The Unforgiveness Epidemic

Ep. 4: The Unforgiveness Epidemic

Everyone wants justice. Few people want forgiveness. What if that's why we're not healing?

Wars continue, political divisions widen, and social media actively rewards our outrage. We’ve become experts at demanding accountability, but totally helpless when it comes to extending restoration. In this episode, we unpack why unforgiveness is the ultimate prison—one we build for ourselves.

In this episode, we discuss:

• The Anatomy of Brokenness: How sin quietly damages our thoughts, eyes, speech, and pride.
• Performative vs. Genuine Change: Why society prefers reputation management over actual humility and repentance.
• The Prayer Life Hypocrisy: Confronting the tendency to pray for someone’s blessing while secretly hoping they fail.
• The Truth About Forgiveness: Why letting go isn't a sign of weakness, but the only way to break the power of past hurt.

History changes when policies change, but eternity changes when hearts change. Stop looking at everyone else's flaws and join us for a radical look at what needs to change inside our own hearts.

Thanks for listening to The Conviction Exchange.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I just think it's really it's fascinating to me that everybody um everybody puts out it's almost like this um it's a constant and we can pick it's kind of what we talked about on the last podcast as well. It's like this constant I'm gonna judge everybody else. I want justice because of all these things that I feel. I want this, this, this, and this, but nobody's willing to look in and be like, man, maybe there's something that I need to change, maybe there's something um that I need to work out in my life, and that to me um is a reason that people can't forgive. It just hurts my heart that people walk around and I don't even think people realize, like kind of what we were just saying. I don't think people even realize that they're harboring unforgiveness. You know what I mean? Hurts my heart.

SPEAKER_03 0:52

Yeah, and I think it's a lot um like when somebody doesn't forgive you for something, when you know you've done something, you know, which I've done a lot of things I need forgiveness for from people, yeah. Uh, when they won't let it go, it it it hurts and it bothers you. But it dulcum should make it make you kind of reflect internally, like, well, who am I not forgiving? You know, who uh you know, that's what I can control. Like if there's things out there that that I need forgiveness for, then then I need to think about those people that probably feel the same way I do. Yeah. Because maybe I maybe you haven't just said, Well, I don't I forgive you, but maybe you just ignore people. Yeah. Maybe you don't respond to their texts anymore, you don't answer their calls, and and they they're sitting there going, What did I do wrong? And yeah. And maybe they did something wrong and and maybe not, maybe you've forgiven, but you're not ready to reconcile. That and that's kind of you know, Phyllis is gonna do a deeper dive on that in her book as a real deep dive, and I think explains it really well. Um I heard it years ago, I think Rick Warren said it, that not forgiving someone or having resentment for someone, which I would say are similar, I guess, maybe the same thing, is like drinking poison and hoping it hurts the other person. Because it is only going to affect you.

SPEAKER_00 2:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:00

So I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 2:02

Well, that's good. It makes I just think about what would happen in the like because I was reading through as I was kind of preparing for today, I was reading through Exodus 34. And it was just talking about how the Lord's, and I was kind of talking to you about this, how the Lord's given all this direction to the Israelites out of all the think about how many times they turned their back on the Lord, they didn't want to listen to a thing that he was saying. He's saying, I'm taking you to the promised land. Like, think about this. There's no better promise from the Lord than him saying, I'm gonna take you to the promised land. And that's exactly what he says to all of us, too. It's like, I have purpose for you, I have vision for you, I have all these plans for your life, and I actually want what's best for you, but for some reason, you can't grab hold of it. And so I think about how many times the Lord forgave the Israelites. That's just kind of what it reminded me of, and how many times He's forgiven us for all of our thoughts, like our little things. It's like when you you think about it, you might as well act on it, kind of sort of thing. And I just think about all the things that are running through my own brain and the forgiveness that I do not deserve, but the Lord continues to give in the first place. But we just decide everybody else is wrong, I'm right, and I don't want to forgive anybody.

SPEAKER_01 3:15

It is a choice. We need to understand that we have to forgive and we need to want it just as much as I mean, we can never want anything as much as God wants it, but we've got to want forgiveness. Yeah. And sometimes we'd rather hold on to our idea of vengeance than forgive.

SPEAKER_00 3:30

Yeah, but so let's just talk about venge vengeance, which is a perfect transition to the question I have, and we'll start with you. Why does the world why does everybody feel so angry? Why does the world feel so angry?

SPEAKER_03 3:43

I don't know. I mean, I I I guess it's um we all feel like we're after something, and if you're not getting whatever it is you're after, you just get upset. I think it starts as an infant. You know, I need I need some milk, you know, I need uh my diaper changed, I need whatever. Uh if you don't get your way, you react, you cry, you throw a fit. And I think the problem is that people aren't you aren't maturing enough and nurturing, they're getting being nurtured enough to be weaned away from that, to be independent, to understand that it's not always all about me. And I think I I've said this before that uh I think raising a kid, and we've raised six of them, um your number one goal is to teach them to be unselfish. So in 18 years, you hope they realize the world is not about them and it don't revolve around them. That's your number one goal. And of course that means understanding godly values, understanding the love of the love of the love of Christ and and on all those things are very, you know, those are s uh central in that. But bottom line is can I teach my children in 18 years be unselfish? Because when I see my kids do things, even now our kids are 22 to 30, almost 35. Um, man, I'm old. Um, but it when you see them do something unselfish, you're it's the proudest you'll ever be. But when you see them do something that's selfish, uh, it's it's the least proud you're you are. So I think but you you take that to kids, and our kids had a pretty good life. Yeah. Most kids don't. Uh I would say most kids in the world probably don't. And all you're gonna do is react to what you know. And I think that's again what Phyllis gets into a lot is you react, you you respond in the way you've been taught, trained, what you've seen, and you maybe sometimes just don't know another way. Yeah. So you just end up with a whole lot of pissed off people uh that are mad at the world. Now there's there's a line in Tombstone that uh we've talked about that this morning, my favorite movie, where I think it was Doc Holiday asked why why is Johnny Ringo the way he is? And and I believe the line is he's he's just upset for being born. And and it just really gets to the root of it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:57

Nothing can ever satisfy. I think we live in a world where people are so easily offended. So, first of all, you're easily offended. You are setting yourself up for chronic unforgiveness. And then people don't want to forgive because they think that that means you're saying something that was done to you was okay. But forgiveness doesn't mean that you're okay with what happened. That's not the same thing.

