Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 32 | McCain & Media Mania

Episode Date: August 28, 2018

Senator John McCain died over the weekend, and the reactions from both sides of the aisle were ... varied. I'll give you the truth about his life and death. We'll discuss the media's coverage of the incident, as well as its hypocritical takes on two other recent tragedies: the murder of Mollie Tibbetts and the Jacksonville shooting. Then, a follow-up on the myth of "self-love:" What about when you DON'T love yourself? Copyright CRTV. All rights reserved.

What's up for relatable listeners. It is your host, Ali Stucky. I hope everyone had a great weekend. We in the Stucky household took on yet another home project. If you follow me on Instagram, you know that we've been doing that back-to-back weekends. We always immediately regret that. But then when it's over, we're like, wow, we are so satisfied that we actually did this thing that we've been trying to do for an entire year. So last weekend, we embarked on the horrific and very daunting task of cleaning out our garage in 100 degree heat, by the way, not very smart. And then this past weekend we painted our dining room, which is actually going to be an office because do millennials even use dining rooms?

I don't know. We don't even really sit at our kitchen table, which is kind of sad, but just being honest. Anyway, so we painted our dining room and my awesome husband helped me despite his deep-seated animus towards painting. Maybe you guys had more exciting weekends than that. but in our lives, in our adult lives, this is as exciting as the weekend gets. But while we spent this past weekend watching paint dry, the outside world did not. So a lot happens like it always does.

This new cycle was a really busy one this weekend. And so we're going to talk about a couple things that happened. We are going to talk about the death of Senator John McCain and why his death was met with a really wide range of extremely passionate reactions. from both sides of the aisle. And that's going to kind of slide into how President Trump reacted to it. And also how the media reacted to it and how they reacted to other things that happened. The shooting in Florida that happened over the weekend.

And then also the murder of Molly Tibbitts. More information was released about that last week. Then at the end, I am going to respond to one of the requests that my listeners had in an ending segment that's kind of more personal and relatable. as a kind of follow-up to the self-love episode that we did a few weeks ago. Okay. Okay. So first things first, Senator John McCain, he was 81 when he died on Saturday of brain cancer. He was diagnosed last year when he underwent surgery to get a blood clot removed from his eye. Then just a few days ago, the family announced that he was no longer going to be receiving treatment for that brain cancer that they were just going to allow the cancer to do its work and to let him pass as

peacefully as possible. And then it was almost like immediately he went. It really was. It was just, I think, a day later. And I think that's why it was so shocking for a lot of people, even though we all knew that it was about to happen. I'm not sure that anyone expected for it to happen that quickly. I don't know if his family knew or if it was a surprise to them too. But either way, no matter what, absolutely devastating for his wife, Cindy McCain, and for their whole family. As you guys know, Megan McCain co-host of The View previously of Fox News, is his daughter and has been really public in the past year about her kind of process of grief. And in my opinion, she has shown incredible strength and steadfastness in what I know has got

to be, it was probably one of the most challenging times of her life. from what she's told audiences, she and her dad were really, really close. And I can only imagine what it's been like to have to deal with something like that in the public eye. I personally have been really encouraged and just kind of in awe of her fortitude in all of this. I've thought a lot over the past couple of days, just how much of an impact someone like that can make by walking through pain and through sorrow and through struggle publicly.

there are a lot of bad things about media, a lot of bad things about social media. There are negatives to the constant visibility of everyone and everything. But this, I think, is a positive, at least for those watching. I haven't had to go through a tragedy like this yet. Thank God. And I pray I don't have to anytime soon. But when that day comes for me, I'm going to think about people like Megan McCain.

I'm going to think about people like Mary Catherine Ham, a commentator whose husband. died suddenly and tragically when she had one small daughter and then another one on the way, who for as far as I can tell, exhibited a lot of faith and a lot of perseverance in the midst of that. I don't know if you guys follow Laura Grant on Instagram. She is the woman whose new husband and former Navy SEAL was hurt severely in an accident and has been unable to talk or walk since then. She's chronicled on social media their whole rehabilitation journey, which has been incredible

and our faith is amazing. Or Catherine and Jay Wolf, who wrote this book, Hope Heels. You probably have heard of it telling the story of how Catherine had a stroke when she was, I think, 26 that hindered her physical capacities forever. I'll think about people like my mom, who, even though she's not a public figure, her whole life, I think, has been an example of hope through suffering. Her mom died from a random brain aneurysm when she was, when my mom was in her early 20s and she had two babies at that time.

