What are you doing on my phone? Why are you looking like a psychopath through my phone?
Well? What's up? Everybody? Welcome to the podcast.
Thank you for being here and joining wherever you're watching or coming from or listening from.
I appreciate you.
I love this platform talking, taking my time, going long form, answering your questions.
That's what I do here.
Email me Grangersmith Podcast at gmail dot com and I'll pull it up in cute just like I have here, and we'll randomly go through your questions. Now, there are a lot, I'll be honest with you, there's a lot that come in and I'm just not going to get to them all, but I'm going to try. And I believe this is episode two and two, is that right? That is amazing. How the time has flown by with these I can remember just yesterday. Yeah, this is too too.
I can remember just yesterday doing episode one hundred, it seemed like. So that's a testament to you guys listening and wanting more content and asking more questions and watching the little clips at Paul makes it on social media, which is why some of y'all even came here in the first place. Email me your questions Granger Smith Podcast at gmail dot com and it could be about anything. We will dive into them here.
First.
One subject client says, love the content. I love your podcast.
Thanks so much for.
All you do, man, and all the advice you give. I just bought an old GMC truck and it's a looker, I'll admit it. What do you think I.
Should do to deal with pride?
I've worked many summers for it and I have a little pride about it. Please, if you don't mind, keep me anonymous. It says from a seventeen year old country boy, and then it has his name. I'll keep him anonymous. That's funny. And first let me just say. First, let me say, man, good on you for working. What did you say many summers? You worked many summers for it, and you have earned it, okay, And so that's a great thing and no one should take that away from you.
You wanted a truck, and you worked many summers and you bought it. You don't hear that story too often. We live more in a world where you buy it on credit right now and you hope to pay it off down the road. So that's a great thing. Man seventeen years old doing a great thing. And then you're asking a good question. I'll be honest with you, that's a good question. How do I deal with pride? Because we understand that pride is a pretty devastating sin in
the Bible. In fact, I don't even I don't like you. Won't hear me say I'm proud of you. It might be going a little too far, but I don't even say I'm proud of you to my kids, and I I don't mind when other people say I'm proud of you, Granger, but I think about it every time I hear it. And now I'm gonna get in some of y'all's head. But when you say I'm so proud of you, man, I'm thinking, isn't pride of sin? No, Granger, it's not not in that way. But no one can really fully
explain what that means. I tell my kids instead, I say I'm amber and I both do this. I'm well pleased with you. You know that that's what God says, This is my son whom I'm well pleased. God the Father says that to the son, this is my son with whom I'm well pleased. So I kind of take that and use that for Lincoln, Like, buddy, I'm so pleased with you. I'm so encouraged by your behavior or what you've done, what you've earned, how hard you're working,
what you have overcome. I'm so pleased with what you've done. I try to avoid that word pride. I'm so proud of you, man. I try to avoid that. And hey, that's not like it's not like I'm telling you you're wrong if you say that, this is just me in my life. I try to avoid that word. And it's interesting that that comes up in this question.
To be.
To be proud in this sense of your hard work is not a problem. It can become a problem, one hundred percent. That's why it's dangerous. It can become a problem when you become prideful. If, for instance, your neighbor pulls in the driveway with the same truck right and his daddy bought it for him straight up, and it's the same truck. In fact, it looks a little nicer than yours, And he goes, man, don't you love my truck?
I love your truck. Don't you love my truck? And you look at him pridefully, and you say, I earned my truck. How did you get yours? Did Daddy buy it for you? Because I earned this truck many years and I deserve to have it in a way more than you, is what you're thinking. And then pride starts taking over, and it starts corrupting a friendship that was fine before this conversation started. Right, That's why pride can become a huge issue.
It could be it.
Could be something that just divides people, divides friends and families and yourself. So as funny as it did, I even laughed at it when I read it. It's a legit question. If you give this to God, though, I would be careful because when you ask God for something, when you ask God for patience, what does he give you to teach you patience? What does he give you? If God is going to teach you patience, He's going to give you more and more and more that you
that becomes harder and harder to withstand. Life keeps coming at you herd and you're waiting and waiting and waiting, and guess what you're doing in the process learning patience. It's not like he just zaps patience. You say, God, show me love. He doesn't pour in all these people in your life, that love you, He might take something away, because by taking something away, you truly see what love, how.
