The Speak Life Podcast, sharing Jesus in everyday life.
SPEAKER_06Welcome to today's live cast. Hello everyone, good to be back again. I am Glenn Scriver. I'm Paul Feasy. And uh you're very welcome to join us on Facebook Live. Do you have any questions for us? We're talking about some uh really interesting stuff, uh, including is the language uh used in Westminster too inflammatory? Does it enable violence? Uh how did that story get going, Paul?
SPEAKER_05Well, so uh it was I think last week, wasn't it? Probably I think whilst we were here that uh it was deemed Boris Johnson's proroguing of Parliament was unlawful. And then they went back, did they go back on the Wednesday or the Thursday, I think? Thursday? Yeah, Thursday, something like that.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_05And it was pretty much an incendiary day, wasn't it? Yes. It was look looking at the videos of the kind of things that were going on and being said, it didn't look like a very productive day. Um basically they came back together and and basically just had a a bit of a sh shouting match at each other, didn't they? Right. For most of the day. Yes. And uh lots of Burkow doing his thing, what he does best. Yes. And yeah, and Boris Johnson came under some fire uh for comments he made during the day. Um and then has continued to remain under fire for those comments, and he himself has defended those comments back and forth, back and forth, it's gone.
SPEAKER_06And today, John Order Burkow uh has called an emergency meeting over inflammatory language in the comments. And it was interesting, on on the Thursday, when or was it the Friday, um, I was I was just in the car hearing about this inflammatory language that had been used by Boris Johnson in calling a certain bill a surrender bill. And I I kept on driving and I was like, where's the inflammatory language? Like what's the which which of these words is actually being deemed inflammatory?
SPEAKER_05Because I I don't know, like You you can see how you can see how some i it might be goading people, you know, by saying things, using that that terminology, deliberately speaking in that kind of way, but I certainly wouldn't it it wouldn't make me take any pause at all.
SPEAKER_06I mean on the other side, you know, Brexite is a a cold, you know, it's it's called crashing out of you know the EU if we're to leave without a deal. And you know, that's that's robust language on the other side, and surrender is robust language on the other side.
SPEAKER_05You're not simply leaving, are you? Yes. Crashing out, you're putting a spin on it by saying, just like Johnson puts a spin on the Yeah.
SPEAKER_06You're c you're either crashing the country or you're surrendering uh to Hitler, basically. That that that seems to be it. And so everyone's just topping each other in in terms of you know the language that's used. And we we've got a clip of uh Parliament uh where one Labour MP calls out Boris Johnson on the language that he uses, and Boris Johnson is having none of it. Let's have a look at that.
SPEAKER_02But this big man, the Prime Minister has continually used the jumper language to describe the parliament, so it was interesting.
SPEAKER_06The the the whole, you know, this is terrible, this is dreadful inflammatory language, and you should be ashamed of yourself. For shame, for shame. Yep. Um so you know, one thing I read this week is uh MP Jess Phillips um uh was issued with uh a death threat by someone, it seems very unstable. Um, and the death threat read as follows. It was rather prophetic that Boris Johnson should say, I would rather be found dead in a ditch. This is what will happen to those who do not deliver Brexits. So this is obviously very upsetting for Jess Phillips to receive, but I I think, you know, Boris Johnson said, I would rather die in a ditch than delay Brexits. Yep. To have someone unhinged then take his words and say, Well, I would rather put someone in a ditch uh who delays Brexits. Um that is, you know, to twist entirely what Boris Johnson said. I don't think he can be held responsible for the I would rather die in a ditch language. That's that's kind of language of martyrdom rather than uh language of Yeah, he's speaking of himself.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. And and him not delivering what he feels he should deliver.
