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At the complex intersection of identity, faith, and culture, How To Be Seen explores the universal human drive for recognition through the lenses of behavioral science and biblical theology. Hosted by Tahjma VanBuren, the show investigates the lengths we go to achieve status and the vital psychological distinction between performing for an audience versus being authentically known. Ultimately, it serves as a reference guide for listeners to embrace a sense of worthiness rooted in the truth that they are already fully seen and valued by God.
Automatically Transcribed With Podsqueeze
Tahjma VanBuren 00:00:00 So Larussel said this.
Larussel 00:00:03 Malcolm was heaven sent. Even Martin was heaven sent. Even Kanye was heaven sent. We all heaven sent. Donald too. We all heaven sent. Epstein too. We all heaven sent. Adolph too. We all heaven sent. Even you. We all heaven sent.
Tahjma VanBuren 00:00:35 Which wasn't great, wasn't great. But ironically, that same week I recorded myself saying this. But I think the scariest part of all of this is you and I are no better than Diddy. We're no better than Tyra. Hopefully you hear me? We're no better than Diddy, and we're no better than Tyra. We have all said and done things in the name of being accepted and seen or valued by people or things that we should not have cared a lick about what they had to say. In that episode, we talked about the decision to be different as a part of our strategies for how to be seen, and Diddy was the example that I offered in Tyler was the example that I offered for out of all the things that they did, they decided one way versus another.
Tahjma VanBuren 00:01:33 And I want to explore how accountability and the process of redemption are a part of our strategies for being seen. How Do We Seen Podcasts is an exposé of what it means to be seen, and what lengths we will go for exactly that. We explore science, culture, and ultimately what God says about what it looks like to be seen. So I want to start with this example of a dirty room. This I was talking to my younger sister a few weeks ago about this particular example. and it couldn't have been anybody but the Holy Spirit that dropped that into my brain. So sometimes it can feel like the clarity that you're looking for is actually on the other side of the dirty room. And just because we find ourselves baptized in the Holy Spirit, baptized in the water, having a new relationship with God doesn't mean that all of that in our physical world immediately Changes. I mean, it can Jesus be out here doing things? God be out here doing all the things. But nine times out of ten, there is a sanctification sanctification process that we go through in order to, like, clean some of this stuff up.
Tahjma VanBuren 00:03:11 Right. You've been made new in the spirit, and now your physical self. It almost feels like it's trying to catch up. So it feels like you're in a dirty room, right? Clothes are thrown all over the place. I'm literally looking at, like, boxes of stuff for preparing for a move. You probably got like a bottle of water that you were drinking a little bit ago that you never really finished. You got a cup of coffee from yesterday that you were in the middle of drinking while probably getting dressed, whatever that looks like. You're in a dirty room and it almost feels like, okay, this is so dirty and I want out. I want to get out of this space. And when I was thinking of this. I saw myself going to open the door because the next easy thing to do is. Okay, girl, go open the door. Right. But. When I go to open the door, my hand, I realize, has oil on it. Now, I haven't quite figured out what the oil means in that situation.
Tahjma VanBuren 00:04:21 Anytime oil is mentioned in the Bible, it's often related to anointing, so on and so forth. So I don't know. I haven't touched that part of the the the thought that Holy Spirit offered to me yet. But I'm in this room. I can't open the door because I have oil on my hand, which means I'm. My hand is slipping every time I go to grab this doorknob. So then I'm turning around and I'm having to address the fact, okay, I actually don't want to be in this room because the room is dirty. Not that there's anything wrong with the room, but the room itself is dirty. So now I gotta clean it up. Or now it has to be cleaned in whatever that form and fashion. And for those who, when you have gone through a process and are going through a process with God, you know that nine times out of ten really is God. Who's doing that cleaning up? You didn't have to come to him clean. He cleaned you. But now that doesn't erase the consequences of your actions, of pride, of sexual immorality that you've been engaging in with addiction, all these different things.
