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Episode 2_ Why Pray · INSPIRE STORY

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Someone said that they would like intro music, so someone said,
• 0:14
  welcome back, ladies and gentlemen to another Aspire podcast.
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: Thank you all for joining us very much.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: We got an exciting topic today, but before we get
• 0:21
  into that, which will be a focused on prayer.
• 0:24
  Speaker 3: What is prayer? How do you pray? How do we pray?
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: What is going on?
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: We're going to pass it off to Michael to start
• 0:29
  us off with what a you guessed it?
• 0:33
  Speaker 3: Prayer?
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: Prayer?
• 0:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and then Father and so listen, Lord, thank you
• 0:39
  for this day, Thank you for this time together with
• 0:41
  these amazing men. Help us to have a fruitful conversation.
• 0:47
  And if you want this message to reach anybody that
• 0:51
  helped us to reach them, help us to do everything
• 0:55
  in our power to glorify you with everything we do,
• 0:58
  and don't help us have a good time. Amen, Amen, Amen?
• 1:05
  Speaker 4: Amen?
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: All right, okay, jents, So the plan for today. Last
• 1:10
  last time on this episode, we talked about what is
• 1:14
  spire kind of how we all incorporate that into our
• 1:18
  lives and then so today we wanted to delve into
• 1:22
  the first of the spire acronym, spiritual the S. So
• 1:27
  what we're going to talk about what we all figured
• 1:28
  would be a good topic is sort of like what
• 1:31
  prayer is to us and how we pray each of us,
• 1:33
  and then kind of what that looks like on a
• 1:35
  sort of realistic note, because I think if you say, well,
• 1:38
  what is prayer, it's like, well, you could say prayers.
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: But that's kind of what we want to get into,
• 1:42
  is how we each actually see prayer. So the thing that.
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: We were going to go with just to start is
• 1:50
  there was a speech or a talk given by Matt Walsh.
• 1:55
  There was a talk given this gloss that's probably good. Yeah,
• 1:59
  all right, there's a talk given by Matt Walsh and
• 2:02
  he talked about prayer. And when I read it, I
• 2:06
  really liked it, just because it seemed to sort of
• 2:10
  encapsulate the whole point of prayer on a very graspable level.
• 2:14
  So instead of just saying it gets you closer to God,
• 2:17
  it kind of helps you see what the impact is.
• 2:21
  So what we thought we'd do is go through this
• 2:25
  so that you'll be getting you'll get to hear sort
• 2:29
  of what his take on it is, which we think
• 2:31
  is valuable, but then also we'll interject with our own
• 2:34
  personal takes on things and our own experience and our
• 2:38
  own opinions on how we.
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: Pray and all that stuff.
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: So we'll get into that, so you'll hear kind of
• 2:41
  how Michael does it, how Nick does it, or looks
• 2:43
  at it, and then how I do. Just to sort
• 2:45
  of see what we have in common and how we
• 2:48
  all feel and maybe what we can gain from each other.
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: So that's the goal.
• 2:52
  Speaker 4: That sounds great.
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: Anything from you guys, anything, well kind of. I mean,
• 2:59
  we'll say this stuff as we go, but that's kind
• 3:01
  that's kind of what we're doing here.
• 3:03
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I think to add that.
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: Okay, sweet, okay, to start am going crazy right now
• 3:13
  on here, that a big, big way for him. Were good,
• 3:20
  We're good? Yeah, all right.
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: So to start us off, this is Matt Walsh. There's
• 3:27
  so much noise, so much commotion, so much media, so
• 3:31
  many lights and sounds, and all it does is keep
• 3:34
  us focused on a million things besides the one thing
• 3:36
  that matters. We run from God into the white noise
• 3:39
  of modern culture and we lose him somewhere in there,
• 3:42
  though he still pursues us. This is the crisis of
• 3:44
  the modern church. It's a crisis of desire that so
• 3:47
  many of us, though we may be decent people, that
• 3:50
  we may be nice that we may believe in all
• 3:52
  that God's stuff stored up, all that God stuff, sort
• 3:54
  of we don't really desire him, we don't love him.
• 3:59
  And and a lot of people in truth are bored
• 4:01
  by God, and they find religion tiresome and burdensome. I
• 4:05
  figure I'll go until I kind of hit a spot
• 4:07
  where it's like, oh, that's good. They can't stand to
• 4:10
  spend too much time with God, too much time in prayer,
• 4:13
  to go to church, to read scripture as a torture
• 4:15
  for them. Maybe it is for some of us in
• 4:17
  here as well, if we are to be honest. But
• 4:19
  here's the problem. If all the things that are purely
• 4:21
  about God in this life, scripture, prayer, church, if all
• 4:25
  that is to us dull and uninteresting, all we can
• 4:28
  do is bide our time until we get back to
• 4:30
  the TV, then how can we expect to go to heaven?
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: Do we even want to Heaven?
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: Would be torture for someone with that mentality, because there
• 4:38
  would be no leaving God to get back to the TV.
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: That sounds like Christopher Hitchens. I don't know if you
• 4:44
  guys have listened to them talk at all about this
• 4:47
  or not. Necessarily about prayer, but just about like he's
• 4:51
  an atheist obviously, but he always is saying like, also,
• 4:57
  I'm gonna try and say like a lot less this
• 4:59
  is my totally the first time, I'm not gonna say anymore.
• 5:04
  It's really hard on that. He also, is it your
• 5:07
  the direction of the mic? I think it goes like
• 5:09
  yours is like around ours is more vertical. So I
• 5:12
  think it should be fine. Cool you were talking and
• 5:17
  was working. Yeah, I think he's good.
• 5:18
  Speaker 4: We're not experiencing technical difficult just confusion.
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: It'll probably be a little bit better this time than
• 5:23
  it was last time. And as long as we do that,
• 5:25
  every episode will be good. But Christopher Hitchins is like,
• 5:28
  he's an atheist obviously, and he is always saying he's
• 5:34
  dead now. But he would always say even if God
• 5:40
  was real, and even if he was convinced that God
• 5:42
  was real, he wouldn't worship him because he thinks that
• 5:45
  the idea of a god is like terrifying, and that
• 5:51
  he thinks that a god is like a vindictive bully
• 5:55
  and like all these things where he wouldn't worship him
• 5:59
  even if he was And that's kind of what that
• 6:01
  reminded me of I think it would be torture to
• 6:03
  be in his presence because we don't want to be there.
• 6:07
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, that's that's.
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: Hav another thing to say about you guys can go first.
• 6:10
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean that's like I definitely understand where where
• 6:13
  that viewpoint is coming from. And just like the idea
• 6:16
  of this almighty, all knowing, all powerful God like that
• 6:19
  is that is like awe full in the sense of
• 6:23
  like it is full of awe and there's just so
• 6:26
  much there, Like, yeah, if this God is not a
• 6:29
  truly loving God, then that is terrifying prospect. But something
• 6:34
  that was midway through what you had been talking about,
• 6:37
  it was mentioning about like, you know, we just go
• 6:39
  about our lives doing good things or whatnot, and that
• 6:43
  made me think, like a good friend of mine has
• 6:44
  this like really good question he loves to ask, and
• 6:46
  it's like, is being a good person enough? And the
• 6:51
  answer is no, because, like as Matt Washall is getting
• 6:55
  in this way, it's just like we go through life
• 6:57
  just being a good person, you know, doing good things
• 7:00
  and stuff, but like that's not enough because there's something
• 7:02
  more that we need. And I think that talk is
• 7:05
  going to go a bit more into like what it
• 7:07
  is that we need beyond just being a good person
• 7:11
  and doing good things.
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: How do you guys feel the difficulty to like, like
• 7:15
  with all the stuff that we have that we all
• 7:17
  love so much, watching TV, computers, technology, Do you guys
• 7:22
  find it difficult to enjoy at all not having those
• 7:28
  things like just being in silence or just not not
• 7:32
  having those every day or how do you how have
• 7:34
  you experienced those being a distraction? Are they a distraction
• 7:39
  or are they something that helps you enjoy life more.
• 7:42
  Speaker 3: I think that if it can be a distraction, I
• 7:44
  think that there are a lot of times for me,
• 7:48
  I don't really like watching TV, but I like make
• 7:50
  music and I do homework. Even I find I edit
• 7:55
  videos to whatever.
• 7:56
  Speaker 4: I don't do homework.
• 7:59
  Speaker 3: I shouldn't say I do, because that's a very rare
• 8:02
  occasion that actually happens. I know, none of my professors
• 8:06
  are going to watch this, so that's okay, I'm gonna
• 8:07
  say that. But it's really easy to get wrapped up
• 8:12
  in these things. But I don't think that there's anything
• 8:15
  bad about them. Like we have to remember that God
• 8:18
  put us in the world with a lot of these things,
• 8:22
  like knowing we were going to use them knowing that
• 8:24
  we're gonna spend our time on them. But I do
• 8:26
  think that it's important to try to prioritize things. And
• 8:33
  I can't remember what his name was. That was one
• 8:35
  of the responses that when I put the question thing
• 8:38
  up on Instagram, somebody said, and how do you prioritize
• 8:42
  things in your life? And you know, make sure you
• 8:44
  have your priorities story. I think for me at least,
• 8:47
  that's what it comes down to, is just making sure
• 8:49
  that it's really really hard and I'm not great at it,
• 8:55
  but trying to make sure you have your priorities set
• 9:01
  up in a way where you can still enjoy those
• 9:03
  things and still do them, but they're not going to
• 9:07
  consume you entirely to the point where you don't have
• 9:10
  time for God. Yeah, that's where it's dangerous.
• 9:13
  Speaker 4: That's like really insightful because there's the saying it's like
• 9:16
  all things in moderation, like all the things of this
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  world like as gifts from God, Like there are good
• 9:22
  things social media and all of these different things, those
• 9:25
  are good things that they're not like inherently evil as
• 9:28
  you were saying. And what happens is when it becomes
• 9:32
  disproportionate to what is truly more important. If you hold
• 9:39
  the appeal and distractions of YouTube over Christ, over the
• 9:47
  love of God, then that is disproportionate, and that is
• 9:52
  the sinful aspect of it. And so it's like all
• 9:55
  things in moderation. And to get back to your question
• 9:57
  about like distractions and stuff like one hundred percent, it
• 10:01
  is distracting. There's times in which I'm in prayer and
• 10:05
  I'm just like, oh, I think it's a new video
• 10:07
  that came out. I kin't want to watch that, and
• 10:09
  it's just like and it's just like my mind goes
• 10:11
  this way and that way, and like it is an
• 10:13
  addictive nature of a sort, and so that makes it
• 10:17
  a lot harder to set it aside when it comes
• 10:20
  to like more quiet time. But I also recognize that
• 10:23
  there's been times in adoration or just like on a
• 10:26
  silent walk, not listening to music, just like out in
• 10:29
  the forest, which is on a high during nature, which
• 10:32
  is the silence just really lets me find some level
• 10:35
  of peace. And so in like difficult times, you know,
• 10:38
  there's been two places where I've been able to find
• 10:40
  peace in the silence of the forest and in the
• 10:42
  silence of the chapel, and it's really awesome that we
• 10:48
  have those opportunities to do that, but that makes it
• 10:53
  a lot hurt a lot more when I get so
• 10:55
  distracted by you know, social media, YouTube or anything, and
• 10:58
  I just keep and I'm like, I could have spent
• 11:01
  instead of this last three hours of watching whatever it
• 11:03
  is I've been watching.