SPEAKER_00 6:20

Yeah. But I think that people like that's where what you're saying is um it's broken homes. Like broken homes in the United States of America, broken homes across the world, where people are, there's not, you know, when you talk about raising your kids selfish, unselfish, there's so many kids out there running around with anger that are now adults that didn't have dads, that didn't have present parents. It didn't matter who it was, moms, dads. Doesn't matter because I believe that a single mom can raise their kids well, whether the dad is home uh present in the home or not. I but I believe there's value in that as well. I'm just saying there is a generation of broken individuals that are constantly angry at the world and want to blame everybody else for the things that they're going through. And you have to, whether or not you ever talk to that person or not, whether or not um you actually get reconciliation from that person or that relationship, you have to be willing to forgive and not necessarily because I liked what you said. Like, I I don't think that forgiving and forgetting are the same, like you don't have to forget the things that you've walked through.

SPEAKER_01 7:27

Well, you can't. Isn't that crazy? Yeah, you can't. I mean, sometimes people who've experienced trauma can't remember a lot of things, but that's different from like, oh, if you forgive, you forget. There's a lot of things you can do with forgiveness, but you won't forget. It's not the same thing.

SPEAKER_00 7:42

That's really good. And what but why why? Why were we taught? Why was it always said forgive and forget?

SPEAKER_01 7:49

I think as a kid. I think people just didn't know what to do with it. You know, like what do I do with it if I'm forgiving? What does that even mean? I I don't know why that's not a part of our upbringing and our culture. Like, why is it that we have this really skewed view of what forgiveness is? And I I do take that deep dive in the book to talk about that. Um and I mean you were talking about like divorce and things like that. That's enough for a kid to deal with if nothing else happened. But then you've got parents going. I see it. Like if you're going through a divorce or you've gone through a divorce, the worst thing you can do is talk about the other parent. Yeah. Talk down about them. And I'm not saying again that you just should paint a rosy picture. Kids are kids are sometimes able to hear some of the truth, but if you're just constantly bad mouthing your ex you know, husband or wife, that's not helpful to kids. No. Especially if you're still for whatever reason, if if the divorce was about you and the kids are doing a custody thing or going back and forth, I can hear in my client's vocabulary sometimes, like or just in general, not even clients, but just in general. But you can hear some of the words that a kid may say that they've heard from a parent. You're like, you didn't come up with that by yourself, you know.

SPEAKER_00 9:08

For sure. But that is so that's valuable to the whole just because you get divorced, and this is taking a whole left field turn, but like just because you get divorced doesn't mean you're not not responsible for protecting your kids anymore. You know what I mean? Doesn't mean that you're not responsible for still honoring the other person in the process because there are things that um, but I just once again, I go back to, I think that's half the battle with the things that we're dealing with in this world right now, is you've got a lot of confused parents, maybe, um, hurt broken individuals that really, you know, we just can just laying back on forgiveness all day long that are raising children now. And all the everywhere we look, children are trying to find, and all of us also. I think that we all fall into this. We're all trying to find our identity in social media. We're all trying to find our identity in um, hey, how many likes did I get? Hey, who, you know, who shared my post, whatever it may be. And that's just it's just a trick of the devil, you know? And it hurts my horror. I just I fall into that often where and it's my pride kicking in, and I'm just like, man, oh, if I share this, I'll get a bunch of shares and I'll get a bunch of follows and all these different things. When what are we we have to ask ourselves, what are we doing any of this for? And if it's not for the Lord, um, I don't want to be doing it.

SPEAKER_03 10:34

Well, it goes back to just being unselfish. I mean, everything you do should be for something else greater than yourself. Um funny you say that about social media because I don't know. I'm on one of my 54 or five, three or four birthdays ago on Facebook.

SPEAKER_00 10:48

I thought you were gonna say one of my 54 followers. I was gonna be like, that's pretty good, baby.

SPEAKER_03 10:54

I I got all I got on social media. Hey man, they probably don't even have that.

SPEAKER_00 10:59

I thought you were going. I was, man, that would have been funny.

SPEAKER_03 11:02

That's about right. But I I got rid of Facebook because on my birthday, I had like 900 people say happy birthday. And I went, I know about five of these people. Like I've like talked to maybe five of these people in the last decade. And I just went, how fake is this? And I deleted Facebook. And everybody's trying to be nice, and I, you know, but I'm like, come on. I mean, this is so fake, it's so superficial. Uh and the only reason I got a Facebook back was because our business needed it to do something. I don't know, but I got it now, and I've obsessed a little bit, I'll be honest, over this podcast and the different things, you know, to see how many views and all that. But I gotta say, is that because I want to be famous or I want Jesus to be proclaimed and somebody to hear just one little thing that might make them go, oh, you know, um, I talked to a guy down at Faith Him Fream this weekend.

SPEAKER_01 11:46

Um we have to talk about that too after you.

SPEAKER_03 11:50

Yeah. I forget his name. It's he's I've accepted his friend Booker, something Booker from Alabama, truck driver. He's probably listening. He said he's gonna follow us. He did follow us right in front of me. But he said, Man, in my life, I had fallen away from the Lord so bad, and I was such a mess, and I just didn't believe in anything. And a buddy of mine told me, You should watch this podcast called Unashamed. It's Phil Robertson and his sons, and he's like, Why? Why would I watch that? They're just gonna talk about hunting. He goes, No, it's a Bible study. The guy's like, What? So he listens and he changes his life, gets baptized, and he's been straight with the Lord since. And he was telling you this, he's probably a little older than me. And he said, actually, whenever your dad passed, that he uh was like, Oh man, he's just watched it, he still watched it, but he went, you know what? I I didn't pick up on this thing for a few years. So he went back to episode one and just started watching it. So you just hope that I mean, none of us are Phil, uh, although Phil is close. Um you just hope that you impact somebody one little way to get them on track with the Lord and realizing what it is. So whatever we're doing, it it's got to be for that purpose, and that purpose has to be unselfish. So uh the likes, the thumbs up, the hearts, the comments was somebody commented, great, two fat, white, bald guys doing a podcast.

