Steven Menking the Chaplain of PBN

[00:00:03] You're listening here to PBN, Your Path Back to Stability Here

[00:00:33] Steven Menking, how you been my man? Things are good over here James, I was looking at the, looking at those pickles in the, in the, I was like yeah I can go for a pickle right now Oh man, pickles, unbelievable It can't be, it can't be gone from my first 30 seconds of a broadcast for a long time and then only to show up with a bunch of pickles in one hand later on It feels like it would be a little bit of a weird move I think you'd get a round of applause if you showed up with a jar of pickles from our audience

[00:01:01] Pickling, pickling is a thing, you know what I mean? My, my 18 month old or soon to be 18 month old loves, loves pickles Sometimes I have to cut the rinds off, but it's an extra snack for me So it's all, I'm all, I'm all in favor of the pickling process Yeah man, my 13 year old fell in love with them like about a year ago Great You know, they're, I mean they're phenomenal for you Fermentation is always a good thing We don't need to have enough fermentation in our life, right?

[00:01:28] Didn't, didn't have that in the pre-show notes, the extensive pre-show notes that we took But I, I completely agree I would, I'm not, I'm not an expert in those sorts of things I'm pretty sure I got you Are you drinking coffee at this hour? No, not at all This is, this is a weird tea mix I'd show it to you, but it's gonna like top out It's like cinnamon and lemongrass and that kind of stuff Oh, nice, a little herbal tea before bed I like it Trying to stay sharp I got some, I got some extra stuff to do after this

[00:01:56] It just turned into a really busy evening for You know when, you know when everybody wants something all at once? Yeah, you're a dad, right? Oh yeah Does that describe most days of your life? When everybody wants something all at once? A hundred percent, man I've been in this like sort of back and forth situation Where the days where I can get a little bit of time to myself And I know that I should be spending it on the longer term projects

[00:02:26] Right Then at the end of the day, I feel like Man, I didn't get stuff done that I needed to But I also needed to rest and relax So it's like, what am I spending my relaxation time on? It's enough to wind you up But you gotta have enough good pursuits to balance it out Oh, for sure Hey, it's what it takes You know what I mean? It's a, it's always a battle Every day it's like I wake up and say that Like it's a battle Well, at least it's new, you know

[00:02:55] At least you can wake up and be like I wonder what's gonna happen today But it's a good, it's a good litmus test of your attitude You know, and for me, what I've been trying to do better And still like not up to, up to par on something like this Is starting my day instead of rolling over and peeking at the phone Even though I can certainly justify it to myself Because like, I need to know if the world's still around Right, I gotcha You know, just to check, just to make sure But once you do that for 15 seconds

[00:03:23] Then, you know, it can turn into 15 minutes pretty quickly So I'm trying to do a better job of You know, like going through my prayer list And starting things off right I would be misrepresenting myself If I said that I am, you know Getting up an hour before the kids And doing the early morning cycle The way that you like to, you like to do it And I haven't gotten there yet It would, it would, it would certainly keep us Keep us more disciplined in that regard That's for sure A dog will make you get up or else it'll pee on the rug

[00:03:53] So it's a good motivation to get out of bed Like I can't lay in bed Because of the dog I mean, I probably couldn't, it'd be fine But in my head it's like Do you feel like a hostage? Nah, no I mean, man, dude, I don't even know how to do it anymore You know what I mean? I'm so up and out of the bed when I wake up And my wife too It's the same thing We're like immediately out of the bed It's like a fire The alarms go off

[00:04:22] And we're like boom, boom, boom And she's quicker than me She's in the bathroom doing hair And getting dressed So it's, you know, it's just not our style Dude, it's clean living It's something to aspire towards Because we're not always going to have that kind of energy, right? And it's not It's the right It's the right kind of urgency Something that comes from What, you know, what the Bible talks about Is an overflow, right? You have this You have this within you

[00:04:50] And you're not doing it because you're fearful Or in a panic It's not like this frantic energy that's misdirected And it's not a begrudging energy Like, oh, I'm up So I guess I might as well do it It's like there's It's the right kind of constructive motivation You can pretty easily tell Unless you're deluded in a big way If it's gone off the rails in one way or the other And, you know, maybe it doesn't always stay balanced For those seasons But that's like

[00:05:18] I know there are plenty of people Millions of people in this country Who certainly do not wake up with that kind of With that kind of motivation That kind of mindset And like just watching videos on YouTube About doing cold plunges at 4 a.m. Is not going to change people Oh, man The cold plunges eluded me forever I mean, you know It is what it is I'll tell you what, though One of the things I do take for granted With my wife is And she probably the same

[00:05:47] And this is weird in the age of like I don't know It's just weird in this age To say this out loud But like And I don't know that we would judge each other But we certainly carry a sense That if we If If I were to lay in bed And like And she got up and got ready And is getting ready for work And doing all that I would have a sense Like a felt sense of like Ugh Yeah Is she looking at me like And we've been together for 20 some years You know what I mean

[00:06:17] So it's not like We're in a new relationship But I don't know what she's thinking She probably wouldn't think anything But And I know she feels the same way Yeah It's almost like I don't know I don't know exactly what it is But it's a felt sense of like Almost judgment kind of in a way But it But it serves to make you better I think there's a I think there's a positive take on On that I guess it depends on how On how you internalize it right It's the sense of mutual Mutual responsibility

