Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 265 | Police Shootings, COVID-19 Injustice, and the Weight of the World

Episode Date: June 19, 2020

Does Garrett Rolfe deserve to be charged with felony murder for killing Rayshard Brooks? What would it mean to defund the police? With the recent Atlanta police shooting and the constant news about the violence, riots, the liberal agenda, and the injustice around COVID-19, we can often feel weighed down, but you can localize your care and your attention to make a real difference.

Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Friday. I hope everyone has had a great week. Usually we do an interview on Friday, but you guys got an interview on Monday and on Wednesday this week. And so we are doing something a little bit different. I want to cover some news stories that have gone on this week, at least at the beginning of the week and tell you my thoughts on them. So it's going to be a little bit more casual, a little bit looser than usual. We also have some awesome interviews going on. next week that you guys are going to love. I'm actually going to be on vacation. And so we pre-recorded those. And they're going to be really, really insightful conversations. And I know you guys are going to love them. But I want to give you some news insight today since we've kind of been stepping away from some of the contentious issues that have been going on. If you're interested in knowing my thoughts and the analysis of the Supreme Court case that was just decided, make sure you go listen to Wednesday's podcast. I got a ton of questions about that on Instagram, but we covered that on Wednesday. And so please make sure that you go and you check that out if you're interested. So first,

I want to talk about this Atlanta shooting that happened. So there is a 27-year-old named Richard Brooks, who was shot and killed by police officers in Atlanta. And this is erupting, maybe not as intensely, but it's erupting along kind of the same line and the same narrative as the George Floyd shooting. of course, saying that all cops are bad, that this cop used disproportionate force, and that this was an instance of injustice. And of course, the understood narrative is that this was racialized injustice, that because he was a black man killed by a white police officer, that this was an instance of not just individual racism, but as the narrative goes, systemic racism. Windies, the Wendy's where this occurred was actually lit on fire after this happened. The day after

this happened, not by a member of Black Lives Matter, by the way, but actually by some white activist, maybe a member of Antifa, maybe not. And of course, this was in protest what happened to Rayshard Brooks. But we should ask ourselves if what happened in this scenario is the same as what happened with George Floyd before we jump on board. I mean, I already saw some people, some Christians that I follow jumping on board and saying, you know, justice for him, not actually knowing exactly what happens. Now, before I show you some of the video, I will say that when I first heard about this, read about this and saw at least one angle of the video, that I thought, this is wrong. This is wrong. So I'll tell, I'll narrate what happens before I show you the video for those of you who are not

watching on YouTube. So this guy was in the Wendy's Drive-Thru line reportedly and he was asleep because he was under the influence. So we're not talking about in the parking lot. We're talking about actually in the Wendy's drive-through line. So people were having to go around him. Someone at Wendy's called the police, which is normal. You've got a drunk guy sitting in the car and the car won't move and he's actually in the drive-through line. They don't know what he's going to do. And of course, if he is in a car that was just previously moving, that means that he is probably going to be driving drunk and that poses a risk to everyone's life that is around him and that will be encountering him on the road. So whoever called the police did the right thing. The police show up and you see them having a conversation

that was very cordial, that was very polite. It was obvious that he was intoxicated. He said that he had had a few drinks. He does the breathalyzer. He's over the limit. He does, they do the field sobriety test. He fails the field sobriety test. And they arrest him because he is drunk driving.

Now, a lot of people say, oh, well, he was parked. No, he was parked in the drive-through line, not in a parking spot. But even if he were parked in a parking spot and he were in his car, that would still, there would still be a reason, at least for concern there, because you don't know when he's going to leave. Is he going to drive drunk? And then, like we already said, is that going to threaten the life of someone else? So there's still a dangerous threat here in someone being in their car while they are drunk. But he was in the drive-through line. So the police tried to arrest him. They put his hands behind his back and they go to arrest him. Well, he resists arrest. He tries to flail around, get down on the

ground. He actually manages to basically overpower them. And then he runs away. They try to taste him. and they actually yell first, I'm going to tase you. And so they try to tase him. And he grabs the taser of one of the officers. He turns around to run, but then he turns back around. And he tries to tase one of the officers. And that is when, sadly, very sadly, he gets shot and killed. So this is obviously not the same situation as George Floyd, where Derek Chauvin

pressed his knee into his neck until he later died, which is pretty obvious. like there's no second side to the story there and we all collectively, yeah, said that was wrong. Of course, it became contentious and splintered and divided when the political narrative surrounding what to do and what the heart behind that crime was. That's when things kind of blew up and we no longer agreed anymore, unfortunately. But with this case, it's obviously different. He stole an officer's weapon. He tried to injure an officer. And now let me say that when I first saw this video and when I first heard about it, I thought that, you know, this is, did he really have to shoot and kill him?

