peacemaker in 2020 while not forsaking the truth. I think

00:01:46.760 peace and truth can go hand in hand, but I think we all have the tendency, especially on social media,

00:01:52.800 to get into conversations that just aren't fruitful. I certainly do that and I want to do a better job

00:01:57.780 of that and also be peaceful in my thinking, peaceful in my attitude. I have the tendency to

00:02:04.240 kind of worry, be anxious, and be fearful. And so I want to be a peacemaker, to be a peaceful

00:02:11.840 person, to be a peace dweller, want to dwell on the peace of Christ and let the peace of Christ rule

00:02:18.200 in my heart, as scripture says. And so a lot of your goals also challenged me. And so that was fun

00:02:24.100 to be able to do that on Instagram. If you have any more goals, please let me know them. I like to

00:02:29.980 encourage people and their goals if they are worthy goals to reach, whether it is some kind of career

00:02:35.240 goal or spiritual goal. I like to hear them. They're encouraging and motivating to me. Okay, to start off

00:02:40.800 the new year, what we are going to do, we're actually going to do a continuation, a sequel of

00:02:47.680 a podcast that we did a full calendar year ago, January of 2019. It was called Three Myths That

00:02:55.660 Christian Women Believe. And it was the most popular episode of Relatable for many months,

00:03:02.360 the most downloaded episode. And then it was eclipsed by some other episodes that we did more

00:03:07.880 recently. But it really struck a nerve in a really good way. It resonated with a lot of you. I bet that

00:03:14.940 it's still probably the most shared episode, like the episode that the most of you either texted or

00:03:21.420 tweeted or just showed to one of your friends. It just happened to speak to a lot of the things and a

00:03:29.180 lot of the lies that young women, especially young Christian women, are hearing in culture right now.

00:03:34.560 So today I am going to do three more myths that Christian women believe. I really could do 1.00

00:03:41.480 four or five or 15 more myths that Christian women believe, but I'm going to stick to three. 0.99

00:03:46.240 Three is a good number. I'm going to rehash the myths that we did a year ago. Even if you have

00:03:53.640 listened to that episode or if you've listened to a replay of that episode, I still think it'll be

00:03:58.140 beneficial for you to rehear the three myths that I talked about a year ago. And then we'll go into

00:04:04.860 the three more myths that Christian women believe. And then what is the biblical truth behind those 0.97

00:04:10.000 myths? So when we see these good sounding, maybe even biblical sounding things perpetuated by popular

00:04:17.280 pseudo Christian teachers or actual Christian teachers or secular teachers, we can have a biblical

00:04:22.940 perspective to approach them and then tear down those arguments either internally or in a loving

00:04:28.300 way externally. Okay. So to rehash the lies that we talked about last year, the three myths that

00:04:36.820 Christian women believe that we tackled a year ago on Relatable, I think it's episode 69. If you want 0.85

00:04:41.960 to go back and listen to the episode in full, but I'm going to kind of give a brief summary of those

00:04:48.100 lies. So the first lie that we tackled was you are enough. You've probably seen this on Instagram.

00:04:55.380 Maybe you've seen it on Pinterest. Maybe you have seen even your favorite Bible study leader or

00:05:01.080 Christian mom, influencer, blogger, whoever it is, maybe fitness guru. You have heard someone say this,

00:05:07.860 have seen someone say this, I am sure in popular culture, you are enough. And even though this is a

00:05:15.560 well-intentioned saying, we as Christians know that this is not true, you are not enough. It is so

00:05:22.540 crucial for us as Christians to not just recognize, but to embrace and to rejoice over our not enoughness.

