Screen Sabbath

00:00 Before I even pray, I just want to say what a privilege it is, brother, to do this with you. Likewise, brother. We get to do this. Father, in Jesus' name, it's our heart to be before you as open vessels. And we just say, Lord, fill us, use us anything that comes through us. We want it to honor you. And so, Lord, we consecrate our thoughts. We consecrate our opinions, our ideas, even as we ideate about things that are happening in our culture and our world right now. I'm asking, God, that you would direct and order the things we think, the things we say. We know that words matter, and we've seen that come to be true more today than any time. Words matter. What we say matters, and we want what we say to honor you and to advance the kingdom.

00:44 And for all of our listeners, whether they're listening today, another day, or down the line, or months away, Lord, if that podcast lands and they're player, Father, I pray that they will be encouraged. They'll be lifted. They'll be not only motivated, but even more so inspired. We give this to you in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. It's Wednesday, September 17th, 2025. We get to do this. This is episode number three. This is the life we've been blessed with. This is a gift for you. We get to do this. This is a chance we cannot miss.

01:25 This is the life. We get to do this. Hey, brother. How you doing? You know, the song is starting to land with me. You know, I hear the promo and hello, Fred, and I'm like, you know, yeah, it's there. I like the last line more than any of it. We get to do this. Being a musician, I can be a little snobby sometimes about music. You don't say. I can't be. I'm snobby about my own plan. So when you first ran it by me, I was like, I love Jeff, so appreciate Jeff. But I was like, yeah, it's kind of, but man, the last line gets me. Well, it sticks.

02:02 And when he sent them to me, and I didn't tell you that initially, he said, I think that this is meant for you to talk it up into the hook, into the vocals. Right. And so that makes sense. You actually don't want too much of a logo or anything happening in that point. So it came with instructions. I was kind of thinking something like, you know, along the lines of the Hotel California. No, not Hotel California. The Life in the Fastlane Riff. And that thing just rocks. You know what I mean? I'm old school. I'm old school. By the way, you got a donut. I'm not going to eat it. I'm not going to be even worse. And it's sitting here in front of me. I'm sorry. It's like we can flip it and we can eat it while we're talking. I've got to block the view with my coffee. I came into the church and there's Naomi standing right there.

02:46 Hi, how you doing? And she's holding a donut. She says, I have this for you. I'm like, I said, I just ate. Don't give it to me. Just give it to me. I can add more. So the reason she has a lot of donuts right now is they had 290 kids. That many show up. Is that a record for Devos and Donuts? I think we did over 300, but that had been going. This was the first kickoff of the year. Not only is it, you know, a new school year, but it's also a new school. I mean, we built a whole new school since last year. Big relocation. So they had this set up in a different place, but they do this thing called Devos and Donuts. And it's something that the Lord gave Naomi back when they lived in Nashville.

03:29 They lived out in Tennessee in the Smyrna area. And they started doing it at their kids' schools, and it just took off. So when she came here, the Lord just said, okay, you remember that thing I showed you? Devos and Donuts? Try it here. And so they started it last year, and it just got bigger and bigger, over 350 kids. That is so good. Showing up to get totally pumped up on sugar, you know, before you'd think the teachers would be like, don't you? But yeah, feed them, they'll come. But it actually, the school, one of the neat greatest reports we got back from the principal at the middle school, Fredericksburg here, public school, was that on the days that you guys come and do Devos and Donuts, we bring, got a worship team, they got a stage, sound, everything.

04:15 It's really cool, really well done. A lot of volunteers. But he said, every time y'all come, we have the best days of the year because y'all are here. And I'm thinking, man, it would have been like these teachers going, quit giving these kids donuts before class. And that means that they're really calm and pay attention in class. The best days they have. One teacher said, could y'all come every day? Okay. You know, we could teach you how to do this. We could show you how to do some worship music and get that going on. Exactly. I mean, I know teachers are busy, but it's pretty cool, though, when the public school, which gets a lot of bad press these days, especially from Christians. Yeah. And unfortunately, it's been earned in a lot of areas. But our school.

04:59 school here in Fredericksburg, good things are happening here. We're seeing, we have a superintendent who's already doing everything he can to get the Ten Commandments. He was a bit controversial in some of the school board meetings. A while back, he was. I think, you know, how you the message, it matters how you say what you say. Of course it does. And I think sometimes things were said with so much strength and so much intensity that people who are administrators and leaders and stuff, they tend to take a step back. I've been in the public arena, the people business, so to speak, for 42 years.

05:40 And it matters how people approach me. So if I see somebody coming and they've got a pitchfork in one hand and a torch in the other, this is a good point. It will literally cause me to shut down before they ever open their mouth. And it kind of flows into the obvious things we got to talk about today. Absolutely. With the assassination of Charlie Kirk, which was not great timing for our episode last week because we had already recorded it. And I'm like, oh, I'll just put it out there. No, I'm glad you did. Yeah, but it didn't feel appropriate to go like, hey, listen to our podcast because it has nothing to do with what you're talking about right now. Although I encourage everybody to go back and listen to it because it was good. I actually

06:21 go back and listen to things, but the week became a blur with everything that happened. So my mind was just all over the place. I thought, what do we even talk about? So I went back and listened to it when I was doing some errands running around. And I'm like, wait, this is relevant, actually. It really is at one point. And so even though we didn't directly address that because it was after the fact, it's still on point. The principles are still there. So anyway, I listened to it and I thought, wow, this is uncanny almost. So anyway. So the thing that I'm most concerned about right now is here's what came to mind as I was thinking about what we're going to talk about today on the show. And it's Coritembohm.

07:03 You know her story, Cori Tembohm. She wrote a book. She was the other and Frank, if you will, in the Netherlands. She didn't live in Amsterdam, but she lives in Haarlem. And it's a beautiful, she wrote a couple of books, but she actually went into the concentration camp with her sister. Her sister died there. I think most of her father died there. And she got out. And I mean, there's a whole bunch to her story of how she just became a missionary for God, came to the United States with no money and just has traveled the world based upon the grace of the Lord. But at a certain point, I believe that was maybe I'm confusing books, but

07:43 she met one of the guards in a church. True, true story. Where she had been in the concentration camp, and she was just paralyzed for a moment. She didn't know what to do. And then she just blessed him. Yes. And right now, it feels like we are very far from that type of attitude. Right. Where we are exclusively talking about the woke left, the radical left, the left, left, left. Some even say Democrats. While this may be a generalization and not necessarily untrue,

08:29 and we're not running around tar and feathering people, the hatred is very real, and it concerns me. And it was actually something Charlie, because I've been watching a lot of his videos and something he said, which comes back to Psalm 97, 10, you who love the Lord hate evil. Or Proverbs 8, 13, the fear of the Lord is to hate evil. And people are using this. And I don't know if it's correct or incorrect, which is why, you know, even if we weren't doing a podcast, we'd be talking about this. Hey, brother, tell me how do we handle this? Because all of the, you know, love your neighbor, love God, love your neighbor like yourself.

