The Lie That's Keeping You Stuck | Exodus 10 | Crossroads Daily

Somebody who's not impressed with you is the best person. That is, that's right. To tell you the truth. That's right. That's right. Not impressed with you and loves you. That's right. That's right. That's right. Not impressed with you and for you. That's a very important caveat. This is the Crossroads Daily. No experts, no perfect people, just honest conversations about what happens when the Bible shows up in real life. All right, welcome back to Crossroads Daily. My name is Caleb. I'm Dani. I'm Josh. I'm Arturo. We are in Exodus chapter 10. The plagues are, we're climbing uphill. We're almost to the peak of the plagues, right? We have two more plagues today. We have locusts and then a plague of darkness. I think, and my scripture says it's darkness that can be felt. My translation, darkness that can be felt. Where is the darkest place you have been? Not emotionally, I mean physically. Let's not get too deep or too fast. You just couldn't see in front of you and what was that disorienting? What was that like for you? Last week I was in Honduras and we were in some villages in some mountains, like four hours away from civilization, from light, from literal street lights. We got back late and we were for at least an hour in complete darkness because there's no city lights. There's no light. I mean everyone's sleeping at this point because once the sun sets there's no light. We're going to bed. We were driving in that. I literally couldn't tell where we were going. I couldn't see the mountainside we were driving in. I couldn't see what was behind me or what was ahead. Whatever the headlights could give is all we could see. I couldn't even see the person next to me. Wow. That was dark. That's crazy. Yeah. I was thinking about a time I was in Mammoth Cave. I mean like a cave I think is the darkest that I can get, right? Because there's not even headlights. There's not even starlight. There's no moon or nothing and you just have, I mean, you could do this and you wouldn't see it. It's super disorienting what you're saying. So one of the things that stuck out to me from this chapter is after the plague of locusts, Pharaoh's officials come to him and they're like, dude we're being demolished. Can you just let them go? And Pharaoh says, nah, because I'm right. So he's got people in his corner trying to tell him the truth and he's like pushing them off. He's giving them the Heisman, whatever, right? I think about it like it being the worst day in Cincinnati with the cicadas. Times a hundred thousand. Cicadas suck. If you've never met a cicada. I like them. I like them. Who's somebody that comes to mind for you that is a truth teller in your life that helps push you in the right direction? Whether you stiff arm them or not, they're trying to do the right thing to sharpen you. My wife, the most honest person in my life.

The beautiful thing about my wife is she is not impressed by me anymore after over 30 years of being together. She's not impressed and she's the one person in my life I don't have to perform for and she is sometimes painfully honest, but she is the truth teller in my life. It's awesome and terrible. I feel you. My husband is the same. His delivery is terrible. He's like a baseball bat. Yeah, but he definitely will deliver truth and it's in love. He just doesn't. His delivery just needs a little bit of work. My wife is the female version of your husband. I'm serious. It's just no holds barred. I'm going to tell you exactly what it is and I'm sorry if it hurts and my wife is amazing. I would say my daughter is painfully optimistic. When we're in hard situations she will say, it's dark here. I hope we can see soon. I'm like, me too. Or like, this is hard. I'm hot. This hurts. I'm like, yeah, it does. Maybe not forever. I'm like, it won't be forever, right? That's a long time. I'm like, yeah, but it'll feel like it. But I mean, you're right. I can't say you're wrong to her. I love the optimism, but I say painful because I'm like, not really what I want to hear right now, but I guess yes, true. I'd say my daughter. Totally. And I second all of that. Somebody who's not impressed with you is the best person to tell you the truth. That's right. Not impressed with you and loves you. That's right. That's right. Not impressed with you and for you. That's a very important caveat. So we see Pharaoh. Pharaoh's just waffling back and forth. And we get to the point now where he's like, okay, I'll let you go. And then he's like, Like, no, no, no, never mind, right? So as soon as he gets relief from the pressure, he changes his mind back. And he's like, nope, nevermind. So there's a huge saying-doing gap for Pharaoh. He says something, but does the opposite, right? How do you close that gap in your life? Closing the saying-doing gap. I think the people, like our wives and our daughters, help us do that, for sure. What else can we do to have our words and our actions be in alignment?

