Ep. 84 The Weight of Our Choices

What if we considered every creation in our lives—be it our children, businesses, or personal projects—as a mirror reflecting our deepest values and commitments? Inspired by Victor Frankenstein's tale, this episode of the Words for Change podcast challenges listeners to reflect on the profound responsibility that comes with creation. Through personal experiences and stories, we journey into the complexities of nurturing what we've brought into the world. I share insights on why abandoning our creations when faced with adversity is never the answer and explore how biblical teachings can guide us in this relentless pursuit of nurturing our creations with care and accountability.

As we approach Thanksgiving, it's the perfect time to ponder the personal responsibility we hold within our family dynamics and leadership roles. It's a call to action to reflect on the creations in our lives—family relationships, careers, and dreams—and consider how they contribute to the larger tapestry of our existence. Join us for a reflective journey that promises to leave you pondering the true cost and commitment of creation.

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Chapters

• 0:00 The Power of Creation and Acceptance
• 12:00 Reflection on Personal Responsibility

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Well, hello, words for Change podcast audience. This is your man, lionel. Today I want to dive into a theme that will strike at the heart of what it means to be a creator. Whether we're a parent, whether we're launching a new project, a new business, or simply shaping our lives or the life of others, what we create carries a piece of who we are and reflects our values, our imagination, our heart, and it also carries a responsibility, and I want to talk about that today, with this famous verse, actually, as a quote to create something is to take part of yourself and give it to the world. What you create will bear your fingerprints, but also bear your responsibility. But what day is it y'all? Well, welcome again. Hey, man, it is what it is November the 26th. Good morning Vietnam. Happy Thanksgiving, man. We have a lot going on and it's a busy week for all of you, and I know I only get a few great recipes from my wife during this time of the year and I'm looking forward to Thanksgiving. So well, we had a weekend in college football Alabama. Yes, alabama, the playoff powerhouse got humbled by Oklahoma. My daughter's alma mater 24 to 3 over Alabama was hard to imagine as well, man, I love football, so you know I have to talk about it, but, man, college football is just a gift that keeps on giving In the news.

Speaker 1: 1:33

Now we shift towards some more intense international news. Nato and Ukraine are holding an emergency talk after Russia fired off hypersonic missiles, a missile called Arsene. And this thing is super fast, it's 10 times the speed of sound and packs six non-nuclear warheads. So, wow, that's crazy. President Putin said it's a retaliation for Ukraine, using Western-supplied long-range missiles. Issued Long range missiles. Issued a warning. Russia has the right is what Putin said to use weapons against military facilities in Ukraine and against anyone helping them. So guess who supplied those weapons? That's the US. President Biden decision to supply Ukraine with anti-person, anti-landmines is, you know, really controversial in that a lot of human rights groups are going back and saying that he's going against his previous stance, especially since these mines could harm civilians.

Speaker 1: 2:37

Man, and so we are in a tough time and we covet your prayers for our nation, our world. Romans 13 says we should pray for our leaders and pray for peaceable work. Jesus was a God of peace, and it's in these moments when we feel uncertain that we have to stick to our faith. It's comforting to know that Jesus is still in charge. John 16, 33 says and it reminds us that in this world you will have trials and troubles, but take heart, I have overcome the world. So, even when conflict and chaos are going awry or seems imminent, we can hold fast to Jesus, we can hold fast to the gospel, we can hold fast to what we believe to be true that can help us overcome the brokenness of this world. His peace is greater than the storms that we all face.

Speaker 1: 3:55

Now I want to talk about the power of creation. Let me start out with a undeniable truth, and that truth is creating something is powerful as exciting. I love it when I'm able to create something that feels like breathing life into the world. But that power, as we know, is a double-edged sword. Me and my daughters and my wife had a conversation about the great book Frankenstein, and Victor Frankenstein book An Act of Creation is an incredible piece of work. I highly recommend you use it. Me and my family talked about how writers back in the 20th and 19th century were really really good at using metaphor to describe human personality. But the moment he sees the imperfection of Frankenstein we're talking about Victor Frankenstein, who actually created the creature that became Frankenstein. But the moment he saw Frankenstein, he saw his imperfections of what he had made. He recoiled. He absolutely recoiled, okay, and instead of nurturing what he created, he abandoned what he created.

