Bob Goff anything: podcasts, books, wherever you can find him.
Jamie Winship: same as ^^^ especially Living Fearless
Have you ever caught yourself wondering why your past has such a tight grip on your present choices, shaping the person you're becoming? Our latest heart-to-heart on the podcast peels back the layers of our life's tapestry, revealing how the stitches of our formative years and relationships with our parents intricately weave into our current behaviors and perceptions of God. Hear my own transformative journey that may help all of us understand the 'return address' of our actions and the unspoken influences that direct our life's path.
This conversation is no ordinary one—it's an invitation to reexamine the filters that color our connection with the Father and discover the joy within an authentic faith. We explore the profound notion that our earthly parents unwittingly sketch the first drafts of God in our minds, drafts that are often in need of revision. As we navigate through this exploration, we challenge popular culture’s emphasis on subjective truth and highlight the undeniable presence of objective truths, such as gravity, that shape our experiences irrespective of perception. So, pour yourself a soul-nourishing serving of this episode, and let’s embark on this journey of revelation and healing together.
Bob Goff anything: podcasts, books, wherever you can find him.
Jamie Winship: same as ^^^ especially Living Fearless
Have you ever caught yourself wondering why your past has such a tight grip on your present choices, shaping the person you're becoming? Our latest heart-to-heart on the podcast peels back the layers of our life's tapestry, revealing how the stitches of our formative years and relationships with our parents intricately weave into our current behaviors and perceptions of God. Hear my own transformative journey that may help all of us understand the 'return address' of our actions and the unspoken influences that direct our life's path.
This conversation is no ordinary one—it's an invitation to reexamine the filters that color our connection with the Father and discover the joy within an authentic faith. We explore the profound notion that our earthly parents unwittingly sketch the first drafts of God in our minds, drafts that are often in need of revision. As we navigate through this exploration, we challenge popular culture’s emphasis on subjective truth and highlight the undeniable presence of objective truths, such as gravity, that shape our experiences irrespective of perception. So, pour yourself a soul-nourishing serving of this episode, and let’s embark on this journey of revelation and healing together.
Speaker 1:
Do you ever feel like life can get too complicated and maybe even overwhelming? Yeah, me too, and it's okay. My name's Martha Gano, and in this podcast we're going to talk about life, love, faith, family relationships, all kinds of things, and we're going to drink from what God wants to pour into us, one small sip at a time, because when it's the fountain of living water, small sips make all the difference. Sometimes it'll be just you and me, sometimes we'll have a friend join us. If we could have lunch together today, this is what I'd want to talk about. Hey, hey, hey you guys, and welcome back to the podcast. I'm so excited today to continue talking about this concept of clearing the filters that we have over how we see God so that we can connect with Him more and more authentically and more enjoyed this relationship that he created us for, that he longs to have with us.
Speaker 1:
I was recently listening to a podcast by one of my favorite authors, bob Goff. He made this comment about changing the return address on what drives our behaviors and the choices that we make in our lives. I thought that was such an interesting way to describe that thing that happens when we, realizing it or not realizing it, actually are letting wounds or incorrect perceptions from our past determine the choices that we're making in our present. And, of course, if it's determining those choices happening right now, it's literally shaping our futures too right? I know that some folks are concerned about this idea of like why do we have to dig into our past? The past is the past. We don't want to get stuck there. You can focus so much on that. You're not living your best life right now, and I get that. My pastor actually recently framed this in such a simple and clear way. I thought it was worth sharing. He said we don't need to dig into our past unless it's impacting our present. I thought that was like spot on. You know what I mean, because the truth is what's happened during our most formative years pretty much always has shaped and is continuing to form who we are. And you know, it doesn't even have to be those early years. It can be significant events that have happened later in my life that are powerfully impacting how I see life, relationships, god, how I interact with people or certain groups of people, what my expectations are and how I kind of push myself into what I'm already believing is going to happen. But bumping back to those formative years, you know.
Speaker 1:
Interestingly enough, one of the biggest determinants of how we see God is the image of him that we formed, based on our earthly parents. It just makes sense, right? They're the ones from whom we came, who are the all powerful ones at our time and place of origin. They are, or should be, our providers, our protectors, and they definitely are, in a sense, the creators of our worlds at that stage in our lives. So it just makes sense that our image of God would be significantly formed through the filter of our parents. Now, last I checked, every mom and dad on the planet is just a human being. So even if your father was awesome, he wasn't and isn't God. Your mom did her best, or maybe she didn't, but I think that we can all agree that our parents did put their own inaccurate, even broken filters on who God is for us.
