Life in the Forbidden Desert, a conversation with Hal Hammons

Speaker 1: In this episode of Balancing the Christian Life, we talk to Dr Kenny Embry about how we can help him manage his stress. Speaker 2: Welcome to Balancing the Christian Life. I'm Dr Kenny Embry. Join me as we discover how to be better Christians and people in the digital age. I never really thought I'd be a coffee guy. I started drinking coffee when I was in college. It was not anything that I thought was all that important. As a matter of fact, whatever was cheapest was the best. What changed for me was a guy named Mark Roberts. He's somebody who takes his coffee very seriously. For a while he was just that guy with the weird coffee obsession, but then one day I tried a light roast Ethiopian blend. That changed everything. It tasted different and there just wasn't any way for me to go back to. The cheapest is the best. I don't always indulge my coffee habit, but it did make me appreciate something that I'd never really thought about before. Some of you may know that this has been a fairly stressful part of my life. I don't think what I'm going through is all that unusual. Quite frankly, a lot of people have navigated these waters much better than I have, and I'm grateful for that. Hal Hammons is one of the people who has been looking in on occasion and helped me quite a bit One of the things that we had an idea for this episode to do was have him interview me about what kind of things I was going through. What we ended up talking about was really a board game, and if you know how, you knew it had to get back to a board game at some point. The board game is Forbidden Desert, and you'll see how that takes on a central role in this episode. I've always thought of my audience as my 17-year-old son, jake, but this episode is really two middle-aged guys talking about the struggles that we have letting God have control. Not only is Hal a good friend, he's also the host of Citizen of Heaven, another faith-based podcast that I highly recommend. So I'm just going to sit here with my coffee and I'm going to let Hal pick up from here. Speaker 1: My name is Hal Hammons. I host the Citizen of Heaven podcast. Today I'm stepping in to help my friend, dr Kenny Embry, because, quite frankly, he's in a bit of a bad place and he's my friend and I care, and so I thought maybe I'd step in, help him lighten his own little burden a little bit. So, kenny, how are you doing? Speaker 2: I'm doing pretty good , hal. I'm not trying to blow your line there, but there are parts of my life that are stressful and there are parts of my life that are going really well. I appreciate you stepping in. I've told you this and I'll say this, I guess, for the podcast as well. I've just enjoyed talking to people that I enjoy talking to recently. That doesn't mean I don't like meeting new people I always love meeting new people but there's some people that I just have a familiarity with that I really just enjoy talking to, and you're one of those, so I'm really thrilled that you're here . Speaker 1: And not to just over make the point about the digital discipleship thing that my friend Kenny is always talking about. But Kenny and I have never met in the flesh. We have never been in the same county as far as I know. Maybe we have, but certainly never shaken hands or anything like that. And the ability that we have in this world these days to form these kind of friendships, even with their limitations, it can't replace face-to-face, but it's good and it wasn't available to us 20 years ago and it's a real blessing to be in this world that we're living in, With all of its problems, with all of its challenges that we face. It comes with some tremendous blessings and you're one of those blessings, King. I appreciate that. Speaker 2: And you're singing my song right now, hal, so I'll listen to another verse. Go ahead. Speaker 1: We said we would talk about stress management a little bit. So talk to me about stress, talk to me about your life. Speaker 2: Well, I can talk very generally about stress, but there are a lot of things that have happened in my life. If anybody's paying attention to what's going on in higher education, the entire higher education scene has changed significantly. There are fewer people going to college, and that's not affecting just me, it's affecting all of my colleagues. My department, which at one time was a department of four, has turned into a department of one, and that one is me. What that means is I have to adapt and change. It means that I'm teaching things that I've never taught before, and one of the things as a professor you get used to teaching the same things over and over again and if you're lucky, you get to teach several sections of the same thing. But this semester I'm teaching two things that I have no idea what I'm doing and I'm about a week ahead of my students, and that's difficult. I'm trying to make sure that they have some skills, but at the same time the curriculum because