[00:06:46] And maybe you're That's a good word for it If you reasoned it out You'd be less concerned with External judgment And more like This is an internal expectation That I put on myself And it's productive And it's positive It's totally positive Yeah You've just You've made You've made a good habit And it would feel It would feel Inappropriate To move away From a good habit Like And however you conceptualize That consequence It can be as

[00:07:16] As dramatic Or as banal As you want I mean You're not You're not necessarily Doing the habit To avoid the emotional feeling Of that Like accountability Pressure But it helps Like any Any little bit helps Because there's always going to be As you're going through the Should I Why or should I not Calculus Usually it all happens Instantaneously And we're not actually Thinking it through But there are these Various checkpoints And maybe you get to Maybe you get to base camp And you're like I really should

[00:07:46] But then the Temptation Kicks in But then you have That extra layer It's just like That extra little boost A little oxygen tank To make sure That your threshold level For actually doing something Is a more appropriate balance So You know I don't know Maybe that's a little Too convoluted For Yeah I mean Getting into it Like that But I don't remember How it started I don't think We ever really had Like a Like an unhealthy Relationship So I don't think It's born out of that And the other thing That we don't have

[00:08:15] Is like If If one of us Decided to lay in bed The whole morning Neither of us Would be like What the hell Is going on You know What I mean We'd be like Oh they're tired You know What I mean So they They're gonna stay in bed And that's it But in In both of our heads I know that It's almost like We've built These expectations On ourself To I think really What it is Is to be Proficient In the relationship And in In our goals That we've You know Over 20 years Of like

[00:08:45] Being 17 All the way To having Being married Very young Having kids And you know Building a whole life On top of all that You know What that takes Yeah And I think We just kind of Built that stuff in And when you When you're Off your game You feel it You're like I gotta step this up For her You know what I mean And vice versa It's a It's a good thing That's why You know You can You can go all the way Back to Genesis To find the commentary That it's not good For man That you should be alone I think That's one of the That's one of the Core things

[00:09:15] I could very easily Imagine myself Like without the Accountability mechanisms I'd like to say that Oh I would be Just as productive And proactive But that's a lie It's just a It's just a straight up lie Yeah So we We do our We do our best With With what With what is given to us But man We got a We got a vegetation gene In us somewhere My man Oh you're right You're right In 20 In 2019 I ran a marathon

[00:09:44] And I only finished That marathon Because my kids And my wife Are there See The only reason At mile 18 Stephen Menking I had the most Terrible realization And it was This I was like Okay Well that wasn't Even it It was I'm gonna Wimp out And I'm gonna Walk To finish Cause I'm dying And I started to walk And it hurt Worse To walk

[00:10:15] My hips Hurt so bad Walking There's a sermon In there somewhere James Oh it was brutal Man So then I just ran It hurts worse To walk I'll put my I'll name my next Reliance then It hurt worse To walk It really did It was crazy I was like Oh I can't walk This is great So yeah At that point I'd have been like Let's get the cell phone out Get the Uber Uber back to the car And drive home At mile 20 But there's no way You can quit When your family's there Waiting for you

[00:10:44] At the finish line You can't pull up In an Uber And be like Ah just Yeah Yeah As long as You don't As long as you don't Expire on the racetrack Like you might as well Make it through I think I'd rather An extra I think I would have rather I'd rather be found dead Than be found Behind them With an ice cream cone At least you come back On your shield Yeah exactly As opposed to With some dipping dots You sold out Man My sons would never Let me Yeah They would never Let me live that one down

[00:11:14] But you're right That's the power And it is a weird thing Because we live in a time Where so many men are alone It's becoming a thing And what's become a thing Right It's already a thing Multitudes of groups of men Who are reading Genesis Going like I could do it alone You know what I mean And then You know Suicide Or whatever else Terrible things Tend to happen Yeah But yeah That's a That's a scary realization You know Because it is

[00:11:43] It just does make you better It's always weird To run into a guy Who is like 45 And has lived alone Forever And you're Talking to him And you're like Whoa You're a different Creature than me Yeah We're different You can wake up Every day and go What do I want to do today What do I want to eat What do I want to listen to Watch Whatever And you just You just become A different thing Yeah You know And I You know I wouldn't want To necessarily Communicate the dogmatic idea

[00:12:13] That anyone in that situation Is there Because they're trying To exclusively fulfill Selfish motives That seems like That seems like Oh no No Not where we're trying to go So just Just so people Don't get the wrong impression But I totally understand It's a It's a It's a different thing And I You know I noticed this with You know My friends Who don't Who don't have kids It's not that They're not good people It's that there are Certain things That I have lived experience on That they don't And that I can communicate about

[00:12:42] About it with them But that there's something Where there's a fundamental gap Those sorts of Oh yeah They're different They're just sort of Different Like Categorical Existential Differences Not to the point of Obscuring our common humanity Or anything else That Oh no way But you know It's a It's a different It's a different ballgame When you're playing And you gotta know You gotta know What ballgame You're playing in And I think that's

[00:13:11] To Inartfully Segway into The general topic That you had That you had floated I think that's part of the Part of the problem That people are Dealing with right now And that is that There's a lot of whiplash And people don't know What game they're playing in And That's It shows up In a variety Of different In a variety Of different ways Like symptomatically But I think that's the case Across a A bunch of different Domains I can see that

[00:13:41] And This comes out In Let's say When I'm When I'm working With one of my Students Or mentoring One of the One of the younger Adults at church And they're In a situation Where They They studied They did Did well in school They're having You know Trouble finding a job In their In their field Even if the field Is something like For instance Cyber security Based off of a Recent Recent conversation I'm having Because they're in This Sort of Black hole Type situation Where

