The Narrow Road Podcast
The Narrow Road Podcast explores what ministry really looks like—inside the church and out. Hosted by two leaders at different seasons of life, we dive into biblical topics, share real ministry stories, and feature guest speakers, offering insight, encouragement, and honest conversations about following God’s call.
The Narrow Road Podcast
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I’m today’s episode, Blake and Sam wrap up our series “Grounded” by discussing the thing that tends to become the biggest distraction of all from our relationship with Jesus: our own ego.
Hello, everybody's the same exact thing you did last time. No, you did that once. No, no, no, no, no. I didn't do that because when you did that, I commented on how long the feedback was. That is you just you just exploded somebody's car speakers when you did that. It's fine. They're fine. You guys are fine, right? Your ears aren't bleeding. We had some technical difficulties getting this episode started. We're 14 episodes in now, and we are still struggling. But it's okay.
SPEAKER_02It happens. We have no idea what we're doing or how to work this IMAC computer. So Yeah, well.
SPEAKER_01We'll figure it out. One day. And then everything will change, and then we won't have it figured out. But it's okay. Um so this is gonna be our last episode of this series.
SPEAKER_00Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_01Called Grounded. We've been doing this series kind of since January, not kind of since January, since January. January through May. And we have been covering lots of different topics. Like Sabbath, like finding mentors, like what else have we covered, Sam?
SPEAKER_02Um covered um how to make how to make your how to make change in your life.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, how to make change in your life.
SPEAKER_02How to make a difference.
SPEAKER_01How to make a difference. Uh we've covered um cancel culture. Yep. Yeah, cancel culture. We've covered lots of things. I know we're missing some, but we've covered lots of things in this series called grounded. And the whole idea has been in this crazy world that we live in, how do we stay grounded in Jesus? Because that's really hard to do. It's impossible to do unless we have Jesus. I mean, that's the whole point. We cannot do this life without Jesus. We try to, we, you know, every single day we wake up and we try to do things on our own, and we just can't. We have to stay grounded and rooted in Jesus. But this is going to be our last episode today of this series, and then we're going to be heading into summer, and things will look a little bit different for the podcast over the summer. We're still figuring out what that'll look like. So at the end, we'll have some questions for you all to give us some feedback on because we'd love to get your all's thoughts on what the summer can look like. But anyway, we're going to get into this episode here in a second. But before we do that, we gotta break the ice. The ice is thick at the moment. The ice is thick at the moment. I'm gonna think of an icebreaker. I'm gonna think of one right now. I'm thinking. Okay. It's gonna be good. He's thinking. Alright. A really good icebreaker. Um, okay. Double digits. Double digit travel. Like this is over ten hours of travel. Okay, just imagine. Over ten hours of travel. Are you traveling by plane, by car, by boat, or by train?
SPEAKER_02Well, boat is out. Boat is out immediately. Oh, okay. Well, unless it's like a week-long cruise, how big is the boat?
SPEAKER_01I don't know. I guess it's a big boat. I guess it could be whatever boat you want. Cruise boat? But it's over ten hours. Over ten hours on a cruise boat? I guess it could be as long over ten hours as you want. Is it a cruise boat? Sure. Oh. So I guess that means yeah, I guess it could be a cruise. I'm picking the I'm picking the ten hour cruise. Oh, you are? Even with the people that like are stranded with that virus or something? Isn't that a thing? Wait, what? I think some people just got stranded. Is there a virus? I think some is there a virus on my cruise or just their cruise? I don't know. I'm just saying it could happen on your cruise. Oh, well. It won't happen to me. Oh, okay. So you're picking boat because it's a cruise. Yep. Okay. Okay. I'm not picking car, I don't think. Too long. That's way too long for a car ride. Planes kind of make me nervous. I might go train if it's one of those trains with like the really nice sleeping areas, like sleeping compartments. Yeah. And then someone comes and like wakes me up and says, Your breakfast, sir. Is that a thing? Your breakfast, sir. That happens, right? Like that exists. Dinner is served. That yeah, I think that's a thing that happens. I'd have to pay a lot of money probably.
SPEAKER_02But does he have like a little twisty mustache and like a coattail and white gloves?
SPEAKER_01Then I'm just really rude to him and he can't do anything about it. Oh wow. What? Get out of my compartment. Oh.
SPEAKER_02My face.
SPEAKER_01I wasn't gonna slap him.
SPEAKER_02Oh, sorry. Sure. I just built onto the scenario.
