WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:07.440 Music. 00:00:07.435 --> 00:00:14.085 The Rooted Life Change Podcast. I'm Pastor Luke, and I believe that you can experience 00:00:14.085 --> 00:00:19.945 lasting life change for your good and for God's glory. 00:00:20.246 --> 00:00:26.685 Last week we started talking about this topic of insanity. The popular definition of insanity 00:00:26.685 --> 00:00:34.205 is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results. We're finding 00:00:34.205 --> 00:00:40.125 ourselves in a place of the way in which we are living is leading to a place or giving 00:00:40.125 --> 00:00:45.985 us results that we ultimately don't want, but for some reason we continue to live the 00:00:45.985 --> 00:00:47.820 way that we've been living. 00:00:48.027 --> 00:00:52.485 I gave us a definition of insanity that sums it up this way. 00:00:52.485 --> 00:00:58.745 Insanity is a way of being and acting that we've gotten comfortable with that leads only 00:00:58.745 --> 00:01:03.285 to places where we don't want to go. 00:01:03.285 --> 00:01:08.984 Sanity on the other hand is a way of being and acting that comes from a place of wholeness, 00:01:09.695 --> 00:01:13.805 that allows us to live life on life's terms. 00:01:13.805 --> 00:01:17.365 And we'll talk more about that as we go through the episode today. 00:01:17.365 --> 00:01:19.580 What does it look like to turn towards sanity? 00:01:21.085 --> 00:01:27.325 But before we go there, I want to talk one more and give us an illustration of how did we end up here? 00:01:27.325 --> 00:01:33.745 How did we end up in a place where we're ending up with these results and this fruit and we're 00:01:33.745 --> 00:01:38.178 going in a direction that we don't want to go? How did we end up there? 00:01:38.825 --> 00:01:46.145 Well, a couple of things, if you, um, well first let's just talk about an illustration. 00:01:46.365 --> 00:01:51.259 Have you ever heard about what it takes to boil a frog? 00:01:51.925 --> 00:01:56.305 Maybe you've heard this, maybe you've not, but if you want to boil a frog, because frogs 00:01:56.305 --> 00:02:05.585 there these amphibians and they regulate their temperature through like their skin and stuff 00:02:05.585 --> 00:02:10.145 and so if you were to take a frog and you were to put it and try and put it in a hot, 00:02:11.298 --> 00:02:16.865 bowl or a hot pot of boiling water it would immediately jump out it'd say this isn't safe 00:02:16.865 --> 00:02:22.109 it jumps out it knows that if it stays there it's going to be in some serious trouble but if you, 00:02:23.105 --> 00:02:27.805 If you take a live frog and you put it in room temperature water, the frog will be very 00:02:27.805 --> 00:02:29.491 happy there. feel very comfortable. 00:02:30.733 --> 00:02:37.215 Now if you have the Precision II, you turn up that burner on that water and you just 00:02:37.440 --> 00:02:40.051 heat up that water by one degree. 00:02:41.103 --> 00:02:44.543 The frog will sit there and the water will get a little bit warmer and the frog will 00:02:44.543 --> 00:02:50.899 say, oh, well, that's not too much warmer. That's fine. I still feel very comfortable here. 00:02:51.103 --> 00:02:57.143 And then if you turn up that water just another degree and then another, you keep turning 00:02:57.143 --> 00:02:59.514 it up degree by degree. 00:03:00.323 --> 00:03:06.003 At each moment, each point as the degree of the water gets hotter, the frog will sit there 00:03:06.003 --> 00:03:09.263 and say, well, this is still fairly comfortable. 00:03:09.803 --> 00:03:16.123 Why is it safe? It's fairly comfortable? Well, because it's only one degree hotter than it was before. 00:03:16.123 --> 00:03:17.123 This has been comfortable. 00:03:17.123 --> 00:03:23.263 I've been sitting in this water for a while. It was feeling just a little fine and it still feels fine. 00:03:23.263 --> 00:03:26.277 Only one degree warmer is not that bad. 00:03:26.800 --> 00:03:33.047 And the frog gets comfortable in the water after each and every single degree. 