Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 215 | Would America Elect a Gay President?

Episode Date: February 19, 2020

Rush Limbaugh was condemned as a homophobe for saying America wouldn’t elect a gay president. But is he right? Today, we look at the data that answers that question.

Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Wednesday. I hope everyone is having a wonderful week so far. Today, we are going to talk about a few things. We are going to cover some political news, but we will be also talking about a biblical topic that I've been thinking of. A lot of you have messaged me that you miss Theology Mondays. Not as many of you, though, as those of you who have said that you really like the new format. So keep on giving me. feedback on that. You can email me. You can message me on Instagram. I see a lot of your messages, not all of your messages. Sometimes people tell me when I meet them in person, hey, I've messaged you on Instagram and I never got to reply. I promise I'm not purposely ignoring you. But I

scroll through them. So if I happen to see your message, I will click on it and I will respond to you. So please give me feedback on what you think about the new format. The new format being kind of integrating biblical topics and a biblical worldview with what's going on. and politics rather than having like Bible Mondays, politics Wednesdays and an interview Friday, trying to kind of intermingle them a little bit. Just to be more efficient and effective and more helpful to you guys. Some people have surmised that maybe I'm shying away from biblical topics because I'm scared of being controversial.

That is certainly, certainly not true. I actually enjoy much more talking about our faith and talking about Christianity and theology and those things that I do talking about politics, just to be honest, like I feel like I'm better at that. I enjoy it a lot more. I enjoy thinking about that stuff more than I do politics. But it's also my goal to keep us in the know on the things that are going on. And they're not just, it's not just petty politics. It's not just, you know, trivial happenings. These things actually have to do what they actually have to affect, they actually affect people and they actually have to do with our worldview and particularly our biblical perspective on everything that's going on. So it's important that we know what's happening,

for example, in the Democratic primary, but I will touch on a biblical topic, like I said, later. But first, before we get into any of that, you thought that I was going to read an ad. I'm not going to read an ad. That is what you get for assuming. I am going to start this show today by telling you a few announcements that we have. And so don't go through these. These are important announcements and you're going to want to hear them. So first up, relatable is hiring. We are hiring.

I've never done this on this show before, but we are looking for a producer, preferably if you have experience in producing as well as editing experience. So the ideal candidate will have shooting, editing, and producing experience by shooting, I mean camera shooting. And if you didn't know that, then you might not have that experience. and that's okay. Even if you don't have shooting and editing experience, we would still love to talk to you if you think you would make a good producer. I'll tell you. I'll just give you like a cheat sheet. I'll tell you the characteristics that I am looking for in a producer. These are the things that I care about most. There are other qualifications, of course, but these are the things that I care about most. I care most about a great attitude. So someone who is enthusiastic in their job, they're flexible, they're adaptable, they're happy to work hard for the show. I need someone to who was organized. So you pay close attention to detail. You are good at managing a schedules and logistics. And this, this is actually probably the most important one, even above a great attitude.

I need you to be trustworthy. I need you to be someone who is honest, someone who has integrity, someone who I can rely on, someone who I can trust to bounce ideas off of, someone who is going to be there. And like I said, is reliable. So integrity is probably, yes, I would say my primary qualification for this job, then great attitude, then organized, and then also proactive. So someone who is thinking of ways to make the show and the processes behind the show better and more efficient. And even going back to organize, so someone who is good at managing a bunch of different things at once and managing a bunch of logistical details at once, someone who is communicative. So you can effectively communicate with me, the production team and show guests,

personalable you can work with and communicate with a wide range of people in a way that leaves a really good impression of the show creative. So you're good at coming up with ideas, either for the show or creative videos. It also helps if you are someone who already pays attention to the news, to culture, to theological questions that you see coming up in culture. This is a full-time job. So if you think that you would be a good contender or you know someone who would be a good contender for this job, please email careers. at blazmedia.com or have your friend, whoever you think would be good for this job, email, careers at blazmedia.com with the subject line relatable. And you will need your resume, you will need

a cover letter. And then if you have a reel, make sure to attach a link to that or to include a link to that. So that's careers at blazmedia.com with the subject line relatable, resume, cover, cover letter, and reel if you have one. Second announcement, if you have a new, if you have not subscribed to my Allie Beth Stucky YouTube channel. Please do that. That would leave. That would leave. What? That would mean a lot to me. Third, my book is now available for pre-order on Amazon. The book is titled, You're Not Enough and that's okay, escaping the toxic culture of self-love. Now, that title is a little bit triggering for some people. I got some Instagram comments saying, please explain how self-love is toxic. And I said, well,