09:14 If your enemy is hungry, give him to eat. If he's thirsty, give him to drink. It'll be like pouring hot coals on his head. But it doesn't feel like that's where we are. And I just wanted to get your take on it, what your thoughts are. Because I have it too. I'm like, you know, these crazy people, finally, this is happening. And I have some other ideas as to why this is happening and where it's coming from. But just that at the top level, how do we deal with this without, I mean, and man, it's triggering COVID trauma. You know, vax, no vax, lockdown, no lockdown. And families have been split. Now we know Jesus said, I come with the sword. You know, I'm going to split families, but. but how do we deal with this?

09:56 What's your thoughts about it? Well, initially the word grace comes to mind, and that means having grace for one another, grace for ourselves. People, it's like a crater. It's like an impact of a meteor hitting the earth, right? There's always initial damage, initial impact. It's all very violent and chaotic in the beginning. And then, as we would say, the dust settles. What's happening right now, people are in a place of outrage because it was so public. It was a public execution, basically. Yes. And whatever the theories abounding, and there's a billion of them out there already.

10:37 It didn't take long for that to happen of who did it and why and all that. Put all that aside. At the end of the day, a godly man, a family man, got executed in front of a bunch of kids. And then, of course, the videos went viral on that. And then all the outrage. The outrage came on both sides, which is frightening. Which is strange. Also, good at the same time because there's a come together moment, and I don't want that to slip away. Exactly. We don't want to miss the silver lining and all of this. And there's a lot. There's a lot of good things happening on the heels of this. But again, after that initial impact, people are grieving. People are mourning.

11:18 And when you're in grief and when you're in mourning, there's nothing normal. And it's interesting because this is like a cultural grieving. This is a whole massive, maybe even half to more than the United States, notwithstanding London, Adrian, all the different places where all these things are popping up everywhere. So there's a cultural grieving right now. And sadly, as a pastor, I meet with families on a very consistent basis over 42 years. And one of my things that I say to them is: it's okay to not be okay.

11:59 Nothing's normal right now, and it won't be for a while. And I say, if no one has told you this, I say this to every family, if no one has told you this, permission to grieve. And we need to grieve fully. So right now, we're grieving a lot of people. And sadly, when you've got a large number and enough people grieving, there's a lot of bad things that can happen. A lot of things get said. We're all very sensitive. So when you're down and you're grieving and you're mourning this loss, and then you're doing something you shouldn't be, which is scrolling your phone 24-7,

12:39 and you're seeing video after video after video of people disparaging Charlie Kirk, disparaging his family, Erica. It's not a coincidence that this shows up on your phone, by the way. Interesting, it is. There is obviously some intent and agenda behind that to try. I mean, they're following Sololinsky's playbook, almost no forward. Was it the Handbook for Radicals? What's it called? That's it. Rules for Radicals. Rules for Radicals. The guy who dedicated the book to Lucifer, of course, in the front pages. He literally did. Yeah, I got a copy of it and I was like, oh, okay. All right. Dedicated Satan. So all this is happening, but you add to somebody who's already in grief.

13:23 You know, there's five to seven stages, depending on which psychologist you follow. You know, either way, we know there's a lot of stages. And emotionally, it comes at you so fast. It's like a hurricane where the waves are just coming boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Over time, they come less often. And then maybe once every little bit, and then they diminish. But all the intensity is up at front. So we are emotionally triggered right now. Everybody. Yeah, everybody. Even those that didn't like him or hated him are triggered in another sense. Of course. So all this, of course, the enemy, and we're talking about Satan himself, strategically is like, what an opportunity here.

14:05 It's a field day. Field day. Whatever it is. He just releases his hordes throughout the world, right? To say, all right, this is a good time to seek and destroy. Stir it up. Amplify everything. And so that's what we've got. We've got that happening culturally. But what has to happen is we need some sane voices out there. And hopefully we'll be sane today as we say, this is not the time to clap back, snap back, return a volley that came over the fence at you online. And the best way to not do that is to not go looking for it. Do that. That is turn my phone off. Yeah, we don't have video, but yes, Pastor Jimmy just slipped his phone on my Bible.

14:49 Bible. Yeah. What's bigger? But it's, but you know, people, I think we've talked about this. You know, the internet is basically a big self-pity promotion machine. So people are taking their grief and sharing it, which you really need. That is not the place to share it. You need to share it with your family, with your friends, church community. Yes, exactly. Anybody but out there on the network. I mean, that is that it's, and we can say this that we're blue in the face. I know. Blue in the face. I know. I don't know what it will take for people to finally realize that, no, this is just not really doing it for me.

15:30 So you great, you gave a great line on No Agenda last week. And I went back and listened to that first part. We caught it after you'd said that, but we went back and listened. And say that line because this needs to be repeated often. Well, I'll use your version because you changed it slightly, but I liked it. It was like, it's time to put down our screens and pick up our Bibles. I initially said phones. Actually, you said screens. Did I really? You did. I took note of that. Really? Because usually you talk about phones a lot. You use the word screens. You use the word screens. And it even caught me off guard because I was expecting you to say phones. That's interesting. Go back and listen. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Because when you, and you repeated that in church, I'm like, oh, wow.

16:10 And I thought, but I said phones. And I know that because I had this written down, sometimes I write stuff down that I want. And when it's a 90% never gets used. I'm like, and I use that. Believe me. So I said screens. I like sermons. That's a Holy Spirit moment because it is so much. It's not, and it's all screens. It is. It's broader. It's big screens, little screens. Yep. I'm looking around the table. It's everywhere. Yeah. I know. That was simple but profound. And thank you for saying that. I said it several times on Sunday. I've said it since then. I was visiting with Rick Green and Reagan and Faith out at the Patriot Academy.

16:52 We were talking about that. And I brought that line back up that that is one of the solutions because what we got to do is cut off this flow, this input that we're getting. I caught myself a couple of nights ago in bed, and Ed conks out as soon as we lay down. And I'm like, I'm not ready to go to sleep yet. So what did I do? I had my phone out. I'm on Instagram and I'm seeing these disparaging. It took me about five seconds to shut that down. And all I did was turn my phone off. Yeah. Went to sleep. I was like, I cannot let this get in my mind. A great way to honor Charlie is to emulate him in a few things he did.

17:35 And I've learned now that once a week, I think it was Saturday, he would turn off his phone, put it in the drawer, and just be with his family. I'm not good at this either. I am, I mean, and shouldn't, and it should just be, I think it's right. It should be screens, not the phone. Because I'll go and sit in front of my computer and I'll do a little bit of programming or whatever it is. That would be a great way to really take a screen Sabbath. I just came up with a new screen. That's a great word. He called it a fast. Yes. Yeah, he said, I think it's on Friday, maybe Friday night to Saturday. Okay, yeah. He says I do a screen fast. Okay, so that's not a whole Friday night to Saturday. Yeah.

18:19 I'm not good at it. So it would be good for me, too. And I think if everyone could just do that, and what a way it would be to honor him to just take that time. But what about FOMO? We might miss something. We may miss out on something. Well, no, here's the bottom line. Oh, yeah. You're missing out on all kinds of stuff. You better believe it. Stuff that will be there when you pick up the screen again. It's not going on. It's a celebrated show, but we're missing all kinds of stuff. Stuff. Yes. It is. It's totally stinky stuff. It is stinky stuff. And it comes at us at a thousand miles per hour. I like the way John Eldrit talks about it.

