Navigate Podcast
Welcome to Navigate, we are two long term friends doing life and ministry together. I got tired of the same ole answers when I started looking for help when it came to my walk with God. So together we go deeper than most would on topics that most people have heard or were taught but never fully understood. It is our way of simplifying concepts that we may have over complicated throughout our lives. Bringing theology and life experience into each episode. It is our hope and desire to help Navigate your Christian walk with you
Navigate Podcast
Defining Heroism in the Modern Era: A Dialogue on Role Models, Inner Struggles, and Moral Journeys
Ever wondered what truly defines a hero in today's world? Join Justin and me as we dissect the modern landscape of role models, drawing parallels between legendary figures like Superman and Batman, and the qualities that make a hero both admirable and attainable. We navigate through the fascinating dynamics of heroes and villains, addressing our natural wariness of perceived perfection and the influence these characters have on our own aspirations and values.
Our dialogue traverses the profound depths of the inner struggle and the Hero's Journey, invoking insights from Jung and Dostoevsky to Christ. We critically assess the impact of rewriting seminal narratives, like those in the Star Wars saga, and discuss the contentious terrain of gender-neutral parenting, pondering whether there's an inherent design that shapes us. This episode is an exploration of the shifting cultural and spiritual paradigms that challenge traditional heroism and the essence of our personal journeys.
what's up guys? Welcome back to navigate. I'm with justin. What's up, man? I thought about it too much. I thought about it. I'm like, all right, I'm gonna do this just fine and, uh, no one day tim, we might do a professional podcast, but today is not that day you just get this yeah, we're striving towards. No, we're not. No, suck. No, don't change. I don't want to.
Speaker 2:I'm in right now yep, that's why I'm here, so I can be myself.
Speaker 1:You know, it's very true yeah, I mean mostly, you know mostly you get less quotes people you should know that. Less movie quotes. Yeah, yeah, very true actually. All right, dude, you brought up man. That was a long time ago actually, kind of how much you hated Superman. So today's topic is DeSignal.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, Okay, I do my kids now coincidentally or not so much, I guess, also hate Superman. And I sat down and I watched Superman the Henry Cavill one, yeah, tim, what's the one with General Zod, man of Steel? Okay, I sat down and I watched it with my son Bennett, and he's like Dad, I don't hate Superman as much now.
Speaker 1:I was like yeah, it's okay, it's pretty legit.
Speaker 2:It's okay, it was good. Yeah, I can't stand Superman, tim. What about it?
Speaker 1:People look up well, so this whole conversation kind of started because you were talking about role models and how we need to be cautious on who we kind of look up to and then you brought up Superman and then that was kind of the end of the conversation because you got a phone call. Okay, I'll be right back. He never came back. Okay, that sounds about right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, so it turns out that there's kind of archetypical people. You know what I mean. Okay, so, like Superman is one hero and the person that we always love to compare him to is Jesus, no, but yes that I was going to say Batman.
Speaker 1:There's always this kind of ongoing we have.
Speaker 2:Clark Kent, who is the news guy. He plays everything, super low profile, but basically has godlike superpowers, yeah, yeah. And then you have Batman, who is the super rich, crazy, whatever, but has no superpowers and just goes out and gets the absolute crap beat out of him. You know what I mean, yeah, and if you're going to be, if you're going to look up to a particular person, I think the goal would be to find someone that you can kind of relate to. Right, like we look for people, I think that we feel like we can connect with. Like we look for people, I think that we feel like we can connect with and this should scare us a little bit today, because the role models and the archetypes that are being presented to individuals now are not great. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:Like in the 1950s, you have Batman. You're like everyone is like, yeah, kill the bad guy. Or actually, I'm sorry, Don't kill the bad guy. Batman would never kill anyone, he would only put him in jail. Um, and then you, you have like this you know the all the bad guys are clearly bad guys and all the good guys are clearly good guys, and as time goes on, we're slowly, um, morphing those two together more and more and more, until the point where, the more shows and movies you watch, the bad guy looks more and more like the good guy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, or more relatable, yeah yeah, it's more realistic, right, oh yeah.
Speaker 2:He just misunderstood.
Speaker 1:That's why he's like this.
Speaker 2:We had a conversation about this, I think, at one point where we were talking about Thanos. Right, and he's almost better. You know, it's like the villains are almost more attractive to us at this point because they resemble some of the frustration and difficulty we have with what's going on. Some of this, I think, is built on a deep distrust we have for things that look put together. At this point, when you see somebody who's doing a great job or who seems like they're put together, there's always something in you that's like where's your flaw, where's your error?
Speaker 1:Or somebody that you actually know very well, and people are looking up to them like if you only knew, if you only knew.
Speaker 2:You know, if you only knew what a terrible person they are, I could tear that guy apart in front of your eyes. That's hilarious. I talk to people about you a lot, actually. There you go, tell them. Tell them anytime. I don't tell them anything, don't get me wrong. You let them know. You tell them all my things, but I could bring Justin down a couple of notches if you want me to, if you want to, yeah, let me tell you about his past.