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  Speaker 2: I know I could hate that feeling.
• 11:06
  Speaker 4: I could have spent half an hour in silence and
• 11:09
  felt like I would have felt so much better.
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: I know I did that yesterday. I felt like an idiot.
• 11:14
  Speaker 4: Same here.
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I really like those the I think the thing
• 11:19
  that stuck out is, or at least what I've been
• 11:22
  learning recently has been like, I think what stuck out
• 11:27
  the most is that we don't love him and we
• 11:29
  don't desire him. And I always when I would hear
• 11:33
  things like that, like oh, you know, it's like you're
• 11:35
  supposed to love and worship God and all this stuff,
• 11:37
  it always kind of felt like it's just a super
• 11:39
  far off entity that I'm trying to like change myself
• 11:43
  to for change myself to satisfy him or whatever. But
• 11:49
  I think what I've come to realize is that it's
• 11:53
  the same. The real thing that I think prayer is
• 11:57
  the catalyst for is the developing a relationship. And I
• 12:02
  think it's not just like, oh, I talked to God
• 12:04
  and like I listen, he talks to me, but it's
• 12:06
  like learning to be in relationship with him as I
• 12:10
  would personally. So as Fulton communicates in a relationship with
• 12:14
  God with his father, what does that actually look like?
• 12:18
  And so I've come to realize a lot of my prayer.
• 12:22
  Before I was starting to like understand how you have
• 12:24
  to get your heart involved and sort of open up
• 12:26
  like your personality and your person in a time of prayer.
• 12:31
  I kind of saw it as like a transactional relationship
• 12:34
  where it's like, Okay, I need to check off this box.
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: So I'll go and say the prayers, and.
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: It's like I'll tell him everything that's on my mind
• 12:39
  that I'm thinking, and I've got it all out of
• 12:41
  the plate, and I'll wait and I'll sit there and
• 12:43
  then it's like, Okay, now I'm going to go back
• 12:45
  and watch my show, or I'm going to go back
• 12:47
  and have some drinks or something like that.
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: And what I've been realizing more and more is that.
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: I felt a feeling of like anxiousness or restlessness anytime
• 12:58
  I would be in prayer or something like that. And
• 13:02
  I realized it was a lack of discipline that sort
• 13:07
  of was preventing me from actually developing a relationship because
• 13:10
  there was just time that I needed to spend, just
• 13:12
  like I have to spend time with people in real
• 13:16
  life to like develop a way of you learn how
• 13:22
  to communicate with them almost, and so it's not going
• 13:25
  to be the same communication that I would have with
• 13:27
  like a cashier or with a YouTube video or a song,
• 13:31
  which is like I go, I get a hit and
• 13:33
  it's like I really like how it sounds like it
• 13:34
  feels I picked it, But you have to almost I've learned,
• 13:39
  go be there and then learn to shed off all
• 13:42
  of those things that you sort of think he wants
• 13:44
  you to say or do, and then you're learning to
• 13:46
  pray by just sort of being in that. And so
• 13:49
  really what it looks like is just sitting still and
• 13:52
  like thinking and opening your heart and sort of just
• 13:56
  inviting him to like come to know you and to
• 13:58
  get to know him too.
• 14:00
  Speaker 4: And on that note, like that's really good, by the way,
• 14:02
  Oh that is really good. That's why I'm going on
• 14:04
  this note, like one aspect that you will gain from
• 14:08
  a good prayer life is this relationship with God. And
• 14:13
  if you look at different relationships in the world, like
• 14:16
  your relationships with your friends or your spouse or whatever,
• 14:20
  you'll notice that like the more you get to know them,
• 14:22
  the more you are in a relationship, the better you
• 14:23
  can communicate in ways that are not just words. And
• 14:27
  so like having a good prayer life with God, you
• 14:29
  will see you will learn better how He communicates with you.
• 14:34
  Beyond that, beyond just you talking with him and you know,
• 14:37
  maybe feeling something or not feeling something back, but you
• 14:40
  might see his actions in the world, in the people
• 14:42
  around you and all the gifts that you have.
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a saying. So there's one thing I wanted to.
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: Say, how to determine your priorities. There's a memory of
• 14:54
  aid called dime Does it matter eternally? And so you
• 14:58
  can kind of categorize things and asking yourself, will this
• 15:00
  matter eternally?
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: And so there is this I was listening to.
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: A book by this Catholic psychologist and this other guy,
• 15:09
  other famous guy, but.
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: He said.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: Yourself and God and yourself are the only two realities
• 15:20
  you can never escape for even a single moment in
• 15:22
  time and eternity. And so what that sort of clarified
• 15:27
  for me is that learning to be in the moment
• 15:30
  and see who I am, and then to know God
• 15:32
  and to have a relationship realizing everything I do now
• 15:36
  I will be looking back on with God right there
• 15:39
  and he'll be saying, nothing else is here except for
• 15:42
  me and you. And so it's like, how are we doing,
• 15:45
  how are we feeling? Where are we at? Who are
• 15:47
  we together? And it seems like it'd be a far
• 15:51
  off thing, like that's impossible, but you get hints of
• 15:54
  what a relationship with God looks like whenever you have
• 15:58
  something that's like super nostalgic or something that really sticks
• 16:01
  out to your personality or is super special to you
• 16:05
  because it's this way where like, let's say you've been
• 16:08
  in a bad mood and you see like a rabbit
• 16:09
  run by or something. It might seem like inconsequential, but
• 16:12
  if it hits you in a certain way, it's like
• 16:14
  you're getting a hint that there's a deeper thing going
• 16:17
  on that's trying to communicate with you. And like, well,
• 16:21
  another thing that's kind of cool that I've kind of
• 16:23
  seen with learning how to see a relationship with God
• 16:26
  is the way that He's trying to communicate is everything
• 16:29
  that you experience in a sense, so like if you
• 16:31
  want to imagine seeing the face of God, it's kind
• 16:35
  of like I think of it in the sense of
• 16:37
  it's almost like everything in one.
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: Blast.
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: So it's like if you're seeing a tree and then
• 16:46
  you're seeing like a dog, you're kind of seeing faces
• 16:49
  of God, like sides of his face in a sense,
• 16:51
  which is why we couldn't handle all of it. But
• 16:54
  everything is meant to sort of bring you into how
• 16:58
  He is. Like I forget who said it, but they
• 17:01
  said that an animal each it's almost as it it'd
• 17:04
  be cool to think of it as if each animal
• 17:07
  represented some aspect of God, So from like a beadle
• 17:10
  to a lion, and like sort of learning to see
• 17:14
  things that way, as if, as in God is underneath
• 17:18
  everything and learning to pulsate and communicate with you in
• 17:21
  all these different ways according to your personality and your
• 17:25
  interests and your passions and what spark your attention.
• 17:28
  Speaker 4: That's what I think you're really getting on something there.
• 17:30
  I don't want to go like to in depth into
• 17:32
  this because I'm sorry.
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: I'm talking to the next no basic.
• 17:42
  Speaker 4: Yeah, no, I'm bringing in a bit of philosophy, so
• 17:44
  I don't want to delve too deep into the dream,
• 17:47
  into the works. But like what you're talking about sounds
• 17:49
  to me very much like the Thomistic metaphysics on perfection,
• 17:54
  where everything, like God created this world and the things
• 17:59
  in this world can attain a certain level of perfection,
• 18:02
  and because it is a God's creation, it shares with
• 18:08
  his will in some way. And so when we see
• 18:10
  this beetle or this tree or this thing and it
• 18:13
  attain and we notice its level of perfection or its beauty,
• 18:16
  which I want to have a whole video and beauty
• 18:18
  at some point. But seventh thing that when we experience that,
• 18:23
  like we are seeing like the will of God or
• 18:26
  his face in that way. And so, like I just
• 18:29
  wanted to say that it sounded a lot like some
• 18:31
  physics metaphysics that like Saint Thomas Aquinas talks about.
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: I've never heard of that.
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: Actually, I'll wait to say anything else so you can
• 18:42
  actually get on with Yeah.
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So.
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: I hope you enjoyed that one paragraph of the Matt Walsh.
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: Right, Okay, So.
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: There would be because there would be no leaving God
• 18:58
  to get back to the TV would only be God always.
• 19:01
  It would be only the one thing we spent our
• 19:03
  whole life trying to get away from. If we find
• 19:05
  little appeal and spending even a few minutes with God, now,
• 19:08
  how can we expect to find any appeal in eternity
• 19:11
  with him?
• 19:14
  Speaker 4: That's a good place to stop right there. Yeah, okay,
• 19:21
  my mind.
• 19:22
  Speaker 5: Okay, yeah, because that's actually like that makes a lot
• 19:30
  of sense right now, because so many.
• 19:32
  Speaker 4: People are like, heaven sounds boring, you know, just like oh,
• 19:36
  do you just go up there and just like sing
• 19:39
  all the time? Like that sounds boring and annoying, And
• 19:42
  it's like what it's because of this very aspect of
• 19:45
  like we do not have time for God, or we
• 19:49
  do not have any aspect of like I don't I
• 19:52
  forgot the word he used, but just this peace with
• 19:56
  God in that way. And so if if we cannot
• 19:58
  even imagine that in the way we have it now,
• 20:00
  how could we imagine it in eternity?
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: Okay, let me let me read this next part before you,
• 20:05
  because it it okay, brings it together. So how can
• 20:09
  we expect to find any appeal in eternity with Him.
• 20:11
  This is the difficult truth that we come to. Not
• 20:14
  everyone wants to go to heaven. Not every Christian wants
• 20:18
  to go to heaven. In fact, I would wager that
• 20:21
  most in this country do not get political, and so
• 20:25
  they won't. In the words of C. S. Lewis, heaven
• 20:28
  is an acquired taste, and the goal of our life
• 20:31
  is to acquire it, to develop a profound, authentic yearning
• 20:35
  for that eternal and perfect unity with God.
• 20:40
  Speaker 3: That's really good. We don't want to go with that.
• 20:44
  There's so many ways you can go with that. I Yeah,
• 20:47
  the whole thing of not everybody wants heaven. I think
• 20:51
  that that's so so important, especially when last time I
• 20:58
  was talking about how I watch like debate videos and
• 21:00
  stuff all the time, and one thing that a lot
• 21:04
  of people bring up. Christopher Hitchins has brought it up,
• 21:06
  Sam Harris has brought it up. Whoever, And even just
• 21:08
  like people who aren't philosophers, they say, am I going
• 21:15
  to go to Hell? Is God gonna condemn me to Hell?
• 21:18
  It's God gonna send me to hell because I did
• 21:20
  this thing? And God does not send anyone to hell.
• 21:26
  He won't stop you if that's where you choose to go.
• 21:30
  I think that's kind of the way that I've come
• 21:33
  to see it, because again, if you want to go
• 21:36
  to heaven, then the doors are wide open, like there's
• 21:42
  nothing stopping you from choosing that path. But if you
• 21:46
  don't choose that path, God's not going to force you
• 21:48
  to go down that path. So that's where the whole
• 21:51
  idea of pursuing the relationship with him comes in. He's
• 21:55
  not going to go out of his way to force
• 21:58
  you to pray if that's not what you want to do.
