#26 – Four Lies We Believed About God (And What We Believe Now)

In this heartfelt episode, Mel and Dez explore common misconceptions about God's nature, the impact of religious beliefs on our emotional health, and how radical honesty can lead to spiritual freedom. They share personal stories and practical insights to help listeners embrace a more authentic, grace-filled relationship with a God who’s much kinder than we’ve thought.

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Transcript

Introduction: Personal Healing Journeys and Belief Systems

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome to the Road Back Podcast. We're so glad you're here. I'm Melissa and I'm Desiree. We're two trauma-informed coaches and real life friends.

SPEAKER_01 0:11

If you're returning to yourself, your dreams, or your sense of belovedness, this podcast is for you.

SPEAKER_00 0:19

We'll pull from our own stories and hard-earned wisdom to support your journey. So take a breath and remember, you belong exactly as you are.

SPEAKER_01 0:32

Let's talk about God. Fun. Welcome, friends. Today's episode, we are going to discuss some of our process and belief systems that have been challenged as Des and I have both gone on a personal healing journey and even on our own journeys of diving into our individual relationships with God and what caused us to have to confront some of the belief systems that we picked up simply through our own upbringing and culture. And as we've embraced the journey of health and embraced the journey of understanding the heart of Jesus in a different way, how

The Lies We Believe About God's Perfect Plan

SPEAKER_01 1:13

that's really challenged us to let go of some of the beliefs and behavior patterns that we held as true for decades of our lives. We wanted to share some of the lies that we used to believe about God and how we've stepped into greater levels of truth and freedom in order to discover who God really is versus the God that I was taught.

SPEAKER_00 1:35

Yeah, I think that why we would even want to talk about beliefs because they impact your life. Beliefs on a neural pathway and a neuroscience level is the framework for which you live in. So based on what I believe, like if I believe the sky is blue, I live in that reality. These are huge things that we've uncovered inside of our patterning of inherent beliefs. And we're like, where do we get this from? A lot of these beliefs come from our family cultures, relationships, and it's natural for all of us as humans to therefore project relational patterns onto the relationship of God. And so this is gonna be so fun. I imagine these things are gonna push on a lot of people's buttons because they've pushed on ours. And so I'm excited about chatting about these lies in which we believed.

SPEAKER_01 2:26

Yeah, actually, and even before we dive in, I want to give a little shout out to the book Lies We Believe About God by William Paul Young. When I read that book years ago, it was when I was already in the middle of questioning a lot of the things that I had been taught. I was already very much in a personal journey of learning what was sustainable in my Christianity versus things that were leaving me in a constant state of burnout and exhaustion. One of the reasons I loved that book was because he didn't pose his thoughts in a way that was like, this is fact, this is the way it is. He asked a lot of open-ended questions. What about this? This is what we were taught. This is what it could look like. What does the scripture actually say? It actually gave me permission to verbalize some questions that I had for myself that I'd been a little bit afraid to say out loud. And sometimes you just need somebody else to go first and say, hey, I'm I'm willing to challenge this. And you go, oh, phew. You're you're I have those questions too. And so that's our heart with this episode that it would just open up a lot of permission and a lot of space for you to recognize Jesus is not falling off of his throne and you having questions and you challenging things

Lie #1: There is One Perfect Plan for Your Life

SPEAKER_01 3:33

that are no longer working for you in your spirituality, in your faith. There's a lot of room to do that. Yeah. And you can do that without fearing losing your salvation or getting God mad at you and things like that.

SPEAKER_00 3:47

Yeah. So feel the permission to be a little curious around the these things that we held as truths and how we've untangled them and gotten really curious about them ourselves. So let's do it. What is one of the things that you held to be true that you no longer think are true?

SPEAKER_01 4:07

That's kind of a big question. Oh, let's let's just go like lie number one. God has one perfect plan for my life. And if I miss it, I will ruin everything.

SPEAKER_00 4:18

Oh, I can see former versions of me. So scared and tangled up in this lie. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:25

I was very concerned that there was one perfect will of God and that it was on me to figure out what it was. And he would give me clues, but they wouldn't always be obvious. So I felt a tremendous amount of pressure to not make mistakes in my calling, quote quote, my destiny, my purpose. It felt very high stakes that I needed to know what it was, and then I needed to know how to walk it out because I took Romans 12, 1 and 2, which, you know, don't be conformed to this world, be transformed by the renewing of your mind. It goes on to say, so that you improve

Fear of Standing Before Jesus and the Pressure to Know God's Will

SPEAKER_01 5:00

for yourselves what is the good, acceptable, and perfect will of God. And the perfectest will of God, it was the thing that I needed to figure out what it was because I was going to stand before Jesus at the end of my life. I was going to give an account for my life. And I was terrified that I would have to look at him and he would be like rolling his eyes in disappointment and frustration with me because I hadn't figured out what the perfect will of God was. So I spent many hours, many hours fasting and praying and desperate to know what God's will was because it actually felt very scary to me. That the fear of standing before Jesus and him being mad at me at the end of my life was a big driving factor for a lot of my decisions.

SPEAKER_00 5:37

Yes. I mean, I have so much compassion because you're in a relationship with somebody by nature is being super elusive. And if you can't figure it out, you're gonna fail. You're gonna get popped over the head with the stick and be like, idiot. Like you said, annoyed, like rolling his eyes. I always had that feeling too of like he was like tapping his foot, like Dez, get it together. This is not that hard. You have to find the one perfect thing. I've told you all about it, but you still can't figure it out. I think it creates so much anxiety this way because there was no real true way of us knowing inside of ourselves. We had to wait for something on the outside to prove that. And I think in a in a world that we live in, full of humanity, full of disappointment, full of pain, I know in that experience I had so much shame every time something painful was happening. So I prayed, I'd fast, I'd dedicate, I'd feel like God was leading me to something. I would go and do that thing. And then nonetheless, life would happen. Yeah. Stuff would hit the fan. And I was like, oh no. The amount of shame I felt because I I determined through an external experience whether or not I had hit that plan, I had met the mark, whether or not I would get the eye roll was basically, you know, life happening.