SPEAKER_00 13:03

So it was she said two fat white bald guys doing a podcast, riveting. That was the word you're not fat.

SPEAKER_03 13:13

I well, me, I could see it, but anyhow. Then you're not bald. Um, that's true. That's true. But I did notice this morning if I have to brush my hair, I need a haircut. That's kind of the the the step, the the cutoff.

SPEAKER_00 13:26

I can cut it for you. You want this haircut up here?

SPEAKER_03 13:28

But yeah, you're just trying to trying to impact people, trying to do things out of selflessness, and that's the the key to forgiveness, I would say, is is is doing that.

SPEAKER_01 13:37

And you can be selfless and point people to Jesus with your ministry or your work, whatever it is, and still care about data. Yeah. You know, still do they're still marketing people for your business. And that's that's okay.

SPEAKER_03 13:48

You gotta count the cost.

SPEAKER_01 13:49

Right. That's okay. So that again, it's like that throw the baby out with the bathwater thing. I like to I like to say that two things can be true at the same time. And it's so true. You can want to be unselfish and point people to Jesus and need data for your business or you know, in social media for business.

SPEAKER_00 14:08

Two things can be true at the same time as long as uh, you know, this is when people are involved, uh the people have to stay the uh the main thing. They it actually has to be two true truths.

SPEAKER_01 14:23

Yeah, it is it doesn't mean that truth is not black and white, it doesn't mean that truth is loosey-goosey, it just means that you can hold two things to be true at the same time. Like I forgive you, but I don't like what you did. Yeah, that's kind of what that means. Yeah. So how did you like this past weekend? This was your fourth trip, I think, to Louisiana. What how'd you think it went?

SPEAKER_03 14:43

Like Yeah, I think I've been there four, four times now. This was the best. Um, other than the 97 degrees and 185% humidity. Uh I lost seven pounds. Like I'm not lying in the five days. Um, but it was great. Uh Phyllis was able to uh uh we met for breakfast. You're a star down there. Like when you go down to Monroe, like we had two people come to the breakfast table, one person in the parking lot wanted sold two books at breakfast the first day we were there. They all knew her, they wanted pictures, and uh just a different world. People are so kind in the south.

SPEAKER_00 15:16

That's what they say. Southern Haspital are kind in the mentality, baby.

SPEAKER_03 15:20

It's just different.

SPEAKER_00 15:20

It is different.

SPEAKER_03 15:21

People are so kind and so friendly. Uh, even going to church, we went to Whites Ferry Road with them on Sunday. Um how about that singing? All acapella. I want that. Nine voices, just getting after it. Uh it's beautiful. They sing for an hour and a half. Actually, it was 40 minutes, but it was great. Uh, Pastor Al gave the message. People were just like, Where are you from? What brought you here? And it was just different. It was different. Everything was different, and it was it was wonderful. Uh, the event was great. Uh, my wife got to meet her brothers, all of them except Willie. He was out probably out of in Europe or something, who knows? But got to spend a lot of time with her brother Al's and Lisa are the greatest. Uh that they that was fun going out to dinner, doing those things, but it was just a wonderful uh environment. And meeting Miss K was was probably the highlight. Um, she's doing incredibly well. You know, there's things you hear. I heard you know, you see on social media, uh, you know, she's in horrible shape. But uh You witnessed it. Turned out don't believe the internet. No, she was spunky, she was fine. Crazy. Don't believe anything new. And her best line of the night, Phyllis said I probably should share this, is Tony and Al were talking about something, and they mentioned Hobby Lobby. And and and apparently Miss Kay just did something for Hobby Lobby. Where is it, Steve Green? Is that the guy that knows Hobby Lobby? Did her hair and made her look young again, and she just wanted to get in on that conversation to tell them that I just did something with Hobby Lobby, like up at Willie's place, and she finally just yelled at Tony and said, Tony, shut up. And everybody just the room stopped and everybody laughed, and then she said whatever she was gonna say. Exactly. But it was paying attention. It was a wonderful trip, and it was just it was refreshing to see uh a lot of people that love the Lord, love America, and uh big fans of everything that that you know that Monroe is not it's not caramel, yeah, you know, it's not Noblesville. Um Noblesville, West Monroe, it's a different area, it's it can be sketchy. A lot of people with a lot of struggles, but they I would say the Robertsons and and what they've done has impacted that community uh in a super positive way.

SPEAKER_00 17:34

Humility that's the word that comes to mind. Like I think about the South when I've like just when you get into let's say we can call the South just for the sake of the conversation, but I'm just saying in a great friend group in general, when you have a lot of humility and you have people that are willing to say, Hey, I screwed up, hey, um, you screwed up. You know what I mean? Like that iron sharpening iron thing. And so just to kind of you know take it back to um people being hurt and broken and all these different things, I humility just being able to say, Hey, I'm hurting, or I need help, or in having those people, that iron sharpening iron kind of sort of thing. Um, I just see a lot of that in um I I see a lot of that in I feel like the Robertson family where everybody was just kind of it was like like when you watch a lot of the episodes. Calling you out on something. I watch a lot of the episodes, it was like everybody's just calling everybody out, but there was just this like it was it was joking, but it was just this humility, man, and just honesty all the time. And that makes you want to be around like something about accountability just makes you want to be there. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 18:46

They're just relatable. People are like, okay, this is real life. Well, I mean, except for the reality TV show sometimes shenanigans, but yeah. The Robertsons, though, are known for being blamers, they love to put somebody at fault. So, first of all, that's a family culture, like, oh, you did that. But also, I don't I can't speak for all the other southern states. I've I did live in Mississippi for a short time for a while, but uh Louisiana culture is very like people are pretty direct usually. They're pretty just like they just they just say whatever, you know, that just kind of do whatever. Um, very free to be themselves. And so, yeah, you're more likely to get iron shop sharpening iron there, I think, than other places. But I mean, I haven't lived everywhere. I can't what about here? Y'all are in Indiana, it's way north.

