Tiniest of Seeds

Temptation: A Chat With Bill Bedell About How It Points Us to Places of More Love and Healing

• Laurine Decker & Bill Bedell • Season 2 • Episode 1

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This conversation with counselor Bill Bedell dogs into some of the subtle nuances of why and how temptation can wreak havoc with us. Often, we are fighting the battle with the wrong lens and goals in mind. Join us as we chat, and then check back next week for an exhortative word of hope with scriptural support of this conversation.

A little background — I spent a lot of my life actually practicing getting "SICKER" in my quest for self control. I was actually practicing something unattainable. I was trying to achieve my freedom from self-control rather than obedience. Obedience flows from love, and I had it backward. Simply put, God doesn't look at sin or temptation the same way we do. Jesus Christ won our full righteousness on the cross! It is truly for freedom that we have been set free. So then, why do so many Christians miserably suffer from familiar sin? Why do believers often look the same as the world when we look to mental distress and destructive isolating behaviors? The Bible tells us to walk by the Spirit so we don't carry out the desires of the flesh. The freedom in this comes through a far different way than the world preaches. JOY and LOVE and PEACE can be ours despite our humanity and sin. I believe it.


Laurine Decker:

Welcome guests, listeners, and Bill Bedell I'm so glad you're here and today's a little bit of a marker day for me. I already shared with Bill a little bit. A lot of you have been following Breathe in Him and my sister and I have decided to part ways in the business partnership because we have been sisters, spiritual sisters for so long and found the business partnership was really getting in the way. So this is a marker day and, bill, you are my first guest with this podcast and you may listeners have noticed that Autumn I haven't been doing it together for some time. She went on a sabbatical last summer, was gone for a number of months and then it just was natural for me to progress, and so this is the first official day where it is really just Laurine Decker and welcome Bill. And I almost canceled on Bill yesterday because I was feeling like I just wanted to throw in the towel on everything in my life, including this podcast. But here we are today and I'm actually excited to talk to him and we are going to be talking about temptation and I am really looking forward to it because I am excited to hear what Bill has to say. I know I'll learn something and you guys will too. And also, before we even start, I want to throw out a what, if?

Laurine Decker:

W hat if we are increasingly struggling as we put our eyes on the temptation? We know temptation can feel pretty black and white. led into temptation? So I just want to talk to you a bit about temptation, because I know I've spent a lot of my life fighting the wrong battle, and again I think I said this last time I love it. Bill is willing to just jump in. We have had no conversation about this, and , without me going on and on, I want to just throw the ball to Bill and let him catch it and run with it.

Bill Bedell:

Sounds good. Well, I'm just glad that I can be here. The interesting thing to begin with is, like, even when you asked hey, you know I want to talk about temptation, that's probably the first time I've heard that word in a while, and so it's just not something that we. It just struck me it's not something we talk about in our culture very often anymore, and so when you, I think to begin with, like how do you define it?

Laurine Decker:

like when you think about temptation, okay, are you asking me, yeah, okay. Well, I think it's helpful to even start by defining sin, because I think in Christian language, sometimes correlated with sin, and so I think that I would define temptation as something that moves us to sin. But then I think I want to take a step back and say what is sin? And I think sin is anything that breaks our fellowship with God, and I think that that's where we have gotten it wrong, which is actually where sometimes I think we fall into temptation.

Laurine Decker:

Then the sin isn't exactly what we're defining it as, and, to even give a specific example, I think, like in my life, I defined sin as my gluttony, but I think the definition of sin that comes before that is what caused me to enter into a place where I was willing to succumb to that temptation, and so I think that, as we look and we say Jesus was tempted in all things, as we are, yet he learned obedience and was without sin. I just think that that's kind of an interesting nuance, because he definitely entered into life. You know, he was accused of being a drunkard and a glutton, in fact, so he was doing something to make people think he was sinning, so that I just threw a lot of that, a lot at you. But that's kind of what I'm thinking with the different twists on temptation and sin yeah, I mean there's a few ideas that come to mind.

