Why it's so Hard to Love Others

Andy Withrow: 0:02

Welcome to the bear with me podcast on table radio, where we aim to integrate belief and practice in the Christian Okay, turned it on.

Vanessa Caruso: 0:19

Nice this recording started.

Andy Withrow: 0:21

I know. We're just talking about how I hate starting so final pushing that button. Yeah.

Vanessa Caruso: 0:30

I think I'd have a hard time starting it too. I was the button pusher.

Andy Withrow: 0:33

You'll be in charge next time.

Vanessa Caruso: 0:35

Okay.

Andy Withrow: 0:37

What we're back? Yeah, we think yeah, I mean, who knows? Maybe this won't see the light of day.

Vanessa Caruso: 0:42

That is very possible. We seem a little unclear.

Andy Withrow: 0:47

We are. We're trying to figure out what to do next with our with our podcast, we got lots of ideas. There's lots of potential. Excited about some things. Yeah, we're trying to we're just kind of trying to figure out some of that, but we've got a topic for today.

Vanessa Caruso: 1:03

Yes, we do. Write a really good topic. What is it? Why is it so hard to love? People?

Andy Withrow: 1:10

Why is it so hard to love people? Do you think people are going to be able to identify?

Vanessa Caruso: 1:17

Yeah, were you I was like convicted? Thinking about this. Really? Yeah.

Andy Withrow: 1:23

You Vanessa find it hard to love people. Yes.

Vanessa Caruso: 1:27

Well, and I felt like there's so much opportunity to grow in loving people. And it's not something I spend a ton of time consciously thinking about because it's just such a big thing. Like Love one another. Okay. Whereas if I'm trying to learn how to run I like, you know, jog, in order to learn how to run but with love. Yeah, I felt convicted about just my intentionality around loving people. But I'm getting ahead of myself, of ourselves.

Andy Withrow: 2:04

Yeah. Not Well, no, that's perfect. Actually. I mean, maybe we'll start maybe we should start with the, with the passage that kind of inspired this topic for us. Yes, I'm gonna read it, please do I have to reach for my wife. In front of me. Here it is. Okay. Where this is from Romans. So Romans, Paul's letter to the Romans. And it's towards the end of the letter, chapter 12. And this is chapter 12, verses nine through 21. Yes.

Vanessa Caruso: 2:44

Okay. And I just before you read it for people listening I am, I wrote it out or typed it out, just with each little imperative as one line. So it looks more like a poem than a paragraph. And I don't know, it was a little easier for me to digest doing that. So I don't know if anyone listening can kind of do that in their heads. But to hear it not as like the longest run on sentence ever with so many commands. But I don't know as a real inspirational

Andy Withrow: 3:16

Do you have it? Yeah. Do you want to read it off of your okay,

Vanessa Caruso: 3:19

maybe that'll change. Maybe that'll make a difference. Okay. So this is the list. There's 29 of them, okay. Let love be genuine. Hate what is evil. Hold fast to what is good. Love one another with mutual affection. outdo one another in showing honor. Do not lag in zeal. Be ardent in spirit. Serve the Lord. rejoice in hope. Be patient in suffering. persevere in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints. extend hospitality to strangers. Bless those who persecute you. Bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice. Weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Do not claim to be wiser than you are. Do not repay anyone evil for evil. But take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. If it is possible so far as it depends on you. live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God. For it is written, Vengeance is mine. I will repay, says the Lord. Know if Your enemies are hungry, feed them. If they're thirsty, give them something to drink. For by doing this, you will heap burning coals on their heads. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good those are them

Andy Withrow: 4:57

29 Yes, a lot.

Vanessa Caruso: 4:59

Yes.

Andy Withrow: 5:00

The long list

Vanessa Caruso: 5:01

that is a crazy list 29 ways to love people, some of them kind of make sense. And, you know, you're like, Yeah, okay. And some of them are very counterintuitive.

Andy Withrow: 5:17

Yeah, like which ones, for example?

Vanessa Caruso: 5:23

Be patient in suffering, Bless those who persecute you extend hospitality to strangers. Some of those things don't feel that intuitive to me. Maybe Maybe deeply intuitive in terms of how we are created, but not culturally or personality intuitive.

Andy Withrow: 5:44

But we will still hold them up even I think culturally is like virtues like definitely or boy would is a good list. Yeah. Like it's not. It's not one of the those parts of the Bible where people in general would be like, huh, yeah, I don't think so. Yeah, you're right. It's not like it's it's a radical practice. And it's not necessarily I don't know if it's a radical idea. Maybe the vengeance one the the Bless those who curse you. Yeah. But again, I don't know if it's more radical in terms of actually practicing it. The idea isn't so foreign. I think like a lot of us would hold that up as a virtue. It's like, Wow, way to be the bigger person. Yeah. Right. Like, that's really admirable. Yeah. And I think when I was going through, looking at this a little bit deeper, the the list itself, even in Paul's ancient world, it wasn't, there wasn't there's nothing really in there. There's not too much in there that would stick out from there from the from the surrounding world. Okay. The average person non Christian would say that's great. Less so like, culturally?