00:03:33.283 --> 00:03:36.963 Up until the point that the water is nearly boiling. 00:03:37.723 --> 00:03:42.763 And eventually the water does boil and the frog doesn't jump out. 00:03:43.112 --> 00:03:49.323 Why? Because it's only one degree hotter than it was just a moment before. 00:03:49.643 --> 00:03:55.123 We whether or not that's actually possible I've never seen anyone try and boil a frog. 00:03:55.123 --> 00:03:59.901 I don't recommend you do it, but the illustration serves a point, right? 00:04:00.135 --> 00:04:05.131 If someone were to say, this is the terrible situation, you know, 00:04:05.243 --> 00:04:07.923 that you're gonna walk yourself into, right? 00:04:07.923 --> 00:04:14.701 If you were presented with a choice of two doors, one door behind it had all the consequences, 00:04:14.773 --> 00:04:18.482 all these, the loneliness, the isolation of addiction. 00:04:19.958 --> 00:04:27.128 The ongoing hurt, the never experiencing healing from past wounds, broken relationships, not 00:04:27.128 --> 00:04:33.648 getting what you want, right? If someone were to offer you that door, you would say, of course, I would never go through 00:04:33.648 --> 00:04:34.929 that door. 00:04:35.248 --> 00:04:42.410 But if someone asked you to walk through a door that was only slightly different than 00:04:42.628 --> 00:04:45.605 the place you were previously at, right? 00:04:45.968 --> 00:04:48.657 You would go, oh, no, that's fine, right? 00:04:49.408 --> 00:04:56.408 See the thing is, is that life doesn't happen in big, dramatic moments most of the time. 00:04:56.408 --> 00:05:01.512 Usually it changes by degrees over a long period of time. 00:05:01.728 --> 00:05:08.528 And when we begin to make bad choices, when our way of being is not healthy, it's not 00:05:08.528 --> 00:05:14.448 living life on life's terms, it's not following God's plan or direction, we start making these 00:05:14.448 --> 00:05:20.708 choices that start to have small incremental consequences. And those small incremental 00:05:20.708 --> 00:05:26.773 consequences will build up over time until we find ourselves boiling in a pot of water 00:05:26.854 --> 00:05:34.428 we would have never wanted to be in in the first place. So how do we stop doing that? 00:05:34.428 --> 00:05:40.548 How do we get from living in a place of insanity, doing the same thing over and over again, 00:05:41.158 --> 00:05:45.732 And having it lead us to a place we would never ever want to go. 00:05:45.988 --> 00:05:50.683 Because that's how we get where we're going. One wrong turn after another. 00:05:51.308 --> 00:06:02.448 So let's talk about how do we turn towards sanity? How do we start to live and be in such a way that is on life's terms and is moving towards 00:06:02.448 --> 00:06:04.429 where we want to go? 00:06:05.086 --> 00:06:13.522 Well, okay. First is to wake up, right? is to pay attention to the alarm, to stop hitting snooze. 00:06:13.828 --> 00:06:19.427 It's to say, all right, we're going in a direction we don't want to be. 00:06:19.499 --> 00:06:23.728 That was the question I left you with last episode was to say, 00:06:23.991 --> 00:06:29.568 Where am I going? If the way I continue to be and act stays unchanged. 00:06:30.761 --> 00:06:36.684 Where am I going to end up? And we need to wake up to that reality that like what's going on isn't 00:06:37.011 --> 00:06:43.971 good. I'm not going in a good direction. We need to take part. We need to start clearly defining 00:06:44.111 --> 00:06:51.091 where the places of insanity are in our lives and stop being comfortable with them. We need to start 00:06:51.223 --> 00:06:56.291 saying, you know what, it's not okay that things are this way. This is maybe the way things have 00:06:56.291 --> 00:07:01.405 been, I've gotten comfortable to them being this way. But this shouldn't be okay. This, 00:07:01.911 --> 00:07:07.220 shouldn't be the way I'm living my life. I should have better relationships than this. 00:07:07.319 --> 00:07:14.791 I should not be constantly hiding behind lies. I should not have whole parts of myself and 00:07:14.791 --> 00:07:22.533 my story that I can't talk about, because it hurts too much. Let's begin to find healing 00:07:22.596 --> 00:07:26.575 break cycles and make life change. 