Theology in the Raw - 645: #645 - A Conversation with Lisa Bevere

Episode Date: April 30, 2018

Follow Lisa on Twitter, learn more about Messenger International, and check out Lisa's new book "Adamant". Support Preston Support Preston by going to patreon.com Connect with Preston Follow him on Twitter @PrestonSprinkle Check out his website prestonsprinkle.com If you enjoy the podcast, be sure to leave a review.

Many listeners to Theology in a Raw have questions about faith, sexuality, and gender. I know because at least half of the questions that you send in to me to answer on the show have to do with this complex topic. I want to let you know about a resource that I've created or helped create to guide you through this conversation. It's called Grace Truth 1.0, five conversations every thoughtful Christian should have about faith, sexuality, and gender. And it's only available on our website, centerforfaith.com. That's centerforfaith.com. Grace Truth 1.0 is a book, but it's more than a book. It's a small group study, but it's more

than a small group study. I like to think of it as a small group learning experience. The book portion of this learning experience has five short chapters, or as I call them, conversations about various topics related to faith, sexuality, and gender. And then at the end of each conversation, there's a bunch of questions that you or your group can go through together. Now, I've been in education long enough to know that everyone's learning style is different. This is why we created a series of high-quality educational videos that correspond to each of the five conversations in Grace Truth 1.0. Plus, if you want to go deeper into the conversation, we've also created optional podcasts and papers that

allow you to go deeper into certain areas that are only briefly covered in Grace Truth 1.0. I am so excited about this resource and hope that you'll check it out and consider taking a group of people through it. Again, to purchase Grace Truth 1.0, you can go to our website, centerforfaith.com, and just click on the resource link. That's centerforfaith.com forward slash resources. Now, without further ado, welcome to Theology in the Raw. Hello, Theology in the Raw listeners. I am so excited about this episode. I am here with my friend, an influencer in my life, and an all-around rock star for Christianity. I'm here with my friend, Lisa Bevere. She's shaking her head, but Lisa, I'm so excited to have you on. Thanks so much for being on Theology in the Raw. so much for being on Theology in the Raw. I love that I get to be the guest of Theology in the Raw. And I love that I'm actually seeing you for the first time. We've spoken many times,

but now we're doing the face-to-face. We've never done face-to-face. That's right. Never. I've only seen pictures of you on Twitter. That's it. Well, so this is, I want you to know that this, you are my official second YouTube guest. I just started a YouTube channel. Actually, no, no. I had a YouTube channel that I didn't realize I had, resurrected it. And now whenever I interview people for Theology in a Raw, I put the episode on YouTube. So Banning, our mutual friend, was my first YouTube guest, which the internet at my house was pretty crappy.

And so now I'm actually in prison right now, as you can see. I'm in a friend's office that has much better internet. So hopefully the video will turn out. You've got some massive like Jesus glory going on behind you. Yeah, that's the anointing of my life. You know, as charismatic, really hard.

Okay. So that's, that's because it's snowing here in Colorado. Okay. I will, I'll turn down my glory. So, um,

I, let's just jump in. You are, I mean, you, I don't know if you don't, do you claim the gift of prophecy? Cause I,

I feel like you have a prophetic voice, which is a more general phrase. Um, do you say you gift of prophecy? Because I feel like you have a prophetic voice, which is a more general phrase. Do you say your, what's your self-identity in terms of like your contribution to the kingdom? How do you describe yourself? You know, I do feel like I have a prophetic writing voice and a prophetic preaching voice, but I don't know that I would ever say,

like, if you came up to me or like, Lisa, give me a word. I'd be like, Preston, read your Bible. I mean, like there would not be, you would not be, you'd be disappointed. I mean, I have people there, they asked me to sign the book and they're like, okay, when you sign your book, can you give me a special word? And I said, I have written 65,000 words. That's it. That's all I got is in the book. And somebody edited it and made sure I was theologically correct. So I feel a whole lot safer with you reading my book rather than me just randomly writing something up for you. So you feel most at, would you say you feel most at home writing than speaking?

