This is Jimmy and Annette, and we are living up in a down world. We're so glad that you've joined us today. And it's a little bit different. This will be, shock and awe, this will be Annette, Dame Annette, as Adam Curry calls you. This will be Annette's first time to do a video podcast. So I'm going to welcome you to Conversations today. Thank you. I was a little reluctant. Why were you reluctant? Well, I'm just not, I'm a little camera shy. Because you're a girl. A little
camera shy, and I'm a girl. Do you remember that time we had to do a, we were doing a commercial type thing for a church in the Dallas -Fort Worth area? And every time the camera came on, you just went total blank. I couldn't do it. I mean, like, freeze. And I'd say, just say something. You're good at this. You're on camera every week. I talk for a living. I'm a professional Christian and I talk for a living. Professional Christian. You know what I mean? I'm a pastor, so it's what
I do. So it's a little easier for me to roll with it. I'm glad you're on. Where have you been? I've missed you. We've missed you. You've been a little busy with all of your interviews, which have been wonderful, by the way. Thank you. They have been. Thank you. And I'm excited that you're going that direction. I love doing it. Yes. Because I love hearing, I love stories. It's the power of story. And so the whole idea behind conversation, living up and down world conversations, is the
power of story. It's letting people tell their stories. And I've had some really unique, interesting people on. We've got more lined out that are going to be amazing. And so be watching for those. My new favorite one that you have lined out, he's actually coming soon. We just need to get it on the schedule, is Dr. Kiltz. Oh, Robert Kiltz. I love that man. Dr. Robert Kiltz. He's a fertility doctor in the carnivore world. He's actually been carnivore for what? 16 years. 15,
16 years. But what I love about him, let's just even take carnivore out. Right, exactly. He's just a joyous man. He is writing a book called Christ in Carnivore. But he's just so joyful, so positive. And I'm really excited to be a part of that podcast, whether I'm in the back. in the directing or if I'm here with him. We were on his podcast and now he literally is going to fly out here and be on our podcast. I'm really excited about it. Yeah, that was cool. We talked
to him. We saw him in Tennessee. We went to Yuma, Tennessee and did this carnivore. We spoke again at one of the meetups for Healing Humanity, Perfect Human Diet movie, documentary. Movie and series. Yeah, and it's going to be a weekly series as well. They're going to do a whole series of things. Anyway, that's all happening. And they're starting the hard editing right now as they're wrapping up the last of the shooting. So that's going to be great. So we got to see Dr. Kiltz. And
he actually offered. He offered to fly out here. Fly out here. He's got his own plane. So he's going to fly out here. And he said, I'd rather sit down in the studio with you guys like we did up in Austin. Everybody's pretty impressed with our studio. Because it's really nice. You did a phenomenal job designing it. Thank you. And Faith, who's behind camera, has done a phenomenal job getting things set up. But it was supposed to be kind of office studio. Now it's all studio.
It's a studio. Can't really work in here. Well, I can work in here. All I need is a laptop. I mean, that's it in my Bible. I'm good to go. It's a little bit more cluttered than I can work in. Faith and you are perfect for this. It's a working studio now. Before it was a pretty studio. Now it's a working studio because we've added the cameras. So I'll be glad when I have my own private office, which hopefully will start soon. So what have you been up to? I mean, you
got behind instead of being. In front of the camera, you just realize, gosh, I think I need to sit behind the camera on these conversations to help direct a little bit. Yeah, I'm interested in doing that. It also involves me in the conversation because I get to hear what you are talking about. I may have to interject every now and then because you know how I am. Are you going to need a microphone
like over there? I might. At church, I've begged you to give me a microphone so that when you say something that's a little off, I can say something. interrupt the whole service. So I do that a lot. You know, I just do it with my voice, not with the microphone. So I might need to do that. You might need to consider doing that. Somebody's got to keep you straight. So we've been doing a lot of speaking, been doing two carnivore meetups. That's been fantastic.
