Latest / The Salty Pastor / Meta-Narratives in our Lives [Ep. 143]
Transcript
- [00:00:00] And this is what Jesus says about who you are as a human being that you're meta-narrative is this, is that you are made for relationships and your soul thrives when you experience them in a healthy way. Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the Salty Pastor Podcast, a podcast dedicated to helping you learn and grow in your critical thinking skills and in your faith, we cannot do the work for you. You have to be the one that actually figures out what you believe in, why you believe it, but we can be your guides. We can be your journeyman along, uh, in the story of your life and be the, what are those, the little sidekicks that are going to be there and just give you the poignant moment when you're in your deepest, darkest moments will be a little sidekick that will say, well, did you think about this, a man or a ma'am? And that will further encourage you. So we are there. We are two jesters to [00:01:00] be. Uh, comic relief in the story of your life. Hey, miss Jesse Maher, I will be your host and we can not do the Salty Pastor Podcast without the Salty Pastor himself. Dr. Douglas Peake. Welcome everybody. You know, it's really interesting because in the world today, they've separated, a, critical thinking skills and in rationality from faith. And this of course is a false categorization. It's a false comparison. And the, the attempt to do that is to try to make faith look at rational. Whereas faith is really a composite. It's a composite of our will. You know, it's a composite of our head and a composite of our heart. So all of these things come together, which is the fullness of what it means to be human being. And so that's why faith is the highest calling. It's the highest expression of humanity. And that's what we want to do is help you grow your faith. And we want you to be able to grow all aspects of your faith, not just your heart and your soul, but your mind as well, because all of those three things [00:02:00] together are what produce the fruit of the spirit in your life. Well, and I would say that, I mean, that's like you said, there's a lot of, misdirection on only people that are ignorant, believe in, you know, a greater deity or have faith. It's because they don't know any better. They're not smart enough to understand the realities of the world. So they, they go based on, yeah, it's a strong man. It's an ad hominem argument. Basically say, we're going to, we're going to attack your character as ignorant because you're not smart enough to know the higher things, but when you really look at it, you go. Yeah. But what you actually believe is pretty inactive. Well, that's why I'm thankful, man. I'm so thankful. It is Thanksgiving week. Loving it! We are thankful for the opportunity to be here with you guys for the opportunity to be sharing the gospel and to helping you guys grow in your journey. We're actually wrapping up our current series, Storybook Endings. Final chapter. Yes, we also is where we'll find out how your story ends. [00:03:00] Uh, I need to, I need to work on my movie announcer voice. I hope this Thanksgiving. I hope your story doesn't end this week. I hope it continues on. Forever and ever. Um, but, uh, we're gonna wrap this one up and then we're going to be moving into our new series. We're heading into the Christmas season. It's crazy that it's already Christmas, but we're excited for it. And our new series is titled how Jesus is Christmas. Yes. Yes. I mean what's what, how do we wrap up this series that we're currently in, where we're starting in Genesis. We studied, uh, how we are made in the image of God who male and female are expressions of this image of God. And then we went to Ephesians chapter four to discover why the desires of our souls are so difficult to fulfill. Um, because of this stain or influence or this taint of sin on us. Yes. Uh, how we wrapping this all up, Pastor? Well, I think that, you [00:04:00] know, what we've talked about over and over again is we're created in the image of God. And so the desires of our souls are legitimate and they're expressions of the fullness of what it means to be human being. And then. It's in the attempt to fulfilling these desires. So many problems arrive in our own life. Because in the fulfillment of these desires, or sometimes the desires themselves can be influenced by the taint. And that's where we get confused or messed up. And this is what Paul is addressing. And chapter four is we have to be diligent to predict the bond of unity. Uh, we want to make sure that we are protecting our bond of unity with Jesus. And then with one another, this is exactly what Jesus prayed for over the apostles in John chapter 17, it's called the high priestly prayer of Jesus, where he prays for his disciples. And he says, I pray that you will keep them in unity because you and I are in unity. I'm in you, you are in me and we are in them and they are in us. And so he uses a lot of this really poetic language. It's really powerful. [00:05:00] About praying that we all can stay unified. And that we do that by resolving conflicts. You know, that's how we stay unified. You unified in the spirit is not uniformity. Where we look the same act, the same, you know, do everything the same. It's what it is though, is that we have this tremendous capacity in our diversity to be unified with one another. Through a common mission, a common faith, common heart. That's where he says, there's one Lord, one faith, one baptism there in the first five verses. So we have to be diligent to pursue that. Uh, the second thing we found out is