Or is it a both and? You know what? I write so I can speak. And I'm a little random so if i can get all of my thoughts in a certain place and then move them around with puzzle pictures and then put the word of god as the glue then that works for me but i i do feel like i am better with my writing than i am with my speaking interesting because. Cause I've seen you speak and you're, you're incredible. Like you're, I mean, for me more recently, when I see a speaker, that's clear, I used to, I used to think that passion and conviction was what did it. And I

still think that's super important, but clarity is so difficult. And yet people that do it well, it looks like so simple. They just get on stage and they talk and it's understandable. And yet people that do it well, it looks like so simple. They just get on stage and they talk and it's understandable. That's actually really hard to do. And your sermons are obviously very, I mean, maybe people don't know, but obviously very passionate, very convicting, challenging. But the clarity is incredible. So I'm going to confirm that your writings and your speaking is, I would say equally incredible, but that's,

yeah. Thank you. I would say that I couldn't speak if I hadn't written. Okay. You know, I was writing probably before I was speaking. I remember the first time I had an invitation, I said,

Hey, all you have to do is just read my book out loud. You know, John was like, Hey, I don't think that's the way it works. And I said, no,

no, I, I wrote, so I didn't have to travel and speak. So I don't, I don't think that's the way it works. And I said, no, no, I wrote so I didn't have to travel and speak. So I don't know if you know this about me, but I lost an eye to cancer when I was five. So this eye right here is plastic. So I never wanted to be up in front of people. The idea of getting up in front of more than two people was absolutely terrifying.

And so I thought if I write, my books can travel, I can stay home and be a mom. And that will be, you know, kind of marking a pathway. And so I was in shock when I got invited to speak. And I just, John was like, I think you need to pray about that. And I said, No, I don't want to pray about it. And he was like, Why? And I said because if god tells me uh i have to go then i have to go but if i don't know then it's all it's all good and he was like you can't live like that so yeah so the the writing happened first for me so i wrote a book called out of control loving it when i was 34 and i'm now 58 in this in june you're not 58 i I am. I'm 58. I got four grandkids. Yeah. I'm like a G-mama. I mean, four grandkids. It's almost your age. I could have birthed... Yeah. I have a 32-year-old. That's crazy. That is insane. Well, I'm 42, but you... Yeah. You can be my very young like child out of wedlock kind of mother but yeah for those for those who don't know who lisa bevere is and this is going to be probably a minority of my listeners but let's just go back who are you uh how did you find jesus how did you get into

the ministry that you're in now? And we'll go from there. We've got a lot to talk about. Sure. Well, I was raised Catholic. I would not say I was devout. I went to confession before Easter, before Christmas, and before airplane rides. I did not go to mass regularly. Religion, it was religion. And my parents um my family was just crazy full-on crazy so my grandfather and my grandmother my grandmother was married four times okay so that was scandalous she upgraded husbands my only grandfather i knew was on the manhattan project dean of chemistry at purdue and president great lakes chemical lots of adul of adultery, lots of alcohol, lots of money, lots of scandal. My dad, 100% Sicilian. And so I grew up being called a dagawap. It was just crazy and broken. My parents married, divorced, remarried, divorced again. So I just kind of

came to the place where I was 21, where I was like, I don't even know what counts. And I didn't like myself. I had become everything I didn't want to become. I was shallow. I was 21 where I was like, I don't even know what counts. And I didn't like myself. I had become everything I didn't want to become. I was shallow. I was immoral. I was an alcoholic, which my father had. I started drinking when I was 14. And so I remember I drove home from college, University of Arizona, back to go to summer school at Purdue because I was basically majoring in suntanning at the University of Arizona. So I had to do summer school classes to make up the gap. And I was alone in the car. And I thought, I don't like me. I don't like me at all.

And I think I was playing ACDC. Well, I know I was. I was playing ACDC in the car. And I was trying to stay awake, driving home from Tucson. And I'm singing out loud, I'm on the highway to hell. And I thought, I pretty much am. I pretty much am on the highway to hell. And I began to pray. And I said, in that car, I mean, think about that. God, if you're real, I don't know how to find you. And I moved back in with my parents. My parents were fighting, drunkenness, all this kind of stuff.

So I couldn't handle it. So I moved into the dorm and I met John at breakfast. Now, John was an engineering student, precious Christian, virgin, young guy leading an all-campus Bible study. I show up with a bikini top on and cut off shorts. And he's like, dear Jesus, I bind less, but I would love my wife to have legs like that. And I don't know if that's a prayer God really answers, but he invited me to a Bible study picnic. I heard the gospel press him for the very first time. I had never heard it. I was 21. And I just, John started walking on Purdue's campus with me. And I said, I need to do this Christian thing, whatever it is, I want to do it right now.