• 22:02
  Because at the end of the day, he gave us
• 22:04
  all free will to do what we want to do
• 22:07
  with our time, and if we would rather, you know,
• 22:12
  like we said, watching YouTube is a bad thing, But
• 22:14
  if we spend twenty four hours a day watching YouTube
• 22:18
  instead of spending fifteen minutes praying or in silence or anything,
• 22:25
  He's not going to stop you from doing that if
• 22:27
  that's what you want to do. So he's not going
• 22:31
  to force you to spend that time. So that's where
• 22:35
  the element of choice comes in. Because I think the
• 22:37
  other thing that I said in the first couple of
• 22:42
  lines had to do with.
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: What was it so much not so much somewhere in there,
• 22:52
  he still pursues us.
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: We Yeah, so he does pursue you, but he's not
• 22:58
  going to force you to accept him. Because if you're
• 23:04
  in a relationship, like think about it, if you're in
• 23:06
  a relationship with somebody, you should be pursuing them, and
• 23:09
  not just in a romantic sense, like if you're in
• 23:11
  any relationship, you should be doing everything you can to
• 23:16
  help that person. But that doesn't mean that they're going
• 23:22
  to love you back. You can love somebody and they
• 23:24
  don't have to love you back, And that's I think
• 23:26
  what this comes down to is like making the decision
• 23:30
  to love God, and loving God is going to look
• 23:31
  a little bit different than loving your friends or something. Yeah.
• 23:38
  Speaker 4: I really like the way you said like with pursue
• 23:42
  and like God pursues you, but he doesn't force you.
• 23:47
  And the image that like instantly came into my mind was,
• 23:52
  you know, we were running off wherever we are going,
• 23:55
  and God is there behind us pursuing us, but he
• 23:59
  never takes us by the arm and just rips us
• 24:01
  around and just casts us to the ground. But he's
• 24:04
  always right behind you, so that at any point when
• 24:07
  you're just running willy Nilly, you could stop and just
• 24:10
  turn around and see him right there waiting for you.
• 24:15
  No matter how far you go down this rabbit hole
• 24:18
  or away from God. In this way, God is right
• 24:20
  there behind you with his arm extended, and he's just
• 24:25
  ready to just take you back. No matter how far
• 24:28
  down you go, no matter how sinful you are, God
• 24:31
  is always there waiting for you. And that's just the
• 24:34
  image that came to my mind when you were talking.
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think that. I think the key to that.
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: Is, so when you are running down the path in
• 24:46
  the wrong direction and you hear someone say God has
• 24:49
  his hands out for you and he's right.
• 24:50
  Speaker 3: Behind you, what it gets a little bitness hello.
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: And so he's and he's got his hand right behind
• 24:58
  your back and he's waiting for you to turn around.
• 25:00
  So I always heard that, right, But then it's like
• 25:02
  when you actually go down that path and you're like,
• 25:04
  I don't want any of this, so I'm going to
• 25:06
  turn back to God, You're like, wait, what does that
• 25:08
  even look like? And I think the biggest thing that
• 25:11
  stood out to me was that heaven is an acquired taste.
• 25:14
  So I think you can compare it to sugar. If
• 25:18
  you grow up on a diet where you have sugar
• 25:21
  all of the time. Right, you got constant sugar. Compare
• 25:25
  that to constant entertainment, comfortability, your way, spoiledness, selfishness, sin, concupiscence,
• 25:33
  all that stuff. You've got a sugar diet. So you
• 25:36
  freaking love sugar. If you get off of it, everything
• 25:40
  else tastes way disgusting. You can't eat something or drink
• 25:43
  something that's not got sugar because it doesn't have It's
• 25:46
  like trying to drink red wine or dry wine. It's
• 25:50
  like you can't just taste gross compared to let's say,
• 25:53
  a sugar or drink. So if you're used to that
• 25:55
  all the time, then these foods that are more real
• 25:58
  and have more sustenance, they're not gonna hit the same.
• 26:01
  And so to you it's painful because you don't like
• 26:05
  it and it doesn't taste good, and so then it's confusing,
• 26:08
  and it's.
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: Like why would I leave this?
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: Not only that, but you've got an addiction to it,
• 26:12
  so now you crave it all of the time.
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: So then there's both the war.
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: Of I don't even like the flavor of the good food,
• 26:17
  and I'm addicted to the bad food. The fast food
• 26:21
  and so, but if you actually stop eating sugar all
• 26:25
  the time and then you start eating healthy, if you
• 26:29
  go back and eat something super sugary, it's actually like
• 26:32
  really too sweet. It's like it's too good to be
• 26:35
  true in a sense, like it's too sweet, it's too sugary,
• 26:38
  And so what I think, and he kind of continues
• 26:41
  to go on with this point, But the acquired taste
• 26:45
  means you have to learn to enjoy the sweetness of
• 26:49
  something that's truly sweet but not massively sugary. So it's
• 26:55
  the conception of what's good to us and what feels
• 26:58
  good and what's safe and what's love has been hijacked
• 27:03
  to just massively oversaturate our brains and our.
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: Minds and our hearts.
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: And so the acquiring of the taste means you have
• 27:09
  to learn to detox off of all the things that
• 27:13
  stand in the way of actually getting into that relationship.
• 27:16
  Just like if you go through life and you're having
• 27:19
  one night stands all the time and then someone comes
• 27:22
  to you and says, hi, a true relationship will require monogamy,
• 27:27
  but you will find love and you will have a
• 27:29
  family from that, you'd say, no, that sounds like I'd
• 27:33
  be imprisoned and trapped and all of that. But if
• 27:36
  you ask someone who's in that position, they'd say, the
• 27:39
  person who's got having the one night stance is lost
• 27:42
  and miserable. They but the person in the one I
• 27:45
  stands group is too caught up in what they want
• 27:48
  and what they're attached to. They've never developed the discipline
• 27:51
  and growth of character to see that there's a true
• 27:54
  joy in the suite and the sorrowfulness of a committed
• 27:58
  relationship and a family and self sacrifice. And so it's
• 28:01
  kind of that same thing where you have to first
• 28:04
  stop going on the one night stands to then recuperate
• 28:07
  yourself and then begin the journey into.
• 28:11
  Speaker 3: A place of true love.
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: And I think that it's that's just a really important point.
• 28:16
  At least it was it should. I wish I would
• 28:18
  have had that point made, because I like went on this,
• 28:23
  I kind of went off the rail sort of in
• 28:25
  high school. But then trying to come back to it
• 28:28
  was so stressful because I felt like I couldn't pray enough,
• 28:31
  or I wasn't saying the right prayers, or I needed
• 28:32
  to just say the right prayers, and I just hated it,
• 28:35
  and I was like this is just miserable.
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: I guess it's just a grind.
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: It's like everything else in life, just miserable at the
• 28:40
  end of it. But really it is an acquired taste.
• 28:42
  And I'm not saying I've got it like the perfect palette,
• 28:45
  but I'm at least on the way to where I
• 28:47
  feel like I'm starting to see what people mean when
• 28:50
  they say love God of where you actually are. Like
• 28:53
  you start to realize that the sugar of the world
• 28:57
  is too sweet. It's like it's too much. It doesn't
• 29:01
  it doesn't have like a real meaningful body to it.
• 29:06
  It's sort of artificial.
• 29:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's all right, I yeah, that's really good. And
• 29:19
  I think that if you are able to get past,
• 29:23
  because I think that doing things that you don't enjoy
• 29:28
  is kind of inherently a good thing. So like, it's
• 29:32
  not that you're going to start praying and then as
• 29:36
  soon as you start praying you make a habit, you're
• 29:38
  always gonna love it. It might be really hard every
• 29:43
  day for the rest of your life, but that doesn't
• 29:45
  mean you shouldn't do it, because there will come a
• 29:50
  time where you do so it won't be for the
• 29:53
  rest of your life. I guess it's kind of the point.
• 29:55
  I'm trying to get that because there will come a
• 29:57
  point where you realize how artificial a lot of things
• 30:00
  that you're offered in this life are. Like I just
• 30:05
  said it again, I've been that was an appropriate use
• 30:08
  of the word like so.
• 30:13
  Speaker 6: When you that was an appropriate use of I dub
• 30:17
  the I'll always look to you for like you I'm
• 30:23
  it's like too good. But so it's the difference.
• 30:30
  Speaker 3: Between in my mind not You'll reach a point where
• 30:35
  you realize the difference between not sinning because you don't
• 30:38
  want to break through rules and not sinning because you
• 30:40
  love God. And I think that you see that and
• 30:45
  I've seen that in my life where you know, in
• 30:48
  the past, in high school and whatever. I never really
• 30:51
  kind of like went crazy in high school. I was
• 30:53
  very low key the whole time, but I did kind
• 30:57
  of live my life in a way where I was like, Okay,
• 31:01
  you're not supposed to do these things because you're not
• 31:03
  supposed to do these things, and it's just like it's
• 31:06
  just the rules and that's just the way it is,
• 31:08
  and they're there to make you miserable. And you know,
• 31:11
  if you could break the rules, you could go off
• 31:13
  and be happy and do whatever. But like you said,
• 31:16
  once you really detach yourself from that, or you start
• 31:20
  to you start to see that it's not as good
• 31:23
  as it's all cracked up to be. And again, like
• 31:27
  you said, I don't have the perfect palate, but I
• 31:31
  more so now than I have been in the past.
• 31:33
  I'm at the point where if I am tempted or
• 31:37
  I you know, do something wrong, I'm not. I don't
• 31:44
  regret it because I'm like, oh, I broke the rules.
• 31:47
  In my mind, it goes more so to I messed
• 31:53
  up an aspect of my relationship. Like it's because if
• 31:58
  you really, I think it so important to think about
• 32:01
  as a relationship. And most people, I know, we all
• 32:03
  everybody says that, right, that's the most common thing here.
• 32:07
  It's in every homily, it's in every youth talk, whatever,
• 32:12
  every conference, and people are just like, have a relationship
• 32:15
  with Jesus. It has to be personal. He's your personal
• 32:18
  I know, I know.
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: It doesn't make sense. That's like it though, it doesn't.
• 32:22
  Speaker 3: Make sense unless you really start to live it out.
• 32:25
  Because if you're in a relationship like I'm not dating,
• 32:30
  but like if I was, if you're in that relationship,
• 32:33
  then you you have to be putting in the effort,
• 32:37
  and if you're not putting in the effort, you're obviously
• 32:40
  you're going to be like, oh this sucks.
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: No.
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: So that's actually something that's been huge in the last year.
• 32:46
  So because I've been dating.
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: This girl who I've kind of grown up with, you
• 32:53
  guys know, but anyway, for everybody else, I grew up
• 32:56
  with there and so but I so I go into
• 32:59
  this relationship and this is at a time in my
• 33:00
  life where I'm like, Okay, I'm turning my life around
• 33:02
  and I'm going.
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: To like do all the things right.
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: I've got all the rules, I know all this, I
• 33:07
  know all the arguments for this and that and that
• 33:08
  I'm going like on a.