SPEAKER_06Yeah. Yes. So it seems it seems to me like there should be a lot of categories going on, and we're just collapsing the categories into one another. It it seems like there is incitement to violence, which is like already a crime. Like you can't incite people to violence, and and rightly so. Um there is vi there is language that is already violent, where you talk about, I don't know, stabbing your political opponents or I don't know, throwing acid in their faces, or something like that. Who would suggest that? Who would possibly suggest such a thing? Must be Boris who does all that, right? Um and so that there are those two categories. And then there's a third category of there is robust language that can be weaponized by violent people. And it seems like some of the language might fall into that category, some of Boris's language, some of the language across all sides of the house, could fall into that category, that an unstable, violent person could weaponize the language that's used by a politician. But I think if they then turn out to be violent, it's all on them.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_06It's not on the politician.
SPEAKER_05Sure, and we're in a very worrying position, aren't we, if if simply saying something like what was said uh is then being equated with like a physical act of violence. As if that is itself the violence, and it's not, as you say, the person who then does the act of violence, it's the person who spoke about something in the first place. And and and and like you say, it's not Boris Johnson there isn't even inciting anyone to anything. No. No. He's he's simply calling it how he feels. Yes. You know, and someone else has taken his language and used it in a different way. Not even in the sense Boris Johnson used it. And yeah, I mean it's just a it's the whole, you know, your words of violence kind of thing. But then silence is violence. That's another violence. That's another one. You can't silence is violence. So don't say anything, because that could be wrong. And don't think the wrong thing. Oh no, flipping out, that's the worst. Very worse thing. But you know, if you don't say something, that that can be considered an act of violence now, on a par with physically attacking someone.
SPEAKER_06Yes.
SPEAKER_05Saying something can be considered an act of violence on a par with a physical act of violence.
SPEAKER_06You may as well just milkshake people.
SPEAKER_05It is well just And that is Glenn's official call for the milkshaking of anyone.
SPEAKER_06It is funny that, you know, yeah. You're like, well, actually milkshaking is a is a kind of assault.
SPEAKER_05And I don't think it was here, was it? I think it was in the States there was the whole punch a Nazi thing, or was that here as well?
SPEAKER_06Uh it was mainly in the States, wasn't it?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I think it was more stateside. But again, I mean, uh although you wouldn't, you know, we would we would never endorse Nazism. No, right, yeah, yeah. Neither would we say the answer to it is go and punch people who you disagree with. And then to somehow think you've got the moral high ground as someone who is actually saying why don't you go and punch someone else who disagrees with you.
SPEAKER_06So why why do things get so supercharged and super heated in in these ways? And um one of the reasons I think it is, is because we no longer have faith in our culture, we no longer have a religious narrative in which there are transcendent values that we can all kind of unite around. And if you don't have transcendent values, then I guess politics is tops, you know. If if you don't really believe in God and the devil in heaven and hell, well I guess, you know, your guy must be God and the other guy must be the devil. You know, your political hero must must be Jesus and the other political hero. In around Yeah, inner round. And so suddenly the heaven and hell stuff gets moved from the religious domain into politics and it becomes incredibly fiery because we just don't have a we don't have a transcendent frame anymore. Um and I was thinking about this with regards to something that Stephen Fry said um uh last week. Um he was uh on uh I think it was Radio 5 Live and uh he was talking about sporting glory and how much he he loved um uh watching sport because it was one of our one of our rare glimpses of glory in culture and how glory-sarved we are. But uh let's hear him um speaking about that, and I think it speaks into this issue of no longer having a transcendent frame.
SPEAKER_01Because sport is one of the few areas of human activity where there is such a thing as glory. You can't really have glory as an actor. You can have success, you can get an Oscar or something, you know, and you can be box office value and people come to see you at the stage door. But glory only applies in war, and war is something we don't really like, but we can't deny heroism and glory are are are possible, and it happens in sport. And you know, sometimes on Twitter when when I g get excited, like the Manchester City game, you know, people will say, Oh, get over it, Stephen. It's just sport. Blech someone wrote this thing about where when we celebrate science in the way that you're celebrating sport, then you know, then our believe and I think you don't understand. It's it's not that it just an escape from reality, it's that it's a it's a picture of how life can, in all its disappointments and ordinariness, can suddenly just flower for you and for others. You've all got a common cause, and and the more we're separating at the moment, the more everybody's, you know, their own clinging to identity and to to to political allegiances and and disliking this person and that person, the the commonality, the the the shared excitement of sport through through your club and through your nation is something valuable and terrific.