00:07:26.691 --> 00:07:32.231 The next thing to do is to begin to embrace strength and acceptance. 00:07:32.778 --> 00:07:38.350 Sanity is not beginning to live, or sanity, I say, is beginning to live life on life's terms. 00:07:39.251 --> 00:07:44.462 We need to face reality oftentimes. Reality is not comfortable and it's not easy. 00:07:45.211 --> 00:07:49.270 And when we turn to Jesus and we begin to own up to the way things really are, we find 00:07:49.333 --> 00:07:50.692 strength and acceptance. 00:07:52.171 --> 00:07:57.431 One of the things that I think gets so confused in our minds is we have this idea that if 00:07:57.831 --> 00:08:04.240 we follow Jesus, or if we follow God, if I just do the right thing, then things will go smoothly for me. 00:08:05.751 --> 00:08:11.031 We get this idea that if I just do the right thing, there won't be obstacles, things will be easy. 00:08:11.352 --> 00:08:15.311 Like, I'm doing the right thing, no one's supposed to stop me from doing the right thing. 00:08:15.311 --> 00:08:19.715 There shouldn't be obstacles. You're supposed to be rewarded for doing the right thing. 00:08:19.931 --> 00:08:26.411 But that's not how it really goes, and often following God does not mean that the storm 00:08:26.411 --> 00:08:29.420 in our life is going to immediately stop. 00:08:30.401 --> 00:08:35.131 There's the famous story where Jesus is walking on the water, and he's walking out on the water, 00:08:35.131 --> 00:08:40.259 and his disciples are in a boat, and there's a storm happening on the body of water that they're 00:08:40.491 --> 00:08:44.228 on. And the disciples are panicking because they're on a boat, and they think they're going, 00:08:44.811 --> 00:08:51.131 to drown. They think it's going to crash. The waves are knocking and tearing the boat apart. 00:08:51.771 --> 00:08:59.331 And the disciples see Jesus, and they say, say, oh, who is that? They think it's a ghost at first. And Jesus is like, no, no, it's 00:08:59.331 --> 00:09:08.691 me. It's me, guys. And Jesus calls Peter out onto the water with him. And we think that's 00:09:08.691 --> 00:09:15.187 such a powerful story of Peter's faith walking out on the water. And we sometimes forget 00:09:15.259 --> 00:09:22.308 that Jesus didn't calm the storm and then invite Peter out on the water. No, he invited 00:09:22.425 --> 00:09:27.011 Peter out on the water while the storm was still happening. 00:09:27.011 --> 00:09:34.911 See Jesus offers us peace and invites us to faith in the midst of the storm, in spite 00:09:34.911 --> 00:09:37.216 of the storms of life. 00:09:37.291 --> 00:09:41.391 Jesus does not promise that he's going to fix everything right away, that he's going 00:09:41.391 --> 00:09:44.337 to make all the storms go away right now. 00:09:44.771 --> 00:09:51.171 He might, but that's not the promise. The promise is that he will be with you in the midst of the storm. 00:09:51.171 --> 00:09:57.741 When we begin to face the hard things in life, they're still going to be hard, but we're 00:09:58.091 --> 00:10:00.371 going to not be doing it alone. 00:10:00.371 --> 00:10:05.391 A lot of times we get into places where we don't want to be and we get into the places 00:10:05.391 --> 00:10:10.578 of insanity because we're trying to avoid something. 00:10:11.371 --> 00:10:17.331 There's a storm, there's a consequence, there's a circumstance in life, there's some difficult 00:10:17.331 --> 00:10:21.491 emotions, a difficult choice, a topic that needs healing. 