Bill Bedell:

I think about saying let's see CS Lewis quote where he said you don't realize how powerful temptation is until you begin to resist it. And I think in our culture people don't really have. There's a toxic culture that we live in in my mind that doesn't acknowledge temptation as a reality anymore so the idea is it's kind of do what you want and do it feels good.

Bill Bedell:

So when you have a conversation about temptation, I think there's an anesthetizing of people toward this whole thing, like I feel like we're numb to it. So the idea is what you're doing, that you know. If you talk about a pull or particular temptation, a lot of people aren't even aware that that's a thing. So then I back up to like okay, well, like what you were saying is stuffing your face gluttony. Yeah, I suppose. But I don't think it's necessarily kind because I don't think it really takes into context what it means to be human or accepting our humanity right.

Bill Bedell:

I go back to the garden and think, okay, well, the desire is for us to be like God. So we grasp at this desire, not really knowing what the outcome or the fall is going to be, but as we accept our humanity, which we got accepted at us and our humanity not without consequence but with sacrifice. So I think when I, when I think about that, like, one of the things that comes to mind is in Romans, where, if, especially in Romans 1, like 15 on, where he's saying look, I've made it clear, but if, if you're not going to pay attention, then I'm going to turn you over to your sensuality, which, once you get there, it's really hard to see what sin is anymore, because you're given over to sensuality, just what feels good. So I also think about the kindness that God offers us in the midst of our humanity, not only knowing that we can't do it, which is proven through the Old Testament, but that he is the culmination and the focus that right because we can't do it.

Bill Bedell:

It seems like that's the reality that we're having a hard time accepting, is that we're going to work hard to show everybody that we can, or that we're going to, you know, erase sin from our life by you know willpower and doing this. And I think, when I think about that, I think about first gentleman night, where he's really just asking us to confess the reality of our sin. Not that we're not going to, and that's more Roman 7, or it's like I can't stop doing what I don't want to do right.

Bill Bedell:

I think that once we get to a spot where we quit working so hard about being something, then we start allowing and receiving from God what we need yes to be more who he wants us to be.

Bill Bedell:

And I think you know sin and temptations are ruttered by a number of different things. That, yeah, original sin, our own hearts, which are both made in the imago dae and also dark, but the reality is that God never holds that against us in a way that is like, well, that's terrible, it's just more. Will you admit the reality of this? You know, this dichotomy this, the ambivalence of being, you know, the child of God in a broken world?

Laurine Decker:

yep, it does, and I totally agree, and I've often, in fact, part of my journey has been recognizing, because I know, you know, I've really battled perfectionism, expectation, caretaking over responsibility, being burdened with things that are not mine to carry, just thinking I need to have it all together, be strong for everyone, and one of the things, as I have been unraveling that in the past couple years, is recognizing. He does care if I'm in the pig pen, if you will, but he won it on the cross. He looks at me when I am acting out in self-destructive behavior that will have consequences, or when I am quote sinning, if he will, or when I am quote doing things that he knows are maybe not best for me, and he's like I got this. My power is perfected in your weakness. I tend to define myself by my sin, but he doesn't.

Laurine Decker:

He defines me by Christ, what he won on the cross, and so I think that's what kind of what you're saying, too, is like can I receive that grace? Can I say you know what Laurine ? You're enough because Jesus won it on the cross, and you can choose to self-harm or to act in a way that is sensual, or to do something that is ultimately going to have consequences because I love you and don't worry so much about that. Just come and say I confess I'm I'm doing this and thank you that you love me anyway, and then to be able to receive the love in the midst of that is the challenge and that's what I'm continuing to learn, like it's not irrelevant that I have pain, that I act out poorly, just like you were referring to Romans 7. Paul says why do I do what I don't want to do? He says he's the chief of all sinners, like we're all gonna be human sometimes and Christ's blood covers it.

Bill Bedell:

So I kind of think that was what you were getting at yeah, and I think maybe just another facet of like if, for instance, perfectionism, if you were to go back and decide like, hey, when did I decide to be perfectionist? Yeah, I don't think it was actually a choice. What's interesting is there's conscious levels to that where you're saying, hey, this is what was present and this is then what I did to compensate for that, again, I wouldn't say that was a choice. If, for instance, you know the advice was don't go comfort a child who's crying, that was really popular.