Strong your love was or is.
So if you ask God to take away pride, God teach me not to be prideful, be careful, because through that he humbles us. And humbling that word is another word that's completely misused. In fact, my book Like a River, this is an example. My book Like a River selling really well, and somebody said, man, I bet, I bet you are so proud and humbled by how well your book is doing.
It must be so humbling.
Like No, that's a misuse of that word humbling my book. Being humbled by my book would be that no one bought it. I would be humbled that no one bought it. I was prideful, I thought it was a good book. No one bought it. Thus I am now humbled by this. So if you ask God to protect you from pride, he humbles you by.
Something happens to it.
Maybe you literally out in your truck, is sitting at your school parking lot and a tree branch falls right and just destroys it.
Boom.
You walk out there, all those years of hard work destroyed.
You were humbled completely.
Everything you thought you worked for and had and was so pretty and shiny is now gone, and so's your pride.
You see what I mean.
It's like, Hey, God, make sure that I don't have any pride.
Be careful with that prayer.
I'm being facetious when I say be careful, because of course it's a good prayer. But don't be surprised when God answers in a way that you didn't expect. He teaches us how to not be prideful by making us humble, not in the way that we use that word in America. You know what I'm talking about. It's a good question. Thank you, country boy. Let's see next question, says dear Granger. My name is Lisa. I'm not sure how to write this, but I'll try. I'm exhausted, I'm lonely, I'm unhappy, I
have been for some years now. I want to change my life, but I've always been scared of big changes. A big change is what I need. I knew that, but it's not the same and I don't do it. Maybe you have some advice for me, maybe not to be hon it. I would try nearly anything. I've always liked your way that you see life in your family and just being yourself. Thank you for always being there somewhere.
Best regards to Lisa.
Thank you Lisa the the bottom the bottom email part portion of it is in German, so I'm wondering, Lisa, if you were if you were German, or if you're in Germany. Regardless, thank you for the question, and thanks for thanks for listening to the podcast and trusting me with something, for being vulnerable with this. This, this is something that's like I wish that you were closer to me.
So I wish we were actually having a conversation because I would dig in a little bit to what you mean by exhausted and lonely and unhappy for some years now.
I would want to know what's going on, you know.
Like, let's get to the next level of this, you say, so, I say that in a way to let you know. I'm going to have to shoot in the dark completely on this right, I'm just shooting arrows in the dark here.
But you say, I want I want to.
Change my life, but have always been scared of big changes, and a big change is what I need. Okay, shooting in the dark here, a big change, top of my mind, is moving. That's a big change, moving houses, moving jobs, And it sounds like maybe that's what you're getting at. Maybe maybe this is there was a relationship that didn't work or lack of one, or a strange relationship that's still kind of hanging on. Maybe there's some problems with family. Maybe you need a new setting with this big change
that you're talking about. And so if just me, you're asking me on the podcast, I'd say, what do you do for work? Let's take that skill and let's take a similar pay job, something that requires a similar skill, and make a parallel jump in another town, maybe another state.
Probably most people do this in Florida.
Go to another state, find a parallel job, get an apartment. Now you're not doing this to be happier. I promise you you will not find happiness there. But sometimes that change could stir up something either a love for your hometown maybe maybe a better understanding of the estranged relationship you were in by having distance from it. Or you could legitimately get to a new town, find a little church, plug in, start meeting people, start diving into your hobbies, create this community around you.
And it is the.
Change that you needed to get you unstuck. Surely that's definitely possibility. If you don't want to go that far, if you don't want to just move to another town or job. I say this sometimes I would, I would go all in on a hobby of some sort. And I say the same thing to kids as they're going into school, high school, college, and they don't know anybody and they're lonely and they're not connected in any way.
I say, I say, if we had a conversation, to be a lot easier, But I would say, search your mind, what do you enjoy doing? It could be anything like It could be knitting, It could be chess, It could
be horses, It could be collecting toy trains. I was in this town in Pennsylvania the other day and I saw a hobby shop with those little toy trains, and there was all these people in there looking at these little model trains, and they sold, they sold the little miniature trees and the little miniature roads, and the grass, the turf, and the little people and the figurines and all the little cars in the street lights, and then the trains and the mountains and the snow on the mountains,
and people are in there digging it like that's their hobby. They love it. We as people need a community around us that is like minded in those kind of things. So what I mean, the point I'm making with the miniature trains is that there is nothing that is that is off limits that you could You could say, man, I like something, but I don't know if anyone else does. I promise you they do. There's a community for everything that you like.