And so we prayed and I was born again. And then John said, well, now you're saved. And I said, I don't even know what that means. What does that mean to be saved? I mean, if you're not, if you don't have a Christian frame of reference and somebody says you're saved. And so he said, it means you're whole again,

spirit, soul, and body. And here was my takeaway on that i said so now i can have cheese and he was like what and i said you just said that i could have cheese it's like i did not say that and i said you said my body could be whole so he like grabbed hold of my hands he's like god if you can save this heathen you can heal her and so i i got healed i got healed on my first date with john. I still eat cheese and filled with the Holy Spirit. He started speaking in tongues. I was like, I can't do that.

That's not going to be good in my story. I can't do that on the campus. So I received the unfilling of the Holy Spirit, did not speak in tongues for a while. I was like, I don't know how I feel about that kind of stuff. Do now. But yeah, and so I spent all night, that first night, looking for the book of Paul. Because John had said, Paul said this and Paul said that. And having no Christian reference, you think there's a book of Paul and there's not.

And so I stood on the spine, way Bible, opened up to Corinthians, if any man be in Christ, our new creation. And I just knew. I knew at that moment, Preston crescent my entire life was finding its purpose in declaring this amazing jesus the savior so that was at 21 and um i just kind of leaned into that didn't know what that would look like didn't know women could speak i was just busy you know in the catholic church we're just all trying to be quiet so i did not know that women could have a voice or speak. And John and I got married a year and a half later and we decided we wanted to do it together.

And just saying it would be easier probably as a couple to not do it together, like have one person just do it and then the other person just be the support. But we wanted to do it together. We also have big dreams about giving away resources to people and so today we've given away 17 million individual resources in 106 languages to people who cannot get it because of persecution or poverty so you know it's not going to be in german or english it's going to be in arabic farsi chinese urdu russian those kind of languages and there's no one more astounded than we are so so we write and we believe in making

disciples that's basically what messenger international and john and i do between you and john how many books have you guys written oh uh i think i've done 14 and i think he's done like 23 or something like that but that could be totally for our audience uh the bait of satan that your husband john wrote is is that was that the biggest kind of boom or is there other ones because that's what i always stands out to me i mean that was an incredible was an incredible wave in Christianity when that was written. Yeah. So that would be his biggest, and it still is like long-term selling. Okay.

I think there's 3 million of those sold, but there'd be millions that we've given away of that resource. That was a huge one. I also think Killing Kryptonite, the one he just did uh i mean that's been out for less than a year and i think it's like 250 000 copies have sold uh good or god was also super popular but he has things like drawing near i mean he has so many books it's ridiculous the lord uh but beta satan was the one that put him on the map right and he had written a book called victory in the wilderness and the voice of one kind before that and um you know here's the thing i think the bait of satan resonates with so many people because it was our story of being offended it was our story of finding out

how to actually press in our story of feeling rejected by a father and understanding that rejection from a father isn't rejection from god and you know like leaning into that and see he was 34 when he wrote that and john's gonna be he's 59 this year so it's had a lot of length and life and driven by eternity has also been a huge book that john wrote so what about you? As far as your books, do you have one that stands out as being like having the most impact or maybe one that you feel like was the most important? And then I want to transition quickly into your recent book, Adamant.

Sure. You know, you know, the most, the most, most well without rivals, the only ones in New York times bestseller, but that doesn't mean it's

my necessarily my favorite book i love it i love because it's talking about identity and purpose but you know i feel like all of my books built on each other and um lioness arising was really important to me it was um it was a it was tied to a dream that i'd had when i was pregnant with my fourth son just about that women are strategic and that we hunt together. And just this whole idea of stepping people outside of their culture and looking from the outside into something. And then Girls With Swords, making sure that women actually have the word of God was really important to me. So yeah, so those would be my three. But I also wrote a book on sexual brokenness that I still, I still get feedback on from kiss the girls. So I love that. Yeah. Good. Tell me about adamant real quick. What's the subtitle again? I had a

copy and I drove down here and I forgot it and I could probably give it. Yeah, no, the subtitle is finding truth in a universe of opinion. Okay. So yeah, we could probably spend all a lot of time here. Unpack that for me. What's going on in our culture today and why this book? Well, so I am half Sicilian and I know you're part Armenian, right? So we really are strong about family. And I began to look around at what was going on. And I just said, you know what, this is not going to be the end of the legacy for my grandkids. Truth is not a river. Truth is a rock. And it isn't my truth, Preston's truth. That's true of, that's your story, that's your journey. But it's God's truth. Because if I'm not able to build my life on the word of God, which is truth, then I don't know

