Madison Pruitt Trout (3:28)

You know, my mom is really passionate about wanting it to be Madison.

Candace Cameron Bure (3:32)

Really?

Madison Pruitt Trout (3:33)

And all of my books say Madison. But now I'm just so used to being Maddie, so everyone says Maddie. Typically.

Candace Cameron Bure (3:39)

Was Maddie recent, though, or growing up? Did you?

Madison Pruitt Trout (3:42)

Maddie was growing up, but then especially on the Bachelor. And then I just had my Instagram handle was Mad. Then a lot of people thought my actual name was just Maddie Prue, but it's not. Isn't that. Isn't it funny?

Candace Cameron Bure (3:55)

People think that your handle is your name.

Madison Pruitt Trout (3:58)

Yeah.

Candace Cameron Bure (3:58)

Or they don't know your name. If you have, like, I. There's a lymphatic massage person. Her name's Rebecca, but she does lymphatic massages. But on her handle, it's like Detox. The Detox something. And so everyone calls her, hi, Detox. How are you? It's like, no, I have a name. My name's not Detox.

Madison Pruitt Trout (4:19)

What does this say about us as a. As a society?

Candace Cameron Bure (4:22)

I know, guys. Yes.

Madison Pruitt Trout (4:24)

No, it's so funny. So many people are, are you Maddie Pru? And I'm like, madison Trout, My name is. Or are you the girl from the Bachelor? Do you get that? Are you the girl from Full House? Everybody probably knows your name, but, like, I definitely have gotten. Are you the girl that was on the Bachelor? Yeah, like, Madison.

Candace Cameron Bure (4:38)

That's my name.

Madison Pruitt Trout (4:39)

Madison.

Candace Cameron Bure (4:40)

But you go by both. But you prefer Madison in. In your public life in certain settings.

Madison Pruitt Trout (4:47)

And I think friend. Like, all of my friends call me Maddie or Matt's. I mean, it's. It's a lot more, like, personal.

Candace Cameron Bure (4:54)

I think I've heard you as Maddie a lot more. Because of Natasha.

Madison Pruitt Trout (4:57)

Yeah, yeah. No, Maddie. Maddie makes sense. Maddie's great. We can roll with Maddie.

Candace Cameron Bure (5:01)

Okay, good, good. I also heard that your daughter's birthday is coming up. Yeah. And they shared. She shares the same birthday as my son.

Madison Pruitt Trout (5:13)

That's crazy. What a beautiful day. That's a good day.

Candace Cameron Bure (5:16)

Oh, it is. But congratulations to her first birthday.

Madison Pruitt Trout (5:20)

I can't believe it. Everyone says time flies, and then you actually experience it. And I have cried so much. I'm like, I just want you to be my little baby. But then I'm so excited for all the stages ahead. But it really is the greatest gift in the world. I mean, it is unlocked a purpose that I didn't even know.

Candace Cameron Bure (5:38)

Yeah. It is so true. It changes life in the best of ways. And there's so many unexpected, not just moments, but things that you learn about yourself that you're like, oh, if someone had told me this, or they could have explained it in a way that I would become a whole different person, but in the most beautiful ways.

Madison Pruitt Trout (6:02)

Right.

Candace Cameron Bure (6:02)

Then you're like, oh, maybe I would have done this sooner, or maybe I wouldn't have been so fearful about it. I mean, there's all kinds of things.

Madison Pruitt Trout (6:09)

Totally.

Candace Cameron Bure (6:09)

Being a parent is you think you're.

Madison Pruitt Trout (6:10)

Gonna, like, bounce back to life before, but life never goes. Your body doesn't quite go back. Your marriage is. And it. And it makes everything better, but it is different. And that was for sure an adjustment for me at the beginning. And we were joking right before this podcast, too, about my little baby hairs are growing in. I still have, like my postpartum baby hairs and they're growing in a different color. I'm like, that was the stuff I think I was not prepared for was like my body changing, my hair changing.

Candace Cameron Bure (6:37)

I mean, I'm like, girl, mine are. I have so many baby hairs. I'm 20 years older than you. They never stop coming in. I lost a ton of hair. Now they're all, they're growing back, which is great. And growing in different color because now mine are growing in gray. It doesn't change. It doesn't stop. It's just a recycling of everything.

Madison Pruitt Trout (6:58)

You know, we're going to see it as a good thing. It. We're, we're producing new growth, new life.

