Dustin Alley (00:03.886)
Hey guys, welcome to another episode of the Men After God podcast. We're continuing in the series on seasons. And today we're looking at Ecclesiastes 3 verse 6, a time to keep and a time to throw away. Luke, when I grew up, I grew up in a home of my parents, my mom loves to keep things. And when I say that, I mean like quilts.

that she never used because my mom was someone who in the blizzard of 96 was sitting in shorts and a t-shirt and the recliner with the AC on in the house and a fan on her. Okay. And, but would not throw away these quilts because someone that had made it for her had died. And for whatever reason, just couldn't do it. And

Luke Sorensen (00:43.136)
Ha ha ha ha.

Luke Sorensen (00:55.929)
Mm.

Dustin Alley (01:01.42)
I've watched the show hoarders and thought, no.

Maybe we can all find ourselves holding on to things. One of the greatest businesses a person can buy right now is self storage because there's just not enough room in our house to keep all of our stuff. But Luke, what happens when we allow that to come into our hearts? And we hold on to things that we should let go of. That's what we're talking about today, guys, and Luke's going to start us off. Go ahead, brother.

Luke Sorensen (01:11.961)
Mm-hmm.

Luke Sorensen (01:18.68)
Yeah.

Luke Sorensen (01:31.896)
Yeah.

yeah, I'm gonna start you out. Man, there's the loaded question because you look at the concept like most of us have things that we hold on to in our life and and and then there's there's also those of us. All of us hold things in our heart. And the conversation we're gonna have today is a is a heart conversation and it can be applied to your house and your garage and holding on to things and and then and there's sentimental things. There's value. There's sentimental value to things, but.

There is a concept and a principle here that there is a time, there is a season in which it's time to let go of some things. And there's a season when you hold onto some things. And as you look into your heart, there's a lot here that we might step on some toes and I want you to get over it right now. So if you don't like that, I don't want you to skip the podcast. Put your steel toes on and get ready to have the conversation. Because most of us love to hold on to things in our heart.

Dustin Alley (02:22.251)
Yeah, put your still toes on.

Luke Sorensen (02:31.865)
and it can be past pains. And sometimes it's not because we're intentionally storing them and locking them away in our storage closet within our heart, it's just because we have not intentionally surrendered them. as we're talking about that, cleaning out your garage is easy, cleaning out your heart of the clutter and the distractions, not so much. so discerning what to keep, what to release is crucial for our spiritual growth. So as we go into this, we look at Ecclesiastes chapter five.

Dustin Alley (02:45.921)
Yeah.

Luke Sorensen (02:57.783)
I'm sorry, chapter three, verse five has a concept of there's a time to gather stones and there's a time to cast away stones. Like there's a time to, there's a season for that. And then in verse six, it talks about there's a time to keep and a time to throw away. And for some of you, this might be the message that there's some things in your house that you need to go grab a garbage bag or a donation truck, whatever. Like that might be the messaging you walk away. And if that's it, your spouse can thank us. That's fine. In the process though, internally, spiritually, I need you to reflect and take a look at what is

what's in your heart that should not be there. Because if something's in your heart that shouldn't be there, it's taking up space for something that should be there. So let's talk about that, doesn't it?

Dustin Alley (03:38.124)
Yeah, man, I absolutely love that when for me as a guy, think.

One of the things that we can walk through life with that we need to let go at some point comes to the form of grudges or of, you know, that vengeance that need to get right. Someone offended us years ago. I've got some people in my life. I know that if I if I talk with them long enough, I'm going to hear stories from 30, 40 plus years ago of people that have wronged them. And I sit there and I listen, but I'm also thinking like, man,

They're living rent free in your head 40 years after the event. So I think that's probably something that we can carry around with us that can hurt. But then let's go to the flip side of it. Ever watched, man, what's with the show references today? Married with Children. Luke, ever seen that show?