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: Huge kick or whatever.
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: But then as I was in this relationship, it turns
• 33:14
  out that I was like, actually not very like tender
• 33:17
  in the way I communicated. I wasn't very considerate, I
• 33:20
  wasn't very sensitive. I didn't know how to be empathetic
• 33:22
  and so, and I didn't know how to be patient.
• 33:24
  It was more of like this is logical, just fix it,
• 33:26
  just do it like you better do it.
• 33:29
  Speaker 4: Logic.
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: But it turned out I put all of this pressure
• 33:31
  on myself all of the time, so I felt no
• 33:34
  love in my heart, no love for God or whatever.
• 33:36
  It was just all like transactional of like yeah, yeah,
• 33:38
  I get it, I love you, but it's like at
• 33:40
  the end of the day, it's because I'm doing something.
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: If I did nothing, yeah, yeah, I love you as
• 33:46
  a friend, yeah and so.
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: But what I came to learn through my relationship with
• 33:52
  a human person was like the practical application of what
• 33:58
  it is to be patient when I I'm aggravated or
• 34:01
  when I'm anxious. But I was like I didn't in
• 34:04
  the past. It was more like I just get like
• 34:06
  pissed at the person. I'd be like, all right, whatever,
• 34:08
  and I'd like get angry and I'd be angry and
• 34:10
  I would just ignore them.
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: I get out of the situation. I wouldn't be around it.
• 34:13
  But then when you're like with someone that you know,
• 34:15
  you really like.
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: And you're like, okay, why upset right now, then you
• 34:20
  kind of learn what it looks like to have to
• 34:22
  sit and put in the effort to hear somebody out
• 34:26
  and to learn to listen to them because they're not
• 34:29
  adapting to what I expect to have communicated to me.
• 34:33
  And so it's learning to let go of how I
• 34:37
  think things should be and to just absorb the way
• 34:42
  that things are. And so I learned more of how
• 34:46
  to be like, Okay, how do I open my heart
• 34:49
  to someone without it just being a logical battle, which
• 34:51
  is like how.
• 34:52
  Speaker 3: I thought prayer was for so long.
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: And then it's it was like a huge thing to
• 34:56
  kind of see the way you actually would build a
• 34:58
  relationship with a person, and you have got to do
• 35:01
  the same thing with Jesus, but it's just a little
• 35:05
  different because they're not going to have the same human
• 35:10
  responses that you're like receiving right away. It's like a
• 35:14
  deeper sense that you have to develop, like something you
• 35:16
  have to sort of It's like learning a new language
• 35:19
  is how you communicate, but it's learning the language that
• 35:21
  you that is the deepest to you. So you're learning
• 35:25
  all about your deepest self as you're learning the language
• 35:29
  that God uses to speak with you.
• 35:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And I mean with that, I think an important
• 35:33
  thing to remember is you know and Jena says, it
• 35:38
  says the man and woman are made in the image
• 35:40
  and likeness of God. That doesn't mean that we're God,
• 35:44
  but that means that the way that we interact with
• 35:46
  each other to an extent, is an extension of how
• 35:50
  God wants us to interact with him. Yeah, so, oh
• 35:54
  my gosh, Yeah, I that just hit me right now,
• 35:58
  And I was like that really because I was looking
• 36:00
  to Jordan Peterson talk about being made in the image
• 36:03
  linkns of God, so that was on my mind. But
• 36:06
  I would say that just to bring it all back
• 36:10
  to prayer specifically, I would say that for anybody who's
• 36:15
  like looking for practical advice, because maybe you're praying, if
• 36:19
  you're saying the prayers and you're just you're just saying it.
• 36:23
  If you're looking for practical advice to try to grow
• 36:27
  and deepen your relationship with Christ, I would say, look
• 36:32
  at your best human relationship and look at why that
• 36:36
  relationship is so successful. It could be your mom, it
• 36:38
  could be your dad, could be a boyfriend, girlfriend, brother, sister,
• 36:41
  a friend, whatever, it could be anybody. Look at your
• 36:46
  best human relationship and ask yourself, why is this relationship good?
• 36:49
  Why is this relationship working. Probably there's going to be
• 36:52
  a level of communication there that's hopefully going to go
• 36:54
  both ways, because that's what it takes to make relationship work.
• 36:57
  So if you want to get better at prayer, and
• 37:00
  you want to deepen your relationship with God. Look at
• 37:03
  your best human relationship and try and apply the good
• 37:06
  things from that relationship to God. And it's not gonna
• 37:10
  be an exact you know transfer, it's not gonna be
• 37:14
  an exact copy. But again, we're made in the image
• 37:17
  and likeness of God for a reason. He wants us
• 37:20
  to communicate with him in a certain way, and I
• 37:22
  think we just like so often kind of forget that
• 37:27
  and we're just it's all transactional, Like you keep on saying.
• 37:30
  It's like I'm gonna say, how marriage whole grade? It's like, Okay,
• 37:33
  I've got nyemore, and then I have to do for
• 37:34
  more decades after that and I'm done. And it's like,
• 37:37
  do you think we've been going for so long and
• 37:42
  just on this part? But uh, do you think that
• 37:48
  if your friend came up to you and they were like, hey, man,
• 37:53
  really like you dap you up and just walked away
• 37:55
  and just like You're like, I don't really feel like
• 37:57
  you actually like like like that's all it is. You
• 38:02
  might have shown a little bit of enthusiasm, you might
• 38:04
  I would have felt kind of love coming from you,
• 38:07
  and I think so often we kind of forget to
• 38:12
  do that with God in a way, then you should
• 38:14
  go dap up Jesus.
• 38:15
  Speaker 4: But I mean, if you can dap up Jesus, I
• 38:20
  mean that'd be awesome. Yeah, don't don't like go up
• 38:23
  to the U Christ and just that that's not that's
• 38:25
  not that's not the same though.
• 38:27
  Speaker 3: But yeah, just practical advice for deepening your prayer life.
• 38:31
  Just approach it like a relationship. Don't just say Jesus
• 38:37
  Christ and my personal Lord and say if you're like,
• 38:38
  make it true, because if you don't, if you don't
• 38:41
  actually put in the effort, then it's not going to
• 38:44
  be a real relationship and you can't expect it to
• 38:46
  go both ways if you're not putting in the effort.
• 38:49
  Speaker 4: I really like this, this practical like suggestion that there's
• 38:53
  so many people who say, oh, you should do this,
• 38:55
  or you should do that, or you should do this
• 38:56
  in pray and this is how you should pray, and
• 38:58
  and everyone's different and everyone can pray differently and they
• 39:01
  can gainto different things to that. But this practical side
• 39:03
  of things, where is look at your best human relationship
• 39:09
  and apply what you learn from that to your relationship
• 39:12
  as God is a way that attracts each of us
• 39:16
  personally to find out because our best human relation will
• 39:21
  show the best parts of how we can communicate, and
• 39:25
  if we can apply that to God, that's a great
• 39:28
  place to start.
• 39:29
  Speaker 3: I've never thought about that before my entire life.
• 39:31
  Speaker 4: Yeah, so good.
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a Christopher West was talking about this because
• 39:37
  he was someone that I learned a lot of what
• 39:39
  prayer is, which is how you open your heart. And
• 39:42
  he said that he was talking to a spiritual director
• 39:44
  one time and he was like, I try to pray,
• 39:49
  and I try to say my prayers, but I constantly
• 39:51
  have movie scenes popping in my head and song lyrics
• 39:53
  and all the time, and it's just a huge distraction.
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: I'm like, Ah, get out of my head.
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: The guy goes, how do you know that that's not
• 39:59
  God communicating with you? Or that that's the way that
• 40:02
  God is talking to you. So He's trying to speak
• 40:04
  to you. So what the point was is that the
• 40:07
  songs and the movie scenes and the different things that
• 40:09
  stick out to you and hit your heart in a
• 40:11
  certain way is a way that God communicates with you.
• 40:15
  So if you think of one of the tasks that
• 40:17
  he gave us at this retreat. Thing was he said,
• 40:20
  go to the song that you were when you were
• 40:23
  a little kid, hit you in such a strange way,
• 40:26
  and listen to what God was trying to tell you
• 40:28
  about who you are. Like, no matter what the song is,
• 40:31
  even if it's a song that's not really a good song,
• 40:34
  you gotta be careful with that. But to a certain extent,
• 40:37
  if you didn't know any better, or before you knew better,
• 40:39
  there's still things in everything that sticks out and is
• 40:43
  telling you something about who you are. And so that's
• 40:46
  been huge for me too, because if you go to
• 40:48
  prayer and you're like distracted by something, or if you
• 40:51
  hear a song lyric or whatever, you can really say, Okay,
• 40:55
  why if I really like this right now? What in
• 40:58
  it is God trying to like speak to my heart
• 41:01
  because it is communicating with my heart and he's and
• 41:04
  he says that art is the language of heart. So
• 41:08
  if you are hearts in that way, then you get it.
• 41:12
  You get a peak. I feel like that played into
• 41:14
  like the best human aspects of the best human relationship
• 41:19
  you have will tell you of the sort of relationship
• 41:22
  and ways that you best communicate with God.
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: So like your best friend.
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: Is you to share communication or a common interest, or
• 41:31
  you both have just had certain memories together. It's like
• 41:35
  you can learn then the way that God might communicate
• 41:38
  with you is through old memories that you have or
• 41:41
  a common interest of.
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: Whatever it is.
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: And it's sort of bringing him into that and bringing
• 41:46
  those with bringing those into him into him, and then
• 41:51
  sort of growing that out.
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: I think that's like so cool.
• 41:54
  Speaker 3: That was really solid.
• 41:57
  Speaker 4: This has been a great detour from the way we were.
• 42:00
  It's been like but it's the whole point almost now
• 42:04
  we got time.
• 42:05
  Speaker 3: We do have time, but we just need to be mindful.
• 42:09
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that.
• 42:13
  Speaker 3: Was really really good. That there's a lot in there.
• 42:16
  Speaker 4: We watched that. I'll listen to it again later.
• 42:18
  Speaker 3: I'm gonna clip that. There's like multiple things in there
• 42:20
  where I'm gonna take that clip and I'm gonna put
• 42:22
  it as a YouTube video and like shorts.
• 42:24
  Speaker 4: And reels and stuff. I'm excited.
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: In there, all right.
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: So, so the goal of our life is to acquire
• 42:37
  this taste for heaven, to develop a profound, authentic yearning
• 42:40
  for that eternal and perfect unity with God. To get
• 42:43
  to the point where we are, like I mean, think
• 42:45
  about the people in scripture, the sick and the poor,
• 42:47
  when they encounter Jesus. The woman who crawls to Jesus
• 42:50
  in the crowd, who just wants to touch his robe,
• 42:52
  or the woman who weeps before and bathes his feet
• 42:54
  with her tears, or the paralytic who was lowered in
• 42:56
  through the roof and Jesus was Remember, he was in
• 42:59
  a crowded house and all these people were coming to him.
• 43:02
  He must have known that that guy was out there paralyzed.
• 43:04
  He could have said, hey, guys, make room, but he
• 43:06
  needed to see the desperate, urgent desire. He needed them
• 43:09
  to tear a hole in the roof to get to him.
