All right.
So today we are going to be talking about being me with God.
This is all about fully accepting ourselves and being who it is that we are in God's presence
with him as opposed to, Oh, well, I feel safe being with me, which most people don't, but
sometimes people think that they feel okay being themselves as, but they stop feeling
safe as themselves. Whenever they feel like they need to go into the presence of the world and
they feel that they need to change. So they felt that they need to be something that they're not,
that they need to be more Christian. They need to be more son of God. Like they need to,
they, they need to clean themselves that they need to not allow certain desires to come out
and to be displayed unless they keep themselves separated from God Monday through through
Saturday, or, you know, for a certain time while they're doing whatever it is that they're doing,
that they think that God doesn't approve of. And this is all about doing and being who it
is that we are while in God's presence. Okay. So first of all, wanted to mention,
you know, as I always like to do the strip, the struggle that I try to highlight that I
always highlight on brick wall, opposite, opposite page. So this one is talking about the
being unloved by God, meaning like feeling like you were the unloved one, the one that God doesn't
love. And in other words, you don't feel received. You don't accept the feel accepted fully as who
it is that you are by the Lord. And therefore you don't in, therefore we have a tendency to
reject ourselves. Something that we've been talking about lately, you know, is the sensor,
this feeling of self-hatred or self-rejection, because we feel that that's what God has done
with us. There's no such thing as loving or accepting yourself. And then but not feeling
loved and accepted by the Lord or feeling loved and accepted by the Lord, but not, but not fully
loving and accepting yourself. They're so inner. They're so connected to one another. They're
basically dependent on one another. There's a direct relationship. One is going to affect
the relationship. One is going to affect the other. So song of Solomon five, six talks about
expresses the feeling that I felt and the struggle that I was going through when I felt like I was
the unloved by God. If God loved God, loved other people, but he didn't love me.
And I thought it was just very evident by how my life just was playing out, et cetera. So song of
Solomon five, six, I opened for my beloved, but my beloved had left. He was gone. My heart sank
at his departure. I looked for him, but did not find him. I called him, but he did not answer.
And that is what it feels like. So remember that, that, and this is the person that is the,
uh, that is the one who is beloved by God. Remember I opened for my beloved. So this is,
this is talking about, you know, who Jesus is, you know, he's the, he's the lover, he's the beloved.
And then this person who was loved by him, they are talking about the fact that they are looking
for, you know, an example or an image of Christ. They're looking for him and they don't feel,
and they can't find him. And that's what it feels like when we're unloved by God,
it's like, we want so desperately to connect with him, to be loved by him, to experience his
presence, to experience connection, to experience closeness and intimacy and being valued and
cherished by the Lord. And then not getting it, seeking it, looking for it and being disappointed.
I looked for him, but he left, he was gone. And my heart sank at his departure. I called for him,
but did not, but did not find him. I looked for him, but did not find him. I called him,
but he did not answer. And that's how it feels. Um, so today, um, wanted to talk about the
importance of us accepting ourselves, us accepting ourselves, not, uh, and so this is a bit deeper
than what we were talking about earlier, you know, in several sessions ago about who does God say
that I am, that's the foundation for us fully accepting ourselves. But today we're going to
talk about fully accepting every part of ourselves, even the parts of ourselves that we don't like
right now, that we're really struggling with, that we feel are sinful, that we're afraid of
finding, you know, that we're hiding from things that have caused us to avoid accessing ourselves
because we're afraid of letting out the dragon. We're afraid of letting out something that we're
trying to stifle and just keep.
been under control and we're concerned that if we let that, if that, if we face
it, that one thing that we'll discover that we're that all the things that we
didn't want are to be true about ourselves, we'll find out that there
really are true is what we think.
And then we're afraid also that it's going to loosen the drug, that it's
going to lose the dragon and that we're going to lose control of it.
And then it's going to destroy us and other people that the evil within us
or, and because that's what we think we're going to find this evil within us.
This bad thing within us, it's going to cause us to behave badly.
It's going to cause it's going to cause destruction in our
relationship with other people.
It's going to cause us to make bad decisions, you know, et cetera, that
there's going to be bad outcomes as a result of us being us.
And therefore we are stifling ourselves.
We're avoiding ourselves.
We're hiding from ourselves and we're not allowing us to access who it is that
we are, because we are not being a safe place for our soul, for our body.
We're not being a say a place that is safe for us to just be us and to be
fully, to fully accept unconditionally who it is that we just find out that we
are yes, even all of the bad things, even all of the sins, even all of the
ugliness, even all of the evil.
So we're not saying that all of those things are okay, but we need to
fully accept ourselves unconditionally.
Um, so before we talk about that further, the first thing I wanted to talk about
is one of the things that makes us afraid of seeing those things is not only.
That we're afraid of what we're going to, that something that we're going to
find that something is true about ourselves so that we don't want to be
But also we're afraid that when we are, when we show that thing, when we bring
that thing into the light, that God is going to correct us and we have a
terrible, terrible fear of correction.
For one thing, it can feel like an affirmation that, yeah, we really are as
bad as we thought that we were that boom.
Yeah.
We got slapped.
It really was as we feel that.
Almost like, I don't know that we'll experience an intensity of punishment
that, that we take as meaning that what we saw in us was, um, was as horrible as
how the punishment or the correction felt.
Uh, let me see if I can, and hopefully that made sense, but just in case it
didn't, let me see if I can explain it another way.
Um, I don't know if, if y'all will, I know, I know y'all have, because you're,
you're, you're human, we've all had this experience where you maybe did something.
Let's just say for instance, when you were a child, cause sometimes that's
easier to kind of, um, to, to remember some of those instances where you're a
child and you did something and, and you even didn't know that what you'd done
was wrong or that you, you did know that what you did was wrong, but the
punishment, the correction that came from your parents or whoever it was an
authority over you at that particular situation just felt so intense that it
shocked you to, to, because you didn't know that what you've done was that bad.
And usually with correction and punishment, we always, we always, uh,
felt that we got a, it deepened our sense of identity that in what it is that we
were as evil as the thing that we did.
So if this was punished to this intensity, it must've meant that this was that evil
to that intensity and because we identified who it is that we were in our
worth with what it is that we did.
We thought that must mean that we were that intensely awful and horrible and
valueless, so that's why I wanted to bring up this point that we can have a
tendency to have a, such a tremendous fear of correction because the meaning
that we've attributed to correction was to use that and its level of intensity
to be what we used as our standard of determining how good to what level or
intensity we were good or bad of the response that we got to what we did to
what we showed of ourselves and put it on display, what kind of a response that
we got, we measured and determined who it is that we were and the degree of
goodness and evil that that was.
We determined that by the degree of intensity of response that we got, and
if it was correction and punishment.
Then we thought, oh, wow.
I didn't know I was that bad.
I don't know.
I didn't know I was that evil.
I didn't know therefore that we put, and we put meaning to it, put additional meanings
to it.
I didn't know that I was that worthless.
I didn't know that I was that, that valueless.
I didn't know I was that destructive.
I didn't know I was that, that little desired, especially if any of the punishment that came
to you was emotional abandonment.
If people removed their emotional connection to you and relationship with you based off
of how you acted, then you thought, oh my, then you really thought, wow, I must be that
valueless that, and what it is because I did this thing.
And this person's response was to abandon me, was to remove themselves from me.
I must be that, that little worth loving or worth, you know, have any, um, or worth valuing.
Um, and, uh, anyway, so we can build a whole lot of meanings, a lot of bit from traumas
that we have developed, traumas that we, uh, that we experienced from correction that
we received.
So we need to, we need to change our understanding of the correction that we actually do receive
from the Lord.
Like what that actually means, um, and how it actually comes with his heart is in it
and what is actually really going on.
So first of all, the way that we, uh, the foundation for understanding it in a new way
is to understand that we do not need fixing.
Remember that your spirit doesn't sin.
There's nothing wrong with you.
You're not broken.
Your soul and your body are in bondage.
They're not broken.
There's nothing wrong with you.
You, your body and your soul don't need fixing.
God only creates good and perfect things.
Your soul and your body are simply afraid.
They're living in fear and they're acting and behaving out of that fear, fear that they're
not being protected, feel that they're not feeling a fear that they're not being provided
for.
And therefore they're going to act out of that, out of those beliefs, out of those fears
that they aren't being protected and provided for.
So they're going to try to exert their effort to do it on their own.
And that's where they end up making the decisions that they, uh, that they do.
Um, but then making those decisions and making those choices and acting like that, again,
that that can be an unbelief.
Those are the things at them, um, acting out of their fear of unbelief are the things that
we look at that we are afraid to know about ourselves.
And we, and we define whenever we do see them about ourselves, we define them as, as,
as broken aspects of ourselves.
No, it's decisions that your soul and your body may trying to protect you, trying to
preserve you, trying to provide for you, trying to give your, create an environment of safety
for you to be good to you, to love you, or to make you feel loved or feel comforted and
feel taken care of.
It's it, them trying to do the quote unquote good thing.
Not sure it's, it's good from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, but they're trying
to do the quote unquote good thing or right thing because they think they were abandoned.
So the correction really between us and the Lord is simply God realigning our body and
our spirit with his truth.
It's not correction in the way that we've experienced it in the world where it's like
a slap upside the head, you know, hopefully never, none of us have actually experienced
that in the physical, but the point is just kind of like a slap outside the head.
Just like, what's wrong with you?
You know, I mean, do we hear the shame in that?
What's wrong with you?
It, we, we make someone's, we, we define each other by, you know, especially like if
you're talking to a child by some, their actions, what's wrong with you?
Do you hear that?
What's wrong with you?
Not what's wrong with that action or what's wrong with what you did or you don't know
what's wrong with you.
Don't, you know, better.
I taught you better, you know, et cetera.
Everything just becomes very, we, we use a lot of identifying language when we're
talking with each other, or that was spoken over us.
And that creates tremendous, tremendous trauma.
And whenever we are trying to, you know, whenever in association with feeling, how to, how to, sorry, how do I put this? I don't know why I'm like, struggling with my, with phrasing this, but that creates traumas related to experiences of our experiences of correction or being in situations where we need to be corrected or where we could just simply experience correction,
regardless of whether or not we deserved it. Right. And God, God's sense of correction. There's no need to fix anything. He made your spirit, your soul and your body. Perfect. They're perfectly fine, but your soul and your body are afraid.
And so he's just teaching them. He's giving them an invitation. So the correction is simply an invitation that is being made to them to come into alignment, to actually believe him. It's like, you're not believing me.
And so that's being in bondage. I'm giving you an invitation to believe me now, but it's not a punishment of what's wrong with you. Stop that. Cut that out. It's, it's always an invitation.
We already have all of God's love. We're all, we've already been made perfect. We're already one with him. We all am being one with him. We never lose connection. We never lose contact. We never lose communication.
Ever, even when we sin. So this whole, because we're one with him, the spirit and our spirits always perfect.
So we never lose that. The whole thing about the soul and the body and, and being corrected by the Lord is simply him calling them and inviting them. He's like, the rest of you is perfect. I've already done all the work. You can't be more one with me than you already are.
But soul and body, don't we want to experience all of the benefits of the fact that your spirit is one with me.
There's so many benefits that it's getting to experience. It's getting experienced by rest. It's getting to experience my joy, my love, my long suffering. And, and I mean, meaning like all of the things, all of that God's characters that the characteristics
that we take on as our characteristics, like it's getting to enjoy being perfect.
Don't you want to enjoy the benefits of feeling and being perfect.
I'm inviting you to believe me. That's the correction. It's, it's a calling to alignment, not a whipping into place.
Remember that is the old covenant. That is the old Testament, because that is what they agreed to the Israelites were offered this covenant of sonship on the mountain and they, they rejected it.
Because God said, you know, I want called them called to them and said, you know, I want you to be my sons, you know, whatever. And they were like, this is terrifying.
We don't want this direct connection. We don't want this direct accountability and responsibility to the Lord. Moses, you act like a buffer, you touch the Lord and we, and we will do what you tell us to do.
We'll follow all these laws and all of these rules. So that's the old covenant. That's the old thing that they accepted. We accepted something completely different. We accepted the things that thing that was originally offered to the Israelites.
And the Israelites said no to, we said yes.
And you can't go back from it.
You've already accepted the invitation. You've already accepted the covenant. It's already happened.
You can't mess it up.
God's already done it all. So if God did it all and you did nothing, you can't do anything to get out of it because you already, because he did it everything anyway. Right.
You can't make it not, not be true. So, so anyway, God is just inviting your soul and your body to it, to experience it so that the fullness of what it is that he's done can be experienced in all three aspects of you.
So that's all that correction is. It's not whipping you into shape. It's not shaming you because shame. Remember, is this, is this idea that we're bad.