Maybe it's a band. I've seen a.
Lot of people with Ye Nation that have told me Granger, I didn't have anybody in my life. I didn't have any friends, I didn't have a relationship. I didn't fit in in my school or my college or after that. But I came to one of your concerts because I liked your music. And I was standing there on the front row, and I looked around and I saw other people dressed like me, looking like me, liking the things I like. And I thought for myself, right then, here's
my home, here's my family. Right this could be you with a train collection or something of the sort.
But you got to go all in.
The thing not to do is stay home. Flip through Instagram, see how much everyone else has an amazing life. See how much your life sucks. Eat the same food, watch the same thing, stay up late looking at Facebook, go to sleep, wake up, go to work, see all the people that you don't like at work. You're stuck that way. You gotta get out, you gotta go. Okay, what do I like?
Where? Where is?
I'm gonna stop using the train collection. Okay, say let's go to horses. I'm gonna go find me a horse farm and ask if I could volunteer, or if there's an equestrian group that I could join to get with some other like minded people. You have to get out and do it. Make the step, Make the step. I gave you a lot of really good examples there. I always do another question. We've got a time for another question here. And I realized I forgot that you are probably in Germany.
And I don't know if model trains is the thing in Germany, but I know nutcrackers are. I see, you know that's where they That's where they come from. Half kidding, next question, just going just flipping through an order here. Subsequent says podcast question, Hey Granger, I have something that's really been causing me distress recently, and was hoping you'd
be able to discuss it on an episode. I have a sin that have been constantly dealing with and it's seriously hurting me spiritually and with my assurance, it's been making me worry that I'm not saved and it's causing me a lot of heartache and worry. Is there any guidance or help you could give me on this and how I could know that I am saved when I'm consistently struggling with the same sin. Thanks Josh, Josh, I
appreciate you, brother. Thank you so much for emailing and it's not a very long email, but I could go into some depth with this because I get it.
I get what you're saying, and there's a couple. This is multi layered.
I have a feeling you're probably talking about pornography because that's very common, and I could be wrong, but I would say, if I was going to bet, this would be the sin that you're talking about, because it's hurting you spiritually and you keep going back to it, and pornography is a massive addiction worldwide. I was going to say in this country, but worldwide. So that's one layer and we could deal with that. But the other layer is your assurance. Hang on a second, let me look
up I want to look up lyrics. This might be helpful. Never Mind, I'm on my airplane mode, so I can't do that. But I was gonna look up that song, Blessed Assurance. Look it up for yourself, the song Doubled Him Blessed assurance. Assurance is an interesting thing because if you understand Christianity correctly, and if you are a believer, then you have to understand that we are saved by
grace through faith. This is not your own doing. So what that means is you're saved because you believe you're saved because you're one of God's children, because He saved you by his grace, not by the amount or lack of sin in your life. Sin and the destruction of sin and you battling against sin comes after your blessed assurance of salvation. So after you're saved, you begin to hate your sin. After you're saved, you begin to want
to destroy it. It begins to really bother you. You begin to want to fight it off and do anything you can to eradicate it from your life, because it now feels like a disease that is corrupting you. That's what's happened to you right now. It's called sanctification. Is this flea that is on your body and is itching you and biting you, and you flick it off and it comes back and you flick it off again, and you're wanting to get rid of the fleas.
That's what sin is to you.
After you have assurance, But your assurance doesn't come from whether or not you're sinning or not. See, that's what Romans five eight means. God demonstrates his love for us that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. That's his love for us. He died for us to save you from yourself from your sin while you were a sinner. That doesn't say Christ came to die for you. So long as you stop sinning. And if you don't stop this sin, then you don't have salvation anymore. Your assurance is gone.
Okay.
Now, the caveat with that is if you are sinning, you're living in sin and you don't care about it, and you continue to live with it knowing it's there, then you're probably not saved.
That's the problem. So it is.