Like, was this really necessary? A taser isn't a deadly weapon. But let me play you the video and then I'll tell you how my thoughts have, have evolved a little bit based on what I know now. Will you take a brilliant breath test for me? It's yes or no. I don't want to refuse anything. It's yes or no.

It's completely up to you. Yes, I will. Okay, just wait here while I grab. Thanks. You don't remember what kind of drinks that one? No, sir. All right. I read it home, Mr.

All right. I think you've had too much to drink to be dry. I put your hands on your back for me. Put your hands by your back. So that was just a little bit of the video. But you saw that, I mean, the police were very calm, tried to do the right thing. And he was very polite as well. Like, he was very calm in their conversation.

But they had to put him under arrest. You can't just let a guy go who is going to drunk, drunkenly drive and risk the lives of other people. I mean, when he resisted arrest, they tried to overpower him physically. They tried to tase him. It does seem like this police officer used his gun as the final solution. Now, in my, I would say probably naivete, my first reaction was, do you really have to kill a guy who has a taser? I mean, because I want cops to use proportionate force. I do not want cops to use disproportionate force. I am not someone who believes that cops should just are just free to do whatever they want to. I don't think most people believe that. But I am not automatically someone who is always going to take the

side of the police officer. I think there are some people like that. That is not my knee-jerk reaction, actually. You know, some people think that, oh, conservatives think one way, liberals think another way. That is not my knee-jerk reaction. My reaction is always a sadness and heartbreak over the loss of life. I always want to do everything possible to preserve people's lives, even the life of someone who was doing something wrong. So my first knee-jerk reaction was that was wrong. That shouldn't have happened. He was running away. The cop shouldn't have shot him. But as I've talked to police officers, as I've seen more video footage and as I've learned about it, I mean, a taser is incapacitating. So if he had turned around and he had shot these police officers with the taser and they were incapacitated and he

is running around with this taser drunk, we don't know what else he could do. And he already demonstrated that he is willing and able to steal a police officer's weapon. So he could have just as easily taken the police officer's gun as well. And then, of course, not only their lives would have been in danger, but the lives of other people who came in contact with Rayshard Brooks. So a lot of people are saying most police officers that we are seeing, and a lot of people, even on both sides of the issue, are saying, okay, this is not the same as George Floyd.

This was actually a justified shooting. Now, do I wish in an ideal world that police officers wouldn't have to shoot to kill in these situations? Of course I do. Like, I wish that you could just shoot someone's foot. That is what I want. My desire is always the preservation of life. Always. In every situation, I desire the preservation of life until it is not possible.

So, yes, my pro-life ethic means that I want that person's life to be preserved. Driving drunk is not a death sentence. it does not deserve capital punishment. And of course, I don't believe that. I wish it hadn't worked out this way. But I can say that while simultaneously saying that this was probably a justified decision by this police officer, as you saw, they did everything they possibly could before this happened to make sure that, okay, we're just going to arrest this guy and this is going to be a peaceful thing.

But unfortunately, it didn't in that way. but this police officer, he got, he got fired immediately. So the mayor fired him because, you know, she's under fire with everything that's been going on. Which, okay, so if this, if this is not a case where it is justified for a police officer to use this kind of force, then what case is actually justified? And our police officers ever able to not just defend themselves, but again, defend the people that are going to come in contact with this intoxicated person who is now running around with a taser. So I think that I was probably wrong in my knee-jerk reaction. Again, my initial reaction is always going to be that that person shouldn't have died. Like, that's always going to be my first reaction. So if that is your first reaction to you, then I don't think it's a bad first reaction. I think that it's good to have that first reaction and then to back up. But we also have to be able to back up and look objectively at the situation and look at the facts and look at the footage and understand what was the correct decision in that case. Unfortunately, the police and.