But remember your soul is the, where, who it is that you are sits, who your identity, it sits in your soul and it's perfect. Nothing wrong with you. It's not bad.
And your soul and your body are part of you, but not.
It's not where your identity sits, your identity sits in the perfect perfection aspect of you. And then your soul and your body have been created to be.
And by the Lord as good and it's perfect, but currently they're acting subject to sin subject to bondage in sin because they think that's who they are.
Very specifically in scripture, he said, that's not who you are anymore, but you keep acting like it. So you're just acting like it. That's not who your soul and your body are anymore, but that's who they think they are.
So that's what they're manifesting. That's what they, they think that's who they are. So that's how they keep acting. Right. That's all that it is.
Your soul and your body are just afraid. So you and making mistakes.
And sinning is nothing for you to be afraid of.
It can't mess anything up.
Can't mess anything up between you and the Lord.
So there's nothing to be afraid of.
There's so that removes any fear and threat of what could happen by, uh, wrong simply
by trying something right.
And so it removed it, um, it can remove that fear for us of the potential threat that we've
always kind of seen the future as, um, so anyway, God doesn't need also, God doesn't
need to correct who it is that you are correct.
You as a person, as an individual, if you already are the thing.
So who it is that you are, your identity is in your spirit and you already are the thing.
So when he's correcting you, he's just calling the rest of you, the soul and the body to
come into alignment with him, but he's not telling you, you need to become something
that you're not already.
You've already become it.
You're already one with the king of the universe.
He's the one who said all of this, all of this is in scripture.
We're not sitting here making up some theory and some doctrine and wouldn't it be nice
if life worked like this.
You both know that it mentions this in scripture over and over and over and over and over and
over and over again.
It's God's idea.
We didn't make this up.
So we can be assured that he desires it and that he's going to sustain it and that he,
he is the one who created it to work like this.
This wasn't something that we asked of him and we're just hoping he continues to agree
because oh my goodness, if he stops agreeing.
You know, and kind of like a parent, you know, that'll just like renege on their promise
or whatever.
No, no, no.
This is totally God's idea.
We didn't even ask for this, right.
But we get to choose whether or not we're going to accept what it is that God is offering.
And this is totally the Lord's idea.
So in, okay.
So anyway, when the Lord corrects us, the most powerfully effective way that he knows
will correct us is to give you this, your soul and your body and experience of him.
That is the hands-down most powerful way that we, that we, that your soul and your
body will adjust.
In other words, be corrected.
It will adjust and come into alignment.
Is by experiencing him, not by learning something, you know, that isn't true.
This is true.
Change your thoughts and ideas towards it.
What we were talking about in the group chat today, that it, all of this coming into alignment
is effortless.
Everything that the Lord encourages us and calls us to do needs to be done from a place
of rest, not strife, not exertion.
Everything is from a place of rest.
So your soul and your body coming into alignment is something that it will naturally do.
You just need to let go and stop hindering it from doing it.
Stop hindering it with your unbelief.
So choose intentionally make a decision that what God says is true really is true and act
on that and your soul and your body.
In other words, your logic and your feelings will naturally come into alignment.
You don't have to try to convince yourself that's a lot of work and quite honestly, it's
not sustainable.
So in that, from that perspective, it doesn't work because it's not sustainable.
So anyway, the Lord knows that the quickest and most effective, most powerful way for
your soul and your body to start coming into alignment and start agreeing with the Lord
and start acting like that for its logic and your feelings to start coming into alignment
is when you experience the truth that he is, who he says that he is, and that you are
who he says that you are.
So one of the ways that you can do this is what we've been talking about is, uh, you
know, sitting with him just as an ex and sit with him, experiencing that he is who he is
and that you are who he says that you are just sitting in that experience.
And I mentioned this, you know, when I mentioned that practice several sessions back that when
you do that, you will naturally shift and you will naturally heal and you won't be able
to articulate why or what you even learned about the Lord.
It's just because you chose by your own free will made a decision, even though you didn't
feel it, even though it didn't make any sense to you, you know, no feelings, no logic.
You just chose that.
It was true.
And you sat in the, and experienced that reality.
that truth. You experienced God and how he, that in his love, you, you experienced the truth
with him by sitting with him, that he really is who he says that he is. And that he really
is in that you really are who he says that you are. And you shifted and changed without trying
your soul and your body experienced the truth that you made a choice of in your spirit.
Well, technically you made the choice of it in your soul, but meaning like your soul made the
choice to come into alignment with what your spirit was saying, because your spirit always
is saying whatever God's thinking. So it's one with God and your soul and your body naturally
come into alignment. When you do that, because God says that the most powerfully effective way
for the soul and body to come into alignment is by experiencing him. So here's the thing.
So not only do you give your, do you practice what it is that I just described that practice
of sitting with the Lord like that, but also you be that for your soul and your body. We've been
talking about how to be that for other people, but the only way to be that for other people and
to give people a creative spiritual environment for them to experience that they really are who
God says that they are. Why? Because you see them like that. And because you see them like that,
they get a, it creates a spiritual atmosphere so that when they're in your presence, they experience
being that, and they love that aspect about that. They love experiencing that they really are that
wonderful thing. In order for you to be able to do that for someone else, you have to see yourself
like that. You have to be that for you. If you aren't that for you, you can't be that for someone
else. You don't have it to give. You don't see someone else like that unless you've seen yourself
like that. Like you're literally seeing yourself and receiving yourself like that right now,
that is the only way that you can do that for someone else. I know that we wish that it was
different because we want to do all these things for other people, and we want them to know how
much they're loved. You cannot give that unless you've done that for you first, because you don't
have the faith to, you don't have the, because that's only done by faith. You can only give that
to them by believing God. And if you're not believing it about yourself, you're actually
not believing it about, uh, about what God says about them either, because you and them are the
same. You're one, you're, you're one in the body of Christ. You're, you are, um, your sons you're
from him. So if you can't believe that about yourself, then there is no foundation on which
to believe it about someone else either, because you're, it's the same principle. You can't believe
it about them, but believe a lie about you in that same, about the same thing. It's like, no,
no, no. It's it's all or nothing. Kind of like what we were talking about with emotion. Have
we talked about this with emotions? I'm not sure if we have or not. So maybe we haven't. So, and
we'll be talking about that, uh, about emotions next time. So, so, so I'm not going to muddy the
waters by bringing that up, but anyway, it's very important that you beat this for you first,
that you are who you say, who God says that you are. You choose that that is who you are
and then receive yourself. Viewing yourself as that person fully embrace and accept yourself
as being who God says that you are. And that means that you have to fully receive and accept
your soul and body. Um, as they are right now, you can't reject any part of who it is that you are.
Um, and hope to heal it. You only heal and your body will only shift and change. Once you fully
accept it as it is right now, it will only feel safe to change when it knows that it does went
that you fully accepted the way that it is unconditionally without ever changing in the
future. So the same thing with your book, you know, with our bodies, like, uh, how I've talked
about, you know, with eating that you will not drop the weight, especially unless you do it with
like a whole lot of effort, a whole lot of exertion, a whole lot of sweat, a whole lot of like
doing nutrition, nutrition, just right. Then sometimes your body will lose weight, but sometimes
it won't. Even when you do that, why? Because that's, it's not the nutrition and the, and the
exercise or the lack of exercise that's causing it to hold weight. The reason that it's holding
the weight is it's trying to preserve and protect itself against you because it sees you as an
enemy, because it doesn't feel safe when it's with you. It doesn't feel fully seen and loved
and accepted. It feels like it has to change and be corrected and be fixed. And as if we see that
it's a problem.
That has to be the problem that has to be fixed, something that has to change that it's
not okay as it is that there, because it's identifying, you know, with, with its actions
while we're doing all these things to try to protect you.
And this is who we are, you know, we're, we're trying to protect you.
So if you, if you, if you reject how I'm trying to protect you, you're rejecting me because
I'm the one who made that decision and I was trying to do something good for you.
And apparently I can't trust you, you know, if you reject that part, you're rejecting,
you're rejecting my, this good thing that I'm trying to offer you.
And so I'm going to keep myself close to the vest, you know, I can keep myself, you know,
locked up and closed and away from you.
And that's how it will, and that's where bodies and our souls interact with us.
So a lot of times that's why people can't feel themselves, why they can't get access
to their emotions is they don't feel the soul does not feel safe.
With the spirit safe with who it is with, with all that it's feeling, because it feels
like it's going to be under it in its vulnerability.
It feels that it will, that if it expresses vulnerability, if it like shows who all of
the struggles that it's dealing with, that it feels that it's going to be slapped, that
it's going to be attacked, that it's going to be terribly, terribly hurt instead of this,
instead of being provided a safe place where it is unconditionally accepted, even in all
of its hurt, even in all of its pain, it's fear, it's anger, it's acting out, it's misbehaving,
all of those things.
It needs to know that it is fully safe with you in order for it to finally stop acting
like that, because all of those things that it's acting like are not natural for the soul
and the body.
That is not how God created them.
That's not normal.
The body and the soul were not created to handle what it is.
They've tried to all of these responsibilities that have tried to take on and tried to handle.
They've done it because they thought you, your spirit wasn't doing it for them.
Wasn't covering them, wasn't protecting and providing for them.
So it thought it had to do it for itself.
Well, it was not ever meant to take on those responsibilities.
So what happens?
It, it decides, well, in order to protect and provide for ourselves, we've never, we
don't know what to do.
So the only thing, because you know, our, our spirit was supposed to do this, but our
spirits abandoned us.
It's not a safe place for us.
So what are we going to do?
You know what?
We need to gain weight.
You know, let's, you know, when our soul, you know, we need to be afraid or we need
to be angry because we need to protect ourselves, you know, against this person, we need to
create all of these emotional walls needed, whatever, you know, so it's doing things that
it wasn't designed by God.
So to speak with the intention for it to do in a healthy environment.
So when you provide it with a healthy environment, the soul and the body will adjust and start
letting go of all of these things that God never meant it to have to do.
Why?
Because your spirit is now doing it for them.
Your spirit is now protecting them.
Your spirit is now providing for them.
So your soul and your body are like, oh, well then we don't need to do it ourselves.
So we'll finally stop doing all of these things that it was never intended to do in the first
place.
It knows what to let go of.
It knows what it has taken on that is not natural for it to do.
So what will readjust to its natural default reset button state, like pressing a reset
button, you know, on the body or on the soul, it'll, it'll adjust back to its, its original
factory states when it was sent out of the factory, you know, like by the Lord, it'll
adjust back to that state when you provide a safe environment for it to be itself, but
you have to love and unconditionally accept it without ever.
In other words, net, not putting a requirement on it to change, not even requesting it to
change.
It will naturally drop it because it'll naturally drop for instance, the weight because it doesn't
want it.
It doesn't, it knows it's not natural, takes a lot of energy for it to do all this stuff
that it was never intended to do.
It was never intended to be responsible for all of this stuff.
And it felt that it had to be because you weren't, it felt that you weren't doing it
for it.
Meaning like your, your, your spirit, you know, that you weren't being the king for
it.
And he was like, oh my goodness, if we're missing our king, we've got to do it for ourselves.
Or if our king is abusing us because that's, it's, it's perspective of you.
You're not abusing it, but that's what it thinks, you know, because if you haven't known
that you're the son of a son of God, well, then you weren't showing up, you weren't showing
yourself.
And so it thinks that you've abandoned it.
Right.
all creations groaning and anticipation of the manifestation of the sense of God,
including Paul then says in the next and the next verse, including our own flesh includes that,
including we ourselves who are waiting for the redemption of our bodies, which is the hope for
which we were saved. Um, uh, so anyway, so he's talking about the fact that our souls and our
bodies are also waiting for us to realize who it is that we are so that they can finally be released
from all of the frustration and the bondage site they're under. So this is our first,
the first line of our kingdom that is waiting for us to know who it is that we are so they can be
freed so that they can stop taking on all these responsibilities that they thought that they were,
that they thought that they had to, because the one that they, that they thought was supposed to
do this for them, their King has abandoned them. So he's not there. So we've got to protect
ourselves. Right? So anyway, the only way for it to change is for the King to come in
so that it knows into fully and to provide an environment for them to experience. And here's
where we got on this whole topic for them to actually get the X for them to experience being
loved and protected. Then they realize, Oh, I'm actually experiencing the thing that the spirit
keeps telling me that my King keeps telling me is true. So now I realize because I've experienced it,
that it's true. So now I can stop doing it myself. But if we just keep telling our soul
and our body, Hey, by the way, you just need to trust me. You know, then it's a lot harder for
the soul and the body to make that decision that they can trust the spirit for something that they,
when all that they've experienced to the spirit is the opposite of what the spirit is saying.