[00:14:11] Every job posting Gets flooded With hundreds And hundreds Or even Thousands Of Applicants And You know The Entry Level The joke Is that The entry Level Jobs Require Five years Of Experience And everything Else Like that So It's It's difficult Because people Can feel Very much A Sense Of the Ground Is moving Under Their feet In a variety Of different Domains And you're not Sure

[00:14:40] Where it's Going to Where it's Going to Go And Psychologically For some People That can be Even More Uncomfortable Than What appears To be An Inevitable Slippery Slope Towards Unmitigated Disaster Like If you're Going off The cliff In that Particular Way Like At least You know You're Going off A cliff And sometimes People crave Crave Certainty Enough Where that's A more Comfortable Situation Than A Than Something That's Kind Of

[00:15:09] Nebulous Across Those Lines So That That's One Of The That's One Of The Unifying Themes That I'm Observing And To be Fair James Like I'm Caught Up On Stuff But I I'm Not An Expert In The Finer Points And The Ins And Outs Of The Different Narratives That Are Going On In Part Because I Don't Think I Structurally Can Be Not Just Because

[00:15:39] There's Only 24 Hours In A day And I Have Other Things To do With My Time Although That Is Definitely A Limiting Factor But Because I Think It's I Think It's Reasonably Likely That In Order To Try To Figure Out The Truth Of What's Going On We're Just Not Going To Have Access To That Kind Of Information In A Way Where I The Filter That I'm Using Now Is Basically Operating Under

[00:16:09] The Assumption That Everything Is PR To One One Extend Or Another And So I'm Not Worried About The Exact Mechanics Of What's Going On Behind The Scenes Because To Me There's Sort Of Diminishing Marginal Returns When It Comes To This But What Are The Signals That Are Being Sent Because At The Very Least I Can Observe The Narratives And The Stories That Are Being Written And Told And You Know Experimented With And Everything

[00:16:39] Else Like That And I Don't Think That Justifying My Own Allocation Of My Bandwidth Across The Various Domains That I Encounter But It Is Definitely True That These These Days When You Think About Fifth Generation Warfare And Everything Else Like That The Battle Space That We're Involved In Like It Or Not Is

[00:17:17] The The Warfare That We're Engaged In You Know Apart From Apart From The Spiritual Level In In Terms Of The The Natural Is A War Of Narrative Then It Makes Sense To Pay Attention To The Narrative It Doesn't Mean That You Ignore Like What's Actually Going On Like Real World But The Thing That Has The More Moveable Impact Is The Narrative And The Way That It's

[00:17:46] Absorbed So I'm Not Suggesting That Everyone Go Out And Become Propagandists Or Anything Else Like That But If You Accept That Everything Is Propaganda In One Form Or Fashion And That It Is To A Very Meaningful Extent Designed Whether From A Top Down General Guidance Institutional Structure Atmosphere Perspective Or Even Concretely From The Bottom Up Or Now Technologically From The

[00:18:16] Being Programmed To Put Out Various Things And Achieve Certain Objectives Without Understanding The Interplay Of

[00:18:46] Stand And I Think That I Mean

[00:20:32] the pyramids i'm like yeah like am i surprised by that absolutely not is there an interesting purpose to the disclosure of that maybe it certainly nudges more people in the into the realm of things are not what they seem to be and things are not as we have been told so there's a there's a semblance of institutional trust preparation for change uh you know limited hangout disclosure like regardless of

[00:20:57] what is actually there under the under the sands we can decipher okay there's there's extra movement in people's perceptions we don't have to get frustrated that oh someone makes a counter argument and they're standing like the this rigid naturalistic orthodoxy standard standard timeline stuff like we don't have to get in those we don't get in those fights we can observe we can observe

[00:21:22] the people as what they are and then speak the speak the truth as we um as we see fit because that does like that does move the narrative in and of itself even if it's not on a on a large scale necessarily so yeah i wonder if people there's something we're in love with that uh those stories like the pyramids when things come out and we go like and it almost feels like we are we are in love

[00:21:48] with having a little bit of room around the facts anymore you know what i mean like like that little bit of space out there to be like hmm maybe things aren't the way that i think there's they are or that i was told they are something i don't know if that's part of it almost feels like because we're so divided maybe we're not so divided but because it feels like we're so divided that when we run into something

[00:22:14] like that situation with the pyramids or however many other stories turn out to be like that that it gives us kind of like hope a little you know like it breaks the cynicism of the day you know and you're like oh something i didn't know you know because we're almost programmed to feel like i know everything i'm getting hit with news all the time ever at least i know i know how to i i know how i'm supposed to feel in reaction to this in terms in terms of that manipulation like i i'm totally i'm

[00:22:43] totally there with you i think there's a there's a phenomenon here where there's this there's just a crack in the a crack in the door that even though we don't know exactly what's going on we could imagine at least that as a a talking point in conversation it's something it's something to ask people about as a useful gauge of where they're where they're at on some stuff and if we think about the nature of

[00:23:09] of history and again i'm not a historian fair full disclosure nor would i nor would i want to be um i'm familiar with some of the tools of the trade but i'm not a practicing historian lest we lest we get any other ideas i'm the humble chaplain of the prepper broadcasting network speaking here but point being at the very least our knowledge of history let's say it was let's say it was completely you know totally accurate it is by definition incomplete even the bible says this at