I just wrote a whole book on it. So you're in luck. You can pre-order via link and profile. So make sure that you pre-order that. If you so desire, you can read the description as well on Amazon. That would mean a lot to me. You can buy some for your friends, for your mom, for your daughter, for your sister. It comes out just in time for Mother's Day on May 5th.

But you can pre-order now and make sure that you get it right on time. I'm so excited about it. It has been a long labor of love. and you guys just being who you are listening to this podcast have helped a lot in helping create the content for the book. It is under Catholic self-help on Amazon. I have no idea why it is categorized that way because it is not Catholic and it is not self-help. Although if you are Catholic, you're still going to really like the book. I'm just not Catholic. And so I don't know why it is filed under that. And considering that I just got a podcast review, a very sweet podcast

review calling my podcast Protestant nonsense and telling me that I'm going to hell. I don't think that I can be properly categorized as a Catholic self-help author. However, I love my Catholic listeners and you and I talk about our disagreements a lot. And I appreciate how much in common we have and that you listen, despite maybe some of our theological disagreements. You'll still love the book. Any way, those are all of the announcements that I have. We are going to get into the the latest in some political news, and that's going to segue us into a cultural conversation about gay marriage. Everyone loves talking about this controversial subject, and then I will end with some biblical thoughts that I've been having for you ladies. Okay, the Nevada caucus is on,

no, I said November 22nd on here. Nope, it is February 22nd. Now, remember the last time we had a caucus in Iowa, and that was crazy. We didn't find out the results of that for a few days because the app that they used to gather and calculate the results of the caucus failed them miserably. And we all laughed about that. I mean, it was sad, but we laughed about that because we were like, okay, this is the party that's saying that they should take over our health care system and they can't even handle the first caucus, like the first competition in this primary that they have been waiting for and preparing for for years ever since Donald Trump took office. But according to the Washington Post, campaigns are already saying that they're afraid

the process is going to be chaotic in Nevada and that they don't trust that this is going to go well. So that's great. Not a whole lot of faith in the Democratic primary in the Democratic Party right now. The latest poll, though, out of Nevada has Sanders leading the field. We don't have a whole lot of polling, but the latest poll that we do have says that Sanders is leading as he did in both Iowa and New Hampshire. Bernie Sanders or Joe Biden, I believe, is in second place in the polling with Elizabeth Warren coming in third. and then Pete Buttigieg coming in after that. So again, it is looking more and more likely that Bernie Sanders will win the Democratic nomination.

We spent a lot of time on Monday talking about Bernie Sanders and some of his plans, particularly his health care plan and the problems with that, also the problems with our current health care system. At least we cover that just a little bit, very lightly the problems with it. But you can go back to Monday's podcast and listen to that. I also did an entire podcast episode labeled health care or named health care. You can type in relatable health care on, you know, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast. You can look at it on my YouTube channel as well and you can watch it there.

So I won't go into all of that too much. But we can see that it's not just conservatives that are freaking out about the possibility of having a socialist actually be the president of the United States or be the Democratic nominee. But it's also Democrats that are worried about that. You've got Democratic political pundits talking about how bad socialism would be for the country. and I think they mean that. I think they really do see the damage that socialism has reeked on the countries that it has ruled that that have implemented socialism. And they say, okay, we don't really want that. And I think they're afraid that the country isn't ready for socialism.