Candace Cameron Bure (7:02)

It's true. Listen, I'm happy with any kind of growth, whether it's spiritually or little baby hairs on my head.

Madison Pruitt Trout (7:09)

Amen.

Candace Cameron Bure (7:09)

Thank you, God. Well, I want to start with a listener question, and this is from Megan. Kind of fitting for what we're talking about. Says, oh, well, what should I do about my middle school age child who doesn't want to be involved in church anymore? I have remarried, and his stepfather is the perfect example of a godly man with whom he lives with full time. His father doesn't support religion at all. Okay, I heard, I saw the words middle school and I was like, oh, we're just talking about growing up. But that wasn't a very good segue. So let's tackle this question. So Megan has a child who's in middle school but doesn't want to be involved in church anymore. It's always a hard one, but not surprising this most. I would say that most of us parents go through this with our kids. Most of us, when we were kids go through stages of rebellion. It's not the end of the world. There's so much time for growth and change. And I know it is always can be so cool or encouraging when you see a child who loves the Lord from the start. I mean, I had one of those and he still loves the Lord like loves the Lord is passionate and never had that moment of not wanting to be in the presence of God and learn about God. I have two other children that didn't walk that way. And it was like a fight and a battle. And so having three adult children now who are all walking with the Lord, I would say, Megan, don't stress out yet. Your first place is on your knees in prayer over your child. God loves your child more than you do. It's hard to imagine. And so keep faithfully praying for him to whether it's feel a conviction of the Holy Spirit to want to go to church, to bring friends into his life. That would be an encouragement to. To go to church and feel comfortable there. Those are all things you can be praying for. But I would also say that as a parent who has experienced similar things when our kids were at home and he's at middle school, you still have choices that you can make for them.

Madison Pruitt Trout (9:33)

Yeah.

Candace Cameron Bure (9:34)

And I would certainly recommend doing that. That there isn't a choice for him not to go to school when he's living with you at your home. That that's something you guys do together and he needs to go and he doesn't have to believe it all. It doesn't have to be his thing right now, but you can keep praying that God's going to work on his heart. That's kind of my initial advice. What do you think, Maddie?

Madison Pruitt Trout (9:58)

Yeah. Proverbs 22:6 says, Train a child up in the way they should go, and even when they're older, they will not depart from it. I think that's such a powerful verse because even when your child starts taking, you know, some detours and some reroutes, you know what you're instilling in them and how you're praying for them and what you're modeling for them is doing more for them than you even realize. And I loved your advice on hit your knees in prayer and just stay praying. You know, my parents would even say they were not perfect Parents, but they were prayerful parents. They were parents who, like, I know my mom was praying for us and still prays for us all the time. And I don't even know what all, you know, she saved me from, from just the power of her prayers. And it talks about in James 5 that the prayers of a righteous person is powerful and effective. And so even when our kids haven't realized that relationship with Jesus for themselves, like, we can continue to model that and we can fight for them and intercede for them in prayer, believing and taking Scripture at its word, that prayer is powerful and effective. And the Lord hears us and sees us and, and I do think that kids are like sponges. And so what we model and what we're showing them matters so much. I do not have a middle schooler yet. I. My little girls turn in one. But I'm so, you know, I'm excited for those different seasons and phases of life. And I know it's not always going to be easy. There's going to be some really hard moments. I know I had my moments of rebelling and maybe, you know, if you compared it to other people's quote unquote testimonies like mine might seem a little less like intense is like even my husband's testimony and story. But I definitely had my moments of rebelling and disrespecting my parents and wanting to, you know, cared way more about what people thought about me than what God thought about me or even what my parents thought about me. And I loved your advice of just prayer and who they surround themselves with and praying that those godly people will come into their life. Because my worst decisions were when I was hanging around the wrong people.

Candace Cameron Bure (11:57)

It's so true. We often chose. I say this loosely, but we, we had a hand in choosing our children's friends, meaning they could, they could choose who they want their friends to be. But if I see that that's not a person that has a good influence on them, then my decisions changed in hey, can I hang out with so and so? Nope, we're busy. Nope. We're doing this today. Nope, we're not. We're not. You're not. It is so true in that you really become who you're friends with, who you're hanging out with the most, and to choose your friends wisely and sometimes mom and dad have to just gently step in and help you make those choices.