SPEAKER_01Anyway, what would yeah, what would you all do? What mode of travel? Or it could be a completely different mode of travel that we didn't think of. Dinosaur? Space. No, ten hours on a dinosaur, no way. Spaceship, that could be cool. Scooter. Scooter. That'd be interesting.
SPEAKER_02Bicycle?
SPEAKER_01Bicycle.
SPEAKER_02Unicycle?
SPEAKER_01Unicycle. Water slide. Just ten hours of a water slide. Roller coaster. Ah. Just ten hours on a roller coaster.
SPEAKER_02Well, that depends on the the degree of how fast the roller coaster is. Sometimes it's fast, sometimes it's slow. If it's ten hours on like Thunderhead, no thank you. Yeah, no, you'd be broken by the end of that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Anyway. Alright. I guess we should get to some real stuff here. So last episode of this series, we're going to be talking about confronting the biggest distraction of all. And that's ourselves, our own ego. Which is pretty tough to talk about, pretty tough to tackle. We have talked a lot about all of these other things through this series, all these other things that we can look at, that we can take care of, that we can, you know, try to work on. But ultimately, none of that's going to matter if we're not able to take care of our own ego. So Sam and I are going to be talking about our own ego and what that looks like. How we can tackle that. And hopefully you all will think about your own egos. Because if we're going to be grounded in Jesus, we have to deal with the distraction of our own ego. It's just uh it's just a have to. Um because again, we can try to deal with all the people around us, we can try to fix all the relationships, we can try to make sure we're sabbathing and we're not getting stuck in the cancel culture and this and that and the other, but it's not going to matter if we're not dealing with ourselves and our own ego ego and our own relationship with Jesus. Mm-hmm. So we've talked about it a little bit, um, but it's definitely worth repeating um, you know, over and over again, you know, like we have throughout this series, I think, but you know, we'll say it again. If we haven't dealt with what's inside of us, what comes out of us isn't going to be honoring to God. You know, if we haven't dealt with what's inside of us, the things that come out of us aren't going to be honoring to God. And I don't know, maybe we can just stop there for a minute and just think about that. Because it's easy to breeze past that, but maybe we can sit on that for a minute and talk about it. If we haven't dealt with what's inside of us, the things that come out of us aren't going to be honoring to God. I mean, what what do you think about that quote, Sam? Does that does that seem accurate? Do you think that's true? Is that convicting? Is it like, eh, whatever? I mean, what what do you think about that?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I I absolutely agree. I I think um I'm thinking of a proverb right now. I'm I don't ha I don't do good at memorizing where proverbs are, but somewhere in there I think it says something like, um, from your heart flows everything that you are. From our hearts it they they flow from them flow our actions, from them flow our words. Um and you can fake it all day, um, but ultimately I think you're right, Blake, that um that what's inside of us, um, we can't fool God with that, and we certainly can't fool ourselves. We can try, um, we can try to fool other people with it. But yeah, I I think that um I I like that term, you are what you eat. Um and the stuff we consume, the stuff we're looking at, um, the stuff we're listening to, all that is constant shaping us. And um, you know, I I think that that's that's a problem that a lot of people have, including myself, is I have tried to uh change my actions without changing my heart. And I've tried to just focus on doing and doing and doing, which is only focusing on the outside, but then I'm I'm not even taking a closer look at what's going on in my heart, what's happening with my personal relationship um with Christ. But we all know that that's that's where ultimately transformation will happen is it has to start in your heart. Um I th I think of the Pharisees in the Bible and how they um they focused on what they were doing. They they were they were all bent up on following all the right rules, um doing all the right things, and they did all the right things very well. But what they were missing was they had no love in their hearts. They they were doing all of this um to elevate themselves and to just uh achieve this false sense of of moral success and thinking that um thinking that if they just do all the right things and all will be well. And they, you know, their their hearts were Jesus said them in themselves, it they were they're a pit of vipers. I mean, they really did. I mean they're their their words may have been speaking God's name um and their actions may have been reflecting their religion, but their hearts were very, very far from God, and I think that we can do the same. So, yeah, absolutely agree.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think that's a good point about the Pharisees. I mean, Jesus Yeah, and we we've talked about this before. I mean, he he went after them over and over again just because of where their their hearts were. I mean, you know, when we talk about this series, it's called grounded, and I think the Pharisees kind of were in a way grounded, like they knew the scriptures, they did the right things, like their actions were good in a way. Like in a way, they they were grounded, but their hearts weren't at all in the right place. And even though they thought that they were honoring God, Jesus told them like point blank, no, I mean, you're you're totally wrong. Like they thought they were honoring God, and they would stand in the public places and do the prayers in front of everybody, they would sit at, you know, the public places at the dinners and everybody would look at them. Everybody else thought they were honoring God too. But then Jesus came along and said, No, I mean, you've you've got it all wrong because you