what I'm doing. So if the word of God is which is truth, then I don't know what I'm doing. You know, so if the word of God is changing according to my experience, my opinions, my friend's experiences, my friend's opinion, then we're in trouble. And so I wanted to just kind of bring everything back. And Preston, this is what I found out. The title adamant is this unique word for me uh my my i will admit my editors say that i i answer questions nobody's asking so um i i found out that adamant was not first an adjective or an adverb but it was a noun and that the greek uh mystics philosophers scientists decided that there was this mineral or stone that would be indestructible that it would be impervious to heat that it would be magnetic where it would draw but not be drawn that it would actually redirect light and they

called it adamus and they looked for this this is predating christ they looked for this and believed they would find it whatever nation it would have it would be adamus means invincible it would be invincible so it became like this legendary hope, kind of like the philosopher's stone, but it was called the adamant stone. They never found it. And when they couldn't, they associated with diamonds, when they couldn't, could no longer say, okay, diamonds vaporize, can't be an adamant, changed to an adjective or adverb. But I became really intrigued by this word. And I thought thought why did they think of a stone that didn't even exist and then i looked at the scriptures and i i found in daniel 2 where

he's interpreting nebuchadnezzar's dream well actually saying the dream and interpreting it and he said you saw a stone not made with hands and then he talks about this stone crushing the kingdoms and the stone becoming a mountain and mountain filling the entire earth then i think about jesus being the cornerstone then i read about then this rock that followed them through the wilderness which was christ i looked at the meaning of that rock it says an unassailable refuge and i began to think wait a minute god weaves out longing eternity for all of us and j Jesus is the adamant. He is the invincible. He is the one that will draw but not be drawn.

He is that keeper of light. He is this one that is impervious to heat and time. He's the eternal rock of ages. And so, you know, searching through the scriptures, I thought, well, truth is a rock, not a river. And we need to be adamant. But at the same time, we can't be harsh. So what we're talking about is being immovable and falling upon the word that I would be broken, that I might be whole, rather than having the rock fall on me and crush me. So this is kind of the day and time period. These are all different ways of looking at the same thing that we all talk about all the time.

But I feel like we need to let people know there's something solid. Now, as you go around and speak, I mean, you speak at a lot of different, I mean, countries and cities and environments and denominations and cultures and age groups and everything. What are you seeing in the church today? I guess it's kind of cliche, but maybe it's true that in particular younger people, the next generation are not founded on the truth. They seem to understand love and grace, but their grappling or understanding of truth is, is weaker than it was before. I mean, that, that's kind of the stereotype. Are you seeing that as well?

And is that kind of what you're addressing or, or who do you have in mind when you're writing the book? No, I, I, I had a lot of those things in mind, but here's, here's what I do, Preston. I write the books I need to read. So I want to study something I'm going to, I'm going to say, cause I'm in, you know, true confession here. I'm a seven on the Enneagram. I'm to study something. I'm going to say, because I'm a true confession here. I'm a seven on the Enneagram. I'm an ENFP. I want everybody right.

I want everybody happy. I want everybody to get along. That's my personality. So I have to actually anchor myself to some things. And so I have to dig deep. I don't want everybody else telling me what truth is. I'm going to get into the word of God, and I'm going to figure this out. I do feel like there has been a mishandling of truth, which has alienated

the millennials. And so they're looking and they're saying, your truth is spoken without love. And so now they're speaking love without truth. So truth without love is harsh, but love without truth is a lie because God is truth and he is love. And so what we've got to do is we've got to say, forgive us for being known for what we're against. Forgive us for mishandling these things. I love that when my path crossed with yours, I felt like you with your book, People to be Loved,'re navigating with both love and truth and grace and mercy, the conversations that we need to have with respect. And that's why I reached out to you, like fangirled,

like put your stuff up, told everybody to buy the book on trouble. But, you know, it actually so resonated with the tone of God speaks to me. You know, when God corrects me, he does not alienate me. He does not reject me. He does not shame me, but he draws me into the best of who I am. And so I think that there's a huge challenge for the millennials to actually accept love and truth because they've just seen truth mishandled i also think that millennials are having a really hard time um finding out what they're called to do