that to be created an image of God means I'm relational, you know, and however, my relationships can be the greatest joy, greatest pain in my life. And so that's why. Uh, we have to put off the old self and put on the new self in chapter four of the book of Ephesians, he goes on verses 17 and follow and says, you've got to take off the old way of thinking and the old way of living the old priorities you had in life and [00:06:00] values. You got adopt new ones and it's called being made new in the attitude of your mind. And then he gave us seven practical steps on how to do that. Right. He said, look, first of all, if you want to put on your new self, you've got to lay aside falsehood. And I think this really, we dug into this. This isn't saying, go out and speak a truth to people. And so what it is is it's laying about the false hoods, the false ideologies, the false identities that I had dropped, I adopted on myself. Right. I got to lay those sides. I got to speak truthfully to my neighbor in humility. And that's what love is you see, then I need to deal with my anger. I need to learn how to be productive. I need to use words well. I got to get rid of bad attitudes and behaviors. I got to be kind and compassionate. And then I got to learn how to forgive. And when I do that, I'm putting on the new self and what that does has a dramatic impact on my relationships across the board. So the story that I'm writing now, Is a different story and it comes to a different ending in, in the, in these seven practical [00:07:00] steps, fulfill how we can preserve the bond of unity and resolve all the conflicts that come up. I, I mean, it's a little late in this series for me to finally make this comparison. But as we were talking about these ways that we can really change how our stories written, it reminds me of, I don't know if you're you, you probably didn't read it, but your kids might have the old goosebumps books where it was pick your oh yeah, pick your ending. Pick your, your adventure. And so you would like go and then like if you hit the wrong thing, it would be. You know, and poorly actually. And so there was usually always poorly. And so like these, these, uh, things that Paul shares with us that we've been hitting any Ephesians for over and over are going to allow you to make the right choices in your pick your own adventure book. Yeah. So you make sure you make it to the happy ending. The happy ending. Yeah. It's definitely that way. In your relationships. And I think that's, I think that's what what's happening here in a big sense. And in today to wrap it up, I just want to talk [00:08:00] about the power of narrative. You see. And what a lot of people are hearing today is, you know, tell your story, the power of story and the story and that that's true. That's and what they're really saying is that the narrative, is what is really important and what a lot of people don't think about, this is an upstream concept to think about is that belief systems, religions, are known as meta-narrative. There they're big picture narratives. And what they're trying to do is trying to answer some basic questions. What does it mean to be a human being? Why are humans in existence? Why are they here? And is there any point and purpose to their life? And when you look at this meta narrative, you only have a few options actually to choose from five, maybe six, you know. First is atheism scientific materialism. And in their meta-narrative, what they're saying is there is no soul. And since there's no soul, then the implication is there. All the spiritual concepts, like love, [00:09:00] virtue, honor character, uh, in relationships, things like bonding, you know, uh, loyalty, honesty, all of those things are ultimately irrelevant in scientific materialism or atheism. They're irrelevant because you don't have a soul anyway. Uh, Sam Harris basically says that it's an illusion that these things exist. It's a helpful illusion, but it's illusion none the less. Now in Islam, you can choose that. And what's interesting is in Islam without getting stuck in the weeds too much, basically relationships are structured for the purpose of the male to obtain paradise. And so if, if you really, if you really look at the Hadids that are about relationships and about being a wife and all that kind of stuff, is that the feminine image of God, you know, the God God's created them, male and female, right? So he created the masculine, his image bearers of him, and the feminine [00:10:00] is image bearers of him. But in Islam, the feminine image of God has not acknowledged. You see, it's not acknowledged at all. So it's, it's very one-sided. Um, you could pick hedonism, you know, this is the ancient philosopher, Greek philosopher, Aristippus which says basically pleasure and sensuality is the ultimate goal of life. So go out and get as much as you want. Of course, Socrates and Aristotle debunk that pretty radically and effectively. But that in essence, when it comes to your relationships is a meta-narrative is basically narcissism. You know, I'm here. The only reason I'm here is to use people for what I want. And as long as you know, I'm getting what I want, I'm fine. Otherwise I'm not happy. I'm moving on. Uh, you can choose, you know, Hinduism, which is an India Buddhism, which is in China. So that's pretty massive group of people. You know, between one, 2 billion people right there. Uh, not all are Hindu and not all are Buddhist, but Buddhists is kind of like a nephew, a little bit or a niece of [00:11:00] Hinduism. And it what's really interesting is that like in Buddhism, in particular, you see, there are four noble truths