haven't dealt with what's inside of you. And yeah, Jesus, I think it was around the same time he called them a pit of vipers, called them a whitewash tomb, you know, they're painted all nice on the outside, but they're just gross on the inside. And that just points at what we're talking about. You know, even if you can even if you look like you're grounded, even if you're doing all of these right things, you can just be totally off. And your heart can be totally in the wrong place. And you can be just not honoring God at all, because there's points in the Gospels too where it shows like it says that Jesus knew what was in their hearts, or Jesus saw what they were thinking, and it shows like how bitter the Pharisees were and just how much they hated Jesus and how jealous they were and how they they wanted to kill him. I mean, they were thinking all of these things that were just horrible. So on the outside they were doing all the right things, but inside they were just dead. They really were like whitewashed tombs. So, you know, again, if we haven't dealt with what's inside, if we haven't let Jesus change us on the inside, you know, even if we look good on the outside, we can really be pretty far off from what Jesus is asking us to be. You put a quote in here, Sam. What's the what's the quote?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I um when when we were thinking about when I've been thinking about um this this coming week, this episode, when we're gonna talk about pride, talking about our own ego, um, I think that right now, you know, we've been talking about, you know, in the past couple minutes, um looking only at the ex external and not looking at our own heart enough. Um but I think there can be sort of a a another side to that. And um I was watching a sermon by Francis Chan, um he's a he's a pastor, he's I've read a couple books by him, and he said um basically that we live in a culture that is constantly on selfie mode. Um how we're everywhere we go, like he made the example where we go to a waterfall and instead of when he was growing up, you just look at it, you'd look at the waterfall. Whenever people get to a waterfall today, they do nothing but they break out their phones and they take a the majority of the of the picture is their face with a tiny little waterfall in the back. And that just to me was a good illustration of like, man, we are so self-centered and we live in a society that's it's all about looking at us, looking at us, um, wearing what worrying about what we want, worrying about what what we need. Um everybody's always looking at themselves is what he said. But um he made the point that, you know, when we get to heaven, I mean, do you really think you're gonna see a bunch of people holding holding up mirrors? I mean, certainly not. When we get to heaven, I think I feel like that's the last thing we're gonna wanna be looking at in heaven is ourselves. And and if you really think about it, why would we want to avert our the majority of our attention to something like ourselves that's that's broken and that's, you know, kind of wicked and and by nature um unholy when we could instead avert our gaze to God? I mean, that that goes into the whole thing, you know, what what you are what you are looking at, you you become what you consume. If you're constantly just consumed with yourself, then how do you think that's gonna turn out um with with your heart, with your heart posture, with with how you act? So I mean I and that was it was just a really convicting message for me, because I mean I think it's true. I think that we we're just constantly looking at ourselves in in instead of um instead of God. So yeah, I I think that um that is is the problem with with pride. I I even think back to um near the beginning of the root of sin. I mean, I heard a uh a quote, it was one of the saints, it wasn't Augustine, but it was somebody, and they said, um, everybody all everybody either wants to love God or they want to be God. And I think that's very true that that our culture just wants to um we want to be God, we want to elevate ourselves above him, and that's that's what sin is. I mean, it sin is is um trying to elevate yourself above God, putting yourself above the authority of God, um, and ultimately wanting to be sovereign and in control over the world around you and over your own life. Um I think that's that's the root of so much sin. It it's thinking too much about yourself, about what you want, about your own desires, about your own flesh, about about what what would feel good to you in the moment, instead of um ultimately pleasing the the holy God that um that reigns in in heaven above us. So yeah, pride is is is and it's a problem that I've struggled with my entire life, and I'm sure I will continue to as I think um a lot of us will, but but yeah, I mean I I think that it's it's one of those things that um it's I think it can be a lot of problems can be traced back to pride and looking at ourselves too much instead of um looking at God and all things, so yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I don't have a whole lot to to add to that. I think all of that's really good. I think, you know, like you said, a lot of problems come back to pride. I think a lot of problems can be solved when we look to God instead of looking to ourselves. When we just lay things aside and say, God, I am I'm gonna look to you instead of trying to live life on my own terms. Because yeah, that's that's what that's what I do every day. That's what that's what we all do. We don't want to listen to what other people say and what God says. We want to do what we want to do. I mean, I certainly do. I wake up and I want to do my own thing and satisfy my own desires. And a lot of that's just cultural, a lot of that's, you know, just sin nature. But yeah, I mean, it's all not God honoring, it's not what Jesus is calling us to. Um Yeah, I mean, I yeah, I think I think all of all of that that you just said is really good, Sam. And it kind of leads to this question of, okay, you know, if our pride, our ego, if it causes all these problems, if it takes us away from God, you