[00:23:38] the end of the book of john like i talked about in the last the last reliance if you know even if like the universe is not enough to contain the books that could be written about about what jesus did and you know is continuing to do and so with that in mind when we think about the legal disclaimer you know i swear to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help me god there's no

[00:24:03] way that we can get the whole truth right about that stuff even if even if everything else is absolutely accurate they're going to be things that are things that are left out and it's sort of trivially uh true to observe that but i don't think we've really internalized that necessarily so even without these um sort of special moments of revelation that you know can incite some conversation these like viral moments that last for i don't know however however many minutes or nanoseconds

[00:24:31] they they move us into a conversation where we can have that kind of uh that kind of exchange and you know with i don't know if you've ever read the you know the structure of scientific revolutions and that sort of as a sociology of of science it's um it's a very it's a very helpful work understanding how a paradigm will develop and then there's enough like individual counter examples where you can't

[00:25:01] shoehorn it in anymore and we've been in that kind of in that kind of process for uh for a while and it it's the kind of thing where in in the theory it it's basically like people the people who were in charge of the gatekeeping that you know the high priests of the theory regardless of where it is they literally have to not be around anymore in order for the institutions to move in a different

[00:25:26] direction and be more open to it and so you know that has to happen that has to happen periodically and at the very least if you if you zoom way out and you say let's look at the consensus whether you're talking about cosmology physics biology natural science natural history all of these

[00:25:50] other things there are enough places where you can look and say whatever we do know the consensus is incomplete the center is not oh yeah the center is not holding like how long are we going to wait for a grand unified theory before we say maybe some of our assumptions are off right and so you know the the james webb space telescope goes up right it discovers galaxies that according to the standard model

[00:26:19] of cosmology shouldn't be there because it implies that galactic formation was much more rapid so what do people say well we have options we can either say the data is bad and we you know junk the james webb space telescope but we've just been talking about how great it is so that's probably not a good option we can revise the time scale or we can say sort of vaguely there's uh there's a mystery about

[00:26:45] galactic formation something that we didn't know before but that this will lead us to discover as if like oh we just this is fine we just need to tighten the screw one you know half a rotation in this other way and we'll have it all ironed out again it's like that's not quite how that works but you know you're not gonna apart from sensationalist headlines which also may be maybe incorrect maybe it is just tightening the screw a little bit i'm not familiar enough with the with the math of galactic

[00:27:14] formation to to know to know that for what i do understand it's not quite that simple so you have to you have to revise something and then it begs the question if one empirical observation can change that you know what else does it change sort of down downstream of all that stuff and so whether we're talking about standard model cosmology evolutionary theory all sorts of different things there's this

[00:27:41] sort of lack of this lack of a foundation it's more of there was an old foundation the foundation as we've made as we've made moves in different directions that old foundation was found to be insufficient in a variety of different ways and those little cracks are poking poking through in such a way that there isn't necessarily an alternative explanation that is that is ascendant so it's this like

[00:28:07] fracturing in this idea this idea space but you know it's not as if you're going to gorilla glue or flex steel or you know piece that stuff back together again the process is already tipped and you know but we're trying maybe this is generationally oh we're gonna hold on to the bitter end there's grant there's grant money at stake james so we're gonna there's prestige there's there's my

[00:28:33] there's my career there's my institution etc etc so all of those structures and this applies not just to the scientific realm it applies to the political it applies it's happening everywhere yeah the whole thing it's like there's the you know the rebar is a little bit rusted and there's a little bit too much frost heave and it's gone in and out everybody's kind of put there's like all these different green shoots poking their heads out and saying is it time yet like is this whole thing gonna get washed away

[00:29:01] like there's a there's a sinkhole forming we don't know what it's gonna look like we don't know how to rebuild over it because we don't know what it's gonna look like yet but we understand that there have to there has to be a certain set of values that goes uh that carries through and so it's best to think about what can be done for that for that process because i think that people have this

[00:29:26] this misapprehension that in the the collapse of something that it's that it's just one thing or another to me it feels like it's the whole thing yeah it's not it's not just a physical collapse it's an ideology ideological collapse psychological collapse um spiritual collapse all of these different things

[00:29:49] are uh are intertwined and so isolating one to the exclusion of others doesn't necessarily get us to where we need to be now there's a question of there's a question of remedy on all of that and that's a very difficult question to begin to make progress with but it certainly starts with getting getting the basics right and i'm one more quick anecdote before i talk no go ahead the i was talking to the the teaching

[00:30:17] pastor at our church here in here in connecticut wonderful wonderful man and i was listening to derek prince another fantastic bible teacher and they both struck me as being able to exercise their gift for teaching in a way that is simple and applicable like they're able

[00:30:44] to distill something to this is what it is and this is what you can do they're not doing this thing where they're going 10 layers deep and caveating and all these other like special circumstances and things like that and to me that is the voice of clarity and the voice of sanity but the issue is i don't think you

[00:31:10] can really speak that way until you yourself have explored all of those different depths so that you can speak with authority like this is the most important thing if you don't get this right every you know trying to triage and get all the rest of it right is not is not going to be either worth the effort or it might be counterproductive like make sure you have this sort of thing in line first like that's the

[00:31:35] that's the core of that kind of that kind of teaching and so when when i'm saying if we you know conceptualize again that rebar the cracks everything else like that with the with a potential sink sinkhole well the question ultimately is not necessarily where did all these cracks come from how do they show themselves in all the different fields of operations uh and nor is it necessarily like

