Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - February 21, 2019


Ep 79 | God Isn't Grey; You're Confused


Episode Stats


Length

33 minutes

Words per minute

200.44107

Word count

6,756

Sentence count

469

Harmful content

Misogyny

17

sentences flagged

Hate speech

18

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode, I talk about a YouTube channel called "God is Gray" and why I don't think it's a good idea to try and mold God into what we want Him to be. I also talk about why we shouldn't be trying to mold God.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Hey guys, happy Thursday. So I am back from my baby moon, but I'm still recording this
00:00:06.780 last week for you guys. It's really hard for me to speak in time terms when I'm in a different
00:00:13.240 place. Anyway, that's why we haven't talked about anything timely this week. I didn't want to talk
00:00:18.920 about politics. Like there's so much that we could have talked about on Tuesday with the bill,
00:00:24.320 the spending bill and the wall and Ilhan Omar and all the stuff that's going on. But I didn't want
00:00:30.380 to say something that was true on Thursday that wouldn't have been true on Tuesday because news
00:00:35.460 travels and changes really fast. We are in like a 24 minute news cycle. And so didn't want to do that.
00:00:43.420 So that's why both of these episodes have been kind of evergreen. Today, I'm going to talk about
00:00:50.120 a YouTube channel that you guys have mentioned, but I'm only going to talk about it for a little
00:00:54.840 bit because there's really only so much for me to say. Most of you guys are already going to accept
00:00:59.880 my premise that this YouTube channel, which is called God is Gray. I really don't want to give
00:01:05.440 this YouTube channel like any, uh, any credit or not credit, any advertising whatsoever. But I feel
00:01:13.420 like it is important to talk about, especially since so many of you have been asking me to say
00:01:17.120 something about it, but there's all, there's only so much to say. There's only so much to say. And
00:01:20.760 you guys are already going to agree with me on that. And then I'm going to answer a lot of the
00:01:23.820 questions that you guys sent me from last week. And that'll be up for a show. But I think even if
00:01:28.820 you didn't send me a question, you're going to learn hopefully a lot from this podcast because
00:01:32.360 I've got some good questions in here. Anyway, let's talk about God is Gray. So God is Gray
00:01:37.300 is a girl on YouTube. I think she's fairly new. I think she has 38 videos where she is liberal
00:01:46.360 theologically. There's really no other way to say that. Now she, I don't know if she would
00:01:49.660 necessarily describe herself as that. I haven't watched every single one of her videos. I know
00:01:53.720 about her. I've read about her. I've watched some of her stuff, but I don't know everything about her.
00:01:59.860 I haven't watched every single video. So I don't want to speak inaccurately. I'm only going to speak
00:02:03.840 basically what I know. So she is affirming basically of every culturally relevant thing. She is
00:02:09.260 anti what she calls purity culture, anti anti LGBTQ. She feels like it seems that she has had this like
00:02:16.840 great awakening where she is ushering in this new, awesome Christianity. And what I just want to say
00:02:22.180 is, girl, no, no. Like the what you believe is actually old news and what people have been trying
00:02:28.960 to do for as long as the gospel has been around. They've tried to distort the gospel and apply
00:02:33.680 Christianity to what is culturally relevant. I mean, just read any of the epistles. You can see
00:02:39.260 that that's a lot of what the churches were trying to do. They misunderstood the gospel and they tried
00:02:43.920 to apply the gospel in the wrong way. They kept on sinning because they didn't really understand parts
00:02:48.100 of the gospel. This has been going on for centuries. So for us to say, oh, we've discovered something new
00:02:55.800 about God or new about the Bible that isn't actually in God's word. And we're going to start this
00:03:00.420 YouTube channel about it. It's not edgy. It's not rebellious. It's not cool. It's just blasphemy.
00:03:05.040 That's all. That's all it is. Her videos, at least the ones I've seen are just blasphemy. Now,
00:03:10.480 she says, because my first contention when I heard about this YouTube channel was God is not gray.
00:03:15.660 You are confused. OK, God is not gray. You are confused. If we think God is great is because we
00:03:21.600 are confused, not because he is confusing, if that makes sense. I mean, he is infinite. He is perfect.
00:03:26.540 He is clear in all that he does. We are just finite, but he is infinite. And so there are
00:03:32.220 going to be things about him that we just don't get. And we might even have the temptation and the
00:03:36.520 feeling to try to mold him into what we want or mold God's word into what we want, because we are