know, if it keeps us from Jesus, you know, all these things, you know, how do we how do we deal with that? How do we take care of our own ego? You know, it's easy to to talk about it. It's easy to say, okay, you know, we need to deal with it, we need to, you know, we need to make sure we're not prideful, but how do we actually make that happen? Um so I think it's important to maybe lay out a few practical ways that we can actually do that, you know, ways that we can lay our ego and our pride to the side. And maybe we can just go back on back and forth on these, Sam. Um I can hit the first one and then um we can go back and forth. So first I think, you know, when we're talking about taking care of our ego, you know, setting our pride aside, however you want to say it, and we sort of said this already, but you look to God first, and maybe you should have taken this one, Sam, because you you put this in here. You said shout out Jacob Bouvier. Um I guess you heard him in a sermon. Do you just want to take this one?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I'll jump in. Yeah, yeah, just just take just take this one so I'm not stealing your thunder. No, you're good. Yeah, because it because it's all about me, so I want to get the credit for this. It's all about me, me, me. Um no, I yeah, I I heard a shout out Jacob Bouvier, if you're listening, we miss you at Grace Fellowship Church in John City. But um I heard a sermon from one of our former pastors um at our church, and he was talking about pride, and he was talking about well he mainly he was talking about humility um and what and what it looks like to be humble. And he said that um being humble, which which I think is probably the opposite, near the opposite of being prideful, being humble doesn't start with thinking less of yourself. You know, so often I I think that people they think that if if they're not being prideful, the the they think that the way to combat pride is to just like think less of yourself, like be like, oh man, you actually kind of suck. You know, like looking at yourself and and self-deprecating yourself. And that's not at all the answer, and Jacob pointed that out. He said, um the the way to become humble is not looking is not thinking less of yourself, it's thinking of yourself less, um, which I just think was was super f profound. Um and like Blake I said, our first point here is to look to God first, you know. I think that um but also to to sort of add on to that point found in the sermon, um, I think it's it's less about um we shouldn't really think about it of of thinking of ourselves less, we should think about uh we should look at it of thinking about God more. We shouldn't look at ourself less, we should look at God more. You know? Um I I think that if any of us, including myself, whenever I whenever I have, and and God has a funny way of hoping. Humbling you whether you ask for it or not in life. I've certainly sometimes I've asked for God to humble me, which by the way, that is a very dangerous prayer because He will deliver. He will deliver if you ask to be humbled. So just be be ready for the results for that one. But uh yeah, whenever I have um been humbled by God in my life, whenever I've been reminded to look to him more, I've really been I've been given a reminder of my own sinful nature, of my own brokenness and of my own great, great need for God. I think that's r remembering two things is is how we get to um begin to become humble is as we are aware of our own brokenness and need for a savior and aware of God's goodness, of God's mercy for us, um and and of his uh place on the throne in heaven. You know, I'm I mean that that's sort of if if I had to come up with an with a a reason that um we become prideful, I think that a lot of us I I like the term spiritual dementia. Where honestly I feel like sometimes I literally just forget. You know, I I l I mean how mean how could I though? I mean, that's a testament to just how human we really are. Um I mean I I I I just walk throughout life and I let my own struggles, my own um my own life, my own needs, just just uh the events of life get in the way and sort of blind me, um blind my view of the grand scheme of things, and I forget who God is in the moment. Um I lose sight of that and I f I forget of just how kind of how much I I I'm kind of uh a jerk, you know. I mean uh and it it's just I don't know, I I think it's silly that that that really happens so often, but that's just who we are. I mean, we're human, and and with that comes um not being able to be separated from our own sinful nature. And we just forget. I mean, look at the Israelites over and over and over again, they forgot and forgot and forgot and forgot who God was and what God has done for them. Moses was on the mountain for a few days, and then they're like, well, I guess we should just build this golden calf, because you know, even though God just delivered us from Egypt, let's just pull together all of our jewelry and say it was this cow. I mean, they forgot, and and we do the same thing, but I think that the best reminder of that is just reading the reading the word of God, you know, praying to God. Um there can be reminders that come out come about with life itself, um, things that are not ideal, and I like to say, you know, God giving you a spiritual pimp slap. Um He's done that to me quite a few times, and it's like, whoosh, oh, sorry, sorry, God. And that, you know, that that's that's a good reminder, but also um I think that sometimes that can that process can be eased through reading the Word of God, reading about God's faithfulness already, reminding ourselves of who he is and of our place um in the story of the gospel, and that's just a great way to recenter yourself. So all that to say, um the first step should obviously be to look to God first, to just look at God more, um, reflect in his character, sit in his presence, um, remind yourself of of who he is, and allow him to um remind you of who he is as well and his great, great love for you. So yeah. That's my that's my spiel on that, on our on our first point. Now I'm gonna kick it over to Blake.