Vanessa Caruso: 7:00

Yeah, they this would be preaching to the choir a bit.

Andy Withrow: 7:05

Yeah, there wouldn't be anything. They'd be like, Yeah, that's a good, that's a good listen over would overlap with a lot of the philosophers of his day. Like, they might have different tastes or different nuances. disagree about this or that, but it wouldn't, it wouldn't necessarily stand out. And, and I think that's interesting to me, because, because it kind of makes me want to go in a different, like, the list itself isn't maybe isn't as interesting as the practicing of the list. That's more interesting. How do how do we do that? It's not, I don't know that it's a controversial list. Got it? I agree. But in my body, it's a controversial practice. Yes. Good to do this list. It is. And I can aspire like, I want to do that. And then. And then I don't do it.

Vanessa Caruso: 7:59

Yeah. And then when it comes down to it, I don't do it. I see what you're saying. I agree. There's it's something we can all would that most of us agree on the act, the lip reading the list and an ideal of a way to live? Yeah. When it comes to actually practicing these things. There's some more resistance and confusion.

Andy Withrow: 8:21

And maybe counterintuitive to get back to your point in the sense of these aren't the first things I think of all the time when I think of loving people when I see the list in front of me like oh, yeah, I get it. Like, that would be great. If I could do that.

Vanessa Caruso: 8:32

Yeah. Yeah. i One of the things I thought of with this list is that it's much easier to, for me to love kind of, in general, or in abstract, like to love those without homes. You know, when it comes down to actually relating with someone who does not have a house, who has is looking for some shelter and some other needs. Yeah, that is so different than kind of, in general, in theory, abstractly, loving those who suffer or loving those who persecute you.

Andy Withrow: 9:09

Or loving those that I see once a year.

Vanessa Caruso: 9:11

Yes. Out there. Or

Andy Withrow: 9:15

come into contact with on a surface level. Be polite. I can let them in as they're trying to merge into traffic. Yeah, very loving of me. Yeah,

Vanessa Caruso: 9:27

Andy it is. But what about like the actual strangers that we could show hospitality to? In our everyday lives? They don't usually for me, they're much different than the one in my head that I'm going to show hospitality to

Andy Withrow: 9:44

Mm hmm. Yeah. Because they're real, the ideal and then there's the interruption to my day or my checklist or my goals. And then there's there's The other dynamic of hardest harder to love the people that were closer to that every day Yeah, housemates roommates, co workers,

Vanessa Caruso: 10:15

colleagues.

Andy Withrow: 10:19

More opportunity for what annoyance frustration bumping elbows together, heads together or whatever.

Vanessa Caruso: 10:32

Yeah. And for me, there's also I think one of the hardest things about the conversation around love, I do tend to make things like too complicated. So one of them is that I, without critically thinking about it, I tend to think love is a feeling and that it comes from the inside out. Yeah. That similar to how we've talked about prayer, like one of the biggest obstacles to prayer is thinking it should kind of flow spontaneously and eloquently. I kind of tend to think that about love too, when I don't actually sit down to Yeah, think about what does it look like to love the furniture in my life, which are the people that I bump into and do life with? So that's a huge stumbling block for me when I when I think of love primarily as a feeling that comes from the inside out, because loving the people in my household, and on my block, and in my workplace is very much more kind of an outside in. Yeah. Action, rather than feeling.

Andy Withrow: 11:43

Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, it's 29 actions.

Vanessa Caruso: 11:47

They are.

Andy Withrow: 11:48

I mean, there's a little bit of feeling like affection, brotherly, brotherly Sisterly Affection, but it's these are things to do. Yeah, they are. I've got a list of four challenges. Nice that. I'm sure there's more, but the four challenges of loving people genuinely okay. Are you ready? Yes, they're number one. Some people need more than we can give. Good point. So that's one. Some people just need more than we can get. Number two, some people don't change, no matter how much I love them. Good point. And that can be frustrating. It can make it hard to love them again. And again. And again. Yes, to keep on. Number three is overlap. But some people just flat out won't receive our love. Just rejected?

Vanessa Caruso: 12:45

Yeah. Can you think of an example for that one?

Andy Withrow: 12:50

No, can you?

Vanessa Caruso: 12:54

Like I just haven't I I'm sure that happens. But I'm trying to Well, I can't

Andy Withrow: 12:58

think of I can think of maybe in the context of a specific context or maybe in the context of trying to repair repair a breach. Okay. Yeah, repair, and you extend yourself and make yourself vulnerable. And then,

Vanessa Caruso: 13:12

yeah, no, it's not. Yeah. Okay. Do it. So you you're like, aim is for reconciliation, which is a way of living peacefully with everybody. And yet, it Yeah, it's not being received. Good one.

