WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.200 Music. 00:00:05.194 --> 00:00:12.351 Welcome to the Rooted Podcast. I'm Luke and we believe here at Rooted that you 00:00:12.684 --> 00:00:23.884 can see lasting life change for your good and for God's glory. Today we're going to continue our discussion about what does it mean to live in the light, 00:00:23.884 --> 00:00:29.484 to step out of darkness, and to step into the light. And today we're going to talk 00:00:29.484 --> 00:00:36.804 about that place where we start. I talked a little bit about last time about the narrative 00:00:36.804 --> 00:00:43.524 of Scripture, the fall of humanity in Adam and Eve, and how we all tend to hide. We all 00:00:43.524 --> 00:00:49.404 tend to minimize and hide. And today we're going to be kind of digging into and talking 00:00:49.404 --> 00:00:58.764 about, well, if we're not living in the light, where are we? And we're in denial. We're in 00:00:58.764 --> 00:01:04.884 that place, in that state of denying what is going on around us, or going on in our 00:01:04.884 --> 00:01:12.164 life, or denying what we need to address and to talk about openly. 00:01:12.164 --> 00:01:17.444 If you're familiar with like the 12 steps, this is part of that very first step, stepping 00:01:17.444 --> 00:01:25.284 out of denial, admitting that there is a problem, admitting that there is something going on, 00:01:25.284 --> 00:01:27.457 that we don't have it all together. 00:01:28.524 --> 00:01:36.198 So the way I define denial is this way, is that denial is a willful blindness 00:01:36.252 --> 00:01:40.339 and avoidance of realities that we don't want to face. 00:01:41.752 --> 00:01:47.084 I'll say that again. Denial is a willful blindness and avoidance of realities 00:01:47.084 --> 00:01:49.684 that we do not want to face. 00:01:49.684 --> 00:01:56.444 I think that this is really important for us to understand exactly what's going on. 00:01:56.444 --> 00:02:04.444 And it is this kind of, I get the picture of, you know, someone plugging their ears 00:02:04.444 --> 00:02:10.514 or someone covering their eyes in order to say, ah, I can't see the problem, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah. 00:02:10.664 --> 00:02:15.464 And that's the place we find ourselves at if we're living in a place of denial, 00:02:15.464 --> 00:02:20.948 of saying, I don't have a problem with this particular, I don't have a problem with alcohol. 00:02:21.344 --> 00:02:25.464 I don't have a problem with pornography. I could stop whenever I wanted to. 00:02:25.464 --> 00:02:29.624 I don't have relationship problems, other people are just not as good, 00:02:29.624 --> 00:02:32.921 it's not my fault that my relationships never work out. 00:02:32.984 --> 00:02:41.824 I don't have hurts or things that I need to address, there's just things that I'm never gonna talk about. 00:02:41.824 --> 00:02:45.947 We're living in denial, we're in a place where we're saying, 00:02:46.264 --> 00:02:50.007 nope, I've got it all together, I don't need to address this. 00:02:50.144 --> 00:02:57.029 And it's a place where, left unchecked, we can get ourselves into some serious trouble. 00:02:57.983 --> 00:03:05.913 I think about this, when I think about denial, I think of one of my favorite books and movies, 00:03:05.913 --> 00:03:06.913 The Lord of the Rings. 00:03:07.157 --> 00:03:16.153 If you're familiar with The Lord of the Rings, in particular the last movie, the last book, 00:03:16.153 --> 00:03:18.353 The Return of the King. 00:03:18.353 --> 00:03:23.633 And if you're not familiar, a summary of the important piece of the story for this particular 00:03:23.633 --> 00:03:32.753 illustration, is that there's a kingdom and the reign of the king has been long lost. The true 00:03:32.753 --> 00:03:39.952 heirs left the kingdom and have left the king to be taken care of a family of stewards. They're not 00:03:40.193 --> 00:03:44.753 the kingly family, they're the stewards. They're the ones who are supposed to be taking care of 00:03:44.753 --> 00:03:52.913 the kingdom. And under the watch of the steward, the current steward, the one who is in the role 00:03:52.913 --> 00:04:01.393 of the king, but is not in the lineage of the king. In the middle of his stewarding, of taking 00:04:01.393 --> 00:04:08.433 care of the kingdom, overseeing the kingdom, evil has come, and it's been coming slowly, 00:04:08.433 --> 00:04:14.193 and it's been coming for a long time. The kingdom is sitting right outside of the dark place, 00:04:14.193 --> 00:04:21.233 outside of Mordor, where the dark lord lives, and he's been getting reports, he's been getting 00:04:21.233 --> 00:04:28.276 notified and told that evil's coming, the Dark Lord is building his armies. And his. 00:04:28.618 --> 00:04:36.953 Chosen action has been to be blind to what's going on. He's ignored the coming forces. 00:04:36.953 --> 00:04:46.113 He's ignored the warnings of his sons. And he's been willfully blind. He's been in denial. 00:04:46.875 --> 00:04:54.833 Particularly in the movie, up until his hand is kind of forced. Our protagonists, our heroes are 00:04:54.833 --> 00:05:01.313 encountering him, and he's just like, no, there's no problem, go away. Our gates, our city will hold, 00:05:01.313 --> 00:05:09.713 we have no need to fear. He ultimately just continues to go down a path of self-destruction 00:05:09.713 --> 00:05:13.359 and destruction of his sons and of himself 00:05:13.433 --> 00:05:17.077 because he refuses to take off the blinders, 00:05:17.213 --> 00:05:19.993 to step out of denial. 00:05:19.993 --> 00:05:26.053 And that is similarly where we find ourselves. It's a place of willful blindness. 00:05:26.053 --> 00:05:30.095 It's a place where we choose to ignore something. 00:05:30.173 --> 00:05:35.433 And the funny thing about us, about humans, is that if we choose to ignore something long enough, 00:05:35.433 --> 00:05:40.195 Pretty soon we forget that it's there, right? 00:05:40.433 --> 00:05:41.582 Know, maybe there's that. 00:05:42.374 --> 00:05:48.918 Let's take a more innocuous topic or thing, maybe there's something on your to-do list 00:05:49.017 --> 00:05:54.068 that you just don't want to do, and you're just like, ugh, I'm just not going to think about that today. 00:05:54.424 --> 00:05:59.433 Well, you say that to yourself enough times, you're eventually going to forget about the 00:05:59.504 --> 00:06:01.233 thing you're trying to not think about. 00:06:01.624 --> 00:06:05.224 You'll get really good about not thinking about it, and then the due date for that thing 00:06:05.224 --> 00:06:11.344 on your to-do list will come, and you're like, oh, I actually really forgot about it. 00:06:11.344 --> 00:06:15.184 And that might be something serious, it might be something not all that serious, but you 00:06:15.184 --> 00:06:19.004 know what I'm talking about, we've all done that before. 00:06:19.224 --> 00:06:25.954 And so we need to recognize and come to terms with ourself and kind of wake ourselves up 00:06:26.269 --> 00:06:34.002 out of this sleepy state of denial, of denying that we have a problem, of denying that we need help. 00:06:34.504 --> 00:06:40.904 And so here are a few kind of, you know, I want to take the rest of our time, and I want 00:06:40.904 --> 00:06:46.584 us to kind of do some self-reflection, do some diagnostics with ourselves and think 00:06:46.584 --> 00:06:51.224 through, are there places in which I might be in denial? 00:06:51.224 --> 00:06:56.164 And here are a handful of the behaviors. I don't think this is maybe, um. 00:06:57.381 --> 00:07:02.881 You know, all-encompassing. This isn't all the things that we might do in denial, but this is some of the big things, so. 00:07:03.727 --> 00:07:07.150 One of the big behaviors of denial is that we minimize things. 00:07:07.150 --> 00:07:14.150 So, by that I might mean that we, um, we might compare ourselves to other people to make ourselves look better. 00:07:14.150 --> 00:07:22.011 Right? Oh, look at that person. I'm not that person. I've got it more together than they do, so I must not have a problem. Right? 00:07:22.164 --> 00:07:28.110 We might point to the positive things in our life, right? Nothing's black and white, right? 