Speaker 1:You don't have to go far, people, I have not and will not ever do that, because that was a different time.
Speaker 2:But I mean, I think at some point we should do a podcast on it. It would probably be good. That would be fun. Yeah, we'll call it the laundry podcast.
Speaker 1:Get it all out there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the reason I like Batman is because I think he resembles something that is worth striving for. I don't like Superman because he is not. So he's unobtainable if we don't like him. I think he's an unrelatable character who's not actually doing anything cool, because he's essentially being imagine having all the superpowers on the planet and all this different stuff and all this. Nobody can beat him. There is no defeat for Superman. What is there? Kryptonite and there's Kryptonite.
Speaker 1:He's dead a couple of times.
Speaker 2:I mean only recently.
Speaker 1:That never happened in the past Doomsday killed him. Yeah Well, this is my point. I'm not trying to get nerdy here.
Speaker 2:The newer comics you have, the more and more they're willing to kill the good guy and the hero and do those things. The older comics, that stuff never happens. Very true, right? All I'm saying is in our day and age there's kind of these melding of the two things now. So now we're actually combining evil and good and we're actually making evil look more and more moral. Yeah, I was, even I was watching a or makes sense. Well, I think a lot of art now is misdirection. Like the goal is to get people to think things and then get them to be surprised that they thought it. You know, like, oh man, there's so many things that like I'm trying to think that we could talk through or explain. I remember watching a clip from the new Joker video you know what I'm talking about when he's on like the new set and he shoots the guy.
Speaker 1:Oh, the new the movie yeah.
Speaker 2:And it's like they they made it. They took you to a place where you are happy that a guy in a clown suit who is morally repugnant shot the guy who is telling the clown that he was morally repugnant.
Speaker 1:They did that. They got you rooting for him.
Speaker 2:They found a way to get you to root for evil. That's what they did. And then you're sitting there and you're enjoying the movie because you realize they're bringing something out of you that you're surprised at. You know what I mean, and it's like that's not a good thing, and one we should realize. You're being catechized. You know what I mean. You're being taught something. What's worse is that there's a lot of people that don't notice that that's something that's going on in their heart, who are being programmed. You know what I mean. And then we wonder why weird things happen and people do really shady things. We're like, oh my gosh, how did this happen?
Speaker 1:Well, let's talk about that. But things like the Joker, so he's famous because people like him a lot yeah, but I don't hear people wanting to be like him.
Speaker 2:That's not true at all. That is not true at all.
Speaker 1:I don't know about that one.
Speaker 2:Tim, do you?
Speaker 1:He's a psychopath, but the whole point of bringing that up is try to bring it back into real life a little bit I mean how do we know those types of things that we're being forced to think?
Speaker 2:Well, you are what you eat, right? Yeah, and I think some of the conversation or maybe where we can take this is the reality that we are supposed to be coming like something and if you don't know who you're supposed to become like, you end up looking at certain things and finding things that you're attracted to in that and then becoming that. Right, there's a I mean we get into Rene Girard a little bit. I mean I always want to recommend his book I See Satan Fall Like Lightning, which is really good. He's got another book called Sacrifice that I think is fantastic for you guys. That like a nice dose of philosophy with a lot of anthropology mixed in. It's a fantastic read. But it just basically explains the tendency for people and why they do a lot of the things that they do.
Speaker 2:But I would say most people have been programmed to worship. This is kind of a biblical perspective okay, that God makes people who are looking to worship and the way that we worship is to become like the thing that we actually love or care about or think is praiseworthy. And you said a second ago, I don't think people want to be like the Joker. And I would say actually, I think if you look at our world, I would say more and more and more people want to be just like the Joker. I want to live in an insane lifestyle. I want to do the things that I want to do. I want to come up with my own sense of right and wrong. I want to stick it to the system I want to be. You know what I mean? There's a lot of messy characteristics that can be found in the Joker. Certainly it hasn't culminated in the fullness of what that is, although I did see someone down in Longmont the other day in full clown garb. Thank you, icp, for the damage that you have done to society.
Speaker 2:But is that not a symbol of exactly what we're talking about? I mean, there's been writings on this. You got Jung writing on, you know, I think it's the shadow man. You got Dostoevsky writing similar kinds of. You know books on the guy who lives, you know kind of under the street and what it is.
Speaker 2:And it's this symbolism for the thing that's inside of you that you have to confront. That's not good, and if you don't deal with that, then it ends up becoming something that overtakes you and you lose control of who you are. And now the biblical picture here is yeah, I can pretend for a long time because I have a conscience that I'm a good person, but if I don't actually fundamentally get changed, born again to become a new person, eventually that thing is going to come out, and the more all the evil that I've been holding back only grows until I have an opportunity where it no longer benefits me to be civil. Look at every monstrous thing that's happened across the globe.