Bill Bedell:

So now you have something that's going on with the child, where a natural response to the world is to feel uncomfortable, and then so your communication of that need for comfort and connection is to cry, but then it's not met. Well, the structure is in the brain. Whether you want them to or not, begin to develop. So there's mycelene layers that don't get developed there's neural patterns that don't connect.

Bill Bedell:

So there's a trauma in not getting that attunement and that connection. So later on, let's say, when you're doing perfectionism and you're looking at it through lines of sin, like I think that looks very much differently in the context of the story. So there is a, literally, if you could look at someone's brain, when that's happening, the neural patterns and the connection between the brain and body actually break and so there's gaps in spaces that trauma inhabits. So it's fair to say that there would be, because of that brokenness, an inability to get to yourself. And so later on, as an adult, when you're dealing with your symptom not the core, but the symptom of whatever that problem is, looking at that through the lens of perfectionism, overcoming that sin which in and of itself, like, is it a behavior that's helpful to you know? Is it sin? Yes, in some ways, but where was its origin? Like I have a hard time telling an infant that they're sinning.

Laurine Decker:

I totally agree with you. Like we have these, you know, like I think last time I mentioned God-given denial, we have things that all of a sudden you know, as we progress in adult, then we realize, you know, this isn't working for me. This is actually not, this is actually an obstacle for me receiving love from God and others or giving love to God and others. So then there may be a way that can be healed.

Bill Bedell:

Yeah, and as an adult, then, as you're trying to unravel that, you're seeing that part of you as an adult that understands oh, this is what this is. And he said, yeah, can we take in grace? And I would say yes to a point, because I think we have a problem taking in something God doesn't have a problem existing in those spaces.

Laurine Decker:

Sure yep.

Bill Bedell:

But I can take that in as an adult, that does not mean that that part of me is actually integrated, able to receive it in the same way.

Laurine Decker:

Sure.

Bill Bedell:

So there's that internal disconnection that we've carried forward and if you look at perfectionism, it's an attempt to protect you from what it's like to be abandoned.

Laurine Decker:

Sure yep and rejected. And to feel alone for me.

Bill Bedell:

Right. So we're working with people, with food issues or perfectionism, still the same thing. We're hungry for something, and that whole that we have isn't getting filled, or the layers that we need between us and other people, whether that can be skin layers or you know, perfection layers. We don't believe that it's coming.

Laurine Decker:

Right? We don't believe that. I mean, everything in us has proven that it's not. And yesterday I shared with you. I was able to receive some comfort in some new and different ways and actually cry with someone and feel comforted. That's huge. And then also I was a closed receptacle at points. I can recognize it. It's like nope, shut that down. But I'm sure you, we maybe even talked about Psalm 107 last time. I love Psalm 107. Makes me think of that where you're hungry and desperate and crying to the Lord and then he delivers us from our troubles. But the thing I'm realizing is his deliverance, even though it's absolute, can be a long and slow manifestation or healing recognition. And that's why I'm so glad, you know, like with the counseling journey, or like medication or science or whatever God has put before us through his good and first good provision for healing, because we don't, we need to walk it out.

Bill Bedell:

Yeah, I think it's interesting. Yet At some point, no matter how much healing you receive, that may be incomplete, which it may be something that you struggle with for the rest of your life. It's another thing to then begin to think about. Okay, there is sin and there is brokenness. Some things I struggle with are a result of other people's sin. Some are more struggle. You know are a result of my own choice. Some is in living in a fallen world, some of it's inside. Temptation is interesting, because I think temptation has a lot to do with where the holes in our life are or where the spots are that are deeply painful or harmful.

Bill Bedell:

I don't know necessarily if this connects, but the way I think about it is when Jesus was talking to the disciples and he says, look, you can't cast this out. And was talking about like look, if you're going to go into the house, you have to have the strong man, and I really like that in terms of temptation, Like there's a sense where our purpose here is to go do that.

Bill Bedell:

But if we can't really address like the evil or deal with that you know, then it's going to go off the charts, and I just thought it was a beautiful illustration.