Also that's why James says that faith without works is dead, meaning if you go on without good works, without caring about your sin, it still lives with you and you still commit this bad stuff, then you probably don't have a saving faith, not because what you're doing affects it, but because the salvation is not there yet. Right, So, the works, the good works, the eradicating of sin is a result of a saving faith that you did not do. You were saved by grace. That is an unmerited gift.
Now we could walk through assurance of faith, We could walk through we can go through truths of the Bible and go if this is happening in your life, you're saved. If this is happening in your life, you're saved. If this is happening in your life, you are saved. You have assurance, You have that blessed assurance. Like the song says, it is not your own works, it is not your doing.
God is not grading you on a curve. God doesn't have a checklist of a naughty list like Santa claus good list and naughty list, and the more naughties you have, you might not be saved. That is not the God of the Bible. Can you imagine how ridiculous.
That would be.
In fact, every other religion says that they're all grading on a curve. They're as they don't know other God exists. But in theory, all other gods and all our other religions are grading on a curve. That's including the Catholic God.
That's including Catholicism, which is grading you on your works, making sure you're doing all the right things, making sure you're confessing to the priest enough times, making sure you're going to Mass, you're doing you're paying your sacraments right, and then you could do enough to go to purgatory. It's not the God of the Bible, not just offended but of people. But it's just the truth. And Josh, when it comes to the sin itself, that is a
completely different conversation. But I've i have talked about this a bunch on this podcast, and I'm assuming if it is pornography, I would go to covenantiys dot com check that out. It's good that you're wanting to eradicate this. It would be bad if you were doing this and covering it up and saying it's not that bad. It's not that bad. I don't think it's that bad. It's probably not a sin. I don't think it's bad. That would be a sign to me that you don't have that assurance.
Does that make sense?
I hope it does.
All right, let's take a break. Be right back.
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Okay, welcome back.
If you have a question for me, email Grangersmith Podcast at gmail dot com. Love to walk through whatever you got going on, Just like we're sitting in a cab of a truck and you say, man, can I run something by? You got a question for you, let's talk
about it. This next question, subject CLIENTE says my relationship, And before I read it, I want to remind everybody it's helpful if you have a when you write your question if it's about a phone link, because if it gets longer than that, it's hard to keep up with the reading. Okay, this next question is perfect, Hey Granger. My name is Seth. I'm seventeen years old. Last winter, I stayed in a friend's house on the weekends because they live two minutes away from the mountain that I
ski race for. His daughter ski races for an academy at a different mountain, so I haven't met her until I started staying in their basement, only talking through text. An instant before that, I quickly fell in love and told her I liked her a few weeks later. The problem is now I don't feel the same way as I did before because instead of wait, I jumped the gun. Now I'm in a situation where I feel like I'm
being called to be single. But on the other half, but the other half doesn't want to stop thinking about her, the other half of your brain, I think, is what you mean. We are Actually we aren't actually official yet, just very serious friends, serious friends. Do you think I should take a year to decide what to do or start dating her and see where the Lord brings us? I've been praying about this a lot, but I find myself confused. Any advice is greatly appreciated. Thank you, Seth, Seth,
Thanks bro. I am so curious about your life that you you literally live on a mountain and race ski skiing and this other girl is a skier on a different mountain. What kind of life are you living?
Man?
This is like my dream when I was seventeen living in Texas, I could only dream of living on a mountain and skiing on a race team.
That's pretty amazing.
Listen, dude, don't do not over spiritualize this stuff. I see this time and time again on these emails.
Guys.
Stop stop over spiritualizing unspiritual things like this whole God is calling me to be single? What you're seventeen? What does that even mean? And then should I start dating her and see where the Lord brings us. This is just this is over spiritualizing a non spiritual situation, right, And what I mean by that is we can't let common sense get in the way of some mysticism, like some mysterious will for our lives that God has that's
hidden and it's hard to find. But if we continue on the path maybe that follow the bread crumbs, then eventually this secret path will be revealed to us, and then mystically will know what God's true intention was from the beginning. It's like, no, no, no, you're a boy seventeen and you started liking this girl and you told her you liked her, and now you're having second thoughts.
That's that's what this is.
God calling you to be single. Just cross if I was grading this paper, I just crossed that out. Should I start dating her to see where the Lord brings us?
Absolutely not? Why would you do that. You don't like her anymore. It's like.