The spirit is saying, Hey, look, you can trust me and you can do all this and I'll protect you
and whatever. And they're like, well, you're not doing it now. So why should I trust that
you're going to do it when I let go? You're not doing it while I'm holding on. So and so what we
want to do, you need to address what we need to do is we need to provide a, all we need to provide
an environment for them to experience us being that for them as protecting it as providing for
it, you know, et cetera. So that is a really big topic. And I have a whole, like a whole session on
it in the inner has Russ foundation series. I don't remember which session it is, but the but
my point of bringing that up is to basically give a foundation or a well, yeah, just a foundation
for what it is I'm talking about when I said that we need to create an environment for our soul and
our body to, um, by, uh, so that the, we'll leave that our spirit really is telling the truth and
that everything that God says that they can expect really is going to happen because our spirit is
actually, is actually giving to it, the protection and the provision that it got from God.
Cause that's, that's where we get the protection provision we can give to our spirits. I mean,
our souls and our bodies is we get it from the Lord and then we give it to, we create an
environment and experience for our soul and our body in which we be that for our soul and our body.
So it can, so by experiencing the truth that God really, that what God said that it can expect,
it really has experienced. Then it gives it the courage to let go of all of this stuff,
let go of the weight, let go of the fear, let go of the anger, let go of all of these things.
Um, and the, and part of how you create that environment is to fully love and accept the soul
and the body right now, as they are unconditionally and unconditionally doesn't mean like, okay, I
accept that this is how you are right now. And I'll let you, you know, and I'll provide for
and protect you. It's no, no, unconditionally meaning like I will love and accept you.
You, I do love and accept you and fully receive you right now as if you will never change.
You're not approving of the misbehavior, the weight, the anger, the unbelief. You're not,
you're not, um, uh, you're not approving of it. You were accepting the soul and your body as an
entity that is that out of its fear is making these decisions. You're not approving of its
decisions. You're approving of the entity that is just happens to currently be, you know,
the two entities, the soul and the body that happens to currently be struggling
with fears and acting out of those fears, except it.
Fully in the middle of struggle, except it fully in the middle of all of its mess.
The mess of it, learning the mess of it, trying and failing the mess of it.
Just simply just daggum being afraid, you know, we have to love and accept it
fully, not requiring it to change.
So part of how this manifests, when you fully love and accept your stuff
or who it is that you are, you let go of ever losing weight.
This is something that I've lived through, and this is how I knew to
began to teach other people how to lose weight and rest, because I had to do this.
I have never once heard it from anybody else, but this is how I've lost weight.
This is how I've kept it off.
Um, and then whenever I do like gain some back, cause I've never gained it back
fully, you know, to what I was before, but whenever I start gaining some,
this is how I lose it again, too, is I realize, okay, wait a minute.
Why am I gaining?
I'm gaining because I'm in unrest again, I gain it and, and I can notice
I can get frustrated with my body, but.
I've noticed that when I fully love and accept my body as it is, without
requiring it to change, it starts dropping the weight.
I'm like, that's great, Justin.
This is the way to lose weight.
Um, uh, but anyway, it's, that's just one example.
That's just a, like a physical example of how things work out in our body.
But it's the same thing with, uh, like with sicknesses or with, uh, with
emotions is your body will let go of that, which it, it of responsibilities
that it took on outside of God's original way that he designed them to
function and to, and, uh, to expend their energy on they'll they it's like
when you provide a, an environment, a full love and acceptance unconditionally
and letting go of whole of, of holding them accountable to, or even
requesting that they ever change.
Your body it's like hitting a reset button and your body and your soul
will start, will start changing.
We'll start, we'll change how they respond to life.
Um, and they will no longer respond to life out of fear.
Both your soul or your body will stop responding to life out of fear because
there's no reason for it to be afraid if it has everything that it needs
from your spirit and is never in lack.
It never needs anything because your spirit is constantly always providing
for any potential needs that it would have.
So it ends up never needing it because before it needs it, the spirit is always
making sure that it has, um, all of that in abundance.
Um, so anyway, the way that you do that is by fully letting go of it, of your,
of your body ever changing, uh, your, uh, fully emotionally let go of that strangle
hold that you have on sickness, meaning like I want this to go away, you know,
and fight in other words, stop fighting it internally, stop fighting it.
I think I've mentioned this before, but I'm going to mention it again.
I especially would mention it in the rest intensive that the most effective
way to battle, um, evil or to battle the negative let's refer to it like that.
Because if the negative feels like it's a much broader than evil, um, the
fastest way and most effective way to battle the negative is not to face the
negative and fight it, but rather to just neutralize the negative remove.
And by neutralizing it, you're removing it, but you're removing it of its power.
And, and, uh, so who cares if it's still in existence, if it doesn't
have any power over you, right?
So that's what it is that we want to do.
So if you're, if you continue to be, to manifest a certain sickness or you have
weight on you and your whole, and you've, you just currently are sitting there and
you've got this weight on you and you don't want it, if you are internally
battling it and like, I don't like this, I want to read, you know, I'm rejecting
this or whatever your body is taking that rejection personally.
It doesn't think that you're rejecting the fat.
It's taking it as you rejecting it and it doesn't feel safe.
So don't reject it anymore.
Fully accept it, except the fat.
I'm not talking about liking it.
I'm not talking about approving of it.
I'm saying be a good and gracious and kind King that gives it
accommodation to exist in your world.
And then your body will need it anymore and won't feel the rejection
anymore, and we'll let it go.
Same thing, you know, like I said, you're.
with emotions about stuff. Okay. So like I said, we got into all of that because I'm
talking about, you know, the fact that God says that the most powerful and effective
way to, to, for your soul and your body to come into alignment is if you fully accept
it is for it to experience him. So give, and your spirit is one with him, right? So your
spirit needs to give your soul and your body an experience of God by being for it. Everything
that God says that he is for us, be the provider, your soul. I mean, your spirit needs to be
the provider for, and the protector for your soul and your body by fully loving, accepting
for it, just as it is unconditionally without ever requiring it. And by that, I mean, emotionally
by ever emotionally or intentionally, you know, by that, by that are our freewill decision
by our freewill decision and releasing it at the odd of any obligation to change. Basically
you're doing with your soul and your body. What we're doing with the Lord in faith is
we're not holding anything against them. If they don't act like what the way we want
them to act, we don't reject our body or get onto it or, or our soul. We don't reject it
Emotionally and push it away and abandon it and fight it. Russell if it, if we don't
get the outcome that we want, we don't reject it. It's the same thing that we have with
the Lord. We don't want to reject him because we don't get a specific outcome. It's the
same thing with our soul and our body. That is how you unconditionally love and accept
yourself. Is it hard? Yes, but it's only as hard as making the decision. You don't
have to worry about your, uh, about your feelings or your, or the logic and that it doesn't
make sense and that you don't feel like it make the decision. When I talk about emotionally,
release them from emotionally released your body or in your soul from, uh, from an obligation.
Um, what I, what I met was stop, stop rejecting it and holding, um, and, um, basically fighting
it and holding something against it. When you make a willful and intentional decision
against it, you will emotionally release it. Um, yeah, it's okay. I didn't want that
to be confusing. So hopefully that helped clarify it. Uh, okay. Last thing that I wanted
to explain about that before moving on is about this whole fear of correction and all
of that and why we just don't, uh, why we're so gay, uh, are afraid of it, um, is remember
that when you're providing that you need to provide this safety and the safe environment
for your soul and your body in a specific way. Um, and, and not, okay.
I think different way to put it. Okay. Let me explain it like this.
If people feel like they're in danger, like say for instance, a child, if people feel,
if a child feels like they're in danger, when a parent is telling them to do something,
when a parent is correcting them or whatever, they have a difficult time hearing the parent
and hearing what it is that they're supposed to do and how it is they're supposed to act.
If they're, because they're so focused on the, on the danger that they feel that they're in.
So they can try to memorize and hear the parent and memorize what the parent is telling them
that they need to do, but it's not changing the child and who it is that they, that they, um,
to act out of who it is that they are. They're just learning like a robot. Okay. Don't do that
thing. I get punished. I just need to do these things instead. If, if so, if we are, if people
are taught to, sorry, if people are in a situation in which they need to learn something, if they
feel that they are in danger while they're trying to learn something, they can't truly learn it.
They can try to memorize it, but they won't actually learn it. So it's the same thing with
your soul.
your body. If you, if your soul and your body feel like they are in danger, when you're trying to get
from you and that you're not safe, when you're trying to get it to, uh, you know, to come into
alignment and invited into alignment and all of that, they will not do it because they're afraid.
So what you're trying to do is you're trying to create a, a, uh, an environment in which they're
safe so that they can actually learn and choose to adjust, choose to come into alignment.
Uh, okay. So, um, one of the things that, so you need to, we need to accept two things fully
ourselves and God, you do. Um, and I know that this is, um, this is an added element,
but I wanted to bring this one in because what we're about to talk about is like how to actually
fully accept ourselves in God. One of the steps that we need to do is we need to forgive. And
here's why forgiveness is simply holding something against God or ourselves. It's sorry for
forgiveness, meaning like, um, for forgiveness means releasing an accusation that we have against
God or against ourselves. It's releasing something that we're holding against him or that we're
holding against ourselves. So in order to fully accept God and to fully accept ourselves, we have
to release those accusations against God and against ourselves. The first of all realized,
you know, in this whole process of war of walking towards, um, eventually, um, you know,
forgiving ourselves in, in talking about accepting ourselves, we need to realize that we have value
and that God declares that we have value. We have to make that choice that it's true.
And then if you make that choice, you're not, your whole life will change and start responding
to the fact that you now know you have value and it will treat you like you have value. It is
wild how that works. I have watched it happen over and over and over and over and over and over and
over again in my own life and in other people's lives. Um, and I love this verse right here.
You're ready. Isaiah 43, four, this is God talking to Israel. He says, because I love you,
I will give people in exchange for your life. Talk about value. God says, I will give up
and sacrifice other human beings. Yes, this is in the, all of the verbiage of the old cabinet,
but still that value, that sense of value is still the same. God says, I will give up other people
in exchange for your life. I will trade other people's lives for yours.
You are that valuable that God says that he loves you so much. He will give people
in exchange for your life. And this isn't trying to open it since the ops and
the all theological question of like, wait a minute. So God doesn't let those people,
but he was trying to make a point. And back then, back with Israel, you know, in the old cabinet,
the way that he would do it is look, he had them wipe out men, women, and children
in the land of Canaan. He said, wipe them out. Don't leave a single person alive.
And so that because he wanted to give that land and all their stuff to Israel,
do we not understand what that means? When he said, I want you to kill men, women, and children.
You have back then, especially you had to physically stab a child through with a knife,
with a sword, with a spear, with a, whatever God told them to do that. So yes, that's the old
cabinet. It's really hard for us to accept, you know, it to kind of like process through and,
and, and navigate through. But the reason that I want to mention that is I want to,
I'm talking about this verse in light of what he called the Israelite, how he called the Israelites
to live and what he required back then. He was literally sacrificing other people's lives
in favor of his firstborn son. So back in that language, just, you know, but, you know, so I
understand it's back in that old language, but under that old cabinet, but under the new cabinet,
we can still receive that same sentiment. God was willing to sacrifice everything, including the life
of his own firstborn son in exchange for your life. Jesus was dead for three days. Now his spirit
It was still in existence, but you know, he was in hell.
He wasn't in heaven.
I guess God says that he's just everywhere and all that good stuff,
but it was in hell, not in heaven.
God really, truly means it when he says you matter this much to me and I act on it.
So that is how much value that we have.
You have, if God will accept you to that degree, sacrificing his own son like
that, while you hated him, you know, cause that's what God says in scripture.
It says that, you know, he died for us while we hated him.
And while it was our sin that killed him, what is sin?
Sin is unbelief against God.
It's not doing bad things.
It's unbelief against God.
We didn't believe God and our unbelief against God is what killed God in order
to enable us who didn't believe God to be able to be unified with them.
I mean, talk about mind blowing.
That is how important that you are.
So here's the point.
If God can accept you to that degree in the middle of your sin, in the middle
of you, rejecting him in the middle of your unbelief against him, killing
him while he is allowing himself to be killed in order to restore this person
who doesn't believe him to have the opportunity to be reunified with him.
If he, if he does that, you have permission to fully receive and accept
yourself in the middle of your sin.
While you're sinning.
Like in other words, your, your body and your soul are not currently perfect.
They're not currently acting out perfect behavior.
They're acting out of fear.
They're acting out of their unbelief.
You don't, you have full permission and an example by God himself
and how he interacted with you.
You have permission and the example of he himself to do the same thing with you.
Fully love and accept yourself.
You're not under some like obligation.