Laurine Decker:

So are you willing? I don't want to interrupt your train of thought, but are you willing to even be more specific, because I 100% agree with you? What do you mean by tying up the strong man?

Bill Bedell:

So does God use trauma and pain that we experience in our story as a foothold? Yes, and so part of what we're doing is like we're trying to fix something on the top here, like, well, I'm perfectionistic. If we really get down into the meat of that story, there's a lot of pain and loss or hurt that we don't want to feel, so it's easier to kind of manage up here with perfectionism At the core the pain is of not being loved well, and I think that that's where sin takes the opportunity when we can pause and just not have so much condemnation for our struggle to look at the narrative and bigger concepts.

Bill Bedell:

the way that God does, which is okay is if I was evil, I would absolutely use a place where you felt worthless or less than and just grind gears there and let you sit up here on top while I start with food and throw it down while I start with it. Yeah, you actually do. But what is ruddering that like what's the thing, that core issue that's pushing that? And so I think, when you think about binding up the strongman, like, are we willing to go in and trust that the cross actually means that we can enter into the places of our deepest wounds, right, which is, you know, dying to self, which is burying your cross, which is losing your life to gain it, where you see that there's avoidance and self-protection.

Laurine Decker:

and fear I think I already quoted the verse taking captive every thought that sets itself up against knowledge of Christ. And again that comes down to identity. And yesterday, when I was feeling comforted at one point and then feeling this deep fear and I actually told I had two New Day sisters come over and I told them I feel like I'm going to be punished because I was so messy and vulnerable and I took a risk and just laid it all out there and just had all the feelings and was so human and I could feel grace for myself in that and I felt I knew it was okay in my mind. But I said to them I feel I'm afraid because I feel like a mess and in my story, my paradigm is you can't be a mess or you are. You will be 1000% alone. And so in the past I would have actually not expressed that, but I did express it again. Identity back to Christ.

Laurine Decker:

One of my friends then prayed and said no, that's that's, that's evil, that is, that is the strongman like to use the language bill is using. That is not God's will, that you feel alone and you're going to be punished because you were messy and imperfect, and so we put it underneath the blood of Christ. We quote bound up the strongman. And guess what? Yesterday I did feel terrible all told Bill, I like, but I did not go to a place of self harm and self destruction. That is newer behavior and it's increasing in m y resilience, in that as I continuing to take those risks and saying, you know what this feels, everything in me screams you cannot receive the love and grace of God you are bad you are not safe.

Bill Bedell:

So it's this right i by the reality of you know. Oh, I'm an adult, so I don't struggle with that anymore. Total, integral and like connected sense that when you are open and you need comfort, that you go back to a really young feeling in your body because that, because your body's not done with it. So that's what I meant by the context that he sees and that he actually has designed like we don't need to work harder.

Bill Bedell:

At that moment, you're allowing a part to come up and receive.

Bill Bedell:

In many ways, for the could be for the first time that you receive comfort in a place where you're supposed to be perfect and your solution to the problem which was unconscious to begin with anyway was to move towards perfection, and there's a part of us that needs to be received so that we can understand that that solution isn't the only option, because to the part of you that's kind of frozen and feeling like they're gonna get way later in trouble doesn't experience what you experience, isn't it? So that's where the time differentiation is, but that the reality is receiving it.

Bill Bedell:

Real time is what brings that up in your body, because your body wants to bring balance yes, so as you turn towards a part of you and see that part is still screaming, yeah, part is still actively wounded, then you can connect all right, yeah, internally. And so, all of a sudden, if you used to be in rigidity or chaos which disintegration creates, when you get into integration, there's also this reality and this opportunity to do things in a connected way for yourself, mm-hmm, which hasn't been there before. And connection, interestingly enough, like relationship, is what drives out the strong man, mm-hmm. So if you can be in reality about what it is and if you can connect, then you know temptation is going to look different because it's gonna have a depth to its context. Yeah, it's not just not doing something, it's about not doing something or struggling with something, but then offering connection.

