Transcript
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Hey, what's going on, guys? Welcome back to Preaching in the Choir. Thank you so much for your words of affirmation, especially on Patreon, letting me know that this show is impacting you in a positive way. That wasn't the point. I always said the point. As a man, as a sinner, as somebody who needed accountability in his own life, especially in his faith journey, that this was for me now, hundreds of views turning into thousands of views. I am appreciative and I understand it is a burden of responsibility that I'm willing to take on to continue this show. In a nutshell, I'm saying I'm here for you despite this initially being for me. I also believe that it's beneficial for us to get different perspectives from different people to benefit us. Especially when we look at all of the capacity that we have in our head and all the messaging that's constantly going into it. We have to down select and distill things that are beneficial, which happens to be the subject matter of this episode. I think you need to evict the rent free tenants in your head. How many people are living rent free in your head right now? Not your wife, not your kids, not your mission, but strangers from comment threads, political chaos, other people's trauma. You know, why political commentary is so prevalent and popular, why people take it on as their Persona, they virtue signal, and their entire identity becomes politics. It's because it's so enticing. We're so curious as human beings to be enthralled and involved in this world of drama, political drama. And we've allowed an entire encampment to set up shop in our minds. We have this skid row of encampments in our minds. We drive down the road and we think, man, I can't believe Dan Crenshaw didn't show up for Sean Ryan's podcast. I've thought it and then I'm like, what? Why am I thinking about Shawn Ryan and Dan Crenshaw? My mom, who loves to scroll, hits me up every once in a while. Did you hear about you might have family members. You might be that guy or girl. Hey, did you hear about the latest drama with the such and such? We scroll violence and tragedy and outrage. But your brain doesn't know the difference between what you experience and. And what you repeatedly visualize. It's one in the same to your central nervous system. Your nervous system stores it. But you were never designed to carry this emotional weight of thousands of strangers. I remember these two guys were talking poorly about me and they used to do content, constantly attacking me. And people were like, why don't you respond? Why don't you respond? And the memes came out of them like laying in bed in a room together, and the little dots led up to a bubble, and in the bubble it was me, because I was living rent free in their heads. They weren't living rent free in mine. People were like, why don't you respond? I said, one, I don't know who these people are. Two, everything they're saying is a lie. Three, I have diapers to change. That is more important than allocating time to strangers talking crap about me on the Internet. So you weren't designed to carry the emotional weight of thousands of strangers. You were designed for your tribe, for your family, for your calling. We've forgotten that. When I used to do a lot of content and support for Warrior's Heart foundation, led by Tom Spooner, a friend of mine, former Delta Force operator, really good man. I remember he told me a story where we riding in a utv, and he was taking me around the facility, touring the facility, and he showed me this fire pit where they would do fireside chats. And he talked to me about Native American traditions and how they've taken some of those traditions into the fabric of their curriculum and helping veterans and first responders overcome a lot of this trauma. And part of the analogy was like this cup, right? You have a cup, and that's your capacity, like your headspace, your capacity to deal with trauma. And Native Americans would go out, the warriors and the Braves, and fight, and they'd come back to a fireside chat with the tribe. The women and children would have their cups, but their cups would be empty. And these warriors would talk about their personal courage, the courage that they observed on the battlefield, the things they went through, taking their trauma that was filled to the top, to the brim and distilling it in conversation and disseminating it amongst the tribe. So they shared this burden collectively, together. Think about that from a personal perspective. How much trauma or how much capacity for trauma do you have? Can you take on before your cup is overfilled? It's why men who drive down the road, who road rage, bang their head off the steering wheel because they're sitting in traffic or because somebody cuts them off has nothing to do with the traffic. It's there every day, the same periods of time every day, yet something is triggered. It's because the capacity is full. You come home, you get an argument with your spouse. You don't even know why? What's. Because you're carrying the burden of trauma, of all the world's issues, into your cup, and you love it. Most significantly, the algorithm loves it because it feeds this to you to capture your attention. And so Scripture is clear, Philippians 4. 8 says, Whatever is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable. Think about these things. Nothing else is the drama on social media true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, or commendable. It's not. So why are you wasting your bandwidth and capacity for it? In Proverbs 4. 23 above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it. From it. Everything you do flows from it. If your heart is flooded with outrage and comparison of from external things, that's what flows into your marriage, into your kids, into your leadership, into your heart and attention is Stewardship. And Matthew 6:21. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. And your treasure is your attention. It is your commodity. And if your attention belongs to strangers, your heart will follow. And then there's nothing left for the people God actually assigned to you. When I cut down my screen time, everything in my life changed. I was calmer, more present, more intentional. I wasn't carrying the weight of the world that I couldn't impact or affect anyway. I was carrying my own responsibilities. So here's the call to action. Evict the tenants that are living free in your mind. Reallocate that time to people in your life that you love. Your friends, your family, and your faith. Take every thought in your mind captive. In fact, 2 Corinthians 10:5 says, Take every thought captive. Your attention is a battlefield. When we talk about spiritual warfare, this is a campaign in spiritual warfare. You have to reclaim it. Be still, lead your home and carry your cross, not the Internet's drama. You know, Jesus's ministry was organic and was built off his flip flops. He walked thousands of miles to spread the word. He didn't have access to the interwebs. He did so with 12 men, an ODA, an operational detachment of rock stars. We need to get back to basics. Disconnect this week. Reallocate that tenant space back to your family. Pay attention to the thoughts that are running through your mind. If those thoughts aren't true, honorable, just pure, lovely and commendable, then reallocate those thoughts to things that are. I appreciate you guys. I hope you have a good week. Spend time with your family. Love you guys. Peace.