Madison Pruitt Trout (12:40)

Well, at a young age, you're still figuring out like the Holy Spirit for yourself. So in a way, your parents are being that Holy Spirit for you. I mean, my mom. My mom was that voice of reason and discernment when she was like, you do not need to be spending time with that person. They will impact your character. They will impact your choices. And it's true. And Scripture says it, bad company corrupts good character, but the other, or the opposite, I guess, is also true. Then that means good company promotes good character and helps you love Jesus more. So that is definitely needed.

Candace Cameron Bure (13:10)

Have you ever had a time, even when you were young, that you wanted nothing to do with God? Or has.

Madison Pruitt Trout (13:17)

Is.

Candace Cameron Bure (13:17)

Has it never gone that far for you?

Madison Pruitt Trout (13:20)

I would say the scarier part with my walk with Jesus is that on the outside, I always looked really clean and put together. But there were definitely seasons in my middle school and high school time where I was living in secret sin and participating in things that nobody knew about. And just like Jesus rebuked the Pharisees, I looked really good on the outside, but the inside was full of hypocrisy and, you know, immoral living, ungodly living. And that, for me, was really hard because it created more sin and also led to shame and this kind of, like, nonstop cycle that I didn't fully know how to, like, break free from and, you know, come clean with because I really cared about reputation. I really cared about what people thought about me. And so I would say on the outside, I always loved God. I was leading, you know, like chaplain of my team and, you know, leading Bible studies and speaking, sharing my testimony at my high school in front of, like, my whole high school. And it was super intimidating. Yet at the same time, you know, there was a hypocrisy and contradiction in my own life and heart that I was still trying to wrestle and figure out, you know, what I fully believe to be true about God and how to recognize, oh, I am a sinner and I really need to be saved from myself, like, not just from, like, Satan, but, like, from myself. Yeah, And I think sometimes we don't fully realize that. And it wasn't until I was really broken over my own sin nature and my rebellion from God and in his ways that I realized, like, okay, this is. And when I made that decision, like, that was when I really went all in with Jesus, which was college.

Candace Cameron Bure (14:58)

Yeah. And that's kind of some of the themes that we're going to talk about today, which is the truth about truth. So what is the truth about truth? Because we hear everybody talk about your truth, my truth, which drives me up the wall, because there's only the Truth, and it comes from the word of God. Some of you might disagree with me on that one, but I don't think that truth is subjective. It either is or it isn't.

Madison Pruitt Trout (15:26)

Yeah.

Candace Cameron Bure (15:27)

So let's talk about truth today.

Madison Pruitt Trout (15:30)

Yeah. Amen. And that's what the same way it riles you up is, is how I feel about it. Because it's what you're saying. We're contradicting ourselves. To say some things are true and some things aren't true, to even just call Jesus a good teacher is in and of itself contradicting itself. Because if he was a good teacher and he taught truth, but we're not believing all the words that he's saying, then that means he's actually not good and he's probably a lunatic and a crazy person. Right? And so we, I think we can contradict ourselves in the very things that we're saying and believing sometimes because of the messaging and culture today. And the messaging and culture today is what you're saying. It's live your truth, do what pleases you, do what serves you. And the reality is, is that is a truth that doesn't lead to freedom, even though it promises freedom. It's a truth that always will lead to bondage. It will always lead to confusion. The enemy is the author of confusion. The first question asked in scripture was from the enemy. And the first thing he does is question what's true. Did God really say is the first thing that the enemy says. And so if you even just look at that, you see that happening in culture today. And there was this moment in Scripture where Pilate and Jesus are having a face to face moment in John chapter 18. And Pilate looks at Jesus and says, what is truth? And I see so many people asking that question today, what is truth? And we're hungry for it. You see so many people so hungry for what's true, what lasts, what's real. And even just with the rise of like AI and all of the stuff that's happening today, I mean, there's so many, like, can I really trust that? Is that really true? Is it credible? Where's your sources? Prove to me that this is real.

Candace Cameron Bure (17:08)

So true.

Madison Pruitt Trout (17:09)

It's wild like, and there's such a, almost lack of trust in, I think our heart today because of so much that's out there. But we talked about on a previous episode, when you find real truth, you find real freedom. And Jesus says in John 14, 6, I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. And so you can have your version of truth, but it's going to continue to lead you to confusion and pain and suffering and to, you know, a ultimately bondage. But Jesus says, I am the truth. And when we find him, it says in John 8:32, we find freedom. We find real life that he came to give us life and life to the fullest. And when we believe that and find that, that's where we experience real life. And so I think instead of asking the question, what is truth? A better question is saying, who is truth? Because truth is a person. It's not a concept. And when we find him, we find every thing we're looking for, every answer to the questions we have, every, you know, hope that we want, every purpose that we're longing for and looking for. And he is the answer to every question. And so when we find him, we find truth. And when we find truth, we find freedom.