and i think part of that challenge is they're trying to find out who they are without understanding whose they are and we have a generation that has so much information and yet not enough time to actually say law and have time in the presence of God. I've had moments, whether it's in worship or reading or just prayer, where God has spoken very deep things to me, not about my past, not even about my presence, but about my destiny. He's imprinted his hope over my life. And I think that a lot of them, they're trying to navigate. And so they're seeing what everybody else is doing. But I actually believe that this is a generation that is called to do something that hasn't been done before. And so they're captivated by what

everybody else is doing, or they feel like, oh, somebody's already doing that. I can't do that. There's a lot of competition. There's a lot of comparison. And so I've loved going out as a Scythian grandmother and saying to them, I believe there is something on your life that has not been done before. You will never find out who you are in the presence of people. You must find it in the presence of God. And so driving them, and for whatever reason, Preston, a lot of them have a disconnect with will never find out who you are in the presence of people. You must find it in the presence of God.

And so driving them, and for whatever reason, Preston, a lot of them have a disconnect with their parents, but they don't have a disconnect with their grandparents. So I've done a lot of youth stuff this year, and we'll do a couple more. So on the youth thing, and in particular, the book you wrote on sexual broken brokenness this has been a i mean obviously this is my general area on sexuality and gender and what how do i ask this as a guy asking this it's always a little bit like oh is this right so um when it comes to sexual brokenness in younger christian girls in particular I just read the other day, the statistics on girls who have been sexually either abused or taken advantage of on some level and what that does to them. I mean, what are, what, what is the church ignoring? What does

it need to speak into? Uh, what is maybe the maybe in the category of sexual brokenness or being a sexual victim? And the percentages of Christian girls and when it was like in the church and it's just crazy. The shame for the Christian girls is really huge. I actually think it's almost harder on the Christian girls. And again, you know, I was a wild child, and then I became a Christian. And I'm going to tell you, and again, I'm just going to use a story from my own life. So right after I became a Christian, Preston, I was sexually assaulted. And I called my mother and, you know, like borderline hysterics and told her what had happened and of course in my mind

all these things were going through my mind like um this is your fault you have a past you you you know you you didn't know what you were you know whatever you shouldn't find yourself in this situation and um i called my mom and her answer to me was yeah so and so my bible study said you have a seducing spirit and and and it it like devastated me absolutely devastated me and thankfully john and i were friends at the time we weren't even dating uh he he had he was in dallas and i was at university arizona and i called him and i i you know, again, crying, told him what happened. And I told him what my mom's Bible study friend had said. And he was like, Lisa, no, you did not ask for this.

And again, I was in a turtleneck with a sweater and corduroy pants on. I was trying to dress very Christian back then. And with, you know, my monogram on it. And it was an attorney from Phoenix. Anyway, so, you know, he just, he and it was an attorney from phoenix anyway so you know he just he prayed over me he broke that shame off of me and and i was fine but this is what i started to find happening when i minister to the young girls because not only are they knowing that maybe they're doing something they shouldn't do they have the shame and the guilt and they don't they're

afraid to tell anybody now how tragic that in the don't, they're afraid to tell anybody. Now how tragic that in the house of God, I'm afraid to tell people that I'm wrestling with something. And so I remember I was ministering to the youth girls and this was my, actually my impetus of writing this book. And there were so many of them just eaten up with shame. And God gave me Zephaniah 317, that the Lord your God is mighty to save,

that he will rejoice over you. He was saying he'll quiet you with the love. And he said, they're in a sexual nightmare, Lisa. And he said, my response to a nightmare is to not hand out rules. And my boys were young at the time. And he said, when your boys wake in the middle of the night

and they've had a nightmare, what do you do? And I thought, well, if John's out of town, I put him in bed with me. I hold him close. I tell them stories. I sing them songs. What am I doing? I'm trying to put back to sleep what was awakened in the wrong manner. And what the church has done, instead of saying, oh my gosh, this generation is being bombarded,

they've said, don't do, don't do, don't do. And here's the thing. We've got to actually allow the Holy Spirit to wash away their guilt, wash away their shame, because we all know what happens if a girl says yes to this, or if she has sex, then she feels like she doesn't have the right to say no. So what I tried to do with my book was say, everything in my book is going to position them at the feet of Jesus, where he says, I don't condemn you, but he doesn't stop there. He says, and go and sin no more. Meaning I'm going to empower you with the grace of God that you'll no longer live a life in the shadow. Because that's what he said. He said, I'm the light of the world. He walks in me,