SPEAKER_06So it seems interesting, you know, he says that above the tribal there needs to be something transcendent that unites us. And he's he kind of the only two examples he gives is military heroes and sports. Um Does that does that unite your heart in rapture?
SPEAKER_05Uh well, I mean it just seems absolutely bizarre to me that he could look at sport in any form and say this is oh that's not tribal. Yeah, true. Right, I mean it it is undeniably, I mean, particularly you know, if you're thinking about something like football, which maybe is one of the most obvious ones. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it's ridiculously tribal.
SPEAKER_06You know, you because you wear the same colour t-shirt as me.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, and we hate you because you wear different colours. You know, people people actually kill each other over these things. You know, people have died over these Colombian goalkeepers and things like that. Yeah, yeah. To say that's not tribal. And then the military side. I mean Yeah I think that's kind of the definition of I mean, normally, at least in in in war, there tends to be at least two sides. Like which seems relatively tribal. Yes.
SPEAKER_06Yes, and in sport there's twenty and you all hate each other, but but I mean, yes, so there there is one sense of of um so sport and military heroes might not be the the transcendent glory that that you're looking for, Stephen, but you know, may maybe like everybody in Wembley Stadium singing We Are the Champions with with Queen. You know, that that that might be a more secular version of of glory that sort of unites us. Interesting that music um might be closer to God in that sense. Music is something that sort of transcends. But it's interesting that he's grasping at that, like, and he can only think of sport and and war. Um like, is is there is there anyone out there who's thinking about glory? Is there anyone, you know, has a category for the transcendent? And you know, for the life of him, Stephen Fry can't think of you know any anyone who's thinking about transcendent glory. But he notices the lack of it, and I think we all notice that when we when we lack that kind of unifying glory, um, then we do descend into tribalism all the more. And politics becomes, you know, all the more important and ideology becomes all the more important. You know, you need to you need to think the right things to be with us while you're with them. And heaven and hell is secularized, and we throw around anathemas on the horizontal level because we've got no vertical glory. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, is is language what's causing violence? I I would want to say no, it's not, it's not language in Westminster that's causing violence. Um, but there is like literally legislation that is causing violence from Westminster. Uh there's the Northern Ireland uh abortion bill, um, uh the Northern Ireland Executive Formation Act of 2019, uh, which is now given to Northern Ireland, which is the most conservative culture on those sort of pro-life issues. Um, it's given to them the most liberal laws in Europe. Um and it all came about Stella Creasy in uh Westminster. A London MP wants to force it on Northern Ireland, uh, a province that has not adopted the 1967 Abortion Act. Um, and they reckon, and and nobody seems to dispute this, they reckon that having not adopted the 1967 Abortion Acts, uh there are now a hundred thousand people alive in Northern Ireland that otherwise wouldn't be. That's a statistic that should be it should be spoken of a a lot more, I I think. Um and because of the different law uh there in Northern Ireland, uh in the in one year between 2017-2018, um, there were only 44 terminations carried out in Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland has a population of 2 million. Um in contrast, in that same period, 205,000 abortions were carried out in England and Wales, which has a population of about 60 million. Um 44 terminations in Northern Ireland, 205,000 in England and Wales, and Westminster has voted to give Northern Ireland the regime of England and Wales, um, which performs um four and a half thousand times more abortions than Northern Ireland. And they've got a problem with violence. Wow. You know, silence is not violence, words are not violence, forceps, tearing apart baby's limbs, that's violence, you know. It feels like I shouldn't have to say that.