SPEAKER_00 19:34

It just depends on where you're at. I mean, Indiana, um, what do you think?

SPEAKER_03 19:39

You've lived here your whole life. I live in Oklahoma where I thought people were friendly, but I was too young to even understand what that meant. Yeah. Um I think Indiana's somewhere in between. But the funny thing is, it was new to us. Yeah. And I guarantee if I sit and talk to people that are at Whites Ferry Road for years, people on the staff, they're like, they're just like y'all. Yeah. I mean, they might, it all comes off nice and they're really nice. I'm sure there's wonderful people, but under underneath those people, there's flesh and blood, and they probably sin just the same as we do and have the same struggles as we do, just when they gossip about you, it just sounds cooler. It is because they got that accent.

SPEAKER_01 20:10

Some people think that southern people are disingenuous. Yeah. They're like, oh, they just put on. You just have to know which bless your heart you're getting.

SPEAKER_00 20:17

Oh, that's new. Tell me about that. I want to know about that.

SPEAKER_01 20:19

Well, there's like bless your heart. Like, I'm actually feeling for you. Or there's like a bless her heart, like, oh, we are having a thought, maybe even judging. Or there's a well, bless your heart. And that's like that one didn't feel good. That's that's telling that person what you really think about them. You just gotta check on the inflection, the tone of the voice.

SPEAKER_00 20:39

The second one felt like we should lay hands and pray, kind of sort of thing. You know?

SPEAKER_01 20:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:43

Oh, that's funny. I um I think about um I want to go back to the uh kind of we were we kind of touched base on pathways in the brain and all these different things. And so um I let's talk about, let's jump back into the unforgiveness thing, because I think that um when we come from I don't know the best way to say it, but when we come from a this is terrible language, a sin culture, I don't know, where you're just kind of living in sin, you're choosing, you come from uh, you know, maybe a family that's not necessarily you're not going to church all the time, you're doing you have bad habits, all these different things, and you're picking up on um things that you're watching your dad doing, things that you're watching your mom doing, and so those things are becoming natural to you. And so then you see those things in other people from way far away, and you start to, you know, kind of form this preconceived notion about somebody when you see them, so you're already harboring um unforgiveness. All the hurt that you have is just coming out on these other people. Um, I think that the thing I want to say there is the sin that we've walked through or the things that we've watched other people do, it breaks us more than we think. It takes us into this place in our brain where we're now acting out of those places all the time, and it becomes a defense. Defense mechanism. Like it becomes this thing where somebody could say the wrong thing to you, triggered. Somebody looks at you wrong, triggered. Why? Because somebody used to look at you like that that hurt you back in the day. And so let's dive into that a little bit because let's start with our thoughts. Because I got um the three three things that are big or the four things that are big to me, you know, your thoughts, what you what you think, what you see, what you say, and the things that you feel in your heart. So let's start with our thoughts. Like when we talk about because I think that you can speak to this probably better than anybody else. When your mind wonders, because of the things that you've walked through, what is the best way to fix that?

SPEAKER_01 22:42

Yeah, that's a big question. That's yeah, I know I went like more than a podcast, but um, the way that um I do I do CBT, so that's cognitive behavioral therapy. And so my big thing is we have a cognitive triangle. How does how do your uh thoughts affect how you feel that affect what you do? And it doesn't have to go in that order. Sometimes we react emotionally before we do something, sometimes we act with an action before we even think or feel what we're feeling. So what happens often when people have gone through a hard, you know, they come from a hard place, they begin to pick up some uh faulty thinking or cognitive distortions if you want to get real nerdy, right? Distorted ways of thinking. And also some really deeply held core beliefs that are not helpful or negative, like I can't trust anybody. That would be, you know, a a negative core belief. But then, like your faulty thinking is like I'll use an easy example. Um let me think. Okay, so your your mama tells you to clean your room, right? And if you have faulty thinking of making a mountain out of a molehill, right? You go into that room and you're like, oh, it's gonna take forever. This is the worst ever. And so that is gonna make you feel what? Overwhelmed, you know, hopeless, angry, angry. And so that action may be not even trying. So a parent is like, it's just your room, just go clean it up. Well, a kid is feeling overwhelmed and they're seeing a mountain where there's a mohill. So what do you do about that? Sometimes it's just a matter of correcting the thinking. Like, okay, let's look at this logically. If you're if you're feeling okay, you're not dysregulated, if you're not, if you haven't flipped your lid, right? You can think about things logically. Yeah, that's coming from the front of your brain. Um so that's usually kind of easy to redirect. You know, and it's as simple as going in and we're right now I'm talking about a kid, but you go in there with them and you just kind of talk to them and visit. You're not doing the work for them.

SPEAKER_02 24:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:44

Don't clean the room for him, but be like, hey, I wonder l I wonder if you just started with your shoes.

SPEAKER_02 24:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:49

Or what about sorting his laundry or whatever? So that would be an easy way to fix things.

SPEAKER_00 24:56

But those that right there, what you just said, do you do you think that that's a reason that, you know, counseling or therapy or having somebody that you can talk to on a consistent basis is so important because a lot of people, you know, there are a lot of people that struggle with these things. They get stuck in their ways, let's just call it that, and um, their habits are not healthy, but they actually can't even think clearly enough to make that small decision. Hey, I know it sounds crazy because it feels like you're talking childish, but I know that I've been in some situations where I could have had somebody say, Hey, right, let's just put your shoes on. Or let's just put your shoes away.