Tahjma VanBuren 00:05:31 It doesn't automatically say, okay, boom, now that's gone again. Sometimes that is the experience for people, but most times that is not. Most times you are working out your salvation. You're working out all of these things that you've been experiencing. And I that is that is the season that I'm in right now. So. When I say this, I then have pointed to okay. A lot of times people, when you talk about sin, a lot of times people go to like sex or they go to all these other things that it's like, okay, this is cool, but where's the conversations around pride? Whereas the conversations around rebellion, all those different things. Right. So a scripture that has come up for me over and over and over again was first Samuel 15. And particularly this has existed in recognizing, acknowledging that homegirl some of this is built in your desire to be rebellious, something. There's several things that I have worked out with God about my identity. Things that I've held so closely to me that have felt like when when I'm thinking about in a worldly sense, they have felt like, oh, this is good, this is good because it is, but it's not God.
Tahjma VanBuren 00:07:03 Right? So first Samuel 1523 speaks to or 22 I'll start with 22 But Samuel replied, does the Lord delight in burning burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the Lord? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fact of rams. 23 for rebellion is like the sin of divination and arrogance, like the evil of idolatry. Now, oh, the rest of that is because you have rejected the word of the Lord. He has rejected you as king. For context, in this chapter 15, Saul is to be made king, and he's given the very specific directive of go in that city and take everybody out. Everybody. Don't don't even. I don't care how healthy that sheep is. I don't care how great of a wolf he has. Take him out. What does Saul do? Verse nine. But Saul and the army spared Agag, which is the king of this space, and the best of the sheep and cattle, and the fat calves, cows and lambs, everything that was good.
Tahjma VanBuren 00:08:27 These they were unwilling to destroy completely. But everything that was despised and weak, they totally destroyed. Literally. In verse three, the Lord gives Saul the directive, now go, attack the Melkites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them. Put to death men and women, children and infants. Cattle and sheep, camels and the donkeys. Now here's the thing. Rebellion. I think we often think of the deities of the world. Which is why I brought up the previous episode, Deities and Tiaras. And, the Donald Trumps, the Hitlers, all these different people that Russell mentioned. But rebellion does not start with, let me go take out this entire population of people like Hitler. Let me go bring use my power to do x, y, z in the way that Donald Trump has done. It doesn't always look like that. It very rarely starts out that way, but it does start out in small ways. Now, I don't know that what Saul did was was all that small, but he thought, okay, let me let me save these.
Tahjma VanBuren 00:09:50 Because they're good. Sure. But that's not what you were told to do. You know how your parent is like, okay, go. How your mom will give you instructions. And when she's telling you to go find something, it feels like she's giving you, like the MapQuest example or instructions for how to find her blue book that's on the right hand side of her bed. Turn to the horizontally at a 45 degree angle. Those instructions are so specific, and in the moment it feels like, come on now, just tell me where this thing is. But they're so specific, so that you understand. I want you to follow exactly as I'm telling you. And the reason that ditties become ditties, the reason that Donald's become Donald's and Hitler's become Hitlers, is because they have had a pattern of disobedience, pattern of rebellion. And for me, my stronghold has not been sex. It has not been. all these different things. Essentially what the sins that we like to bring out in popular culture has not been that it has been pride.
Tahjma VanBuren 00:11:02 It has been rebellion. And when I think about it, I'm like, oh my gosh. So God is so intentional. He spent like three weeks building me up to the point where I had to go through and say, okay, you've shown me this particular scripture three different times. Now let me go read this chapter and that's what I come to. So it's easy to then say, okay, now I don't need to be disobedient. Now, I don't need to be rebellious. But there is humanness that we're having to work out of. You know, there's my fleshly ness that I'm having to work out of that we can't just swipe under the rug. So as I like to do, I always go to science. I have a background in human development, human behavior. Let's go to science and see what science says about rebellion, and then also what science says about accountability. Because the action, now that you know what you've done now, your next step is to say, okay, how do I take accountability of all of this? So when I look up rebellion from a human development perspective, it always goes back to what we can expect our teenage years, adolescence.