SPEAKER_05But it for me, it just seems um it really sums up just there's there seems to me there's a lot of lack of joined up thinking for a lot of people in society. So that they will look at some so there I'm sure there are l there are gonna be lots of people getting outraged over Boris Johnson um who then won't see any link into this kind of they just they'll just they they just segment these things up and they don't realise the these things don't tie together well. No. You know, these things contradict each other. You can't stand there and say violence against people is terrible, even if it's made up violence. Right. Um and then ignore something like this, yeah, or just be fine with it. Yeah. It makes no sense at all. But it seems to me there is no joined up thinking on this.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, and that's a good phrase for it, joined up thinking. Because we're not joined up, we're tribal, you know, and so the guys on the other side, they are subhuman. The guys in the womb, they are sub-human. They're subhuman, right? And so violence against them, you know, who who cares about that? And uh, you know, Peter Linus, um who uh works for the Evangelical Alliance in Northern Ireland, uh, wrote a great uh article uh on this in uh newsletter.co.uk. He said 17 minutes was all it took for MPs at Westminster to impose the worst abortion regime in Europe on the people of Northern Ireland. How did this happen? A London MP decided she knew what was best for the women and unborn children of Northern Ireland. She proposed an amendment to the executive bill. The clerks advised that it was outside the scope of the bill. The Speaker ignored the advice, and here we have it. Now, there is hope held out because if Northern Ireland's Assembly gets its act together and can meet before the 21st of October, which is not very far away, and they've been utterly paralyzed for I don't know.
SPEAKER_05Well, wasn't it's since about January 2017? Right. So the odds of it seems to me, the odds of them getting suddenly decided to get back together within the next few weeks seems quite low.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, but they're being held hostage by this bill, and it will become law uh unless they can meet and and overturn it. So uh if you are in the province, um it would be a great idea to uh get talking to your MP and uh and trying to see whether Stormants can meet again and uh whether this bill can be resisted. Uh there is still time uh there is still time to fight against this. Uh, but it it it seems like the most naked power play by Westminster to impose that on Northern Ireland when not one single MP from Northern Ireland voted in favour of it. Didn't vote for it at all, did they? Um so man, it's not words that are violence, it's not silence that's violence. It's forceps that are violence. And let's try and stand up against that. Uh well, those are a couple of things that uh uh have been happening in the news. But uh, what's been new with us at Speak Life? Uh over the weekend, uh some of our interns went to a conference, uh the Ligoneer Conference, uh up in London, and they had a great time. And then some of us went to Plymouth, to St. Andrew's Church there, where we uh took part in the Hope Mission.
SPEAKER_05So that looked like uh an interesting couple of days there. So I I wasn't there, so you you I wasn't at the conference and I wasn't in Plymouth, so yes, in in a sense, I'm certainly in the dark about what you did in Plymouth. So there is hope in the dark. There was there was hope in the dark. What's this about?
SPEAKER_06Yeah, so uh Plymouth, uh St. Andrew's Plymouth um have a great opportunity right at the heart of the city, and uh very well thought of uh in in the city, and they put on a series of events branded around hope, and uh on the Saturday nights uh there were stories of hope and songs of hope as uh members of the congregation uh told their stories and they sang, and I uh gave uh some words at various points and spoke. And then Sunday morning uh we had church. Sunday evening we did something that I'm increasingly doing called Hope in the Darkness where um I spoke into the issue of mental health and what do we do uh with that area, and and I love that as an evangelistic kind of um event, because if you if you do something like you know, uh is God and science uh are they enemies, you know, people come for a fight. Yeah, come spoiling out of thoughts. Yeah, whereas when you talk about mental health struggles like this, people come for help. Yeah. Right, and and realizing a dependence and a need, and you can speak Jesus into that situation, um, hopefully with with some tenderness and with some appreciation for the difficulties that people face. Um but one of the things I did was show people uh a clip from uh Stephen Fry in which um he speaks about what helps him in his depression. We we don't have time to have a look at that um right now. We'll have a look at a different clip in just a second. But um he, when he speaks about his bipolar, um, thinks of the three things that really help him in uh in his wrestling with mental ill health. He talks about you need to acknowledge the fact of the feelings. Um so he says, you know, if it's raining, there's no use in shaking your fist at the heavens, you're just gonna get wet. Um and we need to acknowledge you know, we feel angst, we feel suffering, we feel anxiety, we feel depression. Um and then he says, you need you need a friend in the darkness, um and you need a future, a sense of future. Um but it's interesting for him as an atheist, yeah, he he doesn't have these things. No, he just knows he needs them.