I mean, and here's what I love about that space is that we get to bring Jesus into a place where you don't classically think of about. Church, Jesus, spirituality. And yet the mind, body, spirit connection is so critical to having whole health, holistic health. I mean, not just having. What good is it if you get your body and your diet and shape and all that and you're eating well, but your mind's a wreck or you have mental
health issues or spiritually you're void. And so we've got to get all three of those components integrated. That's really the mark of maturity, isn't it? When you begin to integrate mind, body, spirit, and you become that whole person. And isn't that the goal of life on this planet is to become a whole person? It's always been our goal since we met. The Bible calls that maturity. And it literally is. It's the integration of
a lot of things. My word for the year, I've said this before, but it's important, is the word convergence. And that's how I see that is convergence is the coming together of all these different things. And I'm seeing that happen on a lot of levels right now, which is very exciting. So we're going to have guests that have a carnivore story, but we're also going to have guests that have trauma. in their life that they've been able to overcome because of Jesus. And I love
that. We're going to kind of have a little bit of everything on our show. In fact, I'm going to have a very interesting guest, Pastor Benjamin, Leon Benjamin. He is part of the White House Office of Faith who meets with Donald Trump on a weekly basis to pray in the Oval Office for him to cover Donald Trump and President Trump and his cabinet, but also to pray for our nation. And his words, the Holy Spirit is back in the Oval Office. I love that. Get to have him on.
He's not going to fly. I think we're going to do remote unless we get him back out to be with Laura Logan. With Laura Logan living here in Fredericksburg, we've talked about tag teaming some guests. So we may end up doing something like that. She has a very cool, very impressive podcast that Luke Coffey is producing called Going Rogue with Laura Logan or Laura Logan Going Rogue. One of those. But it's so good. Check that out. Yeah, it's good. And our friends continue
to roll. Adam and Tina Curry, Curry and the Keeper. They've actually had some misses lately because they've had a crazy busy schedule. They've been busy, been out of town quite a bit. Oh my gosh, no kidding. So we're all kind of running and gunning. We are. That's how it feels. Are you tired? I'm good. I'm good. I'm excited because I actually do better when my back's against the wall a little bit. I tend to perform better under a little pressure. And so actually I kind of
like the craziness. And we've got so many trips planned over the next. few months that we're always on the go. So we're going up to Seattle and we're going to be a part of the Healing Humanity documentary meetup up there in Seattle. So I'm excited. We'll get to speak there, share our story, meet a lot of amazing people who are on the journey of mind, body, and spirit. So we just locked that in last night. Yeah, we did. So I'm super excited. Ashley Rogers. Hooked us
up with that. He's coordinating it with his brother. They're called the Carnivore Brothers. They have a great podcast, by the way, the Carnivore Brothers. And they have a good product. That beef jerky they make is the best I've ever tasted. I didn't know they made it. Yeah, they make it. That's their product. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah. That was amazing. So, yeah, we got an inside track on some good stuff. It wasn't hard. It was really good. Not so dried out that it hurt
your mouth, right? So anyway, yeah. So we're continuing on the journey, doing well with that. What else is going on? Oh, Easter. We just had Easter weekend. We had a great Easter services. We had three services, had almost 1 ,200 people attend, which is the largest we've ever had in this church. And so the best part, we had 16. People accept Christ, which is wonderful. That's
the whole goal. It's beautiful. If one person accepted Christ, it's worth all the effort and work that was put into three services and all the volunteers you have to have to conduct three services. It was beautiful. It was a beautiful time. What was the topic? What did I talk on? Oh, my goodness. Typical Easter message, right? It was quite impressive that you were able to get through it. But you talked about... Betrayal. Betrayal. This is B word. Edit that part. I literally
lost it. We don't do edits. I literally just kind of lost it for a second. Well, I called it Breakthrough After Betrayal. Yes, and it was the first time you've shared our story. You didn't really share a whole lot because you're trying to protect the names. I didn't get into the weeds
and protecting the innocent and or guilty. told three story two or three stories of betrayal because it's happened more than once to everybody everybody there is not a human on the planet that has not experienced someone turning their back and that's what betrayal is it's a turning away and it can happen in a million different ways typically it's someone that you're close to betrayal Betrayal doesn't happen to some rogue guy who's following me on Facebook and makes
