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

Misogynist Sentences

17

Hate Speech Sentences

18


Summary

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

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
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.
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
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
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
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
00:14:24.900 like some Satan worshiper, but we all know that everyone's not a Christian is under the influence
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
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
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.
00:18:16.280 They've just believed the indoctrination from Planned Parenthood and these feminists. But
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
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.
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
00:19:44.440 physically walk away from an abortion, from a pregnancy at any time, a woman should be able
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
00:19:55.820 pregnant, a woman should be able to do the same thing. And they think that that is going to make
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
00:20:04.920 care how many genders you falsely believe there are. Women are always only biologically going to be
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
00:20:20.220 through homogeny isn't going to work. It's just going to hurt children and hurt women and hurt
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
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.
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.
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
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
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
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?
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.