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, although the future bit he he kind of thinks he he pretends he has a future, doesn't he? Right in a in a sense, because I've seen the clip a number of times, and I find it an immensely frustrating clip because he basically says he gets asked, doesn't he, how do you how do you basically keep going? And he his thing is, you know, I remember that the sun will come up tomorrow. Yes, it's raining now, but the sun will come up tomorrow. And I just think from from his atheist standpoint, he has no guarantee that that is true, that that things will just get better at some point and he'll come out the other side. Plenty of people who struggle with um whether it's bipolar or you know, other forms of depression. And and the sun doesn't come up. Right, right. And what's and actually his what he said there is complete nonsense and and it makes me so angry. It makes me so angry because here's a guy, and it's that lack of joined up thinking, who spends so much of his time shouting about how God and religion is a load of rubbish and it should be irrational. Yeah. And who would believe that kind of deluded nonsense? It's all about facts. And here he is basically spouting deluded nonsense. Yeah. Saying just wishful thinking. Yeah. Basically wishful thinking. Yeah. And he doesn't seem to see any discrepancy between those views he holds. Yes. Yeah. And and it I find that really annoying. And I find I think just what he said, not only is it annoying from a point of view as of people like you and I who who are speaking and you know doing kind of Christian evangelism. I just think it's so unhelpful for anyone suffering from depression. So don't worry, it'll get better.
SPEAKER_06Like it might not. It might not, absolutely. And his ideology is that is is that things will get worse. Yeah, well, yeah, if you follow the the trajectory.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, don't worry, in the grand scheme of things, your depression will seem like nothing when the solar system ends and the sun collapses, and we are yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, like it's not a lot of hope in there from Stevens.
SPEAKER_06But so he he acknowledges you need hope, and he's a guy who believes in truth. So he he wants there to be hope and he wants there to be truth. He just doesn't think you can have both. And he knows that hope works, and so he just like chucks away truth and says you need to believe in a future, even though there isn't any reason to believe in a future. And I just want to say, you know, Stephen, come home. Come home to the gospel, where you can have hope and truth. Because the truth is that Jesus has risen from the dead, that he has conquered sin and hell and Satan and death, and brought light and immortality to life through the gospel. You know, there is the truth of hope that will actually help you out of depression. So those are some of the things that we sort of said last night about you know what it is that helps with depression. Another clip that we played that we will have a look at is uh from Brene Brown, a psychologist from the States, who speaks about what it is that helps when your friend is in the dark and when they're in a pit. Um, what is it that will actually help? Uh actually, what will help is climbing down into the pit and sharing it with them and being a friend in the dark. Um, that's what really helps. Let's have a look at that clip from Brene Brown.
SPEAKER_00So, what is empathy and why is it very different than sympathy? Empathy fuels connection, sympathy drives disconnection. Empathy, it's very interesting. Teresa Wiseman is a nursing scholar who studied professions, very diverse professions, where empathy is relevant, and came up with four qualities of empathy. Perspective taking, the ability to take the perspective of another person or recognize their perspective as their truth, staying out of judgment, not easy when you enjoy it as much as most of us do. Recognizing emotion in other people and then communicating that. Empathy is feeling with people. And to me, I always think of empathy as this kind of sacred space when someone's kind of in a deep hole and they shout out from the bottom and they say, I'm stuck, it's dark, I'm overwhelmed. And then we look and we say, Hey, let me climb down. I know what it's like down here. And you're not alone. Sympathy is, ooh. It's bad, uh-huh. Um. You want a sandwich? Umpathy is a choice, and it's a vulnerable choice because in order to connect with you, I have to connect with something in myself that knows that feeling. Rarely, if ever, does an empathic response begin with at least. I had a, yeah. And we do it all the time. Because you know what? Someone just shared something with us that's incredibly painful, and we're trying to silver lining it. I don't think that's a verb, but I'm using it as one. We're trying to put the silver lining around it. So I had a miscarriage. Oh, at least you know you can get pregnant. I think my marriage is falling apart. At least you have a marriage. John's getting kicked out of school. At least Sarah is an A student. But one of the things we do sometimes in the face of very difficult conversations is we try to make things better. If I share something with you that's very difficult, I'd rather you say, I don't even know what to say right now, I'm just so glad you told me. Because the truth is, rarely can a response make something better. What makes something better is connection.
