Episode 032 || God Won't Let You Down

Well, hey there, Pando family. Welcome to the Pando exclusive podcast through SE online. We're so glad you are joining us this week. And you guys know, as we go through this podcast, one of our goals is just to revisit the Sunday message to talk through some of the points of application. Some of the things Kyle talked about through the weekend. So if you haven't gotten a chance to watch week two of our Dysfunction Junction series, I just encourage you to hop over and watch that first before you watch this conversation. But we're excited to be able to share with you, to walk through this story in Genesis, but as usual, I am not alone this week. This week, we have a new guest with us. This is Nathan from our Care Ministry here at Southeast. Welcome, Nathan. Glad you're here. Thank you, Brandon. Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, yeah. So Nathan, why don't you introduce yourself to everyone and talk to them a little bit about Care Ministry, what you guys do and what that looks like. Sure. Yeah. So again, Nathan Thompson and I'm in the Care Ministry, been working here at Southeast for the last 23 years. Care Ministry is a cross-campus line. We have several campuses and we shoot out to all of them as best we can and provide support groups. We vet out professional counseling. We do a lot of great workshops throughout the summer, which we just finished up our one on healthy, well, we're going to be launching one here next week on

healthy relationships. So we just try to care for our church as best we can in a myriad of ways. Cool. Very cool. So I know we've had some of our Pando family, as they are released, come and join us in person at campuses. So as they kind of do that, how would you like, what are some resources that maybe Care Ministry may offer in that regard? How would you tell them to get involved at a campus if they're ever able to attend? Yeah. If they are interested in our care groups, we have at Blankenbaker, they're on Thursday nights, Crestwood, Monday nights, Southwest Monday nights. So there are different nights depending on which campus you visit, but I would definitely check out the care group page or the groups page online and look under care, care groups, and you'll, you'll find all the support groups that are, we have everything from addiction to mental health, to relationship groups, you name it, really, there's a category for just about every issue that a human being can be going through. Yeah. Well, that's amazing. I know you guys do such a great job speaking into those various issues and meeting people where they're at in some of those very challenging conversations and very challenging situations in life. Yeah. Yeah. So we are in a sermon series, it's talking about some of those challenges in Dysfunction Junction, walking through the story of Jacob, well, Isaac and Jacob and their families. And needless to say, it's a little bit crazy.

So, you know, we saw last week talking through the story of how Jacob steals the birthright from his brother Esau, kind of the tension that leads to into his family and of his family origin. And now we kind of see how he goes out on his own, starts his own family, and that dysfunction follows him. So as you think about Kyle's sermon from this weekend of the story of Jacob and Rachel and Leah, I'm going to say Leah, because I'm a Star Wars fan, it's going to happen by the time we're done here. I just want you to know. But Jacob, Rachel, and Leah, like what stands out to you in that story as you think about the brokenness that we see in those characters? Yeah, well, I think the thing that stood out to me when I was in church yesterday, listening to Kyle, regarding Jacob was, you know, the main character here, who is the lineage and the lineage that, you know, ultimately leads to Jesus. And we have one of the most flawed characters that you'll find in the Old Testament, the fact that he was a tricky guy who was deceptive. Yes. And... This is the meaning of his name is deceiver. Yeah. Yeah. And Kyle alluded to the fact that he might've been tricked, probably had something to do with, he might've been in a state that lent itself to being deceived, you know, that's not script, you know, it, you know, but, you know, all that to say is, you know, Jacob was not a guy who was a hundred percent morally upright, you know, he had his flaws and somehow the Lord worked through him and continued to work in his life. even when, you know, things continue to go sideways for him. So as far as his relationship with Rachel and Leah, I think, you know, poor guy, you know, to have two wives, you know, it's tough.