Andy Withrow: 13:26

Or I can see somebody who needs something and I want to help them with it. But for whatever reason, like no, thank you. Yeah, I want that number for some people are toxic black holes, and they will take until we're done. Andy, is that not true? Yes, it is. But I also say it's

Vanessa Caruso: 13:52

kind of intense. Some people are toxic black holes who will take until what?

Andy Withrow: 13:56

were dead. Wow. And then they'll move on to the next host.

Vanessa Caruso: 14:03

Yeah. Suckers. Those ones are I can think of in both of our lives, how we've shared some lessons learned about that one. And it's really, really shook me up, you know, really hard to make sense of, to kind of move on from and

Andy Withrow: 14:29

yeah. Yeah, cuz you're, you've extended yourself. And yeah, I don't I think people understand yeah, pretty quickly through experience. What that can be like and and I think that's the challenge with a list that Paul gives us here is are just supposed to keep doing that. Let's just keep doing it over and over and over again.

Vanessa Caruso: 14:54

Yeah, it's kind of feels like that and then and then you get into the questions okay. Was

Andy Withrow: 14:58

Am I just you know, then doormat, am I enabling you might you know all those things? That doesn't seem like that is probably what Paul's talking about. But but we might make that mistake by just reading this and just like oh, well, I got to do these things until, you know until there's no more need. Yeah, like, Okay, well, that's gonna be a while and yeah, you'll probably die. And then just feeling like I don't have the resources to love people well, especially when I get into these, these traps more than I can give doesn't matter how much I give doesn't seem to help or change or they don't want my help or receive the love or are they just taking take and take and take? And they because bigger and bigger and bigger asks and bigger asks and bigger crisis and bigger crisis? Yeah. Yeah. feel stuck.

Vanessa Caruso: 15:49

Yeah, good ones. Those are all thanks, real challenges. Sure,

Andy Withrow: 15:52

there's more, but those are the those are the four that that I come up with. And then there's the and then there's just the other side of it, where it's what if I'm, what if I'm hurting? Or what if I'm a mess? How do I love other people? When I feel like I, I I not together myself? Or? Or kind of getting back to that context of rifts and relationship? How do I love people? Or what I do about people who've wounded me, really hurt me or harmed me? Yeah. Right. So there's that other kind of dynamic there too. Yeah. That can be kind of tricky.

Vanessa Caruso: 16:31

Very tricky.

Andy Withrow: 16:34

So but that's I've asked the questions. How do I What's the solution? How do I? What do I do about all that?

Vanessa Caruso: 16:41

I don't know.

Andy Withrow: 16:44

Well, thanks for joining us today, if you have any suggestions greatly, just right in. Well, let's

Vanessa Caruso: 16:56

Okay, let's, let's try.

Andy Withrow: 16:59

Let's try this. Give it a try. Let's give it a shot. And jumping in anytime, as as you as you want to. I think one thing that we talk are a lot of people I know and myself included would talk a lot about is this idea of self love and self acceptance. Yeah, that this has to be in the background somewhere. Yeah. That you can't really love other people. Until you have a certain self dignity and self worth. Yeah, and self love. And if that's not there, then you're kind of then you think that's when we can start to run into problems? Yeah, with loving others. Well, agree.

Vanessa Caruso: 17:48

Yes. I feel like we've talked about it before here. But the great commandment to love God, and then love your neighbor as you love yourself. I have just thought since college, that that was the missing key to this greatest commandment, which is this assumption that we will know how to love ourselves. Well, you know, if we are to love God and love our neighbor, kind of in the same way that we have learned how to love ourselves. Yeah. And Jesus, to me is a very compelling picture of someone who has a self. You know, he who really did not conform to people's expectations about what a Messiah would be or what, like Jewish carpenter, son or family member? Yeah, friend would be either. Yeah. So I do agree, I feel like for me, I don't have a super strong sense of self the way that I see other people have. So that's kind of like a lifelong project for me is understanding how to claim my identity. But the consequence of that is that I feel like my love just is pretty aimless. Like, it's just like, plugging, or rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. It's like, oh, this person means give me the space like let me move move around the chairs here. And then you go move around the chairs there and you're just the whole thing is thinking, Yeah, so there's not like some, some greater strategy or well, that I'm necessarily drawing from and intentionally loving. It just can be this kind of aimless form of love. So I do feel like that's, that's key, and I but I also think that's a life long project. Like it's not realistic to think, Okay, I'm going to take this year and figure out how to love myself and then I'll get back to the rest of the things like the All kind of go together, there's a lot of trial and error there was claiming the self. One thing, were you going to say something? No, go for it. Oh. For me, this means that loving takes a lot of courage. Whereas if I just am sitting in church and listening to a sermon about love, or I'm at a wedding, and they say love is patient, love is kind, love does not envy. I kind of have this picture of okay, just be a yes person. That's kind of the tone. That's what I grew up with is if you are a loving Christian person, you generally will say yes. To what comes at you. Yeah. And thinking about how to actually maybe live out this list. It's a little bit more like, no, the the primary virtue is not being a responsive Yes, person. It's, it's like having the courage to make choices in the moment about where to put energy. And some sometimes that's being interrupted in the day by a neighbor, who's talking or needing something and saying, Yeah, I am gonna, I'm gonna go with this little interruption, because like, this is where I live, right? This is actually loving my neighbor in a literal way. And sometimes, but sometimes that means saying no, to things I normally would say yes to in order to strategically pour my time and energy into maybe loving my family. I feel like a real typical picture. Sorry to throw a pastor under the bus, but I'm kind of a pastor type two. Yeah. Is for a spiritual person to go visit somebody in the hospital, but missed their kids soccer game. Yeah, like that kind of thing that can happen. Where we love, like you said out there, like we let people merge on the highway. But we there's not necessarily a ton of integrity or intentionality. In our actual corner of the world. Yeah, that's what I'm wondering about.

