Jesus Never Said… “Follow Your Heart”

(upbeat music) - Hey friend, it's Lara. Welcome to the Girl Talk podcast. Today we're talking about something that Jesus never said to follow your heart. After this conversation, I'll be back for the Girl Talk group chat. So stick around for that. This is the Girl Talk podcast. Things Jesus never said. - Hello there, you're listening to the Girl Talk podcast. My name is Carol. - I'm Kelly. - I'm Trisha. - And we're so glad you've joined us today. - Follow your heart. - No, don't do that. Jesus never said that. Follow your heart. Where do you think that came from? - I don't know, but I can tell you what's going to happen if you follow your heart. - Tell us. - You're going to go right to prison. (laughing) That's where it would be. If I followed my heart, I would put somebody in the nose. I would say the thing I'm not supposed to say to deal with your heart. But believe I would be divorced. I would have no friends. I would not have a job. And I would be in prison if I just followed my heart. Because. - Yeah. - Yeah. - It's all the things. - Yeah, yeah. - I don't know if it's in my heart, but it's in my heart. - It's in your heart that the heart is deceitful. - Oh, yes, right? Yes, yeah. And wicked. - Deceitfully wicked. - Yes, above all things. - Yes, right. So why does our culture say that? And why does that become such a popular thing to do? - Well, if it feels good, do it. I mean, I think that's the message we get. We get that message through culture. We get that message through advertising. We get that message in relationships. If it feels good, do it. And I think social media is brought about the platform idea that everyone has a platform. And so everyone has the right to say the things that they want to say. Dog on it, I feel it. And I'm gonna say it, right? Just because you have that right, doesn't mean you should. - Right, right. We've also stopped letting people have their natural consequences. - In the world. - That's a different podcast. - Probably, yeah. But there's some good things about natural consequences of, yeah. - What do you mean by that? You mean like parenting, like we protect our kids? - No, no, the natural consequences of saying out loud the things that you shouldn't say that you should keep inside, you know, are things like, sometimes you end up in prison. Sometimes you end up losing friends. And, or having to say I'm sorry. - Having to say I'm sorry. - And I think asking for forgiveness. - I don't know about y'all, but as I look at culture as a whole, I see us losing like interpersonal skills by the second. Like we've forgotten what it's like to have something that we disagree on and be able to talk through it and sit at a table and discuss it. That's no longer, if you don't agree with everything that I say or I don't agree with everything you say, then we can no longer communicate at all. We've just cut that off and I think that's one of the things sadly enough that's really toxic about our culture right now. And I think it is in part because we say follow your heart and those things aren't always helpful. - That's right. - And that's about following my heart this morning and someone cut me off in traffic. (laughing) - And that would not have been good. - Maybe we need to just talk about what Jesus said about anger. - Yeah, I don't feel like that. - No need to miss the theme on the, on the out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks. - That's right. - So I think also comes from scripture. And so we really, and we have to guard our hearts. scripture also says guard your hearts above all else because out of the overflow of your heart, the mouth speaks. And so if we can change our heart to look more like Jesus then we will be more like Jesus. But here's the thing. Well, we're not talking about his better behavior here. Okay, that's not the thing that we're going for. Or at least that's not the way I see it. I see it as we who are believers under the direction of the Holy Spirit will live different lives. - Yes. - And there will be fruit from that. Galatians 5, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. If you are walking in the spirit, then it will change the way you live life. But what I think we do as believers sometimes is we just try to do behavior modification apart from the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. And so we get frustrated and we just like, oh well, I'm just gonna say what I'm gonna say my peace. You know? - Yeah. - Yeah. I remember a friend of mine when my kids were young, talking about parenting. And so much of the time we were like, you kids get in line, don't misbehave and we were so focused on behavior oftentimes because it reflected on the parents. But all it was was focusing on behavior. Don't do the bad thing. Don't do the bad thing or do the good thing. But a friend of mine, Jamie, I remember she said, she said, I'm no longer worrying as much about the behavior. I'm worrying about their hearts. - Yeah. - And so she would ask her kids, what was in your heart that made you do that in the grocery store or what was in your heart that made you act like that to your friend? Helping them understand that it's not the behavior, it's not outside and it's inside out. - Yeah. And that we need to be