Luke Sorensen (04:35.309)
I don't watch TV, I'm a Christian. No, just kidding, I have not seen this show. watch a lot of shows, just kidding. Just figured I'd leave you out there for second. Yeah. Yes.

Dustin Alley (04:37.403)
okay. With the Dwight Schrute reference in his office. All right. That's hilarious. Maybe with children of love and marriage, love and marriage, right? Okay, so but Al Bundy, the guy in the character there, he's always talking about

Luke Sorensen (04:55.209)
I know, I haven't watched this show, but I know what you're talking about. Gotcha, okay, yeah, we're on the same page, yeah.

Dustin Alley (04:58.303)
Okay, there you go. He always goes back to his high school football days when he was running the ball scoring touchdowns and doing all that the glory days the good old days. Yes, I'll go Rico. yeah. Well, he he would have made it if it hadn't been for that reason he gave that I can't remember right now but

Luke Sorensen (05:02.862)
Yes.

Luke Sorensen (05:07.427)
Yeah, Uncle Rico, that's what you got right there.

Hey.

I you got through a pigskin over that mountain. Sorry. Sorry. Napoleon Dynamite reference for those who don't know.

Dustin Alley (05:20.877)
And for any questions about ADHD and podcasting, please reach out to me after God. We've got it down. just does the big I'm really diagnosed one here. OK, man. So but but but we hold on to those things. We look back to the glory days and we want things to go back to the glory days and sometimes we have to realize the glory days are what they were, but they're gone now and it's OK because there's brighter days ahead. They just it's not going to look the same.

Luke Sorensen (05:27.883)
No, just Dustin. Just Dustin.

Dustin Alley (05:50.606)
So here you've got these two contrasting things that we can go forward in life with. Spiritual baggage of revenge or maybe regret and something we need to be justified for, a grudge or something of that nature. And then something amazing, something that was wonderful that we're holding on to and we just got to get back. And what we're doing is instead of living in the moment and the season God has given us,

We're looking to God and telling him, Lord, I want you to change my season to what I want it to be. And we can't impact our reality until we accept our reality. See, I'm 37 years old. had back surgery in 2017. And there's some things that I just can't do like I did before. Now I can still run. I can still do these things, but I need to stretch. I need to do this, that and the other. But

I'm not the 17 year old that could get on a skateboard and ollie off of an eight stair or try to grind a rail. That's just not happening. I could try and we made video this again, you know, hashtag men after God fail. so yeah, that's the coming to you live from the hospital bed. You know, I can't do that anymore, but those were great times in my life. And now I can try to relive that.

Luke Sorensen (06:52.961)
You could try. New solo host Dustin's no longer with us, but look.

Dustin Alley (07:12.107)
like some 40-year-old guy who hangs out at the high school wearing his letterman jacket, or I can say, hey, that was a season, and now God's got me in a different season, and I've got to let that go. So, we get that eternal perspective. We get God's perspective on our life and where it's at. Because if not, we'll make an idol out of a time in life. And any time you pursue an idol, it never ends well. Because you could have, and men, especially men that aren't married,

You know if you're in a relationship and there was a time where it was wonderful, but now it's not You're trying to get back to that time when in reality Maybe the relationship needs to end now for those of us are married We have you know the honeymoon phase and we had those times of life and then now maybe we're in a season where work There's a lot of work There's a lot of taxi driving for the kids because of sports and all these different things and we're trying to get back to what we were Not realizing that no no

You're not going to be that right now, but you can be something else that's just as great. So I think it's careful to understand that when we talk about, you know, letting things go, it's not just letting go of the bad things. It's letting go of some good things and truthfully comes down and Luke, I'm gonna toss it back to you with this. It comes down to accepting the season that we're in because only then I believe we can actually move forward with it.