Speaker 2:It's like you remove the restrainers on people and it gets crazy, like really fast, and it's like well, it asks the question what is holding society together? What? What holds things together when people could you know? And you have movies like the purge you know what I mean and people like great movie, you know. I think we could use something like that and I'm like all that says to me is you have something inside you that is not healthy and not good and you have a lot that you're not bringing to God or dealing with.
Speaker 1:So I've heard that. I've also heard the Dwight from the office saying it's like we need another plague. Too many people on this earth.
Speaker 2:It's like, yeah, as long as you're the one who gets to live yeah, right, yeah, I mean yeah and uh and uh, coronavirus came from bats, right?
Speaker 1:but anyways, talking about like heroes and stuff though, like how do we know who we could? Is it only the people we can connect with that we're able?
Speaker 2:to learn from. So are you familiar with the hero's journey tim? Yeah, this kind of story, that's all stories.
Speaker 1:Which one the poor kid in a farm who a wizard shows up to and says you're the chosen one, Follow me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean. It's basically the call to adventure not wanting to take the call, but having to anyways, finding the person in your life that is going to help shape you to be the person you're supposed to making decision that I'm actually going to do it confronting enemies, dealing with your inner struggle at the same time that you're dealing with the external struggle, you eventually get to this place where it's like now I'm, you know I'm I'm actually becoming the man that I'm supposed to be Usually.
Speaker 2:Somewhere in there there's a girl that comes in alongside this person to help them to achieve the thing that they were supposed to. It's the hero's journey. It's this story that's all stories. The story really is culminated in Christ. He is the ultimate picture of what that's supposed to look like, and I would say every great story that's been written is written onto the heart of every person for what we were supposed to be. And it's this picture of the desire in us to confront our disconnect with God, to actually put that thing to death, to become what we were always meant to be, that we might have the reward, which is not just external glory but internal character and conviction that matches the glory that is revealed, because it's not disingenuous.
Speaker 2:There's something about disingenuous riches that is just repugnant to us, right, we know that somebody might have a lot of riches and if they don't earn it, we think the inner person doesn't match the outer person. We're disgusted by that. Right, there's something in us that knows that person earned it. You know what I mean. I've watched him. Yeah, he did. There's something that's like yep, that's the right way. Why is it the right way? Why, because we know in our guts there's a way that things are meant to be done. This is why everybody hates there's a lot about movies here because they destroyed the hero's journey. I hate that. They killed it. I mean especially the one with Leia, like being frozen and all that.
Speaker 1:Floating around in space, but think about it.
Speaker 2:The courageous pilot like you have in the old movies, who goes out and does the daring thing and gets the job done and saves the day, because he's going to face not only his inner fear but the outer struggle and he's going to step up and he's going to defend and protect. And they make him look like an absolute idiot, as all the ladies at the time step up and know why would you do that? There's a better way we can like. What they did was they tried to take the hero's journey and break it, because their belief is that it's a social construct, that we have created this idea and now people continue to try to live out this idea, but it's the wrong idea. So if we can create a new narrative and get people to build off of that, then it'll work.
Speaker 2:What's happening is they're losing people by the droves. It's the same thing as it's happening with Disney. I mean, it's woke culture in general. Let's try to make a new narrative, a new memetic perspective that underlies everyone's thinking and we'll grow our children in this. It's why a lot of parents are trying to like raise their kid as a you know, gender neutral. You know it's like I'm not going to be a boy, we're not going to raise them as a boy or a girl. I was looking, tim, actually, at this set of comments of these parents who are trying to raise their kids like, like gender neutral, and they were irritated. They're like man, I really try to do this well, and my daughter only likes pink, and it's so frustrating. How come this happened? It's like when they actually choose to get mad.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, it's so ironic, but my, my point in that is that people are not trying to, um, people are not trying to just take the story and add stuff in. They're fundamentally trying to rewrite the entire story that God has actually placed in the heart of mankind. He's made us a certain way and in an attempt to rebel against the way that God has created us to be, that. We know there's brokenness that needs resolved. We know there are problems that we need to address. We know that something has fallen and is meant to be a different way. We know that we're supposed to be connected to this. You know this destiny, this greater end game that we know exists in front of us. We just can't see it. Yet it's, you know, it's the. It's the CS Lewis right, if you find within yourself, a desire that cannot be filled by anything on this earth the, the, the. You know. The best explanation is that you weren't made for this earth.
Speaker 2:Right, all of us have this idea in our head, this ideal person who we are supposed to be, that none of us seem to be able to achieve. Why? Why is it that I can talk to every, every person and they say when you know deep down who you're supposed to be, everybody knows what that means. They don't know what that looks like. That doesn't mean like the job that I have, or the. You know, the. You know the way that I treat this particular situation.
Speaker 2:What they know what I mean is the better person who's doing the right moral thing. Everyone knows this. But the current perspective is that if we can change the archetypes, the things that people are following and aspiring to be, then we can create a better version of ourselves that no longer deals with guilt. It really is a Genesis 3 thing, did God really say? Is this really how we wanted things to go? Is this really the plan? What if we unlearn everything that God has taught us and rewrite a different story where we create God in our own image, so we don't feel bad about our brokenness.