00:10:22.488 --> 00:10:29.778 We don't want to deal with it. It hurts too much. And so we run other places, to our addictions, 00:10:29.978 --> 00:10:37.778 to our broken cycles, to old ways of being, to bad habits, in order to stop feeling or to ignore 00:10:37.778 --> 00:10:44.258 or numb ourselves to the thing that really needs to be addressed. And so we need to come to this 00:10:44.258 --> 00:10:50.658 place of finding serenity. Serenity is not the absence of the storm, it's peace in the middle 00:10:50.658 --> 00:10:56.018 of the storm. So we need to wake up. We need to wake up to the insanity, to the way that we're 00:10:56.018 --> 00:11:02.178 living and how it is taking us to a place where we don't want to go. And then we need to find 00:11:02.178 --> 00:11:14.658 strength and acceptance to face the uncomfortable facts of life. We live this life, we often believe 00:11:14.658 --> 00:11:20.841 this false narrative, this lie that's been sold us in our modern culture. 00:11:21.058 --> 00:11:26.938 And that is this idea that if we just live life just right, if we do things right, we 00:11:26.938 --> 00:11:30.978 listen to all the smartest people, we read the right books, we do things at the right 00:11:30.978 --> 00:11:33.372 time, we will be happy. 00:11:34.058 --> 00:11:39.602 We've been sold this lie that it's possible to live a life where you are mostly happy. 00:11:39.938 --> 00:11:43.338 And that's simply not true. 00:11:43.338 --> 00:11:53.418 Life includes suffering. If life were to come in a box, it would say suffering included, happiness not guaranteed. 00:11:53.418 --> 00:11:58.795 That's the fact of life, but often we want to rail and push against that reality. 00:11:59.058 --> 00:12:04.322 And the more and more we have a hard time swallowing that truth that I just said there, 00:12:04.998 --> 00:12:09.118 the harder we're going to have living life as it actually is. 00:12:09.118 --> 00:12:14.698 That's what I mean when we say living life on life's terms, accepting that things will 00:12:14.698 --> 00:12:23.118 not always go my way, things will be hard, even when I do the right thing, I might get punished, right? 00:12:23.118 --> 00:12:27.656 Things are not fair and suffering is included. 00:12:28.598 --> 00:12:34.678 But when we don't live life on life's terms, when we try and hide from that reality, when 00:12:34.678 --> 00:12:42.798 we try and numb ourselves, when we try to distance ourselves from it, all we do is multiply our suffering. 00:12:43.178 --> 00:12:48.998 The best way to minimize suffering is to face it head on, is to not find a way around it, 00:12:48.998 --> 00:12:52.678 but to find a way through it. We're back to the band-aid analogy. 00:12:52.678 --> 00:12:54.168 How do you take a band-aid off? 00:12:54.558 --> 00:12:56.877 All at once, not little bit by little bit. 00:12:57.669 --> 00:13:03.999 And so finding strength and acceptance, accepting faith, finding Jesus, trusting that you are not 00:13:03.999 --> 00:13:09.599 alone in the midst of the storm, and beginning to face the difficult reality that you're in. 00:13:10.534 --> 00:13:17.199 The third thing to do when you turn towards sanity is to find integrity. With sanity comes 00:13:17.199 --> 00:13:24.159 connection to our values. We want our values and our actions to match up. I talk to so many people 00:13:24.159 --> 00:13:29.519 and you say, like, what are the most important things in your life? People will often say 00:13:29.519 --> 00:13:37.639 things like family. They will say things like love, friends. Well, let's look at your life 00:13:37.639 --> 00:13:45.079 then. Is your life lived in such a way that aligns with those values? Are you living life 00:13:45.201 --> 00:13:50.999 where you are spending the bulk of your important time that are leading towards the things that 00:13:50.999 --> 00:13:53.213 that you want, right? 00:13:53.359 --> 00:13:58.093 It's funny how many people find themselves into a place of workaholism, 00:13:58.559 --> 00:14:03.890 where they constantly are working, they can never find time to be with family. 00:14:04.205 --> 00:14:09.183 If you were to stop them and ask them, what's the most important thing to you in your life, in your world? 00:14:09.559 --> 00:14:16.502 They would say, my kids, my family, those who are closest to me, my loved ones, my friends. 