Okay.
Well, you know, I need to accept the good parts of me and the, and the perfect
parts of me, but you know, according to scripture, you know, I need
to reject all this other stuff.
God says, no, I didn't.
So you don't have to either.
If God is perfect and God is more perfect than us.
And that is how God interacted with us.
We have full blown permission to fully accept ourselves.
Completely all of ourselves as we are, you know, meaning all aspects of
ourselves as we are in our current condition, and this is, and I mean, we're
having it better off than God did back then.
Because back then we were not perfect.
Our spirits were not perfect.
Our spirits were not alive.
Now our spirit is perfect.
It's our body and soul that are, and that's our place of identity.
We're already one with Christ.
And God's just like, Hey, look, I accepted all of you when your spirit
wasn't even alive and United with me.
Okay.
So, so if I can do that, if I can fully accept you while you are flat out in the
middle of sin, while you are dead.
In your sin, you can fully accept yourself when your identity in me is
already fully connected with me.
You're already perfect.
You're already one.
You don't ever lose connection with me.
And your soul and your body are already, are already, um, uh, are already.
How do, how do I explain it?
They're good.
They're perfect.
They're restored.
They're just don't know it.
And they're just not acting like it.
You can fully accept yourself.
You have permission.
So, and he gave, and you have, and we know we have permission, not just
because God said, but he actually walked it out in example, he did it for us.
First, if God who is perfect, who does not sin can do that, you can do it and
not have to be worried that will, maybe this is wrong, it's not God, unless God
does wrong things, because God is the one who did it first, it's not wrong.
Um, okay.
Do I want to mention that next one?
That's just kind of, okay.
Well, I do want to mention this one.
Okay.
So I'm going to mention something about, uh, well, okay.
Let me mention it in a minute.
So you, first of all, you need to just kind of let go, stop fighting yourself.
Stop battling all these parts of you or whatever.
Don't worry by the way that, oh, well, if I don't, if I don't battle this part
of me, and if I accept it, then I'm approving of it and the body's going to
keep it or my, um, or my soul's going to keep it.
It won't remember.
We've already talked through that, that your soul and your body are going to
adjust to it's setting a reset button.
They already know what it is that they need to do.
Now it might take time because your soul and your body have had a long
history of believing something else.
And so it's going to take a bit for them to.
realize that you're serious, that you really are giving it new instruction and that the spirit
really can be depended on to be safe spirit, meaning your spirit really can be depended on
to be safe. And it'll take a little bit to adjust the way it doesn't fall off overnight.
Technically I've heard of miracles where that has happened. I personally know of people that have.
Right. That had prayed for that. I'm trying to remember if he prayed for it or if he,
or if he, or if his friend did, but whatever it was, I have heard of miracles where literally
fat starts pouring out of someone's pores onto the ground because they were prayed for. And so
the way it literally left them as physical fat dropping onto the floor in globs and people had
to clean it up out of the carpet. Isn't that crazy anyway. And yes, I had direct connection
to people that like saw all of this. So this isn't like, this isn't this, this is dependable
information. I mean, so yes, can God do stuff like that? Absolutely. But, um, but the thing
is that usually that's not usually our healing process takes on a bit of a different form.
So just FYI, you know, your soul and your body won't do something overnight. So you don't get
upset at it. If you get it, if you tell it, it's okay. You fully accept it. And then it acts out
and then you get onto it again. And then you reject it again. It's going, see, I knew you
weren't safe. I knew you were just saying it because you felt like it was a good day,
but now it was a bad day. Can't trust you on a bad day, you know, fully, fully choose and say,
no, no, no, no. I'm not requiring you to ever be different. I really do choose to receive you as
you are anyway. Um, uh, so, so let go, stop fighting yourself and stop judging yourself.
Stop declaring something about you to be good or bad. That's from the tree of the knowledge of good
and evil. Instead present the spirit, God's character through your spirit, have your spirit
shine on those things. And anything that's not in alignment and in, in, in belief that you are who
God says you are, it just needs to be adjusted and come into alignment. Stop judging it and,
and identify yourself in different aspects of yourself is good or bad.
Bring those things and just into alignment, come into come to agreement and belief with the Lord.
Um, uh, uh, Ed tells this story of, um, when he was, uh, traveling, I think he was somewhere in
South Africa. He was, he was traveling with some friends and he was just looking out the window
and thinking by himself. And I think he was thinking something about his past or.
I don't know. He was just contemplating something with the Lord. I wish he was here. He went out
working out, um, right now. So, um, I don't, uh, so he's not here for me to ask her to have him
tell you the story, which I wish he were that. So I'm having to remember off the top of my head,
but basically he was talking to the Lord about something.
And I think he remembers something about his, his past and the Lord, you know, when he was a kid
and the Lord pointed to that kid, you know, it like in his, in, in Ed's mind's eye,
the Lord pointed to him and he said, Ed, someone needs to love that kid.
Because Ed was having a difficult time accepting that part of himself, accepting that, that,
that kid back then he was struggling or whatever was going on. He had a difficult time and God
told him, he said, Ed, someone needs to love that kid. So you love you, you I'm calling you
to love that kid. So that's what I would encourage you with. Someone needs to,
you need to be accepted. You are valuable to the Lord. Remember, because I love you,
I will give people in exchange for your life. You are valuable. Someone needs to acknowledge
that value and needs to fully, and we need to provide a space and a place and a reality in which
that value is fully X is fully acknowledged, accepted and enjoyed.
So part of what we'll be talking about next time is enjoying you.
But right now we need to fully accept you first.
And then, okay, so the next thing that I wanted to, so just something I wanted to mention just
really quick, a lot of times what we'll do is we reject parts of ourselves when we compare
ourselves to other people. But comparison is like deconstructionism. Deconstructionism
is a theory that something has value strictly because it's not.
something else. So basically deconstructionism theory is that everything has an existence
because it's everything is identified by what it isn't. Case in point like A is A
and how do we know that it's A? Well because it's not B and it's not C either and it's not D.
So that's how we know it's A. That is awful. No wonder it's deconstructing. It's a tearing down
of something having intrinsic value simply because it is the thing. It's trying to give it identity
and quote unquote value simply because it's not these other things. So you have to have these
other things in order to give this thing value because how do you know what it is
unless you know what it isn't? That is awful and we need to get that lie of comparison,
of valuing ourselves out of our heads and out of our hearts by valuing ourselves based off of how
we are measuring up to some standard outside of who it is that we are in Christ. And when I say
who it is that we are in Christ because you can say oh we need to compare ourselves to the standard
of Christ. Remember you are Christ meaning that you no longer live. Christ lives within you. You
are one with Christ. Yes you are a unique being. Correct. But you are so one that it's hard to
that you can't really distinguish or separate at any one time the point at which you're unique
or you're one with Christ. Meaning you're unique or you're Christ. It's too closely integrated in
such a way that we always have a difficult time explaining it to like in Sunday school to kids or
whatever you know because it's the same reason why it's difficult to describe the Trinity. Well
they're three but they're one. They're three but they're one. You know it's the same thing you know
here with this as well is you are Christ. Christ is living through you in you. You are of him.
You're one with him. You have a uniqueness but also you know it's when you live it says that
Christ is living through you in you with you etc right. You have a unique and intrinsic value for
who you are and you already are Christ. You're everything as he is so are we in this world
as he is. So you already have value and that is what and so in a manner of speaking you're already
one with this thing that we keep trying to separate ourselves from is the standard we're
supposed to be like and to reach. You already are that. You don't have to reach it or be or
adjust yourself to be like it. You are it already. You are the standard for yourself
that you need to be reaching to be what we're trying to do different. In other words the way
we're not living like that right now simply because not because we need to reach to a
standard that we just need to like move up to. No no we're stifling who it is that we are and we
need to remove all of these hindrances and all these layers so that the standard of who it is
that we are comes out. Not that we need to work our not that we're not quite up to snuff yet and
quite up to standard and we need to work ourselves up. No no we already are it okay. So you already
have an intrinsic value because you are you not because and that needs to be enough
as opposed to discerning and deciphering that we're enough based off of how we're measuring to
well how does this woman operate and how does this man operate and how does this Christian
operate and how does this minister operate and how does this business person operate and how do I
interact how do I operate compared to them or any other standard that we have of like trying
to measure ourselves and making sure that we're okay or we're good enough or we're doing the right
things right. Don't create a value system or an a a standard of acceptance for yourself
and of yourself and who you are based off of something of a standard outside of you.
Well I know who I am and how good that I am based off of how I'm comparing to so-and-so
or so-and-so or the or business person or a minister or you know whatever you know or a
homemaker or whatever it is that I'm comparing myself to and I know who I am and how good that I
or whatever else it is that we have in our lives that we're trying to,
trying to make sure that we're good enough in, um, yeah.
So, uh, okay.
So here is an exit area is a practice that you can do, um,
uh, to help teach yourself to not, to help practice, not judging yourself.
That's what I'm trying to say, to come face to face with things that come up and
out of you and to fully accept you and not judge you.
And that is to basically not judge your thoughts.
You can go through a, an intentional time of doing this, where you sit,
set aside for, again, do the whole five minute, you know,
time or whatever, sit, sit in a place.
And in a time that you will not be, um, uh,
distracted and or interrupted just for those five minutes.
And you sit and, and basically you just, you meditate, you are,
you quiet your mind, you know, and you just,
and you just allow thoughts to come up and face those thoughts fully face them.
They're going to be feelings that you feel about certain people.
And some of them are going to feel, you know,
some of the thoughts are going to be ugly, um,
things that you feel about yourself, things that, um, uh,
concerns that you have about the future concerns that you have about like right
now, I don't know, just whatever.
Some of the thoughts are going to be pleasant and some of the thoughts are
going to be ugly. Don't judge any of them. In other words,
don't declare any of them to be right or wrong.
Just fully, just basically see them all as neutral.
Don't even judge yourself as being good because you have this good thought that
you had, Oh, you know what? That was really selfless.
That was really humble or that was like God or that was whatever.
Don't don't emotionally go up or down with
your, uh, that's how you'll know by the way that you won't,
that you are treating everything very neutral.
And you're not judging is if your emotions don't go up and down with,
Oh, I feel good about myself. Oh, I feel bad about myself. Oh,
I feel good about myself. I feel bad on myself.
Based off of the thoughts that you're having now,
everything should just be even kill. You should fully love and X.
And so you're practicing fully accepting yourself by,
by not judging your thoughts or yourself for having the
thoughts. You can't do that by the way, by having a bad thought and pushing it
away, that's denying it. And it's not facing it. That's stifling it,
the shoving it under the rug. And that won't,
that that's not actually neutralizing its power.
It's making it more powerful because she showed you were afraid of it.
There was nothing for a ruler and a King to be afraid of.
So just fully acknowledge all of those thoughts and that,
that you have those thoughts and don't judge yourself or feel bad about
yourself or identify yourself by the fact that you had those thoughts.
Let's see here. Okay. So part,
so in fully accepting us and God,
that's one of the things that we have to do.
Cause remember this whole program is about God and us.
We need to forgive and let go of any accusation that we're holding against God
or anything that we're holding against ourselves, any rejection.
That we, of us, of any way in which we're rejecting God,
any way in which we're rejecting ourselves. So we need to forgive us in the Lord.
We need to let go. We need to remove that accusation.
That's what forgiveness is,
is it's no longer holding this accusation against God
or against ourselves or, you know, against other people,
but we're not talking about forgiving other people right now.
We're just talking about forgiving us and God. It is very hard.
It depends on
it's very hard to do either one of these.
It is easier to forgive other people than it is to forgive God or to forgive
yourself.
I just find that very interesting, but it is,
it is hard to forgive yourself and it is hard to forgive God. In other words,
to release him of any obligation towards you because he allowed something to
happen
or to reconcile something or explain something to you or whatever,
you let him off the hook of ever having to explain anything to you
or helping you understand or, you know,
fixing it or whatever. And the same thing with you,
that you don't,
you no longer require something of you that you are
not, you no longer hold a specific
yourself to a specific.
Where do I put that?
Well, I can't think of how to.
I had a word, what I was trying to word right there.
So maybe I'll, maybe I'll think of it in a minute.
And we just want to let go and release all of those things because we're, we're actively
holding those things against, you know, ourselves and God, it's an active thing that we're doing.
This is not something that we're, because we're doing it unconsciously that, oh, it
doesn't take any effort.
No, all of this is taking a lot of effort.
Sin always takes a lot of effort.
We don't realize that we think that sin is our default state.
It's not our default state is perfection.
Sin is very hard to maintain.
So when we are, we're just, we're just in the habit of doing it.
So we think that it's easy.
No, it's just habit.
We're just used to it, but it's not normal.