SPEAKER_01 25:38

A therapist can be supportive. A therapist can also point that out, like, hey, I think you're looking at this in a in a in a way that's not super helpful.

SPEAKER_02 25:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:45

Another one is um like disqualifying the positive. And so you do something really great, but you're unhealthy thinking is well, that was great, but I made an A on that paper, but look, I made a C in this class. So we just have this way of thinking about things that are so unhelpful. Yeah. And sometimes it's just pointing those things out. And that's just one easy way of kind of connecting that triangle of thoughts and behaviors and and and feelings. And and another thing is you can't really look at things honestly if you don't name what the emotion is, and we are not great at that. Like, how is that actually making you feel? We know what we want to do, throat punch somebody. We know why because we don't like what they said, but we're not kind of looking inward and saying, like, why is that bothering you? Yeah, there's something there. Yeah. I've if you really think about it, and if you were to come to a place where, okay, I get it, I feel disrespected. So when you're able to say I feel disrespected, you can do a whole lot of self-awareness and soul searching. Like, where's that coming from? Which kind of goes to your point of you're raised this way, and you don't even recognize that like disrespect was a big deal in your family. Maybe somebody disrespected you early on, and now you it's a f it's just a trigger. Like that's where that kind of comes from, like thinking about guns. Like it's so easy to just flip that switch and now suddenly you're disrespectful you feel disrespected. And it may that person may have said something disrespectful, but a person who's healthy and they've dealt with this hurt or injury from the past can be disrespected and be okay, yeah, and be an adult and handle themselves correctly. But when someone's like, Oh, they disrespected me, well, you get what you give. You disrespect me, I'm gonna disrespect you. That's not grown up.

SPEAKER_03 27:35

And it used to become that's not grace. It used to be it used to be in our in our younger days, you know, you'd get disrespected and you'd mouth off something back, maybe you'd shove somebody, maybe not, maybe you'd have a fist fight, maybe not. Now it's just and you hear about all these shootings. Uh Indianapolis has tons of them, big cities all have tons of them, and most of them I've heard heard uh reports on this, and I've heard, you know, sheriffs and things give give studies on these things, and most of them are just senseless little dumb arguments that turn around with somebody pulling a gun on somebody uh and shooting them. And and I think that that's that's it. It's just we don't know how we don't know how to take criticism, we don't know how to take uh mistreatment, we don't, you know, we we all have a lot of pride and it's just that's that's the catchy thing, uh the tricky thing, and it's really interesting and and again reading the book and listening to Phyllis talk, even driving back from Louisiana for 11 hours.

SPEAKER_01 28:31

We start talking about our kids and Can you imagine being trapped in a car with me for 11 hours?

SPEAKER_00 28:35

I would but she but she I I would ask people the same thing. Can you imagine being with me for 11 hours later?

SPEAKER_01 28:42

No, eleven hours later than eleven.

SPEAKER_03 28:46

We're flesh and we're spirit if we have the Holy Spirit. Yeah. But why not learn as much as we can about the flesh? It just hit me as you're talking. Like, why not learn and study the flesh? The flesh is pretty easy to figure out because it ain't changing. It's it's been the flesh for thousands of years. The spirit can make radical changes to the flesh. I'm getting way out here. I don't know where I'm going. But but if you study the flesh and you understand we're not, it's not the smartest and it reacts a certain way, and it just does know it's almost almost uh binary where you do this, you do this, you do this, I react this way. So why not learn learn how that is and and fix it? And I, you know, again, 54 years old, I've seen it. I've seen arguments with my wife that used to go to mock 10 to where now just one little subtle adjustment. A lot of it is just me not getting as offended right away. Yeah. Even if I see her getting amped up, for me just to be a little less amped up, suddenly it just kind of fades out. So you why not learn how to deal with our tendencies? Because we all have them. We all are made of flesh, we're all gonna act that way. Why not learn that and then trust this God's spirit? And there are moments after the flesh, the flesh rears its ugly head that my wife and I can sit down and have a discussion, uh spiritual discussion with the Lord and kind of kind of almost look back over, you know, reviewing game film of what just happened and why that why that play didn't work and why this one did. I think those things matter a lot. And and it's it's a can constant evolution, it's a constant learning uh curve. And then then once you get your marriage going pretty well, then you got your kids, then you got your grandkids, then you got your co-workers. But all this stuff, if you think about the study of understanding why are you this way, um if I can understand why Chandler jumped around on the stage when he sings worship songs? And I had a bad impression of you. And you didn't like it. Based on nothing. It was based on other people. You didn't like me because they worship the Lord well.

SPEAKER_01 30:47

He jumps around. Well, again, based on other you've seen it using that disingenuous thing. It wasn't him. No, it's all the things that you brought in. A lot of problems, preconceived notions, preconceived notions, the stuff that you'd seen before, because perhaps you did see where it was like this is all a show. Yeah, and now if they don't know it's a rhythm in the big characters, like I I kind of make fun of it, but well, I better not say all that. But anyway, there's a certain way people perform. Yeah, I'm I'm just gonna, I guess I will just say it, baby. That's what we're doing. Come on, just say exchange this conviction. Like, if you are general, like genuinely like David, just reckless abandoning getting out there and and worshiping the Lord, then awesome. That's so great. But if you're doing like this is how we operate on the platform, and you go forward and you move back and you move forward and you move back robotic, and they're all doing the same exact thing, it makes me question. Now, that's not my job, and we don't need to be just trying to judge people. I get that, but again, we're flesh and bone, and some stuff is just off-putting, and it could be in my age, it could be in my culture, but sometimes you just don't like something. So you probably brought that in and you saw Chandler who was just up there living his best life, loving the Lord and praising the Lord and was not put on at all, and then but you've gotten to know him and you've you know corrected the error of your ways. But it's just but yeah, but that but also, you know, maybe you don't like smoke fog machines.

SPEAKER_03 32:15

Yeah, you know, not a big fan.