And I'm married and I love my wife deeply. And one is enough type of thing, you know, so to invest and work on the marriage that you have is extremely difficult at times, it's beautiful, and it's wonderful. But it's also very challenging at times. But to have to be in the scenario that he was in, poor fella. And not only to have like two wives, but to have two wives that are sisters, like literal sister wives like that is that seems suboptimal, I guess. So yeah, kind of dive into that story a little bit, just to remind everybody, like Jacob goes to, I think it's his uncle is described as scripture. He flees after running away from Esau to Laban, and Laban has two daughters, Rachel, who is described as very lovely, and Leah, who is the first born daughter, who is described as having... Nice eyes. Yeah, nice eyes, or weak eyes, or whatever, you know, the Hebrew there is very unclear, but it's... I like how Kyle kind of talked about that, like, it's, well, you know, she's got nice eyes. Yeah. You can't say something nice about somebody, you can always say they have nice eyes. What color are they? I don't remember, but they're very, they're nice. But Jacob agrees with Laban that he's gonna work for him for seven years to marry Rachel, and he gets to the end of the seven years. The text, it has a very sweet note in it that to Jacob, it doesn't seem like it's very long, because he loves Rachel so much. So it's like, oh, that's very sweet. But the seven years, it ends, they go to the wedding ceremony, and it turns out Laban pulls a switcheroo, I guess, on Jacob, and he ends up marrying Leah instead of Rachel. And then Jacob confronts him about this, the deceiver is not happy with being deceived. And Laban then agrees, well, you can have Rachel if you work another seven years.

So all told, he works 14 years total for her hand in marriage. So as you kind of, you hinted at this a little bit earlier. So I'm curious on your kind of take on it, Jacob falls prey to kind of the same sort of sin pattern that he has revealed, that he's had himself. How do you see that kind of playing out in people's stories where they are, I guess, I'm trying to think how I want to phrase this, like we get negatively impacted by some of the very same patterns that we ourselves are guilty of? Sure. Yeah. One of the things that stands out to me is, I've been a therapist for over two decades, and sometimes when I would sit in session and hear, for instance, like a guy, a husband, who's very suspicious about his wife's behavior, and he starts getting very insecure. Well, a lot of times it's because he's got some things that he's doing that he shouldn't be doing that he feels, and so it's easy to project onto other people the very things that we're struggling with. And sometimes that shakes out in marriage, right? It's like, I'm dealing with something, and then I spot certain characteristics in my wife, and I think Kyle said it best yesterday when he says, a lot of times, the most surprising thing about marriage is that we end up marrying ourselves. It's like the same flaws that I have, I see them in my spouse, and they're very much reflected in me. That's why I think it talks about in Scripture so much is, don't judge each other, and who are you to judge the other, because the same law that you're holding this person accountable to is the same law that you've broken. So our job is to be obedient to the Lord, not to assess people's character. But that tends to happen a lot in marriage. Okay. Yeah, you made me think of two things. One is, yeah, that so often how we butt heads in marriage is because of the similarities that creep in there, and then it just gets worse once you have kids, and your kids are

like you too. So everybody is... Oh, yeah. Oh, yes. Okay, we are all butting heads with each other, because we're the same sort of person in these ways. Yeah. But you also made me think of, Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount that before we go after the speck in someone else's eye, we gotta take the log out of our own. And what's always stuck to me about that is that if we are seeing things through that log in our eye, then that's gonna affect the way we view the other person. we're gonna see them through the lens of our own sin pattern, you know, that I'm gonna look at their motivations and assume that they're living out of what my sinful motivations would be. Absolutely. Oh, they just want attention. Well, all I'm saying there is, well, I'm the one who really wants that, you know. And I think that's such a good observation to say that, you know, we end up... some of the dysfunction in our families comes because we're just fighting with ourselves. Yeah, I would 100% agree with that, is that in a family, there's not anyone that's been born without a sinful nature. So to get into the weeds of the blame game or criticizing or being judgmental towards another family member is essentially, you know, pointing the finger back at yourself. That's why, you know, when you point at somebody, you've got three fingers pointing right back at you, right? So it's always good to step back. And when I get frustrated or critical towards anybody in my family, I just assume I'm the one who's the idiot at this stage, right? That I'm the one who's wrong. And that really has been a trick that's worked for me to just diffuse my own anger and frustration in the room in my house is just, you know, and it helps me to step back and reflect on, you know, what it is that I'm upset with. And usually, it's something that I can forbear pretty quick, but it's usually something that I'm frustrated with myself that I have yet to work out in me that I'm expecting somebody else in the room to take ownership of. Well, let's talk about that a little bit more, because I'm kind of intrigued by that. How do you get to a place where that's kind of your default, though? Like,