00:03:42.600 finite, limited, small, emotional, sinful human beings. But he is not that. So that was my first
00:03:49.200 thing that, OK, God is not gray. If we think God is gray, we are just confused about that.
00:03:54.420 We shouldn't project our theological confusion onto God or our finiteness onto God, making
00:04:02.080 him out to be this thing that's moldable. If you think that God is moldable, then he is not
00:04:06.500 a God that is worth worshiping. OK, but she says in one of her videos, oh, you know, people
00:04:12.940 are always telling me God is not gray. I know God is not gray. She says God is unchanging.
00:04:19.020 You know, God is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. But she says, but but she said
00:04:26.300 people are always changing. And so we need to move forward. I guess her argument is I'm
00:04:32.020 really confused. She doesn't really like logically connect how she could say God does not change,
00:04:37.000 but people need to change. So she uses the example of slavery, how slavery was fine in the
00:04:43.680 Bible. God wasn't necessarily OK with it, but people have changed from that, even though
00:04:50.340 God has never been OK with it. And so we need to do we need to do the same thing. Now, I'm
00:04:56.460 not sure how she applies that to sexuality and homosexuality, because it's not the same
00:05:00.540 thing as slavery. And it's God himself that actually calls it a sin. It's not just this
00:05:04.920 thing that was happening. And it just goes unmentioned. He actually calls it a sin himself
00:05:11.080 and furthermore defines marriage between a man and a woman, just as Christ loves the
00:05:16.060 church. It is a reflection of the gospel. There is spiritual significance to it, as we've
00:05:19.520 talked many times, not just a physical significance. And yet she says we're supposed to kind of move
00:05:24.080 past that stuff and move forward. But if you believe that the Bible is God's inspired word
00:05:30.920 and that God doesn't change, then why would it be that we need to move past the principles
00:05:36.120 that the Bible has set for us? The problem is the breakdown is she does not believe that the
00:05:41.060 Bible is God's inspired word. She believes that it's probably just a compilation of of men 0.99
00:05:47.860 and that it is fallible. But if you believe that the Bible is fallible, the only thing that you have
00:05:53.160 left is your feelings. And so you are then dictating who you think God is and what he would like
00:05:59.460 and what he would want. And the problem with that is that is actually making yourself your own
00:06:04.860 God, not making God your God. If God is just a figment of your own feelings-driven imagination,
00:06:13.600 if he is just this wizard that you have created in your mind that acquiesces to culture because
00:06:19.260 you want to acquiesce to culture, that is not God. That's not the God of the Bible. That is not the
00:06:26.940 God that we have seen throughout history. That's not who God says that he is. He says,
00:06:30.820 I am that I am. She's right to say that God doesn't change. So what he called a sin then,
00:06:35.920 he calls a sin now, no matter what it is. The same thing with women leading in the church. 1.00
00:06:40.340 We see from the Bible in 2 Timothy that women are not supposed to exercise authority over men
00:06:44.540 in the context of the church. They can have other authority besides exercising authority over men,
00:06:51.780 but they're not able to do that. That doesn't change just because culture has changed. There are a lot
00:06:57.580 of things that culture has changed and that we know for a fact that God doesn't approve of,
00:07:01.500 but she kind of uses culture changing as almost, she wouldn't say that God changes with culture.
00:07:09.480 She would say that some cultural changes are a better revelation of who God actually is and has
00:07:15.760 always been. And that's just not true because again, the only indication, all we know about who God is,
00:07:22.380 is what he reveals in his word, what we see through Jesus, which is in his word,
00:07:26.040 and what the Holy spirit gives us, which is always going to be in congruence with his word.
00:07:31.100 If you do not rest your knowledge of God and who God is on his word, you have nothing but your
00:07:38.980 feelings, which is exactly why if you watch any of her videos, she says, this is just really offensive.
00:07:45.380 And this is just how I feel. And I feel like, and when I discovered, I mean, she just believes
00:07:51.440 in the God of self. And she has placed, she has placed the name of God on the God of self to make
00:07:58.720 herself feel like she is being obedient to something that's higher than her. And the reality is she has
00:08:04.900 it. Now I hope that she will come to repentance. I don't hate this person. I think she, her ideology
00:08:10.020 is extremely dangerous, but I don't, I certainly don't hate her. And, um, I don't wish her harm.
00:08:15.540 And I don't think that people should go troll her and tell her how awful of a person she is. Our 0.52