a bad comment. That's not betrayal. I don't know that guy. Betrayal is when you've done life. You've been in people's life intimately. Close. Yeah. So that was a really good message because Jesus, he experienced the ultimate betrayal. Totally understands our pain when we go through it. He's the one who helps us through that pain. And so I felt like that was a great sermon for
Easter. And I felt like the Lord led us down that path because we were listening to a dear, dear friend of ours, Pastor Steve Berger in Tennessee, Nashville area. He went through a really horrific betrayal in his church, which was our church, but we had already moved here. So we'd been here several years. But we still considered that our home base. And when we would visit Nashville and go see our kids, we'd go back to our church. And now it doesn't exist. We can't. I know. So
it's heartbreaking for us. I mean, it's still heartbreaking for us. That betrayal had so many ripple effects because of the scope of it. And he shared his story for the first time on Rita Springer's. So if you get a chance, go watch this. It's Rita Springer and Steve Berger. So it's easy to find. You can find it on YouTube. Super easy. Just look up Rita Springer and Steve Berger. It's B -E -R -G -E -R. And listen to him share his story of betrayal as a pastor who
got burned by his own staff. And he was the founding pastor. Founding pastor. This wasn't just... Someone who's just been a pastor for a few years. He was the founding pastor of this church. And he was in the middle of a transition, transitioning to become the pastor emeritus. Yes, become the pastor emeritus. And he was raising up a younger pastor. Brutal. Brutal. Just brutal. I feel his
pain. The betrayal. I really feel his pain. Well, we can relate because being in ministry, you know, it kind of comes part of the... hazard it's part of the job hazard the hazard of the job is that those kinds of things are going to happen because as pastors by nature we tend to be very trusting and so we kind of give our heart away and we're very transparent we're just wired that way so we give our heart away to people and then when it gets trampled on or turned away
it it's it's a deep wound but i will say this i feel like through the years we've gone through this several times several deep ones, but there are a lot of little ones, but much deeper. And every time we've gone through it, our recovery time has been exponentially quicker. Yeah, it has. It's like we bounce back. And I think too, as we've been in this for now, for me, it's been 40 years, 40 plus years, 42 years. And for you.
32. Ish. Yeah. 32 years. What happens is the older you get, the longer you're in this, your focus becomes more on Jesus and the kingdom of God than it does people in the church. And I don't mean that in a disparaging way at all. It's just our focus has shifted to a much, it's almost like a higher altitude. It's like a 30 ,000 foot level as opposed to. Just constantly being down there with your feelings out and everything. We're still that. We're still very trusting.
And to me, that's what makes our church what it is. I think in the last few years, we've had to allow ourself to become more trusting. If not, we can't be the pastors God's called us to be. Because you have to, in order to be a good pastor, you really need to have some transparency. You need to be able to help people understand that. Their pain, you understand their pain because
you've been through pain yourself. And if you keep that all to yourself and you act as if you've never experienced anything, it's hard for people to relate to you. That reminds me. It does, of a pastor that we've had. That we've had who will go unnamed. But that guy would get up and preach a solid hour every time he preached. And he was brilliant. And opening the Bible and getting in the word and teaching. But he never talked about his personal life. Never shared his own
stories. And you have to think about it. The whole idea of the Bible, it's a story. It has a story arc. And story is what makes us who we are. Our stories are what's compelling. For example, if I'm listening to a preacher. I love I'm nerdy. So I get into the scripture and the Hebrew, the Aramaic and the Greek and all the different nuances of Bible. But at some point I can drift just like anybody else. Right. If that's all there
is. But if that teacher, that pastor teacher leans into a story, I find myself leaning forward in my chair and engaging because now I start to connect. And so good storytellers, it's an art. You can see the church, their reaction. Because you're up in the pulpit. Oh, I can physically see it. You can physically see when people become engaged or when they're, you know, just looking around. That atmosphere changes. It does. You know, I can tell if I've droned on about a point
too long. Yeah, I rode that horse too far. And I can tell, I can feel the room. But man, you lean into a story and a personal story, especially something that honestly involves pain or discouragement or, you know, whatever, you know, any of the D words, right? Because that's universal. Everybody's experienced pain. And the Bible is full of stories about people who had massive setbacks. And the way we always say it is a setback is a setup