• 43:10
  And this is the desire we have to foster within
• 43:13
  ourselves in a country that in a world that tries
• 43:17
  to instill so many other competing desires. I can't say
• 43:20
  exactly every step we should take to develop this desire,
• 43:23
  like you were saying, everyone's journey is different everyone's experience.
• 43:28
  But it's not about the steps that we take, or
• 43:30
  our plans or our designs. It's simply about opening ourselves
• 43:34
  to the grace of God. I do know that it
• 43:36
  begins very simply with something so simple that I think
• 43:39
  as Christians, we think we don't even need to talk
• 43:41
  about because we all know, yet many of us don't
• 43:44
  do it. It begins very simply on our knees praying.
• 43:47
  Christians today are very cynical about prayer. They say, well,
• 43:50
  it doesn't get results. It's not just atheists who say
• 43:54
  all thoughts and prayers don't do anything, there's no results.
• 43:57
  Christians say the same thing, and that's only because we're
• 44:00
  looking for results in the wrong places. Prayer does make
• 44:03
  a difference, and here's where we see a difference first
• 44:06
  and quickly, when we really start praying frequently, unceasingly, we
• 44:10
  see a different difference. First in our appetites, not our
• 44:15
  physical appetites. But when we really start praying, we begin
• 44:18
  to feel a deep desire for holy things and less
• 44:21
  desire for hollow things. It's very evident to me that
• 44:24
  we live in a country or world where most of
• 44:26
  the Christians here almost never pray, because if they did,
• 44:30
  they could not carry on this way. And you really
• 44:33
  start praying. When we really start praying, our spiritual intellectual
• 44:37
  appetites grow deeper and more mature. You start to find
• 44:41
  a lot of the music you listen to a lot
• 44:43
  of the shows you watch whatever else that they no
• 44:45
  longer appeal to you. You find that certain sims and
• 44:48
  temptations have less of a.
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: Hold on you.
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: You want to read the Bible more. You want to
• 44:53
  more of the sacred, more of the reverence in your life.
• 44:56
  You find certain things appealing that you never found appealing before.
• 45:00
  You find flaws and other things where you never saw
• 45:02
  them before. This is it's got a little bit longer.
• 45:07
  You find flaws and other things where you never saw
• 45:09
  them before. You find meaning where you found meaninglessness, and meaninglessness.
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: Where you found meaning.
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: You love people more, you hate sin more. You want
• 45:18
  to talk to God more, and you want to think
• 45:20
  about him, and you want to tell people about him.
• 45:23
  You want to help people. You change. Everything else in
• 45:26
  your life may stay the same. It may even get worse,
• 45:28
  who knows, especially when the devil starts to realize that
• 45:31
  you're getting all Christian on him. But you will change, guaranteed.
• 45:35
  And then the more we change, the less. We look
• 45:37
  at prayer as a thing that brings results. But we
• 45:40
  see prayer as an opportunity to spend time with God
• 45:43
  and think about him and worship him, and not to
• 45:47
  always be asking for things, but just be there in
• 45:49
  his presence, listening that desire. That fire is kindled and
• 45:56
  we know it when we start to feel it, and
• 45:57
  that's the crucial thing for us to want the right things.
• 46:03
  Speaker 4: Wow. So one thing that that stuck out to me
• 46:06
  there that made me think about my own life was
• 46:10
  you know, it was oh shit, I can't remember exactly
• 46:12
  the words, but.
• 46:14
  Speaker 5: It was.
• 46:16
  Speaker 4: Things change meaning when when you change so dramatically. And
• 46:20
  this made me think of.
• 46:21
  Speaker 3: Like, you find meaning in something you found meaningless, and
• 46:25
  you find meaninglessness.
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: Yes, do you have me to read it again? Sure,
• 46:30
  you want more of the sacred, more of the Reverend.
• 46:32
  You find certain things appealing that you never found appealing before.
• 46:34
  You find flaws and other things where you never saw
• 46:36
  them before. You find meaning where you found meaninglessness, and
• 46:39
  meaninglessness where you found meaning.
• 46:41
  Speaker 4: Yeah, And so that just made me think of my
• 46:44
  own life in high school. You know, I have had
• 46:47
  great friends and still do. They're awesome. Some of them
• 46:51
  are here with me. But like the type of hanging
• 46:59
  out I was doing was a couple of times a week.
• 47:01
  It wasn't a constant thing, And so I had a
• 47:03
  ton of free time when I was just on my
• 47:06
  own at home, and so I did a lot of stuff.
• 47:09
  I had a lot of good times playing video games
• 47:11
  and this and that. And then I went talk to
• 47:13
  college and I met my college friends, and because of
• 47:17
  how college works out where we all lived right by
• 47:19
  each other and not a ten to fifteen minute drive,
• 47:23
  there was a lot more of a daily hangout, of
• 47:25
  daily seeing people and feeling the joy that comes with
• 47:29
  the communion of being with people more consistently. You know,
• 47:34
  there's times I'm like, oh, I haven't played this game
• 47:36
  in a while, let's play it. Boot it up. And
• 47:38
  it's like, it doesn't feel good anymore. It doesn't hit
• 47:42
  me in the same way because I felt something that
• 47:45
  was so much more impactful, so much more powerful than that,
• 47:47
  was a friendship. Yeah, and a daily friendship.
• 47:51
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 47:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's super interesting. I like that a lot.
• 47:56
  Speaker 4: I think about that a lot.
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: I think that stands That stands out because I feel
• 48:03
  like that is really if you're trying to deepen your
• 48:06
  faith in the sense of you're trying to spend time
• 48:09
  praying and learning what prayer is for you and to
• 48:12
  you and how to pray, you do realize and it's
• 48:16
  a hard it's almost a hard journey because it takes time,
• 48:20
  really and it's never an immediate switch. It's literally learning
• 48:24
  to reconstruct how you view and appreciate things, and it's
• 48:28
  learning to grow a desire. It's like if you try
• 48:30
  to go to the gym the first time, it's like
• 48:32
  gonna suck. But if you can just start with some pushups,
• 48:34
  it's great. But then once you've been going, then you
• 48:37
  see the health, and then you see the discipline. Then
• 48:40
  you see that those things that you've turned to to
• 48:43
  make yourself feel better and to help yourself feel better
• 48:46
  don't hold up against the way that these things that
• 48:49
  bring you true joy and true meaning actually do. But
• 48:54
  to get out of those old things, it's you just
• 48:59
  have to break through the barriers that are keeping you
• 49:03
  away from experiencing that depth. But to get to the depth,
• 49:06
  you still have to swim down. So you still feel pressured,
• 49:10
  like a pressure in your ears, and you still have
• 49:12
  to hold your breath, and you still got to learn
• 49:14
  to swim. But it's like the payoff is gan, it
• 49:18
  is guaranteed, And I think that's what I never really got,
• 49:21
  is like, no, I guarantee you if you learn to
• 49:25
  love something else more than these things. You will love
• 49:29
  this more than you could have ever loved these things.
• 49:33
  But you have got to learn to let go of
• 49:36
  those first loves to ever experience this, And so it
• 49:39
  is going to be painful, but it's a pain that's
• 49:42
  like it's a pain of love in a sense.
• 49:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And that gets into kind of the thing that
• 49:47
  suck stuck out to me was when he said that
• 49:53
  your life might get worse, Like I know that's like
• 49:57
  it doesn't sound good on the surface, but but I
• 50:01
  mean when you think about it, we live in a
• 50:03
  society where anything that causes us discomfort or pain or
• 50:07
  any kind of suffering or any kind of negative emotions,
• 50:09
  we're just like done, I'm out. We don't want that.
• 50:13
  But I think that there's merit to and like some
• 50:18
  kind of discomfort. Like we shouldn't just I think I
• 50:24
  said something like this earlier, But we shouldn't just not
• 50:26
  do things because they make us uncomfortable or because they
• 50:30
  even make our life physically worse in a sense. So
• 50:35
  like if you're I don't know, maybe you're addicted to
• 50:39
  a video game or something that you play with your friends.
• 50:41
  And I am not talking from experience because I don't
• 50:44
  like to play videos. This is just an example. So like,
• 50:46
  if you're addicted to a video game that you play
• 50:49
  with your friends and you're like, this is taking up
• 50:52
  way too much of my time and I need to stop.
• 50:56
  I need to spend time doing something else because this
• 50:59
  is consuming my entire life is playing this game. And
• 51:02
  you cut that out and maybe you start praying more,
• 51:06
  or you go you're like, okay, I'm gonna do a
• 51:09
  holy hour every week or fifteen minutes every day, I'm
• 51:13
  gonna pray it. And that's time that you can't spend
• 51:15
  doing other things. So there's like an opportunity cost. All
• 51:19
  my business people out there ever really always makes all
• 51:22
  the way for the business stuff, but hey, it works out.
• 51:26
  So there's an opportunity costs. So if you pray, you
• 51:29
  can't do something else with that time, and that might
• 51:32
  suck sometimes, but that shouldn't stop you because maybe you
• 51:36
  stop playing that game as much and you pray, and
• 51:39
  your friends get upset. You're what the heck man, Like,
• 51:41
  I thought we were friends while you're not playing this game,
• 51:44
  and you might be tempted to like, Okay, well I'm
• 51:46
  not gonna pray anymore because I'm not seeing the immediate
• 51:48
  effects of that right now. But if I play this game,
• 51:51
  it's like I see the immediate effects of like we
• 51:53
  win a game, and it's like hell yeah, it's like
• 51:56
  all pumped up, and it's so so so easy get
• 52:00
  caught up in that instant like adrenaline rush, just like
• 52:04
  the moment. But I think that we really need to
• 52:09
  focus on the bigger picture, because like you said, there
• 52:13
  is a guaranteed payoff. It's not like if you do this,
• 52:17
  like I don't know, maybe we'll see.
• 52:21
  Speaker 6: If you won the spiritual lottery, maybe you get to
• 52:25
  feel better the longer about your life, but I mean
• 52:28
  you probably do.
• 52:29
  Speaker 3: It's pretty much guaranteed, so like you might not see
• 52:32
  that instantly, but then it's the exact opposite. If you're,
• 52:35
  like you have an addiction or something, you're trying to
• 52:37
  break that addiction. If you don't, that's gonna have a
• 52:40
  seriously negative effect in the long run, even though it
• 52:43
  feels good now, Whereas with prayer, it's like it doesn't
• 52:46
  necessarily feel good now, but it'll feel good in the
• 52:49
  long run, which is a wisdom. My dad always says,
• 52:54
  don't sacrifice the permanent at the altar of the immediate.
• 52:57
  So don't give up. I love my dad, hopefully he listens,
• 53:03
  listens to this, and here's quotes. But don't sacrifice your
• 53:10
  eternal future just for like some dope man right now.
• 53:17
  And it's gonna suck in the moment, it might suck
• 53:20
  for a long time, but there is a guaranteed payoff.
• 53:22
  So don't not do it just because you're like, oh
• 53:25
  my gosh, I forgot that I have a time or
• 53:28
  set to go for fifteen minutes. I don't really want
• 53:30
  to do it, but do it. Go do it right now.
• 53:34
  Speaker 4: That's right now, go do it.