She has struggled a lot with my brother who has special needs, literally sacrificing everything for him and really for our whole family. So I hope and pray that I don't have to go through any of these things. No one voluntarily elects to suffer in these ways. But if I do, I can look to all of these people who have suffered really well. And that's one reason. I think in addition to its saving power, why Jesus' life is so important for us in Medici.

on. He's the utmost example of enduring pain and justice and loss and rejection with faith and gratitude and submission and joy. And anyway, to bring it back, even though I've never met Megan McCain personally, and I don't know if or when our past will ever cross, I just, I would want her to know that the way that she has conducted herself through this season has really affected me. And if it's affected me, I know it's probably affected other people as well. encouraging them maybe when they needed it most. And that's, I think, one really beautiful aspect of God and of being a Christian is his ability to create beauty out of ashes and to bring good out of what seems like disaster to use

devastating circumstances to glorify himself and to help others. And that's the thing is that nothing to God is useless. Everything has a purpose. It's all doing something. It's all being used. It's not pointless. it's not empty. It's never for nothing. It's always for something. And I think that should give us a lot of hope. But there are unfortunately several people, it seems like, who don't see this as a tragedy and certainly don't see the redemption and a tragedy like this.

There are a lot of people who are quite frankly happy that McCain died and apparently pay no mind to the fact that he is a husband, a father, and a friend, and that people are really, really grieved by his departure. It's been crazy for me to watch over the past couple of days the way that people, especially people on the right, have conducted themselves in light of McCain's death. The way that so-called conservatives have celebrated and maligned him, have basically danced on his grave. There are those on the left who have done the same thing, of course, but it just doesn't seem as prevalent on the left as it has been on the right. People on the right have been almost gleeful, it seems like, in reaction to his death.

So let me explain why we have seen that reaction by talking a little bit about McCain's life and his career. So McCain was born in 1936 and that in itself is pretty amazing because that's the same year my grandmother was born and she's been in a retirement home for years. So the fact that he was that active is active as he was until his death says a lot about his vitality. He came from a military family, both his father and his grandfather were four-star admirals in the Navy. he also joined the Navy and fought in Vietnam. He was flying in a bombing mission over Vietnam in 1967.

He was then made a prisoner of war and was tortured and interrogated by the Vietnamese. He was in solitary confinement for two years. In 1968, he was actually offered early release because his dad was made commander of U.S. forces in Vietnam. But McCain refused to be released until every other man who had been captured before him was also released. So that's just kind of an incredible act of loyalty and bravery. So later that year, the Vietnamese started a program of intense torture on McCain in order to get McCain to confess that he was a war criminal and that he was grateful to the Vietnamese. He even got to the point of suicide, apparently, reportedly, but he couldn't go through the attempts. He eventually reached a breaking point.

And he did give them this so-called confession as many of the American POW. did. But he refused to give additional information after that and was continually beaten for that refusal. He's still considered a hero, of course, even though, yes, he did reach that point as probably many of us would, all of us would, of kind of breaking down. He then got into politics in 1982. He won the congressional seat in the first district of Arizona. He was a Republican, obviously, close in line politically with Reagan at the time. He was elected to the Senate in 1987, where he served until his death. He lost to Bush in 2000 in the Republican primary for president, and he won the Republican primary for president in 2008. But as you guys know, unfortunately,

lost to Obama. He was not a big supporter of Trump. He said that he had concerns that Trump was uninformed. Trump's response was his name. He was his name. He was not a big supporter of Trump. He said that he had concerns that Trump's now a kind of infamous line. He is a war hero because he was captured. I like people that don't get captured. That is quite the insult from someone who has never served in his entire life. But even so, McCain said, you know, a couple of years ago that he would support Trump because the Republican voters had spoken.