for a God kind of comeback. And really that when you begin to view it that way and have that perspective on it, that's living up in a down world. Doesn't mean you're in a down world, but can you live up in the midst of that? Can you rise above it? Well, not every day. I mean, you're going to have those days, those moments, right? But when you can relate and connect to the Bibles, you know, the stories in the Bible, but now let's bring that into real life, into you and me and
all of us telling our stories. There's nothing more powerful than your own personal story. Yeah. Now there's nothing. So betrayal connects with that story part in all of us where we can go, I have a chapter or two on that too in my book, in my life. And a lot of people, you know, we haven't always handled that correctly. No. But I believe that as it's continued to happen over time because we're living in a fallen world and
we're going to have challenges like that. Hopefully, as we mature in the Word, then God helps us to be able to handle it rightly. You talked about responding versus reacting on Sunday, and hopefully we can respond better the more we grow in Christ. Because I know I haven't responded properly in the past. You talked about... The games, the different games. The games people play. I think you should share those. Yeah, I'll share some
of that. Because that was so good. I was visiting with Tina yesterday, and she was quoting the different games. And her and Adam were talking about it on the way home, and she said, this is exactly what they've experienced. We all do this, right? And I was like, yeah, we really
all have. played this game when it comes to being betrayed so when betrayal happens obviously you're the shock and all because we don't you usually see it but the very nature of betrayal is it's a surprise it's you didn't see it coming right if you saw it coming you might could have headed it off at the pass or or done something to so betrayal typically comes as a surprise and when it does it takes you out it takes you off guard It's like the death of someone because you lose
something that was so meaningful and precious to you. And so we play these games, these head games. Remember that song, Foreigner? Head games. I always love that. So the games we play when we were betrayed, first of all, the shame game. And the shame game is after a betrayal, we begin to second guess our role in the betrayal. So let's say you're the victim. You're on the victim side of it. And someone has betrayed you. And then what happens is the shame game is you start
to overthink. Can I ask the question? Do we have any overthinkers? And man, hands went up everywhere and elbows were bumping. Wives were bumping husbands, husbands bumping wives, finger pointing, all that. Because we all have a degree of that, right? And that overthinking and what happens when we're betrayed, we just go into this hole because this. The sin against relationship is one of the most
egregious sins in scripture. The very reason you and I were created, all of us were created, all of our friends that are listening with us today and are watching. We were created for relationship. And when relationship gets violated, it's one of the darkest, hardest sins. And it's the sin that happened with Satan and God. I mean, it was a violation of relationship. It was rebellion. And that is what rebellion is. It's a violation against relationship. You don't rebel against
things. You rebel against people. And so that's what happens. So the shame game, you start overthinking.
Now, all of a sudden you start. almost like codependently taking on the guilt i must have done something wrong we actually asked these questions what did i do wrong could i have done something different is there something wrong with me am i broken beyond repair that's the shame game and oh the enemy can leverage that pain and leverage that shame oh the enemy loves shame he's attracted to that by the way you know god's attracted to faith the enemy is attracted to shame and so
we just we just go into that hole Have you ever played that game? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Many of us. Did you win? Did you lose? No. It's always a losing proposition. It's a lose -lose. It's a lose deal, no doubt. That's a hard one. So here's the next one, the blame game. Blame game can work both ways. This is a refusal to own any part of the situation. So you're always blaming others. It's all their fault. They did this to
me, you know, and not owning any part. And if there's anything I've learned through the years, hopefully as i'm maturing i am definitely getting older about maturing but i'm getting older is that there's always something for me to own in in a breach of a relationship it may have been i i didn't respond to a call or even a text sometimes these days text is kind of we put a lot of weight on that or i didn't respond well or or i didn't i didn't think it was important i didn't deem
what they had to say anyway it could be a million things right and so When we become quick to own our part in it, which would be the same as we would say be quick to repent, which means to turn around and face, that is the best way to sort of eradicate that and not fall into this trap of suddenly blaming them. You know, it's funny how people quit things. Sometimes even a good parting can get messed up at the very end. Like somebody's leaving a job situation.
