Vulnerability: Types, Barriers, and Discernment

In this episode of the Created to Be podcast, Bethany Pigott is joined again by her husband, Justin, to discuss how vulnerability plays a major role in becoming who God has created us to be as a people. Bethany and Justin discuss different ways God has designed his people to operate in vulnerability, the barriers to vulnerability, and how to discern who we give access to our hearts and stories.

Book Mentioned in the Podcast:
"Building Bounce: How to Grow Emotional Resilience"
by Marcus Warner and Stefanie Hinman

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Donate: Staff Development Fund

Transcript

(0:05) Coaches and athletes are often driven by an unquenchable thirst to push the limits of what (0:10) is achievable. Can we win more games? Throw farther? Jump higher? Run faster? But what if (0:16) the goal is not to pursue limits, but rather to live in a state where limits are irrelevant? (0:21) Is it possible that the current emphasis in sports on being the best and outperforming (0:26) the competition is inferior to what could be experienced? We believe the answer is a resounding (0:31) yes. As believers, we are designed to recognize and respond to God's activity in our lives.

(0:37) What if there is an entirely different way to interact with God's presence while competing? (0:41) Can we recognize and respond to God in real time on the court or field? (0:46) The Created to Be podcast will interview coaches, athletes, and FCA staff to discuss (0:50) the ways they see God and interact with His activity in their day-to-day lives. (0:55) The point is that God didn't create coaches and athletes to do, He created them to be. (1:04) Welcome to the Created to Be podcast.

I'm your host, Bethany Pyatt, (1:07) and I'm joined again this week by my husband, Justin. Say hello, Justin. (1:11) Hello, back again.

(1:12) But yeah, I don't think I'm going to call you a guest this time because really, (1:15) today is going to be more a conversation that we might interweave some stories. But (1:19) we've had a great huddle this past week, and I think this is just an opportunity for us to expand (1:25) on some of the things we talked about at the huddle. So y'all can just consider Justin a (1:28) co-host today.

We're going to be back and forth, just having a conversation with a little bit (1:33) of stories in the middle of that, of just our own personal experiences about the topics that (1:38) we're speaking on. So Justin at the huddle, you spoke about vulnerability this week. (1:42) How did you think that went? (1:44) I thought it went great.

And it's not one that you can just tackle in like a (1:47) 15 to 20 minute discussion. And I feel like a lot of people added so much to the discussion. (1:52) So I thought it went great, but it also uncovered many things that we could talk about too.

(1:57) Yeah. And really on Monday, you spoke about vulnerability and really from the perspective (2:01) of when we have our heart open and exposure of what's really going on in our hearts. I know (2:09) that whenever we walk around, especially in the South, we'll look at people and say, (2:12) Hey, how are you doing? And they'll say, Oh, I'm great.

Or I'm fine. Or I'm good. And we don't (2:17) often, it's a good, it's a fun thing to do.

And it's good to know you're like, Oh, I love to see (2:22) that person, you know, and wave at them. But it doesn't, it kind of makes a mask easy to just (2:27) cover up like, yeah, I'm good. And just go about your day.

And so we're really at the huddle. You (2:31) were really talking about that perspective of vulnerability of what if we take off the mask (2:36) and you don't normally, you want to just unload your story to someone waving at you saying, (2:40) hello, and we'll talk about appropriate levels of interaction with vulnerability on this podcast. (2:44) But in that, you know, on Monday, it was more about like, what's really going on and what keeps (2:50) us from moving into vulnerability where we're opening up our heart before the Lord and to other (2:56) people when it's appropriate.

One thing that came out really that we talked about on the podcast (3:01) last time that we didn't really name that I do feel like falls under the topic of vulnerability (3:07) is stepping into who you are and being bold in that and letting other people see that. (3:12) So I just wanted to come in this podcast and talk more about vulnerability so that it kind of adds (3:17) and supplements to what we talked about at the huddle and talk about vulnerability from two (3:22) perspectives of what it is. So we mean two things, exposure of self, you know, not just that whole, (3:28) I'm fine, but letting people see what's really going on, not just tupping things out or getting (3:32) by or grinding it out, but exposing weakness.