SPEAKER_01 6:55

Yeah. So if

The Shame of Missed Opportunities and God's Response

SPEAKER_01 6:57

things went well, you must have been doing something right. Yes. If something went wrong, you clearly had stepped out of his perfect will for your life.

SPEAKER_00 7:04

Exactly. And I and I think that there's a secondary emotional pain to this. So there's the first pain of lost a job or you lost a friend or your car broke down and you um you're bankrupt and your dad died. But then there's the secondary pain of the meaning of that, of that I failed God. And that is torturous for a human soul. I know it tortured my soul. And I sit with humans who constantly have this shameful belief that they failed the one person they love the most because life is happening, and that must prove that they haven't hit that true, perfect, most pleasing will of God. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 7:44

And I think it paints on a subconscious level as well that God is somewhat of a control freak who is just constantly frustrated by our inability to get it right. Like he's like, here's the perfect plan. Why can't you get with it? And then it's like, oh, well, I have to send Jesus because you're so screwed up. And, you know, it's just this whole you still can't get it right. I think it fuels performance. And I noticed that it stole a lot of the joy and even the creativity out of my life because I didn't feel a lot of permission to improvise or experiment along the way because a lot of my mental energy, even spiritual energy, was focused on just like what's the next step I have to take? What's the next thing I need to do? I mean, I remember bless, bless my heart. I remember when I used to wake up in the morning and I'd be like, I can't get dressed today until I know what outfit Jesus wants me to wear.

SPEAKER_00 8:35

Oh, honey.

Parenting as a Model for Understanding God's Love

SPEAKER_01 8:37

I know. I know. It's like almost embarrassing to say out loud, but I was like, you know what I love about myself in that place is like she was so sincere. Yeah. She so wanted to be a good girl and to please God. But she was like, I don't want to make a decision that's outside of God's will. So I'd be like, okay, what outfit should I wear? Zooming out a little bit, I can't imagine as a parent being like, you are going to disappoint me today unless you wear that red top. It is my will that you wear the red top with the blue shorts. And that is going to be a theme that's going to come through, and I'm just going to say it now. Is one of the things that has been most helpful in helping me understand the true heart of God and reframing who he really is is when I became a mother and I saw some of the ridiculousness of the rules I had set in place or the beliefs that I had that I realized that if I were to do those exact things to my children, it would be borderline abusive, if not neurotic, if nothing else.

unknown 9:42

Right.

SPEAKER_01 9:42

I mean, what kind of parent says you can't get dressed unless I pick out your outfit for you? Sure, I want to help my kids when they're little sometimes. Yeah. But it's so easy to wrap up our own weird relational histories. Our parents, our caregivers, leaders, pastors, teachers, people in our lives that had an influence and a voice that in their humanity, what we'll often do is we just go, you're like that. Oh, maybe God's like that too.

SPEAKER_00 10:08

To me, this is a good reason to do this work, to get really curious is because I think you actually can disconnect the face of God from the crap that we've believed about him. And I think to myself, as a human, I would love that experience too, of people to give me the time of day to

The Myth of a Single Path and God's Response to Dreams

SPEAKER_00 10:25

get curious. Maybe just ask questions about it or think about it critically. And um, you know, you shared about getting dressed I found that there were so many high-stakes decisions in my life, not just getting dressed because I had a moment of that. Like, did did God want me to turn right here or get on the freeway? Like it's like you could get like paralyzed. I just think to myself, that is an awful way to live and be like, did I miss it? Did I miss it? But I truly believe like there was like one person I was supposed to marry and one path, one job that was gonna I was gonna have for my whole life, or you will sabotage your calling. Oh my gosh. And then I'd miss it. And the idea of missing and ruining it was so much stress. Being in any type of relationship, walking on eggshells is just too, too much for the system. It's just so unhealthy, it's so unsafe. It doesn't feel relational, it feels transactional. Get it right or else. And I think that's where you're talking about these dynamics of when we were parented, it was a lot of conditional love. You do this good and you're gonna get a good thing. You do this naughty and you're gonna go to your room, whatever the experience was. And so we often understand God from these human contexts, and then we add in a whole lot with some interesting teaching, even for me, a lot of prophetic things. And so it felt like if they don't happen, what does that mean about me? And the amount of pressure, like who got it wrong? Me, them, God? You sort of have to call for account on something if you hold this in this way. There's one right thing, one right way and path, and you have to figure it out. What are you thinking over there?

SPEAKER_01 12:12

I think prophetic culture could be very beautiful, and I've also seen prophetic culture horrifically abused and used to manipulate, used to all sorts of things, which that's not the point of this discussion. But I remember sitting in my bathroom sometimes at night, my kids would be in bed, my husband would be at bed, and I would just be crying out to God, going, How am I supposed to make this happen? I must