00:05:30.020 This is actually the premise, shameless, totally shameless plug here. It's the premise of my book

00:05:35.100 that's coming out in May. You are not enough. I'm not enough. And that's okay. And actually it's more

00:05:40.860 than just, okay, it's a wonderful thing. Because as 2 Corinthians 12, 9 says, Jesus's grace is

00:05:48.020 sufficient for us. His power is perfected in our weakness, not in our power, not in our strength,

00:05:53.340 not in our goodness, but in our weakness. The entire biblical narrative points to Jesus's

00:05:59.680 sufficiency and our insufficiency, our inadequacy. In every turn, at every turn in the biblical text

00:06:06.860 and in our own lives, we are met with some form or another of our ineptitude. We are faced with our

00:06:14.360 inability to see the future, to make effective or successful plans, to be righteous, to be obedient,

00:06:21.180 to make good decisions, to save ourselves, to meet the standards of either the world or of God

00:06:26.660 himself. We are lacking. We are wayward. We are corrupt and depraved, lost, confused, weak,

00:06:33.400 and needy. We are not enough. Now, I understand that the people who encourage women by saying that

00:06:39.640 we are enough, typically, they definitely mean well, but they typically mean that our bodies or

00:06:45.940 our capabilities, et cetera, are enough and that we shouldn't be comparing ourselves or feeling like

00:06:51.320 we can't be a good mom or employee, whatever. And I get that. But my response to that is still this.

00:06:57.660 The answer to our insecurity is not our sufficiency. The answer to our insecurity is not our own

00:07:05.360 sufficiency. It is God's. So knowing that the creator of the universe knit us together in our

00:07:11.060 mother's wombs with purpose and care and redeemed us through his son and chose us before the foundation

00:07:16.560 of the world, says Ephesians 1.4, this is the knowledge that alleviates our insecurity,

00:07:23.140 that the God who made and chose and shepherds us, sees us and hears us and cares for us,

00:07:30.840 and he meets us in our weaknesses, and his power is perfected through that weakness.

00:07:36.880 God made us, you and I, he made us not enough. If we were enough, we wouldn't need the cross. If we

00:07:44.920 were enough, we wouldn't need his word. And even just pragmatically speaking, if we were enough,

00:07:49.420 we wouldn't need family or friends or the church or community or prayer. 1 Corinthians 12, as most of

00:07:56.260 you know, depicts the church of Christ as a body with many members, with many different parts. To

00:08:01.100 put the passage into the context of what we're talking about here, a hand isn't enough on its own.

00:08:07.200 A foot or an eye or an elbow isn't enough on its own. They are all dependent on the rest of the body

00:08:13.200 to properly function. So you and I are not enough in any way, and that's okay. That's okay because

00:08:20.540 Christ, our sufficiency, our strength, our salvation, the head of the body that is the church,

00:08:27.120 is enough. He is enough. And because of that, we rejoice in all that we lack. So myth number one,

00:08:34.160 you are enough. Reality, you are not enough. I'm not enough. That's okay. Myth number two that we

00:08:39.360 tackled. You have to love yourself before you can love other people. We have talked about this

00:08:45.080 particular myth a lot because it is so popular and so pervasive in modern culture. And guess what?

00:08:50.700 It's not new. You can go back and you can look, for example, John Piper was writing sermons and

00:08:56.840 writing articles about the myth of self-love in the 1970s and 80s. And so this idea of trendy narcissism,

00:09:03.080 as I've called it many times, is not new. Now it's probably waxed and waned in our society,

00:09:08.100 and it's definitely made a swift comeback and a powerful comeback, especially through social media.

00:09:13.240 So maybe it's more ubiquitous than it was in the 1970s, but it's always been around because we've

00:09:17.720 always been naturally selfish and prideful people. And modern psychology, and by modern, I mean over

00:09:23.460 the past 50 years, has obsessed over this idea that all bad behavior goes back to a lack of self-esteem.

00:09:29.060 And there's really, there aren't very many studies, if any, legitimate studies that back up

00:09:34.320 that a lack of self-esteem is the root cause of all bad behavior. That's just not true.