He voted against Senate Republicans' attempt to repeal Obamacare, even though repeal and replaced was something that McCain had advocated for a lot in the past. he felt that this bill, the Senate had proposed, didn't do enough to protect Medicaid in Arizona. So he voted thumbs down in a now very famous video. McCain was someone who reached across the aisle a lot. He was not afraid to push back on Republican priorities, but he was no doubt a conservative. No doubt. A lot of people call him a rhino, you know, Republican in name only.

But that's just not true. Tommy Laron, who you guys know, called him a rhino in a speech. Arizona on the day that his family announced that they were stopping treatment for brain cancer. So that's really nice. A lot of people did the same thing. He opposed Obamacare. He opposed the Iran nuclear deal. He even said that Obama was directly responsible for the Orlando nightclub shooting because

of his soft hand on ISIS. He was a defender of the Constitution. He believed in the supremacy of democracy. He was an advocate of American exceptionalism. He was a conservative. no doubt about that. But there are people who say that John McCain was a traitor because of the confession that he gave in Vietnam.

But let's get one thing straight. These people only started talking about this claim after Trump made his negative comments about McCain. So they don't really see him as a traitor of the U.S. They see him as a traitor to Trump, which is just idiotic. Okay? It's just stupid. There was this Fox News analyst who this year said on air that McCain's fellow.

fellow POWs called him songbird John for being a loud mouth in Vietnam and giving intel to the Vietnamese. That analyst was subsequently fired because that's a lie. That's a lie that has been debunked by several outlets, including Politifact, who talked to several of his fellow prisoners who all said that John was a hero and was trustworthy, always putting patriotism before himself. So you may also see this conspiracy theory floating around that McCain was responsible for a 1967 fire on an aircraft carrier called USS Forestrial that killed 134 sailors. That's just not true. This was a lie perpetuated in 2008 and then regurgitated by this random blog in 2017 by pro-Trump crazy people. investigators found that the fire was an accident and that the men on board weren't equipped to deal with it.

McCain was on board and he actually helped save people's lives. You can go on to Snopes.com, which is a fact checking site for this information. McCain has been awarded with all kinds of commendations for a service. Silver Star, Bronze Star, Distinguished Flying Cross, Legion of Merit. He was a hero. There is no question about that. There should be no question about that. The only reason that people are saying he was a traitor is,

because they feel that he betrayed Donald Trump or betrayed the Republican Party by voting against repealing Obamacare last year. That is stupid. Those are stupid reasons to dance on someone's grave, especially someone who risked his life for your freedom. And the people who are celebrating McCain's death are evil, in my opinion.

They are wrong. They are shameful for doing that. And if there's one thing that really bothers me about President Trump, while there are a few things that I don't like. There's one thing that really bothers me, and it's his disrespect for John McCain and the antipathy that he has stirred up among his supporters towards McCain.

You guys know I voted for the president, and there are a lot of times that I'm really happy that I did. But let's just be honest, he has the moral, intellectual, and emotional fortitude of a noodle. And that's exhibited through his insane and flippant comments towards a war hero who had more valor in his pinky finger.

than Trump probably does in his whole body. I'm not saying that McCain was perfect, not personally, nor politically, but he demonstrated throughout the majority of his life and his career unwavering integrity and strength of character. He showed more bravery in his five and a half years as a POW the most of us are going to show

in our entire lifetime. So shame on people who lay down their politics, who can't lay down their politics and conspiracy theories for a day to honor him. you expect that from people on the left. Many of them are generally horrific when it comes to respecting human beings on the other side of the political aisle. There are, of course, liberals who have celebrated McCain's death just like they did

Barbara Bush's death. They say McCain was a warmonger and also should be hated for picking Palin as his running mate in 2008. Whatever. I anticipated that. But the downright hatred from Trump supporters and people on the right is just kind of especially gross to me. when I posted a picture of McCain on Instagram honoring his life,