Prophetic Words and God as a Good Parent

SPEAKER_01 12:34

be missing it somehow, I must be screwing up. I remember having to get really honest with God at one point and say, I know that your words are spoken to give life, especially in, I was speaking in context of prophetic words that I've been given. Your words are spoken to give life, but this feels like a shackle around my neck. I feel so weighed down, I actually feel like these words have a level of torment to them because I can't figure out what I'm supposed to do and how I'm supposed to make it. Truthfully, I don't even know all the reasons why I thought all those things. I just knew that it felt so high stakes. And then if they weren't coming to pass or I couldn't see fruit, that just fueled my shame story. Yes. That said, I must have somehow made a mistake. Did I have a child at the wrong time? Should I have not gone to this thing here? For the life of me, I can't figure out where the right. Where where was the wrong turn that I made? Because I don't know what I did wrong. I just know that this isn't happening the way I thought. And I had a quite a powerful encounter with Jesus one time where I was really laying out some of these weighty prophetic words that felt like they were big. They had felt very directional. I got really honest with them one day and just said, I don't know how I'm supposed to make this happen. And if they are going to cause me this much torment and this much pain, and it felt terrifying to say this to him, but I was like, I don't want this. They are weighing on me in a way that is bringing pain to my life, not joy, not peace. I don't see the fruit of the spirit. What is happening? And I've never shared this publicly before, but he had this conversation with me where he reminded me of some prayers that I had prayed before I had gotten these prophetic words. And at the time in my life, I had read some biographies

The Reframe: God's Response to Our Desires

SPEAKER_01 14:17

of people who had really powerful ministries and huge impact in the earth by all our standards, like miracles and signs and wonders and salvations and people getting raised from the dead and all this kind of stuff. And I remember when I was young, I had prayed to God after I'd been reading these biographies, and I said, Oh God, I would love to do something like this. Is it possible that I could do something like this with my life? And within a year, I started getting prophetic words around having this sort of impact in ministry and reach and influence. And I remember being so excited in that time in my life when I got these prophetic words. And I pursued them and I was really sewing things into my life. Well, fast forward a number of years and other things have happened. I've had kids, and these words were still feeling very heavy. And these were the ones that I brought to Jesus. And he said this thing to me. I I don't know where it's going to fit in your doctrine. So this is my conversation with Jesus. But he said to me, Has it ever occurred to you that a good parent would want to facilitate their child's dreams? He said, Has it occurred to you that maybe some of those prophetic words you got were my response to your heart of wanting to do something with your life that felt significant? Have you ever considered that I was responding to you? And then he gave me this picture. He said, You have a daughter, which I do. He said, if she came to you and said, Mom, I want to learn ballet, I am so fascinated by ballet, wouldn't you do everything in your power to facilitate her ballet dream? And I was like, Yes, I would. And he said, if she pursued ballet for five years and she loved it and she danced and she had a great time and her interests started to change. And she started getting interested in arts and crafts or horses or dogs. And she got decided, like, mom, I want to be a veterinarian now and I really want to learn about animals. And can I do this? I don't love ballet quite as much as I used to. Wouldn't you, if you had the means, go, sure, honey, let's explore your heart around veterinary medicine. Can we get you down to a local rescue? He's like, good parents want to facilitate their children's dreams. And he said, I'm not mad at you because what had happened is that some of those dreams that I'd had for this large impact had shifted and morphed over 10, 15, 20 years. And not only was my capacity not the same, the

The Shift from Fixed Destiny to Co-Creation with God

SPEAKER_01 16:52

desire had changed in and as well. I still had a heart for the kingdom. Some of the specifics about what had drawn me when I'd read about all these amazing people just didn't look the same anymore. And I was feeling so condemned that I didn't have the capacity or even the same desire that I had had 15, 20 years before. And I was like, there must be something wrong with me because I've gotten these prophetic words and this is God's will for my life. And God invited me into this reframe where he said, Is it more about the dance between you and me where you desired something? So I was like, yes, baby girl, I'm gonna facilitate this. Yes, you could do this with your life if you want to. Just like my daughter could pursue ballet if she wanted to and go as far as she could. But when my interests and my priorities and things changed, I had felt guilty and was trying to hold myself to a dream that no longer looked the same because I thought that that was God's will for my life. And he said, What if it's actually me responding to your dreams and I'm bringing words and confirmation and encouragement, saying, Yes, you want to do that? Yes, I'm in this with you. And if your heart changes and you want to be a veterinarian now, my heart is going to facilitate that dream the same. That one conversation with Jesus completely turned my whole perception of not only prophetic words, but also my relationship with quote quote his will for my life. It completely flipped it on its head. And that one encounter broke off a tremendous amount of shame, fear, confusion that I had been carrying for a number of years by that point that had kept me very weighed down and feeling very ashamed because I just felt like I was constantly not living up to this big calling.

SPEAKER_00 18:39

When you shared that, I could feel the unburdening. This is a co-creative experience. And I think that that's really important because finding that one perfect thing and then trying to perform perfectly so you don't miss it is very contrary to what I read in the Bible of how how much God values our autonomy and our free will. And so when you speak to a co-creative experience in a relationship dynamic, that resonates with the will of God unfolding co-creatively with you, with each individual person, which is why we tell our kids, oh, you're you're unique, like you have your own path, you have your own thing. It's true for us. Of course, the will of God would be different according to each of his children. I love this reframe because I can feel what that does inside of a human heart to understand the co-creative, the relational aspect instead of determine on the outside and perform perfectly and don't get it wrong. It's a safer environment. It's such a different environment. 100% completely changes your life.

SPEAKER_01 19:49

And that that's what I think we've both experienced. And it's given me so much freedom of even just continuing to parent my children the way that intuitively feels correct to parent them. I can't imagine telling my 18-year-old, you have to major in this because this is my will for your life. You have to follow this career path because this is what mommy wants you to do. And mommy knows best. Sure, when you're three, I'm gonna know better. But isn't the point of maturity to actually grow up and be able to make healthy decisions because you understand the heart of your parents? Or, you know, if we think of God as being the perfect parent and the perfect example of unconditional love, then I want to emulate that when I bring that to my children, which is not performance-based. I mean, how many years do we spend in bondage because we are trying to perform? And that's not even God's heart to begin with.

Lie #2: God Wants to Use Me for a Specific Purpose

SPEAKER_01 20:41

He doesn't want that. That kind of leads us to the number two. Yes. Yeah, let's do that. Let's dive into number two. Segway into that, Des.