18:59 He says it's an assault on your heart. It's not just on your mind. It's your heart, which is the center of your mind, will, and emotions. That's what the heart is. And it's an assault on your heart. And the scripture talks about don't lose heart, don't lose heart. Well, one of the quickest ways to lose heart is to give it away to a screen. Wow. It's giving it away to anybody. We give it away. We do that. We give it away to people. We give it away to stuff. But we really, these days, it's more screens than anything. And I'm the pot calling the kettle black here. So just true confession here. I mean, I'm as part of it because being a pastor, I always feel like I need to try to be in the know. I try to want to stay up on the, if you ever get behind the curve, you feel like you're, again, fear of missing out.

19:44 You feel like you're missing. missing something. You know, I do these cultural briefings every Sunday morning, and I always feel like I got to keep the input going, but it is hard on my heart. Well, there's a couple of things I've learned. One, if you post less and send less email, surprisingly, you get less back. This is a lesson I learned a long time ago. I used to always be replying to an email, reply to an email. And I've had to pull back on that because I get hundreds of emails a day. And there's always going to be one that's a gem that's important. So I'm reading them all. And I've kind of gotten into the habit of people who send me a lot, I'll answer every fifth one with hey, thanks.

20:28 Because when you answer, they're going to reply back. It's guaranteed. Because, yeah, that's all right because people aren't thinking about your time and what kind of time it takes. But the less you send, the less you receive. And ultimately, I've always experienced that as positive and productive. Yeah, it's good. So the so now we're in also in this revenge mode. The prosecutors called for the death penalty. And this is kind of like a two-part track that I'm thinking a lot about. So, one, if you know, everyone wants, like, yeah, we got to kill this guy. And let's just presume this guy did it.

21:06 And man, there's a lot of written evidence that points to it, which, you know, everyone's looking for answers. Yeah. And so you can go down the second shooter came from the bottom, the grassy knoll, you know, 15 other people, the furries, the trans. You know, you can go down this entire route. Everybody wants reason. And I think for me, very quickly, I'm like, okay, this is evil. This is just Satan. And this is how this happens. And I can put that on the side and leave that for myself. But there's such a distrust of government,

21:46 which again is part of the trauma that we've lived through in the past five years. And also this almost insatiable, we've got to kill this guy. How do we approach that as believers? I am totally feeling what you're feeling. I'm sensing that there's a part of my flesh that's angry and wants a head on a platter. I want evidence that justice has been served. But I have to quickly tamp that down and go, no, no, stop. Stop it. And so on Sunday, I called for us to pray for that young man. You did. I appreciated that. Nobody clapped. Well, no, it was quiet.

22:26 Yeah. And I can feel a room. I mean, I've been doing this a long time. I feel the temperature of things. And I know that's not a popular thing to say. I mean, basically. It felt good to me, by the way. It felt, yeah, that's what we're supposed to do. A kid needs Jesus. He needs to be born again. He needs to be saved. And if I ever let myself go down the path of no, he needs to rot in hell. And I've heard that statement. I've read that statement a lot. I've seen people ranting about things like that. And mind you, again, grieving, you're not normal. Grieving, there's no boundaries. All your guards come down. The rails come down. You just go off the rails before you even realize it.

23:09 So I'm trying to have patience to realizing a culture is hurting and grieving. And at what point do you stop? It's different for everybody. But at some point, you got to make a choice. Go, okay, I'm done. I had my rant. I railed to my friend or I said some things to my wife about this situation that I may not say out in public, but I need to be done with that. And now I need to refocus myself on something positive and redemptive. We think in terms of punitive and redemptive.

23:46 So we want punishment or we want something to be redeemed for the good. As a follower of Jesus, everything in us should be about redemption. Now, just natural, you know, there's natural, there's cause and effect, natural and logical consequences. There's all those pieces that happen. And he should, if, if it's, if he is for sure the one and all that, he needs to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. But should Christians be yelling, demanding the death penalty? And where's that coming from? Yeah. I'm not anti-death penalty, by the way. I think there are situations and scenarios that justify.

24:28 I don't want to go down that track too deep, but I'm just saying my thought on this before I cry out, murder him, you know, off with his head, is how can his heart be turned? How can he be? be redeemed? Is anyone praying for him and for his family who are completely devastated by this? And two, we need to think through on a broader ripple effect or maybe a broader circle, expand our search, so to speak. Why was he thinking that way? What led him down a track of growing up in a household one way, and then apparently within a year or around a year's time, getting what people are using the word radicalized.

25:14 What I want to know more than just why he did it, because I don't think there'll ever be a real answer for that, why he just in that moment did it. But there will be answers of why did he start down a track of thinking and justifying murder. I have thoughts about that. And I've thought about this for a long time because I tend to always look at all the options. When things like this happen, okay, what are the possibilities? You've taught me to do that. And sometimes when you say it out loud, it's hard because people will be like, I can't believe you said that. So I go through an entire, you know, what was happening at the time.

25:58 Could it have been the Israeli government or Mossad? Well, you know, the M-word, right? Everything's possible. So I go through all of these, and I've actually come at a point which has been staring me in the face for a long time. And it's, I believe, our country has been under attack for 250 years. And it never really ended when we declared our independence. And it's not just people. This is a cultural thing that has been around for a long, long time. And we've been under attack financially, how our financial markets work.

26:42 We've been under attack culturally. I think the drug epidemic is also an attack. And ultimately, it's all from the devil. But where is this coming from? And I'm now looking more towards very old networks, really bloodline networks like monarchies. You know, people always say, well, you know, the Queen of England or the Netherlands or of Norway or of Sweden. They're just ceremonial. And I've never bought that. And I've met the Queen of England before she passed. And I looked at, you know, you're not supposed to look her in the eyes when you say hi. And I did. And there was nothing there, brother. There was darkness. There was just dark, nothing in there. I've heard you say that before. Yeah.

27:27 And so as I was listening to our vice president, J.D. Vance, he took over Charlie Kirk's podcast, which is kind of interesting. He had Charlie's mic, which kind of brought it all in. But of course, it's not really Charlie's podcast. I just have one minute that I clipped from it. Good. And he said something that, to me, can be interpreted different ways, but I feel it's, well, I'll play it and I'll tell you what I think about it. Welcome back to the Charlie Kirk Show. This is Vice President J.D. Vance. Joining me now is Stephen Miller, White House Deputy Chief of Staff, dear friend of mine and dear friend of Charlie Kirk's.

28:09 And before I get into the nitty-gritty of what I want to talk with Stephen about, you know, there's a lot of questions about the investigation, where we are in the investigation. I want to be respectful to the FBI's process, but just know that we are on top of this and the entire administration is trying to do as much as possible to find everything that we can about what led to this, about how we got here. And of course, ultimately, how an assassin took Charlie's life. I wanted to zoom out with Stephen a little bit and talk about all of the ways that we're trying to figure out how to prevent this festering violence that you see on the far left from becoming even more and more mainstream. A lot of people are very worried about how we got here in the first place. And you have the crazies on the far left who are saying, oh, Stephen Miller and J.D.