our conversations about the police have become so politicized that we are unable to have any kind of objective dialogue about what is proportionate police force and what is not. If that was the conversation that we were having right now, I think that would be a good conversation. Like, if we were talking about police reform, like if we were talking about more transparency, if we were talking about getting rid of public police unions, which I have suggested before, if we were talking about more tactical training or more de-escalation training, if those were the conversations that we were having with the goal, with the shared goal of preserving as much life as possible, which means, by the way, not just the life of the perpetrator or the suspect,

but also the lives of people who are affected by crime, mostly women and children in poor areas. If our goal was all to preserve life, then we could have these kind of objective conversations about, okay, let's look at this case by case. Let's look at the different issues. Let's look to see if this shooting was justified and if it's not. But that is not the conversation that we're having. The conversation that we're having is so extreme. It's one side who is saying, let's actually abolish the police and replace them with,

I saw one tweet that said, Planned Parenthood workers and social workers. Like, you think that's going to stop the rapists and the assaulters and the murderers and the pedophiles and the child traffickers, it's not. They're not scared of Miss Susie's social worker or Miss Kathy Planned Parenthood staff. I can promise you that. We need the police. Okay, so I've never done this before, but I actually recorded today's episode, most of today's episode back on Tuesday where I had some information, but now I have more information and I just wanted to make sure that you guys are as up today as possible. So I'm inserting this little segment to be able to tell you the developments that have come about with this particular case.

And so this officer that we're talking about was charged with felony murder by the district attorney here in Fulton County, Georgia. His name is Paul Howard. So he was charged with felony murder, which means if he is convicted on these charges, then he will not only go to jail for the rest of his life. He will also be subject to the death penalty. So what you now know about, the case in how this person unfortunately resisted arrest, grabbed the taser, was running around and tried to actually kill these, or tried to incapacitate at least these officers with the taser. That is what led to him being shot and killed. That apparently was a kind of scenario that leads to possibly the death penalty for a police officer. We need to ask ourselves if this is

justice. As I've said on this episode, like, I am always for the preservation of life. My knee-jerk reaction was that he shouldn't have shot. However, I have talked to a lot of people since I made that reaction. I've also read a lot and a quote really convicted me. It was a Thomas Soul quote that said, you know, paraphrasing, shame on the people that's from the comfort of their own homes and from the security of, you know, their own bedrooms are criticizing the decisions that police officers make when their very life is on the line. And that's not to say that we shouldn't hold police officers accountable or that they shouldn't follow a good standard of ethics and that they shouldn't be impartial. Of course, they believe all of those things are just and right and good. However, when it

comes to a situation like this where there is clearly contention, where this person was clearly resisting arrest and he was also armed and he was in a crowded parking lot, we really have to ask ourselves if it is justice that this person, that this police officer in this kind of scenario is being charged with murder, with murder. So the DA, Paul Howard, he has said that, you know, taser isn't a deadly weapon and that he wasn't a threat to anyone. Well, here is the same district attorney just a few weeks ago. For appointing a taser at Mrs. Pilgriman, as many of you all know, under Georgia law, a taser is considered as a deadly weapon under Georgia. George Love. So when it came to a police officer using a taser on a civilian, it was considered

a deadly weapon. But in this case, all of the sudden, just a few weeks later, it's not a deadly weapon. And I think I can tell you why this is happening. And so first of all, the DA was bringing his charges against this officer in front of media cameras rather than in private. So that kind of changes the performative nature of this whole thing. But also, let's just like learn a little bit about him. So currently, this district attorney is in a runoff election. So he is obviously wanting to win his runoff election, but not only that, but he has some things to distract from so he can win this election. There are allegations leveled against him, and this is not the first time this has happened, of stealing money from a nonprofit. So this is according to the Atlanta

Journal Constitution. He received an additional $25,000 in salary supplements from the city of Atlanta that he funneled through a nonprofit he heads as CEO. The Atlanta Journal Constitution and Channel 2 Action News have learned. That means Howard patted his pay with $195,000 of the $250,000 in grant money, the city signed over to the DA's office in two checks in 2014 and 2016. The final $25,000 in payments were disclosed in a recent letter from the State Ethics Commission that notified Howard he will face two more allegations of violating state campaign finance law. So this is a proven thing that he funneled money through the nonprofit that he is the CEO of to be able to pay himself. So that is the current district attorney that is