Speaker 1:
So here's the thing we live in a culture that says that perception defines reality. We say things like you be you and whatever you decide to believe, that's your truth. We're trying to do away with objective truth. Why? Let's just say that's another conversation for another day. But let's put it this way Guys, if I go to my roof and I jump off my roof, 10 out of 10 times the law of gravity is going to cause me to fall off the roof and hit the ground. My perception of the law of gravity actually has nothing to do with the actual truth of the law of gravity. It is an objective truth. My perception of that doesn't change gravity, but what it will profoundly shape is my experience based on how I interact with gravity, based on my perception. Right. So the same is true of how I interact with people, for example. My perceptions of people don't define who they actually are. They are who they are, and if my perceptions are incorrect or twisted around, it's the perception that's off-based and that is shaping my choices based on something that's not actually true. So the same can be true of God. I would say the same is true of God for all of us. Unless you're like Jesus, maybe Life on a broken planet distorts who we believe that he is. It doesn't change who he actually is. It changes my perception of Him and that changes how I live my life in relation to Him. He's the same person that he always was.
Speaker 1:
So let's, let's bump back to our parents. Let's be clear about something else too. You guys, I think it's super important that we honor our parents. Actually, god doesn't give us a choice and there are so many reasons which we'll get to eventually, but he says really clearly honor your father and mother, that your days may be long in the land the Lord, your God's given you and that it may go well with you. And there are many other scriptures surrounding the impacts from whether we honor or dishonor our parents. He's not playing on this one and it's for our good.
Speaker 1:
That's a sneak peek into things we'll talk about in the future, but I think that sometimes we've decided that to honor a person, we have to hide all their flaws and pretend like they don't exist. Actually, the root word of honor is closely related to the word honest. Did you know there's a way to be honest and face the truth about someone while still honoring them? So take a deep breath and let's just talk about being honest and honoring Our parents. Even the best of them are just broken people like us on a broken planet. I can pretend that their flaws didn't have any negative impact on how I see God or life, which is kind of like me standing on the roof declaring that I don't believe in gravity while I jump, or I can have great courage to ask the question what is my picture of God insofar as it's been shaped by my earthly parents?
Speaker 1:
Maybe it will help to spend some time thinking about how awesome your parents are, first, and how grateful you are to them for those things, and then wrapping our brains a little bit around this concept of being honest and honoring at the same time, and then we can start to think about some things that may be hard to face, but if they're impacting our present, they're shaping our futures and they're worth looking at. So maybe if your dad was absent, then maybe God seems far off and distant to you. Or if your mom was uninvolved, maybe you feel like God doesn't really care about the details of your life or that he's unavailable. If your father was angry, god may feel the same way to you and you're always waiting on the other shoe to fall. Or whenever a challenge comes, you think it's punishment from him. Or maybe your mom was a perfectionist, so you feel like, no matter what you do, you're a failure and you'll never live up to what God expects of you. With all due respect to your parents, those are broken filters. They in no way represent your father. The one who knows you best is actually the one who loves you most. There's nothing that you've done and nothing that you could do that could change the father's love for you. This is worth spending some time on, I think.
Speaker 1:
When I hit new information, I say to the Lord what I now call the Jamie Winship questions. Just a little plug. If you have not listened to or read any Jamie Winship, go do it. It is so worth it. He says that when you're talking to the Lord about things to say, lord, what do you have to say to me about this? What do you want me to know about this and what do you want me to do about it?
Speaker 1:
He's a good father. As my brother-in-law says. He's not playing hide and seek with us and, as the scripture says, his sheep hear his voice, not his sheep. Sometimes hear his voice, but his sheep hear his voice, not his sheep. Try to hear his voice. I'm telling you you do hear God. Maybe you just need to learn how to listen well or recognize when it's him speaking to you. And almost all of us really, really need to address those cracked and dirty filters. We see him through, but I promise you that he is always speaking and he wants you to hear him. So I, 10 out of 10, highly recommend taking some time to ask him and then watching for him to answer and giving yourself permission to start learning how to recognize how he's speaking to you.
Speaker 1:
You know, there's a chance that this is pinging something in your heart, but that it's maybe kind of blowing your mind a little bit, and it may even feel scary. That's okay. That's often how it feels right before amazing things happen. Just take a deep breath, hang with me. We're going to keep talking about these things, with just little sips from the fountain, and I promise that it's worth it. So come back. We'll see you next time.
Speaker 1:
Thanks for spending time with me today. Hey you guys, thanks for hanging out with us today. I hope you got some refreshment from this sip from the fountain. If you're curious to hear more or if you like what you've heard, you can go ahead and subscribe to the podcast wherever you listen to yours, or follow our Instagram account, sips from the fountain, or our Facebook page by the same name. Special thanks for cover our photography to the Sarah D Harper, and I can't wait to hang out with you guys next time. Thanks so much, love y'all. You, you, you, hey, you guys. Thanks for hanging out with us today. I hope you've got some refreshment from this sip from the fountain. If you're curious to hear more or if you like what you've heard, you can go ahead and subscribe to the podcast wherever you listen to yours, or follow our Instagram account, sips from the fountain or our Facebook page by the same name. Special thanks for cover our photography to the Sarah D Harper, and I can't wait to hang out with you guys next time. Thanks so much, love y'all you.