28:53 Vance, they're going to go after constitutionally protected speech. No, no, no, no, no, we're going to go after the NGO network that foments, facilitates, and engages in violence. So there's a couple of things he said here. I don't like that he said the crazies on the far left. And he's really dividing this. I think that's unhelpful. But what he said at the very end, which I've also heard President Trump say, is we want to figure out the networks that are fomenting this. And to me, that's a little bit of the turning the tables moment where, hold on a second. We've been under attack by networks that have been financed. that

29:37 speak into our medical and pharmaceutical communities, to our legal communities. It usually involves money. So there's no one I want to point to or no particular person, but I always follow the money and it comes really from overseas, not from here. And I'm thinking more European, which is, when you think about it, is not surprising that there's been a you know, once we declared our independence, do you think that the, I'll just say the British, I'm talking about the British people, that they just went, oh, okay, you win, and they went away.

30:16 I've actually wondered about that myself. So I'm doing a deep, deep, deep dive and study on that. And I think that's really good because where this radicalization, this trans Maoism, as I call it, it kind of came out of nowhere. It feels like it. You know, it just, whoop, there it was. No coincidence that it accelerated during COVID. I feel this is a direct attack from, doesn't matter specifically who or what network, but if you can follow the money, then you can probably stop a lot of it. And it flows. I mean, it is, if you and I took a million dollars and dedicated our time for a year, we could turn so many people to Christ on the social media networks just by knowing what to do and how to do it.

31:07 I mean, the governments around the world, they know military psyops. It is the best place. It is like if you really want to be programmed, be in an emotional mood and get on a social media network, and you will be programmed. I guarantee it. It's true. I guarantee it. And we're never going to get people off of that. The best way is not to have your children go on it in the first place. I adore so many parents here at Bridge Church who have not given their kids any screens, any devices. They give them the capability to text, and that's it. And you know what? Are these kids deficient somehow?

31:48 No. Are they really missing out on some incredible aspect of life? No. They're perfectly healthy, well-educated, well-rounded, well-formed, intelligent, fun human beings. I'm working with a couple of them right now. It's like, so there's no need for it. But I do like that they see the president, the vice president, I'll say the president seemingly understands that we're under attack from something that now he says it too. He's also going, the radical left. We've got to stay. I don't like that. It bugs me. But it feels like there is a turning of the tables in front of the temple moment where we say, okay, let's, and it was the money changers.

32:31 You know, let's figure out where the real evil is being, how it's happening, how this flows in, how we can stop it at the root, or at least cut the supply lines, which is always going to be finances. And we have to learn, this is a tough one, to trust the people who our elected representatives have chosen. So I hear, well, you know, Cash Patel, Dan Bongino, they're bought and sold for. You know, there's no coincidence how the Epstein files and all these things flow into it.

33:08 There's so much doubt and so much speculation. It's almost like you can see the board in someone's war room that says, okay, here's how we're going to pit the Americans against each other. We tried it with race. Didn't work that well. You know, the Black Lives Matter thing didn't work out. We tried, didn't quite get there. We can do it with this. And whether that's physical people or in the spiritual realm and powers and principalities, regardless, that's what we're dealing with. And that's what we have to fight against. I love it when you go looking for scripture. I can see you're doing it. I'm actually looking up Saul Alinsky's points because

33:53 it's almost rules for us. It's almost textbook, isn't it? This is like a playbook for how to destroy, but really it's how to divide. Which that makes it simple. It's a divide and conquer kind of thing. And he has so many of these rules. Here's some of the rules. And again, he dedicated his rules, rulebook for radicals to Lucifer. Yes, he did. Let's just be clear. Ridicule is man's most potent weapon. So let's just ridicule. Let's name call. And this is what. is like the schoolyard bullies did this stuff.

34:33 We saw this in the fifth grade, right? We were kids on the block. And it's exactly the same MO. Ridicule is man's most potent weapon. Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, polarize it. Yes. I mean, this stuff is like, when you read through these, it's really frightening to read through these, but you can literally check the box on everything. And it's not just the left. No, no, no, exactly. People. This partisan life or identity politics is something that give him 15. Dutch Sheets did a thing on Friday called, I was going to read it on Sunday, but I just completely ran out of the runway.

35:13 It's funny, I had to stop reading Dutch Sheets because it got a little bit too much over the past couple of months. I'm like, just give me some Jesus love. I know. It's always political. I had to take a break. He's a great guy. I love him. But he did a great job on identity politics and talked about how we fall in. It's kind of like, oh, you're going to buy a new house. He didn't say this is my example. And you can either build a house and spec it out the way you want. This is my personality. This is what I want. Or you can go to the other end of the spectrum is to go buy a prefabricated home. There's four floor plans in the whole neighborhood, and they all look the same.

35:56 I think of those old movies that have like all the houses look exactly the same on the block. Track home. Yeah. So what's easier? It's easier to buy a track home. Well, what's easier in life? It's easier not to think about anything. So I'm just going to pick this side because I agree with most of what they're saying. But I'm never going to question what they're saying because I'm swallowing the whole pill. Does that make sense? Well, this is what frightens me about identity politics, where I will never question or I won't hold any of my elected representatives accountable because I swallowed the pill.

36:35 I'm identifying with that. What can we as believers practically say or use in everyday life when we're with friends, with family, and they're like, those crazy leftists, blah, blah, blah, they killed, you know, whatever it is, what can we practically use and say that will, if there is something, I'm praying there's something that can at least maybe stop people in their tracks and give them a thought without starting a whole argument. You know, is there any scripture? Is there anything that Jesus said that I could say, well, I'm listening to Jesus right now, and here's what he said in this exact example.

37:20 Give me a moment. I'll find something. I mean, because that's what I'm saying. Because from the principle perspective, everything Jesus did adds up into this amalgam of principles. Yes. It may not be a direct quote, but it's how you treat other people. One of the things I always do, when someone brings an accusation against somebody to me, my first question is: have you talked to them? Yeah. Go directly to the source. That's Matthew 18. Jesus said, you go to the person and you talk to them directly. I can pull that up. And because what happens is we get into these broad stroke modes and social media creates our tendency that way.