• 53:37
  Speaker 3: Don't pause it. Finish this first and then.
• 53:41
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, But that that makes me think, because you know,
• 53:46
  it's very easy to be like all that. I love
• 53:48
  this thing and I love doing it and it brings
• 53:50
  me a lot of joy. So I don't want to
• 53:51
  give this up. But you know what, it would bring
• 53:54
  you much more joy finding out what this truly means
• 53:57
  to you. And I think that by doing it, saying
• 54:00
  of letting it go, spending more time in prayer, and
• 54:03
  you can come back to that game and you might
• 54:05
  find yourself enjoying it more than you were before. This
• 54:08
  makes me. Think of a specific Bible passage where Jesus says,
• 54:12
  if anyone loves father or mother more than me, he
• 54:15
  is not worthy. And it's like, excuse me, I thought
• 54:18
  we were supposed to love our father and mother. It's
• 54:22
  literally one of the commandments. But what God is saying
• 54:26
  in this is not that you shouldn't love your father
• 54:29
  and mother, but that if you love Christ more than
• 54:32
  your father and mother, you will notice that you will
• 54:34
  love your father and mother far more than you would
• 54:36
  have otherwise. If you put Christ, I don't only have
• 54:40
  two hands. But if you put Christ here and your
• 54:43
  parents here, then this is as much as you can
• 54:46
  love your parents. But if you put Christ here and
• 54:49
  your parents right underneath it, and then you love Christ
• 54:53
  more and more, it will pull up your love for
• 54:55
  your parents, and there is no upper bound on that love.
• 54:58
  But if Christ is below them, there is an upper bank.
• 55:01
  Speaker 3: When you say love Christ, what do you mean?
• 55:05
  Speaker 4: I have no idea.
• 55:07
  Speaker 3: Read through the whole thing.
• 55:09
  Speaker 2: No, it has a massive punch ending.
• 55:12
  Speaker 4: Okay, okay, I thought that was the end.
• 55:13
  Speaker 3: If you're going to say something, you can say okay.
• 55:16
  Speaker 2: I was. All I was going to say was wait, no,
• 55:19
  you you asked.
• 55:21
  Speaker 4: Oh, you asked a question. Your question, and then love
• 55:23
  is one of those really difficult things. When I say
• 55:26
  love Christ.
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: Let me know if you are satisfied with this answer. Okay,
• 55:30
  to love someone is to say you are worth the trouble.
• 55:33
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I am satisfied with that.
• 55:34
  Speaker 2: Okay, then we'll move on.
• 55:36
  Speaker 4: We'll keep that's good.
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: Wow, that's from a podcast, really good podcast. Okay, Restore
• 55:43
  the Glory Bob Shoots and Jake Kim. So the one
• 55:49
  small thing I was going to say about the just
• 55:51
  do it. It's it's uncomfortable, but just do it anyway
• 55:54
  and it'll get better. So I thought I had to
• 55:57
  force myself to go be uncomfortable all the time and
• 56:01
  that was just it and I just had to muscle
• 56:02
  through it. But actually what I learned was that if
• 56:04
  I am willing to be uncomfortable, it's because I'm letting
• 56:07
  go of something that was keeping me comfortable. And I
• 56:10
  have to learn to turn to Jesus to have a
• 56:13
  relationship with him instead of keeping those things to make
• 56:16
  me feel good. So, like I would like, I'll use
• 56:18
  this real world example. Okay, So I there are these
• 56:22
  sin pouches that are like nicotine pouches or whatever.
• 56:26
  Speaker 2: It's like, okay, smokeless tobacco.
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And so I would use those because it was like,
• 56:32
  my job is a little bit boring, so it was
• 56:34
  kind of like it was a fun hit all the time.
• 56:37
  And so but what I was realizing is that I
• 56:39
  kind of had these up and down mouds way more.
• 56:42
  And so when I heard on this the same podcast,
• 56:46
  this guy said all of my idols, the things I
• 56:48
  would turn to, whether it was sex or alcohol, I
• 56:52
  would turn to those to make me feel better instead
• 56:55
  of bringing those that feeling to Christ.
• 56:58
  Speaker 3: And so what I.
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: Started realizing or instead of bringing those things to Christ
• 57:03
  and trusting him to satisfy my heart. So what I
• 57:07
  realized is I was just sort of stressed out with
• 57:10
  work I was doing with my own life that it's
• 57:11
  like I just wanted something to happen, to go on
• 57:15
  some rush, something, just to feel as though there's something
• 57:19
  going on. And so I felt like I was always
• 57:22
  had to do it or had to do something, and
• 57:23
  it was just like entertaining. But then what I would
• 57:26
  do is I stopped and I would say, Jesus, I
• 57:30
  trust you to satisfy my heart. And I realized that
• 57:33
  my whole life. All of these different chases I had
• 57:35
  gone on were because I didn't trust that Jesus could
• 57:40
  or would satisfy my heart. But through developing a relationship
• 57:43
  with prayer, I began to see how he will do
• 57:46
  that and how it's a real feeling you experienced. So's
• 57:49
  there's a discomfort though, because you're kind of getting rid
• 57:52
  of and you can't turn to something to make you
• 57:53
  feel good right away, to make you feel better, but
• 57:57
  you learn to bring it to Jesus in a way
• 58:00
  that you would bring it to your wife or to
• 58:02
  like a good friend, where you're like, I trust that
• 58:04
  you will satisfy my heart, that there's a deeper ache
• 58:07
  that I want to fill, and that you will take
• 58:09
  care of me. And then I actually I'm way more
• 58:14
  able to let go of stuff that I used to
• 58:16
  turn to because I realize now it's about even though
• 58:20
  I have to be uncomfortable, I can go somewhere with
• 58:23
  that discomfort. I don't just have to basically suck it
• 58:25
  up and bear it. But you can bring it to
• 58:27
  him in prayer. And I was just praying all the time, Jesus,
• 58:29
  I trust that you will satisfy my heart. Help me
• 58:31
  to trust more. I trust that you will you can,
• 58:34
  and you will satisfy my heart and that you will
• 58:37
  make that ache and I'll be loved there. And so
• 58:41
  that feeling is what actually made the difference for not
• 58:44
  really wanting anything else, because you're like, now, anytime I'm like, oh,
• 58:47
  I would love to do that, it's like, well, I
• 58:49
  just want something to satisfy my heart right now, So
• 58:52
  I will just pray and just try to bear that
• 58:56
  cross a little bit. And so that was just something
• 58:58
  for the people out there that when you hear you
• 59:00
  gotta be just do something discomforting, it's like, well that great,
• 59:03
  my life is just gonna be uncomfortable and everything sucks.
• 59:05
  It's like you actually, for me, at least, I always
• 59:08
  saw it as like a huge negative, but you can
• 59:10
  actually bring that to Jesus too in a legitimate you
• 59:14
  just say it and you just pray it, and you're
• 59:16
  just sincere with your heart, just like you would be
• 59:17
  to a person, to somebody.
• 59:19
  Speaker 2: You loved and wanted to know, wanted them to know.
• 59:21
  Speaker 3: Something about you.
• 59:22
  Speaker 2: So okay, we'll keep I think I'll just finish this out.
• 59:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 59:27
  Speaker 4: Yeah, So.
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: That desire, that fire is kindled and we know it
• 59:34
  when we start to feel it. And that's the crucial
• 59:36
  thing for us to want the right things, because I
• 59:39
  believe that the truth is in the end we will
• 59:41
  all be given exactly what we want. And that's a
• 59:43
  terrifying reality. And I imagine that when our time comes,
• 59:46
  we will stand before the throne of Judgment, gazing upon
• 59:49
  the One True God, the King of Kings and Lord
• 59:52
  of lords, seeing, seeing him in his awesome power and goodness,
• 59:56
  dressed as he is described in Revelation, in his robe
• 59:58
  dipped in blood, clutch his sword of truth towering above us,
• 1:00:02
  just immense and eternal, his eyes like two burning suns,
• 1:00:06
  and his face glowing like it did in front of
• 1:00:07
  the Apostles at the Transfiguration, shining forth with so much
• 1:00:11
  beauty and majesty that we can barely comprehend the perfection
• 1:00:15
  that we behold. And I imagine, but of course I
• 1:00:18
  don't know, but I imagine that in this moment of
• 1:00:21
  just unspeakable joy and terror, all combined in one, the
• 1:00:24
  culminating moment of our lives, the moment we were made for,
• 1:00:27
  the moment that decides everything for better or worse. And
• 1:00:30
  this moment, I imagine that He looks at us as
• 1:00:33
  we stand there before him, naked and trembling and exposed,
• 1:00:37
  and he asks us just one question, what do you want?
• 1:00:41
  And this will be the first time in our lives
• 1:00:43
  when we are forced to answer that question honestly. The
• 1:00:46
  answer will be drawn forth from us as we stand
• 1:00:49
  there in this place where no lies can be uttered.
• 1:00:51
  For the martyrs, the persecuted, their answer has already been given.
• 1:00:54
  They gave their answer with their blood. They submitted their
• 1:00:56
  lives entirely to God. They carry their cross. They trudged
• 1:00:59
  up Calvally cavalry, and they died beside Christ upon that hill.
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 2: Like the penitent thief.
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: They look to our Lord and their pain, and they said,
• 1:01:06
  I accept this, Lord, this is mine to bear.
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 3: I accept it. Do not save me from it.
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 2: Let me die here with you.
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: And Christ gazed upon them and gave him the same
• 1:01:15
  answer that he gave the thief.
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 2: Today you will be with me in paradise.
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: But what about the rest of us, What will we
• 1:01:21
  say when we face this moment when God asks us
• 1:01:24
  what we want?
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 2: What will be our answer? It's not so clear cut.
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 3: For us.
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: We are not martyrs, and we probably never will be
• 1:01:31
  I'm afraid to say that I fear the worst for
• 1:01:33
  many people. I fear that a great many of us
• 1:01:35
  will have no choice but to look back at God,
• 1:01:38
  knowing that we're looking at Him for the first and
• 1:01:40
  last time in our pitiful, wasted lives, trying as we
• 1:01:43
  might to soak in His warmth and goodness one last
• 1:01:46
  time before we're cast out into the dark, and we
• 1:01:48
  will be forced to say, I want myself, Lord, that's
• 1:01:52
  all I want.
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 2: Leave me alone. I don't want you. Why haven't you
• 1:01:55
  gotten the message yet?
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: But I pray and I have hope that all of
• 1:02:00
  us here, in that moment, we'll be able to say
• 1:02:02
  something entirely different. I pray desperately and fervently that we'll
• 1:02:06
  be able to answer in gratitude and ecstasy. I want you, Lord,
• 1:02:11
  only you. You are what I've been searching for. You
• 1:02:14
  are the answer to every question I've ever asked. You
• 1:02:17
  are the hunger and the pit of my stomach, the
• 1:02:20
  aching in my bones. I have felt a deep longing
• 1:02:23
  all my life because I have been separated from you, Lord.
• 1:02:26
  I have traveled through life and passed through death to
• 1:02:28
  find you. I do not deserve you because I am
• 1:02:31
  weak and sinful. But I hate my sins. I hate them. Father,
• 1:02:35
  Please have mercy on me and let me come home.