It's like you thought God brought you to this girl and then you now are having second thoughts and that's your problem, not God's. But God really wants you with her, So you need to fight through that, that idea that you have that you don't like her and follow what God intended is wrong and weird. Listen, I'm not, by no means blaming you for this email. I see this kind of stuff every day, not only on this podcast,
but just through regular conversation. People in twenty twenty three are wanting to over spiritualize everything when God's will for you and his call on your life is to be sanctified, to love him, to love your neighbor, to take his word to all nations, making disciples and teaching people to obey the words of Jesus. That is his will for
your life. If you're doing if you're seeking him and you're in his word, and you have a wise counsel around you, and you have a good prayer life, at that point, you're just following with whatever you want to do because you are in the will of God at that point, and God thereby gives you the desires of the heart, including.
A girl that you like or don't like.
So you could clearly you could say easily, this would be weird, so don't say it. But you could say it's the will of God that I don't like this girl anymore. You could say that if you were walking in the spirit enough, you could be like I liked her and now I don't, and that's definitely a sign from God he reduced my passion for this girl. But once again, why over spiritualize seventeen year old hormones?
That's all this is?
I have. My question is this is it's weird to me as I read the quest And what's so weird is that you have a friend first of all, that's old enough to have a daughter your age. And second of all, he invites you to live in his basement when he's got a daughter your age living in the house above the basement. That's weird, Like, why is that happening? I don't understand that I have a daughter, she's about
to be twelve. There ain't no way some kid around her age is going to live anywhere on our property. It doesn't matter how much I love him. And it's nothing against you seth at all. In fact, I want to go skiing with you one day. You could show me it's a thing or two. There's nothing against you that has everything to do with seventeen year old boy hormones. I was once a seventeen year old boy. I ain't putting me or you or anyone else around a girl.
That's our age when I'm that when I'm seventeen, right, So that's a question for your friend. And why you have a friend that has a seventeen year old daughter. These these are all questions I have. Bottom line is, don't over spiritualize. Don't bring God into this kind of situation if you don't. If you this is totally normal for you to like her and then be like, you know what after I actually verbalized that and told her, and she likes me too, I kind of think I actually don't like her.
I remember doing that. It's okay. It just means you don't like her. This is the learning.
This is the big experiment leading up to your eventual wife. This is you learning the dynamics of boy and girl and how you interact, and what's it like to tell one that you're attracted to them, and what's it like to hear them be attracted back to you. That you're calculating all this stuff. It's good you're learning, but don't over spiritualize it. Next question, subject line interesting, says jealous, and I know it. Hey Grangeer, my name is Amelia
and I'm a college student from Southern Illinois. I'm currently in a relationship with a godly young man. We have been together for over a year and a half and plan on marriage after we finish our education. My boyfriend does not post on social media anymore, but he still has pictures from high school. Currently, he has pictures from prom posted with another girl while they were just friends. He still also has photos of his exes.
On his phone.
I know that they do not mean anything to him, he just doesn't take the time to delete them. And it's just hard seeing him with other women. And I would like to know if I have a right to ask him to delete them because they bother me, or if this is stepping too far being outside of marriage. Sorry for the long message, thank you and God bless so. First of all, that's actually a perfectly linked message. It's less than the length of a phone Amelia, thank you
so much for that. And for the email. I think it's a good email. I think it's a common thing. I think it's called My friend Caleb kind of gave it a word, and I don't know if he made this up or if it's a thing. But retrospective jealousy meaning you're jealous of things that happened in the past, even though they are not relative at all to what's happening in the present. And it's a real thing, and it's normal for you to think that in some sense.
How you respond to it, that's when it could be abnormal. So we'll walk through this. You have a relationship with a godly young man and you're planning on marriage.
Okay, so far.
I don't think that this is like a problem in the relationship. I don't think that this is something that we can't fix. I don't think this is anything that you should be guilty about yourself. Because you feel what you feel, you know it's not You can't look at yourself and go, I have a problem for feeling this way. You can't blame yourself for a feeling. You can blame yourself for acting on the feeling, but you can't blame yourself for feeling.
You can't.
And I think it would be totally normal to have a conversation about it to him, if you are cordial and cool about it. So this is the hard part, and this is where you will either cross the line or not, and it's up to you, And this is where you'll either hurt your relationship in the future or not depending on how you deal with it right here, and I think you'd be as vulnerable and is as open and as accepting and forgiving of him. Here's the kicker,
regardless of what he says. Here's an example. You say, talk to you about something, and I'm so embarrassed. I'm so embarrassed.