38:05 It feeds our tendency. We have tendencies to do that. Those people. By the way, them and they. That's not the place to do this. If you post anything of that nature on social media, you're just going to be answering people for the next three days. I'm not ashamed to say I think this way, or I'm treating this situation this way because I'm a believer and a follower of Jesus. If you want to ridicule me for that, that's fine. But that's why I choose not to do what you're doing, or I choose not to participate in this conversation in this manner. And I mean, if we can't stand on our Lord and Savior and say, and by the way, I had this problem myself with

38:51 my own people I work with. It's like, well, I don't believe this because I'm a follower of Jesus. And you get a scoff. I'm okay with that. I'm really okay with that. So somehow I'd love to give the people in our church some of this ammo, if you will. It's like defensive ammo, you know, just so you could say, well, I'm not going to participate in this because here's how I choose to address this situation because I'm a follower of Jesus. And then if that person. scoffs and whatever, but I guarantee you, it'll end that particular

39:30 negative conversation. We call that de-escalation. This is de-escalation. When I worked in the childcare world when I was a case manager, we would have to de-escalate a kid that was going off the rails emotionally. And, you know, once you get to that spot, you're not thinking clearly, right? And you're clearly, we call it, yeah, you're clearly out of your mind. Out of control. But it happens with adults every day online. You see this or somebody's got a phone up in somebody's face and they're ranting on something. There needs to be a de-escalation. One of the ways you can de-escalate is exactly what you did. You're coming in, you come with a different spirit. So, this is something that a pastor once told my staff. I had him in to kind of consult and visit with us.

40:13 And he came and he said one of the greatest things he ever learned in terms of dealing with opposition was always come in a different spirit. So, whatever someone comes at you with, return with a different spirit. That's good. And that sounds simplistic, but if you stop and think about it for a minute, the Bible tells us a soft word turns away wrath. That's a proverb, isn't it? I'm thinking it is. Probably. I'll tell you in a few seconds. If it's not, it's something we say in the old country. There's probably a great Dutch saying for that. There are always turns. But I love when that pastor told us that we were like, that makes sense.

40:56 You come in a different spirit. Because isn't that how Jesus didn't fight fire with fire? No. If somebody attacked him, which the Pharisees often did, he would come at them with a question. He'd come with a different spirit. And so it's the Proverbs 15:1, a soft word turns away wrath. Proverbs 15:1. I love that. A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. It's very commonsensical, right? Of course. A soft word turns away wrath, but a harsh word starts a different translation. It's like, what? There's gambling going on there? Yes. It's very, very simplistic, but so true. It is. And so come in a different spirit. And that's something I've had to learn through the years as a pastor.

41:40 When people come at me, you tell people how people are coming. You know, before they ever open their mouth, you know, if this is going to be a quote, Karen moment or, you know, or whatever it is, and you know, or you know if somebody's going to come. And I love it when someone comes and says to me, I'm not being critical here, but I've observed something. And I'm like, you're a father. Thank you. Well, thank you. I mean, you started well. The person who comes and says, well, let me tell you something. That is doing this wrong or whatever. It's like, whenever I hear a butt, whenever I hear a butt, I love you, but. Love you, Pastor. But, but I need to meet with you. I want to take you out to lunch.

42:19 But I have some concerns I need to share. It's like, gha. Before I was saved, and I was clearly being influenced without even knowing it, my partner, Dave Jones. We had an initial partner in, this was years ago, not in Godcast, but in a different project. And this partner was, it was not working out. And we had hour-long, you know, phone conversations. And I was always amazed. I was like, Dave, how do you stay so calm, man? At the middle of this, and this guy's saying horrible things and he's being recalcitrant and difficult.

42:59 And Dave's answer would be, I'm just approaching him with love. And I always thought that was so admirable, so admirable that it is a part of my faith journey is just, I want to be like that guy. You know, so that's why every morning I, Lord Jesus, put me on as your earth suit. Let me let me feel it. Let me be kind and gentle and compassionate and loving and above all, patient. This is the biggest problem I have. I need patience, patience, patience. So I'm just always looking for a way that we can,

43:40 again, I don't mind if someone says, oh, you and your Jesus talk. I'm like, okay, well, you just ended the conversation. The answer is the church. Well, I heard that recently. Yeah. Yeah. And I had no answer for that because I was so taken aback. I'm like, wow. I mean, I should have said, no, it's really, I follow my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. But I don't mind it if people push back on me being a believer. Right. That's to be expected. It has been written. We know that's coming. I'm good with that. I just always want to try and do that. However, I will say online is not the place to do it because it just won't work.

44:19 You're not. not on a playing field that has any, the odds are tilted against you that that will have a good outcome. And you are more likely to spend three days, you know, the old cartoon, honey, I'm coming to bed soon, but someone on the internet is wrong. You're going to be sitting there forever. So that's just not the place. We got to turn that part off. But when it happens with our friends in our own family, this is where we have to be careful. And, you know, I don't have the scripture, the words, the answer, but I do want to find ways to just say, well, I follow Jesus and here's how I'm approaching this. I love that, Adam. I think you're spot on with that. It goes back to what I said.

45:04 Let's come in a different spirit. Whatever is delivered to you, do not react in the same spirit because that will escalate things. And we're talking about de-escalation. Yes. Proverbs 15:1, I want to read it again, but I got a couple other verses here. A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. That is the mantra of the internet right there. I mean, that is social media there. James 1:19, this is one of your favorites. Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry. If that's not coming in a different spirit, I don't know what is. A person's wisdom yields patience.

45:41 It is to one's glory to overlook an offense. Every morning, you know, I say the Lord's Prayer the minute I wake up, good morning, Holy Spirit, boom, I say it before I even have my eyes open. That's just become a thing. And that's really kind of automatic. But then on my prayer walk, which I do with our dog Phoebe, I expand it. And so when I get to spots like forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors, I will think of a person who made me mad, who said something horrible. And I'm like, I'm forgiving this person. I'm forgiving this person right now for what they did.

46:23 You know what it does? I don't know if it does anything for them, but man, it heals me. Shifts your mind. It really heals me. Can I give you one on that? Because I do the same thing you're talking about. I'll walk out on my deck at night, let Mr. Chevy do his business over there in the yard. It's funny how dogs are all our life, don't they? No kidding. That's funny, isn't it? So as he's taking care, I'm staring up at this big cross on the hill across the highway from us, which is just an amazing thing at night. But I say my own version of the Lord's Prayer. Sometimes I'll start with the 16th, you know, 1600 version, you know, 1611. I'll do the King James version. But then I do it my way. And when I get to that section, you know, forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors, I say this, Father, forgive my offenses as I forgive those who offend.

47:10 Offend me. Yeah. Because that is like typically captures the essence of what the culture we live in. It's really about offense. I was offended by someone else. It is. Which, by the way, the word offend means you can think of a fence, offense, a fence, and tripping over it. The word offend means to stumble over it. Like, so someone threw up a fence and you stumbled over it, ran right into it, tripped right over yourself. So, so this one, it's to one's glory to overlook an offense. Here's another one: Do not, this is Ecclesiastes 7:9. Do not be quickly provoked in your spirit, for anger resides in the lap of fools.

47:51 Boy, the wording of that: anger resides in the lap of fools. And that was written by Solomon, King Solomon, one of the richest men ever to live. Yeah, he dared his glory to him. He learned what really didn't matter. Yeah, for anger resides in the lap of fools. There's so many, Ephesians 4: get rid of bitterness, rage, and anger, brawling, and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ, God forgave you. Now, for the believer, that lands and it lands hard. I have to say to myself, What have I been forgiven for?