Tahjma VanBuren 00:12:15 This is the time where we are really trying to bring in our identity. We're really trying to hone in, okay, what is who am I? I don't want to do it just because my parents said so. That is what we consistently think of this. Is the prefrontal cortex really coming into play, right? So as you emerge into emerging adulthood, it becomes less about now as when you're 25 plus, it's not as much about I need to be able to put my foot down. And I'm I'm an adult when we're we're 17 years old now, it becomes that prefrontal cortex is set in stone. You're now thinking about long term planning. You're now trying to decide for right from wrong. You're now trying to decide what's logic. You're now grappling with this in-between feeling because you don't quite feel like an adult. You, but you are an adult in reality, all these different things. And you're you're essentially grappling with the idea of, okay, I know right from wrong. I know what I need to do now.
Tahjma VanBuren 00:13:24 How do I decide that this is the life that I want to live, versus this is the life that I'm told that I'm supposed to live? You're more so coming from the perspective of making uncomfortable decisions, uncomfortable choices. Again, Diddy made that choice. Donald made that choice right. The Bible talks about how rebellion grieves the spirit. It grieves the Holy Spirit. It grieves you not doing what the heck I told you to do. You deciding that your understanding, leaning to your understanding, is more important than leaning to not your own understanding. Leaning to a heavenly understanding that you think that because I can recall moments where I have decided to do my own thing because I thought, oh, this is a better idea, I'm trying to be helpful. But that's still that's still not what you were told to do. That's still not helpful to the situation because, again, your mom told you that that book was at a 45 degree angle and you went and looked at a 120 degree angle when that was never what you were supposed to be doing, which creates this barrier between our youth surrendering to me.
Tahjma VanBuren 00:14:38 Are you following me or are you following yourself? Are you being self-righteous? I don't know about you. That's not the position that I want to be in. I don't even know what I'm gonna eat the next day. God does. Then I wanted to look at, okay, what does accountability look like from a scientific perspective? And as we know, accountability is defined as the willingness to take ownership of one's actions and their consequences. You did it. Now you need to go ahead and say, okay, you got me, I did it. Let me go ahead and finish this out. But then there's this internal I when science broke it down, I it follows the pathway of repentance and turning 180 turning away from your ways. The psychological process is first internal acknowledgment, which is to admit oneself, admit to oneself that an action was wrong or hurtful. This is you taking. You acknowledging I. I cannot do this on my own in a in a in a spiritual sense. I cannot do this on my own.
Tahjma VanBuren 00:15:51 I'm outside of my my capacity. I'm outside of the the narrow path was going on then psychologically or overcoming in step two, you're overcoming a cognitive dissonance, resolving the painful tension between I am a good person versus I did a bad thing. This is where we get to decide are we choosing from the tree of life or the choosing from the tree of knowledge of good and evil? Are you choosing condemnation or are you choosing correction? Because at it's reality, I had to hone in on the fact that this is for God to spend three weeks like baby stepping me lovingly, baby stepping me into this and saying, hey, go look at this. Hey, go look at this. That is correction, not condemnation. And I'm not going to allow Myself. And you shouldn't allow yourself to go into that. My frame of I am a bad person. Then on a psychological process level, you move into external confession, verbally declaring the mistake to a trusted peer or the victim to create the social holding for the behavior, which is, in a biblical sense, repentance.
Tahjma VanBuren 00:17:07 What is the I forget what the where the verse is, but it's where we are. We are renewing of something to the effect of I think it's enrollment somewhere, but where we are freed by the sharing of our testimony, something to that effect. Somebody is going to correct me about that, but I have to find out exactly what it is. Oh excuse me. Revelation 1211. Okay, so my mic died. Revelation 1211 and they have conquered him by the blood of the lamb and by the word of their testimony, I feel like I saw that somewhere in Romans two, but I don't know. Maybe I'm off. But essentially you are sharing your testimony. You are getting or you're you're confessing to other people because and you want to be specific about this because why would you want why would you want a general? And I fall into this trap. I would go and I'm like, God, I, I repent for disobedience. He's like, okay, girl, that's cute. I, I just, I, I imagine him being like, that's cute, I appreciate it, I appreciate it, but you if someone hurt you, if someone grieved you like we've grieved the Holy Spirit, why? Why would you not want that person to be specific? You want somebody to be specific about how they hurt you.