[00:31:59] what do we do to you know rebuild society it's the same stuff that you've been uh you've been emphasizing for years and years now it's who are the people around us where are valued relationships what skill sets do we have do other p do other people enjoy spending time with us like for the right for the right reasons yeah you know difficult difficult objective um where where are we grounded

[00:32:25] spiritually do we have do we have the means and the wherewithal to navigate different situations it comes back to the foundational message of this of this network not to not to blow smoke or anything like that but that's that's the point like you can do all sorts of these like deep dive explorations

[00:32:50] into different topics but if knowledge is not distilled spoken with the right kind of authority and practical like it's just an in one ear out the other kind of ears tickling fascination thing for me at this point a high density like mainline directly applicable applicable knowledge here other otherwise um you know it's just a diversion and there's enough there's enough diversions i've seen i've seen my own

[00:33:20] screen time on my phone there's enough diversions well man you're talking about and i can yeah right exactly something from it you're talking about what i think about all the time i think i heard a uh who was it sagar from i don't know this show well enough but he was being interviewed and he said something about media that came from i think it came from i think it came from

[00:33:48] the guy who owned fox news and he said my dog's sick the security system yeah he got spooked by the mere intimation of rupert murdoch that's yeah there he is yeah i wanted to say moloch because uh if i couldn't think of his name but uh anyway uh he said that people want to they don't want to necessarily be informed they want to feel informed and i always have this like uh very true i always

[00:34:17] have this this is like counter to a lot of the things that i do and and that my hosts do here at pbn you know because we are kind of like we we push people you know what i mean to do stuff i just had a really great email from a new lifetime member ryan you know who you are and he was talking about how that you know the talk of doing over you know like you said tickling the ears and listening and getting

[00:34:43] the adrenaline up and oh my god i better do something maybe i should do something i don't know maybe i shouldn't maybe i should just explore this topic more but um he said it was like a gut gut punch you know what i mean and i'm always i'm always on the fence about that lately i'm always thinking to myself you know what we're doing here is part informative and part you know that kind of thing

[00:35:05] but it's also very strongly rooted in like this is the thing that i do to solve this problem you should do it you know and i just i don't know i always wonder what percentage of our audience is like i'm not gonna do it yeah you know what i mean well like like anything i you know i see this in my own endeavors when i'm you know when i'm going in to help students with test prep and other things

[00:35:30] like that i know i know proof positive that if i'm standing in front of a class of 20 people and i explain you have me as a resource you have free reign to ask me any questions that you want you should be extraordinarily encouraged to reach out i would you know try me in this i will i will respond appropriately test me and see if i don't get back to you in a way that is helpful and

[00:35:56] encouraging and uplifting and i know that fewer than 10 will actually ever take the time to contact me and it's like hmm there's only there's only so much i can do my you know i could i could spend my time brainstorming better ways to get that messaging across but i'm not going to individually email email them for me it's a good for me it's a good litmus test like who who really cares and to me it's helpful

[00:36:24] like i would love to do more to get more people to uh to care but i only have a limited amount of time with them so like what is the most important thing for me to communicate and this you know this gets into you know a little bit of a little bit of behind the scenes here i'm i'm unplugged enough from um the sort of all media however you want to phrase that these days like who even who even knows and who

[00:36:48] cares like this this kind of ecosystem where there is always going to be a you know a material balance between trying to do things in a way that scales to like get the right information to as many people as possible and it's fair it's fair enough but then there's the is that going to compromise principles this that and the other thing and there's a very real extent and this is i'm going against my own

[00:37:15] advice because this is now like this is the just jumping with you to like the fifth layer deep in the argument is there a sense in which it is appropriate to quote-unquote compromise potentially for the sake of it several layers down from that is this doubt that you see all this sort of fraudulent stuff getting a lot of attention and clicks and you know narrative pull and money and

[00:37:44] everything else like that and it's not that you want to be that per se it's that is there this inevitability to achieving that scale that requires something like that or is it possible that something truly valuable can be recognized as such in its own time grown and developed organically for the right

[00:38:09] reasons and continue to bear fruit because i do hate to break it to you james and you've probably made this observation a lot the people who are in many cases remembered as having big ideas helpful ideas you know trendsetters you know trendsetters game changers most of that recognition across history is

[00:38:31] posthumous yeah i know most right most even up to and including the ministry of of jesus himself not that he wasn't recognized and not that pbn is is christ-like in that in that sense we're not trying to draw any we're not trying to draw any any false comparisons let it let it be known um otherwise what need would there be for a chaplain yeah only kidding but the but you know you've been in

[00:39:01] this thought process many times i'd imagine and it's not it's not a common one you you have to wonder is there a sense in which doing the right thing for the right reasons is it inevitably trapped in uh trapped in obscurity because of a failure to cater to the just the human nature that

[00:39:26] is that besets human beings on a mass scale is it always going to refuse mass adoption because it's being done the right way for the right reasons and is that actually better for it because if it were to change or even if it achieved some semblance of mass adoption it would be forced into dealing with temptations to change that it wasn't ready to face i don't know the answer to that james but it's one of

[00:39:56] those interesting things that is half a dozen layers down the stack when you know you're up at night and you're you're looking at numbers and you're doing things like what is the deal man there's so people people's lives more people's lives should be getting changed by this stuff but you know i don't want to sound bitter i don't want to do this i don't want to do that there's a great impact it said it's it's one of these one of these perpetual cycles i think everybody goes through in some domain to