And a lot of times this is not just for the sake of (3:37) exposure like that seems a little bit cruel to just expose our hearts for no reason, but it's (3:42) for the sake of restoration and healing and becoming who God created us to be. And that's (3:48) what this podcast is about. So that's why we're talking about it.

And this is about being human too, (3:52) like you showed, you explained some great examples on Monday about how Jesus showed emotion. And so (3:58) this was him not disconnecting from what was going on in his heart, but actually expressing (4:03) what was going on in his heart, which was vulnerable. So what are some of those examples (4:09) that you gave just for people that weren't there? You know, Jesus wept at Lazarus with Lazarus.

I (4:16) know he took a servant position and put a lowly, put himself in a lowly position. (4:21) There were many times where he would just, just the emotion of the moment. He would not hold back.

(4:28) He always called his disciples higher to a deeper way of thinking and operating. He showed his (4:34) vulnerability to Peter and John in the garden and let them in on that. Right.

Really invited them (4:39) in close and both had two different perspectives on it too. It's interesting just even with John (4:44) and Peter. Peter is definitely one that was like, I will never leave you.

I'm going to be with you (4:50) the whole time. John never had to say it because it was never in his mind. Like John was close (4:55) from the beginning and remained there.

And that's why John talks about how he's the one that Jesus (5:00) loved. But it's, yeah, it's just different perspectives of who got to see all that. (5:07) Only a few people did, but he opened himself up to others for them to show that too.

(5:11) Yeah. And so to disconnect, if Jesus were to disconnect from that and not let, you know, open (5:17) his heart and show some people, it wasn't everybody that he showed the same level of vulnerability with, (5:22) but to walk, like to live like that, where you're constantly disconnecting and just living basically (5:27) from your mind or your effort, it's really to disconnect from what it means to be human. (5:31) So if you're praying these prayers of make me more like Christ, or I want to be who God you created (5:36) me to be, you're going to have to connect with your humanness at some point in order to do that.

(5:41) So it requires this exposure of what's really going on in me and having safe places to do that. (5:47) But then it also, vulnerability is also stepping into original design, acting like ourselves, (5:52) who God actually created us to be. So Jesus did this.

He didn't change who he was (5:59) by what other people were saying, who he should be. If you think about the religious leaders, (6:04) they were constantly telling him, you can't claim that you can't do that. And still yet, (6:08) Jesus was doing that.

So he was risking, hurt, rejection, all that stuff by just being who God (6:15) created him to be. So these are two different things. Exposure of self is more about there's (6:21) something broken, there's some struggle, there's some battle going on in me that I need this.

(6:26) I need to be able to expose this and I need other people to help walk with me and give me their (6:31) strength. Like Jesus was inviting those disciples and he was saying, pray for me. I'm about to go (6:36) through this.

And they just didn't get it, but he was exposing, this is hard and I'm walking (6:41) through this. And so we expose that, we get help, we get restoration, healing. And then there's also (6:46) this, you mentioned in last week, you were saying, I began to pray around other people (6:51) and they were affirming me or I was serving.

And these things make us a little bit nervous at first. (6:57) We've worked with students through the years and when we ask them to pray or come share a (7:01) testimony, or I know I was asked to share, Josh Gilreath, shout out to Josh. He would call people (7:06) out in FCA often.

And I was one of those lucky people he called one night and I was terrified. (7:13) But I stood up and I just did the best I could, worked through the cracking of my voice just to (7:18) share what was on my heart. And that was a step for me into being who God created me to be.

And (7:25) I was vulnerable in that moment because I did have something I wanted to say, but I knew that (7:30) I might not present it right, or people might not understand what I'm saying. We take these risks, (7:35) but both of these things about vulnerability is the vehicle to which we can begin to see that (7:42) prayer answered of our heart. That is, we want to be God who you made us to be.

We want to (7:48) walk into your image, in your image. So they both require a great deal of courage, boldness, (7:54) and you live in a perpetual state like that with our connection to the Father, Son, and Spirit, (7:59) and with trust in mature people. And you'll begin to see growth and change and maturity happen.