Tahjma VanBuren 00:18:35 So be specific about how you've hurt somebody else, which is a part of accountability. and then psychological. The psychological process of taking taking accountability also includes repair and follow through, which is what the 180 perspective is in repentance. So all of this, I've taken this and and I understand that this is true. I keep looking at the little dot to make sure that it's actually on. That's the first time that's ever happened to me. I recorded like 20 minutes or something and gone. So. All of this being a person, I can take accountability for this thing. And now my next thought is, okay, this isn't sexual immorality. This isn't this is a part of me that I'm thinking, okay, now it feels like a part of me that I've held so tightly to this identity, and it feels like you're taking a piece of me away. God, it feels like I used to be the kind of person that I held close to. The mantra of, What's the the phrasing. Ask for forgiveness, not permission.
Tahjma VanBuren 00:19:53 I used to hold close to the mantra of well-behaved women never make history. And those are true. Those are good things, but they're not God things. And that's the part that I'm having to separate here. I'm having to separate from those thoughts because it feels like, okay, going back to redemption as part of this accountability process and a part of your sanctification process. When has accountability and redemption looks like what has that looked like in the Bible? How can I point to this where it doesn't feel like when you come to Christ, he's not changing your humor. He's not changing your personality. He's redeeming that for himself. Which then begs the question of okay, what does redeem mean? Because we want to make sure we get it. Get it specific. So redeem. Redeem means in a verb. Compensate for the faults or bad aspects of something. It is to gain or regain possession of something in exchange for payment. Now we know that we have been redeemed by the blood of Christ, the blood of the lamb.
Tahjma VanBuren 00:21:06 He was on that that cross, and he died on the cross for our sins. And he thought of Tajima Van Buren of 2026 when he died on the cross for my sins. Cool. Now, what does that look like in actuality? Because redeeming doesn't only mean. Okay, now you you stop doing this particular sin. It means now I'm using you for what is good. I'm using you for what is godly. Now, a really good example of this is Saul who becomes Paul. In the book of acts particularly, we know Paul for writing a significant portion of the New Testament. And I love to think about how he was particularly redeemed because this man was doing too much. He was doing everything in the world. And if we go to acts nine. If we go to acts nine, Saul is has a conversion story where he is encountered by God, blinded and forced to, like, go over here. I'm gonna send somebody to come get you. As what God says, Ananias is told by the Lord, hey, I need you to go give the sight back to Saul, Ananias.
Tahjma VanBuren 00:22:33 Rightfully so. It's like this feels like a trick. This man is known for killing Christians. He's known for persecuting us. What are you doing? God, I don't understand. But the Lord says to Ananias, verse 15, chapter nine, the book of acts. But the Lord says to Ananias, go, this man is my chosen instrument, to proclaim my name to the Gentiles and their kings to the people of Israel. I will show him how much he must suffer for my name and suffer. Did Paul Paul suffer? Did Paul? I don't know, every every time I read anything from Paul, I'm like, do I love Jesus enough to do that? So to know that. Paul being someone that knows the Torah, he's of Jewish descent. He knows the Torah. He knows all this stuff. He his job is to go and hunt down Christ's believers, people who believe that Jesus Christ resurrected is now on mission to God is like, okay. You were you were going to be out there in the first place.
Tahjma VanBuren 00:23:44 Now let me use your travels to be able to say, now, instead of going and hunting them, instead of going and killing them. Now, I need you to go and share the good news. Now you are on mission, which is what redeeming looks like now. Maybe a not so great example, or it's a good example. Rather, I personally don't want to get to this extent where redeeming looks like this for me is Genesis 38, where a rebellious the rebelliousness in someone is used for the good of God. Genesis 38 specifically speaks to Judah and Tamar. Now Tamar is promised a child, but her first husband dies and Judah is like, okay, no worries. Let me just hand you off to my next son. Well, the next son knows it or he feels like this child is not going to be mine. So I don't want to be a part of this. So he spills his seed instead of impregnating Tamar. Cool. Tamar says, you know what? I've had enough.