Speaker 1: 5:19

Now I want you to think about everything in your life that you see, that you created. The fact of where you are right now, what you are experiencing in your life, the relationship that may not be going well, the business may not be going well, the challenges you face these are all part of your creation. And how often do we abandon the things that we create? And maybe we don't create monsters in the lab like Viktor Frankl. But think about the relationships, the projects, the dreams you've started when they've not gone as planned. I know what it feels like. I remember planting at churches, many of you know, and even though it went well for the most part, it didn't go as planned. And what happens when things don't go the way we want? Well, we have a tendency to begin cursing those things and we get tempted to step back and to criticize and even reject it. But here's the thing the act of creation doesn't end when the thing is made. That's a powerful point. It's a powerful statement for us to think about. That's just the beginning.

Speaker 1: 6:34

In Luke 14, jesus asks us to what? Count the cost? I want you to think about this scripture verse. It's a verse that I use often, at least that I think about for my own life. He said count the cost before building anything. It's financial planning. It's a profound reminder that creation requires follow through. You just can't create something, but there's nurturing. That has to happen. And this is what happened, or what the author in the book Frankenstein realized that you just can't build something but you have to nurture it. You can't just create something to nurture it. Building something a tower, a family, a ministry then it requires more than a blueprint. Watch this y'all. It requires commitment. Now, this is something you're going to have to think about.

Speaker 1: 7:27

Okay, this is where accountability comes in. If we're honest, it's easy to blame the things we created, the things that we create, when they fall short of what we expected and we haven't nurtured it. We nurtured it the way we needed to or we failed to nurture it. Right like victor franco blamed his creation, frankenstein, for everything he had done, but he abandoned the creation, he abandoned the creature. He abandoned frankenstein at his most vulnerable moment. Now we're going to encourage you again to go check out the story. You can go online and get the cliff notes, but it's a powerful story. I really would love for you to read it to get a better understanding of this very powerful analogy about the things that we create requiring nurturing. Okay, so accountability starts with asking what have I created? How have I cared for the things I created? When the Lord hit me with that man, I was like Right. So now we talk about nurturing what we create.

Speaker 1: 8:36

One of the most important things, or the most poignant moments in Frankenstein is when the creature, despite being rejected and reviled, he had an innate longing for connection. Right. So Frankenstein, according to the book, watched families in secret and learned language and kindness. And because of what he learned by observation, this is the creature Frankenstein. He wanted to belong, right. He wanted to belong right. He wanted to belong right.

Speaker 1: 9:10

Think about God as the creator, psalms 145.9, says the Lord is good to all. He has compassion on all he has made. Has not the Lord had compassion on you and I? Right, god has walked us. God didn't just create us, right, but there's compassion that goes along with us. God is gracious to us. So compassion is the foundation of how God nurtures us and how parents nurture kids and boy. Do I have a story about that one as well? Yeah, I'll be honest with you, in some instances I'm not too proud about that. I had definitely been a part of creating and have it nurtured the way that I should have.

Speaker 1: 9:56

It's about understanding the needs and the struggles of what we brought into existence in the world allows us to see beyond imperfections to the potential of what we have created and what it can be. Ok, so what about acceptance? Ok, so when we think about accountability, the things that we created, and then compassion, we have to nurture those things. Now let's talk about acceptance. We have to nurture those things. Now let's talk about acceptance. This is a very, very, perhaps the hardest part of creating, because it means letting go of expectation. Acceptance doesn't mean that we are passive. It means that we embrace the reality of what we created and we begin working with it.

Speaker 1: 10:49

Jeremiah 18, 6 describes God as the potter and us as the clay. A potter doesn't throw away the clay when it is done, when it doesn't turn out in perfection. I don't know if you ever worked with a pottering wheel, but my wife and I have. It's pretty cool when you work with it right. God says he's the pot part and we are the clay. God's model accepts and not ignores us not ignoring our flaws but engages them and shapes us with passion, mercy and grace. So for us, we may look at our child, who doesn't follow the path that we imagine, or we are don't want to stick with a project that feels messy and imperfect, or it's about lowering our standards. It's not about that. It's not about lowering our standards. It's about seeing the value in the things that we created. Okay, so this is a powerful metaphor for us to understand as we go into this Thanksgiving week.