(8:05) I just wanted to make a disclaimer as we move on, is that I don't think that you can be vulnerable (8:10) just with anybody, in the exposure of yourself kind of way. I don't think that's wise. We're (8:16) going to talk about how do we navigate, how do we choose who to be vulnerable with? What marks a (8:22) person that I want to be in a trusted relationship with? That's important.

And we also see in your (8:27) example that Jesus didn't, he wasn't vulnerable or invite people to that depth of his heart with (8:33) everybody. You know, if you've been in church for a while and you hear about how Jesus chose (8:37) his disciples, you know, you had three that were close, and then you had a circle of 12, (8:41) and then you had beyond that. I think like 70 people say that he sent out in groups and stuff (8:46) like that.

And then you have beyond that. And so you see that he, the closer you get to him, (8:51) the more you got to see the rawness of who he was. But I do believe that you can be vulnerable (8:57) in the sense of your design on varying levels.

Again, the intensity of Jesus, as you got closer (9:05) to him, you saw more of who he was. So you would feel that intensity more of his nature. But he (9:12) could still be who he was in front of the religious leaders.

He could still be, was it like him to (9:18) heal someone? Yes. So no matter who was standing around, he was still going to heal. He was still (9:24) going to deliver.

He wasn't going to be like, okay, well, all these people are here, so I can't (9:28) be myself in front of them. And so you can be vulnerable in that sense of stepping into who (9:33) you are. If you feel led to pray for someone or just be quiet or whatever it may be, and you're (9:39) in a group of people, we have to get to a place where we can be confident of who we are and just (9:45) step into those moments.

I love this verse in Luke 2, 52, that says, Jesus grew in wisdom and (9:50) favor with God and man. So that word stature is actually a word derived from another word that (9:56) means maturity. So Jesus grew in wisdom and he grew in maturity in favor with God and man.

(10:02) So this was something that Jesus even grew into, was having wisdom in what he was doing and who he (10:08) was, and then also in his own maturity and how he was going to display who he knew he was becoming. (10:17) Um, so in the last episode, we just talked about, um, you know, we talked about a book called (10:23) building bounce and in that it says we cannot feel loved if we do not feel known and we cannot (10:28) feel known if we're not seen. Another quote is if I am not connected authentically, I will not feel (10:34) connected deeply.

A life filled with shallow connections will make it nearly impossible (10:39) to live with joy. So they go on to say, we have a God given need to be seen, (10:43) known, and loved for who we are without rejection. However, we also know that the more (10:48) we expose ourselves, the more at risk we are to experiencing pain.

We try to solve this problem (10:54) by hiding, fighting, running, or trying to please. And we see that in the garden of Eden when Adam (11:00) and Eve sin and they try to hide themselves and cover themselves with fig leaves. So Justin, (11:05) I would just, my question that I just wanted to open up conversation is like, if these are the (11:10) fears that we have, what other barriers have, do people face, but also maybe like, how have you (11:16) done this in your life? Like, how have you, you know, felt that need to be seen, but then also (11:22) have that tension of like, I might be rejected.

How do you navigate that? I was thinking on this (11:27) and I'm trying to think of how the Lord brought me here. And I think it had a lot to do with my (11:32) family and a lot of support at home. And it was okay permission to be different.

Like it's okay (11:39) to be different. And what I'm saying is in high school, I wasn't, I was, wasn't really a part of (11:44) the crowd. I got to college and I feel like it was similar in some ways.

It's not that I didn't want (11:50) to be a part of the crowd and be with friends and connect that way. There were just some things (11:55) that I had to do differently in order to become what I felt like I needed to become here. (12:00) And I think God used that.

And it was, it had rejection. I mean, I just, I was thinking about (12:06) even just in the athletic side of pushing the work ethic, like asking, like running harder than (12:11) other guys would run and, and what are doing the things that the coaches asked us to do. And when (12:16) a lot of the guys would not.