SPEAKER_01 32:17

Not a big fan, yeah. Me either. But some people love that and they are attracted to that. Not that churches need to necessarily be secret friendly, but at the same time, like data, right? Data and and you know, social media. Sometimes when you use something to attract people, you know, it's because they're their age and their generation, they like that, even though I think the younger folks now are getting away from that level.

SPEAKER_00 32:39

Oh, they're definitely getting away from it. I I think I said this.

SPEAKER_01 32:42

I'm happy about that.

SPEAKER_00 32:42

I am too. I and I which I wasn't maybe six months ago, but I've kind of gone on a journey, and it's like when you build something off of attraction, you have to keep people something, or if you attract people from, you know, attraction, whatever you want to call it, if you attract people with experience, sorry, that's the right language. You attract people with experience, you have to keep people with experience. And you've got this weird um push and pull. And I think I the the thing that frustrates me the most, not even just about, you know, churches with smoke and lights and people leading worship the way that they do. I don't like it when I ask somebody, hey, why do you do this this way or whatever, and you don't have a why. I think that's my biggest thing as a man, too, as an individual in any environment that I'm in. If I don't know the why and I can't get behind the why, then I'm just not gonna do it. And I'm good with it. I'm not mad. It's just right where I'm at in my life. I just need to know the why behind what we're doing. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_03 33:40

Yeah, and I think I think that it just makes sense. And it's a lot easier to get behind something and get your heart into it if you really understand the purpose behind it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:47

If you told somebody, if you told like if somebody came in and said, Hey, I don't like the lights and I don't like the fog. Well, hey, listen, this is the why behind this, and whether or not they you know receive that, you're giving them the honest answer, and they're just like, you know what, then this isn't the place for me. That's okay. But I think that's where we miss sometimes, not just in the body of Christ, but in businesses in different places when you have customers or whoever it is asking, what's the why? If you don't have people on your team, everybody hear me when I say, if you don't have people on your team that don't know the why behind the things that they're being asked to lead or do, it's a big old problem. Sorry, we went on left field. I do want to tell you a story really fast. Tell you guys a story. Let's talk about uh you talked about uh getting punched in the throat one time.

SPEAKER_01 34:38

Well, I didn't get punched in the throat. No, no, no.

SPEAKER_00 34:40

I'm saying you just mentioned it wanting to punch punch something with somebody trying to punch me in the throat. When I was uh when I was in sixth grade, and I'll call him out right now, Tyler Perry, if you're listening to this. I know that guy. Wait, no, yeah, not the guy who makes the movie. Filmmaker? No, not that guy.

SPEAKER_01 34:56

That's some funny like Madea.

SPEAKER_00 34:59

Oh, that's a funny show.

SPEAKER_01 35:00

Oh, I love meeting some Madea. That's funny.

SPEAKER_00 35:03

I uh so I was sticking up for this kid because he was bullying him in the middle of the uh hallway. And I said, and it was Zach, and Zach was you know saying something. Tyler was bullying him, pushing him around. I said, Hey man, you can't talk to him like that. He straight up looked at me, wasn't a throat punch, karate chopped my Adam's apple, dropped me straight into the fetal position in the middle of the hallway. Just my friends got around me and they're like, leave him alone, and I'm just like on the ground, can't breathe. It was pretty cool.

SPEAKER_03 35:32

Did he learn this? Like, was he in karate or something or just lucky?

SPEAKER_00 35:35

Nope, just straight up looked. I don't know what came over him. He just gave you one of these and he just right out of it.

SPEAKER_01 35:41

I think he'd practiced that somewhere.

SPEAKER_00 35:43

Had to. If he was like, This is my chance. The Judy Chow.

SPEAKER_01 35:46

He'd been waiting for a long time.

SPEAKER_00 35:48

We were watching karate kid. That was probably right when it came out.

SPEAKER_01 35:51

No, only if he had lifted up his hands and raised one foot.

SPEAKER_00 35:55

If somebody does that, you run. If somebody looks at you and you go to fight them and they sit there and they do the whole praying mantis shows, you gotta go. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:04

Unless it's Sean.

SPEAKER_03 36:05

Uh if I do it, you better do, because I don't know what's going on. I can't put my I'll tell you, we're getting way off topic here, but I I I figured out when you know you're out of shape is when you put your boots on in the morning and when you're done, you look like you just did a CrossFit workout. I'm sucking wind, I'm taking a knee. Something's got to get something's bad, man.

SPEAKER_00 36:28

So I'm with you.

SPEAKER_03 36:29

I'm like, I'm like, I get pedicures anymore. So if I tried to cut my own toenails, I'd be a I don't know how I would do that. Pedicures. Yeah, is that not a thing? Is that true?

SPEAKER_00 36:42

Would it be weird if like you know you saw two guys just we were just going out and getting pedicures? We should. You want to?

SPEAKER_01 36:49

Only if you invite Tony. He wants to the two guys going and getting it done, weird. But add the third, cool.

SPEAKER_03 36:58

Yeah, I agree. I go alone. Me or with my wife, but let's move on.

SPEAKER_00 37:02

Yeah, that would be crazy to see. So speaking about like seeing things, and the sin always breaks us more than we think it does.

SPEAKER_01 37:10

He's trying to try to redeem this conversation.

SPEAKER_00 37:14

I'm telling you what, I'm gonna forgive you guys for taking me into left field. And it's really right field because right field is just not fun, anyways. No, I'm having a lot of fun. But we talk about the things that we see too, right? Like the things that we consume in this world. Um, I just want I I really am curious to get both of your opinions because I love um just kind of gleaning um for people that have been there, done that in different scenarios. Like in the world of because I'm in a unique spot where when I was young, um we all of a sudden had dial-up. You guys remember dial-up? Come on, some bike.

SPEAKER_03 37:50

I had my own bulletin board site on my Commodore 64. Dude. It was awesome.