00:09:40.460 So we've talked about this myth a lot because even Christians, we hear say, well, Jesus said to love

00:09:48.540 your neighbor as yourself. As yourself, they say, is a command. You have to love yourself before you can

00:09:54.180 love other people. But grammatically, that's not even what that means. If you read it in English,

00:09:59.780 or if you go back to the original, the original text, the original language, you're not going to

00:10:06.620 find that this is a command to love ourselves. This is a given. This doesn't mean that we are

00:10:12.120 always affectionate towards ourselves, that we always look in the mirror and think that we're so

00:10:15.900 awesome and pretty and talented. It means that we all are born with this natural, this inherent

00:10:21.280 drive for self-preservation. And that is how Jesus is telling us that we should love other people in

00:10:26.860 the same way that you seek to nourish your own body, that you seek to alleviate yourself from pain,

00:10:32.560 that you seek to provide for yourself, that kind, you should feel that kind of natural driver. You

00:10:37.680 should have that kind of relentless drive towards other people in the same way that you feed yourself

00:10:44.320 when you're hungry. You should feed someone else when they're hungry in the same way that you drink

00:10:48.260 when you're thirsty. You should offer someone something to drink when they are thirsty. That is the kind

00:10:53.460 of love your neighbor as yourself that Jesus is talking about. He's not talking about that we

00:10:58.080 need to wake up in the morning, tell ourselves we're Beyonce before we can go out and serve other

00:11:02.440 people. I think that if we break down that logic, it's pretty obvious to see that this is not what

00:11:07.060 the God of the universe who bled and died for us meant by that. And by the way, I do want to say

00:11:14.560 this does not mean I always feel like I need to clarify this. This does not mean that you should

00:11:22.680 be self-loathing. Self-love and self-loathing are two sides of the same self-focused, self-obsessed

00:11:30.920 coin. We are constantly swinging in this pendulum between self-love and self-loathing. And so the option

00:11:37.140 or the antidote to self-loathing is not actually self-love. It is self-forgetfulness and God's love.

00:11:44.680 And so that's what I always tell people because I get messages, I get whatever people saying,

00:11:51.120 oh, well, God doesn't tell us that we should love ourselves less. The Bible never says that. Well,

00:11:54.780 yeah, because the Bible never says that we should love ourselves, period, because we are born

00:11:58.300 with a drive for self-preservation. And we do not at any point, the Bible never tells us to love

00:12:04.160 ourselves. The Bible never tells us that we need to focus on self-esteem. The Bible never tells us that

00:12:08.840 we need to build ourselves up. In fact, it's just the opposite, not self-deprecation,

00:12:13.260 but self-forgetfulness. So it is a lie from the pit of hell that you have to love yourself before

00:12:19.340 you can love other people. This comes in many forms that you can't pour out an empty cup. And so you

00:12:25.220 have to focus on self-care before you can serve other people. That's not true either. Yes, our bodies

00:12:30.480 do need rest. There's nothing. I get this question a lot. Like, is it wrong for me to go get my nails

00:12:35.100 done? No, our bodies do need rest. God did create us for balance. He did create us for leisure. He did

00:12:41.580 create us for rest as well as for work. I mean, we see that even reflected in the creation story. We

00:12:47.880 are to take a Sabbath. Human beings are not naturally and automatically rejuvenating. We actually have to

00:12:54.280 recharge. And so there's nothing wrong with rest for the purpose of being able to work more efficiently

00:13:00.280 and more effectively. But this idea that we need self-care or we need self-love in order to care

00:13:06.400 for or love other people is wrong. And it shows a lack of dependence on our good shepherd who loves

00:13:12.480 and cares for us totally sufficiently. Thank goodness we don't have to depend on self-love and

00:13:17.180 self-care, which is totally unreliable in order to care for and love other people, or else we would

00:13:23.060 never care for or love other people effectively. So that was myth number two. You have to love yourself

00:13:27.760 before you can love other people. And I have an entire episode, I think, dedicated to that specific

00:13:33.340 myth. And it's called the myth of self-love. So you can go back and listen to that as well.