Speaker 1:That is it that original? Why has actually come up quite a bit.
Speaker 2:Well, tell me.
Speaker 1:I don't know why, but a lot of pastors have been talking about that, A lot of stuff you're talking about with interviews. I've been watching People are like no, we've got to redo.
Speaker 2:We've got people deconstructing their faith, deconstructing how stuff works now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, I think it was like a Joel Osteen thing, how God just loves everybody all the time, type of deal.
Speaker 2:And it was like there's no, and it was MacArthur.
Speaker 1:He's like yeah, there's no wrath? Of course not. You know what I mean. One pastor was even like yeah, you don't want justice. Justice means hell for everybody. Yes, I was like dang, that's pretty crazy.
Speaker 2:The question is not what I want. The question is what is true? Yeah, and it's amazing to me that it is written on the hearts of people Like you cannot avoid the conscience that God has given to people, and not just that, if you're a Christian, the way that God has called you to live, I mean, the whole point of the new covenant is that eventually, god would actually write that law on your heart, not just on stone tablets, so that people would know. Romans 1 makes the point that people are without an excuse, and my point is this goes so much deeper than just here's the right thing to do and here's the wrong thing to do. It actually has to do with, fundamentally, who we are.
Speaker 2:If you want to know the irreducible minimum, tim, about the gospel, like the three things that you absolutely have to get right, because everything comes from these. It's the nature of God, it's the nature of man and it's what happened on the cross. Those are the three most important things, because if you get God wrong, you screw up everything. You get man wrong and you screw up everything. You get man wrong and you screw up everything. You get the cross wrong and you screw up everything. Those three things define so much of who we are and what we're doing and where we're going and why we're doing those things. But if I can flip the places of God and man and I can make the cross something we do for God, then we have fundamentally tried to break everything. You get what I'm saying.
Speaker 1:It really is Luciferianism.
Speaker 2:And I just think about Psalm 2. Why are the nations in an uproar? That's the question today, isn't it? Why is everything so jacked up? Why is it topsy-turvy? Everybody's fighting, nobody's agreeing. It's really messy. Why are the nations in an uproar and the people's devising a vain thing? The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers take counsel, together against the Lord and against his anointed saying. Let us tear their fetters apart or their chains and cast Right.
Speaker 2:We don't want to be connected to the very thing that gives us identity. We don't want to be connected to the thing that reminds us of who we actually are. Right, and this was actually what happened in the fall. You have a spirit in you that has connected you to God, and in the fall you were severed. You were cut off from the thing that is supposed to give you life. But it's still there. It's just not working anymore. So what is it? It's a representation for you of what you were meant to be, that you can no longer achieve.
Speaker 2:Wouldn't it be nice, tim, to not feel guilt anymore? Wouldn't it be nice to not feel shame anymore? The problem is, the people that don't feel guilt and shame, tim, are psychopaths. You know what I mean. Like we think to ourself. Man, it'd be great if I didn't feel bad about stuff, or I didn't feel this, or I didn't feel that. Yeah, the people that do that are the worst people on the planet that you do not want to become. The grace of God is still such that you will at least feel bad about doing the wrong things. And people are like man. I wish that would go away. Right, it's called transgenderism. Right, it's called Marxism. Right, it's called, you know, pick whatever perverted version of the gospel where people want to recreate God in their own image. It is.
Speaker 2:But the reality is, if I could eliminate sin and I could redirect things the way that I want, then I wouldn't feel so bad. The irony is, you still feel absolutely awful because you cannot escape who you actually are. And this, this is why people are upset that their daughters are picking pink, when they've tried to raise them gender neutral, because what they're, what they're finding, is dang it. I can't erase my sin. That's what that means. They're not coming out and saying that, but I think in their bones they know oh darn it if this is written into the fabric of who we are. I may actually have to deal with this as a reality, and my desire is not to deal with things as a reality. Here's something that came up to me.
Speaker 1:I don't know why this has actually been bothering me for a reality. Here's something that came up to me. I don't know why this has actually been bothering me for a while. I hate the culture. I hate hearing about it. It's everywhere all the time. I'm just so done with it. Right, it's exhausting. After a while I just get mad. But I hear verses like we just said Psalm 2. It's like this stuff has been going on since King David days, even before that. When does this stuff stuff?
Speaker 2:end, yeah, the culmination of all things, tim. It's the hero's journey. I know you're upset about it too. Me too, man.
Speaker 1:Well, it just makes me think like what can I actually do if this has been going on for generations like this? I have a very small part in this, apparently.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so the sanctification process is you confronting the inner man while you're also confronting the outer man. Right, the mentor is the spirit that God sends to us. You're going to have to go into the cave, which is the hell hole, which is my own sin that I got to confront and the difficulty that I'm currently in, and I'm going to fight the evil, I'm going to kill the dragon, I'm going to get the girl and I'm going to reap the reward. That's the. That's the story. Christ redeems his bride, the dragon is thrown into the pit of hell, where he belongs, along with all the other demons and everything else, and there's the great culmination and the wedding feast of the lamb is. The bride is brought together with the bridegroom.