They're moving on to another town. It might have been a positive thing, but our human nature tends to not do well with goodbyes. That's true. Particularly when you're leaving vicinity and proximity. And so we will create drama because it's easier to walk away from somebody that you're mad at than the people you love. Boy, is that not the truth. That's real, isn't it? Yeah. It's the same reason why... there's a dog who comes up to you in the
yard. You know, that dog belongs to somebody else down the street and you don't want to be mean to it. You got to get in your car and go somewhere. So what do you do? You don't kick the dog, but you try to shoo it, go back home. And you feel bad about it, but you got, I got to get that dog home. It's going to get hurt. So for its own good, you yell at it and try to scare it. So to run off, I know it's heartbreaking. We do this with people though, where we don't.
do well with goodbyes. When I left Dave Ramsey's organization to go back into full -time ministry, when we moved here, I went to my supervisor and I said, look, people don't do well with goodbyes. Can we break the mold on this? Because he would just go and put a box. Not Dave, but the supervisors, the culture. Put a box. It's kind of like, oh, you're leaving us? Well, goodbye. Don't even take two weeks. Just go. Here's a box. That was really. Not some good leavings. So I wanted to
break that mold. I hope you did. Well, I wanted to set a new trend. I hope you did. So I went to my supervisor. He was amazing, obviously, Brian Bush and other people in the chain of command. And I went to them. I said, I'm going to ask a favor. And I know it's never been done here, but would you pray over me? Would you bring the department together? It's about 40 people, 50 people. And would y 'all gather around me, lay hands on me, and pray me out of here? Pray me
into the next season of ministry. Because you're not leaving out of. No. I'm not mad. Let's make this a healthy thing. Yes, exactly. A positive. A positive. So I don't want to leave. I feel like I'm being sent. And they did it. Which is what we've done with people. Like when we were at a military church, our church was mostly military. That was back in Abilene. Yeah. And every time that a person was getting. PCS, is that the way you call it? PCS, we would bring them up and
we would pray and send them off. They weren't leaving because they were mad. They were leaving because they had to go to their next assignment. So we need to get better at saying goodbye. We do. So that we don't, so in betrayal, so when betrayal happens, wow, that's a punch. That's a hit. That is. How do you override anger and bitterness so that from your end, It can be a
blessing. Ooh, that's a tough one. Well, I had a young girl come up to me at church a few weeks ago who had been betrayed by a relative, kind of a relative of a relative. And she said, I don't know how to get over this. And I said, the best way to get over something like this is to pray for them and pray for justice. But you're not praying for anything bad to happen, but you're putting it in God's hands to handle
rather than you having to carry that. And I'll never forget because she came up to me on Sunday and said, that worked. I've been praying for that person. And she said, I'm graduating from high school next month, and I have made the choice not to invite them. But I feel like that's the boundary I need to set up because I told her, you can pray for someone, but set up boundaries. Now, that's a response, not a reaction. That's
what you want to see. This was a 17 -year -old girl who responded rightly because she came and asked for help and said, what can I do? I know. She's actually going to be going to a Christian college, which I love, and she's super sweet. But the fact that she even came and asked, because most people, people just live with that anger, that angst towards that person. But she literally said, I need help. I need help. And I think that's very mature. It probably took me until I was
55 years old to get to that point. And here she is 17. It was beautiful. One of the things you and I have said for years, one of our Pastor Jay -isms, is we want to turn contempt into compassion. And boy, the best way to do that is to start praying for somebody you're mad at. That has been one of the keys for me through the years of getting over things. So I don't hold on to resentment. I don't let a root of bitterness grow down in me. It's to begin to pray for that
person. But it doesn't mean that we're going to just, Live pain free because not at all. The pain we had, especially from this last betrayal we had. It's real. It's so deep that I hurt for our relationship. The pain is still, I don't know, it's not buried, but it's there in the fact that I have compassion for these people. But I also wish that it didn't happen and that we could reconcile, which we tried. They wouldn't. One person wouldn't. And it's still hard to comprehend
that we went through it. And so the hurt, God can take away the pain of that hurt, but the hurt is still there, I guess is the best way to put it. Because it's a broken relationship. It's like going through a divorce, which we've both been through. Some people go through divorces and they don't want that divorce. And so they have to live with the constant pain. But the person that can bring them through that, obviously, is Jesus. He's the only one that can bring you
through the pain. Because the answer is not a technique. It's not a technique. It's not a trick or four easy ways to shake off bitterness. The answer is a person. Gosh, talk about a revelation. I actually wrote my daily grind about the person of Jesus Christ himself. That's what we need. That's who we need. And yet we tend to always turn to other things first. And we go to him last. Yeah, we go to alcohol. I looked at my cup. It's coffee, I promise. It's black rifle.