Candace Cameron Bure (18:20)

Yeah, that's so good. It is so important to. To know truth. And it can. It can be tricky. I. I'm watching Instagram and I see a man save a cat out of a burning building and a whole. A baby. And I'm like, this was incredible. And then I scroll to the comments and I'm like, oh, it was a fake AI video. It's hard to. It's hard to find truth these days. In that sense. I agree. There's so much deception out there, and there's so many things that look so real.

Madison Pruitt Trout (18:56)

Yeah.

Candace Cameron Bure (18:56)

And often, as you had talked about, the enemy uses partial truth. There are things in there that are truthful, but yet there's deception. And. And the other part is a lie. And so we need to discern what truth is. We know that we have found truth in Jesus. We found truth in the word of God in the Bible. But maybe talk to me about how you. You found that truth or discovered that truth in your life.

Madison Pruitt Trout (19:31)

Yeah. Yeah. I want to tell you a story about a time that I was at the beach with my family. We would go to the same water park every single year for vacation. And this is going to tie back into your question, but we were at the wave pool, and I remember having this. We were talking about rebellion earlier. I had this rebellious moment where I was like, I don't need a yellow float. I'm going into the wave pool by myself. I don't need help. Like, I can do this. And I'm probably, I don't know, 10, 11 at the time. And so I swim out, and it's like, overly crowded in the wave pool. This day. And so I'm swimming out there and trying to conquer these waves by myself, thinking I'm, like, bigger than the world. And one. You know, one wave takes me out and sucks me under, and then I get trapped underneath all of these yellow floats, and I literally cannot get up. Like, I literally start seeing stars. I'm. And you know when you start, like, panicking even more because you're like, I'm trapped, and I can't get up. And so I start freaking out and thinking, okay, this is. This is the end. I don't know. Like, I don't know how I'm gonna get up. I'm gonna pass out in here. No one's gonna be able to find me. And I start panicking. And as I get close to probably passing out, this man just, like, reaches underwater. I guess he. He saw me struggling beneath them, reaches under, pulls me out, and sets me, like, on a float. And I'm, like, gasping for air. And I was so terrified. I was like, I'll never do that again. But I walked away from that experience. And I'm like, in this. In the same way Jesus pulled me out, he rescued me. He gave me a new life. He gave me new purpose. He gave me fresh air. And for so many of us, we were all born into sin. We are all. We are not. We are not born a good person and then fall into sin and give into sin. We are born into sin. Scripture is very clear of that. Born in. With a sin nature. And we were all deserving of wrath. Ephesians 2 tells us, but because of God's great love, he rescued us. He pulled us out of that water he poured, pulled us out of the pit, and he set our feet on a rock. He gave us breath. He gave us life. He gave us hope and purpose. And the beautiful thing and good news of what Jesus Christ offers us is that he didn't just save us and take away the bad, like he also gave us all the good. It says in the Book of Corinthians. I can't remember if it's 1 Corinthians or 2nd Corinthians, but it says that he became sin who knew no sin, so that in him we may become righteous. And so he not only took away our sin, he also cleans. Clothed us in his righteousness. And so he saved my life. But then he also made me clean and whole and purified me and gave me a purpose and a joy and a peace that I couldn't find apart from Him. And the reality and the truth. That I took away from that moment. And what I often go back to and write about in my book is that we can't save ourselves and we are deserving of wrath. Apart from Him, I would have drowned. Apart from Him, I would have died. And I think about today so often, you know, if I'm sharing the gospel with whoever, I'm in the Uber, I'm on the plane or whatever. If you ask someone, you know about their faith, so often people will respond, you know, if you were to die today and go to heaven, or do you think you would go to heaven and what do you think about that? And a lot of times people respond, you know, I've been a really good person, so I think I'll go to heaven. Like, I've done a really good job at doing more good than bad, and I've lived a good life. And the reality is, is that we are all deserving of hell, we're all deserving of death, we're all deserving of God's wrath because of our sin. But because of his great love, he sent us Jesus and he paid the penalty and the price. And when I had a revelation of God's grace, that he wasn't some judge in the sky, like waiting for me to screw up, that he wasn't this mean guy who wanted to keep me from fun and wanted to withhold good from me, that it wasn't just a book full of a bunch of rules and do's and don't. Things that I can do, things that I can't do. When I had a full revelation of God's grace, that changed everything.