Laurine Decker:

Yeah, because if you don't offer, connection, then you're working really hard without really for comfort. Yeah, and that's where it does. It's. It takes practice and learning, going back to the beginning, like Jesus did learn to be in relationship with his mom, with God, the Father. It tells us that you know, and I'm learning new ways of being and yesterday, you know, in my family origin, we, we did act, perfect. I didn't hear my parents fight. I've really never even heard my mom say anything mean about anyone or say a swear word. She doesn't. You know that standard was very real and so my story is.

Laurine Decker:

It's not okay to have real emotions and I know I've talked before. You know you, you feel guilty for having a guilty feeling. You know I mean you feel anxious about being anxious and yesterday I did actually feel, allow myself to really feel the anger, hostility, resentment, even towards some of my you know, a couple, my friends, but letting people in and knowing you know that connection is worth more and that I don't have to be afraid of that anger, discomfort, because it is out of a place of my story that still does need more healing. How am I gonna receive that healing? I'm gonna continue to walk in the truth that that is not reality and allow myself the grace to feel it. But you guys, yesterday it did not feel like it was working. But I have come far enough along on my healing, counseling journey that I am realizing as I bind the strong man, not out of rigidity, rules and regulation or legalism, but as I stand in the truth of my identity in Christ. Eventually and I'm very thankful that was quick turnaround for me to feel the joy restored this morning.

Laurine Decker:

Yesterday I was sowing in tears man, and it's a miracle I was even able to sow in tears literally for me, because I probably didn't cry for ten years after my first marriage ended. That's not an exaggeration, and just you know. And then last yesterday I was even screaming. I was screaming I, I mean, I'll just tell you I'm gonna, I was gonna filter, I was like I hate church. I, I, you know I'm so angry at that I won't give a concrete examples, but just so much anger. And that was my little self. I do need more healing and I am receiving it in deeper ways and I, who knows where I'll end up. You know, I know you say some things we never completely heal from and really that's kind of irrelevant now to me because I am walking in more freedom, less self harm, more connection with people and God you know so.

Bill Bedell:

Well, and just one thing to kind of add on. I learned this from Pia Melody, who was brilliant. These are funny terms, but I love the term. So your mom, you know, don't have any judgment for her, but the way that she learned to do things was to internalize them to act in. So Pia had two kinds of things about that. She would say you're either a tight ass or a shit ass.

Laurine Decker:

Yeah, right, and I thought that was really funny, or both, even both.

Bill Bedell:

Right, and we could be both, but the tight ass stops you up and it compresses everything internally and so, yes, nobody is exploding, but you're eroding and exploding internally. And then you know, it's funny when people grow up in that situation and they have more like a shit ass which is I'm just gonna, my behavior is gonna suck or you know, I'm gonna explode everywhere. Yeah, those kinds of things are set up by the way that we're related to you. So fights, the lack of fights in homes where there is no explosion, is also because there's no engagement. And I'm not saying explosion is an engagement, but what I'm saying is that they refuse to be in the conflict. So they, you know, take it on themselves. The other thing is, if your girl's screaming, that's good, because maybe that part of you has held that part and has been screaming the whole time.

Bill Bedell:

And so, as an adult, the kindness and the empathy, the compassion, the willingness, the curiosity, the willingness to be connected to that part is really what integration is about and that's what really separates us from receiving grace in a lot of ways. In my experience, not the only way, but a huge hindrance and roadblock for most people is the dis-integration that they have inside, because they tell me quite often like, as an adult, I believe this, but as they, you know, journey into their story and find parts of them that are still screaming or frozen or overwhelmed or fighting, then they realize oh, this is why I wasn't feeling it inside.

Laurine Decker:

Yep, that makes sense. Yeah, and that's where not to put. I mean, I can't apologize honestly for my viewpoints of faith because I just believe it, because I've seen that actually it produces results and that benefits me and we all want to be benefit. In fact, psalm 103 says don't forget the Lord and His benefits. He heals your diseases, he redeems your life from the pit and he has delivered and continues to redeem and help me walk in that truth. But you know.