Tahjma VanBuren 00:24:57 After several years, you. Judah, you told me to wait. You told me to wait. You told me to wait. After several years, I'm going to take matters into my own hands. And I'm going to get the job done. And this is the. This is where I saw myself. This is where I'm seeing myself now, in this moment, because I have been the person that has been like, okay, no Rob, no worries, I'll handle it. You won't handle it, I'll handle it. That is not what we're supposed to be doing. And yes, there are moments where you need to stand up in and handle it, but not to the extent where you are sleeping with your your father in law. Which is what Tamar does. She follows Judah on one of his trips and dresses up like a prostitute in order to sleep with Judah, and becomes pregnant. And the way that God redeems, that is, he still used it all for his good. He still used her rebellion, all for his good by saying, okay, all right, you're doing too much, homegirl.
Tahjma VanBuren 00:26:05 Let's be your children. The two the twins that she has are in the genealogy of Jesus. They are in the bloodline of the making of the Messiah. Still redeeming that moment for. God making it a godly thing rather than a good thing. Now again, I don't I don't want to get to the I don't want my, my my rebellion to extent to get to sleeping with my father in law. That's crazy. That's crazy. But Judah, record in verse 29 of Genesis 39, Judah recognizes them and says she is more righteous than I. Since I wouldn't give her to my son Shayla. And he did not sleep with her again because he was he was being manipulative. He was being cunning because every person that married Tamar died reasonably soon. So Judah is like, are you? You keep killing off my kids. What's going on, sister girl? Reasonably so. He does not want to hand over another child to Tamar, understandably. But that is still your responsibility that you made this oath.
Tahjma VanBuren 00:27:27 Now you need to abide by it. So when I think of Redeeming the God can redeem your tenacity. He can redeem this like this desire to be. I don't know what the word is. This. This desire to be out there. This desire to be in your face. This desire to be bold and courageous. He redeemed that for himself. But you have to be obedient. I do not want to end up like what's his name? Moses. I wish I knew what part of Exodus it's in, but there's a part in Exodus where Moses is. God has to like knife to throw him in order to get him to understand. Hey, I don't have time. I don't have time to be playing with you. I told you to circumcise that little boy. And you have not circumcised that little boy. So now I need a knife to throw at you. He didn't. Let me be clear. God did not. The Lord did not hold the knife to Moses's throat, But the sentiment is there.
Tahjma VanBuren 00:28:33 The sentiment of like, hey, you're doing too much. You're doing so much. I think it's in, Moses. I think it's in Exodus three because. Or no, it's not in Exodus three. I think it's in Exodus 4 or 5, one of those. But Moses, God is already having this experience where he's having to, like, convince Moses to be obedient. Who does that sound like? Having to convince Moses to be obedient? That he's got him. He just trust him. I'm. I'm going to make sure you good God doesn't have time to do that. Hey, I need you to go ahead and circumcise that little boy, because this is going to become a problem. I don't want to have to do that. I don't want to have to sleep with my father in law. I don't want to have to. I don't want to have to do Any of that. So some of our desires are changed. Our our ungodly desires are changed or taken away, rather. but as you get into relationship with God, there's a reason that there is a Esther versus a Ruth.
Tahjma VanBuren 00:29:45 There's a reason that there is. What is it? The in judges. Deborah versus like a Mary. Those two women are dramatically different people. There's a reason that Jobe existed while David existed because they their personalities were not changed. They're they're who they are. Who they uniquely were made were is not changed. God knows who we uniquely are. If you have tenacity, if you have boldness, if you have courage, if you have a gift for music, all of that is redeemed back to him because he gave you the gift in the first place. So all of this to say, a part of our strategy to be seen is in taking accountability. And sometimes how beautiful is it that God will will orchestrate moments for you to not only be saved by him, but to be corrected by him? That is a part of our sanctification process as a part of our, redemption story, if you will. We love a undercooked dog until we have to be the underdog. but the Bible is full of underdog stories, underdog experiences.