And so as I'm out there doing those things, I come back and (12:21) my stuff's getting thrown in the shower or it's getting taped up because I was doing the things (12:27) that I was supposed to do. So I'm leaving with wet clothes or wrinkled clothes or whatever to get back (12:32) to my dorm to go eat. And there were things like that.

And then two years later, they weren't (12:37) messing with me anymore because I was number one on the staff and the whole culture had shifted. (12:40) But, but I realized early on that somebody has to be that guy and it's okay. Not as a just rebellion (12:47) to do my own thing.

It's within honoring what authority has given me to follow. But I have to, (12:55) I have, it's okay to be different. I guess that's it.

And so maybe it's part of being a boy scout (13:00) and being a band nerd, um, which I love deeply, uh, playing the trumpet for six years. And then (13:05) being jock, I saw all these different sides of people being different and learning how to grow (13:11) in those spaces and connect with people to where it gave me a lot of, I don't know, confidence (13:17) and kind of, of who I am. And then I can step in to be that.

And so it just continued when I got (13:23) to church. Cause then I got those circles of people that were investing in me and called out (13:28) things in me like we talked about last week. And then FCA just furthered that.

And so, and then (13:33) finding the Lord and all that too, it wasn't just me on that journey. It was God's hand in all of it. (13:39) And I feel like he just started piecing it all together in college for me.

And the barriers (13:43) were real. Like I faced the rejection. I think you just have to face it.

And once you realize (13:47) that it's really not that bad and it's going to happen, it's inevitable and it's not that bad. (13:52) And you have support groups around you to help shape that for you and give you proper perspective (13:59) like godly people. It just propelled me forward, but it is very real.

Like you're going to get (14:03) rejected at some point. You're going to feel judged. People will try to take advantage of it.

(14:08) It's just going to happen. I think encouraging people to just go ahead and face it is a really (14:14) big step. I love how you mentioned that you could just have permission to be different.

And I was (14:19) thinking about how what we're talking about isn't this self-centered type of thing where it's like, (14:25) well, look at me. I'm different. This is a response of living from the heart that Jesus actually put (14:30) in you.

And that's a very tender, vulnerable place because who we really are is precious. (14:36) Like if we expose that to other people and then just get rejected, it's really painful. If we're (14:41) posturing and we get rejected, it doesn't hurt as bad because we know it's fake.

But when we (14:45) actually put the real thing of who we are out there, that's when we can get hurt. And so we're (14:52) not talking about being self-centered or like, look at me. This is who I am.

It's like this really (14:57) vulnerable place of living from, like I said, the heart that Jesus gave you. And so the hard part (15:04) about living from that place is that sometimes there's things that come up that are in our hearts (15:10) that are not of God, like things like anger and bitterness and frustration. And these aren't (15:17) necessarily bad to feel.

But when we begin to see patterns in our life or jealousy, I remember a time (15:22) where I was jealous. This is so silly, but I was a ministry leader at Mississippi College and there (15:26) was this girl. She was walking in way more maturity, honestly, than me in the spirit.

And so (15:33) I remember this leader, nobody could get mad at this girl. She walked in so much purity and so (15:41) much joy. And so what was good about that for me was that then because I couldn't blame her or point (15:47) to anything in her life that I could judge her for, I knew that the emotion and what I was feeling (15:53) was coming from me.

And I had to bring that before the Lord because what that does is if I didn't (15:58) face that jealousy in my heart, that would keep me from becoming who I was asking God to make me (16:04) into. And so it's good when these things come up in our hearts, because then we have to say, (16:10) okay, this isn't me. This isn't who God made me to be, because we can see in Galatians, (16:14) it talks about the fruit of the spirit.

So that's a really great litmus test for like, (16:18) this is who God made me to be. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness. And no, we're not perfect, (16:23) but there's other things that compete with those things.

And the freedom that we have in Christ, (16:29) which is incredible that He gives us access to this, is that when those other things rise up in (16:35) me, if I can realize this is not who He made me to be, so there is freedom to be had if I bring (16:42) this out into the light. And the more that you can realize that discrepancy happening and be quick to (16:47) come to Him, then He can heal that thing. He can show you where maybe this jealousy entered your (16:53) heart, and you can repent, which means change the way you think.