reminded of that as adults. Just because you have a social media platform and a lot of followings doesn't mean you should always say the things that you should say. I mean, how many horror stories do we have to hear before we realize it's just not good to do that? - I remember somebody telling the story and maybe it was one of the two of you 'cause I really honestly don't remember who it was. But somebody was saying that as a kid, they watched for the very first time. They can vividly remember seeing a news article or a television article, television's not an article. It's a show, whatever. A television show where somebody had murdered somebody. And they were horrified that somebody would do this, like somebody would murder somebody else and their dad looked at them and said the same enemy that caused that to happen is the same enemy that causes you to fight with your brother. - Wow. - And it was obviously a wake-up call for them. But let's take that into us as adults. The same enemy that makes somebody want to murder someone or multiple people is the same enemy that makes us have division, have a dissension, have a burst of anger, like I talked about earlier or in like you do on traffic. It's the same enemy that's trying to undermine what God calls us good and the work that God is doing in our hearts and in our minds to set our minds on him and to form us into looking like Jesus because our insides look like Jesus and because our hearts look like Jesus. To say enemy that wants to undermine all of that. - And I think that just changing your behavior is not sustainable. - Yeah. - Because you just change, you don't change the reason for it, you just change the way that you express it. It comes out in other areas because I have people like I'm getting mine or under control and then they get mad and kick the cat or yell at their kids or do, it's more acceptable because they're finding a different way to defuse that but it's still just as deadly spiritually. - Right. - That's right, yep. Because that's not living by the spirit, that's just behavior modification. Reason I'm just getting so home dead on behavior modifications 'cause I think a lot of people think they can just change their behavior. - Oh right, right. - I can just do, I'm gonna do better. We hear that a lot. I say it a lot, I'm gonna do better. You know, when it comes to eating or exercise, I'm gonna do better and we try to do that but really we won't make a change until the heart of the matter is dealt with. And Jesus is what is at the heart of the matter and what we do with Jesus and how we allow the spirit to work in us to change us from the inside out to see some of those things, manifest in our lives. - So I think that's truly too what the scripture is really talking about when it says out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks 'cause it's not just about what our mouths say but it's the over whatever's in the heart. The overflow of the heart is demonstrated in our behavior. And so it has to start with the heart. It has to start with the heart change and there are different seasons in our lives where that's more difficult. Like right now, this paramedical thing is not easy at all. - Her, girl. - There are days I do not like people at all and I want to punch somebody in the face. In fact, I prayed for that the other day in our staff meeting and that elicited my own laughter because I was like that's absurd. It is absurd that I have to pray for to calm myself that much but it is hard. There are seasons where it is hard. There are seasons where life is stressful. There are seasons where you're tired where things don't seem to be going right but that doesn't give us a pass to not continue to ask the Lord to change us. Lord, change my heart. Lord, you know, examine my heart and know what's in there and change me from the inside out so that I can live better for you so that I can have peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. So we know that it's not an outward behavior change, it's a heart change. Do you think that there are certain behaviors that can help us go forward toward the heart change? Because I'm thinking about renewing the mind to help restore the heart. So making the choice to return to God's Word, making the choice to pray as the Holy Spirit to change the heart, those are things that we do that will make an impact internally. They're outward things that make an impact internally. Yeah. I'll tell you one of the things that has helped me the most with renewing my mind is journaling. Because if you write it down and you see it on paper, you can go back and revisit it later and you see it on paper, then you can deal with that. But as long as it's just rolling around in your coconut, you can't just rolling around in your coconut, right? And it gets bigger. But for me to be able to journal some of those things out and to write out exactly what I'm feeling. Now, if I'm ever killed in a car wreck, y'all run to my house and get all the blank journals. We got you, girl, in a pit and burn them because people will be like, well, if we didn't know she was crazy, this is proof. But when I write those things out, that's when God often says, okay, if people saw what this emotion and what it is, you're feeling right now. What would it say