and they basically say the reason why you're disappointed or frustrated or angry or something. Is because you have expectations, get rid of those. So what they do is they basically have an eightfold path and their goal is to reduce any and all expectations of anybody or anything. Which of course, when it comes to relationships, that's really difficult, right. Uh, to have a relationship where there are no where there's no bonding, cause there's no dependability. And then, you know, like the fifth one that you could choose, uh, is basically Jesus. And this is what Jesus says about who you are as a human being, that your meta-narrative is, this is that you are made for relationships and your soul thrives when you experience them in a healthy way. But the taint of your soul, ie: sin, disrupts this desire and disrupts the fulfillment of this thirst of the soul.[00:12:00] So you got to deal with the taint. Uh, once you deal with the taint, then your soul is set free to pursue an experience, love and experience relationships and friendships and righteousness. And in truth. Now that doesn't mean you're going to be perfect at it, but what it does is it opens the door of possibility and potential, you know, and that's, what's really awesome about it. And so, so when you look at your own story, when you look at the story you're writing now. About your relationships, it's all about your meta narrative. You have to think about it and wrestle through it before you can go out and have any healthy relationships with other people. Because if you pick the wrong meta-narrative, you know, finding any sort of alignment or love or bonding or intimacy is next to impossible. And this is what Paul meant. When he said to the Corinthians, he said, look, you know, don't be unequally, yoked. And his, his point there is referencing. Yeah. Have, uh, you know, oxygen would [00:13:00] pull and they'd have the big, huge wooden beam that would go over to oxygen and then they would pull the plow or the, the, uh, wagon or weather, but mostly the plow. And his point is, is that you can't hook an oxen with a horse. Or an oxen with the donkey, because then that injures both, injures both because they're unequally yoked. You have to have not only two oxen, but you have to have two oxen approximately the same age, you know, they're not exact, but so they're the same size. Otherwise they both get hurt. And so his Paul, Paul's point is, is that, look, you better understand what your meta narrative is, what you're basing all your life story on, because if you don't, then you're going to get hurt. And I find this really interesting because people in Christianity make this assumption all the time. And that is well, you're a Christian and I'm a Christian that should work out. Well, not unless you've really explored, you know, D have you, have you really adopted Jesus his definition of what it means to be a human being and what important purpose of your life? Because there's a lot of people who say they're [00:14:00] Christians who don't adopt a biblical worldview. And that causes a huge problem in a marriage per se. So the New Testament book of Ephesians is so powerful and it's teaching about relationships. All these practical steps are overwhelmingly effective in producing a much better ending to your relationship story. But, it's built on the meta narrative of Jesus. If you go back and read chapter one in chapter two, it's all about, this is who Jesus is, and this is who you are. And this is why Jesus came. And this is what he changed you into. See? That is a meda narrative. Right. And so when I understand that now these practical steps make a massive difference in my relational life. If I don't understand that these will not be effective. So we, we kind of took off on this concept of narrative, but I want to [00:15:00] get a little bit more context so I can really understand it and wrap my head around it. What, what can, what else can you share on this idea of this narrative? Well, I think, I think the first thing we have to understand about narrative is this is that we live in a postmodern, philosophical construct. This has been around since probably the sixties. And so we've all been raised in a postmodern society. We've been trained to think in a certain way. Now the upside of that is that narrative is king. We want to hear people's story and we're interested in stories and we want. You know, we want to emotionally connect men and women want to emotionally connect with stories of people, right. But, what's interesting in postmodernism is that they deny any metanarrative as true. They basically say there is no meta-narrative. Okay. Now that is really [00:16:00] interesting because if, uh, your story is king. But then there's no context or foundation on which your story is built. So there's no way to assess, understand or evaluate your own story, yours personally, or those around you. So if absolute truth doesn't exist, then all other stories out there. Are take it or leave it, or they're irrelevant. And this is where the whole notion of, well, you get your truth and I get my truth. But what you see is when people have vastly different truths, they end up creating more division, more hatred, more prejudice, and more bigotry. Now on the other hand, Jesus taught that there is an absolute truth. If you read chapter one in chapter two of the book of Ephesians, you see, well, there is a God, uh, your soul is created in the image of God. It basically means that one of the aspects of that is you're relational. [00:17:00] Your soul is relational needs to be connected first to Jesus. And then to those around you. And this relationship