charging this police officer with murder, with possible penalty, with the possible death penalty. Also, not only that, he's got some other things to distract from. He is, this DA is facing multiple sexual harassment allegations according to the AJC. We're talking about a dozen sexual harassment allegations over the past a couple decades or so. So this is the person who is bringing these charges. He's got a lot of reasons to distract people from the problems that could prevent him from winning his runoff election. Now, that doesn't mean necessarily those things in and of itself doesn't mean that this

was the wrong decision. But from what we know, it is at the very least contentious. All of the police officers that you talk to will say, you know, this is, this is about as fair as it gets. Now, there is a rumor, and I didn't see this, but someone said that the police officer kicked him while he was down. If that is the case, like, that's a problem to me. That really disturbs me. I don't like that. There's no reason to be that aggressive if someone is shot to the ground. And so maybe that's information that is playing to this. But when you look at this entire scenario and look at the fact, look at the body cam footage that shows that this guy,

this police officer, these two police officers, were de-escalating the situation for over 25 minutes. I mean, and this guy grabbed their taser and ran away. I don't know what other situation it would be warranted for a police officer to use some kind of force, not for protection for themselves, but for the crowded parking lot, for all of the people that are around. So I think that we have to be really careful when we are saying, hey, we want justice, we want justice, and we cheer at a murder charge like. this. We need to ask ourselves, are we really wanting justice or are we just looking for the harshest punishment against the person who did something that we perceive as wrong or as we don't

like because that's not actual justice. Again, God's justice is proportionate. It is direct. It is truthful and it is impartial. And I'm not sure that you could say that these charges are any of these things. And there's another part of this that I personally find disturbing. So no matter, here's what I want to make clear, no matter what you've done in your past, if, for example, George Floyd, it doesn't matter to me what he had done in his past. It doesn't matter to me what his criminal record was. It was still very obvious what Derek Chauvin, the police officer did was wrong. So nothing that he had ever done justifies, even what he was doing right there, right then, forging a $20 bill, whatever it was. It doesn't justify what Derek Chauvin did. So what I'm about to say about this person, this perpetrator, It doesn't justify alone anything that happened. But I think that we should be able to have conversations about police brutality. Let's have conversations about what was the right decision and the reforms that are being made without elevating these people, these victims, these perpetrators to the level of martyrdom.

That also doesn't seem to be justice. That also doesn't seem to be truthful or impartial. I mean, this person, the cops would have already run his history. they would have already known that he has a history of violence. They would have already known that he could possibly be a threat to the people around him. He was on parole after being in prison for a child cruelty, for beating up his child and his wife. And so they would have already known those things. They would have already known that he has a history of violent.

And that could have played into the kind of force that they used and the threat that they thought that he had, not just on them, but on everyone else. I think it's also very shameful to George Floyd and his family to conflate these two situations. Like they're not the same situations at all. They're not the same situations. And I think it hurts the case of people who want to sincerely talk about police reform and want to talk about police brutality.

It hurts their case when you conflate all situations and basically say all cops are bad. They should never use any kind of force. They should never protect themselves or the people around them at all. Again, I am always for the president. of life as much as we possibly can be. I really am. But we also have to be able to be fair and to be objective every time we look at these situations. So I just wanted to make sure that we knew that, that we had that piece of information and just to kind of give my quick take on that. It is not justice to take a situation like this and to apply an external narrative onto a particular

case of someone getting shot by the police and incriminating the person. who shot the criminal, who shot the perpetrator based on a narrative rather than based on the facts of the case. That is not justice. That is not fair. It's also not justice to say that we are going to abolish the police because some bad apples exist. And some bad apples do exist. Maybe whole police departments are bad. And again, I think that we can talk about those reformed in a very serious way. I'm committed to that. Like if it is about upholding personal liberty, if it is about preserving life. I am down for those conversations. Let's have those conversations. I want to reach across the aisle to Democrats, to liberals, to talk about, okay, what's the best way that we can reform

these communities that we can reform the police department to preserve as many lives as possible? What I am not going to get on board with is abolishing the police altogether because that is absolute lunacy. Again, the people who are affected by abolishing the police are poor women and poor children who, by the way, according to studies, actually trust the police, actually like the police and feel safer when police are around. The only people who don't like the police are these, or who don't like the police as a whole and who judge police completely, not just based on their own interactions, but just based on a narrative, are far left left activists and criminals. Those are the only people that want to abolish the police. And apparently one of them wrote for

the New York Times, New York Times op-ed, said, yes, we have to abolish the police. these activists who don't even live in some of these communities are not affected by the crime rates that will inevitably skyrocket when you abolish the police. The poor women, the poor children, the disabled, the elderly, who all rely on the police to be able to protect themselves. Just police presence, not even talking about just calling the police. Police presence actually minimizes the chances of crime. all of those people who are vulnerable to criminals and to the acts that they perpetrate, they are the ones that are going to be disproportionately affected by this, quote, well-meaning policy of abolishing the police.