00:08:20.400 prayer for her is that she would come to repentance and know the richness and the fullness of the gospel
00:08:26.240 that is found in God's word. And to realize that just because culture changes, doesn't mean
00:08:32.340 that God's opinions do. And he makes his opinions pretty darn clear in the Bible. So the, that's
00:08:38.920 really, those are really my only thoughts about it. Like it's blasphemy. It's sacrilegious. It is
00:08:45.480 not the gospel and it's not going to save you. And it's not going to sanctify you. The only thing
00:08:50.640 that you will get out of that is getting more in touch with your feelings and satisfying,
00:08:55.700 satisfying any fear that you have of being culturally inconvenient or culturally rebellious.
00:09:01.540 You will feel very comfortable as a sinner at the God is great YouTube channel. You will feel 0.86
00:09:07.620 extremely comfortable in your sin and you will feel extremely comfortable saying exactly as you are
00:09:12.680 and kind of letting go of any thoughts you have of obedience or submission to Christ.
00:09:17.620 You will say, great. I can be exactly how I am given to the feelings that I want to give into.
00:09:22.660 And I can still feel righteous, like a Christian. God doesn't call us to that. That's not Christianity.
00:09:28.740 And if someone told me that about my YouTube channel, that someone would feel comfortable
00:09:35.120 in sin because of the things that I'm saying, I would feel like a total failure and I would repent.
00:09:41.080 So that's what we should, that's what we should want for God is great. I hope that answers you
00:09:46.560 guys's questions. Uh, so I want to, uh, questions on that. I want to move on to other questions that
00:09:53.980 you guys had one message that I got that I just loved. Someone told me that they love that my
00:09:59.420 podcasts are coming out early and that you can listen to my podcast on the way to work and then
00:10:04.000 listen to a cynical podcast on the way home from work. But you feel like my podcast gives you
00:10:09.540 something positive to think about throughout the day. And then you listen to something that
00:10:13.220 makes you angry on the way home. Um, I I'm down with that. I'm down with that. If you start your day
00:10:19.460 with me and you feel like it's on a positive note and then you can listen to the news of the day
00:10:23.180 afterwards and get all worked up, I'm okay with that. So thank you for that note. I have been
00:10:27.420 trying to get my podcast out earlier for you guys so that you can listen to them on the way to work.
00:10:32.780 I still think most of you listen to them in the afternoon when I look at the statistics, but I am
00:10:37.300 very glad that some of you can listen to it in the morning on your commute or at the gym. If you do
00:10:42.820 that kind of thing. Um, okay. Someone asked me, how do you social media to speak out on politics
00:10:50.800 and issues, uh, from a Christian and conservative viewpoint and how to respond in love and biblically
00:10:56.000 when people push back. So in general, I don't think that it is a great idea to get into a ton
00:11:01.600 of arguments on the internet and on Facebook simply because I just haven't seen in my lifetime,
00:11:06.560 someone's mind change from arguments. Now I've also gotten into arguments, especially with
00:11:12.800 trolls, uh, on social media. And I wish I had spent less time doing that because it's totally
00:11:17.980 fruitless. It's totally fruitless. Uh, it is a really big temptation to be like, oh my gosh,
00:11:22.660 that person is just so wrong. And I don't think it's always wrong to reply to someone. Uh, just
00:11:27.220 remember this is, this is what I try to remember is that if your goal is to win someone over name
00:11:32.020 calling, degrading them, patronizing them, which again, I have been patronizing sometimes when it comes
00:11:38.600 to trolls and talking down to them, I totally have. And that's not good of me. I'm not,
00:11:42.800 I'm not recommending that, but in order to win people over, just to make a good impression of
00:11:47.300 them on them, whether or not they think about it right then, um, it's good to avoid all kind of
00:11:54.740 ad hominem attacks. I think you state your position once and you say clearly, here's,
00:12:01.260 here's what I believe. Here's what I say. And they might come back to you viciously. They might ask a
00:12:04.660 bunch of questions. They might say all of these fraudulent points and create all of these straw men.
00:12:08.180 They probably will. Um, but that's okay. Like you don't have to respond. You don't have a
00:12:13.360 responsibility to respond. You need to free yourself of the oppression that is internet,
00:12:17.960 internet, uh, arguments. Now I have seen a lot of people who don't typically speak out about
00:12:24.260 politics, talk about the abortion laws recently, the abortion laws in New York and Virginia,
00:12:28.860 or at least the bill in Virginia. Um, and they've been more outspoken about that. I think that's great.