Most of the country isn't ready for socialism. So Donald Trump might actually win. And of course, they're terrified by that. They've been working very hard for the past few years to make sure that it is not a possibility at all for Donald Trump. to win. And guess what, though? Guess what? The media, as scared as they might be of Bernie Sanders, they have brought us here. And they're going to have no option but to support Bernie Sanders when he is the nominee because they hate Donald Trump so much. The media helped move the Overton window to the point to where we're like, yeah, it's a possibility. It's a possibility for us to elect a socialist

as the president of the United States. It's not that crazy anymore. Many in the media have themselves, or they do hold this attitude of metropolitan anti-American elitism, that patriotism just isn't trendy anymore, that it's not cool to say that America is the greatest country in the world, that it's actually very posh to say that America is this fundamentally bad and corrupt place, something else that we talked about on Monday's podcast and why that's just an inaccurate, objectively wrong position to hold. They've at least felt this way and articulated this kind of view in some ways overtly, in some ways more subtly since George W.'s presidency, but a lot of people would probably say

before that. They bowed down at the feet of Barack Obama all eight years that he was president. Barack Obama normalized apologizing for American strength. He popularized identity politics. He then helped usher in an era of intense tribalism. Now, you might say, and the media like to say, that our country only became polarized when Trump took office, but nothing could be further from the truth. Democrats, according to every study that is available, namely the study that I cite a lot, the Pew Research Study, Polarization and Politics from October 2017, you can see the policy positions of the left and the social positions of the left of the Democratic Party that have moved further and further to the left over the past 10 years especially, but longer than that, over the past 20 to 30

years. We have two fundamentally different views of America now. Conservatives and Republicans have not become more conservative, not really, maybe barely on a few issues, but they like to say the left likes to say, oh, Republicans are crazy now. They're such extremists. They're such bigots. Well, we just hold to the same views that we have held for a very long time. It's the left that's actually become more extreme, especially over the past five to 10 years. So the tribalism, the polarization that we have right now, the two fundamentally different views of America did not start with Donald Trump. The media loved to say that, that before Donald Trump, everything was all peaceful. We all got along.

We treated people with a sense of respect and dignity. We could look to the other side of the aisle and say, you know what? We share some kind of core value. But even though we disagree on policy, no, that's not true. I wouldn't even say it started with Barack Obama, but it might have started with Barack Obama. And it was definitely, for sure, exacerbated under Barack Obama's presidency. tensions between races, genders, classes, generations. They have always existed, but have they gotten worse in some ways than they had been in recent decades under Barack Obama?

Yes, of course. And the media, as Democratic lapdogs have helped put us in a place where electing a socialist who once said when he was an adult in office that he doesn't actually mind being called a communist, they have made it possible for us to actually consider electing a president who, who is an outspoken socialist. And now the media, many of them are like, uh-oh, we didn't mean to go that far. We didn't mean to do that. Oh, yeah, we're kind of beneficiaries of capitalism.

We wanted to just, you know, maybe reform capitalism. We didn't want to overthrow it. We didn't want to overthrow everything in our country. Well, too late. Too late. Here we are. I hope you enjoyed your free speech and freedom of the press. Hope that was fun for you.

That stuff doesn't really fly in a socialist nation. Anywho, I want to say something. I want to pick up where we left off on Monday's podcast because I talked about why I don't think right now Pete Buttigieg is electable. And as it turns out, there has been a news story that has been going around for the past few days. I think it was at the end of last week that it was going around on Twitter and leftist media. We're talking about this. How Rush Limbaugh said on his radio show that he does not think that Pete Buttigieg is electable. And the reason why we're talking about Pete Buttigieg is because he performed very well,

surprisingly well, in my opinion, in the first two primaries, the Iowa caucus and then the second primary that he did very well at New Hampshire for just one second. In the New Hampshire primary, he did very well. And so we're talking about him because he is a serious contender. I don't think in the long run, but he is a serious contender for the nomination. And so it's important to ask the question whether or not he could beat Donald Trump. if you're a Democrat, that's what you're asking. If you're a Republican, that's what you're asking too.