SPEAKER_00 20:48

Speaking of bondage. The lie that God wants to use me or my purpose is to be used by God. I I want to preface this because I think that in our the most loving context and a relational dynamic, being connected and in love with somebody and being in a love relationship with them, it would it would change your life. And you would start to respond differently to that love. And I think that that's natural. But I think that when we're talking about bondage and we're talking about performance, there's a lot to God wants to use me. There's an overall sense, my value is attached to my usefulness. And I think it automatically puts us in this little bit of an exchange, transactional experience, which I don't think at the heart of a papa daughter relationship, there is in the most healed experience with God and myself. It's not transactional. I don't have to pay him back for him loving me and saving me. Like that's not the gospel at all. Not because this is what God wants. It but because it has become

The Myth of Being Used by God and Performance

SPEAKER_00 22:02

this thing that I must be used by God to prove something, like fill it in the blank, to prove I'm transformed, to prove that I've I've found his will. It becomes this is the one thing that I'm I'm here on earth for. I have a funny story about my kids, but what are you thinking about this line? No, I want to hear your story, and then I'll add my thoughts. When I was sitting with this line, I was like, oh, this is taking me right back to this hilarious story. I think my older kids were like six and eight. And of course I was teaching them to unload the dishwasher, which I think is great life skill for them. In their child brains, they were unloading it begrudgingly, and they're like, We know, mom, that the only reason you had kids was to make us unload the dishwasher and sweep and you know, chores like that, dump the garbage or something in. I thought it was hilarious because I just couldn't help but but laugh. But then I thought to myself, that's sort of what I think a lot of us in church think. We think that we're only there to serve him, to unload the dishwasher of fill in the blank, whatever that thing is. And it could be further than the truth. In my heart of hearts and my mom heart, I was like, that has nothing to do with it. But isn't it true that in their in their way of thinking, that's what they evaluated was their purpose was to be useful, to serve. They even use the words, we're slaves to you. And I, we were laughing, and they're like, We're your slaves, we have to dump the garbage. And I was like, totally. But isn't that sort of kind of how we feel? This is our our one reason of being here is to dump the garbage. AKA further the kingdom. Further the kingdom. I just thought to myself, well, that's insanity. Like to think that that's the reason why I'm in relationship with you, the reason why you exist, why my love is towards you and for you is because of this. And I mean, in terms of their maturity and their brain, it makes sense. I often think that it's an immature belief that we have. It's an experience, but it's not the whole story. It lacks a lot of context. It lacks a lot of relational dynamics, it lacks a lot of information. And that's what I think is helpful when you get curious about this, is like you can add so much more to this statement. How about you, Mel? What are you, what's that coming up for you?

SPEAKER_01 24:28

You've got my brain going because I am sure I have used this phrase more times than I can count of just, I just want to be used by God. I want to be used for his glory, I want to be used for his kingdom. And I've meant it very sincerely, and I've heard other people say it with very sincere hearts. I just want to be used by God. I understand the sentiment because I have had that exact same sentiment myself of I want God to flow through my life. I want that. I don't want to get to the end of my life and not have had anything to show for it. I think it comes from pure motives or sincere motives. I do agree that I don't know that it's the most mature way of thinking because I don't see God as a utilitarian God who goes, as long as

The Sacrifice and Burnout in Ministry and Service

SPEAKER_01 25:10

you are impacting the most number of people for the kingdom, that is what is most important. Because I had that perspective. It doesn't really matter if I burn out in the process. We've both seen this. Ministers, ministries, I would even say missionary families, where I where the parents have poured out everything for the sake of the gospel and the kingdom. But what has their marriage looked like? What have their kids looked like? What has the cost been to them personally to be, quote, used by God? Yes. And that is where personally I had some big wake-up calls when I was a young mom, especially when my two boys who are very close in age, I was on the verge of burnout and breakdown because of just how all the things going on in my life at the time were pretty hard. In my mind, I'm like, I am checking all the boxes. I am a good Christian girl. I'm doing the spiritual things I'm supposed to do. And it forced me to come face to face with this belief that if I was doing what God wanted, it didn't actually matter if I was chewed up and spat out in the process. Wow,

The Expendable Mindset and God's Love for Humanity

SPEAKER_01 26:18

right. That was really important. And I remember a friend sharing with me once, she had been part of a missions organization. She said they had had these t-shirts that had been printed, and it was for their missions. And on the front of the t-shirt, the word expendable was printed. And she's like, We wore this as like I am an expendable part of the kingdom in order to further God's cause. And this is an acceptable way for me to live my life. And if I die young because I was exhausted, but I reached an extra thousand people for the kingdom, that is a an acceptable exchange of my life. And I thought like that. I was like, it's okay if I'm if I don't have anything left for God to use me, then it was okay if I was burnt out or not sleeping or not eating properly or not taking care of my mental or physical health because the ends justified the means.