00:12:34.900 I do think it's important for Christians to have a voice, but just know you're going to get pushed
00:12:38.320 back. You're going to get criticism. You're going to have people unfriend you. And if you're ready
00:12:41.620 for that, then you can post the truth. Now post the truth in love. Again, I wouldn't, I wouldn't
00:12:47.540 probably go out there and say everyone who believes in abortion, you're just a bunch of sickos,
00:12:53.020 probably not the best way to do it. You can still speak the truth extremely concisely, extremely clearly,
00:12:58.400 um, in a way that doesn't attack other people. You don't have to compromise on the truth in order
00:13:03.020 to be loving. I think a lot of people think that speaking the truth in love means that you don't
00:13:07.180 say the whole truth. That's not true. Speaking of the truth is loving. It just means don't demean
00:13:11.980 the person and don't offend the person on purpose or a launch ad hominem attacks while you are doing
00:13:20.000 that. Um, so I think it's important for us to speak up on social media if you can, but again,
00:13:25.180 you do not have to go to every single argument that you are asked to go to. Do not waste your time on
00:13:32.600 that. Say your piece, say what's true and then move on. Um, Oh yeah, I did want to talk about this.
00:13:41.260 So maybe I'll play a clip. So someone said, or is it a clip or was it just in the news? Like,
00:13:48.880 did I just read about it? I'm not sure, but y'all have been asking me about this. So Tom Brady and
00:13:52.500 Giselle, who I talked about last week or a couple of weeks ago, my podcast, the demonization of
00:13:57.220 excellence, how I like Tom Brady in some ways about how he and Giselle, how Giselle talked about
00:14:05.380 like crystals and being superstitious and being a good, which I think she called herself and all of
00:14:11.900 these rituals and things that she does to help him win. And apparently it works. Uh, obviously 0.75
00:14:18.140 that's satanic. It just is. It's satanic. Now I'm not saying that she is, uh, she knows that she's 0.98
00:14:24.900 like some Satan worshiper, but we all know that everyone's not a Christian is under the influence 1.00
00:14:29.000 of Satan. You're under the dominion of Satan. You are under as Ephesians two says, the prince of the
00:14:32.980 power of the air. There's not like, okay, some people are under God who are Christians. Some 0.88
00:14:37.660 people are just in this neutral in between. And some people, the really bad people are enemies of
00:14:42.720 God. The really bad people are under the influence of Satan. No, if you are not a friend of God through
00:14:48.060 Christ, you are an enemy of God. You are under the influence of Satan. So sometimes that looks like
00:14:52.340 this new age crap, this, these crystal things. Uh, but what we can glean from that is that people are
00:14:59.280 looking for a higher power than themselves. And even someone as powerful and as successful as Tom
00:15:04.840 Brady and as beautiful and as seemingly perfect as Giselle realizes their own limited capabilities
00:15:10.360 to control things that are uncontrollable. And they look to something that they can't see and that,
00:15:15.760 uh, they can't really know in order to fix their problems or to help them. It's very interesting how
00:15:21.180 humans just have that natural drive. Now, the only one that can help is the only real God who is the
00:15:27.580 God of Israel, the God of the Bible. And thankfully through Christ, also the God of saved Gentiles.
00:15:33.080 Um, we can say, I recommend that you read Joshua and judges and just how it's just a beautiful
00:15:40.180 reminder of how powerful God is and how he is the only one that can fight battles. And without him,
00:15:44.460 we really can't fight battles. And I think it's interesting to see an athlete like Tom Brady and a
00:15:49.260 celebrity, like Giselle admitting just how limited they are and how weak they are and how they do need
00:15:54.660 something else. Now they're freaking using rocks. So ain't that smart? Ain't that smart? But there is
00:16:02.700 this natural, this natural inclination in them, just like there isn't all humans to reach for something
00:16:07.880 that we can't see or that we don't really know. And like, even though you can see the rocks, they feel
00:16:13.660 like there is this unseen power inside of them. I'm like, you guys think that we're crazy. We're
00:16:20.300 crazy for believing that there is a higher power who creatively, uh, created the universe. You think
00:16:27.240 that we're crazy because of that, but you guys are rubbing rocks on your forehead. Okay. Spare me.
00:16:33.500 Um, someone says, I am curious what you think about why the left is so pro abortion. I get why 0.96
00:16:39.680 therefore leftist causes like immigration, taxing, et cetera. Really? Sometimes I don't. Um, so, or is
00:16:47.860 it really about the women's choice or is there something deeper? So I think for some ignorant