no longer walks in darkness, but has the light of life i'm going to position them from shame and shadow to light and hope that jesus is always saying i don't condemn you and i have died so that you can actually leave behind the bondage and the shame and so for me that was a huge thing and i still love to to say those kind of things um I also have, and this is, you're going to think I'm crazy, but when I wrote Kiss the Girls, I didn't endorse masturbation. And, you know, a lot of people are like, oh, that's just normal. Well, I don't, like, and they want to know if it's a sin or not. And I said, you know what? It's a shadow. It's a shadow. And I don't like to label sin, not sin. Again, I don't want to condemnation, but I found out that it's going to, it's going shadow and i don't like to label sin not sin again i don't want a condemnation but i found out that it's gonna it's gonna shadow their future relationships it's gonna shadow their time so i

said you know this is so i said it's a shadow you don't want to live in the shadow realm so i remember focusing the family is like well we're not going to have you on because you're not endorsing masturbation and i was like okay so i was feeling sorry for myself. I'm on my back porch. And I was like, you know, I tried to write a book on sexual purity and focus on family says no. So I was feeling sorry. And I heard the Holy spirit say, Lisa, what will you let me do in your meetings? And I was like, God, you can do whatever you want in my meetings. And he said,

I want to start to heal my daughters of sexual diseases. And I'm like, wait a minute, wait a minute. Like, what would that even look like? I need all the herpes. I'm like, God, you don't just call those things. Nobody comes down for a sexually transmissive disease prayer line. We don't do that. And he said, nope, you're not going to call it out. He said, you're going to send my word. You're going to send Psalm 103 over a generation. You're going to say, bless the Lord, all my soul and all my inmost being, bless his holy name, bless the Lord, all my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgives. And you and I all, nobody has a problem with believing God forgives. And it says, says and heals and so i would declare the word of god over an

audience and then press when i started getting all these praise reports of the love of god touching those girls in the meeting women who had herpes so bad that they were part of a study totally healed totally cleansed i mean all these different diseases and it's not me. I'm not a healer. It's the word of God. And sometimes I just begin to wonder if we're all acting like we're protecting Jesus's reputation by preaching him as just as a savior when we die, instead of a healer and somebody transforms our life from this moment forward. I know, it's, I don't know. So I'm just stupid enough to believe that if I speak the word of God, he's going to watch over it to report, to perform it. Gosh. So you, as we're talking,

all these topics like masturbation and I want to chase down all of these, but let's, I think my audience, uh, love it if we would maybe dive a little bit deeper into the masturbation conversation because that's something that you know um as every study you know 90 of uh teenage boys masturbate the other 10 are lying um it's traditionally been kind of a question let me ask you this is it in your experience as as a female writing to female other women about sexual brokenness and abuse, and you just said, if I can reiterate what you said or reconfirm that, you wouldn't say it's an outright sin.

You just see it as a mis-shadow. I love that analogy, like maybe misguided or whatever. Or how would you, in terms of the sin, is it not? Can I do it?? Can I do it? When can I do it? Whatever. Is this just a boy problem or a girl problem? No, no, no. It's definitely both genders. But no, I think it's a violation of do not arouse or awaken love before it's time. And so we talked to our boys. I'm a mom of four men now. So we talked very openly with our boys and we said, listen, everybody's going to tell you this is normal.

And we don't want to shame you. But we also want to tell you that it will actually work against everything you want in your future. And, you know, if you want to be able to give your passion to a woman, you don't give your passion to yourself. And like, we, we positioned them for a sexual legacy. And, and then, you know, the brothers and it's hilarious because it still lives on Preston. The brothers are like open door policy. So like, literally I'm in my kitchen, we get a bathroom where I can, doors open. I'm like, y'all, I, I trust you open I'm like y'all I I trust you they're like nope open door policy mom so like always open door open conversation our boys would come to us

and say hey I'm really struggling with lust or I saw this image or somebody showed me this and we would pray with them and do communion we did not shame them we did not we just talked to them about how powerful their sexuality was and um and how most of the most of the approach is suppress suppress suppress yeah and then one day you're all in and and so i felt like it was really important when i when i was talking to the girls i i used the analogy of sleeping beauty and how her parents heard that the spinning wheel was going to kill her. So they made spinning wheels illegal. Well, spinning wheels are good things. And our sexuality is a good thing. So it would have been better if they trained her to be skillful with the spinning wheel rather than making it illegal.