SPEAKER_00 27:09

Right. Oh, I'm so glad you shared this because part of being used by God, like the glory of God being expressed in your life, so beautiful and so pure. But when you speak to this custifiable means, like, can you imagine going to do ministry? And would I ever hand out a t-shirt that says expendable to them? Like, never. That's what I'm just like, oh my God. Like somehow this is a badge of honor. When, and that's what I think I had to really pump the brakes on because I bought in hard to the badge of honor. This is a badge of honor to be expendable, to be used. Even that language makes me feel all kinds of ways now. And the biggest reframe inside of this for me is, and let me tell you, I had a lot of reactions to it. This felt like I was breaking a huge rule to value myself or to care for my body, or to have a boundary, or to limit, or to say, I'm tired, or to say no. Oh my God. I was like losing my mind. And I sit with people, former missionaries, so often, full-time ministers, all these people, the same experience. Because one of the core reframes for me, and one of the things I'm inviting these clients to do is the whole world is, you know, on this level. Like we love the world. Like Jesus loves them. Yes, 100%. Love that. I 100% agree. But we're like way down here. I'm like with my hands. I'm like, we're like, we're expendables. We're the crap that you could throw in the garbage. I'm just asking for us to be at the same level. The people in the kingdom that you're wanting to say, that you're wanting to transmit the love of God to, can you be the same amount of valuable? Can you matter as much as them? From someone who truly did burn out and have a nervous breakdown after ministry, but that was probably one of the biggest experiences for me. One of the biggest things I had was I was forced to confront. Being expendable, which honestly, I lived decades this way, is not the mark of value, which I think that's where the distortion is, is how we're religion kicks in. Oh, well, if I if I have no needs and have no sense of self and I expend myself and have no burdens and I don't care for my kids and I don't have boundaries for my marriage or whatever it is, but I serve the whole world. I had to really flip the script on that. And I had to somehow change that belief because it had done nothing but actually devalue me in this context.

The Hierarchy of Emotions and Spiritual Bypass

SPEAKER_00 29:55

Papa wasn't a papa. He was like a taskmaster.

SPEAKER_01 29:59

Yes. Yeah. I I think the way you're summing it up, and I think how I would sum it up as well, is when I realized that I was as much a part of the kingdom that I was trying to build for others, that forced me to confront like what you said, how I had discounted me, my needs, my capacity, my desires, all of those things in the name of doing it for God. I think then a lot of your identity gets wrapped up in how effective am I being? How many people got healed or saved or delivered or whatever. And I think we've seen that. I've seen it in people where everything is about I did this and that and we got this many. It's all about their statistics and their metrics and their numbers. And you're going, okay, I I've seen people operate in really powerful, you could say the signs and wonders or healings or miracles, but I know for a fact that their personal life is in the toilet. I'm not saying that out of judgment. If I have to choose one or the other, like I went and witnessed to an extra 15 people on the street today, but I neglected spending any time with my kids. So they're growing up without a parent that is present. Yeah. I I know how insidious and how that can be because I have been that person before who made choices at times and then had to look back later and go, I made the wrong choice. I actually prioritized the wrong thing because I was so focused on trying to do the correct ministry. I should have actually been home with my kids. I should have been investing in my marriage or in these people that were immediate people in my life that I do have a responsibility for. And yet I was so driven by wanting to work for God and be used by him that it was the narrative, as sincere as it was, was driving me to some very unhealthy behaviors. Oh.

SPEAKER_00 31:47

That feels like you validated 40 years of my life right there.

SPEAKER_01 31:52

I think, I think the reason that we speak with this with such passion is we have been the people in those shoes as well. I have had weird priorities before out of my desire to serve God. I'm not sitting here on a judgment seat going, those naughty people out there, what are they doing? I'm going, I'm the one who has screwed up things in my life because I didn't know how to rightly ascertain what the priority should have been. And I remember when I started challenging those religious priorities that I had felt imposed on me that I thought was serving God. When I started challenging them, it was very scary for me. Same. I remember making a decision once when we were in a very financially difficult place. And I made the decision that rather than giving my money away, I was going to buy some clothes for my children who needed them. Yes. And I felt like I had an aha moment where I realized I can do all of this for those people out there, but my responsibility is to my home first. And I and I remember it feeling very liberating and a little bit scary because I thought I'm about

The Illusion of Disconnection and Tuning into God

SPEAKER_01 32:52

to challenge the narrative in my own life that has driven a lot of my decisions. And it was scary and liberating.

SPEAKER_00 32:58

Yeah. Which is what's so beautiful about getting curious about this topic is if we can just build in a little more curiosity, a little more awareness, a little more pushback. That's what I'm hearing you say is like being used by God is not bad, but like you have a family, you taking a sick day could be as holy. Yes. Just I'm sick. We would want another person to stay home sick if they're sick. Like bringing those senses of equality, expendability doesn't equal goodness, doesn't give you more value. And what you're sharing is you invested in what you did have and you became really focused in what God had given you to do. And I love, I love that because that's what curiosity can do.

SPEAKER_01 33:42

Yeah. And I love that you're throwing out that word curiosity a lot. That is the key. Getting curious. So good. You've used that word several times, and I just want to highlight it because I think it's very important. You're like, hmm, what are we curious about? Yes. Love that. Things that make you go, hmm, like, yes.

SPEAKER_00 34:01

Why is this not working out the way that I thought it would? Right. You

Lie #3: Connection With God is Up to Me

SPEAKER_00 34:05

know? Totally. Well, this next lie we're gonna present is a lie, is something that I also encountered, but I see a lot of people that I've mentored really struggle with this, really hook them. And it's connection with God is up to me. I have to pray enough. I have to figure out the right morning routine. Is it journaling, then prayer? Is it worship music, journaling, prayer, and a walk? I'm not letting people talk to me about these details of like, it is so important to get the right combination to unlock connection. At the heart of this, is it's so beautiful. As a mom, if one of my kids just wanted to be connected to me, that would just feel so good. Let's just be honest. I'm just like, wow, that's great. So at the heart is so beautiful. But the anxiety-inducing experience that you're totally burdened with figuring out how to get this connection and then keep this connection, really, I want people to hear this. It really comes from our younger selves, these younger versions of us that felt like all the connection was on us. So whatever the experience was in your childhood, in this sense of if I don't do it, it won't get done. And connection is vital for all children. It's it's a biological imperative. And I would say a connection to God is a biological imperative that all of his creation is longs for because of him being our creator. I think that helping reframe this and how I even support others is this fundamental belief that it's not all on you. The truth is Jesus did it all. It's complete, it's done. Any illusion of disconnection from God is just that. It's an illusion. Yes. You're already all the 100% connected to him. Like you already have a hundred percent access to him, you have a hundred percent of his regard, you have a hundred

The Power of Curiosity in Spiritual Transformation

SPEAKER_00 36:13

percent of his attention. Anything besides that is an illusion that comes from an experience of abandonment, a separation from our own systems of our own human experiences. The truest, most complete truth that Jesus finished forever and ever is that you are 100% connected to God already.