00:16:52.060 people, it is about a woman's choice or they've convinced themselves that it's about a woman's
00:16:56.340 choice. Now we already know all of the straw men associated with that. We already know how stupid
00:17:01.380 that argument is because your choices end where another person's rights begin. And so I can choose
00:17:08.820 to like, I can choose to what's paint the outside of my house, or I can choose to like throw rocks at
00:17:17.860 the outside of my house. But if I throw rocks at another person's house, well, then I'm hurting
00:17:21.740 their property like that. And they have a right to their property. I have a right to my property.
00:17:25.720 They have a right to theirs. And so even though it's my choice to do whatever I want to, to my property,
00:17:30.440 it's not my choice to do whatever I want to, to theirs. So my choice ends where someone else's
00:17:36.460 rights begin. And because a child has separate DNA at conception, there's just no logical,
00:17:42.060 philosophical, scientific reason why they shouldn't have the same rights that we do simply
00:17:45.580 because they're in an earlier stage of development. That doesn't make any sense. So
00:17:49.720 anyway, it doesn't make any sense whatsoever, but some of them have convinced themselves that
00:17:53.900 it's not really a human inside the womb, that it's just a clump of cells, that it doesn't really
00:17:57.500 feel pain. All of these unscientific claims, it takes a lot of mental gymnastics in order to tell
00:18:02.260 yourself that abortion isn't atrocious. So in that way, in that deliberate ignorance,
00:18:07.640 which deliberate ignorance, by the way, is evil. But in that deliberate ignorance,
00:18:12.580 they convince themselves that it's not that big of a deal. And it is about a woman's choice. 0.99
00:18:16.280 They've just believed the indoctrination from Planned Parenthood and these feminists. But 0.88
00:18:19.760 the people who are actually more in the know, who really know, and who even probably acknowledge in
00:18:25.440 private? Yeah, this kid feels pain. This is a human being like this is this is pretty crazy that
00:18:32.080 we're doing this. But, you know, this is what we have to do to keep Planned Parenthood alive. So
00:18:36.900 part of it is because Planned Parenthood funds a large portion or a good portion of the Democratic
00:18:43.660 Party. They really need each other. And so Democrats have to be for abortion because they get funding 0.90
00:18:49.660 from Planned Parenthood. And so they just, you know, they mooch off of each other. They help
00:18:55.340 each other out. And abortion pays a lot of Planned Parenthood's bills, even though they say it's only
00:18:59.240 3 percent of what they do. It's where they make a whole lot of their money. They did through like
00:19:05.180 almost, I think, 400,000, somewhere in 300,000 range abortions last year. They make a lot of money
00:19:10.100 for abortions. That's exactly why they only did 2000 adoption referrals last year. People don't really
00:19:15.880 go to Planned Parenthood when they want to keep their baby. It's really just an abortion mill. 0.96
00:19:22.040 And so part of it, of course, is the money. But underneath that, even why is someone like
00:19:26.060 Planned Parenthood? Why are they so pro abortion? Well, a lot of it has to do with equality and what
00:19:32.660 they think equality is. I've said equality through homogeny is the leftist mantra. It's the idea that in
00:19:39.080 order for men and women to be equal, they have to be exactly the same. So the logic goes, if a man can 0.99
00:19:44.440 physically walk away from an abortion, from a pregnancy at any time, a woman should be able 0.98
00:19:49.100 to, too. If the man has the ability to just leave his up and leave his family while a woman is 1.00
00:19:55.820 pregnant, a woman should be able to do the same thing. And they think that that is going to make 1.00
00:19:59.500 men and women more equal. It's not. It's not because women are always going to be. I don't 1.00
00:20:04.920 care how many genders you falsely believe there are. Women are always only biologically going to be 1.00
00:20:11.000 able to have a child. And so abortion is always going to uniquely affect them. Doesn't only affect
00:20:16.380 women, but it uniquely affects women. So this equality that they think that they're getting 1.00
00:20:20.220 through homogeny isn't going to work. It's just going to hurt children and hurt women and hurt 0.99
00:20:24.960 families. But they think they think this is about equality. And it's sad. We won't ever be equal
00:20:31.880 through homogeny. We just won't. A man is never going to carry a child. He's never going to feel
00:20:36.620 the same nurturing feelings that women do for children, that mothers do for children. It's
00:20:41.800 never going to be the same. We're not going to get equality through that way. Nothing is going
00:20:46.720 to make us the same. It's just not. I don't care how much you construct the culture, construct society.