• 1:02:37
  I just want to come home. And no matter what
• 1:02:43
  our answer is to that faithful question, God's response will
• 1:02:46
  be the same. So be it, my child, as you wish,
• 1:02:49
  and we will simply walk through the door we have chosen.
• 1:02:53
  Thank you everyone, God, bless you. Matthew Walsh.
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 2: I like it.
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's really good, And that kinda that gets back
• 1:03:05
  to what I was saying earlier about God is going
• 1:03:10
  to give you exactly what you want, and he knows
• 1:03:14
  exactly what you want. But I don't know that most
• 1:03:19
  of us know for ourselves. And so if people look
• 1:03:24
  at God and they say he's gonna judge people, he's
• 1:03:26
  gonna send people to hell, because whatever, I genuinely don't
• 1:03:32
  believe that God will send anyone anywhere. I think that
• 1:03:37
  He's just gonna stand there and he's gonna open up
• 1:03:39
  whichever door we choose to walk through. Like Matt Walsh said, Like,
• 1:03:45
  that's such a powerful and terrifying thing to think about,
• 1:03:49
  because I know that in the moment people say what
• 1:03:53
  do you want, Like would you rather go to heaven
• 1:03:55
  or Hell? Most people would probably say I want to
• 1:03:58
  go to Heaven. I don't want to go to Hell.
• 1:04:00
  I'm assuming most people don't. But if you're in that
• 1:04:04
  position and you have to answer that question honestly, I
• 1:04:08
  think this is kind of the almost like a Jordan
• 1:04:11
  Peterson approach where he's like almost afraid to commit to
• 1:04:16
  an answer because he's so afraid of saying the wrong thing.
• 1:04:20
  Like when people ask Jordan Peterson if people believes in God,
• 1:04:23
  and he kind of like beats around the bush and
• 1:04:25
  he's just like, I think it's very likely, or I'm
• 1:04:30
  afraid that it's very likely that he exists or something
• 1:04:32
  like that. It's like he's, at least the way I
• 1:04:37
  see it almost feels like he is so afraid of
• 1:04:40
  lying when he answers that question, or answering that question
• 1:04:44
  in a dishonest way, that he just would rather not
• 1:04:46
  answer it at all. And I think that, you know,
• 1:04:49
  there's a lot of people who look at that and
• 1:04:51
  they're like, come on, man, just say you believe in
• 1:04:52
  God whatever. But then those same people, I think you'd
• 1:04:55
  have to ask yourself like do you do you really?
• 1:05:00
  Because if you really do, you're gonna have to look
• 1:05:05
  honestly at what you're doing with your life, because there's
• 1:05:09
  so many things where we say I love you Jesus,
• 1:05:13
  but I'm gonna go do this thing before I love you.
• 1:05:17
  So that doesn't mean you can't do it the things
• 1:05:19
  that you enjoy. But I think if we're gonna answer
• 1:05:23
  that question honestly, we really really have to look at
• 1:05:26
  what we're doing with our lives and ask ourselves if
• 1:05:32
  we really mean it when we say that we love
• 1:05:35
  Jesus or that we believe in God even mm hmm.
• 1:05:39
  That's a that's a really tough, kind of really terrifying
• 1:05:43
  question to ask yourself. But yeah, that was the whole
• 1:05:48
  thing's fire.
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: Jonathan Pagio said that the fire of hell is God's
• 1:05:55
  burning love.
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 3: I have had that, Yeah, I mean think about it,
• 1:06:01
  like if you spend your entire life saying no, I
• 1:06:03
  don't want this, or even you know you just decide
• 1:06:07
  I don't want this anymore, that would be the most
• 1:06:09
  torturous thing.
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 4: For you to have to you have it, or that
• 1:06:13
  you have God's burning love for you.
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 3: It's the Christopher Hitchians thing, like I was saying, like
• 1:06:17
  he wants God to not be real because he thinks
• 1:06:20
  that like, even if God was real, he wouldn't want
• 1:06:22
  to worship him because he thinks that he's so terrible
• 1:06:25
  and he thinks the idea of a God is such
• 1:06:27
  a terrible thing that having to suffer through having to
• 1:06:31
  be in heaven would be like being in hell for him.
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel like so I always thought.
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: I always had in my mind of like, Okay, if
• 1:06:38
  this person's after truth and stuff and they're good, it's.
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 2: Like there's no way that God is going to send
• 1:06:43
  them to hell.
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: So it's like I think a lot of people will
• 1:06:46
  be in heaven, but I've never actually thought about it
• 1:06:48
  in the sense of Okay, you will get what you want,
• 1:06:53
  like you will go through the door that you want.
• 1:06:55
  You either are going to want God or you want
• 1:06:58
  something else, and it's only you want yourself really, And
• 1:07:02
  so if you think about guys like Christopher Hitchins, i'd
• 1:07:05
  hear them say like, you know, I hope there's not
• 1:07:07
  a guy out of all you know, or they make
• 1:07:08
  jokes about masturbating all this stuff, and it's like, yeah,
• 1:07:11
  but they don't really understand. But it's like, I wonder
• 1:07:14
  if it's not about if you understand or don't. It's
• 1:07:18
  about I think that everyone knows inherently if you are
• 1:07:23
  if you want to be with yourself, or if you're
• 1:07:26
  making an effort to go to outside of yourself to
• 1:07:30
  find God, to find real truth and to find real
• 1:07:34
  humility and real whatever that is. I don't think it must.
• 1:07:39
  It can't be enough to just say I'm after truth
• 1:07:42
  and I'm gonna try to do the right thing. It's
• 1:07:44
  more of literally, are you doing what you think is
• 1:07:48
  the right thing? Or are you do you look at heavens?
• 1:07:51
  It's my own personal paradise, because you will get your
• 1:07:55
  own You'll be with yourself forever if you are constantly
• 1:08:00
  rejecting the call of God, and since only you really
• 1:08:04
  know that, only you're you and God know that. But
• 1:08:07
  I think I've just never really thought about it. Like
• 1:08:10
  the life that you want here, the things that you
• 1:08:14
  choose here tell you what life If you want God
• 1:08:20
  or you don't. So if you are living a life
• 1:08:22
  where you want and choose things that benefit you all
• 1:08:28
  the time, then then you've made your choice. It's not like, oh,
• 1:08:34
  did you follow the right rules, It's like, did you live.
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 3: A life for yourself?
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: Or did you live a life for God, and it's
• 1:08:41
  it's not in the bra And even in a broad sense,
• 1:08:44
  did you live going outwards trying to find God, find
• 1:08:48
  the purpose, find your heart, find love, be true, be discipline,
• 1:08:53
  be loving, Because if you didn't, then you've made your choice.
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 2: And if you think, yeah, but.
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 1: God, I'll understand when I get there, it's like, no,
• 1:09:02
  God understands Now, you understand. Now you're choosing it all
• 1:09:05
  the time, and it's gonna it's gonna be the same feeling,
• 1:09:09
  the same choice that you're making. In a broad sense. Obviously,
• 1:09:12
  there's like addictions, things you don't want to do. But
• 1:09:14
  it's like you'll know when you get there, because you can,
• 1:09:19
  you'll have proof of what you've chosen. It's not going
• 1:09:22
  to be it's like you'll be forced to actually answer
• 1:09:25
  the question, not just dodge the consequences.
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 2: Again, I've never really seen it that way.
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: Because I always saw it like, oh, Christopher West is
• 1:09:34
  probably excused in some way, but really it's like, no,
• 1:09:37
  he's verbally telling you what he's choosing, not God, not
• 1:09:42
  any of this idea of Jesus, not that it's gonna
• 1:09:45
  be this.
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 2: I don't believe this.
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: I choose, I chose I don't even want it. So
• 1:09:50
  then it's like when God says I am here, you've
• 1:09:52
  already answered the question. You've already had an experience enough
• 1:09:56
  to answer the question. That's why we have free will,
• 1:09:59
  because if it was like, oh, now that you see me,
• 1:10:02
  your mind has changed, it's like then you didn't ever
• 1:10:05
  have free will, but you've got enough now to make
• 1:10:08
  a choice, and you're just gonna get what you want,
• 1:10:15
  all right.
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 3: That sucks. That sucks. That sucks. It's a terrifying thing.
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 4: Is terrifying. Yeah, on this concept of once, I want
• 1:10:24
  to circle back to something Michael said, like right at
• 1:10:26
  the very beginning, I don't know why I remember. I
• 1:10:30
  normally can't remember yesterday. But if you want heaven, the
• 1:10:35
  doors are open for you, God is They're waiting, and
• 1:10:39
  there are many many doors you can walk through that
• 1:10:42
  will lead you to heaven. One of them, I would say,
• 1:10:46
  is the Rosie. But we don't have time to fully
• 1:10:48
  get into the concept of yeah, it will be another time,
• 1:10:53
  and true we will talk about that, but I don't
• 1:10:57
  know how much time we have left. And so in
• 1:11:00
  some way of bringing all sorts of things together, we've
• 1:11:04
  talked about so many different things and as Michael was saying,
• 1:11:09
  with being uncomfortable like it, just do it. Just do
• 1:11:14
  the thing that makes you uncomfortable but will lead you
• 1:11:17
  to heaven. It will lead you to one heaven. As
• 1:11:19
  you were saying, the more you do it, the more
• 1:11:21
  you'll realize how it actually changes how you want things,
• 1:11:25
  to want God more.
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 2: Like your desires get purified.
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 4: Your desires get purified. Yeah that's so good. And so
• 1:11:32
  do something practical today this week now where you there's
• 1:11:40
  something on your mind. I bet you there's something on
• 1:11:42
  your mind. W you're like, I could do this, you know,
• 1:11:45
  maybe I could pick up the spiritual book. Maybe I
• 1:11:47
  could go find the daily reading or something in the scriptures.
• 1:11:51
  Maybe I could just pray erosion. I do have a
• 1:11:54
  channel for that. I haven't done anything the past couple
• 1:11:56
  of weeks. I'm taking a break until Advent, but there's
• 1:11:59
  still this stuff there. But do something practical, this thing
• 1:12:04
  that's on your mind where you're thinking I could be
• 1:12:07
  doing that, Just do it, but see what happens.
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 3: Put in your Spire notebook.
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 4: And your Spire notebook, write down I will be doing
• 1:12:14
  this every day. Make a commitment. Because it's not something
• 1:12:18
  that happens instantaneously. It is something that slowly changes who
• 1:12:23
  you are to be someone who is better, someone who
• 1:12:26
  is amazing, someone who people will look on and be like,
• 1:12:30
  I want what you have, someone who God will look
• 1:12:33
  upon you and say, well done, my good and faithful servants.
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 2: I actually want to nuance that.
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 1: Okay, So if you say you will become someone better,
• 1:12:45
  then it's it's making it seem like right now you
• 1:12:49
  are like worse Oka, and so that's fine. That's a
• 1:12:52
  good way of saying because it is techly true. But
• 1:12:54
  something that's helped me a lot. And this is like
• 1:12:56
  the idea JP two talks about this is becoming who
• 1:12:59
  you are, So it become who you are. It seems
• 1:13:02
  like it doesn't work, but this is an idea from
• 1:13:06
  uh Greg Huitar on a bunch of other people. But basically,
• 1:13:09
  as you go through life, you have an open heart
• 1:13:12
  and you're open to love right and anytime love is
• 1:13:15
  not there, when your heart is open to it, or
• 1:13:17
  something other than love is there, you are wounded. You
• 1:13:20
  feel a wound. Now you've got a belief if I
• 1:13:23
  do this, this will happen. Then you make a vow
• 1:13:25
  I will not do this so this doesn't happen, and
• 1:13:28
  this is how thing life is.