I think so often when we get into disagreements, particularly in some of the closest relationships, like it's very easy to give ourselves the benefit of the doubt. But I think what you're describing is more of like, I'm gonna give them the benefit of the doubt and be more suspicious of my own motivation. So how do you do that? Yeah. Well, I definitely don't think you get away without awareness of your own defects of character. The beautiful thing about being a Christian, and this is kind of the ugly thing on the front end, but becomes the beautiful thing, is I don't know of any other faith system that actually allows you to be wrong. You know, it's like where our propensity to avoid wrongness as humans is extremely high. Extremely high. Defense mechanisms. I mean, Freud had his whole list of them, and this is kind of held true for the test of time, at least in my field. But I don't think you have to study psychology. I think everybody knows that nobody wants to be wrong. And actually, there's some studies done that say people would rather not be wrong than be right, which might be for another podcast. But knowing that being able to be wrong is freeing. And that's the humility that's required in order to take ownership and start to handle yourself, I think, in a way that's pleasing to the Lord, in a way that loves people well. And humility is required to accept grace. And if you can start there as a starting point and take yourself a little less serious and with some levity, then you'll be able to handle the people around you with a little more levity as well, and what we call grace and forgiveness and these types of things. But to answer the question, I do think it starts with warming up to the fact that it's okay to be wrong. Okay. I like that. You know, I saw a meme a couple days ago that was something along the lines of, like, arguing with me is pointless, because I realized I was wrong five minutes ago, but now I'm just doubling down on it. Doubling down on it. That's the worst feeling in an argument, I think, particularly with your spouse, is to realize, okay, I was wrong. So how do I back out of this now? Oh yeah. When you've invested that much in being right, it's really hard to backpedal. So I had a couple that I worked with, it's probably been 15 years ago or something like that, and they were an older couple. So I was really nervous. I think I was probably like, I don't even know if I was 30, so it probably was like 20 years ago. And I was working with this couple and they were committed to being right. And they would both make really good points. And I kind of had my

referee shirt on at this point, and they were looking at me like, okay, you're going to side with me. No, you're going to side. And I was like, well, you're right. Well, no, you're right. And you're, ooh, you're even more right. And you're right. And then I realized, it kind of dawned on me, was that being right was more important to them than being loving. And that was the problem, and that was where the majority of their conflict circled around. They both were making good points and making good arguments, but the fact was, was that their highest aim was not love. Their highest aim was being right, and that made everything wrong in a paradoxical way. Yeah, yeah. So I know you talked about our faith being one of the only systems where it's okay to be wrong, right? Where you can think... Where there's grace, there's forgiveness. I know we find that in Christ. We find that grace and forgiveness. How do we cultivate that in relationships, a space where it's okay to admit, like, hey, I messed this up, or to be gracious to find that forgiveness? How do we make that happen in interpersonal relationships? Yeah, that's a good question. How do we make grace and forgiveness kind of like the temperature, the climate in our relationships? I think it... Might have mentioned, or started with it a minute ago, is I think humility is the essential... The chief sin, as C.S. Lewis said, all sins kind of hinged on pride. And I think that that's true, or at least shades of pride, at least the kind of pride that is in the Bible that makes you bad. And that's a protection of self, self-orientation, self-absorption, self-preoccupation, and all of that. And fortunately for me, I was such a screw-up growing up, and had such a pattern of addictions in my life, and it created a lot of loss for me throughout the years.