about me? And that's often where I say that again. Yeah. What is this problem issue irritation? What does that say about me? Because in the end, if I call myself a Christ follower in those situations, people are watching. And it's not about my behavior. It's about what the spirit is doing in me, right? I probably had to apologize more times than are people on the face of the earth because I have screwed that up. But God is so patient and kind to work with me. It's not a one and done situation. That fruit. Like if you plant a seed today, you can't go and eat fruit tomorrow, right? The seed is planted and you have to harvest it and it takes time to grow. Same with the fruit of the spirit. Jesus can change you in an instant. But sometimes often in my life, it's been gradual over time as I walk with him that he teaches me how to deal with those situations. And oftentimes what he points out to me is that once again here, we end up, it's pride. Carol, you lose it with people in traffic because you think where you got to go is more important than where they got to go. Tell you how he taught me that little lesson right there. God is so practical with me. I was on I 40 going home one day and this person was driving. I was like, did you get your driver's license out of a Cheerios box because I don't believe you took the same test. So I followed them. And I was the whole time I was talking. I don't know if it's to the Lord, but he heard me. And so I was following and I was like, I'm gonna see where they were they hiding their hat because I think that's important. I don't know. I wouldn't go follow my home. I don't know what I was doing. But anyway, you were frustrated. I was frustrated. I was following. They just happened to go the same way I did. So I got off the exit. I was following them and they turned to go into the hospital. And I was like, oh yeah. I have been in a car when one of my loved ones has fallen or my dad was sick or something was happening. And the last thing on my mind was driving. And the last thing on my mind was the person in the lane next to me. And God said, hey, Carol, what they've got going on might be a little bit more important than you'd be in five minutes late getting home from work. And I had to sit down and repent of that because a lot of times I think it said we just ear these little irritations that happen in our lives are because we think we're more important than we are. Or at least for me. That's how it is for me. 100%. I think we all struggle with that. Oh, yeah. One of the things that you mentioned was that even in the midst of us unleashing our emotions and being frustrated and acting on it is that God is so patient with us. I read something the other day and it said, you know, God has feelings. And God longs for us to come back to him. And sometimes I just beat myself up over things that I've done and and and actions I've taken and and stupid mistakes that I've made. But lately I realize if I return to God, he's just well, he's welcoming me back with open arms. I've been being myself up. But he wants to embrace me in his arms with his love. And I like to remember that because I can get so mad at myself for making the same stupid mistakes or, you know, being being worried, being anxious, letting those things dictate my life. But I want to remember that God is compassionate. He's not surprised by my feelings. He's not surprised that I messed up again. And he's ready to welcome me back. That is so true. And I think one of the things that we can fall into is thinking emotions are good or bad. Yeah. There are no good or bad emotions. God gave us emotions. He created us with emotions. It's what we do with them. That is the important piece. And I think that's where most of us get in trouble because we let that emotion lead us to a place where we aren't acting in the spirit and we aren't following Jesus. We're just pure emotion. All flesh, all flesh. Well, in TK, you had said, how do we, how do we do that? Like what is it? What's the practical really take away for us? You know, for me, I always go back to what my mom always said. My mom always said count to 10. Oh, okay. And so every time I'm having one of those emotions, one of those, follow your heart moments, whether it's, I'm, I want to cause division or I want to gossip or I want to have a fit of anger or some sort of something that's going to lead me away. I just have to breathe. Count to 10. And if that works great. But does it work count to 10 again. And then go to my room. Put yourself in time. But I also think that just stopping and praying in the moment of it and saying, Lord, there's, there's nothing that I can do to change this. I need you to change me. And it sounds to, it sounds simple. But it is, it's, it is the most simple thing. God says, because you have put your faith in trust in me, I have given you the gift of the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit walks with you through all the things. And to be able to process those emotions with Jesus. Yes. Right. Is so powerful. Yes. Yep. Because. And I think that's why we stay so busy because we don't want to process the emotions with Jesus because he's going to show us the truth about our heart that we want to follow. Amen. Right. Yep. And so we process those emotions