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 2: Then you grow up and.
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 1: You've got all these defenses and these mechanisms of your
• 1:13:33
  personality that are like defense systems to avoid, like I
• 1:13:37
  will never be embarrassed again, so I will be really
• 1:13:39
  competent on every issue, or I will never be very
• 1:13:42
  intimate in a relationship because at one time I got
• 1:13:44
  screwed over. So you develop all of these aspects of
• 1:13:47
  your personality that are like unconscious. And so what he
• 1:13:50
  talks about is that holiness in a sense is the
• 1:13:54
  degree to which we let those false personalities dissolve away
• 1:13:58
  and we become more and more who we are. And
• 1:14:00
  so he uses the point that the mystics and so
• 1:14:02
  many saints are so different, and he goes, actually, if
• 1:14:06
  these defenses that we put up are so similar, sins
• 1:14:09
  are boring. We all know pride, we all know narcissism,
• 1:14:12
  we all know lust, we all know that stuff. But
• 1:14:15
  the saints, the people that have let all of those
• 1:14:17
  personas defenses, places that go for escape, for comfort, for security,
• 1:14:22
  all those fears, all those vows and beliefs, when those dissolve,
• 1:14:26
  you become more of who you actually are. And so
• 1:14:29
  I think to your point, if you spend time and
• 1:14:32
  you just go through the process, you begin to let
• 1:14:35
  those outer layers shed off, and your true self, who
• 1:14:39
  you really are, how God sees you, blossoms and I
• 1:14:42
  think that he says, well done, my good and faithful servant,
• 1:14:45
  you have allowed the dead skin to shed off.
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 2: In a sense.
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 4: I love it. Anyway. I feel like I already said
• 1:14:51
  my final thoughts right the end there, But again to reiterate,
• 1:14:56
  do something practical, make yourself uncomfortable, good way, and see
• 1:15:02
  how it lets you grow, and do not give up
• 1:15:05
  if it doesn't do anything. Immediately, make sure you have
• 1:15:09
  at least one thing that you're trying to do habitually
• 1:15:13
  to be better. And when it comes to prayer, make
• 1:15:16
  sure you have one thing that you will habitually do
• 1:15:20
  in prayer, whatever it may be. And I think that
• 1:15:23
  will help you grow so much into who you truly are.
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 3: Do you want to go or do me?
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 1: Seen?
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 3: No? You real quick? Just gonna I screwed something up,
• 1:15:34
  so I'm gonna recap what I was trying to say
• 1:15:35
  a second ago. Sorry for that cut. Technical difficulties make
• 1:15:40
  your relationship with Christ or relationship. Don't just say Jesus
• 1:15:47
  Christ is my personal Lord and Savior. Make it true,
• 1:15:51
  because it won't be true unless you put in the effort.
• 1:15:55
  It's really easy to say that you have a relationship
• 1:15:57
  with Jesus, but it's really hard to actually do it. So,
• 1:16:02
  like I said earlier, look at your best human relationships
• 1:16:05
  and that's gonna mirror what God is, what God wants
• 1:16:09
  his relationship with you to look like.
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 4: So yeah, if you take one thing, I think that
• 1:16:14
  is probably one of the most important thingness to take.
• 1:16:17
  In my opinion.
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 3: I'd never thought about that until tonight, and then as
• 1:16:20
  I was talking, I was kind of just like, oh,
• 1:16:22
  that makes a lot of sense.
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, I think I really like that.
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 2: It's that.
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 1: Heaven is an appetite that you have to acquire. You
• 1:16:36
  have to learn and mature love and desire and yearning
• 1:16:39
  for God, and it takes effort and it does take
• 1:16:42
  action on your part, but you're never alone in it.
• 1:16:45
  And so that's what the point of having this spiritual,
• 1:16:49
  the interior work, that sort of delving into yourself with
• 1:16:53
  God and going and learning who God is by spending
• 1:16:56
  time and getting to know him in the ways that
• 1:16:59
  He has communicated with us, whether it's through scripture or
• 1:17:02
  through songs, through music, through nature, it's learning about who
• 1:17:06
  he is in those ways.
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 3: And then.
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 1: One of the practical things that I've tried to stick
• 1:17:15
  with is Mary said in one of these visions to Catalina,
• 1:17:20
  this lady about the Mass. She said that a man
• 1:17:22
  is never more a man than when he is on
• 1:17:25
  his knees before God. So kneeling down and praying, it
• 1:17:30
  puts your physical body in a state of this is real,
• 1:17:34
  and this is going on, this is happening, and it's
• 1:17:37
  not just a mental game. But you're getting your heart
• 1:17:39
  and your body involved and you're physically putting yourself under
• 1:17:46
  something and in homage of something, and so you're I
• 1:17:51
  think that that's a good I try to do that.
• 1:17:53
  I just like, at least get on my knees. Like
• 1:17:56
  Denzel Washington said, he's like every day and every night
• 1:17:59
  you should hit the around thanking God that you've had
• 1:18:02
  another day. And so I think that that's a good
• 1:18:04
  place that you can start and just sort of learning
• 1:18:06
  to open your heart. You can find a lot of
• 1:18:08
  good resources online. Also, there are there's Theology of the Body.
• 1:18:12
  Christopher West are guys that I really like that talk
• 1:18:15
  about how to pray, what prayer is, what it looks like,
• 1:18:18
  and how to delve into all that, and it's like
• 1:18:20
  it is, it's totally worth it, and it's just a
• 1:18:22
  good starting with that for your daily plan and going Okay,
• 1:18:26
  how can I grow in my relationship with Christ? Of
• 1:18:28
  course it looks different for everybody, but it does take
• 1:18:32
  that action, but it is super worth it.
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 2: And it flows into everything else on a.
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 1: Huge level because your heart gets healed, like you feel
• 1:18:39
  love and you feel loved like you've never felt.
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 2: Then you feel like you've got love to give.
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 3: So it's like.
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 1: It's just awesome. So anyway, I was getting off track there.
• 1:18:50
  In conclusion, the prayer in spiritual interior practice is the
• 1:18:59
  number one thing that we're here to do. So other
• 1:19:05
  than that, I thought that was good. Thank you guys
• 1:19:08
  for tuning in. We're going to have another episode out
• 1:19:11
  next week. We're going to keep this going. The real
• 1:19:13
  point of this is just to sort of give you
• 1:19:15
  an insight into how we're thinking as we try to
• 1:19:17
  do this spire thing and live a balanced life and
• 1:19:20
  do it the right way and figure out what's going
• 1:19:22
  on and become who we're really meant to be and
• 1:19:24
  who we are on the inside deep down, and so
• 1:19:28
  you can just follow along if you find it entertaining.
• 1:19:31
  Hopefully we'll get more of a smooth cadence of communication
• 1:19:34
  and how we conversate over time, and we can provide
• 1:19:38
  more value maybe with other people that we bring on.
• 1:19:40
  But really the purpose of this is for you to
• 1:19:44
  have something that you can use every day and resort
• 1:19:48
  back to and just gain inspiration from inspiration from aspire.
• 1:19:53
  So that's really why we're here. It's not to make money.
• 1:19:56
  It's not to be famous, it's not to get you
• 1:19:58
  just to listen. It's not to boost our he goes.
• 1:20:00
  It's to hold us accountable for doing this in our
• 1:20:03
  own lives. Gives us an opportunity to talk about fun stuff,
• 1:20:05
  have it recorded, be able to look back on it
• 1:20:08
  in a few years, and really do what we think
• 1:20:11
  is our part in just communicating the gospel, communicating that
• 1:20:15
  there is more going on than just what the world
• 1:20:17
  is promising you and promising us.
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 2: And this is what helps us cling on to that.
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 1: And so as we learn to change our appetites, to
• 1:20:26
  purify our desires, to develop that taste for heaven, for
• 1:20:29
  things that are meaningful, joyful, real. We also want you
• 1:20:33
  to do the same because that's way better. It'd be
• 1:20:37
  way better to have a lot of people in heaven
• 1:20:39
  that all said yes and all said all I want
• 1:20:41
  is you Lord, and didn't choose themselves because they didn't
• 1:20:45
  see that there's so much more love available.
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 2: So that's why we're here. Any final thoughts, just make.
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 3: Sure you know, obviously we don't have a very big reach,
• 1:20:58
  but make sure you follow Aspire Today on Instagram, YouTube,
• 1:21:02
  Facebook threads. Let's do it. It's basically like Twitter, but
• 1:21:07
  it's really cool people because okay, I'm cool people, but yeah,
• 1:21:12
  I just that way in case you know we have
• 1:21:17
  people on, you like know that we're going to have
• 1:21:19
  people on, or just if you want to know when
• 1:21:22
  the next episode is. Yeah, I don't. I mean, we
• 1:21:27
  don't care about followers, but that's just so that y'all
• 1:21:30
  know this is what's happening. It makes it a lot
• 1:21:32
  easier to communicate that.
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 1: So I feel like, yeah, I feel like we should
• 1:21:35
  say if there was if there was something that you
• 1:21:38
  think is worth sharing, then share it. But if you
• 1:21:41
  didn't think there's anything worth sharing, don't worry about it.
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like if it touched you and you think
• 1:21:46
  it'll touch somebody else, then it would be awesome. But
• 1:21:49
  I definitely don't want this to ever turned into like
• 1:21:53
  I'm not going to press that button this time. Definitely
• 1:21:55
  don't want to turn to like, you know, share it,
• 1:21:58
  like comment, subscribe kind of thing, because it's not what
• 1:22:01
  it is. But anyway, yeah, just if you know this
• 1:22:05
  helped you at all, if it moved you, if it
• 1:22:07
  meant something to you, then it would be awesome if
• 1:22:10
  you shared it.
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 4: I would.
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 3: I would. If we're trying to reach people, it's like
• 1:22:18
  that's how you reach people. So it's like, anyway, yeah
• 1:22:22
  that's my that's my own thing.
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 4: But yeah, I got nothing to add. You guys have
• 1:22:27
  done amazing all right.
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 2: All right, Michael, you want to us in prayer.
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 3: Lord, thank you again for this night with these two
• 1:22:38
  amazing men. Thank you for an incredible conversation and some
• 1:22:44
  personal revelations and just a really good conversation. If there's
• 1:22:50
  anybody out there that you want to hear this, anybody
• 1:22:52
  that you want to be moved by this, please help
• 1:22:54
  it to reach them. And if it moves just one person,
• 1:22:59
  then we'll make all this worth it help us to
• 1:23:03
  truly pursue a relationship with you, truly and honestly, and
• 1:23:08
  give us the grace to say no to the world.
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 4: We have to uh and his name Amen follow.
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 2: Thank you guys for watching Spier.
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 3: Good by
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 1: M hmm