though was broken because of free will. In other words, you couldn't be in a loving relationship with anybody or with God, unless you possessed free will. Okay. Because of that, we invited evil into the world and that separated us from him. Now here's the most interesting point of all in that the narrative you adopt is the primary determiner on the type of relationships you experience and all research points out to this. You know, when you look at, uh, uh, people, uh, the divorce statistics in the United States of America is what people say. Well, 50% of all the, uh, all couples, uh, end up in divorce. And it's a little bit under that it's in the upper 40% tile, but what's really fascinating is when you really dig into it, nobody ever, ever talks about this is that the people with the lowest divorce rate in America and it's under 10% are [00:18:00] people who are Christian and who attend church regularly and pursue their faith as a family. So now that does that insulate you from divorce because of some reason? No, because Satan's, you know, messing things up all the time and uses our own desires against us. But the point is, is that the highest rate of marriage success is amongst people who have the same narrative and they not only believe in the same narrative, but they're building their life around that narrative. So, basically what you're teaching is that, we need to think through our core narrative. Yes. Before we can really understand and experience relationships with that are healthy and good for our souls. With other people, we have to kind of know what our narrative is before we can start really healthily interacting with someone else who may or may not know theirs. You have to be solid before you can start going. Pushing outwards basically. Does that make [00:19:00] sense? Absolutely. Uh, th the truth of who we are, comes from Genesis in the creation account, and many other new Testament passages, this Ephesians chapter one and two as well. And Paul wrote that letter specifically for the purpose of instructing us on how to live and have healthy relationships. And it's all based on this meta-narrative. And that is, this is God, this is who you are. And this is why that relationship has unresolved conflict. And that's why Jesus came. You know, and what did I say earlier in this series is the number one toxic to any relationship is what? Unresolved conflict. And so in essence, the meta-narrative is we have an unresolved conflict with God. See, we have an unresolved conflict and no matter how hard we try it, and that's the whole point of the old Testament, all the law, all the sacrifices, everything could not what? Fix it. Fix it. Could not resolve the conflict, you know, and you know, David road and the songs, you know, that, uh, sacrifice and obes, you know, obedience is not what you [00:20:00] require, but a clean heart, you know? And so. Wow. So, so no matter how hard we try, we, we couldn't resolve it. So Jesus came and then he resolved the conflict. But what's really interesting about it is God did his part. Okay. So God does his part and now we must participate and do our part, you know, and that that's not a statement of salvation by works at all, but it's what Paul says, work out your salvation in fear and trembiling. You know, and that is, is that as a freewill agent, you have to enter into this thing to resolve this conflict between God, Jesus is through an act of grace has done everything. You can't resolve conflict, one-sided both parties have to be engaged, right? Like if I'm in, if I was married in, in a fight with my spouse and I'm like, okay, we're going to fix this and I'm trying to resolve it. And she's not. Yeah, invested in fixing it. It's not going to be resolved. Like you can't just be like, okay, well I fixed it. I did my side now. We're all good. Right. So yeah. [00:21:00] What if you're a couple, you know, and you guys get in an argument about something and then one of either you, you know, one side of that couple just basically says, well, I'm not going to talk to you anymore. That doesn't resolve it, you know? And so that's a big deal. You know, and I think, I think what people don't understand is that Paul wrote the letter to the Ephesians for the purpose of instructing us about healthy relationships built on this meta narrative, that there is an absolute truth. Now, if I don't understand or accept the absolute truth of who I am, then the practical steps have no real effect in my life. I was talking to this pastor. And, uh, he was relating to me a conversation. He was going down to the local YMCA, you know, and playing basketball, pickup basketball with there's a whole bunch of guys that will show up over lunch or after work, play ball. And so there was a guy down there that he'd been playing ball with for a while. You know, I know a couple of months and then the guy, you know, eventually, well, what do you do? He goes, I'm a pastor. And the guy says, uh, yeah, I tried Christianity. You know, it didn't work for me. [00:22:00] And so I thought, so he and I started talking about how interesting that was, because how could you try the ultimate reality and that have no effect in your life? You know, this is true or it's not true. It's kind of like jumping into the ocean. How can you afford getting. Yeah. How can you avoid it? If you jump into the ocean? Well, there's only one way to avoid it and that it's not hard to avoid it if you're in a submarine, you know, and, and this is the, is why narrative is so important. See if you buy into a false premise, like post-modern denial of absolute truth, you're in a submarine in the middle of the ocean and never