You can see the situation different. (16:58) You can see Him different. You can see yourself different.

You can see other people different. (17:01) And then you move forward in healing. And then you're like, oh, I can walk in joy.

Well, (17:05) how'd that happen? I didn't discipline myself into joy. I exposed something that was not of Him that (17:11) was coming up in and out of me. And then He healed me.

It's amazing how it works. So I just didn't (17:17) know if there's a story or an instance you have of even recognizing when those things come into (17:22) your attention and how you navigate facing them. That's good.

And I was even thinking about how (17:27) injuries do that. Injuries really bring things to light and expose things inside, and you have (17:32) an opportunity to do something about those. They're really a gift when those things happen.

But for me, (17:37) like in all that, sports was big, and God used sports to show me kind of who I was, but also (17:43) expose things and point out things to me that I am not and that I was agreeing with. And one of (17:48) those was fear of failure. Big one, I think we could all talk about that for a while.

But who I was (17:53) was determined by how I performed, how nice of a guy I was or how good of a teammate I was. If I (17:58) had a pretty good outing, I was pretty good that week. If I had a bad outing on the inside, I felt (18:02) awful.

I wasn't myself. And trying to work through those things to get freed of that was big. I had (18:07) to take those things to the Lord and be like, I'm not meant to live this way.

I'm not meant to be (18:11) so up and down in my life. I know you have more for me. And so He started exposing some of those (18:16) things in me.

And a big one too, it led me to even the deeper things, deep things inside of me, (18:21) certain patterns in my life, certain addictions that I had to face. And one of those was just (18:25) what I was watching on a regular basis, what I was exposing myself to. And so having to face that (18:30) and share that with a leader in my life was a big deal.

And the way he cared for me in that sharing (18:35) was a big deal. Man, it just started to, you just have to face of like, this is not me and this is (18:41) not who I'm meant to be. And God is calling me to be free of these things in order for me to become (18:47) all that He desires me to be.

I can't live like this. Can't live in this duplicity. The gospel is (18:54) so much bigger than me living a life of duplicity and saying, I'm transformed.

Like, no, that's not (19:03) partial transformation is not the gospel. And I think the Lord is really wanting people to go, (19:07) hey, I can change everything. I finished it on the cross.

Do I really believe in the finished work (19:15) of Jesus and that my life can represent the finished work of Jesus? And I think that's the (19:22) rub. And if we can sit in there and be like, well, I'm just going to struggle, I'm just going to (19:25) struggle. Woe is me.

And we could stay there. Many people stay there and they stop pursuing the heart (19:31) of Jesus. They stop going after who He is, what He's calling them to become and really exposing (19:37) themselves.

Because this is nonstop. This does not stop. I have married.

I have kids. It is (19:42) constantly coming to the forefront in our relationship, but then also in the way we're (19:48) leading our kids and how they see everything that we do. And we'll just throw it right back at us.

(19:54) And it's just a mirror constantly. And so it's a good thing. It's a great thing.

And the Lord is (20:01) looking for folks that are willing to just believe different. Yeah. Look, when you were just talking (20:06) now, I was reminded how we just label stuff as, well, we can only go this far.

And it sounds right (20:13) and it sounds good because that's what we feel like we can handle. Things that sometimes are (20:19) taught or said or sayings that we might see on social media or whatever, like these things, (20:25) they speak to our soul and keep us limited. And what I like to do is challenge the limits.

(20:32) Why are you telling me that it's in scripture, but I can't access that in Christ? If it's in there, (20:40) and Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever, why am I putting a ceiling on this? (20:45) And so we do that through different things that we agree with. And instead of looking at scripture (20:50) and saying, this is what He has promised, why can't I believe for it? And a lot of times we (20:55) think we're going to be disappointed. That's why we don't.

And so that leads down a whole other (20:59) rabbit trail. But if we expose our weakness and it feels dangerous, we might set out to just (21:07) totally exterminate vulnerability so that we can control how others see us and hide the messy parts. (21:12) And I think that it's an illusion because Hebrews 4.13 says, nothing in all creation is hidden from (21:20) God.