Candace Cameron Bure (23:28)

Yeah.

Madison Pruitt Trout (23:29)

And it was when I realized that truth of he actually, like he is the one where life is found. It says in Ecclesiastes 3:11 that God has put eternity on every man's heart. And so when I find him, you know, Psalm 16 says that in his presence there is fullness of joy. When I found Jesus, I found true joy and true peace and everything that I was looking for. And so that, that's kind of my story is that I can't save myself. None of us can, can save ourselves. It takes, you know, someone outside of enslaved humanity to save a broken people. And, and I'm so grateful that we are a part of the only religion where we don't have to work our way up to God. Like, yeah, God came to us and took on our sin and our shame so that in him we could have life. So that truth changed everything for me.

Candace Cameron Bure (24:21)

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Madison Pruitt Trout (27:22)

What about you? Like, did you. What was that moment for you where you had that realization?

Candace Cameron Bure (27:27)

So similar. We. We have very similar testimonies in that way. So much of what you're speaking is. Are the very words that I've spoken many, many times. But I too had that revelation because I always thought that it was my own goodness that would save me. And it wasn't until my early 20s, when I had Natasha, that I started thinking about God. And I was in my bedroom and I was praying, and I was praying to God to show me who he is. Because even though I knew that I was saved in the sense that I asked Jesus to be the Lord of my life, but I never had a relationship with him. He was just a God that I would call to when I needed something or once in a while when I had a. Some gratitude, I'd say, thanks, God, but really, can you help me achieve this? Can you help work this out in my life? Just praying like a genie in the bottle. And when God showed me my sin, I never thought I was a sinful person. I thought, well, there's lots of other people that are way worse than me. And so really, my goodness is what saves me. And God pulled that veil off of my eyes when I was praying to him in my bedroom one day. I was like, show me who you are. And when I realized, oh, I'm a sinner by the standard by which God is gonna judge me. And we see that in the Ten Commandments. And again, we're never going to achieve perfection. The Ten Commandments, it's only there to show us that we won't achieve them. And that's why we need a savior. Someone that is lived that perfect life and then took all of our. Our sin upon himself and took the punishment for us. I love. I love the analogy. I've used it many times in sharing my faith that, you know, if you had a fine to pay, if you got a ticket, and you didn't have the money to pay the ticket, so you were going to be sentenced to jail time, but as the judge is about to sentence you, someone walks in the room and is like, here's the money. Here's the money for you, Candace. Here's the money for you, Madison. Someone else paid your fine for you. That's what Jesus did. But I didn't even recognize my need because I thought my own goodness was going to save me. And so that moment in my bedroom was a huge revelation in my life that I saw myself for What I was. And that was a sinner in need of grace. And I was so thankful that God showed that to me for the first time in 22 years, 23 years, like I believed in him, all of the things, but I never. I never connected it intellectually and even within my heart that he gave me the most powerful gift and that I'm truly set free. There's so much freedom like I don't need. I don't have to go to jail. There's no jail time for me because you paid it for me.

Madison Pruitt Trout (30:35)

Amen.

Candace Cameron Bure (30:35)

So then out of that gratitude of someone who would do that for you, do I want to live a life that's pleasing to God? And so. And that that moment changed everything for me and found real truth in who Jesus is and God's Word. And that God's word is what it says it is.

Madison Pruitt Trout (30:53)

Yeah.

Candace Cameron Bure (30:54)

And it's been. It's been incredible to discover that grace in my life, that truth and such freedom. And it changed the trajectory of my life forever because otherwise I. Until that moment, I just would have been a very casual, lukewarm Christian.

Madison Pruitt Trout (31:12)

Yeah.

Candace Cameron Bure (31:13)

And I talk to so many people that feel the same way, and yet they don't want to be. They don't want to be stuck in a place of lukewarm Christianity, but yet they. They just either need the encouragement or, or more truth that can set them free. They need God to do that work in their life and sometimes just don't again, know where to start or how to reach out to God. And all it is, is to just ask him.