Speaker 1: 12:00

Some of us are going to have family over who we haven't seen in a long time, and there will be conversations there. I don't know about you, but more conversations pop up and sometimes it gets really messy. But guess what? That's the creation. Some of that experiences may be part of what we have participated in or what we created, maybe reconnecting with relatives we haven't seen in a long time. And then all of a sudden, they see us and they haven't seen us in a while. Old stories from the past come up and it hurts, bubble to the surface and guess what? That's a part of our creation, okay, and we have to be able to accept the fact that perhaps it is not the way I want it to be. Perhaps this situation, this business, this relationship is not turning out and then taking responsibility for that, that's tough. It is really really tough.

Speaker 1: 13:05

I remember when I had to change my leadership team at one of my church organizations right, I had to sit back and take responsibility. At the beginning y'all I didn't see it, I didn't quite understand what went wrong, until after reflecting, like they say, sometimes we get you know, hindsight is 20-20. And realize that you know what I had the right motive, but what happened was totally my responsibility as the leader, as the leader, and I remember seeing lives destroyed at the end not because of anything I had did directly, because I think my leadership needed to be honed more, and I saw people get divorced. I saw people who just became resentful with ministry. I saw people who really didn't grow up into spiritual maturity but were put on a stage and really didn't understand what they were getting into. Right, and it really wasn't their fault. They had some part to play in it. But ultimately, as the leader, I had to take responsibility, accepting the fact that this was something I created.

Speaker 1: 14:24

It doesn't mean that people don't have the power to make their own decisions. What it means is that what we see in our lives right now, at this moment, at this time, that we don't necessarily like, is very much a part of our creation. So the principles of accountability and compassion and acceptance apply not only to our personal lives, but to the world, to our world. We think about technology. We think about social media. We think about our environment. Think about what's going on in our United States of America today. If you're an American citizen, listen to this. We are in turmoil and we have created. We have to take responsibility for that. We often create without considering the cost. When things go wrong, when technology isolates or the environment suffers or the environment suffers or we have some political upheaval, right, we blame people instead of reflecting on our own responsibility in the things that we created.

Speaker 1: 15:34

So I want you to think about the things you've created in your life right now. Think about family as we approach Thanksgiving. Think about your career. Think about a new dream. Maybe it's something as simple as a habit or relationship. Whatever it is. Take a moment to reflect and ask yourself these questions Are you holding yourself accountable for how you nurtured it? Are you holding yourself accountable for how you nurtured it? Are you holding yourself accountable for how you nurtured it? Are you approaching it with compassion, even when it's challenging to you? Are you willing to accept it for what it is, while still helping it to grow? Here's the good news we don't have to do this alone. God modeled it for us every single day. His love for us is the blueprint for how we can love and care for the things we created. So I want you to think about this topic as you move into Thanksgiving, as you engage with family members and as you decide to show forgiveness, to be compassionate, to take responsibility, to be accountable. Right as God is to us, to be loving still yet and still, as the Lord has been loving toward us, we demonstrate that to the situation, to the environment, to the people we encounter. Now I'll leave you with this Creation isn't just about making something. It's about stewarding it. Think about that. Creation is not just about making something. It's about stewarding it. When we engage with our creation, our family, our ideas, our community, and we maintain accountability, we hold on to compassion, we are willing to take responsibility, we reflect the heart of God when we do these things, and in doing so we bring redemption to the world and even ourselves, because we can learn a lot through the things we suffer. Hey, y'all, thank you for joining the Words for Change podcast. Once again, happy Thanksgiving. I hope this episode resonated with you. I love to hear your thoughts, ok, so please, you can click the link in the description that says send me a message, let me know if this resonated with you. And hey, I hope you guys enjoy your turkey. I know I'm going to enjoy some fried chicken, collard greens and some dressing that my wife makes. So until next time, hey, let's go out into the world and take care of the things that we've created, that God has entrusted to us, and I look forward to seeing y'all in the next two weeks. Take care, salute, and I'll talk to you soon. Be well, peace.