I sadly had a lot of people comment really disgusting things about him and threatened to unfollow me, to which I say and will always say, just go for it. And just kind of as an FYI, if I say something that offends you, unless I realize that, oh, wow, I really shouldn't have said that, that that was really inappropriate or uncalled for. I mean, I'm probably not going to apologize and I'm not going to miss someone who unfollows me for that reason. So if you are so bothered by a differing opinion of mind that you can no longer stand to see me on your timeline, I am certainly not going to stop you

from building your own echo chamber. That's none of my business. I just though want to go ahead and take away any feelings of satisfaction you may be tempted to feel by imagining that I've noticed your departure. I will not. Now that said, I love you guys. I would not be here without you. You guys give me the ability to have this podcast and have a voice. You guys know you're my friends. And I want your feedback and I value your feedback. We talk on email and Instagram message all the time. And if I say something wrong like I have many times in the past,

I want to know and I hope that we can talk through it and work it out. But if I was constantly scared of rubbing someone the wrong way, then I wouldn't say anything that would actually be of value. And I may actually, because of that, offend you at some point. I will say something that you don't agree with. That's totally fine. That's okay. I hope that I've made clear my desire for us to get along and be friends,

have healthy conversations and love each other, even when we don't see eye to eye. But I do not lose sleep over lost followers. If that were the case, I would literally be awake 24-7. So that's my take on John McCain. I don't know about his personal relationship with Christ. I know he identified as a Christian. So I hope with all my heart that he was saved

and that he is now with Jesus in a place without. cancer, without pain, without sorrow, and that we who are also Christians will be able to unite with him one day. I cried when I read the news, like immediate, real significant tears. For those of you who have been listening for a while, you know that I cried when Barbara Bush died a lot. I cry when I even think about Ronald and Nancy Reagan dying. I will cry when H.W. Bush dies and don't even get me started on W. Bush. It's not because I agree with everything, these people ever did, it's because to me they represent a bygone era. I tell my husband this all the time. An era that I myself didn't really get to experience, an era of American exceptionalism and optimism

that I think died a few years after the turn of the century. I think the war on terror had something to do with it. I think the relentless march of progressivism and postmodernism had something to do with it. There is a real cynicism towards American greatness now. There's a rejection of patriotism, of traditionalism, the family of church and religion and morality, basic decency, they represent what I consider to be the old America, the America that was unashamed of being the best country in the world, the strongest country in the world.

I can't blame the end of that era on Obama entirely because I think it started before him, but he certainly pushed us out of that era. And I think that though Trump is trying to bring us back, I think that we've probably passed the point of no return. I really do. I know that's kind of sad, but I do. I just don't think it's possible for patriotism at this point to make a comeback. I don't think that American exceptionalism is ever going to be promoted the same way that it used to. And every time someone like McCain dies, I'm reminded of that.

And that is why I cry. I shed real tears of sorrow. It sounds really melodramatic. I know, but I can't help it. McCain's funeral will be this week. And as you guys probably remember a few months ago, his family requested that Trump not attend his funeral. Of course, a lot of Trump supporters were up in arms about that saying, oh, this is so petty. Why is he bringing hatred towards Trump into his death? Well, that's really none of our business. I'm not sure if there is anything petty about deciding who you want at your funeral. Obama and W. Bush are going to deliver eulogies. The White House's response to McCain's death, in my opinion, hasn't been that much to talk about, even though the media has talked about it a lot. Trump tweeted his respect.

I think that's fine, short and sweet. The White House flag was at half staff over the weekend, but not on Monday, which is kind of weird. A lot of people are noting that. But overall, Trump has done the right thing. He's been respectful. If he had said anything more than what he did, people would have called him a hypocrite. So I think he's, you know, handling it as best as he could at this point. Which brings me to the other part of this.