[00:40:24] a certain extent if you're trying to if you're really trying to have a positive impact and do things the right way i think that i think one thing that is a what is a guiding light for me is the effect it i we've never played with the nightmare of the seo and the algorithm oh gosh like we've never done that dance for purposefully and the reason i've never done that dance is because i know a lot of

[00:40:50] people who have and what we do it can't be done that way you know i can't tell a host to get on and talk about what you want to talk about this week if i have to say but first let me check the algorithm and see if we're allowed to talk about x y and z or maybe we should talk about it in this context or maybe you know and i've had writing clients who have changed entire websites you know so like

[00:41:16] hardcore survival websites that all of a sudden talk about hunting fishing and camping exclusively you know what i mean and and for the implicit reason that oh we're not allowed to talk about guns in the algorithm or you know we can't get the google money and you know when you what i was always scared about and i'm not scared about it anymore and that's probably a way better way to live anyway it was you know hopping on that horse and saying like we'll get we'll get the eyes on us for sure as long

[00:41:44] as we do what they tell us to do you know i mean because that's like that's the nightmare right that's the nightmare for a guy like me is to wake up and be like oh god i fell for it now i got all these i got a boss and i never even wanted the whole point of this thing you know what i mean if you're going to work for yourself it's like what you know my boss is way up yeah it's made of silicon yeah there you go

[00:42:10] yeah so that's you know that that's something i'm unwilling to bend on yeah so i have to be happy with uh with what it is we are and don't get me wrong i mean for a podcast and for what it is we do we've we've had great success but it's just one of those things where you watch a guy uh i have young kids you know what i mean well really i have a teenager and a kid who is you know pre-teen almost yeah and they do their share of youtube watching and that's the kind of stuff that makes you suicidal because you

[00:42:38] watch you watch a guy put like shrimp and uh cat urine on a cheeseburger and eat it and it gets you know 3.5 billion views and you're like the world's at war i don't know what to do you know what i mean it's one of those moments oh yeah no it's it's one of those complete it's an absurdist kind of exactly and i and i just wonder you know i don't think that there's

[00:43:08] anything so different about human nature that if this same technology or the same like the ability for that to happen if that existed 200 years ago definitely you know it would have been it would have been lock them up the same stuff you know it it just would have been ever so slightly different niches in terms of what people were paying paying attention to it's just you know the question isn't

[00:43:37] you know what do you do what do you do to stand out etc etc like well think think about it from the perspective of the the prophets in the in the bible and zoom out zoom out one level two who ultimately had to decide like oh i guess we should have put that in you know where they're being written and like their standards for prophets that are that are set out in the in the old testament in the in the books of

[00:44:07] the law in the pen in the pentateuch and so like words that were potentially prophecy had to be maintained with rigor in case they came true and the person was a bona fide prophet and so almost all of them are coming from people who were uh outcasts and kicked out it was never oh the the popular person who is the

[00:44:32] toast of the town at the at the temple yeah who ended up with his scroll in the in the full in the full stuff even in terms of like pleasing the pleasing the religious people you know if you if you look at what happened to jeremiah like the king trusted him but the king himself had to sneak in to see jeremiah when he was sinking in mud to try and get a word from him and then had to be like oh no what i didn't go to i talked to him about other stuff you know it wasn't it wasn't anything about what's actually going

[00:45:02] on like i would never do that he's a traitor to the people you know so it's it doesn't mean that you know you sort of deliberately seek that kind of stuff out it just may be the natural forcing function of valuable valuable truth that now when our attention is is commodified and our attention spans are lower

[00:45:25] you know and again like maybe it's a maybe it's a rerun here but maybe maybe one of the novel insights is to say or at least not novel i wouldn't claim novelty on anything anything like this like i said i'm not a historian but if we look at the most impactful texts and the most impactful people they're not necessarily accepted as such

[00:45:48] in their time in those in those venues in those regions jesus himself said that a prophet is not without honor except in his hometown there's very much a familiarity breeds contempt and uh you know what what matters is what lasts and as opposed to what uh what tantalizes to an extent and you know

[00:46:16] is it more is it more lasting to have you know 15 minutes of fame and be remembered as a is a piece of trivia you know 50 a generation from now or is it more impactful to have materially changed the lives of uh of a smaller group of people by giving them the kind of confidence and empowerment to make good

[00:46:40] decisions to have that kind of balance i mean it's got to be it's got to be the latter and fortunately james uh we are we're blessed to know that we're not the ones responsible for keeping the record books it actually doesn't matter where the acknowledgement comes from if we're doing things in obedience to the will of god then that's the he's the only arbiter that makes it that makes a difference anyway

[00:47:05] and so the other the other measuring sticks are instrumental they're you know means to an end if every if anything and there's an allure or a trap like you could plug yourself into you know some quasi-conservative all you know all the ecosystem only to find that behind the scenes there's money and influence and people peddling and it's a shell game you know and it's all it's all propaganda it's all it's

[00:47:33] all pr stuff there's a there's a market there's there's attention people are going you know going after that and the answer is not to eliminate markets or you know attention or any or anything else like that we can't turn it we can't turn it over but we can't accept the reality of those sorts of you know influence components like people are called influencers for for reason that's the whole that's the whole design behind it it's not a secret and like if you ask people what you know what

[00:48:03] professions they would aspire to now it's not necessarily oh i want to be famous generically they have a better idea of it like i want to be on social media i want to be that kind of you know a content creator etc etc with little to no appreciation for what what goes into an operation like that and you know how you're depending on your structure your boss is an an unseen platform administration