Luke Sorensen (08:33.785)
Yeah, I want to lean into that. think so much there. We're talking about seasons and I just want to emphasize something. We don't get to choose our season. We're not here to choose the season. We're here to glorify God in the season that we're in. So while there's a lot of seasons and we talked about the grief season or whatever season, it doesn't matter. You get to be a part of glorifying the God irrelevant of how the weather is. So whether it's beautiful where you're at and you're in

Destin, Florida, or whether you're in Dallas, Texas, it's 110 degrees, it doesn't matter. You get to glorify God in whatever season it is in, or that you're in, understanding that's that God is the one that dictates the season. So as we're looking at this, our opportunity to handle things and take the season of, there is a time to let go and surrender. And we talked about idols, things that are good things that are preventing you, or hindering your walk with Lord, or whatever. There's so many things, there's great conversation.

There's past hurts, there are past successes, there are past sins, there are things in the past that you have done that you are holding onto and what the devil is trying to do, and this is crucial, a lot of us think the devil is there to deceive us. The devil will, he uses that as a tool, but the devil's primary thing is not a deceiver, he's the accuser of the brethren. And so the process of it is some of us are walking with these things from our past that we just can't quite get over, can't quite let go, and God is not looking at our past saying, oh well,

Dustin Alley (09:50.573)
Mmm.

Luke Sorensen (10:00.601)
So sad, too bad. You cannot, I just wanna admit, we're so afraid of messing up the will of God. And we were taught that someone makes sure it's real crucial. There are things that you can disqualify yourself for out of stupidity, all that stuff. But I wanna say this, if you think you're gonna throw yourself out of the will of God, you, my friend, are not that powerful. You need to get over yourself. And this self-awareness, and we looked at Philippians chapter three and the Apostle Paul is talking about...

all of his successes as a leader, as an educated individual, as a successful citizen. And then he goes on and says, you know, brethren, this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forth to those things which are before not as though they're already attained. Talking about like, hey, I haven't captured it yet. And this is Paul, the apostle, someone who's one of the godliest men that, and in my opinion, just...

He produced so much for us to walk in faith and gave us so much content. This is him saying, whatever I did in the past is not relevant. I am going after Jesus. I want to capture Jesus. I want to attain it. In that concept, understanding this, the Apostle Paul, give me a call, it's right. The Apostle Paul had so much past sin. He had overseen the death and persecution of Christians. He had mocked Jesus.

He had so much success in his past. All of these things, and in process of it, he's saying, no, no, no, I'm letting go of everything from behind me. Because the prize is not based on what's been done, it's based on who he is, because Jesus is the prize. But in life's clutter, you know, we think about pains, and some of you are going through some pain where you have got to forgive some people that will never come and apologize for one of two reasons. One, one of a few. They don't know they did anything wrong.

they don't understand, they don't care, maybe they're dead, they're not here anymore, they're not gonna come back and they're not gonna apologize or maybe they just, it's just not important to them and they just don't, they really actually don't care and they know what they did and they're not that kind of person, they're a narcissist, they're over, whatever that is. There are people in your life that you need to forgive and let go, not because they are right, not because they're sorry, not because they've apologized, not because they've changed behavior.

Luke Sorensen (12:16.216)
but because you're hurting yourself. You're not glorifying God by what you're holding onto. And in that process, you have to come to a place where you can say, this person may never or will never come and apologize for how much hurt they caused. I have an individual in my life who's no longer here. They cause a tremendous amount of trauma and pain for me. And I love them. I still do. But I'm never going to get an apology from them. But what I can say is this in my perception,

is that person is with Jesus right now and you know what? That person loves Jesus more than I do. That person is forgiven. That person is a child of the King and is worshiping beautifully now. In your process where you are just, they just have to, they just gotta say they're sorry. Hold stop, full stop. Jesus died for you on the cross before you were even born, knowing everything you'd ever do and knowing everything you'd never say sorry for. And yet, he loved you. He's modeled forgiveness.

He's modeled the forward looking and letting go of the past for us. We need to take the opportunity to say, there is a season and this might be my season of letting go. I would challenge you, this time, pause the episode. You might be driving right now. I challenge you, pause the episode. Take five minutes and just say, Lord, what am I holding onto that I need to let go of? By the way, I know some pastors that hold onto some hurt, some real hurt. And I'm not mitigating or diminishing the pain. And by the way, let me rephrase this.