SPEAKER_01You done?
SPEAKER_02Finally.
SPEAKER_01Finally, just kidding. That was good. Anyways, no, that yeah. I think when you look to God first, some of the things you said, Sam, kind of fall into place. When you look to God first, you think of yourself less and you're less likely to forget. I mean, you talked a lot about that spiritual amnesia, like how often we forget what God has done. I mean when when you're looking to God first, that's gonna happen less. When you look to God first, you're less likely to be thinking of yourself. So yeah, I mean it yeah, it just makes sense to be looking to God first. Yeah, I think I think that was really good, Sam. Um so second thing, when we're talking about putting our pride aside, taking care of our ego, ask for help from the people that you trust. You know, that could be a trusted friend, that could be family, that I mean anybody, anybody that can keep you accountable, that can call you out when you get prideful. Um being able to take their criticism if they say, Hey, you're kind of being a jerk or you're being prideful or you're doing this or that.
SPEAKER_02That was Blake's phone. That sound.
SPEAKER_01Sam Farted.
SPEAKER_02I would never do that. That doesn't sound like something I would do.
SPEAKER_01I'm just gonna put my phone on, do not disturb.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, go ahead and put your phone on do not disturb for me.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, probably should have done that before the before the podcast started. Just go ahead and get that done. Um, yeah, so taking criticism from those people you trust, you know, when you ask for help, being willing to say, okay, I asked for help. You've shared this with me, I've got to be willing to take what you're saying. See, yeah, looking to God first, that's the most important thing. But once you do that, often God is gonna lead you to people that are already in your life who are gonna help give you kind of that sense of direction um to help keep you focused on him and focused less on yourself. Um I mean, you were just talking all about how that happens, Sam. Um, you know, me in my life, a lot of times that looks like asking Millie, like, hey, how am I doing right now? Am I being a jerk? Um, you know, when you look at me during the day, what are you seeing, you know, when I as a husband and a father? Um, and sometimes she'll say, uh, yeah, you're sort of being a bum. A bum. Or yeah, you're kind of uh being a grump right now, or whatever it might be. And it's like, okay, yeah, I need to check myself. Um, and that's okay. I mean, you don't need to get defensive about it. I mean, it's it's got God puts those people in your life to help you kind of redirect a little bit, and that's okay. I mean, that's that's a good thing. So you look to God first. God's put those people in your life. It is a good thing to ask those people for help to help keep you from being prideful, to help keep you from, you know, going off the rails and just doing your own thing and doing what you want. I mean, you see over and over again with people who are just jerks, they don't have anybody in their life who tells them, like, dude, stop. Like, what what are you doing? Like, they just do whatever they want. I think. I mean, I think that's yeah, I mean, that seems to me like that's what happens. I mean, they don't have any of that accountability from people. And I think we all need that. From God first, obviously, and then God puts those people in our lives to to help us, to keep us accountable.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah, I um I absolutely agree. You know, I I think that um a a big sign, like you said, of of humility is being able to take criticism. You know, I think there's sort of two mindsets there. You can either want to be right or you can want to be more like Jesus. And so many times I've caught myself, I just want to be right and I want to feel good about myself. Um that sort of is a hindrance when it comes to, you know, because I'm not gonna be right all the time. And when I'm not, what happens then? Well, I'm gonna naturally try to distance myself from people that I know are gonna tell me the truth. And and I think that's the real that that's a true sign of somebody that truly loves you. If they love you enough to damage your ego a little bit and tell you call you out when you're doing something that's wrong, or when you're hurting you're hurting yourself or hurting others or when you're doing something that's displeasing to God. I mean, I think that that's the true sign of a friend, um of of an accountability partner, of a spouse, whoever it may be. Um it's when they call you out, when they love you enough to to um to do that and to make things a little bit awkward. So I mean that sort of leads us to our our third point is be willing to be uncomfortable. Um you know, I I I think that pride it seem seems to me it's it's just a um a way to hide, to hide from our own brokenness, to hide from um embracing and accepting the fact that we are truly I mean, we're sinners and and we're in need of a savior. And that that concept of of needing something can be uncomfortable, especially to our current culture with its it's this whole, you know, it's all about