Madison Pruitt Trout (31:41)

Yeah. Amen. And starting your day in truth, meditating on it, memorizing it. I mean, it talks about in Scripture so much. The, the beauty of what happens when we meditate and delight in the law of the Lord and meditate on Scripture and how it changes us. You know, if the Word of God isn't calling you out and isn't offending you, then I don't know if you're really reading the same word that I'm reading, because every time I spend time in God's Word, it calls me out, it calls me higher, it shows me the way, it encourages me, it speaks life to me, and it points me in the way of truth. And I think it's. It's so cool because I don't know of any other word other than truth that describes. I mean, you look at the Trinity, God is called the God of truth in Scripture. In the Book of Psalms, it. The Spirit, the Holy Spirit is also called the Spirit of Truth. And Jesus says, I am the truth. I don't know if there's another word out there that describes the Trinity like truth does. And so truth really matters. And truth, if we don't build our life on the truth and we don't have a full grasp and understanding on what is true, we're going to constantly be grasping for answers and looking for things to satisfy and to feed what only Jesus can and what only the Gospel can. And so that's why it's so important to, to start there, to have a full revelation on what is truth. And it does take a moment of being so broken over your sin and realizing how much you, you need him. I mean, you look at the, the thief on the cross next to Jesus, he didn't, he didn't, he wouldn't have been able to quote you the whole book of the Bible. He wouldn't have been able to tell you probably even the ten Commandments. He probably didn't know a lot. But you know what he, he had is he realized he was a sinner. He realized Jesus was the only one that could save him. And because of that, he was saved. And I think sometimes we can over complicate it and make it about ourselves like we were talking about earlier. And this isn't a works based salvation, but it is a salvation based works. When you've been truly saved and set free by the grace of Jesus Christ, you're not working to earn your salvation like many other religions out there. Preach. Yep. However, when you've been saved and you've been set free, now you live your life on mission to bring that same good news and freedom to other people. And so there are good works that flow from it, but you're not working to gain salvation yourself.

Candace Cameron Bure (33:54)

Exactly. It is a, it is a gift.

Madison Pruitt Trout (33:56)

Yeah, it's your gift, but it's pride that often stops us.

Candace Cameron Bure (34:00)

It's so much pride. It, it's taken me a long time to, to realize that it's a gift.

Madison Pruitt Trout (34:07)

Yeah.

Candace Cameron Bure (34:07)

Because again, I think you're the same way. I'm an achiever.

Madison Pruitt Trout (34:11)

Right.

Candace Cameron Bure (34:12)

I, I always want to achieve. So I'm like, well, what can I do more? What, what else can I do for you, God? What more can I do? If I do this, will you love.

Madison Pruitt Trout (34:20)

Me even more or bless me even more?

Candace Cameron Bure (34:23)

Bless me even more. God's like, I don't work that way. Yeah, I love you because I love you. I love you because I made you and who you are. And there's nothing that you can do to earn more Love from me. I love you more than you'll ever understand. Like I can. I'm still trying to comprehend God's love because we don't really have that kind of unconditional love in human beings and other people. There's always something conditional about it or people always let us down or disappoint us. And God doesn't, doesn't always answer the ways we want, but he's. That it's his choice to choose totally. And so I. That's something I'm still learning in my life, but incredible.

Madison Pruitt Trout (35:08)

And we make relationships often so rewards based and metrics based. It's like, when you do good for me, I'll do good for you. You know, when you show up for me, I'll show up for you. And it just doesn't work like that for God. God's so much bigger and he's so much better and he's perfect and we're imperfect and that's why we serve a perfect God. But it is our pride that so often gets in our, our own way. Would you say that even for you? And being a born again, sold out believer, does pride often get in your way? Of. All the time, yeah.

Candace Cameron Bure (35:36)

All the time. I would say that's probably one of my, one of my sin issues in my life is my, is my pride because I try to live a life of integrity and character and honesty. And so sometimes that gets puffed up when people see that in me or they accuse me of something or they just believe something else about me. And then my pride certainly steps into the forefront. And so I'm always praying for humility, always in all situations.

Madison Pruitt Trout (36:09)

So, yeah, amen. Same. I'm like, lord, clothe me in humility and teach me the fear of God. I think the fear of God isn't taught enough in our world today. I think we have such a generation today that it's like, bestie Jesus and like, I love Jesus. He's so fun and he's like a girl dad. And he's like cute and he's sweet and he's. And I'm like, okay, but we gotta make sure that we have the fear of the Lord. Because it's the fear of the Lord that leads to humility. It's the fear of the Lord that leads to God's favor and grace to be able to resist sin, but also to receive the grace and everything he wants to give us.