And so by the time I got to faith in my early 20s, I had already made quite a mess out of my life. And so I was given the gift of desperation, of needing to die to myself and get out of myself. And so that happened on a very big scale with my relationship with Jesus. And I knew I needed a Savior, and I didn't have... I was morally bankrupt, and I knew that. Now, once we become Christians, sometimes we forget that. It's like one of our senior pastors years ago, Bob Russell, used to say, it's the hardest thing to do is to go from being the prodigal son and coming home, and not turning into the older brother. And so to cultivate grace and forgiveness, it takes the same humility that brought you to Jesus, and to stay in remembrance. I think that that's probably why Jesus sets up communion elements in the way that He does, is do this in remembrance of me. It's not remember how horrible of a person you are, it's just do this in remembrance of you're never gonna outgrow grace, you're never gonna outgrow the need to feed off of His forgiveness and His mercy daily. So that's the crux of our faith. And so that should be in the DNA of our relationships daily, but taking an honest, moral inventory of yourself daily will help that. Yeah. Yeah. No, I love that, because I think so often when we think about grace, we think, oh, that's such an elementary part of our faith, right? Like, oh, grace is for when I start. No, like, grace is every day till you're done. Oh, yeah. Like, I'm gonna need it. I need it on the day that I was first saved, I'm gonna need it on the day that I die.

I'm never gonna outgrow my need for grace. And I think that's where we get that backwards in our relationship with God affects our relationship with other people, right? Yeah. Because if we could truly understand our own need for grace, I think it would be easier to extend that grace to other people. I think so. I think absolutely, if you don't, if you're not in touch with it, and you have disowned that in some way, shape, or form, either by self-effort, or by, you know, and it happens when we become critical and judgmental of other people. You know, that's the essence of pride, is pride's a relational term. It doesn't, you know, it doesn't happen in a vacuum. It looks down on others. You know, when it starts to judge someone, you're in the judgment seat, and other people are in the dock, and the seesaw's tilted down. So getting out of that seat and realizing, no, we're both in need of the same things, goes back to what we opened with, is like, hey, you know, if you spot it, you got it. You know, I've got the same stuff living in me that I don't like that I'm seeing in you, and so what do we do about that? I think it's just easy to be critical. I think it's lazy, spiritually and relationally. lazy to be critical of each other. I think it is much more challenging to be a broken person, be struggling with certain sins that, you know, we're handing over to the Lord daily, and extending the same grace and mercy and loving other people through their journey as well. And certainly this is on display with me and my wife, and I love my wife. She is morally a by nature, just feels like she is a better person than me. Like, I, you know, she just, it's just easier for her. So it's just easy for me to give her grace, because I feel like she does such a good job of it with me, and she's had to give me gobs of that throughout the years. But it, you know, it becomes

habit-forming, is kind of the short and sweet of it, is when you practice it, and you see it, and you're, it's so attractive, and it's so compelling, and it has such an influence on how you see each other, and wanting to be around each other, and enjoying each other, that the other stuff just kind of loses its, it loses its power. Yeah, yeah. And I think, you know, I feel like Kyle talked about that a while back in a marriage sermon, talking about the idea of grace in marriage versus criticism and cynicism, that once criticism seeps in, is, I mean, it's almost like a toxic pill in a marriage, that it just becomes something where you're either chipping away at each other to wear down that pride, or you're chipping away at each other to tear each other apart. Sure. Yeah, and it doesn't have to just be marriage, it can be any relationship in your family that you're dealing with, you know, it's the old adage of drinking poison and...resentment is drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. So that, you know, when a little bit of criticism starts to snowball and gets to the point of resentment, then that's when Satan gets a foothold in your life, and then it's like...and the interesting thing about anger in general is it's always pointing outward, you know, it's always looking externally. It never slows down enough to look inwardly to say, okay, what's wrong with me? You know, what's going on inside of me? And so...and James, in the book of James, I think it's 120, it says be slow to anger, you know, be quick to listen and slow to anger and slow to speak, or I'm getting that wrong, but it's the slow to speak, slow to anger. And then, because the anger of man doesn't produce the righteousness of God. So it's the slowing down process of stop looking outward, slow down, take a step back, and examine yourself. And I love that James passage in terms of any sort of relationship advice, because I don't think...if I look back over those times where, you know, I've created an unnecessary conflict, it wasn't because I was, you know, slow to listen, right? You know, I've never sat back and thought, oh, I should have spoken sooner. Yeah. Like, that was... Yeah, I don't think I've ever had anybody say, I wish you'd stop listening to me.