00:13:38.500 Third myth that we tackled a year ago on Three Myths Christian Women Believe is be you. So you've 0.98

00:13:44.260 probably heard you do you, don't be sorry for who you are. And authenticity can be and often is a very

00:13:52.240 good thing in that you are confident in the abilities that God has given you and you are

00:13:58.080 working to use those for his glory and the good of those around you. We are certainly not called to

00:14:04.400 pretend to have different talents than we have or to lie about the talents that we have. Lying about

00:14:11.460 who we are or what we can do would certainly be a sin. But it's a big but here. But authenticity is

00:14:18.980 not a good thing when it is used as an excuse to sin. When it is used to embrace unbiblical

00:14:25.200 sexuality, for example, or even to write off certain sins as simply quirks of our personality

00:14:30.960 type or to refuse to obey God because we think something is not in our wheelhouse. God is not

00:14:38.360 limited by our Enneagram type. He's not limited by our Myers-Briggs type. He's not limited by our

00:14:44.720 personality type. 1 Corinthians 1 26-31 says,

00:14:49.100 For consider your calling, brothers. Not many of you were wise according to worldly standards. Not

00:14:53.400 many were powerful. Not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame

00:14:58.940 the wise. God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. God chose what is low and despised

00:15:03.900 in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being

00:15:09.240 might boast in the presence of God. And because of him, you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us

00:15:14.600 wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that as it is written, let the

00:15:20.000 one who boasts, boast in the Lord. He is not interested in what we think or what the Enneagram

00:15:26.700 or any personality test says that we are likely to do. That doesn't mean that our personalities

00:15:33.400 don't give us propensity towards something. Of course, I think I have the natural propensity

00:15:38.160 to do what I am doing, whereas other people have other personalities that make them better suited for

00:15:43.320 something else. But all I'm saying is that God's plan is not limited by that. I am sure that Moses

00:15:50.180 didn't think that he had the personality type to be used the way that God used him. And it was probably

00:15:55.280 true of David as well. God chooses very unlikely and seemingly unequipped people to accomplish his

00:16:00.920 purposes very often. Okay, that is the refresher for the three myths that Christian women believe. 1.00

00:16:07.420 And here are the next three. Obviously, I'll go one by one. These are really three pieces of advice

00:16:14.140 that we are given, particularly as Christian women, that sound good, but aren't good.

00:16:19.780 Myth number one today is maybe a little controversial, but just go with me here. Myth number one is give

00:16:27.300 yourself grace. This is a directive that we're given a lot in Christian and non-Christian circles.

00:16:33.460 Give yourself grace. Now, you're probably wondering what could possibly be wrong with this. Are we not

00:16:39.340 supposed to give ourselves grace? Are we really just supposed to criticize ourselves all the time?

00:16:43.260 Well, obviously, I'm going to explain. But first, let me establish this. And this is something that I

00:16:47.980 hadn't thought about until recently. The Bible never tells us to do this. The Bible never tells us to

00:16:54.740 give ourselves grace. The Bible doesn't even say that it's possible for us to forgive ourselves.

00:17:00.200 We are not expected or called to give ourselves grace, not because we should beat ourselves up,

00:17:05.480 but because it is God who gives grace. It is God who extends mercy. It is God who offers

00:17:10.520 ultimate forgiveness. It is God who shows patience to us. And this is so much better than us showing

00:17:16.320 grace to ourselves because the grace that we show to ourselves is limited and conditional. And of

00:17:22.720 course, we can also show grace to other people and people can show grace to us. But the ultimate

00:17:27.540 grace and the most meaningful grace and the most eternal, the only eternal grace that we can be

00:17:32.780 shown is from God himself. Therefore, it is the only healing grace that really exists.

00:17:38.820 We are, as I was talking about earlier when I was discussing the myth of self-love, we are constantly

00:17:43.680 swinging on this pendulum between arrogance and self-hatred.