It is not natural and it is not easy.
So all we have to do is stop exerting all of the efforts in rejection and against God
and against ourselves.
So also any judgments towards parts of yourself, create a fracture in which you're trying to
disassociate from that part of you that did all those things, you know, something that
maybe, maybe how you used to be in the past, or, you know, one of you is bringing up, you
know, how you used to interact with your, how you used to raise your child when they
were very young.
You know, now, you know, you regret that and wish you hadn't done that, you know, there's
parts of ourselves that we've actually rejected and we disassociate from.
We don't like, we don't like that person because I don't want to be that person.
So we think if we reject it, we won't be like them, but it's the opposite.
It's not until you fully accept and reintegrate all the parts of yourself that you've written
in and fully accept yourself into wholeness again, that you can actually heal and not
be those things by rejecting them.
You're actually giving them time and attention and empowering them.
You're feeding them and it's making them stronger and it makes you more likely to continue that
thing and to be that thing.
So the way to heal and to let it all go is to fill in and to heal those parts of you
and to, so that those parts of you change and transform and become more like Christ
is by re right by reassociating yourself with all of those different parts of you that did
those things that acted that way, that said those things or that are currently doing or
acting or saying all of those things that as an example, because we keep talking about
it that gained all of that weight or that is continuing to gain weight or that is stressful
or that is stressed.
That is anxious.
That is not believing in God.
That is I don't know that you might be getting onto yourself and frustrated because you're
like, I just can't, I just can't get it.
You know, there's something, something or another you're like, I just can't get it,
whatever it is that you have to or why is this taking so long for me to do X, Y, and
Z or for me to learn X, Y, and Z for me to change an X, Y, and Z all those different
parts to you.
You have to fully love and accept.
We're not saying approve of, we're just saying, except make room for allowed to be in your
presence where you are gracious and kind to them.
Being gracious and kind is not the same thing as being accepting of something, accepting
and meaning like accepting something as good or labeling it or identifying it as okay.
And whatever you're just, you are not, you're not rejecting it anymore so that that, which
you're no longer rejecting can start falling away.
And yeah.
So let's see.
Yeah.
So it takes, so you need to accept all of those different parts of you that did that.
The thing that fully that said that the person that was like that when you were little, you
know, you're that young version of yourself, the you're on you in your unbelief, you in
your eating too much, you, and you're doing this, you have to fully accept or face all
those parts of you and accept that you were like that.
Except you, the you that is making those decisions, the you that is that afraid, the you that
is that messy, except you, you're not approving of the decisions that it's making and all
of that fear and whatever, but fully accept the you that is making those decisions or
that did make that decision.
It doesn't mean you're bad that you made that decision.
It means you were afraid.
It means you didn't know.
It means that you felt that you weren't safe.
You yourself who made that decision wasn't bad, you know, so it's full, so
fully, so fully accept yourself to reintegrate yourself back into a
whole, back to a whole person again.
Um, so remember that very important to, to, to choose and to realize
that it's safe to be a Christian.
But you didn't expect me to say that if you're like me, it has
not felt safe to be a Christian.
It just felt like work.
It felt scary.
I always felt the threat of learning that, uh, learning something else bad about
myself, um, learning that I was worse than I thought that I was, or felt that
I was, or hoped that I was, or, um, that I could just expect correction and
suffering and strife in life.
It is safe.
To be a Christian, it is safe to be a son of God.
It is safe to be in him.
That's safe.
That is a very, very important truth to choose.
Um, okay.
So one of the things, and I've mentioned this before, when, uh, that, that
evidence is the fact that we're holding something against the Lord that we need
to stop and we need to let go of is if we are wanting God to pay for something,
we're wanting him to fix it, or we're wanting him to make up for the fact that
he did this thing over here, or he allowed it or whatever, or we want God to answer.
Us and explain to us why he allowed it.
God, you know, you can do whatever you want.
I'll let it go, but I would just, I just want to understand.
Don't even do that.
God might reveal to you, you know, you know, the answer eventually or whatever,
but no longer even holding hold against him.
God give your, don't give yourself any foothold that you can grab and hold against
him, like, God, would you please help me?
And I understand why haven't you helped me understand, you know, or, um, or
require of him to write.
And another thing that we do is we require of him to reconcile for us, what
happened and how that can possibly have happened, but God says that he's good.
Or God says that he's love or whatever.
And we want to reconcile this and understand it before we'll do what God
wants us to do or feel safe with him or whatever we have to let go.
If not ever understanding it similar to that, um, uh, reminds me of that story.
I was telling y'all about earlier today about my friend who had gotten, um,
clear, you know, what she said was very clear information from the Lord, um,
about a promise that she said that God had told her that X, Y, and Z is going
to happen to Ashley and I thought the same thing, and she and I didn't know
that God had both, that we both felt that God was saying that that thing was
going to happen to me in my life.
And then it didn't, it didn't come into pass.
Right.
And, and we questioned it.
We're like, well, what is going on?
I had to, like I explained, you know, in, when I was telling all that story, I had
to just release understanding why God had said that, or that I thought that he'd
said that, but it didn't happen because that can cause me to question, because
one of the things that it can cause me to question is, okay, God, did I even hear
you?
So please just explain to me, Lord, you know, what was going on there?
I really need to know.
I really need to understand in order to be okay with the fact with you, with the
fact that it didn't happen.
I just need to understand it.
So did I miss you?
And so you always answer, you, you always, um, you always do what you say, what you
say that you're going to do.
But the reason that it didn't happen is because I just misunderstood you, you
know, and so, and we're like, okay, well that would reconcile it, you know, or
Lord, is it that I just, um, you know, that you actually meant it differently
than I thought that you did, or did you not actually say it, but I thought that
you did, uh, you know, we're, we're, we're trying to look for a way to reconcile
the fact that this didn't happen.
And will that, does that therefore, what does that therefore mean about
God, that he's a liar?
Okay.
Well, God, in order for me to know that you're not a liar, I need you to explain
this to me.
I need you to understand, you know, I need you to reconcile this for me.
So I don't make this mistake again.
You know, I, I don't know how to be okay with you, Lord, unless I understand this over here.
Did I not, you know, how, how can this be true?
And this also be true.
You know, I had to give up one.
So which one was I going to give up?
I gave up my, my understanding, my requirement that I understand this over here.
In order to just choose, okay, this is what you're doing, Lord.
And I choose to fully accept that you are who you say that you are.
You always fulfill your word and you're always good.
And you're always provided for and protect me.
And you're always, you always give to me and pour out to me in abundance, Lord, this is
who I choose that you are.
And, and so I had to abandon the fact that I couldn't, even to this day, I have not reconciled
this.
This was a huge deal, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge.
I don't have words enough to explain how huge and impactful that this thing was in my life.
And it didn't happen or would have affected my life.
And it didn't happen.
I don't know how to explain how extreme it was.
And, um, so anyway, but I chose God over that thing happening and me understanding
how me getting, having these two experiences reconciles, I gave up them ever having to
reconcile.
And I just chose him to just continue to be who he was without me understanding, you know,
that's a really big thing.
That's one of the things that we have to have to let go of, because remember that forgiveness
is simply letting go.
Um, uh, okay.
Also sometimes it can be hard to forgive the Lord, because if you were like me, um, I,
I went through a time where I was so hurt by what it felt like God was doing to me or
allowing to happen in my life that I refused to forgive him.
Now I eventually forgave him, but for a while I refused to forgive him.
And I told him why I said, Lord, I refuse to let this go because it, it was very, very
important what didn't happen in my life.
And it wasn't this, it wasn't this thing that I was talking about.
This is long before any of this happened, it was about other stuff.
And I said, you know, I, I, you allow those things to happen.
And I don't understand.
And I need you to know that those things not happening or happening in my life, whatever
it was, all of these hurts, all of these pains Lord were, were, were significant.
They meant something.
And it feels more like releasing them and letting go of them and not holding you, not
continuing to hold them before you, or me at least holding onto them and remembering
them.
And, and basically holding bitterness in my heart is what it was giving a place for them
to sit and to stay for me to abandon them means that they don't mean anything meant
that they didn't mean anything.
So God, unless they're addressed, then in order to show that they did have value and
whatever, unless you explain to me or reconcile it or fix it or whatever, I'm going to hold
onto them and not let them go because letting them go would be being abandoning them to.
And as, and, and declaring over them, declaring that they were, were worthless, that they
were not important to me, that my feelings were not important.
That what happened to me was not as painful as it really was, you know, et cetera.
So that was something that stayed, that I, that, that kept me from forgiving God for
a while.
That's something I eventually let it go.
And when I did boom, everything in my life completely changed, but that's why I didn't
forgive him for a while for, for some things.
So all of those types of things can stand in the way of us forgiving the Lord and can
be things that we are.
If you're wondering whether or not you've got things, you need to forgive God before
hopefully those give you an indication of some signs that you're holding something against
the Lord is if you have these particular feelings or these thoughts or these, or that these
are part of your conversation with the Lord about like needing reconciliation about something
or needing to understand there's nothing wrong with, with under with understanding things.
The problem is if it is, if you're holding something against the Lord, because in other
words.
If you're frustrated that God won't help you understand, or if you're afraid of moving
forward in life, because this thing wasn't reconciled.
And so you're too afraid to move forward because, Oh my goodness, what if it happens again?
How do I, you know, how do I avoid this pain?
How do I avoid this disappointment?
If I can't do it, that's a sign again, that you haven't made.
In other words, that you haven't moved on and that you haven't forgiven.
And stuff like that are indicative of that.
When another important thing is to, in thinking about forgiving the Lord, remember, he's not
afraid of you.
So don't, your pain and your hurt is important and it, and God is fully capable of, God is
fully capable of handling all of your emotions and your struggle and your wrestling.
So don't be afraid of you.
Don't be afraid of all the hurt and all of the pain and the process of letting things
go.
And in trying to forgive the word.
Yeah.
Okay.
So here are some practices that you can do.
And you don't have to do all of these, especially some of the smaller ones that I recommend
that you do some of them, especially the big ones, because they'll make a huge impact.
Meaning like do at least some of these, because in order to actually get the practice of doing
it, but you may not do all of them.
You may be feel like, oh, well, I don't resonate with that one because that one won't help.
Or this other one's like really helps.
So I don't need to do any of the others because I've done these, but so the first one is pick
something small that you need to forgive or you need to let go of, and then think of it.
So pick something kind of small and easy first.
And the point of this is to give yourself a win.
And so let's see here.
So pick something fun, easy, and then like something that hurts your feelings a little
bit and then move to bigger things later.
So in order to, so in the, again, the whole point of this is to first understand what
it feels like so that you know what you're aiming for when you need to do it for something
bigger.
And then you're wondering, did I forget or not, you know?
So think of it, my husband uses this, I got this example from him and he uses this to
explain to people and to walk people through the process of forgiveness.
And he's walked a lot of people through forgiveness and some really, really, really, really, really
big things.
And this is one of the exercises that he does.
He says that when he, in the spirit, what he can sometimes see with people, when they
have things that they need to forgive others for or themselves for the Lord for, is he
says he sees it like they have a whole bunch of rocks in their heart.
And so what he'll do is he'll say, you know, just kind of imagine that you were holding,
you're holding your heart or whatever, that has all of these rocks.
Or let me, let me put it like this, that you've got all, imagine that you have all these rocks
in your heart and you said, you kind of hold your hand out like this.
So my husband's back from the, from the gym and that, you know, hold your hand out like
this.
And he said, one at a time, start naming them before the Lord, Lord, and you take, and as
you name something that is really hurtful, take that rock out of your heart and put it
in your hand.
And then just do, and then just repeat that process for all of the things that you can
think of.
Be very intentionally engaging with this process when you do this, because just like, kind
of like naming it and hoping that something is going to happen and disengaging from all
of the pain and all of the, um, uh, and the, um, and the reality of what happened and how
it felt and what you've bought and what you currently feel is not going to help you forgive.
You have to intentionally face the thing in order to actually release it.
You can't, you can't just engage from the process and just hope that it just magically
is all happening because you're like waving a wand and.
You know, and, and you hope that it's going to happen.
Um, uh, and remember, we've been talking about that related to faith, that in order for faith
to truly be faith, you actually have to make the decision for it in light of reality and
really did happen and say, okay, God, I know that this happened, but you say that.
And then I would think, Lord, that the meaning of all of this means that you're not good.
You didn't fall through, follow through with me.
You did, but instead of the word I'm choosing in the light of this still happening, I'm
saying more that you're actually good, that you actually are who you say that you are.
It's the same thing with this intentionally engaged with this, don't deny the reality
this thing happened.
And so take the rocks out of your hand,
out of your heart, one by one, name them.
And then what you do is you take them
and you offer them to the Lord.