Andy Withrow: 22:09

Yeah. Yeah, I've got, I've got more ideas about that. But I want to pin a pin on it and come back to Yeah, great. And I want to get to my second thing that's connected to this idea of self love and self acceptance. That's identity, knowing who we are like having Oh, I wish you said that. Which connects to what you're saying. Like, it's the it's haven't Yeah, okay. Just that having a core knowing who you are. Yeah. And, and what you're about, and what your priorities are. Yeah. Right. So yeah, maybe I'll leave it at that. But self love self acceptance, on the one hand, knowing who you are and what you're about, on the other hand, like, think of those kinds of people that you can think of, or when we have that sense in ourselves, like how much more confidence and conviction you have around things with saying yes, and saying no, yeah, discernment around those things. And then that's kind of that's kind of taken care of the that first bit of self love, acceptance, and identity, and then there's, to kind of take it to the next context of being harmed, like, experiencing people who damage you, or actively hurt you. There's sort of, I can imagine two responses that like, you need to stand up and fight for yourself has to do with self acceptance and identity. Right? If you're gonna have self dignity and those things, you need to say no. And on the other hand, there's the grace and generosity be the bigger, bigger person. Like both of those are kind of right answers. Yeah. In our in our world. Yeah. And they kind of overlap but they feel like very, very divergent. Yeah, very different things like, say, No, stand up for justice and truth. And what's real? Yes, that sounds right. That's also be the bigger person, don't play there don't condescend to their level, don't seek vengeance. So as Paul was saying, you don't seek vengeance, those sorts of things. And so all for these things. I think self love is knowing who we are standing up for ourselves and saying no, to the note to the bad and yes to the good, what she also says here, clinging to what is good, yeah, spies, what is evil, or what is evil. And being the bigger person have extending grace and generosity, even to those who have, have harmed us or hurt us. They all require us to find resources somewhere. And I think most of the conventional wisdom that I hear or that's around us, would look inward. And I think that's where we get stuck because I think we're all black holes.

Vanessa Caruso: 24:42

Yeah, good point

Andy Withrow: 24:45

is deep chasm. And if you've ever tried to do a journey of self ident, like who am I going to spend a year to go find myself? Like Good Luck. We're, we're deeply mysterious. people. And I think with such a capacity, I mean, if we're going to go back to the biblical story, we're made in the image of God, like we're divine image bearers. And you can't just find it. It's bigger than that. And I think that's, for me, that's sort of the the connection, of going back to what Paul's calling us to which is divine resources, because behind this passage, is this is this call to recognize that, in Christ, God has made us good. He's justified as he's made us enough. He's given us that dignity. He's given us that identity, and the love that he has bestowed on us, trumps any love we could ever find for ourselves, like that's that serves in that place. And so there can be a great self respect and self awareness because of what God has done for us. That gives us the same reason, better resources, even then I think what we're just talking about of self love, self acceptance, identity. So yes, we get we get to know what we're about if we were belonging to this kingdom, that Paul's talking about this kingdom of God that Jesus talks about. And that moves us towards freeing us to love our neighbor. There's a lot of big ideas in there. Yeah, but kind of tried to string them all together. That made sense.

Vanessa Caruso: 26:29

Yes.

Andy Withrow: 26:31

God makes me just another way the SEC philosophy guy.

Vanessa Caruso: 26:39

That guy bird guy. Yeah.