Yeah, knock it off, I'm so tired of it. So, well, you know, one of the things that Kyle got into this weekend was talking about the different disappointments each of these characters had in their marriage relationships, specifically, but just to kind of review that a little bit, he talks about Jacob's disappointment that he was married but chased by his past, as we see, you know, his deception boomeranged on him, and he ended up married to the wrong woman. Leah's disappointment was that she was married but lonely. She was the wife who wasn't supposed to be married to Jacob, and I think he made her feel every bit of that. He overlooked her and didn't pay any attention to her. And then Rachel's disappointment was having everything and still longing, that, you know, the text tells us that in this kind of turnaround from what we would expect, that Leah is able to have children. I think she ends up having six sons and a daughter, Dinah, I think. And then Rachel is unable for years to have children, and it's only later that she has Joseph and then Benjamin and ends up dying in childbirth with Benjamin, I believe. So, you know, we see those different disappointments in their marriage relationship, and I think that just goes to more broadly talk about how we see disappointments in relationship in general, in relationships in general. So I'm kind of curious, as you think about why people struggle with disappointment, like, why is it that we get our expectations so wrong in relationships? What are we expecting them to do, I guess, that ultimately leads to that sense of disappointment? Yeah, what are we doing that leads to disappointment relationally? Well, I think it is sometimes the biggest disappointment is the idolatry piece. I think Kyle spoke about that yesterday in the sermon. It was idolatry relationally is a common cold issue. And I think it's in Luke 14 where Jesus says, unless you hate your mother, father, brother, sister, you know, for my sake you cannot follow me. So I think, I don't think Jesus is saying everybody should hate their mom and dad and their family, but he is, and even your own life

he goes on to say, he's putting that all in the same category. He's just saying the things that stand in the way of following me, if there's anything, even your relationships, then you're not fit to be my follower. And I think probably the common cold issue is relationships. Is we want somebody to love us. We want somebody to save us. Sometimes we want somebody to be the one that takes away our hurt. We want someone to be the one that takes away our own issues that we have with ourselves. We want a Savior, right? And Jesus is drawing a circle around him and saying, nobody gets that place except me. And so we can definitely misalign our relational value on to other people. And in particular, you know, in this story, it can definitely be within the context of a marriage. Guys are notorious for misaligning themselves in their relationship with their work. Women can tend to do this with their children. Yeah. It's just, it's, and then couples can do that with each other and it just puts so much pressure and tension on the relationship. Yeah. Yeah. And we absolutely see that with Rachel and Leah both because Leah, when she has, you know, her first three kids are very clearly named. I jotted it down here that, you know, Reuben is named, the Lord has seen my misery. Surely my husband will love me now. Simeon, that name means the Lord heard that I'm not loved. Levi, his name means now at last my husband will become attached to me. So there's this idea of like, she's not getting what she expects from the marriage. And so she's crushing her kids under the weight of that. Yeah. Yeah. She's even labeled them in a way that has marked them. Yeah. Your name means maybe God will love me now. Yeah. Like mom, let her know. Thanks mom. But then Rachel, I think, is it at the beginning of verse, or the beginning of chapter 30, when she realizes she can't have children,

she pleads with Jacob, you know, give me children or I'll die. And she's kind of out of whack there too, in terms of like, if I don't have this relationship, then I might as well die. Right. Which is actually, I was just reading today, just kind of an interesting side note, that's actually kind of a turn of the phrase of, I think what Esau said to Jacob when he wanted the stew, right? Like, give me this stew or I'll die. And now he has his wife coming to him, kind of saying the same thing, which I don't know what that means, but it's interesting. Yeah. Yeah. I think at the most fundamental place emotionally is that in order to be disappointed, you have to want something. So like, if you don't want anything, then you're never disappointed, which is, apathy is a great defense mechanism for guarding against disappointment. But if you're going to want something, then you run the risk of being disappointed. I think what is interesting about being a human being is, is that we're horrible predictors of what is going to fulfill us. And our wants oftentimes are misaligned or misplaced or displaced. So that's why it is always a great starting point to check, is what I want and what I long for more than anything, the Lord. And now I'm not trying to be spiritually... You know what I'm saying? Right. Yeah. Yeah. Because I don't think that it's, seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and then all these things will be added unto you. But there's no replacement for the top notch button being out of alignment. And it's like, are my affections and is my heart and is the direction of my life centered in my relationship with Him? Is this the primary attachment of my soul? And if that is the case, then we can start to evaluate what are the other desires in my heart. I don't think it's bad to want a husband, want a wife, want kids, all those types of things. But for... for your overall sense of well-being, your identity, your worth, your value, your life to flourish. If those things don't happen, that takes a while to work through. So it's painful sometimes to lose things or to give up things. But man, it's so much easier when the Lord is front and center in your life. You can start to navigate through those disappointments a lot easier.