And what I do and find that this is very useful is I,
well, let me actually ask my husband.
Sweetheart, you hear the exercise
and walking everyone through,
what is it that you do when you, with the rocks?
I was gonna tell him what I do and what helps me,
but what do you tell people to do with rocks?
Well, I put them in there in a cup.
Hey, everybody. Hello.
So yeah, you make a cup with like your less dominant hand,
and then you kind of walk through
and you name them specifically,
what it is that the person has done.
So as I told Ashley this before,
there was a time in my life where I saw,
there was this word that kept coming to my mind,
safe harbor.
Oh, that's right.
And the Lord was asking what I was harboring in my heart.
And so, and it was that tone that you kind of know,
like the Lord's like looking, he's after something.
And I'd known about this exercise,
but at some point I saw a boat and in the harbor
and that boat had someone's name on it.
And each of the, and it had a bunch of chains going down.
Each of them were anchors.
And on those chains were written down
all the things that person had done to me,
or whatever you want to put it.
And he said, Ed, saying you forgive someone
without forgiving what they've done to you
or the incidents that are the problem
is like telling this boat to sail out of the harbor
with all the anchors still in the ground.
And so for me, when I lead people through forgiveness,
it's really important that they speak aloud
the things that the person has done or that you've done,
or if it's burdens or whatever to be specific about,
like I forgive Joshua for, I don't know, whatever,
stepping on my toe or making fun of my shirt
or whatever it is that it is.
And then you may even notice,
I've noticed that if you're really tuned in,
your hand may sometimes actually get heavy.
So sometimes if I'm working with that person,
I'll hold my hand underneath them.
And then in 2 Peter says,
we cast all of our cares and concerns upon the Lord.
And then when you're done,
and don't be surprised if in the done,
like there's somebody else that comes up
and then something else that comes up.
You just sit there,
you don't search around the side of your soul.
You just wait for these things to come.
And then when you're done or there's the stopping point,
you lift up, you cast all your cares and concerns
upon the Lord and you kind of like,
some people just hold water, some people just brush it away.
And then of course, if there's unforgiveness,
we have to ask forgiveness
and we get ourselves right with God.
But then that is kind of like lightens the load.
And then we, of course, we asked to be cleansed
and whatever things you want to add in,
like if to be in the Holy Spirit
to come and fill these areas,
rivers and living water,
everybody's got their own way of doing it.
But that's kind of, that's how I made it personal for me.
And that's why I make it very specific
with dealing with other people.
And if you happen to, I don't want to take this,
this whole thing over.
This is helpful.
Is that if it's not me
and I'm walking someone else through it.
So if you're doing this with someone else,
because you feel like you need, I don't know,
some people feel like they need that extra horsepower
for somebody to help pray for them.
If it becomes something that's too personal,
don't skip it.
Just like, Lord, I forgive Larry for,
and then you just be quiet.
He'll know what it is, right?
But there's something about speaking these things out loud
that changes things if that helps.
So does that help?
Yes, thank you.
And one more thing.
I had already talked about that story
that I could only remember so much about.
So what we're talking about today
is about forgiving ourselves and forgiving God
and fully accepting ourselves and fully accepting God,
in light of all reality of all of the things
we have against us and against God, et cetera.
And then at the end,
we're now talking about releasing
all those things we have against us.
But originally I was telling them about the story
about where you fully accept yourself,
where God told you someone has to love that kid.
Could you give that story?
Because I just gave it very briefly,
I can't remember.
Yeah, so I'm really like,
I'm trying to lean over because the T-shirt I'm wearing
is to support a man who has, he does workout stuff.
And it doesn't have a very nice logo.
It's not profane or anything,
but it's like muscle and iron or something.
Right.
And it's got, I don't even know what it's on.
It's on.
That's why I'm leaning over constantly because I'm like aware, like, I don't
know what this t-shirt says, but, uh, I just came back from the gym.
Um, you know, um, if I'm just being blunt, uh, in my life, I had all these
questions, God, why, you know, like I can hear, I used to say I was good this way.
Meaning this way I could hear for you, but I couldn't hear for me.
And I, I wanted to, you know, what is this stuff?
And I would hear all of these prognosis, like these diagnostic things from people.
Oh, it sounds like self-hatred.
It sounds like self-rejection.
It sounds like blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And it's like, and at some point, but nobody had any help.
Oh, well, the Lord will sort it out.
You just, you know, it's like, you just got to ask the Lord.
Well, if I can't hear from him about it to begin with, and then you're telling
me to go to the source of this, it's like, it's like smashing my thumb with a, with
a hammer, I just got frustrated.
And finally it just became like, look, if you can't help me, then just be quiet.
Yeah.
Stop trying to be helpful.
Yeah.
So, you know, be quiet.
Right.
Was the, may have not said be quiet, but that was the gist of it.
And, um, and so I was in South Africa and I was, we were, I was in a car with another
man, a little older than I am, kind of like a mentor and, uh, all these young
guys were in there and they were playing all this music from the eighties.
And like, do you guys remember this song?
You know, like we're the old guys.
And, uh, and I, I noticed, um, it had been a very spiritual time.
I've been in South Africa for a month.
It was a very, very spiritual time for me, uh, and, uh, kind of a heightened place.
I was in a different space at that time.
And, and I realized that there was this abrupt reaction inside of me to this music.
And I remembered the song, I hadn't heard it for so long.
And it was like, if I gave myself time, there was, there was this ability to kind
of like, I can't stand the eighties and stuff.
Right.
And it was like, but there were really probably good memories associated with it.
But I, I was like pushing it away and, and something, it was almost kind of violent.
And I was like, wow, that was weird.
What is that about?
You know, and I'll try to make it as short as possible, but the Lord was
basically taking me through that.
I had never wanted to get stuck.
I'd always wanted to keep moving forward.
So I didn't ever want to be that guy.
Letters.
I have a friend of mine, Ashley's met him and he's a wonderful man.
His name's Tim, Timmy, right?
He'll always be Timmy, lots of energy.
And he's like, never graduated from the nineties.
He listened.
I don't care if he was 20 something years old.
It was like, he got, he had the nineties radio station on and he never left it.
And I never wanted to be that guy.
So I was always until, you know, I'm in this stage of life and then I didn't
listen to anything, but worship music forever.
Right.
But I always wanted to keep moving forward.
And, and what it, what I, the bottom line, what the Lord showed me was it was kind of
like, I wasn't just trying to keep up with where things were going, like I was never
okay with where I was, I was kind of like leaving myself behind in a way.
It was like, I was rejecting these times.
I didn't want to see it stuck there because I wanted to move
to whatever the next thing was.
And so at some point, and this is where Ashley, that's the context, right?
And I'm sitting in the back of this car with all these young guys playing all
this different music, quizzing us old guys, if we know this stuff, and I'm in
the back having this encounter where the Lord takes me to this time and I can see
a picture, like a literal picture that I don't know where it is, but it's somewhere.
And I was, you know, prepubescent.
I don't know how old I was, but I was a little, you know, I was awkward.
I think I had my hair feathered and parted down the middle.
I don't have any hair now, so it doesn't really matter.
But I had, you know, and I was a little, I was a little chubby.
I hadn't grown yet.
And I was wearing this, um, this football jersey.
My uncle who had lived in Brazil for a while had brought back.
It was like a treasured thing for me.
Right.
And I was just a little awkward.
And even though the shirt was probably a little small for me, I love the shirt.
And I saw this picture of me there.
And there was this weird reaction I was having inside to this picture.
And, and I'm looking at this kid, you know, kind of evaluating
this picture that I've seen.
And the Lord said, you know, Ed, someone has to love this kid.
And I realized that in this, in my mind, trying to move forward all the time.
It wasn't me just trying to move forward.
I was trying to move past who I was.
I was trying, and it was like, I was abandoning myself.
Like people would say like, Ed, it sounds like self rejection or abandonment.
I'm like, how can you abandon yourself?
That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.
But I realized I looked at this kid who was kind of chubby and I didn't want to be
that kid and whatever the case was.
And I realized that through my life, because I didn't like myself, this whole
self-hatred thing, right, I kept trying to move forward and I'm basically trying
to leave the person that I was now behind to become whoever it is that I'm to become.
And in that moment, I got a key.
And that key was I had to learn to love this kid that was in front of me, this
little kid that was chubby and awkward and probably felt weird and was in an
awkward state of life, and at that time, I think too, I, we were moving and then
it was, then he took me to another picture of another age and then another
picture and another picture, and then I started to finally understand this whole
thing about self-hatred or dealing with the self-hatred, it was learning to love
and accept me, but I had to learn to love this person.
And then it went beyond that, right?
This is the stretch.
What about that guy that made the largest mess hurt you, hurt people, the
most despicable version of you that did all that stuff, can you love that guy?
What about him?
He's talking about his adult version of himself.
So not as a child, but as an adult, where he fully knew what he was doing.
Right.
And we're talking about, you know, 15 years ago, I had a terrible crash and implosion,
and it was terrible, but the point simply was in all of that, you know, love
your neighbors, you love yourself, or there's another scripture that, that
struck, stuck out to me in that moment.
But the, the thing was, it's like, if I can't love that, I can't love that one.
But how can I really love anybody?
You know, love yourself.
You love, you know, as you love your neighbors, you love yourself, but if I
deal with that guy, then how am I going to deal with all the other broken people that
got once, and I thought I was loving and caring and accepting, and I had all this
compassion because of the messes I've made in my life and my, you know, adult
life, but long ago, and that was the challenge.
Now I'd like to say I've dealt with all of these things, but the point simply was,
this was a key that the Lord gave me of this mystery of self-hatred.
What do you do about it?
Well, he started taking me through.
Well, he started taking me through these, these images I had of this little boy.
And if you look at the problem that most of us have, and again, I don't want to,
I like you, once you get me started, it's hard to shut me up.
This is so really good.
I have one more thing for you after you finish.
You know, the thing with like, I just kind of lost my thought.
The, um, with kids in our, in our younger selves is that we look through the adult
as an adult through events as when we were children.
And if you have children, which you do not, or if you know someone and you did
something at five, that was a tough thing.
And again, this comes back to the forgiveness and stuff.
We judge ourselves as an adult, but we judge the five-year-old as an
adult, the decisions they made.
And when we get wounded, when we're a lot, when we're little, we make up
rules to protect ourselves that a five-year-old made and a lot of us, you
know, you ever seen somebody react to a situation and they're like, man, they're
acting like a, you know, he's acting like, like some kind of like, you know,
like a child, like what, you know, well, he is because that wounded place to
happen when he was seven years old.
And there's all of these programs and stuff that were created for a seven-year-old.
And you know what, for a seven-year-old, they did really well.
And so sometimes we have to look at ourselves, not as ourselves,
but as a seven-year-old kid.
What does a seven-year-old kid know?
Like if it was a seven-year-old, how would you treat a seven-year-old if they
messed up or if something happened to them or the decisions they made or
whatever the case is, it helps to kind of see us in that alternative view.
And, um, and so that whole day, everybody's off doing whatever they're doing for hours.
I was walking, I was, it was cold.
I'm in the mountains and there are natural cracks in the mountain that make
crosses and three of them, as a matter of fact, it was a very crazy experience.
And I still need to go back to that place, but that's what, you know,
actually it's, it's, you can say it's accepting yourself, but it's choosing
to love the lovable and the unlovable parts of who we are.
And, and, and I think there's a real key in a door there to be able to
really come into a place of.
but for others also in that place.
So I hope that helps.
Yes, thank you.
The other thing was, the last thing is,
I just talked about the,
I was wondering if you could briefly talk about something
I tried to do justice to.
The part, when you have judgments against yourself,
how you disassociate from parts of yourself
and you start fragmenting yourself, so to speak.
Now I'm not talking necessarily about this whole,
the theory that some people have
about being able to fragment your soul.
I'm not talking about that.
I'm talking about just disassociating
from parts of yourself to the point
where you're not all completely whole
because you're rejecting aspects,
certain aspects and accepting others.
Do you have anything to say about that
that I haven't just explained?
About disassociating and fragmenting.
You're talking about trauma or?
No, I'm talking about judging.
Where you judge yourself, you disassociate
and therefore you fracture yourself, so to speak,
because you disassociated from that part of yourself
that did the thing.
And how, in order to heal,
you have to completely reintegrate by stopping judging.
Was there anything that I'm not explaining in that?
The only thing that comes to mind is the moment,
I'm trying to borrow his words,
that Mark gave me a thing and he said,
there are two judgments.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, it was like something, it was like,
basically, I'm trying to remember the words,
it was very poetic, almost,
but it's kind of like there's the judgments
that everybody knows where you judge something as bad, right?
Oh, yeah.