Andy Withrow: 26:43

I can't I can't think of it later. Yeah. Use the term enoughness. Oh, yeah. enoughness. Like, that's a familiar concept, I think to most of us. Fill in the blank. I, I am not blank enough. I'm not good enough. I'm not smart enough. I'm not athletic enough. I'm not pretty enough. I'm not tall enough. I'm not skinny enough. I'm not. Whatever the thing is. I'm not enough. Enough. I'm not. That and that's the the Bible calls that righteousness, the same concept. We don't use that term. Yeah, but it's the same idea is enoughness. And Paul's spent 11 chapters of Romans, explaining how God has made us enough in Christ. Like that. It says, When we if we can really grasp that and trust it and accept it and receive that, then it frees us up to do this. Other otherwise, Paul's argument is, will never love without hypocrisy will never love genuinely, because so long as we're trying to get her enough, we don't get our enoughness from God, we're gonna try to get it from others. Yeah. And so I have conflicting interests when I'm helping somebody out. This does me helping this person tell me I'm enough. If I help them enough to know that I'm enough. It's not freedom. You're trying. You're You're enslaved to something you're trying to get something. So Paul's trying to reverse all that threw his argument in Romans and saying, guess what, you don't have to work that way anymore. You don't have to do that anymore. You're free because God has made you enough. Now. You can, for the first time genuinely love someone else without any self interest without pretense that hypocrisy. You can just love them. It doesn't have to say anything about who you are as a person. And by the way, if you discern that the moment is no, I can't be interrupted here because I'm discerning I have to love in other ways or other people are gonna be affected like the the kids example have to go to this. What was it the PTA or the board meeting? Or yeah, because I'm going to so I'm gonna miss my kids. Sorry, I'm gonna love this person. It's like that. That discernment piece, by the way is in Romans 12. Two. We may we are living sacrifice, and we might discern the will of God good and perfect and pleasing, what is acceptable and true. And so Paul is opening up to us that whether I say yes to helping Vanessa out in a time of need, or whether I say no, does not have to say anything about who I am as a person in my identity. That crazy radical nuts Yeah. It's not the way I think most of us live.

Vanessa Caruso: 29:39

No, I haven't ever really thought about it like that before. Like what I heard you say was kind of having an enoughness so that we actually can love with freedom not to not to be a good person and To be doing the loving things, or oppositely out of like, guilt or lack of purpose or lack of a sense of self, like there's a real, that verse about not knowing your left hand not knowing what your right hand is doing. It kind of reminds me of that like loving in a way where there's not only strings attached, yeah, good strings or quote unquote, good strings, or weirdly motivated strings. Hmm. So how, like, I know what you're talking about with? I don't totally not, of course, but justification, no justification, righteousness, sanctification, all those big churchy words? What does it mean to like, receive enoughness? The way you're talking about it? And, and live out of that, like I am enough.

Andy Withrow: 31:00

I can speak of my own experience. Yeah. It's maybe different for other people. But for me, a big part of it is meditating on those, those, especially those parts of the Scripture, that's all over. I mean, it's the gospel is just the Bible's dripping with the gospel. It's everywhere. And meditating on the way that God loves and deals with his people. Think I meditate on that. So you can think of why are some of your if you have a favorite Bible passage? Why is it your favorite? Well, a lot of people it's 23rd, Psalm images, the images of God's grace and goodness. And it's built, that righteousness is built into it in terms of are being related to him. Or the one of mine is John 15, the vine and the branches. So Remain in me. And you will, this is the way you will grow through this. i The concept of enoughness is built into that image of you are in right relationship to me, and I am your I am the source of your goodness, and your fruitfulness and your effectiveness in life. And nothing else and no one else is. So a lot of it is is sort of, yeah, I'd say meditations a big one. We've talked before about memorization or recitation? Yeah, scripture, I think is they're very, they might feel like very surfacey things like, Oh, you did that in Sunday school as a kid. Yeah, remember the scripture you get a chocolate candy the next time you come to Sunday, but you can move beyond that to like an app is this actually facilitating a relationship of connecting with, with God with the divine on a deeper level in a meaningful way and receiving from him? So Put very simply back I think Genesis 15 and Paul refers back to it and he's explaining the gospel that when God was dealing with Abraham, and told him all the ridiculous stuff, you can have this many kids this many offspring, this land will be yours that your want a wanderer on the belongs to all these other people groups, like this is going to be yours someday. And just said very simply, that Abraham believed him. And God counted it to him as enoughness Wow, that's righteousness. Like, that's what he wants in Paul's making this point here, it's like, don't get overexcited about the law, really great laws, awesome. But that's not the thing that's gonna make you enough. keeping it keeping these 29 items. If you turn this into a law unto itself, like okay, if I can just keep these 29 things that Vanessa read earlier, then I'll be good enough like Paul saying that you trust that God makes you good. Trust that God is making you great. Learn how to do that. Think through relationship. Prayer, broadly understood is you and I've talked about before not just the dear Lord, please help me to do that one too. But But how would you define engaging in a dialogue with God over a lifetime over a lifetime keeping company with God James Houston puts it that way, being present to God in our midst in our daily lives, assuming that he is present to us in some way. And even making him known himself known to us in some way and learning the the cues and the signs and the symbols of how to recognize that in our daily life.