Laurine Decker:

So, coming back again, if it's fear, well, we're not given a spirit of fear. If it's anger, we are told in our anger not to sin. What is the temptation? Often we have these physical manifestations that we are labeling the sin. You know, going back to Jesus being labeled a drunken or a glutton, or you know His righteous anger in the temple. What are we calling sin and fighting against that God's like uh-uh.

Laurine Decker:

Go back to your family of origin, go back to your story. Let me enter into it, let me put my identity over that, because if there's fear, there's something setting itself up against knowledge of me, because I've done it, I've delivered you. Are you going to believe that receive that? We talked about that months ago, my friend Norma and I talked about being a new creature. Are we gonna believe that we are that new creature, even though everything may appear to be saying something different? Because he says we are new creatures, we get to bind that strong man and stand, stand in who he says we are, despite feeling terrible sometimes or having our little kid screaming you know.

Bill Bedell:

Just to add on to that, when you think about the beliefs and the understanding that you have and then your willingness to connect to broken parts and broken parts of your story, that's where that belief in the present starts to trickle into. You know the overall narrative, and so a lot of people get frustrated because they believe deeply in the present that these things are true and don't experience them internally. Because that mind which got asked us to you know change and to form into the mind of Christ, like given the mind of Christ, all those things make sense and are crucial to your growth and development.

Bill Bedell:

But it wasn't designed to just gain your head, it was designed to be in service of your body as well, and so when we're separated from ourselves, the mind sometimes gets overdeveloped and what we know then becomes a stick to his with, and so what we're wanting to do is to take that knowledge and then offer it internally now and talks about it when we know it talks about.

Bill Bedell:

Let your lion lay down with your lamb in a sense of you become formidable as an adult and your beliefs are right now be be malleable and loving enough to let that integrate with parts of you that don't feel so strong yeah, makes you think of the verse that says unless you're like little children, you can't enter the kingdom and I guess we're really important because Christianity typically is focused on sin behavior which I think is a mistake and temptation, not in the idea of curiosity, but of elimination right and so sometimes our temptations actually lead us back to our narrative, and one a great example of that is promise keepers, which, as a whole, had a huge influence on rallying men and being accountable and having integrity and leading, which I think is important, but when they would deal with the sexual sin or sexual temptation, they would do that in the sense of not doing it yeah and what I actually wanted them to do was sit down and ask men to write down what their go-to fantasy is and

Bill Bedell:

what is they were doing sexually. You know that was fulfilling or satisfying whatever it is that they were seeking? Because if you can get people curious about the narrative like why are you showing up to something that doesn't work right, then you could really get into what do you understand that that is actually connected to some harm?

Bill Bedell:

yes, yep because everybody can be pulled by those things. But a lot of people try to solve lust by you know, purity and not looking rather than what are you looking for? And so interesting in working with men who are sexually addicted 95% of them. When I ask them the question when you look at a woman, what do you look at first?

Bill Bedell:

they say the face, and I think that's so interesting because I think they're looking for a connection, but then they sexualize her and I think when you say, hey, just remove this, you're taking away the opportunity for someone to really look at what is the underneath about that, so I don't know if that makes sense it makes so much sense, bill, and I'm go.

Laurine Decker:

It goes back again to that root of truth of being worthy to receive the love of God and actually being able to receive it, and that's the walk of sanctification. It's that it is receiving that mind of Christ despite our humanity, and that's where the temptation is to refuse the love of God and really I guess that is the original sin. Was that pride? Say, nope, I got this, god, I'm more beautiful, I want to be better, I want to be smarter, I want to be something that I am not willing to receive that what you have is enough. I want more. And that is the human tendency, it's the human condition, and so we know that. You know Jesus came on the scene and he was always plan a. You know God wanted us to choose him and we get to choose to walk with Jesus and to receive that love in new and fresh ways. And I completely resonate.

Laurine Decker:

It does go back to the root and that has been a journey because for me, like I already said with my food and alcohol and also in my relationship with Monte, where am I looking for an escape? Where am I looking for something more than what God has already provided and coming back to how my temptation as people to look outside of the everything that God has provided for life and godliness, in a way that's twisted, rather than being able to look through the lens of Christ so that we can actually receive that love, that comfort, that connection that actually is ours in Christ. It's independent of what someone else can or can't give, and I guess even in that, looking at what, what am I looking to? First to meet my need. If it's not through striving to enter his rest and through the lens of Christ, it's going to fall short somehow. It might do a temporary fix, such as a fantasy like Bill was just talking about, but we are ultimately looking for a connection first with God and then with people, and the way that we can achieve that is through the lens of Christ.