Well, I mean, I think it begins with honesty with yourself. Honesty with the things in your life that you aren't being honest with other people about. The biggest obstacle I have had in the saying-doing gap in my life is hiding. Hiding whatever shortcoming, whatever thing in my life that I know is not good. I'm a king hider, guys. I can hide from anybody. So blatant, painful honesty keeps me from just being in the sort of saying world. If it's possible to say it, and do it, and walk away, that's what I'm always hoping can happen. Where it's like, yes to whatever, and then do it right there, then there's no gap. And even if there is, I try to just walk away from it as soon as I do it. So I look for the possibility of whatever I say, let me just do it, and let me walk away. Otherwise, if you give me enough time, I'm going to retract it. I don't know. I try to see how I could close the gap in literally saying it, and then doing it, and then being done. And I have to walk away. If I walk back, and you give me permission to open up that door again, I may change my mind. So I physically have to walk away or go away. And the further I am, even if I think, actually, maybe not. It's too far away.

I'm lazy. I purposely try to get so far away. I'm like, I already did it. I don't even want to go back and undo it. Yeah, I mean, I think for me, it triggers a thought of just acting as fast as possible. Yeah. Like after I say it, let's start taking action. I was reading Ruth the other day, the story of Ruth. And Boaz, who is like one of the most stellar dudes in the Old Testament. Top five. He goes to find out if he's going to marry Ruth or not. And Ruth's mother-in-law says, Boaz will not rest until he takes care of this today. That hit me, because if you ask my wife, there is a list a mile long of things I said I was going to do, and I haven't done yet, or I haven't finished. I have so many half-finished projects at the house. Right? Just waiting for me to get that drywall, or just waiting for me to get the paint, and just haven't gone to the store yet, because it wasn't convenient. If you say you're going to do it, then do it. And I tried to put that in action the other week. My kids, we have a shoe closet at our house. I don't know if you have a shoe closet or not, but it is chaos.

There's shoes everywhere. Like, even though there's a bucket, they're not even in the bucket. They're like, and they're not matches. Like, one's in here and one's over there. It doesn't even make sense. My wife has asked me for forever to make a little shoe rack, right? And I was like, you know what? I was thinking about Boaz. It was Saturday, like 10 a.m. I'm going to make a freaking shoe rack. I had some old wood, and I put it together. It was not easy. Okay? I had to go back and trim a little bit off, because it wouldn't fit into the closet. Like, three times. It was so frustrating, right? But I finally got it done. It took way longer than it should have taken, but I got something done. It's not pretty. It's like the paint. It's three different colors of paint. It's like, whatever, but it does the job. And honestly, like, I was happy with myself, because I said I was going to do something, and I got it done, even though it was difficult. So, your thoughts?

I think, so for me, growing up in our household, it was, if you say it, you do it. There was no question around it. It's like, if you say it, you do it. And so, throughout my entire life, that's just what I've done. There's another side to that coin that's not great, and that is also getting, like, your performance wrapped up in it, your identity wrapped up. I do what I say I'm going to do. I am, you can rely on me, you know? And so, I have to be really careful to, like, not rest my identity in that. Yeah. My growing up was the exact opposite. No one in my house was honest. There was no one you could depend on. And so, like, for me, like, I learned, all you have to do is say you're going to do something, and people will leave you alone. Like, yeah, just say you're going to do it. But not until, like, I met my wife. Did I learn that being a person of your word was important? I was like, what? You don't just say things and then, I mean, that was just a part of my life. You know, you don't have to trust anyone. No one's gonna, no one's gonna do what they say they're gonna do anyway, so. It was the perfect opportunity to take some time to self-reflect honestly, be honest with yourself about yourself. Where is there a saying doing gap in your life? And then what can you do today to close that gap, right? Make the phone call, build the shoe rack, book the appointment with the doctor, whatever you said you were gonna do that you haven't done yet. Go ahead and do that. Put it into action. I think your faith will grow as a result. We'll see you next time. You know, another option is you could just show, you know, throw the shoes away.

I don't know why my kids need so many shoes. I have one pair. It works every day. And you don't wear them.