Speaker 2:That, that is a glorious thing. We all live that on a small. I mean, marriage is supposed to be a picture of that. Right, we talked about that a little bit in a couple of, a couple of podcasts ago, I think. We're talking about the rest, actually, and that's supposed to be a picture of those things.
Speaker 2:But the thing that I want us to realize is that we're snack dab in the middle of that battle against good and evil, and your story, your life, is actually part of a greater story. That is a gospel story being told of God redeeming all things back to himself and, if you think about it, god comes from heaven, puts on flesh, goes down into the darkness and actually fundamentally dies, but then is resurrected in power to become something else that will eventually conquer all the things and bring in this glorious victory over. I mean, that's the story. You know what I mean. It's it's every good story you've ever read. It's Aragorn, you know what I mean. It's Robin Hood, it's all the it's. It's Batman. You know what I mean. It's Robin Hood, it's all the. It's Batman. You know what I mean. He goes into the darkness and comes out reborn so that he can fight against all these different things. What did Superman do? None of that. Not that cool.
Speaker 1:He fought Godzilla recently. Yeah, nobody cares Tim.
Speaker 2:I'm just saying.
Speaker 1:You brought it up, Listen OK.
Speaker 2:But here's the deal, basically pictures of people that we're supposed to follow and pictures of the people that we're not supposed to follow. And you were kind of asking how do you know the difference? And I'm saying the ones that are following the hero's journey and not deviating from it are probably the ones you want to follow.
Speaker 1:Not deviating from it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like, like. What does David?
Speaker 1:do, yeah, and I mean like he's the first up, Cause I talked to one of our listeners, Rob, you know we did a whole episode for him, but he brought that up too with David. It's like if a church leader today were to do what he did, we would disown him and kick him out so fast.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and we would do a podcast called the Rise and Fall of David Hill, you know, and we just put him on blast.
Speaker 1:But it is an interesting thought, because like is he worth David, worth looking up to, even though we know everything he did wrong? And here's why?
Speaker 2:because you can see the things that he did right and admire those, and you can see the things that he did wrong and loathe those. That's the point that you know the difference and God has made it that way. You can read the biblical story and you can see this was like Christ. This was not. This is what we should be doing. This is not you can, and it bears this out in the story. It exposes the things that were done wrong and how God felt about them, and the things that were right and how God felt about them. I mean the whole bit with Bathsheba.
Speaker 2:There's a prophet that shows up and is like you idiot. He's like I'm an idiot, you know all sit there like, yeah, I get that man, I get me too dude. And that's kind of the point. Paul says this imitate me as I imitate Christ. Or he says be imitators, therefore, of God. His point is that we are supposed to walk out what Christ has called us to do. This is why Jesus says take up your cross daily and follow me. What is he saying? Come, be like me. You need to die to the thing that you are currently to become what you were always meant to be, and the story that Jesus is constantly telling throughout scripture with his disciples, when he's showing them. This is constantly telling throughout scripture with his disciples when he's showing them this is I'm going to take you where you don't want to go to produce in you what wouldn't happen if you didn't go here. I'm going to. You got to come into the cave. You're going to have to walk through the fire. Is that what? Dying?
Speaker 1:means that's the whole point. It's time to start doing things you don't want to do.
Speaker 2:Okay, so you want to? Here's a story. Tim and I've been. I've been in the book of Jonah a lot, Nice, okay, the book of Jonah is about you know Jonah and this monster, right, the problem is is the book is actually about Jonah being the monster.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he, he is the monster of this story. Like, everything that he does is revealing. He doesn't want to do the thing we know he's supposed to do. God says I want you to leave the place of comfort, I want you to go on a journey. I'm going to mentor you, I'm going to take care of you, I'm going to give you the knowledge that you need to do. And he's like I'm not doing that.
Speaker 2:It goes a different direction, has to face the, the, the you know the monster anyways, and then comes out on the other side and, instead of being born again and being a different person, he begrudgingly does the thing that he's supposed to do and is still pissed off and frustrated. The point of that story is you can do the right thing and still lose. You can, you can. You can do the things that you're supposed to do and you can decide to come up on the other side of the resurrection and not have changed and I think too many Christians and I mean this had been sped up by that whale.
Speaker 2:God has actually invited you into his kingdom, you are in fact saved, and you're still sitting under a print begrudgingly asking God to kill you because you don't want to be a Christian wild, wild to me. Well, what is that saying? I'm willing to face stuff on the outside, I'm not willing to change on the inside, I'm not willing to die. You're going to have to kill me before I'm going to die. But then, when God takes him to the point of death, he's like I don't want to die, save me Right, like you know, um, and we could digest that and get into that more.
Speaker 1:Well, to go off that point, then, what would have been the right attitude Jonah should have had there?
Speaker 2:at the end, when it comes to dying to yourself.