00:17:47.040 And if our stability is dependent upon us loving ourselves or giving ourselves grace,

00:17:52.780 then we are in big trouble. And that's why this matters. So in the same way that I said,

00:17:58.660 self-love and self-loathing are two sides of the same self-focused coin. And that the antidote to this

00:18:06.920 going back and forth from one extreme to another is not. So the antidote to self-loathing is not

00:18:14.520 self-love, but it's actually self-forgiftfulness and God's love. In the same way, self-forgiveness

00:18:20.820 and self-deprecation are two sides of the same self-focused coin. Therefore, the antidote to

00:18:26.920 self-deprecation or constant self-criticism is not self-forgiveness, but again, self-forgiftfulness.

00:18:33.480 It is not more self-forgiveness that we need, but God's forgiveness that we need. Remember,

00:18:39.260 2 Corinthians 12, 9 says that his grace is sufficient to you, for you. Not your grace,

00:18:45.520 but his grace. It is sufficient. You don't need to give yourself grace because God has given you

00:18:50.400 grace and his grace is way better than yours. It is complete. It is sufficient for you. His grace has

00:18:55.560 power. It actually does something. A grace for yourself may make you feel better, but his grace

00:19:02.160 actually does something. I have an alliteration for what God's grace does that our own grace cannot.

00:19:09.540 So God's grace saves through faith. It sanctifies, it strengthens, and it sustains. It's not really

00:19:16.560 an alliteration because an alliteration, well, it kind of is. They all start with an S, but it's a

00:19:20.960 little bit different than an alliteration, but it saves, it sanctifies, it strengthens, and it sustains.

00:19:26.520 A grace you give yourself cannot do that. You're not even capable of giving yourself a kind of grace

00:19:33.080 that can save you, that can strengthen you, that can sustain you, and that can sanctify you.

00:19:37.940 The only thing that you and I are capable of in the realm of so-called giving yourself

00:19:44.280 grace is making excuses for ourselves. Now, sometimes these excuses that we make for ourselves

00:19:50.040 are totally legitimate, and sometimes they're not. Either way, they're not enough to give

00:19:55.680 us the lasting contentment and peace that we are looking for and that we find in the grace

00:20:01.660 of God. There's another point in this myth that I want to highlight. Sometimes the directive

00:20:07.420 to give ourselves grace is used in a way that goes something like this. Shame is from the devil.

00:20:13.660 Shame is from Satan. Shame is from the pit of hell. And then that extends to you shouldn't

00:20:17.980 feel guilty. You shouldn't have regrets. You don't have any regrets at all. You just learn

00:20:22.700 from your mistakes. You have experiences. You have learning experiences. But that is a myth.

00:20:28.320 Not all shame is from Satan. As Christians, we should be ashamed of our sins, both past

00:20:35.260 and present. That doesn't mean that we wallow in shame. Certainly that temptation is from

00:20:39.980 Satan. But it means that when we remember or when we acknowledge how we have sinned against

00:20:45.380 God, we are not just ashamed of these sins. We actually hate these sins. And this hatred

00:20:51.240 of our sins actually compels us to worship God in more earnest, that he would make a way

00:20:56.420 for us in our shameful sinfulness to be forgiven, for our slates to be wiped clean. Here's one example 1.00

00:21:04.640 of the word shame being used towards Christians in the Bible, 1 Corinthians 6, 1 through 5.

00:21:09.900 When one of you has a grievance against another, does he dare go to the law before the unrighteous

00:21:15.720 instead of the saints? Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world

00:21:20.280 is to be judged by you, are you incompetent to try trivial cases? Do you not know that we are to

00:21:25.460 judge angels? How much more than matters pertaining to this life? So if you have such cases, why do you

00:21:31.760 lay them before those who have no standing in the church? I say this to your shame. So the point of

00:21:37.980 this passage is obviously not shame. But the point that I'm trying to make is that Paul,

00:21:43.060 in admonishing Christians in Corinth, he is saying you should be ashamed of this behavior

00:21:48.620 that you are taking part of right now, that you instead of working out a dispute among yourselves,

00:21:55.400 you're actually going to the civil courts who are unbelievers. If you are incompetent to judge 0.63