Vanessa Caruso: 34:51

Great.

Andy Withrow: 34:54

That's my example. Yeah. You might have others or other people might have other ways of Have conceiving a better understanding it or experiencing? Yeah,

Vanessa Caruso: 35:03

I really like enoughness as translation of righteousness. And even as, like the gospel when you said like, you know, the whole Bible's dripping with the gospel. I kind of heard you say with this message of enoughness. Yeah. And finding that everywhere yeah, it makes me think that humility is a part of being able to love well, that kind of humility that not the low thinking of yourself, not like think lowly of yourself, even think less about yourself less. Yeah, not worse about yourself.

Andy Withrow: 35:49

I mean, Paul says it in an earlier before this paragraph, he says, Let no one think too highly of themselves. He, and going back and looking at the ancient world they didn't, the idea of low self esteem hadn't been invented yet. It's pretty modern thing. But they're two sides of the same coin. Tim Keller talks about this in the freedom of self forgetfulness. It's like, both sides of the ego coin one is, is having a deflated ego. That's low self esteem. And one has been an overinflated ego or an inflated ego. Yeah. And the same is the same solution. So Paul could do to our modern yours might have said, think less about yourself, because God is the one who has done this for you. And built into that, if we really believe that entrusted built into that is that humility, yeah, it was less about me. It was more about what God has done.

Vanessa Caruso: 36:43

Yeah. Where it's just where freedom comes from. Yeah.

Andy Withrow: 36:46

Yeah. That's right. So Psalm 23. Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want enough, my cup runneth over. It's enough, like all these images of abundance, like, I'm enough for you. And I make you enough, not just in terms of providing your physical needs. But there's this deeper sense that Paul's talking about here of your own sense of dignity and who you are, and identity and who you are. Like you've been loved and accepted by the Creator of all things. So you don't need to find yourself you've been found. You don't need to accept yours. I mean, you do accept yourself. You don't you don't worry about that. Because you've been found acceptable by the Creator of everything. It's crazy.

Vanessa Caruso: 37:36

It kind of feels like it's as simple as a change of mind. A mind change. Yeah,

Andy Withrow: 37:41

renewal of your mind. 12 is it's all there connected. I mean, it's your you're going there intuitively, yeah. But Paul is like he starts there, living sacrifice renewal of your, you need a whole new mindset. And you discern who God is in what His will is, and then you are free to love because then you're not going to get caught up in whether you signed up for the latest meal train, or helped this person out or not. It's like, it's all discernment. You can't say yes to everything, because there's way more need than the gifts that God has given you to serve at this moment. So you need discernment, to, to serve in your gifts and to love others with what God has given you in that moment. And not more, he says in proper proportion in the previous paragraph, let him serve and let him or her serve in proper proportion to what God has given. Don't overdo it. If we make our the way that we are good at things in the world, like our gifts. If we turn that into the thing that's gonna make us enough, then we will overemphasize that gift and we will overuse it and burnout and die. Andy, I know I keep going to that. Yeah. But that's sort of the logical conclusions.

Vanessa Caruso: 38:52

Yeah. Gosh, I'm a little bit speechless. Because I just didn't really as I was thinking about this conversation in this topic. I didn't think of the idea of just being enough and therefore loving throughout the day, the people close to me and far from me, being kind of like a lighter. A lighter thing than kind of a heavy laden thing. Yeah.

Andy Withrow: 39:28

Yeah, well, I like that you brought up that don't let your left hand know what your right hand is yours at the right hand. Doesn't know it's kind of the same. But But that's exactly right. The Oh yeah, I did. I forgot I did do that thing last week for this person. It's not honestly not a big deal to myself. I was glad to do it. And I'm happy it turned out well for them. Yeah. Or whatever the thing is, to not have feel like I have I'm getting my identity from those things, but I freely doing them out of a genuine freedom. I would say even more so that like, when you and I first talked about doing this kind of looking at this passage together I told you I think this passage is not primarily about love. Yeah, it's primarily about freedom. Yeah. I think I'm sticking with I like that, because I'm finally free to really love others genuinely, yeah. Without pretense and doesn't say anything about who I am. Other than, I'm trusting God for who I am.

Vanessa Caruso: 40:38

I was just looking at our list to see if you could translate freedom into any of them, you know, just as a way to have a mind change about it. You know? It's kind of hard. It'd be clunky to do. So I'm not gonna try. But yeah, I think that is it's different than all the baggage I bring. To the idea of loving to think about it being more about freedom. Yeah. Yeah. But I'm a little bit stuck. In terms of kind of what that looks like. Today. For the for the rest of today.

Andy Withrow: 41:19

Like today? Uh huh. Thursday, yeah. Okay, like

Vanessa Caruso: 41:23

this afternoon? Yeah. What does it look like to act from that place of freedom or to let sink in the enoughness?