understand its effects. You see, you don't understand it, but even then, if the submarine goes too low, what happens. Gets crushed pressure, crushes it and kills everything in it. So that's where it's really important here to understand is that these steps, right. Only work if you've established your meta-narrative first. [00:23:00] So let's say that the people listening have predominantly accepted this absolute truth, the, the meta-narrative that there is absolute truth, that Jesus is our savior. In their stories are like this, this meta-narrative is then influencing the stories they're writing once they've accepted it. Yeah. Um, and so what does Paul's teachings, in the fourth chapter of Ephesians, which is where we've been, right? Yes. Um, how does that help them write a better story? So if they're accepting this, this premise of, um, there is an absolute truth, you know, and they've, they've accepted that as part of their story. What does Paul teach us to help write the better story. Will you see this pattern over and over again? You see, first of all, the pattern over the whole book, and then you see it in a more of a microcosm and chapter four, and that is, you know, align your upstream first. And then your downstream, any change you make, there is going to have super powerful effects.[00:24:00] If you don't change that upstream first, uh, for instance, it's similar to this. I know lots of guys who tell the same story and that is yeah. You know, my eating habits, weren't very good. I knew I needed to eat better, you know, but I, I tried to change. I couldn't change. I couldn't change. I tried to change. Then I had a heart attack. And then after the heart attack, well, yeah, yeah. Then it was easy to change. Yeah. That's easy. You know, every time I looked at that red, rare steak, I was thinking I'm going to die. So, but see, that's an illustration of how upstream and downstream works. And that is that a lot of times what we do is we try to change downstream stuff and it never works. It's not until we have the upstream. Uh here's I was listening to a psychologist who specializes in chemical addiction. He says, when people are addicted to drugs, he says, no one ever breaks their addiction until they have a spiritual awakening first. I thought, man, that's coming from a [00:25:00] secular psychologist. You have to have a spiritual awakening, which is an upstream thing right before you can actually kick the habit downstream. You see, uh, this is why in couples, if, if you ever lose the upstream value that we're committed each other, and we love each other, then all the communication techniques downstream won't work. If you don't have that, the downstream stuff doesn't work. That's why most people, you know, when they want out, they always say things about. And we never saw eye to eye. Well, that's actually not true because you married the person. You know, but now you've lost that. And so now that, that isn't true for all marriages, but a lot of times, uh, when marriages fall apart, just because two people can't get along, then, then that's an issue. Um, you know, now there's big things, you know, like abuse or chemical addiction, pornography, those things, you know, have our nuclear toxins in a relationship and they almost result in destroying it. But, but there's also a large group of marriages that end just because, [00:26:00] you know, once at night owl and wants to go out on the weekends and the other, one's an introvert and wants to stay home, you know? So I think, I think the issue here is that. Overemphasize is that in less, you understand the upstream value must change first, your downstream efforts produce very little fruit. So you want to change that. And that's what the problem, I think so many adults are struggling with in America today because we have been raised in a way where we've adopted syncretism. And what syncretism is, is, is that we take a lot of different values, principles, or beliefs and bring them together. We adopted these values based on circumstances that we went through, usually in our middle school, high school and college years. Right. And what happens is, Hey, these things are a good idea at the time, right? So I'm going to adopt them. [00:27:00] But we end up believing values and principles that actually contradict one another. So your upstream has values that are, that are in conflict with each other. Okay. Now, when that happens, your core values contradict one another. You are opening yourself up to massive amounts of depression, anxiety. You lose your ambition in life. You lose your passion for life. Most importantly, you have zero courage in zero confidence in your life. And that's because our upstream is out of alignment. And so until you realign that, and that's what Paul, that's why Paul wrote chapter one in chapter two of Ephesians, before he talked about the seven practical steps is you got to align that stuff first. And then this stuff down the, the, downstream worked so much better. It's it's super powerful. Uh, we're we're we are more interested in stories today than facts or upstream core [00:28:00] values. Right. We'd rather hear a story and like, entertain me, get my emotions going then, actually think about and evaluate, well, what are my actual core values? And are they based on facts and reality and a belief system? That's a meta-narrative that God explains to me and I can adapt that or not. Um, we would rather just, oh, I just want to be entertained. I don't want to think my brain is overworking. The reason why we love stories so much is because they touch us at the level of our soul because we're not Spock, right. Spock wants the