00:20:52.180 It's just not. If you look at the Nordic countries, which have made every big government effort out
00:20:57.140 there to make it seem that men and women are not inherently different, have failed. The children
00:21:02.040 coming out of gender neutral preschools still have a propensity towards traditional femininity 0.98
00:21:07.220 and traditional masculinity. Universal paid family leave, which is equal between men and women,
00:21:12.580 still shows that women take far more leave than men do. Why? Because they're the caretakers typically. 1.00
00:21:18.220 I just ran into my microphone. They're the caretakers typically because they care more about
00:21:23.780 staying home with their kids. I even think about, for example, like last year I traveled. I don't know
00:21:29.440 how many places I spoke, maybe 20 places, maybe, maybe last, maybe more. I, I might've been less
00:21:34.660 than that. I don't remember 15, whatever. I traveled a lot, especially in the fall. I think the bulk of
00:21:40.340 my speaking was in the fall and looking forward to, I'm already getting requests for this fall after
00:21:47.400 my baby is born. And I just, it used to be just, I wouldn't even think about it. It's like, look at the
00:21:52.700 money. Okay, great. There's no question. I'm getting, I'm getting paid for that. Of course I'm going to do
00:21:57.200 it. Now I'm like, I don't want to leave my baby. I don't want to leave her. I don't,
00:22:02.300 I don't care how much money it is. It's sometimes it's a good amount of money. I mean, it's always
00:22:06.340 a good amount of money, but sometimes it's a really good amount of money. And I'm like,
00:22:09.640 is it really worth that amount of money to leave my baby? I don't want to leave her.
00:22:14.120 It's just crazy how quickly your priorities change, especially from a woman's perspective. 1.00
00:22:18.520 That's not true of a man, a man, all of the sudden in general, in general gets this feeling of like,
00:22:24.400 I got to busy myself. Like my husband has been on overtime more than he's ever been. And I'm like,
00:22:29.940 can you please, like, I just want to hang out with you. And thankfully he has, but he's like,
00:22:34.820 oh my gosh, I got to make more money. I got to do, I got to do more stuff. I got to make sure that
00:22:38.200 we're going to be okay. Oh my gosh, we're having a child. It becomes like men feel like, oh, I got
00:22:43.040 to get even busier than I was before. And women are like, oh, I just really feel like I kind of need to 1.00
00:22:48.280 slow down and do everything I can for this. It's just crazy. That's how God created us.
00:22:52.500 So abortion to them is about equality through homogeny. Sorry, ain't going to happen. All
00:22:57.180 you're doing is destroying lives and destroying families. Oh, dang it. I took a screenshot of this
00:23:03.940 question and oh, wait, yes, I did get the question. So someone asked me, is it simple? Is it simple to
00:23:14.300 not have kids as a Christian? So this is a very complicated or it can seem like a complicated
00:23:21.200 question. I've actually talked about this before. If you go back and listen to a very important
00:23:25.520 episode where I announced my pregnancy and talked about the nuances of pregnancy within Christianity
00:23:31.140 and having kids and all of that and the biblical truth behind that, you can get this question
00:23:38.240 answered a little more fully. One, I will say being married or having kids is not going to fully
00:23:43.300 satisfy you. And that's not the only purpose that you have in life. Paul says it is better to be single
00:23:48.160 than to marry because you can fully dedicate yourself to Christ. And so the best answer that
00:23:52.140 I've heard is actually from John Piper, whose theology I very much trust. But he made a point
00:23:58.220 to say that if you are not having kids for a period of time when you are married for the work of
00:24:04.380 ministry, because you are pouring yourself out for ministry, then yes, that is a legitimate reason.
00:24:09.380 Going back to that particular passage in which Paul says it's better to be single than to be
00:24:14.480 married so you can pour yourself into Christ. And it's kind of making a little bit of a deductive,
00:24:19.080 a logically deductive step there and saying, OK, well, if it's better to be single than to be
00:24:25.140 married to dedicate yourself to Christ, it's probably it might be better to be married and
00:24:29.500 not have kids to dedicate yourself to Christ for the specific purpose of ministry. But to in order
00:24:36.000 not having kids in order, simply in order that you can do whatever you want to do and because you
00:24:42.160 think it's going to be too hard and because you're a quote, not a kid person, according to
00:24:46.360 the Bible, yes, that is a wrong way to look at kids. In no way do we see in the Bible that kids
00:24:52.300 are an inconvenience, that kids are this burden that you need to put off indefinitely. Now,
00:25:01.100 it doesn't say that you have to have a million kids, but it does say to be fruitful and multiply