SPEAKER_00 37:54

My uh uh my tag on Instant Messenger when I logged on, it was like sharpshooter, you know, because I was a basketball player. I just thought I was the coolest thing in the world. Parents yelling at you because you can't use the phone. Um anyways, that's completely off topic. Um, but all I didn't get a whole lot of it my whole life, but you guys have kind of watched um raise kids, like all these um different scenarios where kids are everything is at the at their fingertips. Everything. And so their eyes are um jaded. Is that the right word? Is that the word that I'm looking for?

SPEAKER_01 38:30

Yeah, and I thought about it earlier when you said something that about seeker-friendly type churches. You'd get down to like a stripped-down worship service, and people could be underwhelmed, and that's their gain is so high. So this maybe maybe you can actually explain this from the audiovisual side of it.

SPEAKER_00 38:49

I like where you're going. I think I'm a strapian. I like this.

SPEAKER_01 38:52

So, you know how you can just turn up the gain. There's something about volume you can turn up, and slowly and slowly and slowly, and that's what they're used to. And really, what it comes down to is like their levels of dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, all of that stuff. You're you've got these brain chemicals happening. And where they're getting, and you can apply this to men with pornography or people with pornography, children with screens, uh, people even with like exercise, like you eat food, yeah. But when you get your gain is so high, anything less than that is underwhelming. That's a great like why can't a kid transition from a screen to go outside? Like, that's not giving them dopamine hits like that screen just was. So their gain gets so high, and and that that's also um why some kids who've been in hard places it's hard to discipline them sometimes because if they're used to getting smacked across the room and you're like, Johnny, use your words. Okay. What are you exactly trying to accomplish? Because that's doing nothing because their gain is so high.

SPEAKER_03 40:00

That's interesting. So there's there's a threshold set there. There's a if you don't at least get to this threshold, you're not even impacting what's going on. That's I never thought of it that way. But that that is probably true with worship. And it's funny, I know we know we want to get into these subjects right now, but I've really been reflecting and wondering what is church supposed to be? Like, what is church supposed to be? And is it supposed to be I think everybody, you know, some people like music, some people want an a cappella, some people want nothing, some people want to just hear a message. Yeah. Um, but what does God really intend for the modern day church to be? And I I don't know. I really don't know. And I'm I've been reflecting on that and trying to discern that. And and I think you're right. If people, I want this. Well, I ain't going to that church anymore because they don't have this. Well, I ain't going there because they don't have the right children's ministry. Well, their youth group is not good enough. Well, you you you I almost said the B word. They complain about public schools because the public schools are trying to indoctrinate certain things, so I'm going to homeschool my kids. Well, this the a lot of people will say, well, just send them to public school. It's your job as a parent to teach them those biblical values at home. They could persevere through public school if they're being taught right at home, but yet you want to go to church, you want the church to do all that for you. Where we had the discussion on the way home about kids in church down at White Spring Road, there's a lot of kids in the in the sanctuary. A lot of crying kids, some of them. A lot of kids in there. Is that right or wrong? Should they be over somewhere in a Bible study or not? Or should they be in there learning how to be disciplined to be set through a a respectable church service and and be reverent?

SPEAKER_01 41:34

And what did we talk about that for like probably 45 minutes at least? About kids in sanctuaries. Yeah. It was a great conversation. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 41:42

And it makes you think like, why are we asking so much of the church to do all these things? And then the church is trying to fulfill them all. We want to have 45 different programs, and we're going to have this group and that group and this go team, or I guess that's what the ark churches do.

SPEAKER_02 41:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 41:56

Um when is it just about coming together on Sunday, worshiping the Lord together with your fellow believers, singing songs of praise to God, learning something great, how to be better, how to apply it. And the rest of the what what is there? Um 168 hours in a week. So the you spend an hour, hour and a half in church. What about that other time? That's the time we should be building into our kids. Absolutely. So it's really making me think, I don't know where I've got off with this, but um everybody wants everybody to do everything for them.

SPEAKER_00 42:25

Like, and that's the world that we've created. We've created this world of easy, of one click, even with AI. It's like, oh, figure this out for me. And it does it just like that. It's made me lazy in different ways. People expect the same crap from the church. And I'm sorry to say it like that. I said crap. Can you believe it? But it makes me so it upsets me because I I've had so many conversations where it's like, you're not doing the church isn't doing this, you're not doing this, your minute kill children's ministry is not doing this, and this, this, this, and this. And it's like, okay, I'm gonna ask you a really hard question here, but like you know, when you come back to somebody after they give you all these grievances, and you're just like, well, what does what does your life look like during the week? Because you're mad.

SPEAKER_03 43:05

Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, that's all we're talking about.

SPEAKER_00 43:07

But you're mad because your child is being removed from the church program or the kids' room when in all reality that discipline should have started five years ago at home, or whatever it may be. So we talk about the threshold, uh, all these different things. So for parents, this is super valuable information in general, but it's because everybody feels like everything is unfair. They want everybody wants the right to do everything that they want to do, and the world's supposed to give it to them, and there's nobody's allowed to question it.

SPEAKER_01 43:35

Offended by everything and responsible for nothing.

SPEAKER_00 43:38

Oh, say it again.

SPEAKER_01 43:40

Offended by everything, responsible for nothing.

SPEAKER_03 43:43

Write it down. We could get a shirt that says that.

SPEAKER_00 43:45

I'm telling you, the world, and that might be why forgiveness is so difficult for some people, is because they're like, but it's not fair. It's not well, guess what? Here's what my dad used to say the only fair that we know comes around once a year, and we don't even go. To it.

SPEAKER_03 44:01

That's about true.

SPEAKER_00 44:03

You know, he was talking about the uh the Mad Night or the Madison County 4-H Fair back in the day. You remember that bad boy?

SPEAKER_03 44:09

Anderson Anderson Free Fair?

SPEAKER_00 44:11

Oh, yeah. Back in the day. Oh, dude. Dude. Yeah. Remember the Midnight Parade? Yes. Oh, come on. Yes. Or the Indiana State Fair, whatever it is. You guys got fairs and parades? I'm assure you guys got okay.

SPEAKER_01 44:22

Well, Louisiana State Fair, but parades? Oh. We're the winners.