48:34 So, what can I not forgive others for? Do you have a minute? If I get one of those legal yellow pads, it's like I have 20 of them at least, line upon line. So many. Here's another one: Proverbs 29, 11, just kind of capturing what we're seeing right now. And this is a strong word of caution, I would say. Fools give full vent to their anger, but the wise bring calm in the end. I mean, this is just full of this. It just speaks. So, another part of the Lord's Prayer kind of folds into this, which, and I was reading about this this morning in Oswald Championship.

49:14 Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest. Another young man, another man who died young before his time, 44. And it was about temptation. And I think that because I pondered it, you know, there was a lot going on this morning. Tina's leaving. You know, we had a neighbor with a panic thing I was trying to fix. I'm trying to get out. And I'm reading through this like, I got to come back to this, the temptation, because we think of temptation as just one thing. Like I'm tempted to look at someone or I'm tempted to eat something I shouldn't.

49:54 I'd love to just talk about temptation, how it applies, particularly with how we respond in social settings, in person, and of course, you know, online. Wow. Okay. We just did a pivot. Well, because we recite this thing, you know, all the time and it just all of a sudden, like, yeah, temptation. Well, it's an interesting line. Lead us not into temptation. That's an interesting line. By the way, I change that to a different form when I do my personal, I do the personalized one. I say, Father, thank you that you never lead us into temptation, but you do deliver us from evil and the evil one.

50:34 That's how I say it. Whoa, that's a shift. It's a shift. It shifts. It's a nuance, but it's a big nuance because thank you that you never lead us into temptation. Scripture says the Lord never tempts us in the book of James. I love James too. He's very direct. Like subtle as a brick. You know, pretty straightforward. Didn't write a lot. Well, what he wrote is good. Man, a few words, but they mattered. And so that's how I do that because he doesn't lead us into temptation. God doesn't. No, we do. The world does. And even James said, we're tempted by our own flesh. Yes. We have to, so you talk about it on a broad scale, but we have to go back to choice.

51:16 Freedom of choice, free will. This comes up a lot. A lot of scenarios. Came up Sunday. But God gave us this amazing gift of choice. The upside is, wow, what a gift. We get to choose to love because that makes it love. We get to choose, you know, Annette and I chose to adopt a child. That child is precious and special because she was chosen. I mean, you know what I mean? But there's a flip side to the coin, as there typically is. The downside is, I mean, it's kind of like a seed of menophon. You know, taking right, it can help you with inflammation and relieve a headache. Taking too much, it'll kill your kidneys, right?

51:59 It'll damage you. So it's the same scenario here. So the flip side of temptation. Yeah, I mean, but the downside of free will or choice is that we can choose, and this is what James was hitting on. We can choose to be tempted. Our flesh leads us into it. So we have to make a million micro choices a day. Yeah. I mean, everything we do has an up and downside, correct? Yes. I mean, everything we do, I can drive safely and I can be mindful of everybody else on the road, including our furry friends like deer and skunks and all kinds of stuff.

52:38 Squirrels. Yeah, I mean, I can be mindful and drive safely. I can obey the speed limit, you know, and I'm more than likely I'm going to arrive safely at my destination or I can make some choices. I can be frustrated and in a hurry and I can step on the gas. I can risk going 15 miles over the speed limit, creating a danger for myself and others, also incurring the wrath of the law, getting a ticket, whatever. I can create all kinds of havoc just by a simple decision. So we have a million micro decisions a day to make. And unless we have submitted our will to the Lordship of Christ, we'll be talking about that tonight. The Lordship of Christ. Yes. Lordship. Our Wednesday evening here at Bridge Church.

53:23 And so we can either submit ourselves to his will and say, even though I've got all these choices, my main choice, my first choice is going to be, I want to be led by the Spirit. Right. Which means I now begin, I put a governor on my choices. Now, I'm talking about not the governor of the state of Texas. I'm talking about the governor on an engine. I remember our yellow dog schooled up buses. You remember when the speed limit went from 70 to 55? Yeah. Everybody lost their mind. They literally couldn't go faster. They put governors. They put governors on those engines so they could only go a certain speed. They did that with rental cars and vans and all kinds of stuff. So it's the same thing. We willfully choose to put a governor on our choices.

54:08 And so when I do that, that, then temptation no longer has an empowered, it's not empowered to draw me away. But I can choose to take that governor off. This is good to discuss this because I don't. Get in the weeds. Yeah, but I don't think people, I certainly didn't. Let me speak for myself. You know, I think of temptation, like three things that I might be tempted by, but it's not. All day long, there are temptations to snap back, to respond without thinking, without being quick to listen, slow to speak. Oh, man, I got to do that so many times. Quick to listen, slow to speak. And it really, really has benefited my life. Thank you, James. Well, maybe, maybe this will help give people a new category for thinking: micro decisions, micro decisions.

54:53 They seem small, but they actually have big effects, right? Yeah. It's kind of like James talks about the power of the tongue. It's a small thing, but it has massive consequences. Yes, it does. Same way with decisions. The little decisions we make can be the first domino tip that leads to something disastrous. It's the rudder of destiny for your life, the tongue. And it's very uncontrollable. I guess that's probably a good example of temptation to use the tongue because, man, we do not have that thing in our head. Now, these days, we use our fingertips, right? Because we've got a keyboard. We've got a screen. I'm fired up. I'm mad. I got baited. I love what one writer calls it the bait of Satan.

55:36 Don't take the bait of Satan. He'll bait us with various things. And now I have a choice as a fish. Man, that looks good, but it sure looks like there's a hook through that thing, you know. But I'm hungry. I'm going to go anyway. You know, I'm going to take the risk. And then we get caught, right? Trapped, in trap, the scripture talks about. So this bait of Satan, we got to be careful because what happens is when we're typing, our boundaries tend to go away. There are no guide rails when we're typing because there's no instant repercussion. If I was standing in somebody's face, and I call them something and then I get punched, I get a left hook or a right hook. Well, it's because we know there's natural and logical consequences when you're face to face.

56:21 But when you're sitting behind a screen, the temptation is, I'm just going to fire off what I'm feeling right now. I'll show them. And then you hit send, and then 30 minutes later, you're going, What was I thinking? Why did I do that? You know, I've talked to Shoe Rogan about this a couple times, and I say, Hey, man, do you ever read the comments? He said, Number one rule: I never, ever, ever read the comments. It will destroy your life. He said, I've seen so many celebrities and mainly comedians destroy their lives, their reputation, their mental health by engaging.

57:04 He says, I do not look at it. Wow. Do not. If you ever replied to a Joe Rogan Instagram, he did not see it. I guarantee you, he did not see it. It takes some real discipline, but he knows a lot about discipline because, you know, the way he lives his life in general with professional training and UFC and Taekwondo, whatever he was doing. And he has his other, he has his temptations and his flaws, and he's well aware of them. But be like Joe. Don't. Just don't. It's amazing. I've been around for a long time. Before there was a web, we were using Gopher, man. This stuff was text.

57:47 You know, we had an internet and we had dial-up modems. I had five at the house. One font. Yeah. Two colors. That's right. That was it. And we were green and greener. And we didn't have a mouse. We were a harallm. Monochrome. And I don't engage with anything anymore. And on the off chance, sometimes like, just, I've just, I just got to fire back. Nine times out of ten, I'll wind up deleting it. I have to be very careful with email because, you know, people will just in so insulting.

