Latest / Barrett's Swaggy Life Talks / You Can't Do Life With the Wrong People | Barrett & Nuku

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You Can't Do Life With the Wrong People | Barrett & Nuku · Barrett's Swaggy Life Talks

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: This is Beckham.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to this regular podcast.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to Google TV.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's not often these days that we especially for me that I can sit down to somebody outside of the US and get to know your faith.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_01: Journey and Meltimate will get right into your payting.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_01: Johnny and how you discovered God in Christ.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: First of all, thank you so much for having me.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: I've been hearing about how excited you are doing this podcast and to finally be a part of it.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's a big thing to me.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: I've been knowing you for so long now, years and years.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm really excited to be here.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you so much.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: I feel very special.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: I am Sri Lankan.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: I live in Bahrain now though.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: I've been here for almost 16 plus years in the Middle East.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I was fortunate enough to meet you through elevation through an e-group.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: And we've been, I've known you for almost what five years now?
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: Five years.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's not something like you said that would happen on a regular basis.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: You won't be able to connect with somebody who's from Sri Lanka who's in the Middle East.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm so thankful for the e-group that I met you through.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, thank you for having me.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I I would imagine getting to know God and going in tape would be hard in these in these other countries because not many people uh talk about it.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_01: I imagine that might be a misconception, but I don't know.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_01: So give me a walkthrough on how you gotten into Christianity knowing God and what are some challenges that you have to learn and overcome that you're comfortable with sharing in order to share all of them.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, what are some obstacles in in another country that might not be as accommodating to believers like you and me?
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: I'm born Catholic and I got baptized I would think what three years ago though, although I'm in Bahrain.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: Like I said, Bahrain is a Muslim country, a Middle Eastern country, but thankfully there is no restrictions for religion, they're not strict like that.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: There are churches and mosques next to each other, and people are free to go to churches, worship, take their Bibles.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's not most there are most strict Arab countries where that is not they don't have the freedom to do that, but fortunately, Bahrain is not like that.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's been it's been nice to see because there are so many churches here.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: There are like people meeting in houses, there are small churches, there are like big congregations.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: So the freedom to worship, there are temples, there are churches, there is freedom to worship, and people are free.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's not been that much of a big shift being here, but I think growing up, the challenge was being raised in a Catholic family, and then getting out of that was the challenge because I don't think I had a personal relationship with Christ growing up.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's only later in my 20s that I felt like what it is actually to have a personal relationship with Christ.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_01: I would say in the US, it's more isolated in some parts, especially when you talk about churches working together.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_01: It's unlike your country work together no matter what religion they have, no matter where you come from, it's all it's all basically about family.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: Of course you got bad people everywhere, but I I want to take the time to talk about what people can do specifically as like I only met you online.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_01: I haven't met you in person yet.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_01: People might think that's weird, but um if we're gonna talk about God and all that stuff, then honestly we gotta reach out to people that we cannot basically, but we can be there we can be there spiritually and be there ritually.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: So that's why a lot of times I talk about the bad stuff about churches, but the good thing is it's all about community.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_01: Your country is like a tiny little area, right?
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, very tiny.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_01: Like a small town, everybody everybody knows everybody, so it's uh there's good things and bad things to that, take me.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: So what I want to talk about is what are the misconceptions that people have in Bahrain Bahrania and what are the things you enjoy m most about being in that country and about the people in general?