You and I, you and I, women who live in suburbia, who are armed, like, we're not going to be the ones who are most affected by this. Like, if we have to, like, you know, people are going to hire private security, all these celebrities talking about abolishing the police, all these journalists, all these politicians talking about abolishing the police. Yeah, you have private security. Like you have armed security. You have armed guards. You're probably armed to yourself. You live in nice neighborhoods. Why don't you go live in some of these low-income neighborhoods that rely on police presence for the preservation of their own lives? And tell me,

tell me that you think the police should be abolished. What are you going to do? What are you going to do if you are a child who is maybe you're home alone, maybe you're 12 years old and you're waiting for your mom to get home from work? someone breaks into your house, tries to overpower you, tries to rape you, tries to rob you, tries to assault you. What's you going to do? You're going to call Planned Parenthood, tell them to, hey, I, I need a late stage abortion on this robber who is in my house. That's probably not going to work. Probably not going to work. So again, the people who are disproportionately affected by so-called well-meaning liberal policies, all liberal policies, not just this ludicrous idea of abolishing the police,

are always the poor minority communities. Like, you need to read the book, Please Stop Helping Us by Jason Riley, as well as a lot of books by Thomas Soul that talk about how liberal policies in the name of helping minority communities always hurt minority communities. They hurt these minority communities.

And I saw an interesting poll the other day that was talking about people's opinions about race relations. And nationally, 56% of people, I think it was, according to this Yahoo, U-Gov poll said that race relations in America, or maybe 60% are really bad. They're really bad in America. Only like 20% said that they're really good.

And some other people said they don't know. But if you asked people what they think about race relations in their own communities, those numbers switched. So the vast majority of people think that the race relations in their own communities are good. And very few people think that they're bad. So that just shows us that our vision. of what's going on between the police and communities, between races, is warped by national news, by national stories, and by national narratives.

If we really just look at how our neighbors interact with each other, how our community members interact with each other, that actually, the healthy relations that you probably have in your own community between the races is more indicative of what America looks like as a whole than what the media is telling you when they shine light on one specific situation that is not statistically representative of what's going on. And I think we just have to be aware of that. There's something that I've been thinking about in all of this. And like I know we're just so weary. We're just so tired of everything that is that is going on. And I know honestly, like people in the black community have got to be way more weary and way more tired and way more exhausted because

you've got a lot of people that are vying for your care, like are vying for your support of a narrative, that are vying for your words, that are vying for your conversations, that want you to educate them, that want you to teach them, that want you to be on their social media page so you can, so they can say, oh, look, like, I'm having this conversation. Look how listening and woke and silent I am. Like, that's got to be really burdensome and really exhausting for you. And I think that something that I've realized in all of this, and I think I saw someone, else say this the other day. And I've heard John McArthur say that the news, of course, wears us out. But why does it wear us out? Not just because, especially the leftist media,

is constantly pitting race against race and gender against gender and class against class. This kind of cultural Marxism has just infected the minds of the media and particularly people on the left. And that in and of itself is exhausting because you look in your own heart and you're like, hang on, you're saying that all these people are racist, that all these people are classist. I don't feel that way. The people around me don't feel that way. I don't feel that way. I hang out with the people a bunch of different races. I hang out with the people, a bunch of different socioeconomic classes. I don't see that around me, but, oh, that must be true somewhere out there.

And I think that gets exhausting because, one, we're trying to meet standards that are really just kind of like imaginary. We're trying to fight enemies that in some ways are imaginary. But also, I don't think human beings were made to care about every single issue going on around the world at all times. And so we're very burdened by every single sad story that we see, which we should be. There's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with caring about things that are going on outside of our little sphere. I think that's actually very good. But constantly all the time to be weighed with all of the world's problems and being tasked

to fix all the world's problems and to post the right things and to say the right things about all the world's problems. I don't think God made us that way. Like I think that human beings are very exhausted trying to be omnipresent. and trying to be omnipotent and trying to be omniscient. We're not in social media and the national media have made us think that we are and that we have to be in order to really care and to order in order to be really aware and to be really knowledgeable. God didn't make us to be omnip anything. Like we are completely finite of what we can know and what we can care about is is limited.