SPEAKER_00 44:25

Oh, I guarantee it.

SPEAKER_01 44:26

Yeah. Marty Girl. Think about it. Oh, yeah. And that's not just happening in New Orleans. Like there's parades all over the state.

SPEAKER_00 44:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:35

Yeah. So what when we talk about though back to the unforgiveness, it's like I loved what you said. It feels like when you forgive somebody, somebody feels like they're being weak for it. Somebody feels like they're letting somebody off the hook. When in all reality, it actually takes more strength to forgive somebody and you think you're weak. It takes so much strength to be able to keep, and it it takes a lot of strength too to be able to keep somebody's arm's length. That's actually maturity to be able to say, hey, look, I love you, but like you're bringing me down.

SPEAKER_01 45:03

Now you're talking about setting boundaries. That's another whole topic. Communication skills, gotta learn that. If you're gonna hold somebody at a distance or be able to, like, as adults use your words and not your fists or whatever, gun, whatever you pick up, you've got to have communication skills. So there's a whole it it sounds so simple. Just forgive, even if it doesn't mean you're okay with it, just forgive them. And okay, but then what? Like they've got to be able to have a conversation with somebody.

SPEAKER_03 45:30

It's tough. I went through this with my wife, and and and I don't know, we'll get in the story someday. But the way my wife and Phyllis met is my wife had the DNA story too. It reminds me of sharing this. But you know, we found out that she'd been lied to and it was just a mess. But through that process, my wife and her mom had a bad falling out. You know, her mom really never kind of said, Hey, uh, sorry, this happened. You know, it was just it was, I won't get into the details, but it wasn't good. They could never quite work through it until the last day. Um, but I really tried to coach my wife up on that, like, hey, it's gonna be easier just to forgive and err on the side of forgiveness. And she had a hard time with that. And she did if she did forgive, but the reconciliation, which is what the next step would be of having that relationship where all of a sudden, hey, we're back over for Thanksgiving, we're back, we're hanging out, we're calling each other. That's just that's not didn't happen. You know, uh forgiveness is one thing, but the reconciliation is another. And it's you try to coach them up, but at the same time, I'm like, I have no idea how she really feels. You know, I have no idea in her heart how she really feels. And uh that's the beauty of meeting Phyllis is Phyllis did. Phyllis knew exactly how she felt. So that friend, and and whether, and honestly, uh it just coincidentally, she happened to be a therapist, she happened to, you know, be able to get into her brain. I remember the first dinner we had where Marita said something, and Phyllis started asking questions, and Tony looked at me and goes, Here she goes. It's but to have that, whether it's a friend or you know, uh, as much as you try to get your brothers to admit this the other day on the podcast on their podcast, therapy's okay. Find the right person that asks the right questions to help you identify things, and you'll learn to forgive. Yeah. I mean, I've forgiven some pretty bad things that happened to me in my life and my marit first marriage and and all these things. And uh it's so freeing. It's freeing to sit here and go, I don't care anymore. Yeah, like I don't it doesn't hurt me. Matter of fact, I feel bad for I love them and I hope that that everything works out great for those that hurt me. I want them, I want the best for them, and it does it's not I wouldn't even say there's a thread hanging on. It's just gone.

SPEAKER_01 47:36

Praying for other people, by the way, when you're feeling like not ready to forgive, it's actually pretty powerful. Yeah, it is. And it it just I'm not saying it makes things easier or faster, but it really does somehow help you see in your mind and in your heart you're giving that over to God.

unknown 47:52

Right.

SPEAKER_00 47:53

You could still really adjust it. You know, we live in our heads. Let's just call it what it is. We live in our heads, and so when we let, you know, all these thoughts uh that's a part of submitting every thought and making it captive to the Lord.

SPEAKER_01 48:09

You're humbling yourself to the Lord and not to that other person. That's and that's kind of the hard part, I think, goes back to that disrespect. That's what we do. Humble yourself to another person who's hurt you, that does not feel good, but you humble yourself to the Lord. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 48:24

And that's so um as we wrap up this last episode or this last episode. No, not the last episode. The one we're in right now. This episode, yeah. Okay, episode four. Which by the way, um I think Phyllis is just gonna hang out with us. Um you're gonna just keep hanging out with us on the podcast.

SPEAKER_01 48:41

Yeah, no big deal. Just several hours away.

SPEAKER_00 48:44

Several hours away. If we have to, we will zoom you in. But you know what? We will we'll just come and pick you up every time. We'll send an Uber. Is that a thing from that far away?

SPEAKER_03 48:52

Uber. Four and a half hour Uber.

SPEAKER_00 48:54

Four and a half hour Uber, maybe. Who cares?

SPEAKER_03 48:55

Something tells me ride it off. I don't know. She's gotta add a little bit to my our podcast over this us two bald fat white guys.

SPEAKER_00 49:01

This is that's insane. So I just want everybody to know as we close that a lot of times forgiveness feels like you're you know you're weak for forgiving somebody or you're letting them off the hook, whatever it is. What I wrote down was this forgiveness isn't pretending nothing happened, it's refusing to let what happened continue controlling you. And to me, that's you write that yourself. I did write that phenomenal. So to me, um, that's real strength is to not allow something to continue to control you because if it controls you, you're actually giving them way more power than they need to have, and we ain't gonna do any of that because the only one that needs all the power is Jesus Christ. Come on, somebody, we love you, Lord. Uh, we didn't start this episode with a prayer, so I'm gonna go ahead and pray us out real quick, and uh we'll see you all next week. Jesus, thank you for how amazing you are. We love you. It's such an honor and a privilege, Lord God, to um get the opportunity to just um speak about you and sit here and hopefully get better. We love you. It's such an honor, once again, Jesus. It's in your heavenly name we pray, and everybody said Amen. Amen. Hey, thank you so much for joining us on this week's episode of the Conviction Exchange. My name is Chandler. Sean.

SPEAKER_01 50:21

I'm Phyllis.

SPEAKER_00 50:22

We love you guys.