Speaker 2:We could get to that. But my point is this we can look at Jonah and know I'm not supposed to be Jonah. Right, we know that we read the story of Jonah and it's basically a story of how all of us have felt and what we're not supposed to do. I mean, it's a very easy book to relate to, because all of us want to run from the things that God is calling us to do and all of us want to run to the appetites and desires that we have. And Jonah represents the person that God got his work done through, even though he was absolutely the wrong person for the job.
Speaker 2:Is there some comfort in that? Yes, but also no, because I don't want that to be my story. You know what I mean. I don't want to be a Jonah. So if you're saying, you know what does that look like? The whole death to life thing? I mean, I think the goal would be that we don't just allow God to save us and do a work and we allow him to use us, but we're frustrated and irritated the whole time, but that actually we're killing the thing inside of us at the same time that we're achieving what God has called us to outside of us, and I think a lot of people neglect one or the other, and the hero's journey is is I'm defeating things on the outside, I'm overcoming the things on the inside. That's what it's supposed to look like.
Speaker 1:Does that make sense? What kind of stuff, though? I guess I'm trying to get a little specific, if I can.
Speaker 2:Tim, what do you?
Speaker 1:think you struggle with internally, eternally. Internally, like the obvious, like envy, okay envy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, envy is great. There's seven of them.
Speaker 1:That's not biblical, but yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm making a point. Actually. Let's just go ahead and read the list to you. What do you say? Oh, joy, yeah, gluttony, fornication, greed, sadness is not one. I don't know why that's on here.
Speaker 1:Wrath, what are you reading? Yeah, what am I reading? Did you just Google something? Where are they? Yeah, I tried to pull it up. Here we go, here we go.
Speaker 2:Gluttony lust, greed, wrath, sloth, pride and anger. Is that right? No, I got no man. I'm really butchering this. Why all of these?
Speaker 2:lists Lust should be on there too. All of them, I got eight. I'm like I would know them by heart. My point is that everybody for forever has known there's a list of things that tend to come out of us that are not healthy things, and there are things that are going on inside, not necessarily things that are going on outside, like. Here's an example Cain and Abel.
Speaker 2:Okay, nothing in the story of Cain and Abel would indicate to us that Cain did anything wrong. Okay, it seems like he brought crops that God asked him to bring, and it's like Abel brought good flock to the Lord and it's like well, what gives. And it seems to indicate, when we get into the book of Hebrews, that Cain brought something in his heart that Abel didn't. One was acceptable to the Lord and one was not, and it wasn't what they brought in their hands, it's what they brought in themselves. With what they brought in their hands and this is my point you can do the right thing in the wrong way and you're still wrong. You know what I mean. You can do the wrong thing with the right motives and you actually might be closer to right. Right, and I think we all know that what's going on on the inside is actually almost worse than what goes on the outside of us, because the difference between a rich person who doesn't deserve it and a rich person that does deserve it is that feeling of disgust, right Like that. We know that's not right, that doesn't match, that doesn't compute, and if those two don't sync up, we have a problem with it. We know that those things have to happen together, and when they don't happen together, we know something is wrong.
Speaker 2:There's this balance that we're called to in scripture, where we're supposed to die to ourself but live to Christ. This is why so many of the things in scripture that we read are this paradox right, I've been crucified with Christ. It's no longer I who live, but Christ who lives within me. Yet the life that I now live, I live by faith in the son of God, who loved me and gave himself up for me. Well, am I dead or am I alive? Do I blame the good stuff on on Jesus and the bad stuff on me?
Speaker 2:Is that how that works? What's the balance here? What does it look like? And I think the picture is um, how am I facing the things on the outside and on the inside at the same time? How am I walking out the fullness of the journey that God has called me to and how am I not being a coward? How am I learning from the people that have gone before me so that I walk this thing out the way that I'm meant to? One of my Tim. You know I like poetry, right, it's one of my favorite poems of all time. Is this poem called If Can I?
Speaker 1:read it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've read this one.
Speaker 1:You sent this one to me.
Speaker 2:Have I sent it to you. It's one of my favorites because it's this knife's edge that he's calling you to live. Out that I think everyone would say, yeah, that's impossible, but I know I'm supposed to do that and that that right there is god placing eternity into a man's heart. I know that this is who I am meant to be, even though I know I'm not able to attain it. And are you willing to strive for something because it's right, even if you knew you would never succeed? That's the willingness to come out of the cave, you know, so I'm going to read it to you.
Speaker 2:It says this if you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you. If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you but make allowance for their doubting too. If you can wait and not be tired by waiting or being lied about. Don't deal in lies or being hated, don't give way to hating and yet don't look too good or talk too wise. If you can dream and not make dreams, your master. If you can think and not make thoughts your aim. If you can meet with triumph and disaster and treat those two imposters just the same. If you can bear to hear the truth. You've spoken twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools. Or watch the things you gave your life to broken and stoop and build them up with worn out tools. If you can make one heap of all your winnings and risk it on one turn of pitch and toss and lose and start again at your beginnings and never breathe a word about your loss. If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew to serve you long after you're gone and so hold on when there's nothing in you except the will which says to them. Hold on. If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue or walk with kings nor lose the common touch. If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you. If all men count with you, but none too much. If you can fill the unforgiving minute with 60 seconds worth of distance, run yours as the earth and everything that is in it and which is more, you'll be a man, my son, I love it. Man.