I don't think it's possible. Even though I've said Pete Buttigieg is very likable. He is very compelling if you're a Democrat. He is very sophisticated. And so in that way, he's seen kind of as like an opposite of Donald Trump. Rich white liberals love Pete Buttigieg because they like this kind of well-educated hoity-toity, posh, metropolitan, elitist guy. And that is who Pete Buttigieg is.

and I completely see his appeal if you are that kind of person. I really do. Like, I think that he comes across as very attractive if you have that kind of mindset, if you have that kind of worldview, and even if you're just a neutral person. So back to what Rush Limbaugh said. I know I kind of left it off, but Rush Limbaugh said this on his radio show that caused all kinds of controversy in the Twitterverse and in leftist media. He said, despite all the great ground that's been covered, America is still not ready to elect a gay guy kissing his husband on the debate stage for president. Now, people were very up in arms about this saying, wow, this is homophobic. Pete Buttigieg that I'm not taking lessons from, you know, Rush Limbaugh on family values

or anyone who supports Donald Trump. People are saying, of course, that this was, you know, the worst, most homophobic thing that Rush Limbaugh could have possibly said. Now, is what he said a little crude when he said people aren't ready to elect a gay guy kissing his husband on the debate stage. Is it a little crude? Is it maybe a little crass for some people? Yes, I could definitely see that, but that is just kind of Rush Limbaugh's way. He doesn't cut corners. He is blunt. He says what he is thinking. And that's why people like Rush Limbaugh. But is this statement homophobic? Well, no, because Rush Limbaugh didn't even say himself. As far as I can tell,

I didn't listen to it. I'm just reading a part of the transcript that is being reported on. of this particular quote that I am reading that is being reported on is homophobic. I don't see how that's homophobic because Rush Limbaugh didn't say that he's not ready for a gay president. He didn't say that. He just had most of the country as it. Now you've got politicians on the right and the left saying, oh, that's not true. That's a, that's a miscalculation of the American public that people don't care about sexual orientation anymore. You had Lindsay Graham say, oh, no, that's a miscalculation. People don't think your sexual orientation is going to disqualify you. And of course, you've got democratic politicians saying, oh, this is just,

this is the immorality of the Trump administration. This is just where we are. People are so hateful and homophobic and all of that. Now, the question is, objectively, let's like remove our emotions from this a little bit. Objectively, is Rush Limbaal right? Is the country not ready for a gay president? for a president who is not just gay but is married to a gay man. Is the country ready for that? Unfortunately, we let emotions cloud our view so much when it comes to these conversations, especially when it comes to things like gay marriage, that we aren't able to look at data and say, okay, well, maybe, maybe not.

So I wanted to look and see how the country actually feels about gay marriage, because what we hear on a daily basis, pretty much, from pop culture, from social media is that everyone, everyone, especially everyone who's on the right side of history is fine with gay marriage. They're totally down with it. They would go to a gay wedding. They would celebrate it. They think it's just as holy and fine as heterosexual marriage. Everyone in the country, except for maybe 1% of the country, isn't okay with that. But according to this poll by Pew Research from May 2019, that's actually not true.

True. So Pew Research looks at the change of attitudes about gay marriage since 2001, found that 61% support it today. So that's probably lower than what you thought. Sixty one percent support gay marriage today. So a pretty good percentage of the country actually doesn't even support gay marriage. What a lot of people say is such a basic fundamental right, we're over that. A huge percentage of the country still doesn't support gay marriage. But it still is a huge jump that's 61%, a huge jump from 2001. So in 2001, only 35% supported gay marriage. Most people obviously did not support it.