Candace Cameron Bure (36:40)

Amen. Our pastor just talked about that this past Sunday. Okay, it's time for us to go to a listener question. Today, it's from Gabby. She says, I'm a Christian college student at a public university. I find myself struggling to feel Christian enough. I enjoy listening to music that isn't Christian. I like watching movies that are not inherently religious. I live my life rooted in the Word and spreading God's love to everyone, but I kind of feel lost. I feel like this is who you speak to on a regular basis. Would you. Do you have some words of wisdom for Gabby?

Madison Pruitt Trout (37:19)

Yeah, and I think a lot of it is. Is what we're talking about is that you can't be Christian enough. You can't be good enough. I'm even seeing this on college campuses that we've been going to through the UNITE ministry. And we've been seeing thousands of college students show up, and so many of them are coming forward to receive Jesus as their Lord and Savior, but also so many of them are wanting to get baptized. And one of the biggest things that they're saying is, I just want to be clean. I just want to be good enough. And so I want to get baptized so that I can be clean so that I could be good enough. And what we're encouraging them with and reminding them of is, hey, this water doesn't make you clean. This water doesn't set you free. This water doesn't say that you're good enough. Only the blood of Jesus Christ can. Only the blood of Jesus Christ can set you free. Only the blood of Jesus Christ can redeem your life and keep you from staying bound and stuck and also give you the ability to boast in what once kept you bound and stuck and broken, to be able to boast in, this is what Jesus has set me free from. And that's been my story and my testimony. And I would just encourage anyone listening. You know, it's not about having the perfect words. It's not about living the perfect life. It's not about having it all together. It's about receiving the grace of God and continuing to stay in God's presence, practicing God's presence daily and inviting the Holy Spirit to. To lead you and to guide you. And, you know, I would say be careful with what you take in. I would say be careful with what you're watching and what you're listening to. It tells us in Scripture that we are to be set apart in our speech and our conduct and our love and our faith and in our purity. That as believers, we should be really careful what we're taking in and what we're consuming, because that is ultimately what will come out of us. And so, you know, practicing the presence of God looks like, you know, studying and meditating the word of God, spending time in worship and in prayer, not just before meals, not just before sleep, but actually having a prayer life and surrounding yourself with godly community. You know, I think it's really hard to be a light if you're surrounded by darkness all the time. And so you need people that are gonna make your light brighter so that then you can go to dark scenarios and situations and be that light. But if you're only ever surrounded by darkness, that light is going to get tainted and it's going to get put out really fast. And so making sure you're in the word of God, you're filled with the spirit of God and you're surrounded with the people of God is my greatest advice for being a light and staying rooted and grounded in an environment like college.

Candace Cameron Bure (39:50)

Yeah, that's great advice. I will just add that. Listen for the Holy Spirit. I mean, all the things that you said to be in the word of God and to have a prayer life, but listen actively for the Holy Spirit and to discern. Listen to that little. It's your conscience talking to you, but it's also God, it's also the Holy Spirit. So that. Listen. Do I think that listening to non Christian music is bad? No, there's lots of great music out there that's not Christian. However, there's a lot of lyrics there that I would never want to fill my mind or soul with.

Madison Pruitt Trout (40:31)

Yeah.

Candace Cameron Bure (40:32)

So be discerning, listen to the Holy Spirit. That maybe there's a song and the lyrics are great and it's got a great tune and you're fine to do that. But if you're actually actively listening to the lyrics or watching a movie and then those that your conscience starts to prick at you listen to it. That's the Holy Spirit and going, you know what? I'm going to turn this song off. Fast forward through, through this and all of those things just help you discern your Christian walk. Because it isn't about being Christian enough. None of us are Christian enough or good enough. That's the whole point. But you can certainly discern and move your walk forward with God. That is sanctification. That's the process of God just changing you and your spirit. And so listen to that. Okay, Gabby, hope this helped. Be sure you come back next week. And if you want to go deeper into today's conversation, download the Dare to Be True guide. It's free. It is full of practical encouragement to go with Maddie's book. The Together Community is a monthly membership with a private podcast, chat growth Challenges and an exclusive regular live stream where I pop on say hey so you can join the community and download my app@candice.com together. I will see you. We will see you next time and remember to be grateful all day, every day. Candy Rock Entertainment all rights reserved. Foreign.

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