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: I think the misconception I think is because it's an Arab country, I think people tend to think, oh, it's very strict, because there's a lot of rules, you can't, there is no freedom to go to church.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: Because there are countries, there are countries, there are GCCs, there are countries in the Gulf that are strict.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: But Bahrain have the the prime minister, the ruling family, they have given so much of freedom to the expats, because there's a lot of expats in Bahrain, so they have given them the freedom to even the church that I first joined when I came here, that church was a gift by the king of Bahrain.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: He gifted that premises to the missionaries who came from the US.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: So it's beautiful to see because it's the oldest church, it's over 100 years old, and it's literally right next to a mosque.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: So the church and the mosque are like literally opposite, right next to each other.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, so that's the misconception, thinking that it's very strict and you can't do a lot of things, but it's not like that.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, generally like about being there.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: I think initially it was again as when I came here, because I I came from Sri Lanka.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: So Sri Lanka is obviously there are rules here, meaning you have to dress modestly, and it's not like back home.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: You have to think, you have to respect the culture here because there are certain ways that we need to dress.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: So things like that I had to get used to, and I needed to know things like that.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: And the little things like back home, when we had a birthday, or if you throw a party, we are the ones who we would be paying for the whole party.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: If I invite my friends for a birthday dinner, it's usually I will be paying for the entire birthday dinner.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: But when I came here, for me it was so people would be like, okay, we're going for a birthday dinner, but everybody pays for their own thing.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: And for me, that was like a new thing because I've never grown up in a in a in a space like that where everybody pays for your own thing, but you just show up for that dinner.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: There were little things like that that was very different.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: And one good thing that I really liked though, everybody works a lot of expats, like foreigners, people from India or Philippines who've come here looking for work.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: When they're in their own countries, people are not punctual.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: Asians are not you not known to being punctual at all.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: But all of that has changed when they've come here.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's like things happen, they respect people's time.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: There's so many things that have got better.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: People have got better being in this country.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I feel like there's so much of freedom and things that you can do here that you won't be able to do back home.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: And even the community, like the churches, community is very important.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: But again, there's a good side and the bad side of that too.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes in a church, you can't find that community to grow.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what we learned from COVID, right?
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: We didn't need to physically be there.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: You could find a community that's 3,000 miles away, and that's how I met you.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: There's good things and bad things about it, but one of the one of the most important things that has changed for me is I am blessed to have my parents with me.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: But there's a lot of friends of mine who are married and they're with their spouses here, but their family is back home.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: So your friends become, you make your friends your family.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: You've met them through church, and then now you've you have a little family.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: That for me is very special.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's the I think it's it's the people that makes any place special and important and makes you want to stay there.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and you said some one one thing I'm gonna cycle back on.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_01: You said making your friends your family.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_01: I I don't know about you, but a lot of times especially uh here minds at beginning, but a lot of people don't take the time to spend time with people, to get in get to know people, a lot of times they don't make the effort to check on somebody or anything like that.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_01: So making your friends your family, you kind of you kinda have to have a close bond and if you don't mind touching on what are the benefits and what were the challenges you have to go through to figure out, okay, with people are the ones that care about me versus the people that want to use me as a just another number.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's it's something that we also learned from that whole study of good company, huh?
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: I think it it it didn't just happen.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, I didn't make my friends take didn't become my family overnight.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: There were also friends that I didn't want to have in my close circle because I think as you grow you learn that you need friends in your circle that uplift you, encourage you, especially when things don't go right.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: What I've learned through the past five years when I opened my business and within the first three weeks of opening my business, COVID hit, and I had to shut down for 10 and a half months straight.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: And within that 10 and a half months, it as much as I was going through so much of challenges because I had put all my eggs in one basket, because I've stepped in, God's told me something, and I was yes, I'm gonna step into it with all the faith that I have, and then boom, three weeks later it's COVID, and 10 and a half months I'm shut.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: And within that 10 and a half months, as much as my straight faith was stretched, God also made me see who are the people that I needed to remove from my circle, who are the people that was there by my side, and so I think you learn as you go, especially not in the good times, in the bad times.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: And if if people stick by you, even when you don't have anything and when you're struggling, those are those are your people.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: And you can't do this thing called life alone.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: There is no way we can do life alone, but you you also can't do life with the wrong people, because that doesn't that doesn't help you either.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's like that quote, I think Oprah said it, you don't want somebody to ride with you on the limo scene.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: You want you want somebody to ride with you on the bus.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: When things don't go well, you want that person.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: So there is so many times that I had borrowed strength from my friends, and if I didn't have the right crowd then to like understand why I did what I did, why I stepped into faith stepped in faith to open my business, even if it was like shut down in two weeks, because there were people who would be like, What's wrong with you?
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: Why would you have done that?