Those are still challenging. But if God isn't there in the center of it, it's impossible. Yeah. You make me think of, I think it was Keller, Tim Keller who said this, the idea that, like particularly in marriage, that if we come into marriage expecting our spouse to take that place of God, if we have expectations that they're gonna be a God worth following, that we're gonna crush them underneath that weight, we're gonna crush our relationship underneath that weight, because it's not built to hold it. And I think that... I mean, that could be true of any relationship you think of with your parents or family of origin, with a friend. If you put so much weight on a relationship that is not meant to build that or to hold that, I mean, it's gonna crumble out from under you. Absolutely. Yes, absolutely. And the light has left at that point, and it's all darkness and two people kind of wrestling around in the dark trying to... searching for God knows what at that point, literally. And it is Him. And so, I'm not trying to pitch a fairy tale that whenever Jesus is the center of your life that your relationships are automatically going to be easy. That's not true, because Jesus calls us to do some really challenging things in our relationship. It is, though, that your relationships will be well lit, and there will be light there. And the darkness... One of my favorite verses is somewhere in Isaiah, I'm not great about quoting scripture, but somewhere in Isaiah it says, when the ways of a man please the Lord, he makes even his enemies lie down with him. And so, there is this idea that your relationships will, at minimal, your enemies will even lie down with you when you have the light living in you and when you're well lit. And at best, the people that are closest to you, there will be like a unity that is a grace-based, mercy-filled, loving relationship that will flourish.

And yeah, that's a beautiful thing. Yeah, yeah. So in terms of... We talked a lot about rooting that identity in Christ, rooting ourselves in that relationship with Him. What are some practical ways that you would encourage our Pando family to think about... What are practical tools they can use, or even scriptures they can read, what are some ways that they can help root themselves in that to keep that identity at the forefront of their minds and relationships? Yes, good question. Sometimes I start with the problem before going into the solution. So it's like sometimes evaluating where you struggle in that is a good place to start. So do I find my worth... Why do I find my worth and my value in my concept of myself in certain other things? Whether it's what... There's really... I've heard there's really only three places that you can find it, and that's in what people say, and what your attributes are, and what your performance is, or what your achievements are. And the Bible talks about that as the pride of man. And so we're supposed to die to that, which is, for some of us, is a slower death, but it's nonetheless a direction that we're taking, and we're heading there. So for me, I just evaluate where it's off, because the default as a Christian is going to be that I'm loved by God. But it's these things that infiltrate or get in the way or seep back in there that I've already died to or already surrendered that sometimes manifest themselves. So when I can identify those and just hand them over to the Lord, I don't get rid of them. I just... I go to the doctor's office and just submit myself and say, God, here it is again.