So huge change. But the biggest change in favorability towards gay marriage among Americans happened from 2016 to 2017 after Obergefell happened, the Supreme Court case that said, yes, this is a constitutional right that gay people should be able to get married. So I also just want to note what we were talking about earlier that the left changed so much in their social and policy positions, not just over the past 20 to 30 years, but particularly when Barack Obama was president, those eight years is really when the left moved so far to the left. And that's true as well about gay marriage. So from 2001 to 2009, the percentage of people in America who approved of gay marriage went up only 2%. Only 2%. So from 35% and in 2001 to 37% in 2009. Very little change in how people felt about gay marriage. Well, that number went up from 37% to 62% over the next eight years. So from 2009 to 2017 went from 37% to 62%. So if you look at the data, every social position, not just gay marriage, has had this trajectory under Barack

Obama's presidency, especially over the past 10 years, including even Trump's presidency. So if you get the feeling that all of this, especially the sexual revolution, is changing very quickly, you are correct. So only five seconds ago, all of the people that are telling you that you're a bigot for holding to the age-old definition of marriage is between a man and a woman, that all of those people that are saying that you're a bigot for believing that, they also believed that very recently. You are not crazy for thinking that this has changed really fast. The fact is there's a good chunk of Americans who still think this way, who still are not on a board with gay marriage. So for Rush Limbaugh to say, you know, America's just not ready for that.

It's not homophobic. All he is doing is going back to what the data actually says, and I'm going to read that to you. So, let's break this down. We've already said the 61% of the country is for it, which means a large percentage is not for it still, even though that is a good majority, a large majority of people. In 2019, only 44% of Republicans approve of it. And, 75% of Democrats. So most Democrats, the vast majority of Democrats, approve of gay marriage. But that is a pretty big percentage of Democrats who don't approve of gay marriage in 2019. So a quarter of Democrats still don't approve of gay marriage. Democrats are the people that are going to be voting for people to judge.

And maybe they would get over that to vote against Donald Trump. But you've got a quarter of Democrats who are not for gay marriage. We're not even saying just against homosexuality, but are not for gay marriage. A quarter of Democrats still aren't on board with that. By religion, 79% of the religiously unaffiliated support gay marriage, 66% of white mainline Protestants. Only 44% of black Protestants are on board with gay marriage. 29% of white evangelical Protestants. That is always consistently the most conservative on any issue. I think I meant to include Catholics in this and I accidentally dropped them off.

But also interesting to note, according to this poll, that the more regularly you attend church, the less likely you are to support gay marriage. Just interesting. By generation, 74% of millennial support gay marriage, 58% of Generation X. So that drops off a lot of 51% of Baby Boomers supported. 45% of silent generation.

So that is like our grandparents generation. And here's the kicker. Let's go by race. And here's the thing that I don't think a lot of people in the media and a lot of Democratic politicians who are always, Democratic politicians and people in the media are always a little more, if not a lot more liberal than the rest of the country, especially the people in the middle of the country, even who identify as Democrats. So by race, 62% of white people are for gay marriage. By far the more the most liberal demographic. 62% of white people are for gay marriage. of 58% of Hispanics, 51% of black people. Black people, as we know, make up a key demographic for Democrats.

They, I think it's like 90% typically of the black vote. The Democrats usually get, well, 49% of black people in May 2019 said that they are not okay with gay marriage. So guess what? Black people who typically, as we've already said, vote Democrat and this poll doesn't point out, but many Muslims who also typically vote Democrat are still opposed to gay marriage. A large portion of the country is still opposed to gay marriage, not a majority, but a large portion, and an even larger portion of black people are not okay with gay marriage.

And I am just assuming that that's probably true of many Muslims who at least are personally conservative when it comes to marriage. So they poll as opposed to gay marriage. Democrats do not want to admit this because their current brand of leftism paints their side as this broad coalition of marginalized people, marching arm in arm, this intersectional group that has, you know, all hands on deck to defeat Donald Trump and white nationalism. When that's not the case, they're not united on every woke issue that they claim to be united on. And I think, I think that the DNC probably knows this.

I think that the Democratic establishment, as much as they don't want to admit that a key voter group, black voters, aren't on board with electing a gay president. I think they know this even if they don't want to admit this. And I think that's going to be tough. I think that's going to be an obstacle for Pete Buttigieg. Because as much as Democrats, as much as the liberal media, they want to raise their hands and say, wow, this is just so terrible that Rush Limbaugh would say something like this. They just don't want to face the fact that a lot of Americans just aren't okay with it still.