Tahjma VanBuren 00:31:03 So all of this, another skill within our how to be seen toolbox for how to be seen by the world, how to be seen, most importantly by God, is taking accountability and readily taking accountability in a biblical spiritual sense. Accountability looks like repentance. Taking ownership for your actions and making a 180 turn. My next thought is always, okay, now I need all this behavior modification. But that's not true repentance. That's that's you leaning to your own strength, which is part of the problem in the first place, leaning to your own understanding. So I'll leave you with the two things that I typically bring to the table. Affirmation and action. Affirmation. Again, I know we don't necessarily enjoy a whole bunch of like Ruza affirmations, but we're constantly steeping ourselves in lies about who we are. It's time to steep ourselves in the truth. So the first was the. The affirmation that I have for this episode is from Jeremiah 18. Some of the old folks are used to say like, just stay on the potter's wheel, baby, just stay on the potter's wheel, which is exactly where this comes from.
Tahjma VanBuren 00:32:29 So Jeremiah 18, that section is called at the potter's house if you start. I'll just start actually at the first one. This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord. Go down to the potter's house and there I will give you my message. So I went down to the potter's house, and I saw him working at the wheel. But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands. So the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as as it seemed best to him. Then the word of the Lord came to me. He said, can I not do with you, Israel, as this potter does? Declares the Lord, like clay in the hand of the potter. So are you in my hand, Israel? So the affirmation that coincides with that particular scripture reading is, I am the clay. He is the potter. My job is to stay on the wheel. Because again, we can think accountability means a whole bunch of behavior modification. But really, really, it means recognizing, okay, I put myself in this position.
Tahjma VanBuren 00:33:43 I have this this particular issue. Now, let me use this as an opportunity to not lean on to my own understanding. Let me use this as an opportunity to go deeper in relationship with God. And then the action portion actually comes from my older sister because I was I was downloading all this stuff to her like it was crazy. I was sharing all this with her and she said, okay, mom. Well, first I would suggest invite the Holy Spirit into your private time. Like go have a moment with with God. Invite the Holy Spirit into your private time, which looks like Holy Spirit I am seeking to engage with you. I'm seeking to have you as my advocate in this moment. I welcome you into this space to take control of this conversation. Help me to hear the Lord clearly. Help me to walk away from this time knowing and hearing and doing and being a better daughter, or a better Son of God of the the father. Then you move into asking the Holy Spirit to point out where you're missing the mark, because clearly you're missing the mark.
Tahjma VanBuren 00:35:08 If you're coming in this space, where are you missing the mark? Where? What other areas can you get super specific about? Can you zero in on? Here's when you have been disobedient. Here's when you have been rebellious so that I can name those clearly when it comes to now repenting. Because again, we don't want to repent in a general way. We want to repent with God. I knew I shouldn't have been over there, but I was over there being highly specific so that God knows what we did. But we need to recall what we did so that we can know and name each moment to our brain. In a physical space and a scientific space. Our brain recalls those moments so that when those moments arise again, because they will. When those moments arise again, we can remember, oh, I made the responsibility, or I took the the moment to repent. Then finally, once you have repented, once you have acknowledged you the ways that you have gone astray, you now have to believe.
Tahjma VanBuren 00:36:18 You now have to believe that you are forgiven. Believe that you are, that your that your sins have been cast into the sea of forgetfulness by God. Believe that you are covered in the blood of Christ. Believe and choose to choose the tree of life rather than the tree of Knowledge. Because sometimes we can go back to to God repenting for something over and over and over and over for something. When the Lord is like, girl, I have already forgiven you for that. You need to forgive yourself for that. All right, that's all that. I pray that this was useful, that this was transformational for you. And I'll see you next time. Bye.