00:22:02.180 matters among yourselves, how can you actually be expected to judge angels one day, which Paul is

00:22:08.300 saying that we will do? And he says this to our shame. And so Corinthians in this passage are

00:22:14.240 supposed to be, in this context, are supposed to be ashamed of the bad behavior that they are

00:22:18.780 engaging in, of the sins that they are engaging in. That is a good thing. They should be ashamed of

00:22:23.980 ungodly behavior. Paul also talks about that godly grief, we hear that godly grief should lead to

00:22:31.880 repentance, that godly grief is therefore a good thing. 2 Corinthians 7, 9 says the Corinthians were

00:22:37.740 grieved into repenting. This is a different passage. Two verses later,

00:22:43.040 for see what earnestness this godly grief has produced in you, but also what eagerness to clear

00:22:48.040 yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what longing, what zeal, what punishment. So while we don't wallow

00:22:54.840 in shame, because in Christ we are new creations, the old has passed and the new has come, we do mourn over

00:23:02.280 the sins that we have and the sins that we struggle against. In that, we are actively fighting against

00:23:10.100 them because they are shameful. We hate them. And we are given grace to save us, sanctify us, strengthen

00:23:19.020 us, and sustain us. But as Romans 6 says, we do not keep sinning that grace may abound. That grace

00:23:24.900 actually produces in us a sadness and a sorrow and even a shame over sin that we might be moved to

00:23:32.040 repentance. And so if this myth, give yourself grace, which the Bible doesn't actually say is

00:23:38.920 possible and which doesn't actually have any power in our lives, if this myth is being used to excuse

00:23:46.240 sin or to say that we shouldn't feel any sadness over past or present sin, then it needs to be completely

00:23:52.140 ignored. And even if it's not being used for that, what we need to do is to redirect our energy from

00:23:57.880 trying to give grace to ourselves and remembering that God, the God of the universe, the holy and just

00:24:02.260 God who has every right to show his wrath to us, has redeemed us through his son and in that way has

00:24:09.900 shown us incredible grace. And that grace is sufficient for our confidence, not any grace that we can give

00:24:15.700 ourselves. So number two, the second mythical directive that we are given in popular culture

00:24:22.480 today is to take up space. Take up space. How many times have we heard this one? Give yourself

00:24:28.120 permission to take up space, to show up, to stop apologizing, to make yourself room at the table,

00:24:33.800 to stop asking people to invite you, to just say, I'm here and I have my place at the table, etc. We're

00:24:40.200 told this kind of stuff all the time. It's supposed to be super empowering. This is a calling to

00:24:44.680 assert yourself. It is a worldly calling, though. And like most worldly callings, it sounds really

00:24:50.820 good. And there might be, there might be even a little bit of truth to it. We don't need to

00:24:56.580 constantly apologize for our presence. We don't need to be embarrassed about the strengths that

00:25:02.460 God has given us or the weaknesses that God has given us. We don't need to vie for the affirmation,

00:25:07.140 the attention, and the invitation of other people. So that much is absolutely true. But this lie of

00:25:12.620 self-assertion is just like all of the other lies in this toxic culture of self-love. It doesn't

00:25:20.020 offer the right solutions if our problem is that we are stuck in a rut of belittling ourselves.

00:25:26.060 The answer then is not to assert ourselves. Self-assertion and self-belittling are two sides

00:25:32.740 of the same self-centered coin. The antidote to our constant self-belittling or our constant

00:25:39.020 self-criticism is not self-assertion, but again, self-forgetfulness. We do not need to assert

00:25:45.360 ourselves into every space we occupy, but rather assert God and his gospel into every space we

00:25:51.540 occupy. John 3.30, he must increase and I must decrease. Talk about a countercultural verse that we 0.65

00:25:58.200 tend to disregard today, especially as women who feel like we have to be empowered in order to be

00:26:03.880 important or to have value. It is completely countercultural, John 3.30, in today's age of

00:26:09.260 trendy narcissism. This doesn't say that a God should increase and I must increase or not. The bigger I

00:26:15.620 make God in my life, the bigger I will be, which is what the prosperity gospel teaches. But as God

00:26:20.760 increases in my life, as his authority increases in every area of my life, I decrease. So my personal

00:26:26.960 dreams, my personal wants, my personal ambitions, my personal desires and insistence upon my own way,

00:26:32.940 they get smaller and smaller. Essentially, I take up less and less space. And here's the thing.