And that is the left-wing media's reaction to McCain's death and how they are leveraging this tragedy to attack Trump. I think this is equally as gross as some people on the right accusing McCain of being a traitor because both sides are just using McCain to make their own political points rather than just honoring him as the hero that he was. The same media who hated John McCain when he ran against Obama in 08 now love John McCain because he stood up to Trump. They love him because of the last 15 minutes of his political career, just as some people on the right hate him because of the last 15 minutes of his political career. And both sides are stupid and completely disingenuous. But now that's the culture that we

live in. No one considers your entire body of work, what you've actually accomplished, what you've proven yourself to be as a person. People only care that right now you are punching at the same people that they're punching. And if you're not, if you're not throwing the same punches that they are, well, then you're a bad person. It doesn't matter how many times you've agreed. It doesn't matter your resume doesn't matter how much you've sacrificed for the country. If you don't hate the people that they hate, then you don't deserve any respect. It's totally insane. It's illogical. It's entirely emotional and denies any rational thinking whatsoever. And both sides, this week especially, are guilty of it. It's really sad. People can't even die these days without being politicized.

And switching gears here a little bit, no one knows that fact better than the family of Molly Tibbets, the college girl who was murdered in Iowa. Police found her body last week. She was killed by Christian Rivera, I think that's how you say his name, who was an illegal immigrant, who is an illegal immigrant. And the reaction to this was interesting. You had some people on the left who immediately were disinterested in the story because it no longer fit their narrative.

The guy didn't use a gun, so they can't harp on gun violence. Then there were some people on the right who only cared about the story. when they learned the murder was an illegal immigrant. And they made the story only about illegal immigration. The family of Molly Tippett has come out and said that, you know, this has nothing to do with the legal immigration. And I totally, I understand their position and their desire to say that. This has to be the most painful moment of their life to not only have to deal with this

kind of loss publicly, but also to have to push against a political narrative that they don't agree with. But here's my take on this whole thing. No, the story is not about illegal immigration or illegal immigrants. It's not. Not all illegal immigrants are murderers. They are all criminals technically, since they broke the law by crossing the border illegally, but they aren't all violent.

But that said, it would be really stupid for people not to point out the fact that this guy was illegal. And as such, he shouldn't have been here. This isn't an exploitation of Molly's murderer. That is a fact of the crime. And if we're not willing to state the facts of the crime, then that indicates that we really don't care about why a crime happened and what we can do to stop it. And the reality is, Molly's murder wouldn't have happened if this guy hadn't been here. That's the point in bringing up illegal immigration.

This isn't an indictment on all illegal immigrants, but it does point to a broken system. But the left won't even let us say that. They confuse conservatives' position on purpose. They say that we are accusing all immigrants, illegal and legal of being violent. No, we're not even accusing all illegal immigrants of being violent. We are saying that none of the crimes committed by an illegal immigrant would happen if they weren't here in the first place. None of them should have occurred.

But instead, the left says stupid stuff. Like, no, this has to do with toxic masculinity. This was a guy who was told no by a girl and just couldn't take it. That's what Simone Sanders of CNN said in a tweet last week. And there were several other articles claiming this as well. I don't even want to dignify that insanity with the response. It's so incredibly dumb. You guys have watched my Prager U video.

You guys know how I feel about toxic masculinity. It is a myth used in an effort to feminize men in the hopes that if men are more feminine, then maybe women will be more easily able to take power and deconstruct this so-called patriarchy. proponents of this theory think that men are too aggressive and if they were less aggressive, we'd have less violence, less inequality, et cetera. No. The truth is there is sin in the human hearts and it manifests itself in different ways in all of us. It typically does manifest itself in more violent ways in men than a woman because they are physically stronger and have this thing called testosterone. But demonizing strength and aggression wholesale is not the solution to violence.

honing that strength as building boys into good, strong, respectful, responsible men, teaching all of our kids decency, respect, honesty, love, compassion, sacrifice. It's called morality. But the left will resist at all costs. Talk of personal responsibility and right and wrong if it means that they can promote some stupid feminist theory like toxic masculinity, which by the way, by the way, it's also a way of politicizing tragedy. They accused conservatives of politicizing tragedy by talking about illegal immigration, and there are some that did only talk about this case as an opportunity to push talking points.

But there were a lot of us who simply wanted to state the facts of the case while also communicating compassion towards Molly's family. But the left in the media accused conservatives of politicizing it while they talk about things like toxic masculinity being to blame. Give me a break. And their hypocrisy is even further exemplified, I think, in their immediate reaction to anything involving guns. So there was a shooting this weekend in Florida in which two victims plus the shooter himself were killed. Several others were injured. This was at a Madden video game event. I didn't know those things existed.