me, I just need to worry about myself, I can save myself. It's you know, it it this humanism, then humanistic viewpoint of um sort of worshiping self. I mean I think that's sort of the state of our current secular world. Um But you just you just gotta be willing to be uncomfortable. Um you you have to like I'll I'll say it again, you have to um be striving, look at your own motivations. Do I want to feel good? Do I want to be right, or do I want to be more like Jesus? Do I want to obey God to the best of my ability? You know, so and uh and I I'm gonna add a uh a fourth point here. Yeah, surprise fourth point is I think that um the best thing that we can possibly do is um and this sort of goes with with the first one, but um pray to God and and ask ask the Holy Spirit to uh give us a humble heart, you know. Um oh, and I just thought of a fifth point, fourth and fifth point. But uh buckle in, everybody. But uh but yeah, I I think that that's just a great prayer of Holy Spirit giving me a humble heart. I love Ezekiel 36, 26. Um, give it put in me a new heart and a new spirit, chip away at my heart of stone and give me a heart of flesh. I think that's a great prayer of just, you know.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, verify that, listeners.
SPEAKER_02Well, it might be be paraphrasing, but I think that's pretty close. I have a t-shirt with it on, so that's how I know. And uh in uh the movie Cate The Case for Christ, Lee Strobel's wife prayed that over him every night. In case you're wondering. Case you're wondering, Blake, but um, he's still not amused. But I yeah, that's that's a good prayer, is Lord, just transform me from the inside out, make me more like you, Lord Jesus. And with that, um point four or five? That was four. This is five.
SPEAKER_01So it's okay, we're still got point five. I didn't even get to talk about point three, but whatever. Here we go. Sorry. Are you okay? Go ahead.
SPEAKER_02Okay, sorry, Blake. Blake hates me. I'm gonna be he's gonna I'm gonna be replaced. He's gonna get a new co-host in the Wait, you say something? No. Okay. Um this past Sunday at Blake and I's church, our pastor talked about generosity and about um serving others and thinking of others before yourself. And I think that um sort of combating this this idea and that this mindset of thinking of ourselves the most, being constantly being in selfie mode, that can be combated with um being generous. You know, I think that one of the best ways to become a generous person, a selfless person, is to is to be generous, is to um be willing to make yourself uncomfortable, to constantly and intentionally be um thinking about other people's needs. And that that's the best I mean that's that's gonna soften your heart right there, is meeting other people's needs. Um and and loving on them. I mean, it's one of those things where you you get better at it by doing it, and that's something that I've sort of been working on myself lately is is um not only thinking of myself less, but thinking of others more. Um thinking of their needs more. How can I best serve them? How can I uh be the best ambassador of Christ that I can towards them? So yeah, sort of point three, be willing to be uncomfortable. Point four, pray that the Holy Spirit given you a humble heart, and point five, serve others and be generous to others. That is that's how I I think that we can combat pride um as well as uh steward a humble heart. So what do you think about those last three points?
SPEAKER_00Anything else to add? Huh? You got anything else to add to those points? Okay, okay.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I'm done with that. Um let me think about those points. So point three, be willing to be uncomfortable. Yes, that is important. We are terrible at that. I'm terrible at that. Um, if we're gonna be more like Jesus, we're gonna have to be uncomfortable. It's just the reality. Uh point four was praying that the Holy Spirit would make you more humble. Yeah. Without, yeah, without that. The things that we try to do aren't gonna matter. I think that's really good. Five was remind me. Being generous. Being generous. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's a great way to be humble is by being generous. I don't think we think of it that way. I think that we I think we think like, oh, I need to be humble. But we never yeah, like we don't and I I haven't really until this past Sunday, like you said, thought of like, oh, I can practice humility by being generous to other people. Like we don't really put that together necessarily, but it makes sense. Yeah. Because by giving of whatever it is, I mean, financially, giving of our time whatever it is that we're giving to somebody else, I mean, that's less that we're focusing on us. So it makes sense. I mean, again, we're thinking less of ourself by being generous to other people.
SPEAKER_02And I think it sort of gives us a sneak peek of God's heart for humanity whenever we um are able to be the hands and feet of Jesus and carry on uh his ministry and you know, try to emulate Jesus the best of our to the best of our ability, which is becoming a servant to others. So that just that's one more way to sort of see God in um and allowing him to guide you um to serve others.