Speaker 2:I read that and I'm like oh, it's beautiful. Wipe the tear from my eye. Cause it this picture of striving for that perfect balance of being Jesus, striving for being exactly what Christ was and everything that he accomplished, and knowing that that is the picture of what it's supposed to be, and knowing that I will not attain that until glory, but that it's so glorious that it's worth giving your life to, even if you knew you couldn't attain it. That's the picture I mean. That, to me, in a very real sense, is what makes me tick. Do you love Jesus so much that you would give your life to trying to be like him, even if you knew you would fail? And I think that's what Paul did, that's what Peter did, that's what every great person in the Bible did. They loved the Lord so much that they were willing to do everything that they could to be like him, even if they knew they were going to fail again and again and again. And their gracious God, whom they wanted to be like, would continue to extend the mercy, even when they didn't deserve it and didn't hit the mark. I mean sin, literally.
Speaker 2:We've talked about about this as an archery term right To miss the mark, to miss it, and it's like we've all missed the mark on being the Jesus, being Jesus Right. But does that mean that we should stop shooting or attempting to hit the bullseye? No, I'm going to shoot for it every single time and I will probably not nail it the way that I'm hoping to, but I'm going to continue to shoot for it because it is glorious and is worth it with every fiber of my being. I know that that is what it's supposed to look like and that, tim, is why I like Batman, because he's the guy that gets it wrong, often gets the crap kicked out of him, but refuses to stop because he knows that justice and righteousness are on the line and he would rather take an absolute beating than see righteousness or justice take the beating, and I. That's the. That's the beautiful thing about it. That's what's so glorious.
Speaker 2:Everything with superman is like oh, another person coming to test to see if superman will lose. No, he doesn't. Wow, imagine that, yeah, the sun brought him back to life. And now you're, you know. It's like it's not a person coming to test to see if Superman will lose. No, he doesn't. Wow. Imagine that, yeah, the sun brought him back to life. And now you're, you know. It's like it's not a story about striving to become the person that you were always meant to be. It's the person who already is that thing slowly wiping off the planet and all those people who are not, which is a picture of Christ, but it's a totally faulty picture of Christ. So to me it's like a mangled, problematic version of the thing that we actually should be following. If you want what the American dream is, to me it's Superman, and I think that's why there's some difficulty there for me, or frustration about it.
Speaker 1:I've never liked Superman either, to be honest.
Speaker 2:So I think it leads to at least a small conversation, tim, which is who are the people in your own life worth following? You know, and you should ask yourself the question who am I spending my time around? You know? Who am I actually modeling my life after? I am following people? The question is, what people am I following?
Speaker 2:And I mean Jung said this right, and again, I'm not. I'm not sitting here advocating for you know, carl Jung or all of his writing, I'm just saying it's, it's a good statement. He said people don't have ideas, ideas have people. We say it at our church this way. We say conviction is not what you have, it's what has you right. And the question is what are the ideas that seem to be embodied by the person you're following? And is it a desire to honor Christ and follow him and show you the son through the way that he lives, or is it somebody who is doing kind of a different thing entirely? And I would say a lot of people are following things that are not like Christ but are actually serving a different thing inside of them. That shadow man that we're talking about, that monster, that Jonah is that thing inside of him that, even if he goes to the depths of the sea, he seems unable to kill. You know, that is the thing that we actually have to give to Christ and allow it to die so that we can become the thing that we were always meant to be. And I would say that what embodies that is fear, frustration, comfort, appetites that are unhealthy, whether it be lust or food or addictions or whatever. There are so many things that we can run to that allow us to be okay with not becoming what we know we're meant to be. And I would say the reason people are obsessed with drugs and pornography and all these things is because they know deep down that there is some beautiful thing that they're meant to have, but they can't have it. And it's like either you fight for the standard or fight for the thing that is actually good, even if you didn't totally attain it, or you settle for something much worse to help numb the pain. And it's the difference between you becoming what you were meant to be or dying, as the Bible would say, in your sins. Dying in your sins is dying without actually allowing Christ to come in and kill those things in you so that you would become something else. And there's a couple of conversations about this.
Speaker 2:In the religious world, tim we call, there's two views on. Like salvation is what's called monergism and synergism. Monergism is this belief that God is the one that saves us and we don't really participate in that outside of receiving the grace that he has given to us. Participate in that outside of receiving the grace that he has given to us. Synergism is this belief that I reached up to God and I said, yes, I will take this. Thank you, because I've decided and I know clearly I'm showing my cards on what I believe here.
Speaker 2:The problem is that a lot of monergists tend to extend monergism into sanctification, and monergism is true of salvation. Where God saved me, I didn't save God. It is not true of sanctification.