There was something about,
you could judge something also that it's better, right?
Bitter or better?
Yeah, that's what it is, bitter or better.
There's bitter judgments like,
oh, that person is this, they do that,
they're this type of person.
And then there's better, which is to say like,
and I think some of us have bitterness towards ourselves,
but also I think there's a certain level of better.
And so when-
Oh, that's right.
Right.
I remember.
To go back and look and like,
and so we judge, we hold these judgments,
if I'm in line with what you're talking,
because you're like catching it here, right?
Is like, the better is like,
you're looking at yourself going,
oh, especially when you're looking back, right?
Like, oh, I could have done this.
I should have done that.
I could have done this.
I should have done that.
I wouldn't, you know.
And then, you know, it can get even worse
if you're misusing your imagination to say like,
well, if I hadn't done that, then this could happen.
Yeah.
And that could have happened.
Yeah.
Regrets and stuff.
Yeah.
So, you know, you could fragment in a sense,
but it is to kind of look again,
kind of like at yourself as if it's not you.
And so the way that this person put it to me
was about embracing the old man.
It's not to call the dead to life in that sense of like,
the dead person needs to stay dead,
but it's kind of like, we'll just,
like for me, again, I don't want to keep rattling on here,
but like there was a time I,
when I had come out of this period of my life,
I was so on fire for God.
I was only listening to worship music.
I was only really, I read the Bible in six months.
I was doing all this stuff.
I was going, going, going, going, going.
I wasn't doing anything
other than pursuing God period in the story.
And then at some point he showed me,
like I lived at the beach
and my family lives in Jacksonville, Florida.
And there you have these pathways
that lead out to the beach
and they'll have these metal,
they'll have these wooden railings.
And I saw a picture of a walkway similar to that,
but there were these very flimsy railings.
And at the time it was, they were guardrails, right?
And so at some point it was like,
I don't really know where I'm going with all of this,
but the God, you know, he was,
the Lord just said to me like,
huh, you know, who put those there?
I didn't put those there.
And that was the most terrifying thing for me
because I didn't realize it,
but I had built these things.
They serve their purpose to protect myself against myself.
Right?
And so in that sense,
what from what I think what Ashley is saying
is that we can look at ourselves
detached from ourselves as a unified being.
And cast judgment upon that person.
But, you know, it's kind of like, you know,
you're beating yourself in the head in a sense, you know?
And that, so all of this,
I think kind of talks about dealing with these judgments,
these arguments,
these things that we hold against ourselves.
We're better at dealing with it when we're holding it against other people, but in the same thing,
you know, that forgiveness that we have to walk through individually, there's this learning to
integrate or allowing it to take place where you learn to love these bits and pieces of you,
including the parts that you may not particularly care for. And I remember when I started getting,
you know, Graham Cooke talks about these inheritance scriptures and stuff, and I
remember when I first started getting some, and one of them was in Psalm 139,
and it says, wonderful all your works, my soul knows it all too well. And I knew, for me,
that that was a tough pill to swallow, because that he was talking about, that to me was talking
about God's creation of me, and that there was something in me that needed to reconcile this
place where I agreed with God about this person that he created, and nobody could do it for him.
Now, I know people that the father hugged them, and they had this supernatural encounter,
and their identity was given to them. I know somebody, a dear friend of mine, that that
happened to, and he was never the same, and that's what I've known, right? So I don't know if any of
this makes any sense. I'm just kind of, I literally just came in from the gym and have to get back to
work, and I've got my phone dinging away back there. My friend and boss are kind of, so I don't know if
that helps. Yes, very much. Thank you, sweetie. I appreciate it. Bless you guys. All right, so I'm so glad
that he came in, because when you were, when you were gone, I was trying to explain the judgment
thing, and said, or no, no, no, the story about someone has to love this kid. I said, I wish
they were here to tell this own story, because I feel like I'm not doing you justice. Okay,
looking at, oh, another thing to do, so talking, continuing our talk about like the practices, and
what it is that you can do, and one of the things that Ed told me, that a friend of his has people
do with the rocks sometimes, instead of wiping them away, but some people can't handle this thing
that I'm about to tell you, because they think it's too, it to them, it just feels too gruesome, but
for some people, it is very effect, effectual, very effective, and that is to put them in Jesus'
side, Jesus hanging on the cross, and to put them in his side. There's something that some people,
that enables people, certain people to connect with that, as God really having taken that thing on,
or they feel that they can really, truly let go of the thing. For other people, they just kind of
can't handle it. It's just kind of a gruesome picture, but I mentioned that, just in case,
for one of you, it might be helpful. Let's see, okay, another way to think about, and to basically
kind of practice a feeling, oh yeah. I'm sorry, so one thing I want to ensure
the people, I think it's super important that,
especially if you're analytical, or you're somebody that overthinks, which I can,
I can't tell you how many times it was like, you know, too much here, not enough here,
is to trust God, that this isn't a mental, the difference between walking with God,
and having the Holy Spirit as your helper, and your guide, and things, it's like,
it's what allows us to truncate, and get rid of, like, the whole self-help place,
the mantras, and things that you need to do yourself, and that this is something that you're
just trying to do, to help you do something that you can't do. We can't save ourselves,
we can't fix ourselves, so it's a surrendered place to just to say, okay, I'm going to trust,
and believe that this is God, and know that in the presence of the Holy Spirit, I have a great,
great woman of God, who used, you know, I mean, I just, I could tell you a story, I have a story
about her, but she and her husband opened a very, very powerful ministry, and she used to be a
mental health counselor in a state hospital, and then she ran a house of prayer in Israel,
and you know, they just like, I don't know, everything aligned for the two of them to be
able to come together and birth this ministry, but she used to say that 80, she thinks is a minimum,
percent of healing comes with telling this, telling, authentically telling your story in
the presence of the Holy Spirit, and so people come to the ministry, and the Holy Spirit's
present, and sometimes it's easier to accept the fact that he's there when we are with other people,
and sometimes we do.
need that, but sometimes it does help. But my point in all of this is that this isn't a mental ascent,
like an exercise just to do, to mentally help you process, or another thing for you to do.
It's a place for, you know, you really need to just trust and believe, okay,
this is different because I'm not doing it. God's going to take care of it. This is whatever,
I'm going to trust him, I'm going to put this in, there's nothing I can do to make this work.
You know, and as I used to say, I was in such a broken place at one point
that I couldn't trust anything. I couldn't trust that what I was saying was true.
The only hope of truth in my life was God. And I used to say stuff like, Lord, I want this,
and I want that, I want to give you this, I want this, but I can't even trust that what
I'm telling you is true. God, if it's not true in my heart, I ask you to make it true.
And you're my only hope of truth in life, you know. And, and I used to say to him,
and I had no idea about anything, I used to say, Lord, I, I am tired of changing.
I've changed so many times in my life. I've reinvented myself so many times.
I don't want to change anymore. I want to be transformed. I want my DNA to change.
And as a, as a very smart lady, I used to say, Ed, there's different degrees of change.
There's first degree change. And that's when apples are turned into apple slices,
but you can still kind of put the apple back together. But once the apple is made into apple
sauce, that's second degree change. I wanted to be applesauce. I wanted to be, I wanted my DNA
to change. I wanted transformation was the word. And, and that's something that I knew I couldn't
do. And God, like literally I could wake up in the morning and be different than I was the
day before. I mean, that was how much change was going on in my life at the time. So as you're
doing these things, you know, you get, I would recommend getting rid of the thoughts of I've
tried this before, or this is up to me. Or maybe if I say it this way, or if I dig around, don't
dig around inside of your soul. He's the master of your soul. He's the perfecter of your soul.
We are not, and trust him with this process and allow him to do it, allow him to do it,
you know? And so that would be the only thing I would add. Thank you, sweetie.
So like he was saying, you know, a scripture, a scripture passage that affirms that and talks
about that is where Peter goes out. And I may have mentioned this to y'all the other day,
Peter goes out to, to fish and he finishes all night long and he doesn't catch anything.
And he comes back and this is his first time meeting Jesus. Jesus is preaching on the shore
asked to use his boat. And Peter says, sure. So he preaches from the boat. And then afterwards,
he said, tells Peter, he said, go out and throw your, your net over the side. And Peter,
Peter says, you know, master, you know, I appreciate you, you know, when good for me,
but, you know, I've done this all night and we haven't caught anything. And, and Jesus,
you know, invited him to do it, to do it, but Jesus invited him to do it. And so he said,
you know, mastery said, but because you say, so I'll go do it. And so what happened this time
is Peter went out and did the exact same thing that he had not only done all night, but he knows
how to do because he was, it was, it's his trade. And by, and, and stuff like that, uh, trades that,
that people were in usually were trades that their father was in and their grandfather was in,
et cetera. So he grew up around this. He knows it like the back of his hand. He knows what to do.
And he has done it a gazillion times and he had just done it all night. He knows what he's doing.
And here, God says to go out and do it again, but in obedience, he did it. But this time he
got something out of it. You know, the Lord miraculously filled his nets. But so what was
the difference? The difference is that instead of Peter doing out of his own own effort, this time,
God had invited him to do it. And Peter went out on word. And so his, and the, and what resulted
was actually was, it was a result of God's word of God, having said something. Why? Because it was
God's idea in the first place. And God invited him to do that. So God made it happen. It's very
evident that Peter couldn't make it happen. Why? Because you know what to do. He did it all night
and now was not the time to fish. And yet God was saying, Hey, do what it is you always do in this
time, expect a different result. Um, but, uh, this, but this time it was being sourced by God's
invitation. And therefore when God invites, he's the one who actually accomplishes the thing.
So remember that, you know, in light of what, what Ed was saying,
remember that when you step out, induce an
and are doing this, this exercise, you know, you're, you're forgiving, you're
learning to let go of things and stop holding accusation against yourself.
Stopping, holding accusation against God, fully accepting yourself as you are,
you know, and all the good, bad, me, ugly, fully accepting God as he is
with all of all of his good, but with all of the struggles that you're
having with what feels like, you know, bad and ugly from him, from him, even
though obviously it's not, but that's the struggles that we're having with
them fully accept God, who it is that he is, even though you don't know who
that fully is, you're fully accepting yourself, even though you fully don't
know what it is that you're accepting of yourself, you don't really know who
that is fully do that because, and entrust that, that, that all of these
things, you know, the end I've been talking to you about will happen, that
you will forgive, you will release, you will fully accept because he's the one
who's invited you to this place.
It's been very clear that he's invited y'all into this, uh, to this place of
breakthrough, um, and to closer and greater intimacy with him.
Um, and it's his invitation and therefore he will accomplish it.
He will meet you there.
And so just present yourself and let him do it.
So this is not like what we were talking today earlier in the community chat.
This is not more exertion that you need to find and to execute and to put forth,
you know, just like what I was talking about with, you know, in order to have
more faith, the same thing with this, you don't have to put forth all of this
effort and exertion in order to forgive, in order to let go, you simply go
through this process, do it with a heart intention of, of coming into agreement
with letting go and stopping, holding accusation, et cetera, but trust and,
and releasing and forgiving, but trust that God's going to do it.
This isn't going to take your will and your effort.
It's just taking your participation in your partnership
with the Lord as he does it.
So Peter still had to put the net over the side.
He still had to obey God when God said, go out on the boat, but Peter didn't do
the work of making, of creating the outcome.
He didn't make the thing happen.
God did that.
You just do this stuff.
God wants you to let go.
He wants you to partner with him.
You want you to agree.
So just, just agree.
It's like, okay, Lord, if that's how you say that this works, if
that is, that's who you say that I am, then I fully accept me.
If that's who you say that you are, then I fully accept you.
You know, and then the accepting you part is includes all the good, bad,
and the ugly, and then with the Lord, you're, you're fully accepting
everything about him and him being who he is without fully knowing
what it is you're, you're accepting.
God's going to reveal more to him, more to you of who it is that he is over time.
You remember what he, he told me when I went through my crisis of faith,
he said, you're right, Ashley, you don't know who I am.
You don't know if I'm good or if I'm loving, but you have fully accepted
me unconditionally as I, to be who I am and to be that into your life.
And what I'm going to show you is because she chose to receive me
unconditionally as I am not knowing what it is fully the full picture of
what it is that, that you just accepted.
I'm going to now show you what it is.
She's accepted that I'm actually perfectly good.
I'm actually perfectly loving and I am all those things to you.
So anyway, the same thing with this forgiveness and releasing and
letting go and fully accepting yourself and fully accept accepting God, go
through the process and of, and, and know that what you're doing is you're
simply coming into agreement with, in partnership with the Lord on these
things, you're not causing something to happen, so there's no need for you to
be afraid that maybe it's not happening or maybe it won't happen.
Okay.