Now, I will say five to ten years, I think it's no problem. Like if we keep going in the same direction that we've been going socially and we do get more and more progressive as far as people's social stances go. And, you know, by progressive, I mean leftist, then I think in five to ten years, like that won't be an issue. I think someone like Pete Buttigieg or any other gay candidate would be able to get the nomination. But today, there are still too many people, too many Democrats even, that are not okay with gay marriage, that just that wouldn't vote for Pete Buttigieg. So of course, Rush Limbaugh is right and people pretending, people virtue signaling about that are just missing the point. This is not

even an indictment on Pete Buttigieg, the people who are pointing out that he's probably not electable for this reason. It's not homophobic to point out. You can say too many of the country, too much of the country is homophobic. You could make that accusation if you want to make that, but it's not homophobic to point out the fact that there are a lot of people who are just not for gay marriage and a lot of Democrats. Okay. So I just wanted to say that. Like, I know that's a hot take. I know this is probably going to cause controversy. I don't know what you want me to say. You can go and you can look at this Pew Research poll if you don't believe me, but it's just true. So I don't think that Pete Buttigieg is going to be the nominee. I just don't, even though he's doing well,

even though I get his appeal at the end of maybe 10 years, he'll be able to do it. I just don't think he's going to be able to do it right now. I think that it's going to be Bernie Sanders, as crazy as that is, as many problems as we have with that. Okay. That's all I wanted to talk about when it comes to when it comes to the election and primaries. And that's all of the analysis that I have for you on that today. Now, I want to totally switch gears, talk about something that has nothing to do with what we were just talking about and we don't have too much time left. But my husband and I were having this conversation the other day. Oh, by the way, happy birthday to me. This is the first time you're listening to 28-year-old Ali Suckie on Relatable Podcasts. Well, my husband was asking me,

you know, what would your ideal day be? I guess in light of my birthday that was coming up. What would your ideal day be? What would you want to do? And I was thinking about that. and it's more of a feeling that I was trying to articulate than something that I would want to do. Like, I'm not a very adventurous person. I don't necessarily want to go travel. I don't have a desire really to go shopping. I would much rather online shop if I have to shop for something. There's not really, I don't, you know, want to go hiking or camping or something like that.

Those are all fine things. But I would not say that those are my, that's my ideal day. And so the things I said, I'm a very simple person. I want to feel accomplished at the end of the day, like I did a hard day's work, like I checked off the boxes, all the boxes that I could check, that I have a clean house and to be able to sit down with my family and eat a good meal, watch a good TV show, maybe read a good book at some point that day, but feel like I have my ducks in a row. And I realize that one of the reasons why that's such a deep desire for me is, A, because I love control and I want to be able to control all of the factors that could possibly make my day go wrong. I don't like distractions, even though I'm a very naturally distracted person, probably should get that checked out, but I'm just going to manage it as I've been doing for

the past 28 years of my life. And I want to feel fulfilled. Like, I want to feel satisfied. I want to feel satisfied. And I started thinking about that. It wasn't supposed to be this introspective, profound conversation that my husband and I were having. I'm pretty sure if he was just like, what restaurant would you want to go to for your birthday. But I started thinking about what that feeling inside of me indicates and what that yearning inside of me indicates this feeling of deep satisfaction and accomplishment and fulfillment and to have everything be in its place. So this desire that I have, this yearning that I have for both satisfaction and control, and that to me characterizes my ideal day and how often I forget that for the Christian,

the privilege that we have and the access that we have is to unconditional joy and satisfaction and the feeling of fulfillment that I am longing for so much and that I try to seek as a Christian that I try to seek in all of these outside factors that I realize that that ideal day that I described to my husband is the day that I am trying to. to have every day and failing to have. Like I so badly want to have everything controlled. I want to have everything organized. I want to get everything done on my to do list.

I want to make sure that I am a great mom and a good wife and a great podcast host. And that I am delivering all of the things that I need to deliver. And the house is perfectly organized and clean. And I've worked out and done all of the things that I possibly need to do to feel like a complete person. And I also realized that all of that, that pursuit that I have on a daily basis and why sometimes I end the day with anxiety and I end the day with sadness and I end the day with restlessness because I feel like I still have like fuel left in the tank.