with Jesus and say, I'm so frustrated. And oftentimes he shows us something different. Either about ourselves or about what he wants to do in and through us. That takes it in a totally different direction. Right. And it's so much healthier than processing it in gossip with the girlfriend. Yeah. You know, if you're mad or frustrated about my, my natural tendency, if I am mad or frustrated with something is not to take it to the Lord, my natural tendency, my flesh, my spirit of flesh wants to take that to y'all and get people on your side. Yes. And it just, it feeds because y'all love me. So you're going to be like, well, you have every right to think that way. All it's going to do is feed my own negative emotions in it. Whereas if I take it to the Lord, like you said, the Lord might say, here's how I'm working this out in you before we work it out in the situation. Yes. So is it okay to vent to a girlfriend? Let's talk about that for a minute. After you vent to the Lord, it depends on the situation, I think. So here's what I would say. If you have a godly accountability partner, and you start to vent something that is not leading you to Jesus, they will tell you. I only know that because I have one and they will tell me, right? Yeah. And that's, and I will pout because that's what I do. But eventually I see like, oh, yeah, I was in the wrong there. I totally need to. And even times when I'm feeling frustrated or I'll call and say, hey, is there, do you see something here that I'm not seeing? I think there's power in godly accountability and people who will call things out. Now, if you have a girlfriend who's just going to pat you on the back, say, I know. And let's, let's go, you know, get a milkshake and, you know, if you're, if you're looking to build a case, take that to God. If you're looking to vent with a godly accountability partner that is going to hold you accountable, I mean, I don't think there's any danger in that in processing through emotions with somebody because I've done that a lot. And it's very helpful. You got to process through emotions in some way because we either, we either defend against them and try to ignore them. And then guess what, at least for me, they just get bigger, those negative emotions. But we have to process through them with Jesus. We have to process through with accountability, partners, people we love, people we trust through God's word and all that. Eat them don't work. Eat them don't work. I'm trying to, I'm trying to to stay and busy. Well, that's right. Keep it away. Either shake those. It can. Vanilla. But I've learned One thing that's been powerful is allowing myself to feel a negative emotion and realizing it's not going to kill me. That's right. Yeah. And you don't have to act on it. Yeah. Taking it's power away. That's right. That's right. So what does the scripture say? We talked about Galatians 5. Also, I always get tickled when I get frustrated or have some kind of emotion and think, oh, Philippians, where Paul writes from a prison, what do I have to complain about? You know, right? I think of Philippians 4. But is there any other verses that come to mind for you guys when you think about another one just popped in my mind? John 14, where I abide in me. And I knew those kind of verses that you turned back to when you are tempted to process emotions in an unhealthy way. Well, for me, the do not be anxious about anything because anxiety is a big like overlay over a lot of what I deal with. And I feel anxious. Although there are other things underneath it. I feel anxious. And so processing through that anxiety through prayer, supplication with Thanksgiving. That's how I that's a verse that I lean on a lot because like I say, I might be dealing with all kinds of stuff. Maybe anger down here, but it feels like anxiety. Yeah. So taking that anxiety to the Lord and helping him, letting him help me. That's a good one. Yeah, for me, the number one, you already mentioned it, but that's Philippians 4.8. Think on things that are true, that are honorable, that are worthy of praise, that are pure. I'm going to forget all the things, but lovely. Yeah. If you just pause and think on something that's true and lovely, how does that just change everything? Do you actually mention earlier today about how God's creation shows up in flowers? And what a great thing to think on. That's something that is lovely if I'm in that moment of having really negative emotions that I know are not good. Thinking on things that are lovely. Yeah. I also will say, because I think our emotions often are tied to people. You know, when we feel a strong emotion, is it the world? Yes. All the things, all the things are about us and our interactions with other people. Right. Yeah. Or try praying for them. Oh, yeah. Prayer for that other person changes the way that we see them. Number one, and then it changes us. Oh, yes. Maybe that's an opposite order. Maybe it changes us first and then changes the way we see them. But that's always helpful. Yeah. And I know that, you know, here's the thing. Sometimes it can seem like we're giving you these things and I'm like, okay, but that's not really practical. Jesus said that this world, you'll have trouble, right? This is part of because of sin and sin entered the world. We've