And it's my happy cup. Wake up and do my happy dance. Mercy me cup. So anyway. But we turn to things. Dudes can turn to porn. I guess females too, right? I mean, we turn to distractions. Because we want that pain, so we want to numb out. Yeah, or sugar cookies. You know, whatever. Sugar cookies. Well, we have a freezer full of them here at the church. No, they're almond cookies. It's torture. It is. I know, but they've still got sugar. Yes, they are sugar. They're gluten
-free. No, they're not. Yeah, it's almonds. I don't think that—it's probably an almond extract, Jimmy. I don't think it's an almond cookie. Those are actually— Yes. That's even worse. I know. Okay, let's don't go there. So we digress. Here's another one, the name game. The name game. The name game can go a couple of different ways where we'll start calling. We'll label somebody. They
are awful. They did this to me. And what happens is— It's hard to pray for somebody when you're at a point where you're labeling them, categorizing them. And we do that because if I can put them in a box, I can set the box over here. So it's a coping mechanism where we're trying to cope with pain, cope with betrayal. Betrayal is such a breach of relationship. We all, I mean, one of our basic human needs is belonging. It is.
To be loved, to belong, to fit in. And so when there's a breach of that, That's like one of the deepest cuts. So one of the ways we cope with it is we call them names. We label them. Well, they were they they didn't care. They were in fact, they weren't even a good friend anyway. I never really I mean, we just start rationalizing and negotiating in our own mind a way that we can categorize them so that we don't have to feel anything. Right. Except for anger. Right.
Right. So we put them over here in their little category in box. And that's just that's a way of dodging the issue. And one of the things that is so important in the healing process is to refuse that and to actually feel the pain you're having. To actually say, you know what? This hurts. It sucks to be me today. I'm going to embrace that instead of throw it off. Because I'm going to trust God in this pain that he can heal me. He can give me his Holy Spirit to navigate
it. Again, the answer is a person, not a technique. He's the comforter. He is. He's the teacher. He's the counselor. Friend. He's everything we need. So I lean into that. So that name game, sorry, I didn't want to get too far off on that, but it's important. I think it'll help people, is that we use these different words or labels. To soften, to reframe, or even to sometimes deny and obscure what happened. And that's when it gets dangerous. Absolutely. So here's another
one. This is the last one. The MAME game. Do you know I had to look up MAME four times to make sure I was spelling it right? I know. I even looked at your notes. It's not. Literally, it's M -A -I -M. So when one animal maims another animal, it's M -A -I -M. I know. That is so weird. What can I say? You learn something new every day. So the maim game, it means seeking to hurt, damage, or punish the betrayer in response to the pain you've experienced. It's retaliation.