I have caused a lot of hurt to people. I didn't do it because I meant to. That doesn't mean it didn't hurt. But in the process of it, I may not know what to do to resolve that. So if I've got people out there that I've hurt, I may not ever come to you and say, I'm sorry, because I don't know how, or I don't know that I did it, or whatever, whatever excuse I want to give it. I still want you to be able to move on from it, right?

So take the five minutes and pray and ask God, like, what is it that I'm holding onto? Is it just clutter? Is it just, but is it bitterness? Is it anger? Is it past successes where I'm talking about the husband? God's best days are ahead of us. What he did in past was great. What he's about to do, oh man, what will he do with your surrender? Because God's waiting for that and God can do so much when you jump on the altar and say, I surrender. I give it all. And by the way, that might be a daily thing for some of you, it might be an hourly thing for some of you who are going through some.

Luke Sorensen (14:39.673)
Tremendous trauma some pain that you're that we're literally like, I mean you don't know what this person did. I Don't but I certainly know what Jesus did and I certainly what Jesus wants for you is to for you to walk out of that and Be able to let go of it not because it didn't hurt but because he's bigger than the hurt And he's also modeled the ability for us to move forward

Dustin Alley (15:03.839)
Absolutely. And, we're talking about the grudges and things we have of others hurting us and things like that, and that has its place and is appropriate. know we feel that. There's someone else in your life, though, that can hold things from the past over your head and prevent you from living in that surrender, prevent you from being able to move forward in the season that God has you in. And that's you. We will hold sin over our head longer than God does.

Luke Sorensen (15:31.576)
Hmm.

Dustin Alley (15:33.634)
You see, the Bible says that if we confess our sins, we're faithful and just, he's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. We have to trust that we have been forgiven and that we have to accept his forgiveness and we have to forgive ourselves. That's another thing that could be tore down. Whatever you're holding over your head that's keeping you from being able to move forward. There's some sects of Christianity that try to teach modes of repentance in the sense of physical harm.

or of having to do so much in order to get the sin removed or whatever it is, say so many prayers or give so much money, whatever it might be. And biblically, what we have to do to be forgiven is to ask for forgiveness. And that's it. With repentance, we ask for forgiveness, God forgives us, and we don't have to try to repay the debt.

Luke Sorensen (16:27.374)
Mm-hmm.

Dustin Alley (16:28.191)
What's it called whenever someone tries to do that? I can't think of the word right now. Someone said it to me once. my penance. That's it. It's my penance. The penance has been paid. Jesus died on the cross. You're good. You're covered. You're forgiven. You know, don't don't use your forgiveness as an excuse to sin. God forbid, as Paul says. But you can let that go. You can remove it from the ledger there yourself.

Luke Sorensen (16:42.872)
Mm-hmm.

Dustin Alley (16:56.429)
Because God has. If you've asked forgiveness for it, then God has. But what about the good things you're holding on to? How do those become a hindrance? Well, as you get older, whether you know this or not, your body works differently. You don't move as fast. Sometimes you don't think as fast. Yeah, hamstring, exactly. Yes. Your mind works differently. You should be more mature than you were 10, 15, 25.

Luke Sorensen (17:15.895)
hamstring.

Dustin Alley (17:25.803)
years ago. But if we try to live as that person who was in the past, then we are preventing ourselves from being able to grow to who God has us to be for our future. It's going to hinder our walk with Him.

When, if I try, look at it this way, you got the 40 year old guy out there who is the high school football star. We referenced that earlier. And he's holding on to that. He goes and he tries to play again and he does all this, that and the other thing. And he plays against 18 year olds. And I mean, he's just never advancing past that level. And that's all he thinks God has for him. When in reality, God had so much more, he grown up, had he matured.

and become that man after God he was made to be. He could have found a family. He could have raised children. He could have been a father and all this stuff. But yet he was living in his past. Even if you're living in past successes, I mean, I'm looking at something right now from my days in the Marine Corps. It's a shadow box. One of my great successes of my time in Beaufort, South Carolina, on two occasions on Parris Islands golf course, I hit the ball with a driver and it ended up

behind me.