SPEAKER_01 36:37

So true. And I I actually jotted this down and it's something I've been thinking about. It's more about tuning in. It's like if you were a radio station and you were tuning in to the right channel, it's the channel is always there. No, we could tune into our local pop radio station right now. I just can't hear it right now. The frequency's not tuned in. And I found that is it's not that I have to reform connection because I've gone through this. Like, oh my goodness, I'm feeling so disconnected from God because I haven't prayed for three days and I didn't read my version of the day. And oh my goodness, maybe I didn't pray for my kids enough. And are they going to be protected because I didn't pray the blood of Jesus over them this morning? Like, is it still gonna be okay? Um all of these lies are so driven often by fear. I I love that you said the thing about abandonment because that's what I'd actually written down. There's this fear of abandonment of if I don't do it, will you still be there? Will I belong? Will I be taken care of? Will my needs be met? Those basic human needs. And I think this is a classic example of where I've taken human experiences and transposed them onto God and go, oh, this was a painful experience in my life. On a subconscious level, God must be the same way. And then it's been reinforced by well-meaning preachers or pastors who have their own fears of abandonment, which is coming through their conversation and their doctrine. And so they're speaking it from the pulpit or the stage or whatever it is, and it's reinforcing the fears because they are operating out of their own belief systems that aren't always accurate. And so I think that feeling of the relationship is up to me. I wrote down like I am the glue who holds this relationship together. That is such a heavy thing for a child. Right. And when we take that into our relationship with God, the times that I have just been like, I got to take a break and I can't handle my Christianity right now, have been those times where it felt like all the weight was on my shoulders and God was just sitting back going, okay, have you jumped through enough hoops today? It's like I was completely disconnected from the possibility of unconditional love when I was relating to God as though this is all up to me.

SPEAKER_00 38:40

That's exactly the truth. There's no sense of unconditional love. It's only transactional or only conditional experience in this dynamic. If all connection feels like it's on your shoulders, oftentimes that shame story of like, oh my God, my car broke down. Maybe I didn't tithe enough, maybe I didn't pray enough, my kid's sick. I could have maybe done something differently.

SPEAKER_01 39:03

I let the devil get a foothold. I didn't cry in tongues long enough this morning.

SPEAKER_00 39:07

Oh my gosh. And so you're constantly in a sense of failure, fear, and shame. I think to myself, people, let us all get curious. Let's ask ourselves, what is the fruit of this? Please, let's ask, what is the fruit? And what is the fruit of believing that I'm always connected to God? Oh my gosh, so much peace. Yeah. It has transformed my life. Like so much internal peace. But on the flip side, I've seen people who it's hard to receive good things because they don't think that they've been connected enough. Oh, I haven't even been praying. I haven't even I don't deserve this because I didn't earn it. That's another being ding ding-ding. This is deserving is not about unconditional love. This is all about conditions, about performance. And it just reinforces what we're saying. This is this human attachment system that we have projected onto will you abandon me if something happens? Will will the same thing happen to me with my relationship with God that that's already happened to me in my family settings and my relational, you know, and relationships that I have? And it's deserves so much compassion, but in my heart of hearts, I'm like, please, let's look at the fruit. Because if you can just simply ask yourself, what is the fruit of this belief? Is it producing inside of me the fruits of love, peace, joy, gentleness, patience? And is it doing those things? If not, maybe we could try something else. I'm like, just give it, give it six months, give it some time and try it out.

SPEAKER_01 40:44

Get curious for a while. Yes. Yes. And I've had seasons where God's actually told me, I want you to stop doing this thing because it had become such a religious exercise for me. I had disconnected from the heart of it. And he's actually said, I want you to pause. I want you to take a step back. And that's helped me see, oh, okay, I've this has just become about a rote activity that I'm going through the motions here. When I've come back, it's been because my heart has been able to re-engage. And so that's the thing. We're not saying spiritual disciplines are negative or wrong. They're wonderful. They're just not designed to jumpstart our relationship with God every week because somehow we've gotten disconnected from him because we messed something up. It's like, oh, I can worship because I am connected to God, and this is a means of me having relationships. Yeah, it adds. It adds to the connection, right? It doesn't constantly help me reconnect because I felt like I've been naughty or bad. Then I've been disconnected, and now I have to somehow grovel my way back into God's good graces again.

SPEAKER_00 41:47

Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_01 41:49

So freeing. Yes. What a freedom. Definitely.

Lie #4: Telling the Truth About My Pain Means I’m Not Walking in Faith

SPEAKER_01 41:54

Let's talk about our last and final lie that we're going to discuss today. It's lie number four. What is behind door number four, Des. Can you tell us what the lie is?

SPEAKER_00 42:06

Yes, Wendy. I'm just joking. Uh, I just felt like I was like back to the old shows I used to watch with my grandma. But line number four. Telling the truth about my pain means I'm not walking by faith. My goodness. Faith always believes the best, so expressing struggle somehow means that I'm doubting God. This feels so extremely relatable. Tell me what, why are you shaking your head, Mel? Tell me what's coming up for you. Oh man. How's it showed up for you?