It's revenge. It's going on social media and getting stupid with your keyboard because you
so want them to hurt. in that moment maturity is willing to delay gratification because the gratification would be i'm going to hurt them they just hurt me that's gratification instant gratification so but maturity will take their foot off the gas pedal and say i'm going to step back or i'm going to push back from the table i need to let this settle because if i say something right now yes it's going to be bad And there have been many times, you know me, when I've
been hurt, what do I do? I get quiet, don't I? Because I don't want to say something that I will regret and say it out of emotions and anger. And a lot of people don't just, I mean, they will begin to talk and they'll tell others. you know, how they were hurt and how that person hurt them. There is a relational component to that. It's called validation. Yes. We want to be validated in our pain. We want people to come around us, pat us on the shoulder or the back
and say, oh, you deserve to be angry. What they did to you is wrong. We all do this. Again, this goes back to that Maslow's hierarchy of needs, right? One of them is. belonging. We need to belong. So we want affirmation and we want people to validate our pain. Join us. Right. I remember Rice Brooks. I've, I've used this quote many times through the years, but it was one of the most compelling things I ever heard Dr. Rice
Brooks say. And he said this, he said, for every step you take away from the cross, there'll be 10 or 12 Christians patting you on the back, telling you you're doing the right thing. You know, and what he meant by stepping away from the cross could be anger, retaliation, blame, all the things we've talked about, the shame, all these things we've talked about in it. And most people, a lot of people leave the church because they blame the whole church. But yet
it was a few people. The church did this to me. I thought, what? Or they'll blame God. And God doesn't cause evil to happen to people. He doesn't do that. We have our own will. And we can't. We can't ignore the role that the devil has to play, that Satan, the demonic, spiritual warfare. Yes, number one. If he can get people to turn on each other. Think about it. What would the devil hate the most about any of this, about God's creation? He's created. Yes, he's created.
The object of God's love. So everything about the enemy. is to turn us on each other. That's the violation of relationship. And so whenever we have these breaches in relationships, the Bible tells us that we've been given the ministry of reconciliation. But here's the... The key factor in that, it takes two to reconcile. It
does. It takes two sides. You can have the best intentions, try to go reconcile with somebody, but if they're not ready and they're still offended or whatever caused it, then you're spitting in the wind. Right. I mean, literally. But you have to be able to deal with that in your heart so that you don't let that root of bitterness take. So help us with that. So what do we do when...
The other person won't reconcile. So the temptation is to get everybody to validate your pain and to say you have a right to be angry and get all the pats on the back and sympathy, which we all have done at one point or another. Hopefully we're growing up, right? So how do we get over that? How do we forgive somebody who's not repentant
and who doesn't want to reconcile? I love what you said on Sunday because you talked about shaking the dust off your feet, but literally you have to shake the dust off your feet and you have to move on and you have to allow, give it to God for him to deal with them. They're the ones who are going to be judged for them not coming in alignment with what God's words, especially
if they're a Christian. If they're not a Christian, you can't expect, you know, God to do a work in them because they don't know God, but you can also ask God to be the judge of that person. But yeah, you definitely have to shake it off. We have to get to a point to where we can shake off that pain. I had an experience where I did that. I was very young in ministry as a youth minister. And this older deacon had been really mean to me. I mean, just he wouldn't cut me any
slack whatsoever. We were winning kids to Jesus. The youth group was blowing up. Things were going great. But it didn't look like what he wanted it to look like. It didn't look like what he wanted it to look like. He wanted us to get. church kids to church, not those wild kids that listen to Metallica and had skateboards. So I was bringing in kind of the rougher crowd. Not rougher crowd, that's a terrible way to say it, but kids that were not church kids, which is
my background. Which is the whole point of Christianity. So I'm trying to reach guys that were like me, right? And so they're coming in. So anyway, I go to his house because I just want to reconcile. I'm like, I don't like living with that. I go
to him. and he literally the short story is he threw me out of his house not physically he just but he came at me i mean poor man was so frail he would have probably snapped in two but but he was old and mean he was a curmudgeon and he he basically pushed not physically but pushed me out of his house which was and i walked into my car and literally The Holy Spirit showed me a picture of what they did in the Bible that