Luke Sorensen (18:42.563)
Hahaha

Dustin Alley (18:43.617)
I'm still not entirely sure how I did this, but I did it. I did it twice. And I was pretty impressed by it. And if I tried to live there, I'd go out and try to do it again. But I've learned I need to move forward from that success. Now I say that a little tongue in cheek and joking guys, but in all seriousness, you're not who you were and you don't want to be. Because God is molding you into something so much more. If you'll let him.

Luke Sorensen (18:47.267)
Go sports go.

Luke Sorensen (18:59.267)
No.

Luke Sorensen (19:11.577)
Yeah, I think it's, it's so good because I think,

Luke Sorensen (19:18.041)
I look back on my teenage years and there's so much that God did in my younger years that oftentimes we'll look back and say, well, look what God did. And this is when things were going so well and spiritually. And there was a time in college when I had a conversation with a fellow college student who we were there and he was a senior and I was a sophomore at the time and our junior sophomore was where I was at. And we were looking back and reflecting at what God did in our, guess a couple of years prior to us being in Bible college, right?

And the statement was made, you know, if looking back on your life spiritually is looking up like you are closer to God at a different point in your past than you are right now, then you need to change your direction.

Dustin Alley (20:00.786)
Mm. Mm.

Luke Sorensen (20:03.169)
This is you. This is not a God thing. God did not move away from you. God is the same. God didn't walk away from you. You walked away from God. And you may not have done it. You might have drifted. You might not have done it as a scorning God. You just kind of followed the world, right? And that pulled you from God. You need to take a look at that and reflect and say, okay, God, what can I do to be closer to you than I have ever been in my past? Because if there's a time in my past that I was closer to you,

I guarantee you missed that.

Dustin Alley (20:33.197)
Mmm.

Luke Sorensen (20:34.403)
So if I'm talking to that Christian today, there's some things you gotta let go of, and one is the fact that your past spiritual, your past walk with God is gonna come back to you without you doing it intentionally. You wanna get right with God? You are as far away from God as you walked. It is time for you to take that step, and the Bible says, drawn unto God, I will draw nigh to you. That is your step, but it is, it's on you. The onus is on you. Now God still loves you, and I wanna talk about this real quick.

Dustin Alley (20:45.652)
Hmm.

Dustin Alley (20:51.468)
Mm-hmm.

Luke Sorensen (21:01.763)
We talked about the penance conversation a minute ago, which is so good, because we're like, and we talk about that as if it's somebody else. Some of us do that, we just don't do it as that, and we don't call it penance. We do it in this concept of, well, if I do things for God, or if I do the right thing, if I read my Bible and pray every day, God's gonna love me more. If I give money to the church, God's gonna love me more. I faithfully serve and I'm a good teacher, I, whatever you put in the blank there, that is the devil.

Dustin Alley (21:10.861)
Mm, that's good, yeah.

Luke Sorensen (21:28.779)
accusing you to make you feel guilty for something that you should not feel. And hear me out. If you love Jesus, that is you loving Jesus, but Jesus' love does not improve or change based on your actions or what you do. So we do this thing where we're kind of doing our own penance. Like, well, if I show up to church and I serve in Sunday school and I do all my church things, then God's gonna love me more because I'm gonna be a faithful. No, God's gonna, you should be a faithful servant because of Christ's love, but that doesn't change God's perspective of you.

Some of you, and I'm talking to Luke Swanson here, some of you Luke Swanson need to be able to sit back and just, you are loved. You are loved unconditionally. You are loved irrelevant of what you bring to the table, irrelevant of your past or your future. You are loved and that's all you need. Everything you do with that is just a privilege.

Don't miss it.