Speaker 2:That's something you actually partner with the Holy Spirit to have accomplished through you, and a lot of people, I think, are sitting back and not allowing God, not partnering with God on killing a lot of this stuff that needs to go, and destroying it and creating new patterns and new habits in your life, and that's something that you have to continually do.
Speaker 2:This is why he says take up your cross daily.
Speaker 2:You're going to have to kill this stuff consistently in your life to become what you were meant to be, or you can be a Jonah and even on the other side of you, coming out of the whale, continue to choose the patterns and habits that you have, because you want God to save you, but you don't actually want to change, and therein lies, I think, some of the difficulty with churches today. Is Christ my Lord, and I have to obey him and become like him, or is he just my savior that has saved me from the fish? And what's sad to me is that I think there's a world of people out there that are happy being saved from the fish but don't really want to change and become something new. And really the picture here in light of this podcast would be I want to stop the hero's journey halfway through. I'm okay with halfway. I think a lot of people are far too all right with halfway and don't actually want to see the fullness of what God is calling them to be.
Speaker 1:That's interesting actually Cause for me trying to become that whole identity piece, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:It's a struggle to know what the right thing is to do at the time. If my journey is not being able to figure it out yet, then does that mean I'm off the journey path or am I still on it and God's going to connect with me eventually? Because that's what it feels like. It's like if I just keep trying, eventually it's all going to click.
Speaker 2:Well, here's the question If the Holy Spirit is in you, it really does mean that you have the ability to conquer these things that you're facing. I think a lot of people don't believe that.
Speaker 1:Whether you haven't witnessed it or seen it.
Speaker 2:yeah, or they're just not actually noticing it. Like I think it's almost easier for us to focus on the losses so that we feel better about quitting. You know, either you see progress and you measure the gains and you stay on task because you're seeing it, or you continue to look at the areas that haven't worked out to justify you not doing what you're supposed to do. And again at some point you also read the fourth chapter of Jonah and just watch what happens. I mean it's crazy. Like this whole nation, 120,000 people get saved, and he's not even just side note here. Jonah doesn't go through and he's like I have to tell you guys about the gospel of Jesus Christ and the love of our God. He doesn't want to do this to you, but you're doing this to yourself. He goes through. He's like listen, y'all are going to burn. Okay, just letting you know. And the whole nation's like we got to repent, we got to get right. And Jonah's like dang it. And he says I knew you were going to do this, I knew you'd be merciful, I knew you'd be gracious. And in this picture it's like God did this thing and he was almost upset because he wasn't measuring the glorious thing that was actually happening. He was measuring what he wanted to happen and so because of that, he wasn't able to actually rejoice or have joy. And I mean, look, man, your mentality and, like, your growth or your ability to conquer the dragons in your life has so much to do with you actually seeing the victories and the progress that's happening. And some people, man, I'm telling you they they enjoy watching the loss because it gives them a reason to not have to try. They really do. And I would just encourage you if you're the person that's constantly counting the losses instead of the wins, you're actually the person who wants to quit and you're looking for reasons to. And you're probably the person that has floated from one thing to another thing, to another thing, and you're wondering why it works out for other people and not for you. And it's because you want to start, to come out of the cave or start the journey. But as soon as you see, the journey is hard, you want to quit because you didn't actually sign up for this. And I just want to encourage you Keep going. I mean, this is why James says don't be like the person who's tossed about by every wave or wind of doctrine. He's like don't do that, because you won't receive any reward. That's why Jesus tells you to fix your mind on the things that actually matter, because what you think about ends up being where you land. You know. That's again. It's part of the whole journey.
Speaker 2:Am I conquering the inner man or am I allowing myself to be conquered? I think it was Marcus Aurelius who said this. I got a lot of pagan philosophers I'm quoting today, sorry. He said this A person who conquers the inner man is better than someone who conquers an army. It was something along those lines. But his whole point was it's way harder to get the inside of myself in line than it is to go to war with something outside of me. And I think there's a lot of truth there. I really think there is.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure, cool. This is an interesting one. I liked it.
Speaker 2:There's a lot here I feel like, honestly, I feel like I could talk for like another two hours about some of this stuff and the characteristics of people you would want to follow, I still feel, and how to find those things.
Speaker 1:Unsettled with some parts. If we had more time we'd get into a little more too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, if you want to do a part two and delve into some conversation, we can. I feel like we probably lost half the people in this because of the front half, which was just about comic book stuff, which, by the way, if you know me, is not a passion of mine at all Way deeper in that just saying.
Speaker 2:And I would have. I would have just been puking blood because I don't care about that at all, but I do care about archetypes and I am interested in who people are following, so got to got to at least go there. Well, I hope. I hope this was at least encouraging for you guys today and made you think about who you're following, why you're following them, what are the characteristics of people you want to be, and are you conquering the inner man and the outer problem? Are you focusing on just one? There's definitely some stuff to pick up on here that I hope you can apply to help you navigate your faith Totally. All right, guys, catch you all next time. I don't have a good week.