got to find a way to walk with the spirit. Actually, the spirit does the work if we will allow him to. And it will be still enough to listen. Because one of the things that I just always got on my nerves with people like, here's one, two, three to live this, fill in the blank life. And I never could do those things. So I don't want you to hear those as directives. I want you to hear those as tools you can put in your tool belt, worship, thanksgiving, scripture. All those things are going to help you develop your life in the spirit so that you can walk these things out and follow Jesus instead of follow your heart. Because Jesus is going to lead you to a lot better place than your heart will. I can guarantee you that. But a heart surrender to him is where we want to live. Now, I know you're listening to this podcast right now. You may not have ever said to Jesus, I'm going to surrender my life and hard to you. And if you've never done that, I want you to text the word Jesus to 81891. What's going to happen is we're going to send you a resource. And it's going to walk you through the gospel, take you verse by verse, in the Bible, places where you can read the scripture for yourself and make that decision today. That is the whole reason the Girl Talk podcast exists is to see you come to know Christ, to grow in your relationship with him, and then to find out what your spiritual gifts are and serve the body of Christ. That is our mission here at the Girl Talk podcast. If you don't know Jesus, text Jesus to 81891 will send you that resource and you know what? We're going to save you a seat right here on this couch right next to me next time we gather for the next Girl Talk podcast. I love it. That's so fun. Lots of good thoughts here. One thing, Carol, you mentioned in Philippians how Paul's in, he's in prison. And he's still praising the Lord and doing all the things. And you said, which is a good point. So what do I have to complain about? But I think that's something that we are really good at minimizing. Yeah. The hardest thing you've ever been through is the hardest thing you've ever been through. So hopefully you don't go to jail. I mean, you might need to say off the roads. I'm finding out to keep you out of jail. Most of us won't experience that, hopefully, or something that tough. But at the same time, I think it is worthwhile holding our emotions with, well, yeah, this is the hardest thing. I've ever been through. And I'm going to need Jesus to pull me through this one. And I've met tons of folks at Chilling Chats and Playing Praise who I've been like, hey, how can we pray for you? And they're like, oh, I don't like pray for this person. Like, I want to pray for that person, but like, Jesus cares about you too. Like, he made your emotions like he died for you. And he's not done with you. So just another like wrap around thought while we shouldn't be, like our lives shouldn't be led or dictated by our emotions, they're good indicators. And, and they're worth something to Jesus. Right. For sure. We don't have to rank our difficulties with anybody else's difficulties. It's not a race. It's like the, so I did this with our friend, Braxton, a couple of years ago, Braxton used to work here at the lot of him. And he was complaining about me entire one day. And I'll never forget this. This is like five years ago. And I was a mama of like a three year old at the time. And he is, was it child Braxton? He was a child. He didn't even have a dog. And he was saying that he was tired. And I remember the rage I felt because I was like, you're not tired. You don't. You're not tired. You're not tired. You're sleepy. You can go to bed when you want to go bed. And I just remember like, but how like ticked off I was about that. But also how wrong I was in that too. Like that emotional response was because I was so dog on tired and just immature at that point too. So I was like, I was ranking his. And I think we're all kind of, we're good at ranking our own. And then also ranking other people's like your bads and on his bad as mine. Right. That's worth it. Anyway, there's my soap box. Allison said, what are ways that I can pursue a heart change without striving? So kind of the last couple of episodes that we've been talking about. It's about production and rest and all this stuff. But like, how do I change my heart without trying harder? Yeah. And then also she said, do you think it's better to have your spouse be your accountability partner? Maybe a girlfriend. I think that's a, there's a whole lot that you can impact from all that. Yeah. I'll tackle the first one. Allison, you can't change your own heart. Yeah. Only the Lord can change your heart. And so the work that we have to do has come to him. The work that, the only work that we can do is surrender to Christ, surrender to what he's working out at us and to ask him to continue to change our heart. But running back to him with every single moment, every single time that we try to take it on ourselves, reminding ourselves that he has gotten we are not. And we can't actually do the work of changing our hearts. Yeah. I'll go back to something I said in the last podcast. But I was wanting a heart change, wanting to feel God's love. And so I positioned myself in a place to hear