Dustin Alley (22:24.237)
So how do we let that stuff go? Guys, the first part of what Luke was talking about there, he sat down and it was an evaluation. It's an assessment. We've got to evaluate what is occupying our hearts and minds. What is our focus? What's our motive? Why are we doing what we're doing? And where are we at? Are we trying to relive glory days? Are we carrying around the grudge and we're begrudgingly serving or moving forward or we're begrudgingly trying to forgive?

We've got to know where we are. What was the old saying? You can't know where you're going until you know where you start or something like that. Yeah, so you got to know where you're at, where your heart's at. Pray over it. Find some accountability, a good brother in Christ to help you move forward and not let you make excuses. Find someone who's going to support you.

Luke Sorensen (22:59.417)
Mm-hmm, where you at?

Dustin Alley (23:14.283)
And then take some tangible actions. Luke said, you know, read your Bible and pray about, you know, to be better and get more love. Truthfully, you may need to do that. You may need to step back from some commitments. You may need to declutter your life a bit. Maybe you've said yes to too much. I've been guilty of this on more than one occasion. I filled my life with so much service to God, I forgot to spend time with God. In fact, I wrote a book about that. I made that mistake.

Luke Sorensen (23:30.275)
Mm-hmm.

Luke Sorensen (23:39.939)
Ha ha.

Dustin Alley (23:43.35)
So whatever it is, find an action step that is going to help you to tear down or let go of something that you've been holding on to. And maybe it was a great thing from the past, maybe it's a terrible thing, but whatever it is, you're not going to be able to move forward with the Lord until you're able to declutter and to get that away. Now, Luke, before we close out, I think it's important for us to get into the part of the verse where it says there's a time to keep.

We've spent a lot on getting rid of, but there's a time to keep. Let's talk about that for a minute.

Luke Sorensen (24:19.801)
I think there's verse five and verse six, because it talks about there's a time to cast away stones and clear it and surrender. There's a time to gather stones. And then in the flip side, there's a time to get rid of, throw away, and there's a time to keep. We talk about the seasonality of maybe relationships. Some people are in your life for, I mean, they're all there for a reason, a season or a lifetime. So you might have some like there's some relationship things that you need to invest in to keep.

or to gather, you're like, what does that mean? Well, there's some things that you need to gather. There's some spiritual habits that you need to gather. There's some connections that you need to make and you need to do your part. There's some wisdom that you need to seek after. There's things to gather. There's also the concept of stones, like when you're gathering stones, a biblical reference there is sometimes where you're piling up stones, you're keeping stones, you're putting them as a monument of what God has done for you.

so that when you're struggling going forward, you can look what God has done to encourage you to step out in faith in the future. Talk about different times in the children of Israel, they piled up 12 stones when they crossed over the Jordan River. That's a monument. There are times you need to gather some monuments so that your kids can see, this is a time that God showed up. We have some things in our house that we keep. And with Alicia passing away, there's some things that we reference that we're not gonna toss away, some photos, some...

Dustin Alley (25:38.349)
you

Luke Sorensen (25:39.991)
some memorabilia, if you would, that are special to us. It's not because we're hoarding things. It's because we're grateful for what we've had and we want to remember and there's a place to remember, right? So as we're taking a look at this, understand there is a time to keep and there's certain things that are important to you. You should keep your marriage. You should keep your heart with all diligence for out of it all the issues of life. You should keep an eye on Christ, right? There's some things that you should keep.

Dustin Alley (25:56.525)
Yeah.

Luke Sorensen (26:05.625)
But understand this, it's hard to keep my eyes on Christ when I'm so busy being distracted by my calendar, which is real busy with podcasts and stuff. But no, in the process of it, just be aware that there is a season to both. There's a time to the dumpster, right? And there is a time to organize what you have. Clutter is not good. So understand this, if you're gonna keep something, it needs to have a place where it's supposed to be. And I'm not talking about your house and your order necessarily, I'm talking about your heart.