00:25:05.160 and that children are a blessing. So it's more about your perspective and your heart in the first
00:25:10.060 place to do what the Bible says is true and to believe what the Bible says is true. And I've
00:25:14.500 made the mistake of this. I've certainly thought in the past that kids are this big, inconvenient
00:25:18.660 burden that I'm just going to wait to do until I check off all these boxes on my career and my
00:25:23.760 travel list in my life. And I just don't think that's true. Now, we did exercise discretion in that
00:25:30.380 we were moving a bunch of different places. We were not in a fight. What I felt like was or what we
00:25:35.200 felt like was a financial place in order to have kids. But there does come a time. I do think you
00:25:41.560 exercise wisdom in all of that. Of course, if you're both in school and you're living in your
00:25:46.080 parents' basement, not that God can't take care of you and that you won't be totally fine, that you
00:25:50.260 shouldn't trust God. But I do think this is one of those areas where you do kind of have to use
00:25:54.660 discernment and when to have kids. But there does come a point to where you are putting off kids
00:26:00.300 simply because you don't feel like it and because you are just serving yourself and you don't want
00:26:04.800 to inconvenience your life. Yes, I think that's wrong. Yes, I do. When you met your husband at the
00:26:13.940 gym, you probably did not know right away that he was a believer. That said, would you say it's wise
00:26:21.640 to be going on dates with people that you don't know what their faith walk is? Yes, I think that
00:26:27.580 dating can be a time that you figure that out. Now, you can figure that out quickly. You can figure
00:26:33.160 out on the first date whether or not that person is a Christian. You might not know the full depth
00:26:38.220 of their faith. Now, I did know that my husband was a Christian before we started going on dates
00:26:42.000 because we talked in the parking lot for a really long time. And so I found out that he was a Christian
00:26:47.200 really quickly after we started talking. And I knew that by the time we went on a first date and by the
00:26:52.460 we were on a first date, I did know like his entire testimony. So that's not everyone, though. I do think
00:26:59.020 that you need to find out really quickly where he stands with God and if he is a Christian. And then as
00:27:05.180 you go on dates, you figure out just how real that relationship is. And as soon as you figure out that
00:27:10.700 he's either not a Christian or that he's not, he doesn't really have a relationship with God. Yeah, you need 1.00
00:27:15.820 to get out because there's no point. There's there's no point in dedicating if you are a Christian
00:27:21.080 anyway, and dedicating any more time to someone who can't lead you because he's not being led by
00:27:25.820 Christ. I would like to know what Democrats traditionally believe. No emotion or identity
00:27:33.220 politics, but what their beliefs are founded on. So basically, Democrats believe that the government
00:27:40.580 has a bigger responsibility to take care of people than than Republicans believe. So Republicans
00:27:48.560 traditionally believe supposed to believe anyway, that individuals do a better job and should be
00:27:54.460 doing the job of taking care of their communities and taking care of the people around them.
00:27:59.660 Democrats believe that that is the government's job. It's the government's job to provide health
00:28:03.680 care. It's the government's. Well, that's the new thing. The government's job to provide housing,
00:28:08.240 the government's job to take care of people. And the idea of individual liberty really kind of flies
00:28:14.820 in the face of that. So they believe essentially more government, fewer problems. We believe more
00:28:21.240 government, greater number of problems, which history proves us right. OK, I have one more question and
00:28:28.660 then we will wrap up a best advice for a married couple who are also pregnant with their first child.
00:28:33.880 How has your relationship changed and have you put each other first in new ways after getting
00:28:38.520 pregnant? Also, housework. Who does that? And how do you get the husband to take out the trash without 1.00
00:28:44.140 asking? LOL. A lot of good questions. So advice. I don't know if I'm in a position to give advice for
00:28:51.100 a married couple who's pregnant with their first child because we are, too. We have gotten a lot more
00:28:55.420 serious about being disciplined in our finances because you just have to. You have to think like
00:29:01.160 children are so expensive. And so he my husband has done a really good job of leading us in that
00:29:06.400 because I just like to not think about money and pretend like it's not a thing like I'm not a
00:29:10.880 spender. I just don't like to think about it. I don't want to think about it and I don't want to