Andy Withrow: 41:37

I don't know. I mean, I think sometimes I look at these the the, the imperatives from Paul like in this letter and other letters. And they're like, if you're wondering what the gospel FREE life looks like, it should take a shape like this. And so I think the work for us isn't loving others. The work for us is trusting God, and living out of the freedom that that brings. Yeah, because if we start worrying about loving others, then that becomes the thing. Yeah. But if we say I need to learn how to trust that God really does love me, and has made me enough in Jesus. And experience the freedom that comes from that. I think a lot of these things flow out of that. Because I'm not obsessed with my practice of my doing this enough, is just do it right. Like, I don't know, I'm gonna give it a shot. I'm gonna try to love this person. Yeah, and I could fail. But that's okay. Because I can say anything about who I am. Because God is my shepherd, he's taking care of me, no matter what. And until I bill until I believe that I'm not really free to love others. So that's where I have to live. That's where I have to live. And then those things are, are secondary, that the fruit off of the branches. Yeah. But I can't force the I can't like over focus on the fruit or I'm gonna kill it. Squeeze it, and it's like, Oh, shoot. Oh, I messed it up. Yeah. And I'm Tara, I'm a terrible person. I don't even know how to love people. Because that's where our focus goes.

Vanessa Caruso: 43:25

Well, so this list might be better understood as well. And you're saying In Romans it, this is

Andy Withrow: 43:31

911 chapters of gospel? Yeah, this is the first chapter of Paul's saying, Okay, now, therefore, the meaning of chapter 12. Therefore, in light of all this, your whole selves are given over to God, you're living sacrifice, using the Old Testament, sacrificial imagery, your whole lives, everything, everything you are, belongs to him. So that's, that's doesn't it? counterintuitive, but that's the freedom. It's like, oh, this is this all belongs to God, because he's good. And he's rescued me. And he loves me, and he's with me. So there's literally nothing that belongs to me that does not belong to Him. And so in light of the gospel, and the freedom it brings, this is the shape of life, this is what you would expect to see.

Vanessa Caruso: 44:17

Yeah, like it could say, this is what you might find will happen to you. And here's the list, rather than like a checklist. Yeah, more like, I think so. You'll find that you associate with the lowly Yeah, you'll find that you don't claim any more to be wiser than you are. You'll find that you actually Bless those who curse you. If

Andy Withrow: 44:41

if you're really free, you can bless those who curse you but if you're not you cannot. Like this is like it's almost like as a litmus test. Yeah. Okay. If you want to know if you're living, like trusting the gospel freedom. Here's the things. You should be able to do these relatively Easily overstated. I know, it's like we get in the weeds and it's hard. Yeah. And and relationships get complicated. I'm not pretending like it's not. But but it's just it's a shift. Yeah, I guess his focus, finding where your identity is in learning to face even the hard things in difficult things that might still hurt instinct, but with a different kind of confidence and freedom and conviction. So if you're like, what does the rest day look like? And like, I'm gonna make sure I'm meditating on God's goodness, and how it used to making me good. He makes me good. And it's making me good. Because I know the other stuffs gonna flow from that and not the other way around. Yeah.

Vanessa Caruso: 45:48

And I, I just kind of thought, well, one of us was talking that, like I felt moved in a way where I could have cried. Because it just sounded like too good to be true. Yeah, that's the gospel. Right? That's always a sign. So it made me think, part of letting it part of the work the hard work, rather than deciding which meal train to sign up for who to talk to at school pickup or all those things that just are so overwhelming to me. Yeah. Is to seize those moments when there's an opportunity to, to internalize the reality of God's love for me. Yeah. And the too good to be trueness of that when it happens, like, let that interrupt my day, or my agenda, or my mood, or whatever. And, yeah, to not to not worry about the rest like that, that feels freeing to me to not have to figure out the list.

Andy Withrow: 46:47

Yeah, abide, live, live out of this, live out of this space, that song abide. The labor of God is to trust in the sun. That's the work. That's the work. That's our work. It's not to love others is to live out have to abide to live out a space of God's goodness and grace and mercy. Because loving, others will flow out of that. Again, that's the divine in the branches, images of fruit comes because I'm connected to Jesus and I'm trusting him. That's really that's it's counterintuitive onsets, the opposite way. Most of us work and think most of the time. That's why it's work, to push against, immerse yourself in the Gospel, prioritize that relationship. Prayer broadly understood, of being aware and in the presence of God. Because he can't love others, while without doing that, not really can fake it, you can look like it.

Vanessa Caruso: 48:02

But that's it. So the question to me is what helps like coming to know what helps us receive internalize, trust in God's love for us? Because we're all wired a little bit differently. So what is what are those things in our stage of life or season of life, with our personality, our background, that kind of position us each day to access this reality, so that all the needs that come up, we can kind of we can kind of let go of those and live out of and yours is meditating.