from him. I was in a quiet place. I opened up his word. I started with Thanksgiving. And I prayed and asked the Holy Spirit to reveal himself to me to reveal God's love for me on a deeper level. And I felt like I heard from God in that way. And that changed my heart. Again, I didn't do anything. Yeah. But I positioned myself in a place to be able to receive. And I meditated on Scripture. Be still and know that I'm God. And that those things I think helped me be connected with the Holy Spirit. And he did the work. Yeah. And what I think you're talking about is there are some what we call spiritual disciplines or habits that we can put in place. But the truth of the matter is God does the work. And here's the thing. You start talking about people with spiritual disciplines. They automatically make a checklist and go, okay, do I need to do that every day? I mean, like we cannot do something without fix it. Right. We just want to make everything the striving. So I totally get where you're coming from Allison. But I also say the disciplines and the habits that you build into your life. They're not the end. a means to the end. There a means to get closer to Jesus. So the minute you start making it a formula, that's just what it is. It's a formula. It's not getting you closer to God. It's just becoming another thing that you're striving to do. But at the same time, getting yourself into a better position, yes, worship and the word. I mean, we all know what works. Yeah. But we don't do it. I mean, when you tell people, like, this is a personal example. So forgive me for this. But a couple of weeks ago, I just took a silent retreat. And being silent is hard, especially for me, because I'm loud, right? But it was enough. And I didn't come away with any great spiritual insight. I had friends who would say, I can't wait to hear about your silent retreat. I can't wait. And then I felt pressure to have some kind of big result. And sometimes it's just, you never know yet that you have that friend who y'all can sit in a room together and you don't really have to say anything. You're just together. That's how Jesus wants it to be with you. He just wants you to go. It was enough that I just sat with him. And I didn't say anything. And I didn't have music playing. And I did read some scripture, but then I would push it away. And I would just think and reflect. And we're so results driven. I think sometimes God just wants us to stop. And we don't want to stop because we're afraid of what air will bubble up in our hearts, because he wants to deal with that thing, right? And so we just keep our lives so noisy that we don't ever hear that still small voice of God calling us the him. So finding the quiet, finding the quiet is man. You know, the other part of Allison's question was our accountability partner and whether or not that person should be our spouse or not. And I think a lot of it depends on who your spouse is. As it would be with any relationship that you have, you know, you want to pick a trusted relationship, you want to pick someone who knows you very well and who's going to point you to Jesus first and foremost. And if that's what you have in your spouse, then yeah, that's a great place to go for a lot of the things. Sometimes there are things that you need to discuss that are about your spouse. That was coming. So sometimes having a girlfriend who can see things from the outside, looking in is another really good place to go. But again, this have to be godly people who are going to point you in the right direction. And women please do not find another man to have no conversations with other than your spouse. I would think though that sometimes like if you use your spouse as an accountability partner, that could sometimes be contentious if they're trying to hold you accountable for something and you're not in a place where you really want to be held again. I mean, I'm just a single girl. I don't know. I literally told my husband because we went away on a vacation and we had some really great conversations and we decided we're going to make some changes in our lives, both of us individually and then collectively. And so he was like, this will be great. We'll be accountability partners for each other. And I said, no, I don't want you as my accountability partner. I want you to support me and I want you to, you know, understand and love me. I don't want you to be my accountability partner because I knew that would not be good. Yeah, yeah. So I do share a lot with him. He is in a lot of ways the person that I share things with. But there are certainly other things that I go to for accountability, not him. I told him straight up. Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope. I got a text from my husband this morning while I'm working out about the top 40 foods that cause heart disease. I was like, love you. Okay. Let me see. What's the underlying message? So we had to look at the list and I'm like, okay, what am I eating? He's going that thing right here. He's not highlighted eating it. Mine would be tortillas. He's highlighted. So I go, okay, what's the underlying message? So yes, there are sometimes an underlying message that emanates. Oh, husband. Okay. Accountability. I think we've established that. So good. I would. I just had the thought to the girlfriend thing could get tricky too. Yeah. I think if you are in a good Bible believing church or community to find somebody who you look up to spiritually, like kind of they don't have to be like a mentor, but somebody that you're like, okay, I see their walk with Jesus and I respect it and they're not my best friend because I think you put your best friend in that same position where it's like, well, like, I just want to, like, I want to be on your team. And then you put them in an awkward position, calling out your sin. So it might just be a good idea to like go shopping for an accountability buddy. Like accountability is hard. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, by it's very nature because we don't want anybody telling us we doing thing wrong. We want to be right all the time. And so I don't want you to. It has to be somebody who loves you clearly, but it also has to be somebody who will say those things because if they won't say those things and that might even be part of the conversation, like, okay, if you see this in me, I'm giving you permission, not that you need my permission, but I'm asking you to be that and to say that you're not that's not good. That could be a problem. Because if you don't have those people, if you only have yes people in your life, you're going to, oh my goodness. And I've already said, when somebody calls me out, I'll pout for a while. We got an email recently here at the radio station about me, like somebody wanted me fired. Like it was, it was serious. I will fight them. It was serious though, but here's what it did. Like, I believe in every criticism. There's a little bit of truth. And so you have to eat the fish, spit out the bones, right? And I wanted to get upset and I wanted to explain myself and the Lord went, just what, what is it that you could do? What is the truth in this? And how could you use this to be more like me? And I was like, okay, well, I mean, don't send, hopefully, emails because I did get my feelings or whatever. It took me a couple days. But I just say that because saying hard things is part of it. But people don't really love you if they're not willing to say the hard things. That's great. Yeah. Like they're just, yes, people. And all of us need somebody who will say, yes, at the appropriate times and then, no, when we need to hear no. I just picture a film in Louise. That's really not the best thing. That's a bad example. Yeah. You're laughing it back up. You got to be careful, which girlfriend you have. So you might be dropping off a cliff. That's right. Okay. We're going to do this in 30 seconds. Okay. Okay. Practically speaking, how do we know what's when what's in our heart is the Holy Spirit speaking to us? Like then Karina said, I think this can get tricky when the heart isn't telling us to do something ugly. So if, if you're trying to determine if this is the Holy Spirit or my heart or just something you want, but it's not a bad thing, how do you know? How do you discern that? Three, two, one. I'll go first. I think sometimes the Lord will speak to us in multiple ways, saying the same thing over and over and over again. So if you hear one message, again, that aligns with scripture, the Lord is never going to say something to you that doesn't align with scripture. But if you hear it in one way and then you hear somebody else say the same thing or you, you know, watch something on television and the same exact message comes up. It could very well be the Lord speaking to you. I like that. Yeah. I was waiting for you. Okay. I mean, I will just say a hard question that if it is of you, wait, give it a couple of days, pray about it, ask the Lord again. If it's still there and it's a good thing, I mean, they're, they're, it may very well be from God, but I don't think, I think we maybe focus in on that a little bit too much. If it's a good thing, like I don't think God will tell you whether or not you're supposed to go to TCB Y today, but he will. He will. He does. He says he wants you to. I think I heard that earlier. But I think we focus in on that a little bit too much sometimes. But if it's something that you want that is going to make you more like him, run it through that filter. See, I want, I'm glad you all went first, because you all gave me some good ideas. Okay. First of all, yes, is it in line with scripture? Yeah. And also digging down into the motive of it. What's the motive of making this choice? What is it just to make me feel better? Is it something that's going to benefit me in some way? Is it going to benefit someone else? Does it, does it help me love God more? Does it help me love other people more? Asking maybe a couple of those questions will help you drill down, I think. Or is it a distraction? Sorry about that. Yeah. Good stuff. All right. Well, let's wrap it up. But just a reminder to text talk to 81891. If you want to stay up to date with our live recordings and all the crazy stuff we're doing, we'll keep you up to date. And then to like and subscribe, the Girl Talk podcast so that you get it. every Wednesday as soon as it comes out. And just stay our girlfriends. Be our friends, keep the communication open, comment, message, email us, text us all the things. We love you. (upbeat music)