00:26:40.500 If you are walking with God, if you are aiming to live your life in obedience to him, you don't have

00:26:47.180 to worry about taking up space or telling other people to scoot over or asserting yourself. He doesn't

00:26:53.560 need you to make room for yourself. He is working in and through you and will make a way for exactly

00:27:00.680 what he wants to accomplish. So that's not your responsibility to make sure that you're taking

00:27:06.520 up space. And that's a huge relief. And that is what you can find confidence in, that we are to love

00:27:12.240 the Lord, our God, with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength, and to love our neighbor as ourselves.

00:27:19.080 That's it. We're not called to take up space. That's what the woman of God is called to do. 1.00

00:27:23.260 Uh, what business does the woman of God have taking up space when a, our calling is to become 1.00

00:27:29.460 less as God becomes more and B, uh, we are loved and noticed and cared for by the King of Kings.

00:27:36.020 Why do we need to take up space to have confidence or to have value? Uh, we are free to be small.

00:27:42.940 We are free to not take up space. We are free to humble ourselves. We are free to let others take

00:27:48.320 up space while we learn to decrease as God increases. That is good news. Uh, constantly

00:27:55.360 trying to assert ourselves is tiring as is all worship of the God of self. By the way,

00:28:01.440 a God's yoke is easy and his burden is light. He promises that, but the yoke and burden of the God

00:28:07.180 of self is difficult and heavy. So be free from trying to, uh, feeling like you constantly have to

00:28:14.620 assert yourself and take up space. Be content with God being glorified in your life. That is a much

00:28:20.240 grander adventure than self-assertion will ever grant you. Uh, myth number three, final myth,

00:28:26.960 your feelings are valid. Now we've talked about this a lot as well. We actually did a whole

00:28:31.840 episode. I think it's called all the feels. It was a couple of weeks ago. And so I won't spend too

00:28:38.060 much time on this particular myth, but I do want to add some thoughts that I didn't add in the episode.

00:28:41.960 If you do want to listen to that episode, uh, please go back and listen to it. But myth number

00:28:46.420 three, your feelings are valid. Uh, yes, your feelings are real because they exist, but they

00:28:52.200 are not all valid. Valid literally means having a grounding in reality and truth. And I think

00:28:58.040 all of us, if we're honest, know that not every single one of our feelings has a grounding in

00:29:02.860 reality or truth. Some of our feelings are downright irrational. Emotions are not inherently bad.

00:29:09.440 They're actually part of our human makeup as image bearers of God. God himself shows emotions

00:29:15.140 throughout the Bible from anger and regret, as Genesis 6 says, to joy and to sympathy. Uh,

00:29:21.340 but they can lead us astray. Jeremiah 17, 9 says that the heart is desperately wicked or sick and

00:29:27.180 that we can't understand it. So we can acknowledge our emotions without following our hearts. And we

00:29:33.660 discern which emotions are valid and which are not by weighing them against the word of God. We discern

00:29:39.780 which emotions are good and which are not by weighing them against the word of God. Um, I got

00:29:46.640 an interesting email the other day from someone who told me that their emotions and living in this

00:29:52.320 constant, uh, this constant self-love over emotional kind of toxic place in their life where they're almost,

00:29:59.620 um, they're almost obsessed with not everyone obviously who is depressed is like this, but

00:30:06.180 unfortunately a lot of young women are brought into this world of obsessing over depression or wanting 1.00

00:30:12.200 to be depressed or wanting to be anxious or being addicted to therapy in some way. And again, this

00:30:17.920 certainly is not true for everyone who goes to therapy. I've been helped by counseling, but it's almost

00:30:23.380 become trendy sadly to be depressed and anxious and all of this. And I got an email from someone saying,

00:30:28.740 I realized looking back that the music that I was listening to, uh, was kind of keeping me in this

00:30:35.220 pit of depression and self-obsession and all of that. And I think it's true that our emotions can be

00:30:41.440 so manipulated by the things that we listen to, by the things that we read. I was talking to someone

00:30:48.460 the other day. I don't remember who I was talking to, but I was obsessed with twilight when I was 15.