SPEAKER_01 42:38

A lot of spiritual bypassing in my life. Yes, me too. Spiritualizing pain. And for many years I was unable to connect to grief, to connect to painful emotions, to tell the truth about painful situations in my life because I knew what the Bible said about things. And I felt like it didn't matter what my human experience was, what the Bible said was what was true. And I was like, okay, every thought has to become captive to Christ. I have to bring everything into submission to him. It doesn't really matter how I feel about anything. It doesn't matter when I've been wounded. It doesn't matter if I've been traumatized. It doesn't matter if I've had great loss. I just have to tow the party line and say, God is good and make sure that I say all the right things. And if someone's hurt me, I have to hurry up and forgive them because there is no room. I didn't believe that God had capacity to handle my honesty and my humanity and painful experiences. I thought that he needed me to be upbeat and positive. Truthfully, on a level, I didn't know how to have capacity for suffering. I didn't know how to sit with suffering or grief or pain myself. And I didn't think God could either. And so I would whitewash my pain because I thought that's what he valued and what he wanted.

unknown 43:59

Ugh.

SPEAKER_01 44:00

Yes. And I'd but I'd been taught, yeah, I'd been taught that my emotions couldn't be trusted and they weren't bad. So there's really no seat for them at the table unless it's something joyful or thankful or forgiving. I failed to see all the places in the Bible where people like David poured out all their pain to God. And I failed to see places in the Bible where Jesus met people with compassion and met them in their suffering. Absolutely. And so I just knew the right scriptures and was like, oh, God works all things together for good for those who love him, who are called according to his purpose. We just quote that. I cringe now to think of the number of times people said that to me, and then the number of times I said that to other people who were in pain. I'm sorry. Because I didn't know how. Yes, I am sorry. I'm sorry to those people that I did not sit with you. I I can think of specific instances where I think, oh my goodness, that person needed me to be present. And I had some moral platitude that I threw in their direction.

SPEAKER_00 44:54

Well, you're talking about a hierarchy within spiritual things. Because, like you said, in the Bible, there's plenty of evidence where Jesus cares about the internal experience and the anguish and the humanity of all of us. And yet we create a hierarchy of if I have joy always, fear not. You know, we we create these hierarchies. And in that dynamic, there's not space for the human experiences, such as grief or sadness or loss or depression or fear. And I think that those are the very things that need the support of God, the attunement of unconditional love in our lives. Like if you think about it, like that's what's needed and it's why it's there. But I think that often because of this, we don't allow ourselves to acknowledge what's really going on. And I think that that's what I hear you saying. We spire spiritual bypass because we think that if we pretend that it's not there, that is the higher higher sense of spiritual of spiritual arrival. And I think it's really interesting because Jesus went to the whale. Like he would, he would go into this nitty, gritty, dirty, but you know, he'd find people on trees. He was like literally seeking

The Role of Negative Emotions and Authenticity in Faith

SPEAKER_00 46:15

people right where they were. And there was no sense of hierarchy in our humanity. That's what I think the life of Jesus showed me personally. I think because of what we are taught and what's caught and taught, like we probably catch this from our parents. Were we allowed to have tough feelings? Did our parents have the capacity to sit with us if we were feeling really angry or huge grief or betrayal? Did they do that for us? And oftentimes that's when we were projecting onto God, like you had said, like I didn't think he wanted to. And the truth is I couldn't even do it. Because we are taught to not do that. And so in a lot of our client work, I'm just having people name what actually is happening inside of them. Sounds like you're sad. Like, no, I can't be sad. It's against the rules. And I'm like, well, honey, you're sad. You're crying. Like it's the truth. And I think sometimes, just on the logical level, I'm like, the truth shall set you free. Like you could be honest. Just thinking there's some relationship that you can't really be honest doesn't feel like a valuable relationship to me. You know what I mean? Like I have to figure out how you want me to feel, and then I have to show up that way. That's called performance. That's called some level of I'm trying to shape shift myself. And I just think that that's not what the gospel's about at all. And we get lost. We get lost because we're taught the devil come in. If you name that you're afraid, you're afraid, honey. You're afraid whether or not you say it or not. You're still afraid. Actually, the Bible talks about us being afraid a lot because he knows we're gonna be afraid. Yeah. Of course we're afraid. It's a human experience.

SPEAKER_01 48:02

Mm-hmm. Very much so. I think it teaches a lot of denial too. You actually learn so much denial and you learn to suppress how you really feel. I see that as a negative feedback loop because the more I live in denial and the more I suppress, the more disconnected I become from myself and what's really going on inside. I considered myself very spiritual and took a lot of pride in the fact that I have this spiritual relationship with God. It was a beautiful part of who I was, but it came at a cost from many years of me being very disconnected to my physical sensations and the emotional sensations in my body. It was like I had the spiritual part of me down, but the physical and emotional parts of me I had cut off from because that might bring up a difficult emotion that I didn't know how to handle. And so denial became uh a friend for me. Right. Um, like we would say protector for me, denial became very strong because it stopped me from having to get in touch with how I was really feeling and what I really thought. And it felt too scary to tell the truth about what I thought because I had such a high fear of punishment, or if I do this wrong, uh it would send me into too much of a shame spiral. So it's just better to pretend that I don't have any negative emotions at all.

SPEAKER_00 49:13

Yeah, the hierarchy had a lot of shame attached to it because there was values assigned to certain experiences. So if I had joy, bad emotion, hope ding, ding, ding, ding. Yeah, you get a you get a gold star. If I had fear or grief, no you were or anger. Anger was a big one. Yeah, you wanted to get rid of those things, totally disassociated, and you're fragmented as a human. And I just think that the the the love of God is about wholeness because I had denied my body and I was disassociated for so many decades. I was sick, like very sick, very sick in my body and very sick emotionally. I'm not trying to shame anything about that, but Jesus was like, you know, this is what he told me. You could take it or leave it. But he says, you know, you're you're multifaceted. He showed me this picture of a triangle. It's kind of like the Trinity. It's like you're all one. Your body and your emotions and your soul, they're they're meant to be together.