Everything is naked and exposed before His eyes. And He's the one that we have to give (21:25) account. So whatever we're hiding, He sees it all anyways.

So that's one thing I remember. (21:32) I listened to this podcast and as I heard these testimonies of these people, it spoke to me (21:38) because I realized I was like, I can either wait and fully realize the realization of being before (21:46) God fully transparent when I stand before Him one day, or I could just go ahead and admit these (21:51) things to Him now. What am I waiting on? Because He already knows, right? So I had this one time (21:56) really concentrated season when we lived in Austin, Texas, where God was dealing with a lot (22:00) of these things in my heart.

I realized I had all this anger and I was like, I'm not normally an (22:04) angry person. So I probably need to talk to somebody about this because this is getting (22:09) a little ridiculous for me. I can't be the mom I want to be, or the wife I want to be, or the (22:13) ministry leader I want to be with all this anger in my heart.

And trying to hold all that together (22:17) and then be the person that God created you to be is exhausting. And sometimes you just (22:22) can't do it. And so you'll go off the rails in an instance where you shouldn't.

So it's kind (22:27) of strange to people. I'm like, what's wrong with her? But I remember part of that time was that (22:32) God was exposing motivations behind certain things that I would say to people. If I felt (22:38) insecure, what would come out of my mouth in a conversation with someone might sound okay to (22:43) them, but I knew it was from a place of insecurity.

I knew it was from a place of anger, (22:48) even if I was trying to mask it a different way. And so he was showing me. It was almost too much (22:53) sometimes.

I'm like, okay, I get it. I get it. But even to the point where I walked into our (22:57) garage and just saw basketball in the garage and all these thoughts flooded to my mind about my (23:04) motivation for playing sports and basketball.

I wanted people to see me or make good comments (23:09) like just all kinds of stuff. And, you know, God used that to expose those motivations to get that (23:18) stuff up to the forefront so that I could face them and then start changing how I see myself, (23:23) receive his love and so that I could be secure. I wanted to be secure.

But if I have insecurity (23:28) and if I have anger and I have all these things running rampant in my life, I can't be that person (23:33) that I know that God has made me to be. And so in the garden, I mentioned that earlier, (23:37) they sowed big leaves together. They use that for image management.

(23:41) They just wanted to pretend that this thing didn't happen, but they were exposed. God knew. (23:46) He came in the garden and he said, where are you, Adam and Eve? But it's not like he didn't know (23:50) where they were.

He was giving them an opportunity to step into vulnerability. And they still tried (23:54) to like manage their image. This is just something that is a thing.

And we have to face it like you (24:00) were saying earlier. And there are real issues and real barriers to stepping into this that we (24:05) want to talk about. So we're going to take a short break and then come back and finish this podcast (24:09) talking about the barriers and just where we go from here.

Living out your faith in college can (24:15) be a challenge, let alone in your sport. But it doesn't have to be. Come join FCA in the Crane (24:20) Theater room in the Shourer Fieldhouse on Monday nights at 7 p.m. to fellowship with other athletes (24:25) and encounter God together.

We look forward to seeing you there. Welcome back. So as we finish (24:33) up and wrap up this podcast, we just want to talk about barriers to moving into vulnerability as like (24:40) a lifestyle, really, and learning how to navigate that, but also discerning how you get connected, (24:46) how you walk in vulnerability with wisdom.

Right. So in Building Bounce, again, they say most social (24:52) anxiety is related to a fear that vulnerability will be met with rejection. It is a fear that if (24:57) people see the real you, they won't want you to belong.

And I remember being faced with this when (25:02) I was on a mission trip with AIA and we were working on that's Athletes in Action. We were (25:06) working on our testimonies and I don't they gave us prompts to think through different things. And (25:12) I just remember this rush of like fear that came on me when I put something down on that piece of (25:18) paper about something in my story in my life that I realized like if people people see this outside (25:25) view of Bethany, but if they knew that I had certain thoughts that went through my mind (25:30) that I thought about, if those thoughts were exposed, how embarrassed I would be and how I (25:36) felt like they wouldn't like me anymore.