There was like one day that was going to be a problem. And they made it so forbidden that it was intriguing and so we've always had open conversations about sexuality in front of our boys and you know i did it i did a series with my my boys are all men now um on sexual purity i think it was an early early part of last year no no i was your mother's day anyway they all said mom and dad what worked for us was you told us why not just don't yeah and so you know like you know all of my boys have had encounters with pornography it affected each of them in different levels but they all wanted to actually um really save their sexuality for their wife. They didn't want a phantom in the bed. And that's to me that shadow thing, you know, and here's the truth.

Do we believe that God knows the way we're made? And Isaiah 2 is one of my favorite things. And I'm reading it for the message paraphrase because I just like it. But it says, God will show us the way he works so we can live the way we were made. It says God will show us the way he works so we can live the way we were made. And we were not made to be bombarded by lust and images and constant sexualization. So we're in a very highly sensitive time period right now. And so, you know, we want to have an awareness that that's going on, but we also want to have a stewardship of what's going on so i don't think i i don't think i've ever met

one single person that says hey i'm i'm habitually masturbating and i think it's a good practice in my life i don't think i've ever met and i've never had to say to them yeah that's not good i've always had them say this is what's going on in my life and i and i it's like becoming a shame cycle and now i need to involve pornography and now you know like and it's it's like becoming a shame cycle and now I need to involve pornography. And now, you know, like, and it's, it's always taking, taking them places they don't want to go. Let me ask you this and I'm sensitive to your time. So I'm, we're going to start rounding the corner here, but with, um, you've raised four boys are married to a husband and, and, uh,

and I don't want to play into the stereotypes of, you know, boys are just overwhelmed with lust and girls aren't. Cause I know there's, there's, yeah. Um, what I, in, in, you know boys are just overwhelmed with lust and girls aren't because i know there's there's no it's not true yeah yeah um what i in in you know i was a college professor for a number of years and every single person comes to me with this just overwhelming either habit or addiction to pornography and i see masturbation i very much like you like i don't think i don't have a verse to go to that says, thou shalt not. And obviously, people are masturbating all the time in the biblical world, and yet there's no command to not do it.

So that tells me that it wasn't quite a sin on the same level as, say, adultery or whatever. I do see it as, especially as likely habit forming, which is leading down to a road of more destruction, more, you know, all kinds of stuff that isn't the way God designed it. But when it comes to a student who's like, I, I just cannot stop looking at porn.

Is it bad advice to say, look, master, if you masturbate before you look at porn, that might be a band.'s a it's it is a band-aid on a much deeper issue but that would be categorically better than simply looking at books i see i see porn on the level of like smoke you know smoking dope shooting up heroin like it's so addictive so destructive you go down that path path, and that is a dark, deep, destructive, sinful path

that's going to destroy you. Masturbation, not nearly as much. I think it's the combination of the two. Yeah. Because it becomes a sexual imprinting. So to me, I have no doubt that porn is sinful. Yeah. Because I can find scriptures that says don't, you know, many of them, you know, whether it's in the book of Job or Jesus or whatever.

So we have clarity on that. Yes. So I think as a professor or if a person came to me and said, I just keep looking at porn and I would be like, stop now, what I have to know, but what I'd have to do is set them up with some kind of accountability. So, you know, it's, I'm going to have to, there's going to have to be a person in their life or whatever, and we're going to have to help them because it is like an addiction.

And so when somebody has an addiction, you can say, Oh, just stop using heroin. But you and I both know, it's not that easy. And so I think that you break habits, the same way you form them, which is one incident at a time, you know, five minutes at a time. And so like, you have to give them spans of time where you're saying, this is what you're going to do. And, and then you're going to have somebody you're accountable to. them spans of time where you're saying, this is what you're going to do. And, and then you're going to have somebody you're accountable to. And instead of going to this,

you know, cause we don't want them just to, we want them to go towards something, you know? So instead of this, what do you, what is porn? What is porn giving you that you need to get from somewhere else?

Like what's the deeper longing that. Yeah. It was, it wasn't g it's accredited to gk chesterton but he didn't actually say it but every man who rings the bell of a brothel is is looking for god i think that's so brilliant it's a little simplistic and like yeah but but yeah, but there is that misguided sexual desire and expression is flowing from a good desire. It's just that. It's misguided. And all, I believe, sexual intimacy and desire is somehow connected to our desire for God. It's why we have marriage as a main metaphor for our relationship with God. And so when our sexual brokenness is manifested, that's more of a symptom than the deeper things going on.