00:14:16.925 --> 00:14:23.677 But then why are you not spending more time with them? because the time and the way that you're living 00:14:23.799 --> 00:14:26.612 seems that you prioritize work over them. 00:14:27.386 --> 00:14:32.436 And so we need to find a way to match our values with our actions. 00:14:32.535 --> 00:14:37.876 We need to begin to be looking towards Jesus, looking away from the false tree, 00:14:37.876 --> 00:14:42.516 the tree of knowledge and good and evil that Adam and Eve ate from, and look towards the tree of 00:14:42.516 --> 00:14:49.236 life. Look towards Jesus, look towards God, and say, how ought I be living my life? Be reading 00:14:49.236 --> 00:14:55.320 the Bible, looking for the virtues and the values there, and say, how ought I be living my life? 00:14:55.806 --> 00:14:59.587 And how can I match my life and my actions towards those values? 00:15:00.016 --> 00:15:07.596 So, turning towards sanity, we need to wake up, we need to come and confront life as it is, 00:15:07.596 --> 00:15:12.476 we need to find strength and acceptance to face the difficult things in front of us 00:15:12.476 --> 00:15:14.356 that we've maybe been hiding from. 00:15:14.356 --> 00:15:23.119 We need to find integrity by beginning to align our actions with our values, and then finally, we need to start trust. 00:15:23.236 --> 00:15:30.537 We need to start finding trust. We need to trust others, we need to trust ourselves, right? 00:15:30.771 --> 00:15:36.716 When we're moving towards sanity, the answers begin to shift, right? 00:15:36.716 --> 00:15:41.916 We, when we're in a place of insanity, we're in a place where, if I were to ask you, 00:15:41.916 --> 00:15:43.023 can you trust others? 00:15:43.464 --> 00:15:47.146 Can you trust yourselves? Can others trust us? 00:15:49.036 --> 00:15:54.356 If you're in a place of insanity, the answer is no. I can't trust myself to make smart decisions. 00:15:54.356 --> 00:16:00.037 I can't trust others because they feel untrustworthy and nobody certainly should trust me. 00:16:01.208 --> 00:16:07.382 But as we begin to wake up, find strength and acceptance, begin to find integrity, we 00:16:07.382 --> 00:16:11.425 begin to shift to a place where we become more trustworthy. 00:16:11.862 --> 00:16:16.998 We become reliable because we're no longer escaping from reality. 00:16:17.122 --> 00:16:20.472 We begin to experience integrity. 00:16:20.622 --> 00:16:26.972 We begin to rely on other people. We begin to reach out rather than just turning inwards. 00:16:27.142 --> 00:16:33.031 And all of that is made possible through Jesus, right? We can't do it on our own. 00:16:33.422 --> 00:16:39.462 This is the thing that so many people who make it through and break cycles, break addiction, 00:16:39.462 --> 00:16:43.869 find healing, is they will tell you that they could never have done it on their own, that 00:16:44.102 --> 00:16:46.831 it came through Jesus, right? 00:16:47.262 --> 00:16:58.302 Here's a passage in Hebrews 12, verses 1 through 3, says, And therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw 00:16:58.302 --> 00:17:03.842 off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. 00:17:03.842 --> 00:17:09.985 And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, 00:17:10.302 --> 00:17:12.650 the pioneer and perfecter of our faith. 00:17:12.862 --> 00:17:18.285 For the joy set before Him, He endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at 00:17:18.636 --> 00:17:27.622 the right hand of the throne of God. him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.". 00:17:28.566 --> 00:17:34.176 See, that's what we're ultimately doing. This passage describes precisely what we're striving 00:17:34.176 --> 00:17:41.936 to do, is to fix our eyes on the goal, to run the race that's set before us. Where are we going? 