[00:48:33] tech algorithm that if you can if you can game in the right way and hit those right moments then then you have staying power but you could also have a whiff of success and then fall off you could have you could have a dead channel where you have millions of millions of subscribers and your your view count is you know one one percent of your subscriber count on some on some of this stuff like i you know again i am not i'm not an expert in those things by any stretch of the imagination

[00:49:01] but it's worth at the end of the at the end of the day to think well who's doing the final and real uh evaluation yeah of success or not all because any other determination is is secondary it has to get put aside even if it's our own determination of it you know at the end of the day it's what is what does god say about about these matters and if we can um if we make if we make those decisions

[00:49:27] right by his grace the best to the best of our ability then it can't it can't matter what other what other arbiters say and you know that's that's been transformative for me in terms of following my conscience as it relates to homeschooling my kids and so many so many other things especially in a especially in a post-covid environment um you know not that i can't receive feedback from from

[00:49:53] people on various things or not that people's input isn't valuable but i just don't care the same way that i used to that i just don't i mean it's it's it's implicitly true that i do because they're still you know i can't ignore that completely like that oh yeah i can't just be like i'm a totally free and into i don't care what anyone else has to say about anything it's like you know you can't exist in the

[00:50:23] world that way but but we know in in ourselves whether we are bending to external pressure despite what we know to be true like the to to close the loop on the simplified teaching thing it's not in these weird edge cases and these weird gray areas where we have to plumb the depths to really get to the uh to the meaning or the systematic nature of a doctrine of authenticity if you were to call it that

[00:50:53] but it's in the plain stuff where we know we should have sufficient self-awareness to know if we are uh or you know at least sensitivity to the holy spirit to be corrected in something if we know that we're doing that we're doing something that we shouldn't and we have we have enough to deal with just trying to get that stuff right before we parse these super you know the the edges of legal theory as it as it pertains to it like let's let's made let's major in the majors here and if we if we

[00:51:23] all do that then we'll be able to we'll be able to process things better and i think be healthier as a result yeah i agree with you i agree with you it's well you had a great analogy about the sort of cracking foundation and our struggle to put anything on top of it any kind of schmear we can find to make that thing hold together and you know i'll just you know speak personally there are days when i look

[00:51:48] at that foundation and i know that the foundation of god is underneath it you know what i mean like that's the original foundation and we build a bunch of stuff on top of it it's clearly not standing the test of time and i have days where i wake up and just think uh let's get the demolition team out you know what i mean and do away with this rebar in this cracked concrete because

[00:52:12] i think it's what people need it's what i needed you know it's definitely with you there's and and i think it's 10 times worse for people now because they can spend 24 hours of their day listening to someone on youtube tell them how they're supposed to live their life you know and the bible or god never comes up one time right you know manage your time this way that way your relationships are supposed to go like this and that and you know your job and your professional life and your career path and all

[00:52:41] that kind of stuff and you know to your point it does seem all cracked and it seems to be held together by caulk and you know it just feels like it all has to fall away in order for us to uh you know not to me it's i'll tell you what it's felt like for me with god over the last year or so it's felt like like armor that's what it's felt like it's felt like all of this stuff that's going on in the world all the kind of things that happen in a personal life and you know

[00:53:09] all that for me there has been an armoring up i'd say probably since i don't know summer of last year something like that and it's just i just feel it steven i feel like the the protection you know it's it's i think it's probably your response also with you're you're saying it in a way that i like i care less you know what i mean but i feel like that's an armor also you know what i mean it's like all this

[00:53:36] bombardment of media and narrative like you were talking about earlier it's it's like the armor of god it's pings off as opposed to like i know years past these things and these problems would sit in my head you know and it almost feels like you replace it it feels like you replace it with the word like you the more you listen to or read the word the more you replace all that all those empty thoughts like that empty space in your mind yeah and then it's it yeah it just feels like armor i

[00:54:04] don't know just no it's it's very it's very true and i think it's apropos like we're instructed to renew our mind through the through the word of god yeah and that's real man that is so real it's an on it's an ongoing process and you know many in many cases with with spiritual disciplines we can

[00:54:26] we can check it off a off a list or we can really have the longevity with it to understand that you know in particular there's there's many different teachings about the about the holy spirit and the church again i'd recommend i'd recommend derek prince on these sorts of things just to get to get down to the basics of it and we've talked about this before about outsourcing our

[00:54:55] decision making about discernment about you know being still about all of these all these other things and many of the different pitfalls but i think for for me what's been sort of growing in clarity is this idea that we are not either through head knowledge or through passive absorption going to get

[00:55:24] that that kind of that kind of armor to use your yeah your picture from from ephesians like the bible says put on the whole armor of god that it doesn't say stand there while the whole armor of god is put on you now that's it it doesn't necessarily have to i don't want to stretch that stretch that scripture

[00:55:45] too much but it's an it's an active choice that we have to make with regard to every aspect of our life and there's a reason why there's a helmet of of salvation that is that is guarding that is guarding our minds and establishing as that fountainhead of reason like in light of god's grace in light of the

[00:56:12] salvation given to us how should we think well when we uh when we see the world around us and we say wouldn't it be better if this whole foundation were broken then you know the answer is yes it it would it would be and it will it will get there but there's also a reason why god is long-suffering towards us i mean that the clock could have run out before i was born before before i accepted credit before i was

[00:56:37] safe there are still people who you know who would be swept away by the flood so to speak who need to come to the saving knowledge of uh of christ and that's one of the one of the core reasons and you know we could look at god and say what what's going on like there's all this evil that is allowed to be perpetuated and i think we fail to comprehend the extent to which in the scope of eternal good