00:30:53.840 This was like when twilight first came out. So I had to like wait for new moon and whatever

00:30:58.560 the third book was to come out. And I was obsessed with these books, totally obsessed with them,

00:31:04.440 but I was also like emotionally invested. I remember I had to go on some kind of road trip

00:31:10.260 with my family and I was reading the second twilight book and I was on the verge of tears

00:31:15.920 the entire trip, the entire time we were there, the entire time we were in the car,

00:31:20.380 because I was so emotionally invested in these books. And that's not rational. Like those feelings

00:31:27.980 aren't valid and they actually had some kind of tangible effect on my life in my mind. They can

00:31:33.200 very easily warp how we see reality. And so instead of following our hearts, instead of validating all

00:31:39.600 of our feelings, we have to keep them in check. I mean, thank goodness we have a King of our hearts

00:31:43.900 who is also the source of truth. And so instead of following our feelings, we get to subject our

00:31:48.880 feelings to Christ, which again is a huge burden lifted off of our shoulders. The world wants to

00:31:54.920 tell you that worshiping the God of self will make you free, will make you happy. It's the same kind

00:31:59.380 of lie that Satan gave Eve in the garden of Eden, but really it's so much more burdenful because you

00:32:05.060 are not a good God and you are not worth your worship. You are not worth your following. You don't know

00:32:10.500 up from down, right from wrong, true from false, but God does. And his burden is easy. His yoke is easy

00:32:16.680 and his burden is light. So these are three more myths that Christian women believe today. And maybe 0.72

00:32:22.900 I'll have three more next year or even before that. There are so many myths. I won't give away too many

00:32:27.540 myths because I have other myths that I'm going to be tackling in my book that I want you to buy

00:32:31.740 May 5th. And that's all I have today. The next couple of weeks are going to be a little bit different.

00:32:38.880 We're transitioning a little bit over on relatable podcasts behind the scenes. And so as we are kind of

00:32:45.780 gearing up for the new year, it's going to be a little, a little bit deferred before we really

00:32:51.520 launch into 2020, there are going to be new episodes released. There are going to be a couple

00:32:57.020 replays that are also released. The biggest and best thing that you can do for me, if you love this

00:33:03.040 podcast is to share this podcast with your friends. So over the next couple of weeks, as I'm trying to

00:33:08.140 gear up for some changes that we're making all good things, by the way, um, please, if you,

00:33:13.340 if you love this podcast and you want people to listen to it, please share it as much as possible,

00:33:18.300 not necessarily on social media. If you don't want to, although that's always appreciated,

00:33:22.320 just text it to your friends, talk about it with your family members, send it to people.

00:33:26.620 Um, that would really mean a lot to me. And if you want to, you can leave me a five-star review

00:33:32.560 on iTunes. That would be awesome as well. Subscribe to my YouTube channel, uh, as much support and

00:33:38.900 excitement and listenership viewership that we can get on relatable in the next couple of weeks,

00:33:44.820 um, the better. So thank you guys so much. Thank you for faithfully listening.

00:33:50.040 Thank you for your constructive criticism, for your messages, for your emails, for how wonderful and

00:33:57.660 quality of listeners you are. I don't think that grammatically made sense, but you know what I mean?

00:34:03.000 I appreciate you guys so much and we will be back soon and I'll see you then.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - January 06, 2020

Ep 203 ｜ Three MORE Myths Christian Women Believe

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