These things are limited and they should be. Again, I think that we should expand our knowledge. expand our awareness that we should know, you know, problems around the world and around the country, people who look differently than us and sound differently than us. That's all true. But at the end of the day, we cannot carry the world's burdens. Jesus is already, he's already doing that. He's carrying the Christian's burden. He is caring for our anxieties. And so we cannot be the world's savior. All we can do, as I've said so many times, and I just want to repeat this because I think so many of us are exhausted and so many of us are stretched thin trying to care about everything and do everything.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, love your neighbor as yourself. And if that still seems too big for you right now, which it's not because that's what Jesus tells us to do, then let's make it smaller. Like, let's make it even smaller than that. What can you do right now in your community? Because God has placed you on one plot of earth. Like there's a very small sphere on which God has placed you in the large, large, large span of eternity, in the eternal span of eternity. Like he has placed you on a very small spot, like a limited period of time and a limited space on the earth. And you're going to interact with a limited number of people.

What can you do today right now to make that tiny plot of eternity better? You are not responsible for the problems of the entire world. You're not responsible to react to every new story. You're not responsible for every instance of injustice because you cannot. You cannot deliver the solutions for every instance of injustice. And God doesn't call you to do that. God doesn't call you to do that. What can you do on your tiny plot of eternity that God has graciously given you?

He has given you it to steward, to do something with how can you beautify and cultivate the space and the time that is around you? So again, even smaller. let's make it even more microscopic and digestible. Like you might not be able to reform the police or to, you know, determine elections or to in sex trafficking all by yourself. But what can you do in your community to make things better? So you can love and care for your family.

Like you can be a good mom. You can be a good mom. Okay. So that means you can equip your kids to know their Bibles and to love other people and to love God and to know who made them. You can catechize your children. I think that's the right word. So you can have them memorize, for example,

the Westminster Catechism. Like, what are you doing on a daily basis to teach your kids the Word of God, to pray for them, to love them? You can be a really good mom. You can be really good at cleaning the dishes. You can be really good at fixing up your home. You can be really good at serving

and respecting and loving your husband. You can be really diligent about reading your Bible. be really good about helping the vulnerable in your area. You can bring a meal to your neighbor or a meal to the poor community, meals to the poor community. You can give to your church. You can help your church. You can volunteer in your church. You can share the gospel with the lady at the checkout line. You can pay for the groceries of the person behind you. Like these are all steps of obedience that will never be in the news. They will never be prescribed to you by activists. like they will never be the standard of wokeness.

But these are the small things that God has called you and I to do to make the tiny plot of eternity that he has given us better. And that is all you are called to do. That is all you are called to do, okay? So stop carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders. You don't have the strength to do that. So I know that we've kind of gone off on a tangent here, but that's just because like when I read a terrible sad story,

like this, like another police shooting and another burning down of a restaurant that, by the way, I guarantee you that minorities also worked at that Wendy's, who now don't have a place to go to to work on Monday, by the way. Like, they don't have a way to provide for their children anymore because they don't have a place to go to work because these people who burn down these stores don't have any idea of what justice actually looks like. But anyway, so we see all of this and it's chaos and it's hard and we're having more conversations and we're just exhausted by it all. we're scared about the election and we're worried about, you know, Supreme Court cases and decisions and religious liberty and all of that. All you can do is be obedient. Yes, of course, I believe in

political involvement. I believe that you should vote. I believe that you should care about candidates. I believe that you should see what's going on in the public schools in your area. See what's going on. You know, what are the HOA policies, whatever it is. Like, yes, you should care about the things that are going on. But I think we should try to, I think we should, as much as we should care about what's going on nationally because yes, it affects us and it affects the future of our country. And I want you to keep listening to this podcast because I'm going to try to, you know, I'm going to try to inform you on those things. We also need to localize our care and localize our attention. First to God, our relationship with him, then to our family, then to our friends, then to our church, then to

our community. And then to our state and then to our country. Okay. That's really the order that we, that our care should be about if that makes sense because beyond that like it's very hard it's very hard for for finite human beings to carry the weight and carry the cares of things beyond those fears and yes and by church like I mean the even like the universal church like we should care about what's going on in the universal church even before we care about what's going on in politics in our own lives And so I just want to encourage you to maybe minimize actually, minimize and focus the things that you care about. And remember that the standards of the world are ever changing. The standards of so-called righteousness that the woke give you are ever elusive.