SPEAKER_06So I love that. As we all know that in the interpersonal realm, that someone who just offers advice from a distance is a little out of help, sure. Um, and we all know that someone who kind of steps into your shoes and walks with you and says, me too, um, that's the most beautiful thing in the world. Um, well, what's the gospel? The gospel is not that God in heaven shouts down from a distance and says, at least, you know, worse things happen at sea, or you know, whatever.
SPEAKER_05Apparently they do.
SPEAKER_06Apparently, yeah, apparently it's really, really bad. We were having this discussion earlier. Yeah, yeah. Terrible things happen at least.
SPEAKER_05Why at sea? But anyway.
SPEAKER_06Yes, yeah. Um, but God doesn't say, at least, you know, at least He doesn't say, you know, lightning doesn't strike twice, don't worry about it. You know, in the gospel, you know, Christ descends into our pit to be with us and before us and to be a friend in the darkness. Uh and I think the gospel communicates really beautifully when you when you set things up that way. So uh I commend to you uh doing um something like this called Hope in the Darkness. I've just put uh in Facebook comments uh a link to an article where I go more into what it is that I say in these Hope in the Darkness uh times. Um I'm even going to uh put a uh a video link there um in the Facebook comments so you can watch the Vimeo video of uh what it is that I say. Uh those three F's, the facts of the feelings, the f uh the a friend in dark places, and a sense of future. Um this is medicine that really helps us as we uh seek to minister to others going through dark times. Well, that'll do for that segment. What have we got next? This week we're meeting Kez.
SPEAKER_05Hello Kez. Good to have you with us. Round of applause. So, Kez, lovely to have you here.
SPEAKER_03Thank you, Hammer.
SPEAKER_05Why don't you tell us a bit about you, who you are, why you're doing the internship?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so I'm Kezia. Um, I've just finished studying illustration, um, and now I'm here at the Foundry. Um, really excited to see how I can kind of get involved creatively communicating the gospel. So, yeah, that's me.
SPEAKER_05Good. And what uh so each week someone's been showing kind of a little bit of Bible, something they've been thinking about. What have you got for us?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so recently I've been uh reading through the Psalms and I really love Psalm 62, and I thought I'd share a bit of that. Um, and the idea of rest. Yeah, so I'll read a bit of that. Truly, my soul finds rest in God. My salvation comes from him. Truly, he's my rock and my salvation. Here's my fortress, I shall never be shaken. And then from verse 5, yes, my soul, find rest in God. My hope comes from him. Truly, here's my rock and my salvation. Here's my fortress, I shall not be shaken. My salvation and my honour depend on God. Here's my mighty rock, my refuge. Trust in him at all times, you people. Pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge. So yeah, I just find that that sound really encouraging. And I think it's really interesting how David talks about rest, and he's reminding himself um in verse 5, yes, myself, find rest in God. I think it's really interesting to think about yeah, how we can remind ourselves to rest and why rest is a good thing. Um, because I think sometimes our our culture is so busy and it's go, go, go, and I think we we don't think of rest as we should do it.
SPEAKER_06So we totally don't think of rest. Like when I'm asked, so how are you doing? I've got to stop myself because the first word that always comes to the surface is busy, busy. Like, I don't know, like why why do we do that? Why do we want to appear busy to people?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I think in a way we have to we feel like we have to kind of justify our existence. We like that is our purpose to be busy is is to is to do stuff, and we kind of think, oh well if I'm not busy then what am I what am I doing in my life?