58:24 And I've actually, there's a temptation I've actually had to stop doing because it was kind of funny to read those emails on the show with the voice that I heard them in. And it actually makes people very, very uncomfortable because like, crap, I've done that. I've sent those emails, but I don't like it. I'm starting to stop, you know, shy away from that. But just don't. I mean, it's very possible. Just don't. You're not going to win any prize. Anything. So this leads us to something else. You just really just launched something in my head.

59:02 Why? What is this sociological? sociological need that we have, sociological, psychological, both, to fire something back or feel like we always have to comment on something? It's chemical. I mean, literally. Now, as a pastor, I feel like there are things that I need to say as a leader of a large group of people that people want to hear from their pastor on certain things. So, like the Charlie Kirk thing, I wrote something about it. I was not inflammatory. I wasn't calling names or anything like that. I just wrote about the impact of that. So, I kept it in the boundaries and on the rails in the guardrails.

59:40 But why is it that every person feels like they have to say something about everything? Addiction. It's an addiction. It's pure and simple. It's got to be. I've had all kinds of addictions. I still have a nicotine addiction, although it's not like crippling if I don't vape my nicotine, but I like it and I like what it does, and I'm well aware of it. Coffee, caffeine, you know, we're all very aware. We're all very aware of what it does. These are minor, but we talk about it casually now because it's been mentioned so often, the dopamine.

1:00:22 Being bored or having nothing to do is actually a good human condition. We don't do well because we have too many temptations at our fingertips. And I've taken to standing in line at HEB and just standing there, not reaching for my phone. I do that too. It's really good. It's kind of fun seeing the cover of the National Inquirer and going, oh, what is everybody talking about? And I look at the person in front of me. Yeah, they're paying with a check. Oh, how cute is that? I'm not getting upset by it. I'm just observing what kind of check. They have printed checks, they have colorful checks. I'm looking at

1:01:04 the cashier. I'm looking at the spelling of their name. That's an interesting spelling. I'm just trying to be present aware and yeah, bored. I'm actually bored. And it's a good condition. I got to say this out loud, and I absolutely agree with you, even though I fail at this often. Sure. Adam Curry, you are good for me. And I want to say that in the right way because you constantly remind me of how unnecessary this really is. I mean, you do, and I appreciate it. I love that you do that. So, how can we help other people who are finding themselves trapped in that temptation?

1:01:45 And that is to look at your phone. I forget what the stats are. It's a ridiculous number. Oh, eight hours a day. But what's funny, I'll laugh at a stat and go, that's ridiculous. But if I was to count how many times I pick my phone up and out of boredom, I'm not talking about if I'm actually getting a text from you or somebody else or Annette or my friends. I just do it because it's become this habit. And I would like. I'm just kidding. I'm joking. There's nothing there. I promise. I promise there's nothing there. I was just thinking, that's how we act, though, right? And I notice it more when I make these attempts to stop doing it so much.

1:02:28 It changes my filter because now I'm noticing everybody else. Well, that's so I play this game. The game is look at the robot. This is helpful, I think. Yeah, look at the robot. And I give points. So if someone is walking with a phone, has a phone in their hand, that's a point. If they have a phone in either hand, you'll see some women actually have two different phones. Or business guys. It's more women than men, but yeah, that's three points. If someone is standing still on their phone in the middle of a public area, five points. If someone is on their phone while walking in public, bonus.

1:03:10 You're at 10 points. And you tally those points up, you'll have well over 150 at the end of the day. Wow. Oh, yeah. The thing I do is I, you know, so these modern phones, I actually got a modern phone. It's a pretty interesting thing. I like your phone, by the way. Because it stuffs. It folds. It's tiny. It folds. It's little. Until you unfold it. So all these modern phones, you can put widgets on your screen. And so I have a on the main screen, I have a widget with one thing here. So you see, there's nothing else. There's nothing else on that screen. Well, actually, there's a link there to talk to my friend who's in prison.

1:03:52 And it is actually a daily grind from my brother, Pastor Jimmy. And it says, when fear rises, I pray. pray. In Jesus' name, I break any and all agreements with the spirit of fear, and I receive your peace, courage, and freedom. In the name above all names, amen. Enjoy his peace. Now, sometimes I'll switch this out for something else, but put a widget on your home screen, move all your apps to another screen, and whenever you pick up the phone, that's the first thing you see, and just let it sink in for a second. Wow, it's great. We can do this with phones. And I love the yeah, all this is customizable. I mean, I could literally. And so, here in the middle of my other screen, I have it's the widget for the U version.

1:04:36 Yeah, yeah. And it's the verse of the day. And it just, it's in your face. Rewind your mind. Right. And when you do that, and then I'm actually making this one up on the spot. Lead me not into temptation. Thank you, Lord, for leading me not into temptation. And then put it down. If we can do that, man, families are going to be better. You're going to have a better relationship with the people in your house. And by the way, working real hard on this myself. No, it's difficult. It's difficult. It's a culture that this has become the norm. And you're a weirdo if you don't carry one. Another thing is, so Tina and I, we're always together for breakfast and Bible study.

1:05:21 And, you know, I do a lot of that on my phone. There's different devotionals, and the Bridge Men's Devotional comes through. But when my wife speaks to me, I put my phone down. And I try, at least I'm getting better at it. I'm like, I'm putting my phone down and I'm looking at her and making sure that I make eye contact. I don't care what it is. It's great. I'm going to have that conversation. And it's not easy. But, you know, how many times have you spoken with someone who's answering you while answering a text? Drives me nuts. Happens all the time. And not Annette. Because she's good about not. And may not finish their answer. I mean, there's all kinds. And we're all guilty of it. But I think just being aware of it and really trying to get it.

1:06:06 Annette does have a habit sometimes where if she's talking to Tina, it's always Tina. I'll say something and she won't answer. Oh, it'll come five seconds later. And I'm going, hello. And I said, you're talking to Tina, right? And she goes, yeah, I'm trying to finish it. I'm trying to finish. Hang on just a second. So it doesn't make me mad at Tina. It makes me laugh, actually, because it's the dynamic. I'm fully aware of the dynamic. So the reason why I think this will help people is because this leads to other things. We're talking about a very fundamental response. We've been trained like Pavlov's dog seers, right? This is a Pavlov moment.

1:06:46 For vibration, I need to pick my phone up. For almost 20 years, since 2007. Or if I haven't looked at my phone in five minutes, I feel the urge to check just in case something came through that I missed. I mean, what if I didn't? What if I missed a call? I don't even use this thing as a phone anymore, hardly ever. I mean, it's not even a phone. That's when I got a call this morning from someone who was in a panic state. It was a phone call. I'm like, oh my God. Whoa, what's going on? Can you come and help me? This has to be an emergency. It has to be. Yes, exactly. The reason why I think this will help people is because if you can fundamentally change a flesh response, you can fundamentally change almost anything.