I still have things that are left and I'm not comfortable going to bed yet. Like that restlessness that I feel is a worldly restlessness that we see reflected in what I've called many times the toxic culture of self-love that tells you that if you just do these things, like if you just check these things off your box, then you can finally love yourself. You can finally be okay with yourself. You can finally serve yourself enough with the things that you want and the things that you want to accomplish that you will be able to love yourself into success, into fulfillment. And I've realized that access and the privilege that we have as Christians is that we have. We have that at the end of the day. We have that throughout all.

seconds of the day, like we have access to unconditional fulfillment that is not found in ourselves, that's not found in a checklist that's not found in accomplishments that is found in Jesus Christ alone, and how sweet and precious and gracious is it for Jesus to call himself the bread of life, for Jesus to call himself the living water, for him to be the well that never runs dry, because he knows the deep desire of all of our hearts is to be satisfied. Isn't that what you desire? Isn't that what I desire really when I describe my ideal day? I want to be satisfied.

And the fact of the matter is the self can't deliver on that. None of the accomplishments that we try to achieve throughout the day, no checklist that's been checked off, no amount of weight that we lose, no amount of organization or cleaning that we do will ever fill that deep desire that we have. in our hearts and Jesus knows that and he says come to me those of you who are weary and I will give you rest I will lift your burdens my yoke is easy and my burden is light and how sweet and profound it is

to know that Jesus the savior of the universe our savior provides the thing that we are truly longing for a deep and abiding joy and satisfaction so I don't have to fret like I don't have to be restless I don't have to be anxious and worried at the end of the day that I haven't done enough in order to be satisfied. That doesn't give me an excuse to be lazy. Of course, I'm trying to be a good steward of the time and the resources and any gifts that God has given me. But I don't have to worry about meeting these arbitrary standards of busyness and fulfillment in order to be satisfied. And so we talk a lot about the dangers of over-introspection, a lot about the dangers of value. dating all of your feelings because not all of your feelings are valid despite what the toxic

culture of self-love wants to tell you. But it is important to take stock of our feelings and to ask ourselves, I think sometimes, not all the time, but sometimes why we feel a certain way. And the answer that I gave to my husband that turned into this like longer and deeper and more complex conversation was I so deeply desire peace and satisfaction and joy at the end of the day and I find myself tossing and turning at night restless about the things that I haven't done or haven't accomplished or haven't done well are like, you know, the pieces that are still just not tie neatly together in my life. And I've realized that it's just going to be, if that is my pursuit of satisfaction, it's going to be whackable for the rest of my life. I whack something down

and something else pops up. And that is precisely why. That is precisely why it is such a deep and destructive lie, that you can solve all of your problems, that if you believe in yourself, you can accomplish anything, that if you go down this path of self-fulfillment and self-love and self-care, that you finally are going to find success and inner peace, like, why do you think all of the people that you know that are obsessed with self-love are constantly saying that they found a different solution, a new solution for all of their problems. They felt a new energy shift that they've never felt before. They found this new yoga pose, like this new crystal, this new book, this new mantra, this new motivation. Every week it seems like there's, oh,

there's just been this new revelation that I've had that's completely changed my life. Well, obviously, it didn't last very long and obviously it didn't satisfy you because you're on to the next thing, you know, five minutes later. And thank God that in Christ we have. this abiding peace, abiding peace, abiding contentment, abiding satisfaction that all of our souls so deeply long for, and cannot find in ourselves, it cannot find in the outside world. So I hope that gives you something to think about. And if it does, feel free to message me and to give me your thoughts and feelings about that. But as a birthday wish, that was what I wanted. And I realized that because of God's grace, I already have that. I already have that in Christ. And so do all of you

who are in Christ. And we don't have to run the rat race that everyone else is running towards self-love and self-fulfillment because that ain't it. Okay, that's all I have for you. Today, I will be back here on Friday with an interview. And I hope that you guys have a great couple of days until I talk to you next time.