SPEAKER_01So Yeah, that's true. Um so those are some some ways that you can take care of your ego, put your pride aside. And then some benefits of taking care of your ego. We won't spend uh a ton of time on these, but um you know, I think some of the the benefits are are obvious. I mean you'll you'll grow closer to Jesus. Um you know, I think as you're less prideful, I think and I didn't think about this one until just a minute ago, as you were talking, you're gonna be more generous. I mean, I think that works both ways, as you're putting your ego aside, you're gonna be more generous, you're gonna be less focused on yourself. Um things are gonna become easier in your life and maybe less forced. Like that was the first point that I put down. Things become easier and less forced, and kind of what I was thinking in that was like, you know, instead of this like, oh, I need to try and be good and I need to try and do the right things for God, it's more of just like uh I can't really do this without God. So that's how I'm gonna live my life, and I'm gonna let God be in control of it, and that's just way easier when you let your life operate that way and let God be in control of it. Like that's a lot easier and less forced than oh, I need to do the right because that's that's that in a way is prideful. Like when you wake up and immediately jump into, oh, I need to do the right things today, like you're immediately saying, I need to be in control, not God. Yeah. Like I I'm the one in control, not God. But when you wake up and say, God, you're in control because I have no idea what I'm doing. I'm sinful. I can't do this on my own, you be in control, that's way easier, way less forced. So that's kind of what I meant by that one. I don't know if you have any thoughts on that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I I think you're exactly right, you know, and um, and that sort of goes with the uh the second one. I see that word joy, um, and um I'm thinking back at that example that Francis Chan gave of um why would we want to be looking at ourselves all the time if if what we are consuming, if what we're looking at, if what our gaze is averted on and fixed on um deeply affects us, then I mean if we're thinking about it, wouldn't we want to be um wouldn't we want our gaze to be fixed on a holy, good, loving God instead of um like a jerk or like a like a a broken sinner that that does things that are bad and that's selfish, obviously, or or prideful. I mean, if if you really want to have joy in your life, um then I mean God is the ultimate answer to that. Constantly looking at Him and everything you do, um serving Him with with our lives and with our very um with our very lives in our days. So yeah, I think that's I mean it cultivates real joy in in my life I can even think back to my seasons. I have I have and I have I go through different seasons of sometimes I um without knowing it I slip into a into a phase of sort of thinking about myself more than I should. Then other times I'm I'm sort of going through something else where I'm I'm I'm doing good and I'm looking at God and and looking to serve God to the best of my ability. But I I can think back and and know for sure that I was definitely so much more joyful when I have been looking at God and not constantly dwelling on my own failures or on my own successes, um, trying to get my my uh fulfillment, my gratification um off of my own success, off off of my own um self. I mean, you know, because that's a very limited supply, y'all, but if you want to find joy, then look at the God of the universe that loves you enough to send a son to die for you. I mean, I think that's a constant that's a constant um reason to celebrate. And I don't know about you, Blake, but I don't I don't think that I don't think that I'm a constant uh source of celebration myself when I look at myself and who I am and my own failures, you know. So joy, it cultivates real joy. That's a benefit of fixing your ego and and looking at God more instead of yourself.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah, I would not call you a source of uh like celebration or joy or anything. Yeah, me thanks like you're pretty depressing.
SPEAKER_02Nobody has celebrated me.
SPEAKER_01No, yeah, I mean uh y yeah. That's that following Jesus is a joy. Following ourselves, it's a chore. I mean, we can try to we can try to make it about ourselves, but it just yeah, like you said, it we run out of stuff to be joyful about because we kind of suck. I mean, we really do. And then we try to conjure up more things and we manufacture it. I mean, I really think that's where all this social media bull crap and just everything that our culture is all about, it's all manufactured stupidity. Nonsense because we're just making up joy because there is none. I mean, I'm really convinced of that. Because we're so empty because we're not looking to Jesus, who is the true source of joy. Jesus is that true source source of joy, but yeah, I mean, we're just looking at ourselves and we run out of it, and so we try to drum it up and manufacture it, and we run out, so we're all depressed and we're all anxious, and we all hate each other, and it all sucks. It's just so bad.
SPEAKER_00It's like I hate it.
SPEAKER_02I'm just worthy of grieving and not celebrating and nothing else.