Dustin Alley (26:14.176)
Thank

Dustin Alley (26:29.601)
Yeah.

Dustin Alley (26:34.859)
Yeah, absolutely.

Luke Sorensen (26:34.989)
there's a place for it, in the place of priorities. Like where does it belong in, when looking at God, where does this belong? Because if it's between you and God, you probably need to get rid of it or put it somewhere else. But if it's in the right place and priorities, so we're talking about like where your priorities are, God, your relationship with God is first and foremost. Everything else could kind of move around based on who you are and what other relationships you have. It is God first, everything else is second. Seek ye first the kingdom of God. So what are you gonna keep? Keep your eyes on God.

Dustin Alley (26:47.373)
Yeah.

Luke Sorensen (27:04.931)
Keep your eyes on Christ and your relationship with him.

Dustin Alley (27:06.667)
I love that. And I think it's important to highlight it's okay to keep things for a season even. And just because you kept it for a season doesn't mean you have to keep it for a lifetime. I'm gonna do to you what you did to me. I have something in my room here where I record that I'm gonna go get. So I'm going off camera for just a minute, Luke, and you can entertain.

Luke Sorensen (27:19.929)
Do it. Yes. Yeah. Yes. Yeah, he's out. He's out. He did not like this conversation. He is done. No, kidding. No. We showed around my office, I have Dwight quotes from the office. And so I had to run and get that the other day. I have several more than I showed. I am so curious what the show and tell episode is about to be. It is going to be fantastic. It is going to be the best. Oh, my goodness. This is I like this.

Dustin Alley (27:46.66)
yeah, like that. Look at that big guy right there. wait on camera. There we go. Yeah, this big guy right here. So this is a jar.

Luke Sorensen (27:51.489)
Yeah, you're good. Yeah.

Dustin Alley (27:55.264)
that says, memories from your freedom family. This is from when I served as a youth pastor at freedom Baptist church in New Arizona. was on staff there for about three and a half years and so thankful for my time there. The kids, I've had two of them come and live with me for a period of time as an internship. That's been wonderful. I've been able to marry one of them. I didn't marry them. I did the marriage. didn't marry them. That would be weird. Didn't do that.

Luke Sorensen (28:02.787)
That's so cool.

Luke Sorensen (28:16.793)
do the marriage. He did the ceremony. He was the officiant. Yeah. His wife was not in his youth group. Sarah, in this case.

Dustin Alley (28:25.017)
This is not a Mormon Wives podcast, okay? I got to officiate the wedding. There we go. We've been able to celebrate births of children with them and careers and things of that nature. Loved it. Loved it. Absolutely loved it. When we moved to Connecticut, this jar sat downstairs. It sat down where we could see

Luke Sorensen (28:46.009)
By the way, for those of you not watching YouTube, this jar is like, you could fit a couple of Dustin's heads in there. I mean, it's a big jar. Yeah.

Dustin Alley (28:49.877)
yeah, sorry. Yeah. I mean, it's a big head, but I mean, yeah, it is. And it's got letters. It's got a notebook in here where they all wrote notes and stuff to us and people from the church put stuff in here. And so the notebook's really a lot of full, but there's a lot of cards and stuff we received. This sat downstairs for a long time after we moved to Connecticut because it reminded us it was something that my wife made a huge mistake.

with and actually my last service there, my ordination service, we got this and then she went home and after we'd had, mean, full of tears that night, we get home, she opens this up and starts reading them. And now she's just weeping again. was like, babe, you could have waited a day or two. But nonetheless, it used to sit downstairs and it would, we'd see it daily walking by and it was, it was always a nice memory and something of, and that was a great time in life. And then the longer

Luke Sorensen (29:43.363)
Mm-hmm.