00:07:28.110 --> 00:07:35.730 Nothing's all negative and nothing's all good, but we might try and minimize or avoid 00:07:35.802 --> 00:07:38.692 the serious things that we need to talk about 00:07:38.870 --> 00:07:42.270 by just kind of focusing and highlighting the good parts in our life 00:07:42.270 --> 00:07:45.910 and kind of avoiding the other half of the picture. 00:07:45.910 --> 00:07:51.790 Or we might keep track, or we might not keep track or keep things foggy so that we can't see 00:07:51.790 --> 00:07:54.266 how big the issue is, right? 00:07:54.320 --> 00:07:59.613 We might kind of just keep things kind of hazy, not really think about it, right? 00:08:01.225 --> 00:08:06.104 This is an easy one to talk about when it comes to perhaps alcohol abuse, right? 00:08:06.230 --> 00:08:10.670 Well, how many drinks did I have? Ah, just a few, I don't really know. 00:08:10.670 --> 00:08:13.198 How much have I been drinking? How often do I drink? 00:08:13.369 --> 00:08:18.032 Oh, just really, you know, maybe once, twice a week, something like that, right? 00:08:18.122 --> 00:08:24.130 And by not ever trying to get down to the specifics, we keep it in this kind of foggy haze 00:08:24.130 --> 00:08:28.570 where we can kind of continue to think, ah, it's not that big a deal, right? 00:08:29.600 --> 00:08:33.970 Maybe for an issue like pornography, you know, ah, it's a thing I do every once in a while. 00:08:33.970 --> 00:08:36.604 Well, how much is every once in a while? 00:08:36.802 --> 00:08:37.936 How often is that? 00:08:38.250 --> 00:08:49.468 Not just, let's be specific about that. You know, maybe we kind of just keep things in a bit of a fog, right? 00:08:50.110 --> 00:08:59.110 If we're dealing with things about like healing from trauma or hurt, we often kind of can 00:08:59.110 --> 00:09:08.787 build these, where I call them no-go zones, I'll call them no-go zones, places where we 00:09:08.832 --> 00:09:13.790 kind of won't want to go to, don't want to talk about. 00:09:14.395 --> 00:09:18.995 Person that we don't talk about, person we don't think about, person we don't talk to. 00:09:19.050 --> 00:09:22.767 Topics we avoid, places we don't go, right? 00:09:24.370 --> 00:09:32.150 Or maybe we just kind of, maybe there's some hurt or there's some things that need to change, 00:09:32.150 --> 00:09:39.650 but every time we think about, I really, really need to build some more healthy relationships. 00:09:39.650 --> 00:09:44.859 I really need to make a change. I really need to make this difficult decision. 00:09:45.372 --> 00:09:48.870 I'm just going to kind of minimize that by... 00:09:49.747 --> 00:09:58.557 Numbing myself out. I'm gonna hop on social media. I'm going to Watch more YouTube. I'm going to go out and buy some things 00:09:58.557 --> 00:10:03.037 I'm gonna go do something to make myself feel good so that the problem feels smaller, 00:10:03.926 --> 00:10:06.671 we can minimize minimizing is a is a, 00:10:07.597 --> 00:10:14.557 Broad thing that we do in denial. The next thing that we often do when we're in denial is we rationalize things, 00:10:15.611 --> 00:10:22.257 I Once heard a preacher. I don't remember who but it's stuck with me and he's talking about, 00:10:22.977 --> 00:10:28.477 Rationalizing is just telling rational lies to yourself. Did you catch that? 00:10:29.817 --> 00:10:34.281 Rationalizing something to yourself is telling rational untruths, 00:10:35.137 --> 00:10:42.057 rational lies to yourself And so we might say that we're stressed out that this is just a season, 00:10:42.698 --> 00:10:48.797 Right just tell ourselves like I don't have a problem. This isn't an issue This is this will go away if I just ignore it long enough, 00:10:49.917 --> 00:10:55.777 We might pat ourselves on the back and say you know what I deserve a break. I deserve a reward this, 00:10:56.597 --> 00:11:00.919 You know I give myself a break right like this isn't a big problem, right? 00:11:01.197 --> 00:11:09.157 And we're continually playing ourselves as the victim and In saying that like the place that we're stuck in is totally fine 00:11:09.157 --> 00:11:12.157 Yeah, we might just say that this is normal, right? 