The Joy Ride #19

This is the Truth Network. In this podcast, you will hear funny stories, exchanges, and thought-provoking moments that will amuse you, make you smile, and draw you closer to Jesus Christ in your journey of life. The guys were discussing how easy it can be for us to focus solely on ourselves instead of others and the bigger story. The gospel is there telling us how Jesus looked for us and what he did for us, and he expects us to do something similar for the rest of mankind, and really our life is so much better when we can do that.

In my own case, all those years of road rage and bad temper and all that kind of stuff that certainly my wife could attest to, I think a lot of that stemmed from the fact that my life was focused on me instead of really being focused outwardly and trying to be more concerned about others than I was about myself. That's something I've been thinking about as we've been talking about this. I think really it is, it's a matter of when you're living in that small story, you're living for yourself, but you're living like there's nothing else past this life. There's no future, there's no hope of heaven or a restoration of all things, or really there's no hope for mankind if you just live that way, it's your problems you're dealing with and that's it. You can believe that that's going to eventually happen, but you can't get past what you have to fight today. John Eldredge said at one point about a third of the time that they're talking about Jesus, he's fighting spiritual warfare, and you figure, okay, Jesus had a bigger target maybe on his back than we do, right? But let's just say we fight at a fourth of the time, do we live our lives like there's a warfare going on a fourth of the time or a fifth or an eighth or whatever it may be? Do we see there's a larger story and an enemy that's been trying to strip away piece by piece this great big picture? Harold, you did a great job the first week we're talking about this talking about the little dots, right, and each one of those dots being a person, you know, and when you're looking at it up close, all you see is the dots, but when you get back, you see this beautiful painting, this beautiful picture, you know, and the enemy has been stripping away dot by dot by dot, trying to take away your identity, the truth of your identity works, he does that, if he takes away your hope, he tries to do that, so we're just forced to live in this small story.

Right. Well, he doesn't use the expression, as best I remember it, a larger story, but Max Lucado has a great book titled It's Not About Me, and if you get a chance, it's a great read, and it sheds a whole new light on who you are and what you are. Yeah, I think all the times that I haven't really been a great parent because it's been all about me. You know, you can't be a great anything if it's all about you, I guess you could be a great narcissist. So from the guys at Masculine Journey, I'm Keith, and we'll see you down the road. This is the Truth Network.