[00:57:07] the magnitude by which the blessings of eternal salvation swallow up the the nature of of evil and i want to be very very careful there because in the in in terms of the implications because in this in this

[00:57:28] world like we are commanded we are commanded by the word of god to rejoice and we are also tragically aware of the ongoing nature of absolute heinous evil the type of which is not appropriate to even be spoken about it's so it's so evil um and we're commanded to expose these things which means that we need to be

[00:57:56] thoughtful about these things we need to contemplate these things we're supposed to be wise as serpents but innocent as doves there are these sort of paradoxes that we should at least to begin with readily acknowledge can only be lived successfully by the supernatural power and inspiration and guidance of the holy spirit not that we are inspired to write scripture in the same way that

[00:58:21] the authors of scripture are inspired but we can follow christ we can hear the still small voice of the holy spirit we can respond to it appropriately with with the right kind of um decisions that are in obedience to scripture and it's only in that way can we exist in a world that is suffused with

[00:58:47] just preposterously unconscionable evil and maintain the joy that we need of the lord psychologically in a sense to to operate and you know for me for me james whether i'm thinking about this in terms of batteries or in terms of cups or in terms of containers and capacities i always struggle with this

[00:59:11] with this kind of this kind of analogy but it's almost as if we're instead of us being empty and that being the problem it's that we're simultaneously if we're trying to follow god but also exist in the world we're being filled in an overflowing kind of way there's there's such an abundance of information of you know of evil of things to pay attention to of anything else it's all too much for what for what

[00:59:40] we can handle and so we have to be aware of these things and people's response mechanisms to that in some cases can be i'm just going to shut myself off from all of it because of this the sensation of being overwhelmed is too is too much to handle on a you know on a day-in-day-out moment-by-moment basis it's stressful like it's and again this is a this is a poor analogy but it's almost like it's

[01:00:09] it's got to be comparable in some way to being waterboarded like that's that kind of overwhelming drowning kind of sensation that people can find themselves in um spiritually psychologically financially emotionally relationally and the you know in that kind of situation it is completely normal for people to just say i will do whatever i need to do in order to stop this sensation but it's the

[01:00:36] only thing that can combat the overflow of evil that's in the world is an overflow of god and the holy spirit because if if it's both of those things then the armor of god will win it there will begin to be that conflict but in that stage whether it's for a new christian or someone who has uh grown in the faith but is sort of plateaued or someone who's experienced a crisis or someone who's just

[01:01:01] looking around at the world with open eyes it can feel like oh that's just a battle that i don't need a battle that i don't want to fight but that's the battle that that's where the front lines that's where the front lines are and the enemy can win if there's overwhelming not to the sake of complete destruction but overwhelming to the sake where that battle is cut off as a means of just being like i need a i need a rest i need a rest from the action and i think we need to be able to trust that god

[01:01:31] knows when we need a break in the action he knows when we need rest he knows when we would be just so overwhelmed that we would be stretched you know jesus after his healing healing ministries like he didn't heal people for and perform miracles for 24 24 hours a day in those in those stretches i mean maybe maybe he did for extremely long periods we don't have the full scope of that but he withdrew himself from

[01:01:56] the crowds deliberately he withdrew himself to the wilderness to pray and to you know recharge for lack of a for lack of a better word to receive guidance and instruction sort of sort of step by step jesus was not in his earthly ministry a machine he was he was he had a human nature he became us so that he could uh stand in as a sacrifice and pay the pay the price for our sins so that the atonement could happen

[01:02:24] and as a result like we're not going to be better able to handle these things than than jesus was like sure you could certainly argue that he had a more important assignment in a unique way than we do individually but you know he he got baptized when he didn't need to in order to show the pattern to us so it stands to reason that the rest of his ministry should serve as a pattern god knows that we need

[01:02:49] rest from these things sometimes and we should be prepared to take advantage of that opportunity when it comes knowing that there's going to be a time for inaction and a time to a time to recharge and a time to be patient because this overwhelming like everything can be overwhelming you can be overwhelmed by you know just trying to catch up on all of the free lawn mowing videos that exist on youtube you know so

[01:03:15] in in this in this world where of uh of monetized and weaponized attention where everything is designed to be as overwhelming and as addictive as possible you know it's important to take a break even if it's even if it's taking a break from what we're what we're giving you another great business proposition from the folks at prepper broadcasting now right well steven men king we've got to wrap it up i've got some

[01:03:43] people waiting for me for our next uh we're doing a little uh continuity meeting at 10 and uh planning for the end of the world you know how it goes yeah we're running a little late but they'll be okay it's all right i hope so as long as i'm worried about you james nah what what to worry about you know if they can't have a little faith in me then i don't know what to tell them well tell them it's uh tell them it's my fault oh it's nobody's fault man i wouldn't trade it for the world yeah you know

[01:04:11] what i mean to be honest with you it's always great to talk to you and get your thoughts on this wacky wild life we live man it is one of those isn't it we sure do live in a society my friend yeah it's a great time for people like us who don't mind thinking and and expressing ourselves it is a great time you know well we'll we'll keep at it my friend always always happy to uh jump on with you we'll have to do it again a little bit sooner this time yeah definitely definitely it's a must

[01:04:41] well thanks for everything man i do appreciate it and you know up and down left and right it's you mean a lot god bless you my friend love to the love to the folks love to the rest of the team regards okay same to you sir see you all right talk to you soon