00:11:12.157 --> 00:11:18.157 I don't have a problem, this is just normal. And the thing is, it may have become normal for you, 00:11:18.157 --> 00:11:21.157 but that doesn't mean that it's healthy for you. 00:11:21.157 --> 00:11:31.140 And then the last thing is simply self-deception. Self-deception is when we begin to believe our own minimizing and rationalizing. 00:11:31.446 --> 00:11:34.848 This is when we've been in denial for a long time. 00:11:35.794 --> 00:11:48.203 It's when we really, really start to believe our own press. We start to say, you know what, this isn't my problem, everyone else around me is the 00:11:48.203 --> 00:11:49.585 one who's wrong. 00:11:49.723 --> 00:11:55.403 We become impervious to feedback, we become impervious to loved ones, people who care 00:11:55.403 --> 00:11:59.803 deeply about us, speaking truth into our lives. 00:11:59.803 --> 00:12:06.003 And it might not always feel that way, but often, when we're in denial, one of the reasons 00:12:06.003 --> 00:12:09.552 that we're in denial is because we have a pride issue. 00:12:09.723 --> 00:12:12.577 Because we don't want to admit that things are not going well. 00:12:12.743 --> 00:12:17.348 We want to say, you know what, no, just leave me alone, I can fix it on my own. 00:12:17.523 --> 00:12:21.354 Just let me hold on to it. I know myself, that's my own tendency. 00:12:22.263 --> 00:12:27.423 If there's a problem or a thing that I need to take care of, rather than asking or seeking 00:12:27.423 --> 00:12:33.143 for help, I would much rather just say, go away, nobody see how I'm weak and vulnerable, 00:12:33.143 --> 00:12:38.663 I just want to take care of it myself. And when I isolate myself like that, when I live 00:12:38.663 --> 00:12:45.023 in denial that I don't need help, it doesn't get any better on its own. And I begin to 00:12:45.023 --> 00:12:51.743 deceive myself with my own pride, that I can fix this, I can do this all by myself. The 00:12:51.743 --> 00:13:01.303 is that I can't. And we weren't made to. God meant us to live in community. We cannot fix our own problems. 00:13:00.352 --> 00:13:05.642 That's what Christ is for. So I have a few questions that I'm just 00:13:05.642 --> 00:13:07.362 going to kind of end our podcast with, 00:13:07.362 --> 00:13:09.762 or time together this discussion. 00:13:09.762 --> 00:13:15.042 And sit with these. Maybe pull out a pen, pause this, pull out a pen, 00:13:15.042 --> 00:13:18.168 or pull out your phone, and take these down. 00:13:18.242 --> 00:13:25.042 Sit with these, and ask these questions of yourself. And these questions will kind of lead you 00:13:25.042 --> 00:13:28.682 down a path of considering, perhaps, where are you in denial? 00:13:28.682 --> 00:13:32.409 Where have you not been addressing and living in the light? 00:13:32.522 --> 00:13:36.262 Where do you need to begin to take some ownership of where things actually are at? 00:13:36.502 --> 00:13:43.162 So the first question I have is, are you keeping secrets? Are there things that you're just actively 00:13:43.162 --> 00:13:44.373 not telling people about? 00:13:45.002 --> 00:13:47.533 That if people knew about, they would be shocked, right? 00:13:48.322 --> 00:13:53.242 Are you keeping secrets? Not are you, you know, I don't mean that 00:13:53.242 --> 00:13:55.005 does everybody know everything about you, 00:13:55.599 --> 00:14:00.042 but do the closest people to you, would they think that you're keeping secrets 00:14:00.042 --> 00:14:01.414 if they were to find some things out? 00:14:02.909 --> 00:14:07.131 Are there off-limits, second question is, are there off-limits topics, 00:14:07.203 --> 00:14:10.381 off-limit places, events, or people? 00:14:10.442 --> 00:14:14.962 Now I wanna be gentle with this one, like I don't mean that we need to necessarily 00:14:14.962 --> 00:14:21.682 always be diving into the places where we don't wanna go, where there's some hurt, 00:14:21.682 --> 00:14:24.757 or there's some trauma, or there's a brokenness, 00:14:24.842 --> 00:14:29.842 But are we, you know, avoiding relationships, right? 00:14:31.602 --> 00:14:37.082 Is there a friend that we can't talk to anymore for some reason? 