Laurine Decker:

And so that's where I think that the original temptation even going back to the garden and then we're back to the Israelites wandering around the desert they, some of them, refused to look at the pole that Moses was told to erect when many of them were dying.

Laurine Decker:

They refused to look and they died. But are we refusing to just simply confess and receive the love that he has for us, because that's where the flow of being able to resist the temptation and walk in the freedom and healing and the more that he promises comes from. Then we actually find we want to love him and others, instead of doing what I did, much in my life which is just white, knuckling it, trying to eradicate the behavior, just trying to be better, trying to be a good girl, trying to do everything right, just striving, striving, striving, striving to manage my world, and I can't do it. So I am realizing my temptation is to look away from Jesus, to look away from present moment, to not to reject myself for my feelings, to condemn myself. Those are my temptations, often that then lead me into quote the more black and white behavior that might be defined in our world as sin.

Bill Bedell:

I think another way to think about it is, if you've ever played hide and seek with a young child, they'll hide behind a lamp and then they'll close their eyes and put their hands over their eyes yeah, which is fun. The idea is, if you can't see me, I can't see me, and one of the things about that is that's not really not really different than how we interact with God around our own sin.

Laurine Decker:

And with other people? Yeah, and with other people. Thinking back to what you told me when we were junior high leaders, when you said we see you and I pissed me off I know I mentioned that last time yeah, so you just said not unlike how we interact with God.

Bill Bedell:

Yeah, yeah. So maybe that confession isn't so much what people have made it up to be. It's an invitation to be in reality and to do things that we can't do, which is to clean ourselves up the way you know he can. Yes, and the interesting thing is, there's no shame in that in terms of being honest and saying this is where I'm struggling. The good shame that we feel when we struggle is a good indicator that, hey, that's not what we're supposed to be doing.

Laurine Decker:

Yeah.

Bill Bedell:

And that's a real thing, and we do sometimes just choose to do whatever that we want to do, and we need to own that. The cool thing is we don't have to clean that up by getting better.

Laurine Decker:

Yeah.

Bill Bedell:

I think that's where the reality piece is. We take the you know hands off our eyes and we open our eyes and we realize that we're really not hiding. But we have that structure so that we can make the things work the way that we want to. But, when we get out of what God's doing there. What a beautiful invitation like just admit that this is wrong, yeah.

Laurine Decker:

Just admit that you can't do it yeah.

Bill Bedell:

And that's where a lot of that healing and strength comes, and the other thing I would say is when you're wounded early. I don't think about self-protection as sin. I think about self-protection as survival, which your brain and body, which God designed, gives you the opportunity to get through something. Yeah, what I think later on you have to deal with is that self-protection then sometimes can replace who God is in our lives, because we're wary of being open and vulnerable and getting hurt.

Bill Bedell:

So I know God's very gentle with that. He doesn't rip it from us. He just asks us to be honest about it and then there's a slow deconstruction. That happens because it's too much to rip that off.

Laurine Decker:

Yeah, so I think we've probably talked long enough. I don't know if you have any last thoughts about temptation.

Bill Bedell:

No, I would just be curious about what's pulling you, because it's cool that you feel the pull, because there's something that that's trying to fix and most of the solutions that temptation gives us really don't fix the problem Right. We just put buffer between us and the problem.

Bill Bedell:

And so when you can be aware, that's more important than it is eradicating something Absolutely, if you can be aware that something's pulling you, I would hope that for our culture. That's what I pray is that can people just become less desensitized and more aware of what's pulling them? Because if you can, then you can look at kind of the thing behind it. It's like pulling back the curtain on the house when you look at the temptation with curiosity, so like hey, what is going on? Like why am I pulled by that? Right, yeah, and you don't need to figure it out, it's just more, oh yeah, I'm trying to solve it through this.