would shake the dust off their feet. So I got to my car and I just, not in a big dramatic way, no one was looking, but I just sort of clicked my heels together, just symbolic of knocking the dust off my shoes. And I shook the dust off my feet. And that's actually a Hebraic, Israeli thing that they do when there's a breach and when they're... they shake the dust off their feet. Or if they don't receive what you bring to them, you shake the dust off your feet. In
the book of Acts, Paul talking about this. Yeah, when you leave and they don't receive, and Jesus said, if they don't receive your peace. So there is that there. So just to land the plane on this, we're talking about betrayal. It's a deep pain. It's a deep wound, one of the worst. And I know that there are people that are watching and or listening who have. Definitely gone through this. What are some things that we can help them with? Just in a short, what is the best thing, maybe
the primary thing? You've been betrayed. What do you do next? Well, you have to go to God and ask him, is there any truth to anything that has happened? Wow, you nailed that. There's always some sort of little bit of truth. A kernel of truth. A kernel, like you say. And so I think that's the first thing that we need to do is examine ourselves. So here's a simple way to do it for our friends that are watching or listening. Just go to Jesus. Straight to Jesus. Say, Jesus,
is this true? Is this true? Have I missed something? And I ask a dangerous question. What are my blind spots? And he shows me. He comes to a conversation or whatever. Did I miss something? And when you do that, you open yourself up to being teachable. I think that one of the hardest or the worst things that we can do is become unteachable. No matter how old we are, no matter what we've been through, no matter what our degree or pedigree is or our social standing, if we are unteachable.
then we're not usable. Right. And so that's, you nailed it, Jesus. Yeah. Is this true? Is this true? And then be ready to hear the answer. I know. Because it may not be totally true, but there may be a... There may be some kind of nugget in there that you need to, that God wants you to work on. And I have had experiences where I have owned that nugget, picked up the phone, called the individual and repented of that. And you did. But he's the one who betrayed me. But
he betrayed you. And it cost us dearly. It cost us our life savings, cost us one of our cars, our house. I mean, we lost huge on that. It sent us into a deep, deep pit. And yet we just decided not to despair. We decided not to let it destroy us or to quit what we know God's called us to do. Which is interesting because you talked about a lot of people that you went to school with that are pastors that are not in the ministry anymore. And a lot of it has to do with betrayal
or expectations not being met. You think you're going to become a pastor and you're going to grow a large church and everybody's going to love you. And it's not necessarily that way. I mean, we go through our own tests and trials. And a lot of people don't have the skin to be able, that thick skin to be able to handle that. And I think that's really sad. What's the statistic of pastors that leave? Around 7 ,000 a month in America. It's unbelievable to me. That was
one of the more recent after COVID. That's just unbelievable. So let's land the plane with a prayer. How about we pray for our friends? First of all, I want you to go to livingupandadownworld .com and then they can... Click on subscribe. They can leave a review, which is very helpful, by the way. Or on YouTube, give us a like, subscribe to our channel. That way you'll know when things are coming out. If you subscribe on our website, we send out a newsletter. Super simple. It's
not fancy. It's just to let you know the next podcast is up, so you get a heads up on that. And also, if you're interested in hearing this message on betrayal, you can go to bridgefbg .com. And you can go down there and that will be archived on our church website. By the way, we didn't mention this, we're pastors of a church. We pastor a church called Bridge Church in Fredericksburg, Texas, and it's our joy to do what we do. And so thank you for being with us today. So can
I pray us out? Yeah, pray us out. Father, in Jesus' name, I pray for every person who will hear this or see this podcast and that they will find encouragement and realize that they are not alone. In their pain, they're not alone. In their suffering, they're not alone. In betrayal, that it is common. It is one of the things that is common to all people, all mankind, humankind.
But Father, I'm asking as a favor for them, even as they listen, that something that was said today would be a leverage point towards healing and wholeness and grace and mercy. And that, Father, they would find themselves moving from contempt to compassion. and on the road to healing and wholeness. We pray it in Jesus' name. Amen. If you have any questions on this topic, feel free to write. You can write us on our website,
livingupinthedownworld .com, and I'll be glad to get back with you or Annette, both of us. Whatever we can do to encourage you on the road to wholeness, healing, and living up in the down world. You guys have an amazing week. On purpose, thank you for being back. I'm so happy you're here.