But God's standard does not change. Love God. Love your neighbor. Be obedient in the things right now that are right in front of you. No act of kindness is too small. No attempt to share the gospel is going to go wasted. the word of God does not return void. It is a lot easier to be obedient than we think.

Loving and respecting your husband is a part of being obedient to God and glorifying him. Loving and serving your children and teaching them, raising them in the admonition of the Lord is a way to be obedient and glorify God. Going to church, reading your Bible, tithing, all of these things. Being generous are ways to glorify God. So if you're overwhelmed by the weight of the world, remember what the Lord your God requires of you. Okay? it's much smaller but also much more impactful than I think what, you know, activists or what the news

prescribes. Again, there are ways to fight against injustice. One way to serve these minority communities is volunteering at a pregnancy center, for example. Like, they don't have to be these big revolutions that you do. I don't think that God is requiring that of you necessarily. He is asking you to be obedient in the here and the now with what is right in front of you. Like I remember I remember I was saying this. So for the people who memorized Romans 8 with me, we did like a Zoom, or actually wasn't a Zoom call. It was another platform because I'm out on Zoom. But we were talking about it was a Q&A and they asked me, I don't, I don't even remember what the question was. But I was talking about, you know, the importance of obedience and helping and things like that and how it reminds me of when I, so I took a break basically from working out when I was pregnant, which I don't recommend you doing. But I did. And then I did. didn't really work out that much after I had the baby either. It just, it was difficult, busy and all of that stuff. But then a few months ago, I was like, you know what? I think the reason why I'm not working out is because I am in my head. I am thinking, oh, well, I need to work out

for an hour, like five days a week in order to really be serious about this. So I need to ride, you know, my bike for 45 minutes, and then I need to do weights for 30 minutes. And then I need to go on a walk and eat healthy and all this stuff. And so I just wouldn't work. out because every time that I was thinking about working out, I was like, well, I don't have time to do all that. And I'm intimidated. Like, I don't want to do it. I don't know how it's going to, like, I'm not in shape anymore. I didn't start working out until I realized that, hey, Ali, it's okay if you only work out 10 minutes, three times a week. That's more than zero minutes, zero times a week. And so I had to realize that, okay, I don't have to do these big, grand things in order to be more in shape than I am right now.

I need to just start with the small thing. So I started working out 20 minutes, like two to three times a week, which isn't great, but it's better than not doing anything. And it's the same in all kinds of acts of discipline and all kind of acts of obedience. Do what you can right now. I think being intimidated by starting these like revolutions, which maybe you will one day. Or, you know, you think I've got to run for office or I've got to save all the children from sex trafficking or I've got to care about every instance of injustice that has ever happened and post about it

and talking about it, like you're not able to do that. Again, you're finite and you're not responsible to do that. You're not obligated to do that. Work on doing the things that are right in front of you, the instances of injustice that are right in front of you, the problems that are right in front of you, the needs that are right in front of you. Like work on caring about those. And that was not what I plan to talk about a tangent. I was actually going to talk about, well, we talked a little bit about abolishing the police. Okay, I'll talk about just like a one other thing that doesn't really have to do what we were just talking about, but you never know. I can maybe try to tie it in creatively. So on my notes, I have hypocrisy, the protest, but you can't even bury your child. And this is a

dichotomy that I've seen going around on social media lately, just so tragic. There is a young woman and her name is autumn and that her tweet kind of went viral. And tragically, she lost, her mom last week and she posted about that. She said, you know, I couldn't even say goodbye to my mom as she was dying and the tweet that she was sharing. She wasn't making a political statement about the protest at all. She was just pointing out that there were protests in D.C. thousands and thousands of protesters slammed body to body for trans lives matter, a trans lives matter protest. And people aren't people like her weren't even allowed to say goodbye to their. mother as she was dying. And then all of these other messages were coming up of people saying the same