Laurine Decker:

Right.

Bill Bedell:

And we're good at taking temporary things that, just you know, push it off or buffer us from how we feel. But I do think it's important to realize that if we refuse to suffer the pain that we feel because the cross offers us and that relationship offers us that opportunity If we refuse to suffer, we refuse to grieve and we refuse to worship.

Laurine Decker:

Right.

Bill Bedell:

So suffering is at the core of dealing with temptation. A lot of people avoid the suffering and start dealing with their behavior Right, and I just don't think that's a. It doesn't usually turn out well.

Laurine Decker:

No, it doesn't. Ultimately, yeah, it ends up with this being less connected and less able to give and receive love. And that's a good place to end. I know I quote quite a bit how we haven't suffered to the point of shedding our blood and our struggle against sin. And I love thinking about Jesus, how he suffered and realizing, yes, he was fully God, but he was also fully man. And in that garden he wasn't sweating drops of blood because he was having a fun time, he was anxious, he was like Lord, take this from me. He was wrestling it out, he was suffering.

Laurine Decker:

And if we're not willing to suffer in some manner but just want to put band-aids on things or not look at things to not be attached and present to our emotions, whatever that looks like, you know, we're also unique and the beautiful thing is that we're also unique and it looks different for each one of us. But if we're not able to receive and give love with present connection and if we're not experiencing more peace and love and joy, and if we're not, if we're not walking by the fruit of the spirit, it's not something to feel condemned about, it's something to be curious and observant and, like Bill said and I love that because that's where we can say no, you know, god does say, he does exceedingly, abundantly more than we can ask or imagine. And his will is for me to be walking in the things that he's promised me, which, despite our circumstances, despite our behavior, are meant to be receiving that peace and love and joy that are ours in Christ. Christ did it on the cross. And so, listeners, I welcome you to take a look, not at your behavior, but to look at what is preventing you, and you probably may not even know. I know it's been even a journey for me to recognize my feelings. I really didn't think I had needs or feelings and was pretty sure that my behavior was just because I had OCD and was a glutton. And now you know it's been shocking to realize how connected it is to my story and now I can recognize feelings of discomfort and pain.

Laurine Decker:

It's taken a lot of practice, but I would ask you, listeners, to just pause and even take a few deep breaths and just say Lord God, I want to receive what you have, I want to release what isn't from you, because I want to be able to love myself more. I mean, I think all of us could say that maybe you don't even want to love God more because you don't find him trustworthy. Maybe you're having trouble with the church, you frankly don't want to love people more, that's okay. But if we can even show up to say, hey, Lord God, I would like to give and receive, as you have commanded me to do, because I am a Christian and you've told me to love you and you've told me to love others, and I know for me, I've had to tell Lord frankly I suck at it and frankly, I don't even want to. I'd rather stay in the pig pen and he has met me there and graciously drawn me out and show me that he is more and better and that he does have the safety and healing and refuge that he has promised that I was not able to believe in or, frankly, even want.

Laurine Decker:

So, listeners, I just invite you to just pause and invite the spirit afresh today to bring you the revelation and manifestation of just the next step, just the next step to show up to receive what he has for you today. So thank you so much, Bill, for being here today. I really appreciate it. Would you mind saying goodbye to our guests?

Bill Bedell:

Yeah. I just think it's important anytime you take something in like this just to notice how your body feels and to be kind.

Bill Bedell:

We're accepted in the way that we are now and that's hard to imagine sometimes or remember, but God doesn't always about our progress Like it's important to be kind enough to know that we're fully accepted right now in our brokenness and conditions that we're in. That gives us the context to look forward with more hope, because if we're loved now, then there's just more freedom. But if we're always pushing to be more acceptable, that's where it makes sense, but we're not really going to experience a lot of joy or freedom from that.

Laurine Decker:

So thank you, and it just makes me think of that Bible verse I don't remember the reference where it says it's talking about trials and stuff and it talks about how faith produces perseverance and perseverance, character and character, hope and hope doesn't disappoint because we know where our hope is. Well, we may not know it, but anyway. But we can increasingly.