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: That's not the that that was a really that was not a smart move, but like I can't explain that because somebody else, not everybody would understand that story.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: So obviously, those circles, it was like God had to kind of filter a lot of things, and then now the handful of people that I have that surrounds me, I could just count them with one hand.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: That's how small my circle is.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: And they're always there to uplift me, encourage me, and tell me the truth when I need to hear it.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: And they don't weigh you down, they honor you, they even if you're not in the room, they they talk good about you because I also believe if you hang out with the wrong crowd, you become the average of the people that you're hanging out with.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: I truly believe that.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: So you're in a good circle, yeah.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I would say even beyond the good circle right now, learning learning the basics and trusting God that everything will eventually work out if you be persistent.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely, and uh and ask God people people say, What if you ask God the same thing?
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not even talking about that.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_01: I'm talking about being persistent, being open with God, letting God know your frustrations as well as what you're happy about.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_01: He already knows it anyway, but I think a lot of a lot of this world in general focuses on what their culture is like instead of focusing on the one who can fix all of our struggles and knowing that it'd be done at big for our benefit.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, and I'll touch on this, even though I don't even though I don't agree with all what Pastor Stephen Burdock says a paper reasons.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_01: What I can't agree on is finding my community later that's local, patrol, and just get down to the root call on why we are together.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_01: We are Christ believers, we believe that he died and rose again, we believe God is three and one, and that's all I need to know.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_01: I don't need I don't need to know all the politics that go into it.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, if you want to know God, then read the Bible, surround people that are faith-based, they're not gonna be perfect because I think a lot of people get hung up on this is gonna have everything everything figured out.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_01: I just can't have a big problem.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it's made by humans.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_01: If God decided to come down from heaven and take us all home, we wouldn't need to save anybody or we just be we would just be a big big old party, big old party and a big old celebration.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_01: That's not the time yet.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_01: What we gotta focus on is okay, what are the core values talking about God, talking about the Bible.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_01: And yes, we might not agree on some things, but if we focus on on the core like on the core values, then that's all that matters.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_01: Core values and friendships and relationships, because that's how the Bible was spread in the first place.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, you're right.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's the way I see it now.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_01: If you haven't been angry, if you don't assign to it.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: You're no, you're absolutely right.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I like I said, it's it's important to the other thing too is like when when we're frustrated, these are all emotions that that are valid.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we get angry, we get frustrated.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: But I think sometimes people tend to not take those emotions to God.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I think being transparent about how you feel and telling God that I'm frustrated, I am tired of waiting, I am tired of because he knows anyway, even if you say it out loud or not, he knows because he knows your heart.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: So therefore, you you can take every emotion to God, even if it's anger or frustration, you could always tell him.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I completely agree with you.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: You need this, is why I said I have a filtered group of friends now, because as I am maturing in my faith, I've understood and realized I need people that also have the same kind of who share the similar maturity in faith, and all they're like more mature in faith than I am, because that is needed for me, for my growth.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: Because otherwise I can't be in a group that does not make me get better or help me grow.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: And it's it's I heard this from I think it was, I don't know if it was Bishop T Diggs.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's it's how much of capacity you have.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: If I have five gallons and my friends have two gallons, I can be frustrated too, because that's their capacity.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: I need to be with friends either similarly or more so that I can point to them and they can point to me.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_00: And that's important because you have to you have to grow together.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you don't even need five friends, all you need is one one good friend.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_01: Well, thank you for being on the podcast, and I always say that everybody listening on this podcast, it doesn't matter where you meet people, as long as you treat people with respect, upon common ground, and heck, even if you don't agree with what one person says, don't let that stop you from making the connections that God has called you to make.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you have to be careful at where they're at.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_01: So thank you for being on the podcast.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I really enjoyed that conversation.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for having me.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for listening to the Bears Way Love Podcast.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_01: All my emails and my would be official if you want to as podcast.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_01: My email is B E A R A T S dot S W A G U Y L I F E at gmail.com.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_01: I'm also on Instagram, Facebook, there it comes.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_01: You can find me there on both my room if you want to reach out to me there.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_01: Please use that uh find finding so I know where you come from so I can give you a follow.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for listening and have a good day.