00:17:42.496 --> 00:17:48.176 And to fix our eyes, not on the circumstances, but on Jesus, to say, I'm going to have peace 00:17:48.176 --> 00:17:53.696 and serenity in the middle of the storm. And I'm going to look to the crowd of witnesses, 00:17:53.696 --> 00:17:58.336 those who've gone before me, those who also follow Christ, those who love me, those who 00:17:58.336 --> 00:18:01.936 are encouraging me, and they're cheering me on. 00:18:01.936 --> 00:18:07.374 When we live and practice in the faith, we are joining in a faith that has been filled 00:18:07.656 --> 00:18:13.496 by millions and millions of people, billions of people, who have come before and run the 00:18:13.496 --> 00:18:19.056 race faithfully to follow and know Christ, and we're joining in that. 00:18:19.056 --> 00:18:25.436 And we do that by fixing our eyes on Christ, saying, He is my source of trustworthiness, 00:18:25.436 --> 00:18:31.419 He is the source of my values and integrity, He's going to help me have the courage to 00:18:31.556 --> 00:18:36.524 face the circumstances and to wake up and find where I'm at. 00:18:36.676 --> 00:18:42.676 And we're going to strive to lay aside all the sin, all the things that so easily entangle 00:18:42.676 --> 00:18:46.525 us and keep us from pursuing where we ought to be going. 00:18:47.536 --> 00:18:57.176 And we ought to consider Christ who endured the cross. When we endure small sufferings, difficult conversations, conversations where we need 00:18:57.436 --> 00:19:02.666 to own up, to be truthful, to deal with hurt and pain, those are hard things, but they're, 00:19:03.376 --> 00:19:05.610 not dying on a cross. 00:19:05.896 --> 00:19:14.324 We're being called to be encouraged. Christ has gone before us, and He has made a way, and He will be with us each and every 00:19:14.405 --> 00:19:15.530 single step. 00:19:16.863 --> 00:19:24.653 So, this week I would encourage you to reflect on that passage, to begin to make more and 00:19:24.653 --> 00:19:31.893 more clear in your mind, what are those patterns of insanity that you are constantly slipping into? 00:19:31.893 --> 00:19:34.588 And maybe answer this second question. 00:19:35.633 --> 00:19:41.213 What are the difficult things that are keeping you from living life on life's terms? 00:19:41.213 --> 00:19:44.433 What's the suffering that you don't want to admit's there? 00:19:44.433 --> 00:19:50.013 That's the difficult consequence, the difficult relationship, the things that you didn't want 00:19:50.013 --> 00:19:54.693 to be there but are there, the things that you were trying to hide from, the things that 00:19:54.693 --> 00:19:58.796 you were trying to cope away from. What are those things? 00:19:59.053 --> 00:20:02.405 What is keeping you from living life on life's terms? 00:20:02.853 --> 00:20:05.574 Name those things and take them to prayer. 00:20:06.213 --> 00:20:14.893 Say, Lord, can you meet me in the middle of this storm? Can you meet me in the middle of this circumstance, in the middle of this pain? 00:20:15.162 --> 00:20:21.813 Lord, can you show me the wounds on your hands and your feet so that I know that I am not 00:20:21.813 --> 00:20:25.316 alone in my own wounds and my own suffering?". 00:20:26.324 --> 00:20:34.053 I hope that this talk is encouraging to you this week, that you find some comfort and encouragement in it. 00:20:34.053 --> 00:20:37.928 Next week we're going to be continuing this conversation of what does it mean to turn 00:20:38.036 --> 00:20:46.832 these things over, to begin to let go, to be able to find a place of healing and trusting Jesus more. 00:20:47.021 --> 00:20:53.754 Remember, we didn't get here all at once. It was one day at a time, and that's how we're going to get out of here, too. 00:20:54.373 --> 00:21:00.839 So if you've been listening and joining me in this journey, I appreciate all of your encouragement. 00:21:01.028 --> 00:21:07.240 Let me know how this is affecting you, how you are processing these things that we're talking about. 00:21:07.733 --> 00:21:13.352 If you have questions or other things, you can always email me or let me know in the comments. 00:21:14.621 --> 00:21:15.711 I will talk to you all next time. 00:21:16.240 --> 00:21:26.228 Music.