A 24-year-old from Baltimore pulled his gun out and started shooting people. They don't know the motive yet. But of course, the first thing that many on the left do is blame the gun. without knowing any of the facts. For them, the facts don't matter because they don't want anyone to have a gun no matter what. So when it comes to, let's get this straight, when it comes to illegal immigrant crime, we're not allowed to point to a criminal's immigration status because that apparently condemns a whole class of people.

But when it comes to gun violence, they are allowed to condemn all gun owners and supporters of the Second Amendment as complicit in mass shootings. that is the hypocrisy that every liberal outlet has shown over the past two weeks. When it came to covering the Parkland shooting, CNN held a town hall about gun violence, obviously biased towards gun control. Gun owners were demonized as nut jobs. The NRA was and is accused of being on the side of murder, all ignoring that most gun owners are law-abiding citizens who just want the right to protect themselves and their families.

but there was no town hall on illegal immigration after Molly Tippett's died. Those same media outlets are not calling for immigration reform or legislation. They're not calling for advocates of illegal immigration complicit. They're all but defending this guy. So the leftist media is willing and ready to stand up for illegal immigrants who have no right to be here, quite honestly, and a few of whom commit crimes that shouldn't be happening on our soil, but they will attack citizens exercising their constitutional right to bear arms. That's where progressivism gets us.

That's where intersectionality gets us. That is social justice, this soft handling and protection of a group that is arbitrarily considered marginalized illegal immigrants and the degradation of a group that is arbitrarily considered privileged American citizens. It is all stupid. Everything is stupid. I think I've said that a million times today. and it's sad and it's scary. Sorry to break it to you. I can't always end on a happy note.

That's just the state of the union this Tuesday afternoon. Okay. So one closing segment because I told a listener I would. So a few weeks ago, we talked about this myth of self-love, how it's just the world's attempt to make narcissism seem virtuous. It's an excuse to be selfish in my opinion. Loving ourselves comes naturally. That doesn't mean that we always think that we're beautiful or important or smart, but it does mean that we naturally take care of and defend ourselves. We look out for our own best interest naturally, and it actually takes training and discipline, love, and self-denial to look out for the interest of others. So I reject this push by the mainstream for self-love and instead think that we should be seeking

God's love, which leads to a right perspective of ourselves and others. And I want to dive into that part a little more deeply and just let us. y'all know a little bit of what I was thinking this weekend and a little bit of kind of what I learned through my own thought processes. So if you guys watched my Instagram story this weekend, you know that I went on this little rant about feeling blah. I was just feeling down on myself. To be candid, I had just gotten some criticism from someone and it discouraged me. And it put me in this mindset of kind of over-analizing everything that I was doing. Just like you, probably. I have plenty of people that don't like me. And sadly, in this industry, especially

the people who don't like you, they really would like to see you fail, in my opinion. They make these kind of snap judgments about you based on something someone said or a snippet of something that you said out of context. They ignore everything else that you've ever done and they label you. In my opinion, no matter what industry that you're in, this is just a tactic of insecure people who know that they're incompetent. it themselves and it makes them feel better to convince themselves that other people in the industry just aren't actually competitors. Nevertheless, though, it does hurt. It always hurts to get, you know, kind of deep criticism. And there are other things as well that I was feeling,

kind of feelings of rejection of not being chosen for this or that, not getting the same recognition that someone else got, whatever. And I just found myself in this kind of puddle of self-pity, just feeling badly about myself, questioning everything I'm doing, doubting my purpose, just feeling down on everything, feeling insecure. paranoid, whatever. And I tell you that because I want you to know that even though I talk a lot about finding my identity in Christ, I really struggle with that sometimes. I'm naturally a pretty confident person. This is a gift that God has given me. I've always been very comfortable with what I'm good at and the things that I'm not good at. But man, there's just some criticism. Everyone

I think has this. There's just some criticism that I really take to heart. And it's really hard for me to get over and not to obsess over. I don't know what that criticism is for you, but for me, it's when people assume that I, A, haven't worked hard for what I have, or B, that I'm not genuine. Those two things really bother me. They really cut me to the core because of, one, how untrue they are. And also, two, because of the fact that there's nothing that I can do to prove those things, except for just keeping my head down and continuing to do what I do.