SPEAKER_01But yeah, seriously, follow Jesus. Don't follow yourself. And I'm speaking to myself too. Um then number three, we're able to look beyond ourselves to others, seeing how we could help them see Jesus. Because, yeah, I mean, you know, ultimately, one you know, one of the biggest things that Jesus calls us to do is to help others see him too. So the more that we're looking beyond ourselves, putting our pride to the side, the more that we're seeing Jesus, the more we can help others do that too. I mean, the more that we are following Jesus, seeing how joyful that is, the less that we are looking our at ourselves, the more we're putting our pride to the side, all of those things, the more room that there is to look at other people, to actually empathize with people, to actually see who they are, to actually show them who Jesus is and actually love them. I mean, all of those things. Um Yeah, I don't know. So I think I think there's tons of benefits of putting our pride to the side, taking care of our ego, but that's just a few right there. Um but it's hard. Taking care of our ego is hard. Um, and we said that at the beginning of this episode, and it's why we wanted to end this series with this, because it's it's a whole lot easier to talk about other things that we can do and focus on. It's a lot harder to talk about ourselves and how we really need to tackle what's going on inside of ourselves because that's that's hard. It's hard to uproot and dig into our hearts because we're prideful and we've got a lot of darkness going on inside of us. I know that I do, and I know when I really sit and think about that and pray about that, it gets kind of scary. I mean, it really does. And then I don't want to think about it anymore. I just want to go back to eating burritos and playing games on my phone or something. I don't know. That's what you do over the I don't I don't want to think about what a crappy person I am, that's for sure. That's how that's hard.
SPEAKER_02Maybe that's not the answer. Maybe the answer is thinking about how good God is.
SPEAKER_01Just let me wallow, man. I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_02Just let me feel bad for myself.
SPEAKER_01I suck! No, I no, you're you're absolutely right. I do need to think about how good God is. We all do definitely need to think about how good God is. Um, and think less about ourselves. Because yeah, the point is not to think about how much we suck. The point is to think about how good of a God we serve and how much he loves us, you know, even though we have messed up and even though we are sinners, even though we are prideful, God loves us anyway. Um and that's pretty cool. So as we move into the summer uh with the podcast, we're wrapping this series up, but we'd love to get your all's thoughts on some things, and um I guess we can put these into the episode description, right? Or on our social media or something. I don't know. We'll we'll figure it out. But yeah, we'd love to get your all's thoughts on like what you've enjoyed about this series, like what stood out to you, what you'd like to hear more of, you know, even things that you haven't liked. What topics should we not try to tackle moving forward? Um, you know, is there anything we do that's just annoying? Like, hey, Blake talks too much, or why is he crying? Uh what ideas do you have for the summer? Like, is there anything we should try to do? We're going to be focusing more on engaging you all, the listeners, through some different things. So we'd love to just get your all's thoughts um on some things over the next couple of months as we move into summer. So for now, I think that's it. So stay uh stay tuned on our social media channels. Instagram's the one we've been hitting the hardest, right? Is there anything else they should be on?
SPEAKER_02Uh in case you all don't know our Instagram, our uh we're on Instagram, it's it's narrow underscore road underscore podcast.
SPEAKER_01So that's narrow underscore road underscore podcast. Just one more time. That's narrow underscore road underscore podcast. And that's just one more time, narrow underscore road underscore podcast.
SPEAKER_02And just one I'm just kidding. So yeah, just follow us on uh on Instagram, narrow podcast. We'll we have all of our we have a little link tree with all of our um different platforms that we post on.
SPEAKER_01Better hurry because we're almost maxed out on followers.
SPEAKER_02It's never happened before in history, but yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. You don't even want to know what the maximum is. It is a large number. Yeah. It's more than 119, I can tell you that. Way more. Way more.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so it's like so many.
SPEAKER_01Anyway. All right.
SPEAKER_02Guess that's it. We hope you all have a wonderful summer. Yep. Hopefully we will be back here soon with um some more content. Like Blake said, let us know what you'd like to hear about. If there's anything that um you're curious on, if you have any questions, if you'd love for us to make some material on um on a verse or a book or a passage or a topic, whatever it may be, let us know that um through our Instagram or or uh comment section on your uh streaming platform and we'd love to know. So thank you all for listening today. Oh, I guess we didn't say what our names were at the beginning of the episode. My name is Sam. My name is Blake. Blake. Oh. Alright. Don't know why. Alright. Anyways. That's from a video. Oh, okay, sorry. Yeah, it's I wouldn't know. And uh we are signing off, so we hope you have a great rest of your day.
SPEAKER_01Signing off. Bye.
SPEAKER_02We are signing off. Here we go. And we're off. And we're leaving.