thing because of coronavirus restrictions. People weren't able to say goodbye to their loved ones as they were dying. There had to be a Zoom call for their relative, for their child, for their, for their parent, for their spouse that was in the hospital to say some kind of goodbye because of coronavirus restrictions. You weren't allowed to have memorial services for World War II veterans. You weren't allowed. You weren't allowed to have funerals with more than six people standing together as you put your child into the ground who died of cancer. Like you weren't allowed to have the cancer treatments that you needed. And so your loved one died because of coronavirus restrictions. Those same politicians that put those draconian lockdown policies in place in the name of saving lives are now applauding

these protesters and these rioters that are slammed body to body without any thought to hygiene or coronavirus whatsoever. I mean, this is insane hypocrisy. Insane at the cost of people's family relationships at the cost of people's very lives. I mean, it just goes to show that these lockdown policies from a lot, maybe not all, but a lot of these politicians was a farce. It was a farce to hurt the economy to hurt Donald Trump. It was a farce to, to say, safe face for them because they knew if they didn't take these measures that maybe they wouldn't get reelected or people wouldn't trust them. They wanted to ruin your livelihood, okay? Like, they wanted to hurt you. They wanted to hurt your life. Like that much is clear because if they didn't, they wouldn't

have made fun of the lockdown protesters. Like, they wouldn't have called them racist. They wouldn't have said that you don't care about grandma just because you care about people losing their jobs and losing their livelihoods. But they showed that they hated you. They hate working class Americans. They hate the middle of the country. Like they hate everyone that doesn't advance their ideological agenda. And they showed that by ruining the lives of tens of millions of Americans through these lockdown policies that were now seen were apparently just arbitrary because they don't apply to all of the people that are marching thousands upon thousands for quote black trans lives. They hate you. I want you to realize that. These politicians, these metropolitan people in the media,

they hate you. And they hate your way of life. life. They hate Donald Trump so much that they are willing to ruin your life to make sure the economy tanks so he doesn't get reelected. And it's just sad. It's just sad. There was a friend. I won't say his name, even though you guys probably know him, but it was a private message. So I won't repeat his name. He said, God's vengeance will be great. Yes, it will. Yes, it will. And for those of you, by the way, who are struggling, who maybe you lost someone, you lost a friend, you weren't able to say goodbye. You weren't able to have a funeral. You weren't able to have a memorial service. were able to get cancer treatments for someone that you loved. I talked to a mom whose child was in

hospice care. He had a terminal illness and he already passed. But when she was talking to me, he was in his last days and she wanted nothing more than for family to just see him for friends to be able to come over. And she was scared. She didn't know what to do. And people were scared because of the hysteria that was drummed up about all of this. I just want you to know that if you were in a similar position or you know someone who is a similar position, even though these politicians, these people in the media, do not give one flying flip about you and your dying child or your dying parent or your dying spouse or your wife who couldn't get her breast cancer treatments, even though they don't care at one lick about you. God does. He does. And he sees

your broken heart and he sees your tears and he knows the pain that you feel and he cares. and I promise you that his vengeance will be great that God is a God of justice, that no act of injustice, no matter what it is, will go unanswered, will go unmet with his wrath. I promise you that. So have hope, maybe not in this life, but know that one day Jesus is coming back. He is going to dry every tear, that there will only be rejoicing, there will only be health, there will only be healing, there will only be hope, there will only be joy and all injustice, in all evil, in all hypocrisy, and all deceit will come to an end and Jesus will reign forever. So, again, as we look around and we feel like we have to carry the burdens of the world,

and we see so much injustice on both sides of the aisle from all kinds of politicians. I won't even get into my disappointment with the Republican Party right now because we don't have time, but I will in the future. as we look around and we just feel overwhelmed by all of that realize that if you are a Christian you worship the almighty burden bearer okay how gracious is god that he calls himself the bearer of our burdens and that he will reign victoriously okay and we don't have to worry we don't have to worry okay that's all i have for today there are a lot more things oh let me let me issue one correction because i've had someone that has been pastoring me about this so i said a couple

weeks ago, Derek Tovin has been convicted of a third degree murder and he hasn't. He has been charged. Convicted. He hasn't gone to trial yet. So he hasn't been convicted. He has been charged. I just wanted to make that correction because I said that I want on my podcast and I strive to answer you your all's feedback. So if you can please leave me a five-star review. If you love this podcast, that would mean a whole lot to me. I love you guys so much. I will be back here on Monday.