But when I.
See on your social media pictures of you with your arm around another girl acting happy at prom, it just I get jealous. And I feel so stupid for even bringing that up. And I know that you just haven't had time to delete them, and I know that you were just friends at the time, and I know that it doesn't mean anything to you, but I just I just wanted to tell you. It's hard for me to see it. And I know that there's pictures of your axes on your phone, and I know that you just
haven't had the time to delete it. But okay, okay, so I'll pause here, And now how he's how is he going to react to this? Because he can say this, He can say, what are you doing on my phone? Why are you looking like a psychopath through my phone? Hopefully he doesn't say that, but he can. How will you react to that? Like will you. Will you get mad and say, well, do you do? You should? I not trust you if you're getting mad? Is you what is you getting mad? Mean about our relationship? And do
you actually like that girl? Do you still talk to that girl? Let me see your text messages? Have you texted her?
You're like, are you going to go there? You can?
And your relationship is pretty cooked if you do that? Or do you react when he says, why are you looking at my phone?
If you say.
You're right, I shouldn't like I said, I'm embarrassed and I love you and that's why I'm fighting this jealousy? Can you help me fight it? And you're right, I shouldn't look at your phone. Do you have the restraint, the mental restraint and discipline to look him in the eye as he comes after you in a way because he's going to be defensive. Maybe maybe he'll be defensive. Do you have a way of just putting it back
on yourself and not pouring any on him? Because if you do that, I can imagine you say.
You're right, you're right, you're right, I'm sorry.
I would imagine If not right, then then in a day or two he could very well come back and go. You know, I've been thinking about that conversation, and I'm sorry I reacted in a way of saying, why are you looking at my phone? In fact, I thought more about it and I went ahead and just deleted all that stuff because you're right, we're planning on getting married after college, and this wouldn't be right for me to
have it on the phone boom. I could easily see it going that way, and I could easily see you reacting in a bad way and ruining the chance at that kind of redemption. That could very well happen. So my question to you is which First of all, I think it is appropriate to bring it up in a very very protective way. But my question to you is can you can you handle whatever his response to you might be.
It's interesting, right.
Think about this and be very careful with it, and I think there is way, there is a way to heal from it, and there's a way for you to gain confidence, especially when you're married. When you're married, which sounds like you're heading on that path, you're not gonna worry about some old prom date that was his friend. You're not gonna worry about some old girlfriend that doesn't exist anymore, because why you have the ring on your finger, so you have that confidence coming ahead, and so I
think that'll grow. That confidence will grow, and that retrospective jealousy will slowly crumble. But be careful not to fuel it any further. Be careful not to go through his drawers or his shoe boxes in his closet and try to seek it out, because it's easy to want to feed that hunger. Jealousy becomes a hunger, and you're gonna want to feed it. Like if I see it on his phone, I wonder if there's more. I wonder if there's something he's hiding from me. That's when it gets bad.
Try to restrain yourself from that. Here's another question. A subject line says belonging to a not so healthy church, and then it says in parentheses, do not read on the podcast, So I will respect your wishes and pass on this question. Next question says that I think I can read. Subdecline says leaving a narcissistic alcoholic Hey Granger. After thirteen years and one child later, I've decided to
leave my narcissistic alcoholic husband. In the beginning, the drinking was recreational, and slowly turned into a bad habit.
Over the years.
Also, I've always wanted to be more involved in the Word of God, and he has no interest. He is now verbally abusive and occasionally physical. I've tried to get him in therapy, but he refuses and leaves me no choice but to leave. How do I get rid of the guilt of getting divorced? I know this is the right thing from me and my child, but I feel guilty for divorcing. What are your thoughts on accepting that this is okay and that God will not be disappointed
in this decision. I'd like to remain anonymous. Thanks Granger. All right, great question. I'm so glad you asked it, and I hope I hope you hear my heart in my answer because I'm confident in my answer, and I hope I hope you could hear me. First of all, I'm so sorry that you're in this. No one deserves to be in a physically or verbally abusive relationship with a narcissistic alcoholic. You didn't say I do and say your wedding vows to that that's not what you wanted
or expected. Hear me on this separation? Is inevitable and should happen right now. Should happen. If authorities need to get involved because of the physical abuse, then so be it. Call them, do not hide from that. There are agencies set up locally to help protect you and other women that are physically abused.