Have you seen that? I would totally agree with that. You know, when I was writing Adamant, I went right from the concept of Adamant to Adamantly Intimate. Because I felt like it was so important that people understand how God approaches their darkness. And when we look at the Genesis account, it's so beautiful. It says that the Spirit of God hovered. And when you look up the rabbinical text of that word hover, it means like a dove, but it also means with gentle, cherishing motions. God wasn't hovering over the earth, or is he hovering over you and me saying,

oh my gosh, Preston, you're just disgusting. I wish you would stop that. He's actually hovering saying, Preston, I want to actually separate light from darkness. Preston, there are things that are the fathoms of deep water that I want to call forth in your life. Preston, I don't call you boy or girl. I call you son or daughter. That's a relationship. That's not or daughter. That's a relationship. That's not gender.

That's a relationship. Other people call us failure. He calls us his own. These are the things that only happen when we understand that we have a God who is constant and he is unchanging. This is what I love about God because he does not change. I can't change because I always know what his response is going to be. He's the same yesterday, today, and forever. He has loved me with an everlasting love.

He's not, he's not going to change his mind. His, his love for me is invincible and it is absolutely impervious to my awful. And so what we have to do is we have to say, this is a God who is truth and it's a rock and it's solid, but God's truth is as hard as a diamond and is tender as a child, as tender as a dove. It's those contrasts that we've lost in our culture, you know? So you've got Jesus flipping over the tables and then you've got Jesus

speaking tenderly to a woman, you know? So we've got those extremes of compassion and also, hey, social justice. So I want to see people understand the same God who is adamant in truth is adamant in love, which means he will go after everything that undermines love in our life. And pornography and masturbation end up undermining the work of love and intimacy in our life and pornography and masturbation end up undermining the work of love and intimacy in our life my husband and i we got married he had a porn uh masturbation addiction and you know like many guys he thought well getting married is going to fix that

and and i wasn't very helpful preston because i have my own guilt going on and i thought well that's all i deserve you know i And so I didn't help him. I didn't make him feel clean. It was not good. And he pressed into God. And God finally had to come to the place where he said, John, you don't want to do this because you think it's going to keep you out of A, B, and C. He said, but you need to actually understand that it's separating us. Not that God would ever leave him, but it was a shadow. It was a shame. It veiled everything he did. And it was hurting our marriage, of course. And so, you know, I just think that God hates what actually takes us away from him. And so I think a

lot of times in my own life, it's, you know, when I wrote this book, Adamant, I wasn't like, okay, people, this is what's wrong with everybody. I was like, I don't want to stay out of place in my own heart. I want to have truth in my inner parts. I want to have love there, too. I don't want to just have love, and I don't want to just have truth. I don't want to just have grace. I want to have it all. I want to love what God loves, what Spurgeon would say, and hate what he hates. And understand that God's hate is always about protecting who he

loves. So God doesn't love everything. He can't, but he loves everyone. So good. Lisa, you've got a plane to catch, and I've taken more time than I should have. So I just, your wisdom, your voice, your writing, your perspective. I love the fact that you're edgy and truthful and just can't really be fit in this little box. I'm not going to say your age again because I don't believe it, but late fifties, Sicilian grandma should be in Christendom. Thank you for your voice. Thank you for your courage and your passion for both grace and truth. And thank you so much, most of all, for being on Theology in the Raw.

The book is Adamant. I encourage my listeners to go check it out. Amazon it, whatever. It's there. It's awesome. And thanks so much, Lisa, for being on the show. Thank you, Preston. All right.

Take care. Hey, thanks so much for listening to the Theology in the Raw podcast. If you'd like to submit a question, you can email me at chris at prestonsprinkle.com. That's C-H-R-I-S at prestonsprinkle.com. If you're a patron supporter and you'd like to submit a question, you can do so through my Patreon page. You can submit a question there and I'll address it on the monthly Patreon-only podcast. If you've benefited from the show and you'd like to become a Patreon supporter

for as little as five bucks a month, then again, you can go to my Patreon page at patreon.com forward slash theology in the raw. And lastly, if you'd like to check out our Grace Truth learning experience, then you can go to the website centerforfaith.com, click on the resource link, and the Grace Truth Experience is a great way to address the topic of faith, sexuality, and gender. It's great for small groups in particular, but even as an individual, it'd be a great resource for you to go through. Thanks for listening. Thanks for supporting, and we'll see you next time on Theology in the Raw.