Andy Withrow: 48:51

Meditating made me think also of taking a lot of scripts are easy to turn into prayers, and enter into dialogue with God. Thank you, that you are that you take care of me like a shepherd. That really, I don't have any needs. When I'm knowing that I'm in you that I'm with you. Thank you that the work isn't to do all the keep all these rules and check on do all the meal trains and try to join all the groups and do all the volunteer stuff. Thank you that the work is to, to think of you and to be present to you and try to be aware of your presence to me. Even just saying that stuff out loud for me, is really, really helpful. Yeah, it's prayer for me. So slowing down with some of the Scripture with some of the Bible and really trying to understand and internalize it, and just enter into Congress. With God, even the stuff that's hard to understand, like this is a really complicated or challenging part, or just want to be, you've wrote a letter once about that to God on Thessalonians. Second, that's like a second Thessalonians. I think that stuff's that's really, really important and really helpful. Yeah, where does it connect with you? Or what? How does this idea Connect? What how do you imagine it,

Vanessa Caruso: 50:21

it feels a little bit fuzzy to like, kind of understand what it looks like to have that change of mind. And change of focus. But the last couple times, I've taken a walk. Just because I had like, 15 minutes and I felt like I need to get out of my head or something like that. I did kind of look up and looking up at the trees or the sky. And you're not I'm not listening to something. I'm not talking to someone. I'm not in front of my computer. Those moments kind of woke me up in a way where I, I was actually present to myself and to God in a way that change the day and change the conversation and change the thought patterns. Yeah, I mean, I have my like morning. Practice, and I'm sure that is important for my day to day living, but right now I'm feeling like, wow, I, I have I've had the cart before the horse is just what I'm kind of thinking because I I am trying to figure out how to love well, and it's totally overwhelming. And I'm feeling like I'm not very good at it. Yeah. So even though I do my lectionary reading and my centering prayer every morning, it's I'm feeling like, there's a, there's a way to do that. That changes everything. And there's a way to do that. That just reinforces

Andy Withrow: 51:59

That's tricky. Isn't the old? Yeah. Because disciplines are still really important. And even just, like even hearing you talk, it's like, but it's still important to practice things are counterintuitive, like so it's still important to have this list from Paul, because you might be tend to think, well, if what you're saying is true, Andy, why does he have to have boys need to stop at the end of Romans 11. Because all that stuff will just flow out. But I think there's also the reality that with it, but it gets it's so counterintuitive to us, it's helpful to have a structure to say to know what to look for, and to know what to practice. And I think the value of disciplines and I think a lot of the list of the 29 items can be conceived as disciplines. Practice this and get good at it. Just be careful that you're not making it that thing.

Vanessa Caruso: 52:46

Yeah, that's where I always make it that thing. Eventually.

Andy Withrow: 52:50

Yeah. Yeah, but yeah, and so there can be seasons where it's healthy to not practice that. Don't. I'm not gonna just example, don't sign up for the next meal train. If you feel like that's your like, I have to what will people think or what, what does that say about me? Yeah, like there might be a discipline of abstinence, and some of the good stuff, which is what Paul is saying here. You have to discern and serve in proportion to your gifts. If you're always saying yes to every opportunity. You're not doing that. And that's you. It's a sign that okay, this is I'm turning into something that isn't what it's meant to be. And I have to be judicious and learn to say no. Even if it's arbitrary at first until I can learn to say no, and then I can get out of saying okay, yes, I can do this one this weekend. Oh, I can't do that. You know, that kind of stuff. Yeah. Wow,

Vanessa Caruso: 53:55

that was very good.

Andy Withrow: 53:59

Yeah, I had a good time. That's good. I wasn't sure I was going to but I did. Okay. But that yeah, maybe that's a good place to

Vanessa Caruso: 54:09

I feel like it is I don't think I I think I have to like let it sink in a little bit more. Personally. Yes. Sink. Let the freedom that is the fact that it's about freedom and not

Andy Withrow: 54:18

love. Yeah. It's great to be back. Yeah, I'm glad we got this first one. We were like, apprehensive, like, there's just gonna be we don't haven't done this in so long. Yeah, it's very easy once we're in it. Yeah. Once we started. It's got to push that record. But yeah. So I don't know what we're doing. We're like, we're still trying to figure out bear with me. Season two. This is a good start. Like Yeah. So we're both thinking about ideas and topics and where we're gonna go. So stay tuned. And not as frequent. No, We're gonna do we're gonna aim for every couple of weeks. So just to adjust expectations. Yeah, we're sure we'll get a lot of Mandopop we probably well yeah, sure. Definitely. As you can imagine anything else?

Vanessa Caruso: 55:17

No, I think

Andy Withrow: 55:20

thanks. Thanks everyone.