Should not happen. Man, we should say.
Verbally as well emotionally, should not happen, and we need to use the system that is in place to protect you and your child from harm. Okay, make sure that it's very clear. But what I want to say is this separation is inevitable. You should separate. You should get out of the house and or make him leave either one, and make it clear that you're separating, not divorcing. Okay, I'm helping protect you down the road because of your question.
You're worried about this guilt of divorce in your future. So this is how we could help this. I promise separate, but don't divorce. And then I want you to I want you to seek out a local church, a good, healthy local church.
That is.
Has a congregation relatively sized to the amount of elders that are leading the church. Right, so if there are not enough elders and way too many people in the congregation so that you don't have access to speaking with them.
Then that's not a good.
Enough church for you. You need to be able to join a church where you could have one on one conversations regularly with an elder. Then this is so interesting because this is why I'm getting to this. I remember when I was at HBC Capitol Hill Baptist Church with
Parker when he was interning there. My little brother and I sat in on an elder meeting, and through their elder meetings, they discuss things happening with their members, like divorce, that's that's a thing, and your story would be a story that they would bring up and the elders discuss it. This is so good, this is so healthy. And I heard I heard one of the elders say, when you're
a Christian, divorce is not a private matter. Oh that hit That hit me, And I thought about this podcast, and I thought about so many people in my life. When you're a Christian, when you belong to the Body of Christ, in the community of Christ, with other believers in your community, divorce is not a private matter. Thank God, thank God, you don't have to make these kind of decisions.
By yourself. You don't have to live with the guilt of knowing that you step out of a relationship that could have been fixed or mended or done another way. So you bring this to your elders and you go, here's the deal, and you lay it out all on the table, and they help walk through this biblically with you. You said yourself, I want to be more involved in the Word of God. You said that, okay, So if you do, if you truly do, then know that this
is set up. Your church is set up in a way to help you as a community so that they can go they can be with you and say, let's walk through this together. So you don't have to do this alone. You don't have to make these decisions alone. You don't have to call the police on your husband alone. You don't have to find a place to live alone. You don't have to know what the next steps and
finding an attorney are alone. Will help you walk through this with you and will help reconcile if there is anything left to be reconciled in this relationship, if this
marriage could be saved in any way. They will help you find if there's any chance of reconciling it biblically so that if you do leave, if you do get divorced, then you have confidence because you've been with this community around you and women that have been speaking into your lives, and men that have been speaking with the women around you into your lives. With wise counsel, you'll have confidence knowing I did get a divorce and I had wise counsel help me with it, and so because of that,
I don't have any guilt. I don't have any shame looking back. I know it was the right thing because it wasn't just me that decided it. I had people around me that helped me.
Wow.
That is huge for you, and I hope you hear this. I really do. I don't know if you will, because we have a tendency as humans to become reclusive and think.
I don't want to.
I don't want people to judge me. I don't want my problems to be there adam embarrassed. I don't want them to see that I actually had a part in the bad marriage too. I actually am not perfect. I messed up some too, and I don't want that to
come out. Isn't that such a sad thing that that's the first thing we think of as humans instead of saying, I'm going to do the right thing and share it with other biblical families, biblically sound families that will love me and care for me, and pour into me and walk through this difficult season.
And suffering with me. I am not alone.
That is the Church of Christ, and that is how not the denomination. That is the Church of Christ himself. As he pours in and Christ lives in the church, He's using his people as vessels. He's using them as people live out his command to love one another, to love your neighbor as yourself. As they live out that command of Christ, You're feeling his love through his people and their wise counsel. Thank you for emailing all of all. Thanks for emailing, And if you continue this, you continue
asking questions, I'll continue sitting here answering them. And I love you guys, and we'll see you next Monday. Thanks for joining me on the Granger Smith podcast. I appreciate all of you guys. You could help me out by rating this podcast on iTunes. If you're on YouTube, subscribe to this channel, hit that little like button and notification spell so that you never miss anytime I upload a video.
If you have a question for me that you would like me to answer, email Grangersmith Podcast at gmail dot com. Yig