1:07:30 Yes. I mean, because this is almost the worst response to eating. The worst addicts of the worst drugs, which, by the way, alcohol, number one, food number two, and then you get all the heroin, et cetera. Right, right. I know a lot of people who've been able to get over it and don't think that our addiction is any less addictive. It has physical qualities. It has chemical reaction qualities in our brains. No doubt. And I'm thinking here, like, wow, I sound like I'm really holier than thou, but I am not. I am not. Nor am I. I have, but actually, this is just good just to talk about it. It's good because it will help people.

1:08:08 Because if we can get control of our appetites, whatever that is. Yes. It's amazing how you can control other things in terms of your own self-discipline. And I think that's important. Even as we're talking about the way we respond to the Charlie Kirk thing, fundamentally, you got to go back to the basics and go back to the foundations of why do I want to clap back because I saw somebody write something or a video was disparaging of Charlie Kirk. Why do I feel the impulse to get on my computer and say something as though that would matter? But there it is. Fundamentally, the common denominator in every single issue that we have in our culture, particularly when it comes to violence.

1:08:55 The common denominator is online. Because I was talking to people, and it's not like just because someone can talk to you that they're radicalizing you per se. It's the whole ball of wax. It's the whole thing. It's just the, and it's not just discord or just X or just, no. It's the fact that you're interacting with sometimes non-human entities. You might not even know it, but you're just reacting, interacting, and you are building up a chemical reaction in your own brain that can lead to very destructive things.

1:09:35 And by the way, that's what addiction does. So we're fundamentally changing our neural pathways in very dangerous ways where they become autoresponders. Jesus, come soon. We're marinatha, come quickly, Lord Jesus. That's the last verse of revelation. Yes. This is an important conversation, even though people will not enjoy this conversation because we don't like to be called out on our addictions, whether it's food or phone. No, of course not. We tend to want to. I know because I am, I don't, but I actually enjoy talking about it with you because it inspires me, not just motivates, it inspires me to go, I need to curb this.

1:10:12 I need to, but here's the thing: I notice, I know how addicted I am by how ineffective I am to curb it on my own. Yeah. So if I just make my decision, okay, I'm going to leave it in the car, I'm going to do this, I'll do it for a day. Well, this is why we have Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous. It's very hard to do it alone. It is. It is very, very hard. And I would say, if I any takeaway from this conversation that we're having, dare to be bored and take a, what did Charlie call it? A fast. A fast. Fast from your phone, fast from your technology fast.

1:10:54 Even if it's just Friday night to Saturday morning, what could personally happen? I think his was Friday night to Saturday night, like a Sabbath. But I'll start easy. Yeah. Let's do Friday night to Saturday morning. Just nothing for that period of time. What could possibly happen work-wise or anything? And I'm not talking about your phone, I'm talking about the TV, everything. And if you're bored, if you're bored, pick up the Bible. Yeah. And if we can't pick up your Bible. If we can't still, if we can't solve our boredom with some scripture, then maybe we need to figure out why the scripture is not hitting us because I do challenge.

1:11:32 It's a big challenge. What am I doing? Sweating. I'm getting drops of sweat on this. We started with the podcast, and now we're giving, we got homework. We're doing therapy with each other here. This is so powerful, though, because this is going to help people at a fundamental level where we are all missing the boat on this. I know for me, when I'm bored, I tend to start looking into nature. I tend to watch the clouds more. I tend to notice where the sun is in the sky and how the light's refracting off the grass. I just start to notice textures and nature and textures in life. I just start to see what I haven't been seeing.

1:12:15 I mentioned this at the Patriot Academy. They talked about level one through four. Yes, awareness. Level one is white. And they gave the example of a guy walking down a street looking at his phone. That to me is probably vulnerable. Very. Yeah. You're a target right there. And a crook, a criminal, anyone who's nefarious will see you and they'll go, easy pickings right there. Even when you're at the airport at baggage claim. Oh, my God. You're just waiting to be pickpocketed. So I do notice this stuff. Because we fly a lot. We flew last week. We're flying out in the morning to Nashville. And I notice in airports how I was sitting there, you know, you go sit in the seats.

1:12:56 You got, gosh, 30 minutes where you got a board. So what do we do? What is everybody in the airport? Pop on the phone, baby. Immediately, they're either on their computer, their tablet, or their phone. Very few people are having any kind of conversation. No eye contact. You're either people watching, but people don't even people watch anymore. They screen watch, especially in an airport. So the last couple of times we've flown, I've waited to get my phone out. I put it in my bag when I go through check, you know, TSA. I stick it in my bag and I wait for a while to pull it out. And when I do, it's amazing what I start to notice. Yeah. There's a great book by Andy Andrews called The Noticer.

1:13:39 And it's a story. It's part of his life story, but it was a man that came into his life and he talked about what it means to become a noticer, where you begin to notice things. in the world around you. It's fascinating. It is no way you notice it. It's the opposite of boredom. It is. When you're a noticer, and a lot of talking heads on mainly cable news were saying, you know, so-and-so said, go out and touch grass. That's the right thing. But I'm like, no, go out and marvel at God's beauty, what he has created. Marvel at every little thing. Stop and listen for a second to the birds singing, to the dog barking, even to the car

1:14:23 with the muffler leak going down the everything. But really, nature, smell, especially out here in Fredericksburg, you can just smell sometimes. You smell cool smells. There's good smells. I love doing that. But of course, we're old dudes now, so we appreciate this stuff. So it's like, yeah, the older we get. So we have a homework assignment. Challenge. Challenge. Friday night to Saturday morning. Friday to Saturday morning. Start there. And let's dare to be bored. Yes. And I'm really, so you're going to a culture and Christianity conference. Cloud in the morning. We're going out to Nashville. The conference is in Murfreesboro at Alan Jackson's Church. Oh, fantastic. By the way, was with Rick Green yesterday out at the Patriot Academy.

1:15:07 He had just done a podcast, in the Tavern podcast with Alan Jackson. Oh, wow. That'll be good. That'd be good. He loves Alan. So do we. I'm curious with this conversation we've just had, taking that with you, how you will look at a lot of the things being said at this conference. I'll give a report. I'll give a report. And my airport experience. Yes. Travel report. Absolutely. So we probably won't have a show next week because you are traveling through the whole week. And, you know, in my mind, it's like that's God is telling us you can skip a show. We're going to be fine. People seem to enjoy what we're doing. Although, Pastor Russ did say, instead of doing the podcast, could you come and learn how to run the board up here?

1:15:50 Because we want a backup guy. Forget that podcasting thing, Podfather. Forget that you invented that. I need you on the board. Brother, I love this. This is so good. We get to do this. Thank you, Lord. We get to do this. This is like picking up the cross in a whole different way. I'm really enjoying it. Have a great trip. Thank you, brother. I'll keep you posted and I'll take pictures. Yes, indeed. And we'll be back probably in about two weeks from now. We get to do this. We'll see you then, everybody. Bye-bye. This is the life we've been blessed with. This is a gift through we get to do this. This is a chance we did not miss.

1:16:35 This is the life we get to do this.