SPEAKER_05People might ask me to do something else.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, I think it's yeah, it's kind of non-stop, or kind of yeah, I think it can be really unhealthy to kind of romanticize that idea of being you know fueled by caffeine that oh wow they're working so hard, they're kind of they're going all the time, and we kind of look up to that, and I think um it's really interesting to try and yeah, turn that on its head and be more like actually, maybe that's not a good thing, maybe we should think about rest in a in a better way. Um and I think rest can be really great because we can in rest, uh in resting, we recognize our limits, we recognize that we're not God, um, we need to stop, we're limited human beings, um, we need to rest our bodies and our minds. Um, and I think it's also a really great um application, we can apply the gospel into the idea of rest where we see God resting um at the end of creation, at the end of after he's created, not because he was tired, but because he had finished. And I think when we rest, it can be a really great reminder of Jesus' finished work on the cross, that um he's done everything that we need to do for our salvation. We don't have to have anything, we can rest in that in that hope, and I think that's a really great reminder in that psalm.
SPEAKER_05I wonder whether sometimes we don't rest because you know, almost we don't trust that God is gonna provide, you know, like you know, you know, God says how we're we're worth more than many sparrows, and you know, he clothes the flowers of the field and all that stuff. Um and we kind of go, yeah, we know that, but I've got to pay the mortgage and all these things, and we just kind of think if I just put more time in, you know, and I think there's another psalm, I forget which one it is, that says, you know, the Lord says you um you know you stay up late and you toil in vain for your food, but the Lord grants sleep to those he loves. And there's you know this sense in which we think if we keep doing more work, that's gonna be a good thing, um, but actually it's in vain, um, and that sleep, that rest is a gift, but we can kind of neglect that and not really do it.
SPEAKER_06So yeah, definitely. And like verse 7, my salvation and my honour depend on God. He's gonna tell himself that, because ordinarily he would think, my salvation and my honour, they they depend on me. You know, me getting stuff done, me presenting a good image to heaven, me presenting a good image to earth. But yeah, what would it mean to rest? Like I actually have to trust God, wouldn't I? That actually, yeah.
SPEAKER_03And it's resting in him, not kind of next to him or nearby him, it's in him, and I think that image of being in God, like hidden within him, is a really great image.
SPEAKER_06And what does that look like? Like how how do you actually how do you actually do that?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I think resting is hard for some but for us to kind of like feel like we have to keep being busy, but I think resting really looks like yeah, reminding ourselves of these verses and this these great words from David, um, and kind of yeah, I think in those times where you feel like, oh, I should be doing something, kind of being prayerful and being yeah, remembering that our re we can rest in God.
SPEAKER_05We're always kind of plugged in, aren't we? Right, you know, so we were we're talking when we talked about it earlier, we were saying that you know, even in those moments where you do have nothing to do, the temptation of all of us is to get our phone out and scroll through something and just feel like and actually that I don't know about I don't I certainly find it I find it draining, you know, and I but I think why am I still why am I still scrolling through this thing? Yeah, you know, because it doesn't it doesn't relax me, it's not a restful thing. No, it's a distraction, it is a distraction, yeah, yeah, yeah absolutely.
SPEAKER_06And I I I wonder whether I'm trying to flood my perceptions with all this other stuff that doesn't really matter because I'm a I'm a little bit afraid of looking within too much, and I don't want to look up too much to God's, you know, and so I just fill I fill my horizon with just stuff, with trivialities. And yet here in verse 8, trust in him at all times, you people, pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge. You know, we want to live on this this horizontal level, and actually, rest involves going deep and figuring out what the desires of my heart are and offering them up to God.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and we could do that in the in the busiest place, we could be in a busy bustling crowd, and and we could have we can have that rest, we can pour our hearts to God amidst the chaos.