Here's what I've continued to chase after. I'm done with that. I just know how that... My ego, my sense of self kind of follow that, and I know where that leads. So that's the... you know, defining the problem and then going back to the solution. And the solution is always just continuing to take it to where the one who you were designed to, you know, have your identity. Yeah. Yeah. I love that. And, you know, it gives me a new, we were talking earlier about grace, it gives me a new appreciation for that because if, you know, Paul talks multiple times in his letters about how, you know, it's by grace you've been saved and it's not anything you've done. And I think, man, if it was by something we had done, we would always be tempted to go back to finding our identity there. Like, oh, I have, I have done this. So God loves me. And it's like all the time when we have to turn back to him, it's turning back with this knowledge of, no, I haven't done anything. Like Jesus has done this. This is who he has said I am. And I mean, it's grace all the way down. Absolutely. Yeah. It's not based on our efforts, certainly not based on what we know or all, you know, all the things that we hold in high esteem in the world, in our culture. And our culture is no different than any other culture that's ever existed. The fundamental flaws of man are still fundamentally the same, is that it goes back to pride, it goes back to ego. It's just establishing. And I think sometimes people like that are in a prison setting, like a lot of the audience that are, well, the audience that are listening have a one-up on people that are out here and living free, is that they're enslaved to the very things that Jesus has freed you all that are behind bars in. And that's, he's freed you from pride, he's freed you from your ego, he's freed you from comparing yourselves to other people, from the jealousy and the envy that kind of go along with that, and trying to build your worth and your identity on your achievements and on what other people say and the accolades that come from that. It's all rubbish. It's rubbish. There's nobody who's gone through this process and having the highest achievements and doing all these great things who comes back and says, this is where it's at. They all say the same thing, is that it's empty, you know, it didn't do it. And it's like the Bono U2 song, I still haven't found what I'm looking for, right? And there's that paradoxical kind of diminishing return thing that's going on there.

Yeah. So one final note that Kyle ended with on Sunday that I wanna end our conversation with, because I think it's such a note of grace of Jesus in the middle of it, that when Leah has her fourth son, is when she finally kind of starts to figure this out maybe a little bit, and she names him Judah, which that name is a name that means, this time I will praise the Lord, is pointing towards this idea that she's finally understanding, like, hey, my real worth is in him, and knowing and praising him. And of course, it's through Judah is the child that ultimately Messiah will come, that the Lion of the tribe of Judah is how Jesus is described in the book of Revelation. So as we think about this series, Dysfunction Junction, as we think about the trouble with Jacob's family and all that's going wrong in there, there's still this note of grace that, hey, God is working in and through this dysfunction. He is still... Right. His plans are not derailed, his purposes are not undone, that he is still working through this family to bring the Messiah, to bring Jesus onto the scene. So it's kind of a final word for our Pando family. How would you speak into that tension of, hey, even in the middle of the mess, like, God is still faithful and he's still at work? Absolutely. Yeah. I think that the word that at least comes into my head is two words, is one, it's a process. Our sanctification is, which is just a churchy word for saying how God forms your character and cleans you up and keeps at it. That's an ongoing issue, and that is going to be an issue until either we go home to see him or he returns. And so there's a process, though, even in the things that we're discussing today, as far as working through resentments you have towards family members, or bitterness, or getting your identity or your worth or your value in other places other than the Lord. That's all a process. I mean, we can take our notes today on it and then for the rest of the week find ourselves 70 times seven in a situation where we're rinsing and repeating, getting through this. So just be...receive gobs of God's grace daily. It's not perfection, we're certainly shooting for the perfect, but it is a progress issue. The other thing that stands out, the other word that was coming to my mind besides progress is sovereignty, and that God is sovereign, and He has called you,

He has chosen you, and the good work that He has started in you, He is going to see it to completion, that nothing can snatch you from the Father's hands. He is the potter, we're the clay, and He is going to continue to mold you, and I think it was George MacDonald, who is an old Christian writer, who said, God is easy to please, but He's difficult to satisfy. And it's like, yeah, He's really pleased with our efforts, but He's not going to be satisfied until He sees His good work to completion. So be rejoicing that, know that God loves you enough that He is going to continue to work on you, and just like He worked on Jacob and Rachel's issues, and He is continuing to work on His church, His bride, through all of our dysfunction. Oh, that is so good, that's so good. Thank you for sharing that, Nathan. And I love, I love, we got sovereignty and sanctification both in there, like great theological words, I love it. That's my jam, I love it, so thank you. Well, thank you for being on the podcast with us, Nathan. We really appreciate it today. So Pando family, thank you guys for joining us today as we continue on through Dysfunction Junction. Next week, we're going to be continuing on in this same series. We're going to see what happens

when Jacob literally meets God on the banks of the Jabbok River, and kind of one of the defining moments of his life. So I hope you'll join us next week as we continue on in our series, Dysfunction Junction. We'll see you all then. Bye-bye.