Dustin Alley (29:46.348)
We were here, we developed memories here with friends, with church members, with families, and our lives progressed, if you will. So now I still have this. I have it up here in my extra room where I do recordings and stuff. But it's not something that, I don't know if we'll throw it away. I may hoard this and it may not be healthy, but that is what it is. But this is something I'm saying for a season, it was good for it to be forefront.

in our face, we kept it. And then it came time to put it behind the doors. And now it's something I love looking at and going, man, that was a great time of life. I'm so thankful for what God did there. And then I can go out into my house and see the things at the forefront of thought of what God's doing now. And there is a time to keep. are some things you should keep. There's rejoicing.

Luke Sorensen (30:34.745)
Mm-hmm.

Dustin Alley (30:43.071)
There is the forgiveness that you gave and the forgiveness that you received. There is that moment where you did feel so close to God. There are things that are good for us to hold on to. And there are some things that you may hold on to for a season and then put away and only pull out like old picture albums. People don't have these anymore. Old picture albums you might just flip through from time to time. Memorial stones. Yeah.

Luke Sorensen (31:02.809)
Mm-hmm.

Luke Sorensen (31:09.581)
I have a new picture album, it's on my iPhone, it's got 52,000 photos.

Dustin Alley (31:12.673)
Right there you go. Yes, I get to scan. I thought flipping through grandma's old picture album was bad. Trying to scroll through my photos app is even worse. So, guys, it's not we talked a lot about getting rid of things. I wanted to talk about the things to keep. The things that you can celebrate and the things that God's done in your life and through your life. Keep those. They don't have to stay at the forefront of thought, but they can stay. So, guys.

Luke Sorensen (31:18.242)
Yeah.

Dustin Alley (31:40.566)
This season conversation we're having over the series. I personally for me, it's deep. It's impactful. It has a lot of I'm forgetting the word potential to be life changing for you if you will embrace what you're hearing and take action steps from it. So I hope something resonated with you today. Luke, final thoughts on things to keep things that throw away time to keep.

Luke Sorensen (32:07.737)
Yeah, I think I'll leave it with this illustration. I think each of you know what you're supposed to do with this, and some of you will do it, and some of you won't. And I just want to say we want to be an encouragement to you. And if you found this to be encouraging, please send us. You've got people in your life that could probably hear this, and we'd love to connect with them as well. The bison, the American bison, has a unique thing above most, or different than most animals. Most animals, when they see a storm coming, they shelter in place, or they run from the storm, like most mammals.

The bison, the buffalo, they do it differently. When they see a storm coming, they run to the storm because they know that the fastest way to get through the storm is to go through it. Meaning if the storm is coming at me, the fastest way to get this over with the storm is to run against it so that you can cross paths faster versus if I run, if I'm running with it, I'm gonna stay with the storm. If you are avoiding your storms and your seasons and running from the season and afraid to face it,

You're just going to prolong what God would like to do in your life. understand this, your season is a season. It's not meant to be there forever. But in your heart, your season, some of you have held on to a season of bitterness for many, many years. And you know it. And you don't, you're not making the adjustment. So I'd say this, it might take, might be time for you to change your direction and walk into this season of bitterness and healing.

and change your story to God's story. Because right now when you're holding on to bitterness, you're making it your thing. It's now your idol. I know you don't want to hear that, but that's true. If I can give it to God, it becomes my sacrifice. And some of the most beautiful sacrifices that you can give to God in seasons is giving him what you're holding on to. it doesn't have, like, you can sacrifice your sin. Now hear me out. I'm going to give, I'm going to surrender my sin. I'm going to surrender my habits. I'm going surrender things I shouldn't have. That's glorifying to God.

or there might be other things you can surrender. just, hey, it might be time for you to change the direction to walk into the season versus trying to run away from

Dustin Alley (34:13.857)
good. man, that is so good. Man, you have heard some amazing words today and I pray it's been a blessing to you. Make sure to connect with us over at facebook.com slash men after God podcast. can find us on YouTube. If you're not watching on there and you're listening to the audio version of this. We'd love to connect with you and see us there. Make sure to share it with someone who'd be blessed by this and keep becoming the man that God made you to be. We'll talk to you next week.