So I remember that feeling of, wow, if I expose this, (25:42) I people might not like me for this. So there really are some barriers to walking in this. (25:48) So, you know, talking about just like I just said just now, like fear of exposure, (25:51) that's a barrier, fear of judgment, people being taken advantage of and vulnerability.

(25:56) When you give someone access to your heart and your life and they just take advantage of it, (26:01) that's a very predatory kind of response when we're supposed to be protectors of one another (26:05) and vulnerability. And again, go back to Genesis and you'll see this play out in that story (26:09) between what Satan did. He took advantage of vulnerability and then God comes (26:13) and he closed them in dignity.

He responds to their weakness. Yes, they had to leave the garden, (26:21) but there's tenderness there if you have eyes and ears to see it and hear it, that God is the one (26:27) who comes with grace and tenderness and he doesn't take advantage of that vulnerability, but he (26:32) protects. People have church hurt, right? You've said that on Monday night, you've heard people (26:37) talk about that.

They have maybe just the wrong perspective of vulnerability. So that is a barrier (26:43) or the fear of, again, rejection, thinking that you have to have it all together. (26:47) Okay.

So this is the barrier that caught my attention on Monday night at the huddle that (26:52) I was kind of shocked by. And that was someone saying, a few people, not just one person, (26:59) a few people saying a barrier to vulnerability was that people, they just really don't think (27:04) that people care. It's crushing.

What do you think about that? I mean, it's obviously what they are (27:11) observing and what that is they have experienced. We are really busy and distracted and we just (27:19) don't know how to listen real well. It's hard.

It's something you have to practice and you have (27:24) to really sit in and take in what people are doing and not be distracted by what other thoughts or (27:30) what are the things are on your mind that you got to go do and just to be with somebody in a really (27:36) vulnerable moment. And I mean, to do that with our kids, very, very significant things are (27:42) happening in the lives of my kids. They're 11 and eight and two, not really having a conversation (27:47) with my two-year-old yet on this, but it's easy for me to downgrade what the 11 and eight-year-old (27:52) are processing because I have something else that's on my mind and I can miss that opportunity, (27:57) which could definitely shape them and in their view of dad.

And I'm supposed to represent the (28:04) father's heart for them, which is going to impact how they view the Lord. So to be present with (28:09) people is just not something with the way technology has grown. I don't think it's something (28:14) that's a core thing for people now and in families that are just being invested in them and they're (28:22) gaining those skills early.

Yeah. Listening requires having a slowdown and actually (28:27) listen actively and then being able to repeat back to someone saying something like, (28:31) this is what I think that you're saying. The message is being checked, making sure to get sent (28:36) and received and there's verification.

It's back and forth, back and forth. It's not just like, (28:42) I'm sitting here listening and then check, I've heard you say something. And I'm thinking about (28:46) what I'm going to say to fix it.

Right. It's actually joining in with them, which the next (28:50) podcast, we're going to talk about empathy, which really listening is a key skill if you're going (28:54) to be an empathetic person. But what I would say is if this is a barrier for people, like, well, (29:00) whatever, like, people just don't care that much.

So I'm not going to do that. I would say there (29:05) are people that do care. And often what we have to do is we have to become the kind of people (29:09) that we want other people to be for us.

And so if I don't have people like that in my circle, (29:15) I can still work on being that kind of person for other people just so that I get the practice. (29:21) But I just believe like draws the same back. So if I'm being that person, then I'm going to find (29:27) those people in my circle.

And I've found that to be true. Like that that statement was shocking (29:32) to me because I could probably count on one hand, maybe two people that I might think like, OK, (29:37) they just don't really care. But I have way more people that I know I could call today and they (29:43) would listen to me and they would care and they would like intentionally pray for me or encourage (29:48) me.

And so that was like what was so shocking to me and really sad because I think that that's how (29:53) we're supposed to walk, especially in the body of Christ. Like if you can't find it in the body, (29:56) that's a problem. Yeah, it is.

So we want to.