00:29:16.080 think about it. And so he helps me that we've been listening to Dave Ramsey and he has been really more
00:29:23.260 and he has helped me. And so I am trying to grow because it really is an area of just immaturity.
00:29:30.180 That's just what it is. It's an area of immaturity for me that I don't want to talk about money.
00:29:34.420 And he helps me with that. Now, I'm very thankful that he is the one in general that is control in
00:29:41.920 control of that and handles it and that he's good at it. I don't like it, but I'm trying to get better
00:29:46.940 and mature in that way and have conversations about it. So that's one way that it's changed.
00:29:51.580 And I would recommend that. I guess I would give that advice from someone who's trying to learn that
00:29:55.360 myself. Yeah, I'd probably give advice to do the same thing and just get organized. I really want
00:30:02.320 my house to be like organized and done before she comes. It stresses me out that we have three
00:30:07.000 animals running around, but there's nothing I can do about them. They're just going to have to be
00:30:11.900 annoying. How has our relationship changed? Well, he's always treated me like a princess, but it's even
00:30:19.460 like a little bit more. It's kind of great. You can use your pregnancy as an excuse for a lot of
00:30:24.360 things. I'm not really sure if that's necessarily good advice that I should give you, but it's just
00:30:30.660 kind of the case. And it's just been fun to see him really excited about, especially like when we
00:30:37.440 found out it was a girl and just how excited we are to have a girl. I thought it was a boy. I think
00:30:41.400 we both kind of thought it was a boy, even though he said he thought it was a girl. And just getting
00:30:45.260 excited about that and realizing like, oh my gosh, we're going to have like a human being that
00:30:49.360 we're taking care of just going through that together. I just enjoy talking to him and spending
00:30:53.640 time with him so much. And so that's just been fun. Also housework who does, who does what? Oh,
00:30:59.700 that's what she said. Uh, so I do back of the house in general. He does front of the house.
00:31:04.700 We've always said that that's not really like true about the setup of our house, but it was when we
00:31:08.660 lived in our little tiny apartment that we used to live in. And so I do like bedroom and laundry
00:31:17.820 and all that stuff. And I tend to be the one who vacuums. I'm looking at my carpet right now and
00:31:22.780 it really needs to be vacuumed. I use that kind of stuff. He does the dishes. I never do the dishes
00:31:28.660 ever mark my words. It disgusts me. I never do the dishes. He does the dishes. He takes out the trash,
00:31:36.040 the recycling. He cleans the litter box. He does the gross stuff. He does the gross stuff. I do the big
00:31:42.420 stuff. Now who is messier me or him? You didn't ask this question. I'm just thinking,
00:31:47.860 Oh, I probably him. He leaves trash around like things that just don't make sense. Like why would
00:31:55.140 you leave this water bottle right next to the trash can? It's empty. I will leave like clothes
00:32:02.360 on the floor. I'm, I'm messy in that way. He's just like, I don't know. Sometimes he's just like a
00:32:08.060 college boy. But when he does, when he does do the housework that we have decided that each other
00:32:14.500 does, uh, he does a good job. How do you get the husbands to take out the trash without asking? 0.98
00:32:20.040 Haven't figured that out. Have not figured that out. I just ask. And we have both decided because
00:32:26.500 both of us do this. We are not allowed to say that the other one is nagging. If they are reminding
00:32:32.380 the other one to do something that they said that they were going to do. We both decided that because
00:32:36.780 we used to both say, stop nagging me. But then we realized that we were both being hypocritical
00:32:42.660 because we were both telling each other that. And so I will just say, Hey, will you take the
00:32:47.220 trash out when you get the chance? And instead of, instead of babe, the trash is full. I don't like
00:32:53.460 that. That's passive aggressive. Just ask me what you want to ask me. Now I'm not perfect at that
00:32:58.480 actually at all, but I try to just be like straightforward and I want him to be straightforward
00:33:02.520 too. Like I don't, if he tells me, if he just says, um, I'm out of underwear. Okay. That makes
00:33:09.400 me mad. Okay. What are you going to do about it? What are you going to do about it? I would rather
00:33:13.460 him just say, Hey, will you do some laundry today? Sure, babe. I would love to. So that's how we've
00:33:20.540 worked that out. And we are still working that out. There's a fine line between reminding what needs
00:33:26.920 to be done and nagging and we are both learning to walk it. So I hope that that helps. Uh, okay.
00:33:33.480 That's it for today. Hope you guys have an awesome rest of your week. And I will see you here on
00:33:38.260 Tuesday with a special announcement. Okay. Bye.