facts. Right. And nothing else. We want a story. Well, I mean, Jesus, even. Taught in story. Like he was one of the greatest storytellers of all time. Of all time. And he knew that was a great way to communicate with us because we desire that in our soul is these stories. Right? And the ultimate story is the meta-narrative. Right. Right. And the meta-narrative is the absolute truth that you must wrestle with. If there is a God. Then I'm meant to [00:29:00] be in a relationship with him. And the only way to do that is through redemption of my soul because I understand the condition of my soul. So in essence, this is the ultimate conflict resolution is what Jesus did on the cross. So if you remember early on in our study, the number one talks into all relationships I said earlier is unresolved conflict. And so I'd be so bold as to say this. And that is the, our world is filled with toxicity today. It's filled with wars, pestilence, division hatred. Slavery is just as popular today in the world than it was during the height of the chattel slavery in the late 18 hundreds. People don't know that, but it is maybe not in America, but it certainly is in Islamic countries in Northern Africa. It's incredible how much slavery is going. Human trafficking, human trafficking is off the charts. There's drug abuse. Uh, there's all kinds of things that are happening. Even the pestilence that we are suffering today is because of the unresolved conflict in the [00:30:00] meta-narrative. You see? I would postulate then is that some people will say, well, why doesn't God just resolve it? Well, guess what, he did. His part. By dying on the cross. And as we just talked a moment, ago gather, a moment ago together, is that the only way to resolve a conflict is when both parties come to the table in one, party's done, I've done all I can. Now you need to choose to walk this path of journey with me. So God's done his part. It's finished now it's up to us. So the more people that experienced the resolution of this conflict, then the more peace we will have, not only as individuals or in our families, but in our communities, in our nation as well. The more fulfillment people will have the more meaning, the more purpose and the more courage. More righteousness, more holiness, more justice, [00:31:00] more fairness, more equality. Why? Because this ultimate unresolved conflict is now being resolved through the redemptive act of Christ. Now, without resolving this conflict, the world will continue to experience all the toxicity of the unresolved conflict. It gives Satan all kinds of authority and freedom to operate within the perverted and misguided sensuality, the misguided desires that can be corrupted by Satan. So there'll be, there's going to be wars. There's going to be rumors of wars. Uh, I believe there's going to be discrimination. There's going to be hatred. There's going to be prejudice. There's going to be bigotry, malice, anger, violence, you name it until we can see people. Find peace with God and resolve that conflict. So much of the piece that we have seen in this world. So much of the prosperity that we have here in America. Um, so much justice and opportunity comes from the [00:32:00] fact that a large percentage of Americans have resolved this conflict. They have chosen to give their life to Jesus. And they have accepted this resolution that got, that is offered. Right? Well, they're met a narrative is so powerful. You know, the meta-narrative that our founding fathers came up with was based upon, I mean, all these people were steeped in the, the, how this conflict was resolved. And so their ideas and their concepts that were birthed out of. Right. We're in alignment with that. Meta-narrative and that's what America's struggling with right now, because you have a large group of people who say we reject that narrative and we want a different narrative. And so in order to get that, we need to tear everything down. Right? I mean, we need to tear everything down in order to. That, but that's why, that's why I'm so thankful this weekend of Thanksgiving, you know, I'm so thankful because, uh, it's really important to me as a follower of Jesus, because it allows me to, uh, remember and see and experience and have gratitude for all the beauty and [00:33:00] wonder and blessing that I have from Jesus and how he resolved this conflict. And he made it positive. That it could be resolved. And so that is such a blessing in, and it also has floated out because that meta-narrative was rooted into our culture, uh, among the American society. Now we're in danger of you losing that. But I think if we continue to realize our upstream core value, what we're going to find is that the downstream, no matter how hard they try to change it, it will never take root. Well, we are so thankful for you, Pastor Doug. Um, and this Thanksgiving, we will still have a Salty Pastor Episode. It's probably going to come out a little early in the day. So you can listen to it while you're doing Thanksgiving meal prep. You can have it on and, and listen to this super special. Yeah. We're going to do something amazing. I'm really excited for it. Tell a story. We are so excited. So thank you guys so much for joining us here on the Salty Pastor. Um, just remember to say thankful during this season, we're going into the holidays and it's a [00:34:00] great time to kind of reflect on what you believe. Why you believe it and who you care about and why you should be thankful to God for all the things he's done in your life. So thank you guys for joining us today and we'll see you on Thursday, Thanksgiving here on the Salty Pastor Podcast. Blessings.