00:14:37.082 --> 00:14:43.002 Maybe that's something we need to deal with. Maybe we have family members who we wish we had better relationships with, 00:14:43.002 --> 00:14:48.002 but we don't because there's some hurts, there's some things that need to be addressed there. 00:14:49.722 --> 00:14:53.122 Are there just off-limit topics, like we can talk about anything 00:14:53.122 --> 00:14:57.822 except for the places where I'm not doing very well? 00:14:57.822 --> 00:15:03.287 We can talk about anything except for how much I go to the casino, or how much I drink, 00:15:03.342 --> 00:15:10.750 or how much time I spend on the computer late at night. Are there off-limit topics, places, events, or people? 00:15:11.442 --> 00:15:14.082 Are you isolating yourself? That's the third question I have. 00:15:14.082 --> 00:15:19.437 Are you removing yourself from community? Are you isolating yourself? 00:15:19.822 --> 00:15:26.122 Or are you reaching out to community? Fourth question is, do you feel like you're hiding yourself? 00:15:26.122 --> 00:15:32.442 Do you feel like you're wearing a mask? Do you feel like you're not being truthful to yourself 00:15:32.442 --> 00:15:34.345 and to other people around you? 00:15:35.242 --> 00:15:40.482 And my final question, the fifth question here is, have others approached you 00:15:40.482 --> 00:15:43.311 about something you didn't want to hear? 00:15:44.522 --> 00:15:50.202 This is a big warning sign. This is big flag. If someone is coming up to you, 00:15:50.202 --> 00:15:54.339 particularly if multiple people have said, Hey, you okay? 00:15:55.302 --> 00:15:59.578 Hey, I noticed this thing that maybe you're doing. 00:16:00.929 --> 00:16:05.502 You say, what's going on here? And I know because I've been there. 00:16:05.699 --> 00:16:07.859 I know because I've seen people been there. 00:16:08.899 --> 00:16:12.802 That is a hard place when someone comes up to you and they say, hey, I'm concerned about you. 00:16:13.299 --> 00:16:14.139 What's going on here? 00:16:14.396 --> 00:16:18.839 Are you okay? And what do we do? We minimize. 00:16:18.839 --> 00:16:22.219 We start verbalizing all the things we've been doing to ourself. 00:16:22.219 --> 00:16:28.205 And we say it to them, but usually harsher to the person who's actually just concerned for us, 00:16:28.259 --> 00:16:29.919 who want the best for us. 00:16:29.919 --> 00:16:34.599 Those are the type of people we want to keep around us, to be honest, the type of people 00:16:34.599 --> 00:16:41.519 who are willing to say kind—or not kind words, but hard words in a kind manner, because 00:16:41.519 --> 00:16:43.509 they want the best for us. 00:16:43.572 --> 00:16:47.999 I don't remember the exact quote, so forgive me, but I believe it's a proverb in the Bible 00:16:47.999 --> 00:16:58.639 that says that harsh are the words—I won't even approach saying it. 00:16:58.639 --> 00:17:05.736 The essential point of it is, is that beware of the enemy who speaks soft and kind words to you. 00:17:05.879 --> 00:17:10.372 Pay more attention to the friend who is willing to speak harsh and hard words to you. 00:17:10.588 --> 00:17:14.999 A good friend, someone who actually cares about your well-being, will occasionally challenge 00:17:14.999 --> 00:17:18.199 you and point out the red flags. 00:17:18.483 --> 00:17:22.119 And when they do that, are we going to isolate, are we going to minimize, or are we going 00:17:22.119 --> 00:17:24.605 to take a moment to say, yes, please help me. 00:17:25.145 --> 00:17:26.297 Yes, I don't know what to do. 00:17:27.494 --> 00:17:32.590 I think I might have a problem. I think this is an area where I need healing. 00:17:33.119 --> 00:17:35.695 Can we take a risk and step into the light? 00:17:36.159 --> 00:17:41.439 It's an invitation for that. So I'll leave that with you for this time. 00:17:41.439 --> 00:17:45.439 Thank you for joining in this conversation. 00:17:45.439 --> 00:17:53.106 Please like and subscribe. If you're watching this on YouTube, please leave your questions and comments in the comments 00:17:53.196 --> 00:17:53.601 below. 00:17:54.159 --> 00:17:56.392 If you're listening to this podcast, there's an email. 00:17:56.400 --> 00:18:12.137 Music.