The Holistic View of Humanity: Body, Emotions, and Spirit

SPEAKER_00 50:15

They're connected. So if one part of you is thriving, but the other two aren't broken, it is my wheel to bring balance. Like it is my heart to bring love to those places so that all the things can flourish. We're not trying to undervalue spiritual things. We still value them very much. We're just trying to bring up the value on physical health or emotional health. Like, what would that look like to have a more holistic evaluation of all the parts of my human existence matters to God, not just the spiritual parts. And I think about this in life. Okay, I'm like just getting a little soapbox moment here. People, when they get sick, like my back hurts, I go to the chiropractor because I'm thinking to myself, there's something going on. But oftentimes when it comes to our emotions, we don't do this. We're like, we should be able to spiritually bypass our emotions and make them better. We, whereas when my back hurts, like I'll pray for myself and ask God to help me, but I also go to the chiropractor. I actually go to what I need to do. I take care of what's needed. And I think that's what I'm trying to show is we can take care of these parts. They can matter, they can get attention, they can get support, they can be actually a value. I think to myself, I'm like, my humanity is what brought Jesus' love to me. He doesn't love me in spite of my humanity, which I was taught, like, oh my God. Like you said, Jesus is like, fine, I guess I'll go die for these people. It wasn't in spite of me. It was because of my humanity and all the different parts of us actually get to matter. And so it's just kind of helping that hierarchy level out, you know. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 52:02

Yeah. I think it's even as we wrap up. I want to share with the listener. There are there are breakthroughs waiting for you on the other side of telling the truth. Yes. You will know the truth, the truth will set you free. But I sense that there are people listening and maybe you have a physical ailment or there's something going on and you can't quite figure out why you're not getting the breakthrough on the other side. And some of you, you need to start getting radically honest about some of the things that you have been avoiding. And that would maybe be a question that I would leave with you. If you're like, yeah, I can tell I'm stuck in some things. I I could tell that I have some weird belief systems going on. Maybe I've got some stuff going on in my body or my mental health. There is a power to radical honesty, and it can feel very scary. I want to acknowledge that. There's been times that I've had to tell the truth about things, especially if you carry a lot of shame about it, or if it's something that you feel a lot of, oh, I've screwed up or I'm a failure. Telling the truth has often been the first step for me to really seeing breakthrough and denial or shame will tell us it's not safe to tell the truth about this. It's not safe to challenge. For me, when I was heading towards a nervous breakdown, I had to get honest about I am not okay, because I could have kept in denial as long as I wanted, like, oh, well, I'll just quote another scripture at it, but I wasn't getting breakthrough. I was not okay. And I mean, I know I can speak for you as well, Doug. We had to come face to face with is what I am believing actually working for me? How is this working out for me if I'm going to continue holding on to this? Is my physical health at risk? Is my mental health at risk? Is my spiritual health at risk? And it can feel scary. I just want to validate, it can feel really scary to challenge the status quo. It can feel very scary to challenge your belief systems. There would have been a time that I wouldn't have been able to sit on a public space and talk about some of this because it would have felt way too scary. And I would have been terrified of what if I say the wrong thing? Is God going to be mad at me? Am I going to get in trouble? What are people going to think? All those what-ifs in my mind could have just shut me down and kept me silent. But I

The Courage to Tell the Truth and Find Freedom

SPEAKER_01 54:21

would never go back to where I was. Even the things I'm still having to unravel and as I'm still confronting more, more belief systems, truth will lead you to freedom. So that is what I would say is you need to start telling the truth about some stuff. I feel like there's some people out there like, I'm stuck. I'm like, start telling the truth. Dang. You're really mad about something, start telling the truth. You've never told anybody about that thing that happened when you were a kid, start finding people to tell the truth. Your body, your spirit, your soul, your emotions are not created to hold secrets and hold things in. To process it through, you have to start opening up. And I know it's scary, but I can say from somebody who's done a lot of scary things in this area, it is very worth it.

SPEAKER_00 55:03

And isn't this like the roadback journey? That's why we're just like, do it. We know it's scary. We want to validate that. And it's so true. That's so good, Mel. Gosh. I needed to hear your voice six years ago or so. You know, like that have been so good.

SPEAKER_01 55:20

This is a lot for yeah, this is a lot for our younger parts that needed to hear this too. Tell it a lot. What are your thoughts, Des? I I know I want to hear your final thoughts too.

SPEAKER_00 55:29

Inside this experience of being really curious and looking at all of these beliefs and the lies, what's the fruit of these things? One of the biggest gifts is that I've found God to be much better and much kinder and much nicer and safer and more nuanced than I ever imagined him to be. And that gift is amazing. He is amazing. Oftentimes I imagine my children discovering the truth of my actual love for them, not what they experienced or perceived, or one time when I was five, this happened and I thought you were mad at me forever. I would so welcome the openness and the opportunity to clarify and to get rid of old beliefs that aren't serving the relationship. So I just oftentimes see Papa that way towards me. I'm so glad you're doing this, does. Like I'm so glad you're wanting to see me. I will show you me. If you come and look for me, you will find me. So I'm so happy for you to see the truth of my love, just how good it is. I could summarize by saying, I had a certain limit to love in my system. And this is popping off the

Closing Remarks: Embracing Unconditional Love and Authenticity

SPEAKER_00 56:47

limits. Learning to accept and to live in more, more space of this unconditional love is what I think my lifelong purpose is on earth. It's just to truly experience it and to live in it and to know it fully and to apply it deep to my heart. To my life's goal, purpose now.

SPEAKER_01 57:10

That is beautiful, Des.

SPEAKER_00 57:12

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 57:14

Thanks everybody. We love having you here and sharing our thoughts with you. Yeah. We'll see you next week. Love you guys. Bye. Bye.