There is no instant gratification in that. It's literally just kind of like taking a deep breath, shaking it off, trusting God, and carrying on. That's really all you can do when people accuse you of those things. So I don't know what that situation is for you, but more than likely you have had a period in your life where you have just struggled to feel sufficient or right or acceptable. You've struggled with confidence, self-assurance.

And I just want you to know that I get it. because I got a lot of messages after the whole self-love episode asking about how to get confidence and things like that. And what I have to do when I'm feeling pitiful, or maybe it's not just a moment, maybe it's a whole season that I'm feeling pitiful, I have to force myself out of it by remembering what God promises. And what he promises, really, ultimately, is just that he's going to use me for his glory. That's it. He promises that if I follow him, if I obey him, if I walk with him, He's going to use me to advance his kingdom and bring attention to his name. He doesn't promise that I'm going to be successful.

He doesn't promise that I'm going to be famous. He doesn't promise that I'm going to have lots of fans or subscribers or advertisers or accolades. He doesn't promise me money. He doesn't promise me comfort. He doesn't promise me health. He promises that he is going to use me for his purposes, whatever that is, to make him more famous. And if I only do that, his way, that's really all that matters.

the only judgment that I should ever be afraid of is his judgment. And Jesus has already taken that on my behalf. And the only praise that will ever be of consequence is his. So no tweet, no article, no compliment, no criticism, no hate, no love on this earth has any eternal consequence whatsoever. The only thing that matters is my obedience to Christ, my willingness to deny myself to take up my cross and follow him. all I am worried about is using all of the talent that I've been given for his glory. And I have to trust that he's going to take care of the rest of it. I can't plan my entire life or weigh the opinions of everyone around me.

That's way too heavy a load for me to bear. So instead, I get to follow Jesus who says that his yoke is easy and his burden is light. So that's what I offer you. Instead of self-love when you're feeling down, that's how to feel confident. The problem with self-love is that sometimes you don't feel like there's anything to love about yourself. So what happens then?

What happens when you've convinced yourself that you're worthless? Unless you know that your purpose and your worth is in something and someone bigger than yourself, how are you going to crawl out of that rut? So when you look in the mirror and you don't like what you see, who other than the one who created you is going to convince you that you're valuable. So when you look at your life and all you see is failure, who is going to assure you that as long as you're alive, you have purpose other than the one who actually planned all of your days before any of them came to be? It's not going to be you. Self love will always fail you because sometimes you don't know how to love yourself. But God doesn't have that problem. His love is unconditional, it's relentless. He doesn't love you anymore based on what you do or what you haven't done. It's the only thing in this. this life worth holding on to because it's the only thing that you can actually rely on no matter

what. And God is totally unstoppable in his pursuit of his own glory that we, that you and I get to take a part of. Remembering that takes a lot of effort, though, at least for me. Finding your worth in Christ takes a lot of trying. It takes refocusing. It takes deliberate reprioritizing of God's word over the words of other people. It takes choosing to pray when you want to complain. It takes thinking about God's promises when you'd rather just dwell on how unjust your situation is. It takes preaching the gospel to yourself when honestly self-pity feels kind of good. Don't get discouraged because you find yourself sliding into self-doubt and insecurity. No one said that this is going to be easy. Does self-crucifixion sound fun to you? Does it sound easy?

what about Jesus's life indicates that Christians are going to be comfortable, that will never deal with rejection or injustice? Nothing. The most that we can do, the only thing that we can do is to commit to long obedience in the same direction and trust that God is going to take care of us in the end. So that's what I learned in my little emotional ditch that I was in this weekend. And I hope that it helps you in yours too, if you're in one. Or maybe you can just save this for a rainy day.

Okay, I love you guys. I will see you on Thursday.