So the last, last couple of things that I wanted to mention, another thing that
you can do is you can think of some way.
This is the last.
Okay.
Uh, if you're online, okay.
Um, think of something that you are, um, you know, in this process of like
learning what it feels like when you've forgiven and when you've
actually let go of something.
Think of, uh, think of something that is really hard for you that, but again,
it needs to be something hard for you, meaning like it hurts, but it's
something that's smaller, easy, like maybe it's something that's for your
feelings and then, and then it'll kind of, you'll feel kind of like this knot
or this, like, if you look at it, it'll feel like dark, it'll become compact.
It'll feel like, like a real thing.
And just kind of like be very aware of that thing and imagine
yourself holding onto it.
And that's why it's sitting wherever it is that you're, that you're feeling.
You might feel it right here.
You might feel it right here, you know, wherever it is that you feel like
it's kind of like a physical that gives you this as a sense of where it may be.
Even it is placed in your body.
You can think, okay, that, that really hurt my feelings.
And this is where it hurts.
So this is where I feel tight.
whatever. And just kind of like, imagine that as something that you're holding on to, as if the
fact that you're holding onto it is holding it right there. And that's why it's sitting there.
And that's why you feel that right there in your shoulder is because you're holding, you're the
one who's holding that dark, like the sphere or compact thing. And you're, and you're keeping it
in you. And then imagine yourself slowly, you know, loosening your, your fingers and letting
the thing go. And then you'll, you'll usually feel, especially, you know, if it's something
small like that, you'll usually feel as if you are actually releasing it and giving it permission to
leave. And then it'll leave because what you've done is you've given yourself kind of, you've
given your, your mind or whatever, you know, this in your, your will, this, this, this tool to kind
of imagine, okay, this is what it's like when I'm holding onto something, this is how it feels.
And this is what it feels like to go through the process of letting go. So that when you try to let
go of something later that you've been holding onto the word onto against the Lord or against
yourself, you'll recognize that feeling of holding onto it so that you realize, oh, now I need, I
need to stop holding onto it. Like I'm doing, I need to go, I need to let go of it. And then it'll
be easier to kind of like recognize how to let go of how you're holding onto something and therefore
how to let go of it. The reason I explain all of that is sometimes I talk to people about letting
things go and they're like, well, I'm sure I'm all, I'm all for not having this, but actually
how on earth am I holding onto it? So imagining, you know, it going through that process that I
just explained is a way that people that helps people connect with, oh, so that feeling right
there, that's me holding onto it. Oh, and I just need to go through this feeling and that's letting
go of it. Okay. I can do that. And it's just, and, um, so it just kind of helps people, um,
understand a bit more about what I'm talking about and then how to actually walk themselves.
It gets there. So that they're, they're, they're souls, a tool to use, to understand what I'm
saying so that they can then do it on their own. Um, so you're emotionally loosening your grip
on it and you're not sending it away. So this is fascinating. You're not sending it away,
but you're a lot and you're allowing it to still stay there and exist in the room with you,
but you're not holding tight onto it to keep it from leaving. Um, and, uh, so, okay, let me,
let me explain what I'm saying there and why that's different than what I was saying earlier.
Sometimes you'll do that. You'll, you'll just loosen your hold on something and, but it won't,
it won't go away automatically. And so if that happens, that's fine. You're just not holding
tight to it anymore. So it can leave if it wants to. But the reason that sometimes it's staying
there is because you haven't dealt with it. So in other words, you haven't made a different choice
other than, other than the fact that, that you haven't made a choice to let it go, to reject it,
to not agree with it anymore. Right. So, um, but, and then you can go through the process of,
of choosing, um, with the Lord, you know, Lord, I don't want this part of my life anymore. I'm
asking you to remove it. Um, I'm coming out of agreement with it. You say that this isn't who
you are. This isn't who I am. And therefore there's no reason for it to stick around.
Um, let's see here. Um, something, okay, now something else that you can do. This is not
a forgiveness thing. This is part of a practice of, um, oh, wait, one more thing about, about
forgiveness. Another thing that you can do, and I've done this, it's very factual is to take the
thing before the Lord. And in like, maybe whether it's a rock or it's a person or it's your, I mean,
meaning like, um, I was, I I've done this practice with a person before. So that's what I was thinking
person, but certain aspects of yourself or certain aspects of the Lord that you were having, um,
that you're holding against him. You take each of those things before the Lord. And then it's
like you sever them. You feel that there, you put the thing outside of you and put it before the
Lord and you'll feel or see this string attaching you to it. And you tell the Lord very intentionally,
Lord, I am severing my connection with this thing. And you'll feel it. If you intentionally do it,
and you're saying, no, no, no, I seriously, I'm making a willful, intentional decision to separate
myself when you separate it. And you say, Lord, I'm, I'm cutting off. I am cutting the strand
between me and it, you will disconnect yourself to it. And that's another way that you can kind
of walk yourself, trying to let go with something. Um, and okay. So now back to the other thing I was
talking about, this is about X. This is a practice of how to accept, um, yourself, even when you're
doing something that even in the middle of your sin, even in the middle, middle of something that
you, that you're doing, that you're ashamed of that you normally feel ashamed of or whatever.
Um, this is what I did did made a huge, huge difference for me. It helped me not
only accept the fullness of myself. It also helped.
me realize that God fully accepts me as I am. Um, and even in the middle of sin. So again,
we're not saying that sin is okay. And we're not accepting sin. We're accepting ourselves,
even though we're in unbelief about something. Um, uh, and that is, so if you're struggling,
if you're, if you have something that you are struggling to forgive yourself for, so you're
having a hard time letting something go, use that as an opportunity to practice full acceptance of
your whole self, including this part of you that can't let go, that can't forgive. Um, so turn to
God while that thing is still present in your life, while that thing that you can't let go of
is still there, whether it's against him or against you or whatever. And then, and then
while that thing is present and while you're with the Lord, that thing is still hanging out over
here. You know, you haven't let go of it. Maybe you haven't even asked God, you know, you know,
well, you haven't been able to let go of it. Let me just make it simple. Then ask God for something,
you know, petition him for something, ask him for something special, ask him to show you to do
something special for you today, to, um, uh, I don't know, to, to show you love in a special way
or to, uh, send you some, I don't know, I don't know, whatever, whatever's on your heart that you
feel that God, that, that, that you, that you feel like asking God for that, you believe that
he'll do for you. Just ask him for something. And here's the whole thing. Here's the, here's the
point. I began to do that when I had sin in my life. And, and I, in order to teach myself that
I did not, that connection between God and me was not removed simply because I had sin.
Um, that I always had connection with the Lord because he says so, but I always have that. Um,
they always had the intimacy and he always still talks to me and he's always still good to me
because his goodness to me is not, it's not a tit for tat. It's not a trade based on how good I am
to him. It's him just simply being who it is that he is. And so in order to teach myself that I began
to, when I had sin that I was very aware of that I was having, that I was struggling with,
I would just allow that to just be in the presence of me and God when I was with God.
And then I would ask God for something. In other words, I'm his child coming to him,
fully accepting and expecting the fact that I am fully loved and expect accepted by God.
And that he loves me unconditionally. And he loves to give me gifts and he loves to,
he loves to pour out his abundance on me. And I fully expect that as a, as a king, I can come
as a king, as his precious son, I can come and ask him for stuff. And that he loves me. And
because he loves me, he's going to, and because he loves being kind to me and in whatever that he
will, that he'll do, that he'll just continue to be good for me, good to me, even when I,
I had sin in my life. And then I was watching him do it. I was watching him answer my requests over
and over and over, even though I would have these sins in my life that I was still struggling with.
And that helped me disassociate my, my relationship with God. In other words,
disassociate what I thought. Disassociate my relationship with God from my behavior
and learn that no, I am, I'm my relationship with God is always. And that I always that my
relationship with God is always stable, regardless of whether there's aspects of my soul, my body
that are in unbelief. And that God doesn't stop talking to me simply because I have sinned that
I'm struggling with. Right. And that taught me that he fully loves and accepts me just as I am
while I'm sitting and doesn't change how he interacts with me. So that taught me how to
do the same thing for myself at a fully love and accept myself because I had that experience with
God. I realized that that, that what he said really was a reality because I'd experienced it.
So why it was easier for me to then do that for myself and provide that for myself, because I
realized it's a real thing that's possible. So I chose to start providing that type of a real
life experience for myself, fully loving and accepting myself, regardless of sin existing in
my life. Okay. Last thing I know I'm giving y'all an awful lot today. It's who knows how long this
thing has been. I think it's probably been the longest one I've done this far, but I hope that
it's very helpful. Okay. So I I'm really trying to provide y'all with everything I can possibly
think of and I'm not skipping anything, you know, just in case it's, it gives you something that is
very impactful. I used to be a perfectionist and I was in terrible bondage to it. I mean,
it's not, it wasn't OCD, but it was like,
It reminds it would remind you of OCD.
It was so, I don't know, it was just, it was, it was so damaging to myself.
Um, and I would, uh, it, I would back then, you know, we didn't use computers,
um, for, for school back in the, I think it was in the nineties.
It made me, I don't know if y'all did, we did not.
And so everything, you know, was handwritten.
So when we had, uh, we had a lot of papers that were due in my school.
Um, I did homeschool curriculum and I had a lot of papers that was always due.
I have more research papers than I.
You know, can even remember that I've ever written.
It was just, it was a lot.
So I always had a lot of handwritten stuff that I had to do.
And the way that I was taught was that you have to do first draft, a second
draft, a first draft and a second draft in pencil, first draft, edit it, edit
it in like pen, second draft in pencil, edited in pen, and then do the final
draft in pen, well, what I, I began to, because I was taking so long trying to
make everything so perfect and wasn't accepting anything from myself other
than absolute perfection, but I began to do as I realized, you know, I'm
in bondage to this thing.
I was in eighth grade when I realized this.
And I thought this is terrible.
This I can't, I can't imagine what this is going to do the rest
of my life if I stay like this.
So I need to, um, I'm harder.
I felt that I was harder on myself than God was.
So I thought, what can I do to break myself out of this?
So what I began to do is I began to write my first draft in pen.
I would just write it in, in pen.
Then what I would do is I would look it over for all the mistakes.
So I would be very aware that they're there because see, I had it.
I wasn't a student.
I would get very upset, very upset.
If I had anything less than a hundred, I would get a 99.7, five, because we
have like 0.25 points off for like misspellings and whatever, and I would
be so frustrated and I'm looking all over to see, you know, if it really
wasn't misspelling and to see if I needed to contest it and all kinds of
stuff, because I just had to have everything, everything had to be a
hundred, everything had to be perfect.
And so what I began to do is I began to look over for mistakes that I would do
mistakes so that I know that they were all there.
And then I would hand in my paper with all those mistakes, very intentionally
knowing they were there instead of looking for them, trying to correct
them and handing them in.
And that's because I was so, I was too much on, I was, I was way over
on the scale of perfectionism.
And it was, like I said, I wasn't fully, I wasn't okay.
With me just being me, I had to perform at a ridiculously high level.
And that was the standard that I kept holding myself to.
And I, and so I had to learn to accept myself in the face of mistakes in the
face of seeing what it is that I'd done, knowing I could be better, meaning
knowing I could do it different and refusing and refuse and choosing
instead of fully accept myself as I am.
So there might be something in your life.
If this particular story resonates with you, there might be something in your
life or an area in your life that is, that you just hold yourself to like, I
didn't know your house has to be perfectly clean all the time, or your
schedule has to work out like X, Y, and Z all the time, or you, I don't know,
whatever, give yourself some slack in those areas.
And very intentionally if you, if you have a hard time with you, if those
things don't work out just perfectly, then don't let yourself do some of those
things this might sound really weird, but I mean, unless that you have like a,
an official docking every time that you're late or whatever, if you don't.
If any of it bothers you to be late to something intentionally be late.
I don't know if you can do that work.
That may not, that may not work for your work, but if it's, if it bothers you at
church or at a Bible study or at a, whatever intentionally put yourself in
that, in those situations to choose for yourself and acting on faith, no.
I'm deciding that I own my own life and that, that I fully love and accept
myself as I am, and I'm perfectly fine.
And it's not based on performance and and, and learn to disassociate your
acceptance from your behavior, from how you approve or disapprove of your
behavior.
Those are just some things that I did.
And so if it resonates with you, if you feel like, Oh, my word, that really
did actually highlight from hearing that story actually highlighted for me, this
particular area of my life, see if there's something that you can do to kind
of like break that break your bondage to it.
Not saying that you.
You live like that forever. You start being late. You start whatever we're not talking about that. We're talking about breaking the bondage that it has over you. And so anyway, hopefully that's helpful and it's good to be with y'all today and I will see you later.