SPEAKER_06Yeah. And at the same time, we could go to a place of rest, like you go to the beach, but you could still like get out your phone and do some emails. We can so it's it's not about uh a certain place or that kind of thing, but it is about yeah, pouring your heart out to God, having that having that relationship. You had a great quote from Is it Jonathan Parnell?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, Jonathan Parnelly he'd written on a it was one of the desiring God uh posts quite a while ago now, but he said this about rest, and I just thought it was excellent. He said, The principle of Sabbath is a glorious picture of God's self-sufficiency and unwavering ability to provide. As God's people, our rest becomes a decisive, concrete, visible way of opting for and aligning with the God of rest. Perhaps as much now as in that early biblical context, one of the most head turning, soul stirring moves we make as a witness to God's holiness is when we stop. At night when we go to bed, on a whole day when we pause our projects, in a season of vacation or sabbatical, our stopping work is our saying enough to the merry-go-round. We don't have to ride this thing. There remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God. Rest then becomes our regular dramatization of the heart of the gospel. And I just thought, I mean, I thought that was such a good I thought it was fascinating there that even even rest is a dramatization of the gospel. I think it's particularly easy maybe in our kind of circles where we think the only way the gospel is proclaimed is certainly through getting up and preaching. And that's pretty much it. Maybe through your maybe through some good works. But the idea, I mean, because you know Protestant work ethic is strong. The idea that you could be proclaiming the gospel somehow by resting and not doing things, yeah is a pretty alien to us, I think. Yeah. Um but actually resting in the work of someone else should be should be second nature to us, really, shouldn't it?
SPEAKER_06So what should we say if someone says how you're doing? Instead of saying busy, what would you say? I'm rested. I'm rested. I'm really well rested. I'm enjoying God. Yeah, I'm just enjoying God right now.
SPEAKER_05That would be that would be counter-cultural, wouldn't it? Yeah. And what and I I think even you know that it it's counter-cultural in our society, undoubtedly, isn't it? Because it we are in a society that just says do more, do more, do more, fit it all in, you've got to do this before you die, and all these things. Oh man.
SPEAKER_06Um leisure, like they make leisure like really exhausting, don't it? Thousand how a thousand of one movies you should see before you die. I thought this was meant to be relaxing. You must see it.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, absolutely. And uh yeah, I just think you can be very distinctive by I mean, some some of that is gonna be it uh because there was another quote from uh I think it was William Still, the Scottish pastor, saying, what drives us to keep on doing these things? And he basically takes it down to sinful ambition. Right. You know, and uh you think what drives the person outside of the church to not stop? Is it is it nothing more than sinful ambition? You know, we've got to have the next you know, I've got to work more, bigger car, you know, nicer car, bigger house, whatever it might be. And we we so fall into that so easily as Christians that we start to live that same lifestyle, and we tell ourselves we have to do the same things everyone else is doing, because of course we need the same things, um, and it's quite a culture shock for us to not do that and to have different ambitions, I think.
SPEAKER_04So yeah.
SPEAKER_06So truly my soul finds rest in God, my salvation comes from him. Truly, he is my rock and my salvation, he is my fortress, I shall never be shaken. Great verses. Thanks for bringing them, Kez. Yeah, really? Yeah, yeah. And uh Kez is part of the Speak Life Foundry, and uh, if you guys want to think more about the Speak Life Foundry, maybe come and join us uh here in Eastbourne next year. You can go to speaklifefoundry.com and uh find out more about the internship. What else can people find out about?
SPEAKER_05Uh well I was gonna say if you want to support the work we're doing here as well, you can go to speaklife.org.uk forward slash give, and you'll be able to support the work not just of the foundry but the whole of the uh Speak Life Ministry. So that'd be great if you'd like to do that. Terrific.
SPEAKER_06And do get sharing this uh on whatever platform you're on right now. If you're listening to this as a podcast, share it as a podcast. If you're watching on YouTube, share on YouTube. Don't forget to like, share, and subscribe. All that stuff really matters. But thanks so much for joining us this week, and uh until next week, keep speaking life. Thanks very much, bye.