we have lower staff the curriculum needs to change and you'll never guess who has to change that curriculum. It's the same guy who's teaching, so it's a lot of stresses that are happening at that level. It's difficult because a lot of my discretionary time has turned into time that is not spoken for that's the struggle we all face. Speaker 1: It's frustrating when people talk about how they just don't have enough time to do this, that or the other. We all have 168 hours in the week. That's it. There's not going to be any extra time. You have to find a way to manage what you have. That's a series of negotiations and compromises. There's always going to be something pressing at you trying to fill that void, trying to take that last 30 minutes of your day, of your week, and sometimes it's a worthy thing. Sometimes it's not a worthy thing. When there are not a lot of pressing issues pounding on you in the moment, you can be free to make minor mistakes and make relatively poor judgment calls with regard to this kind of thing. You spend an extra half an hour watching TV, or spend an extra half an hour sleeping or whatever it happens to be. That's not necessarily the end of the world when you're in a situation like yours, where you have urgencies at every corner, now time is a premium and now you have to think very carefully about where that 30 minutes is going to go. You can look at that as being a positive thing if you want to. You can look at that as being an exercise, because, in reality , nobody's time is any more or any less valuable than anybody else's time. You're just realizing how valuable it is right now, and so perhaps we can discipline ourselves to value time, to utilize time, because it's a gift, it's the greatest gift that God has ever given to us, and by putting it to work in the most, not just a profitable area, but the most profitable area, or trying to do that's an excellent exercise in restraint, in self-discipline, in priority , in all these things that should be governing our lives at all times, in all situations. Speaker 2: When you can't do everything, you have to start figuring out what the most important things are, your priorities, what's the most important thing that you've got on your agenda right now? Speaker 1: Have you talked to our mutual friend, Chris Em, about the word priorities? I have. I appreciate the way he emphasizes the singularity of priority. There's not priorities. Plural Priority is what comes first. You can't have two or three things that come first. And when we convince ourselves in this situation, X is the priority and then in the next situation, Y is the priority, what we've done is devalued. All of these things and we've convinced ourselves that in the moment I can do whatever I want to do. And in reality, that's not true, or at least it shouldn't be. If I can manage to draw me closer to God and I take that attitude toward my relationships , toward my work, toward my children, it helps keep things in focus and keep me from getting distracted with lesser things that may seem valuable in the moment but really don't factor into the big picture At least they shouldn't be factoring in to the big picture. Speaker 2: Some of the things that I took for granted, so, for example, my health. That was another thing that I had some blood work done. I had some blood work done at the end of the year and most of my blood markers were actually really good, except my sugar was just way out of line. My A1C was fine. I've been pre-diabetic for a long time but my blood sugar was way off. My blood sugar was 154. And that's pretty significant for me. That told me something's wrong. I am not somebody who gets a lot of exercise, so I started walking and that's actually helped me moderate my blood sugar, fasting blood glucose level and, for those of you who are keeping score, you want your blood sugar below 100. So mine was creeping up there. It got up there very fast. Usually my blood sugar is like 105. Speaker 1: You haven't talked about dietary habits, but I know me in these kind of situations and one of the easiest coping mechanisms we have in middle-income America is food, and especially food that's not particularly good for us. I don't know if this is part of the whole garden of Eden curse or not, but it seems like the things that are worst for us are the things that have the greatest appeal. If there is chocolate in the house and I'm feeling stressed, one of the natural things for us to go to is that substance. In fact, we have a phrase in America called comfort food. Comfort food is a category that's very difficult to define, other than it's not very healthy. It gives me that warm feeling inside that makes me feel so good in the moment. It's just not good for you. Feeling good in the moment is fine and I'm not opposed to a little comfort food or a little chocolate from time to time. But when that becomes our primary coping mechanism and it starts pushing away things that move the ball forward, it becomes a serious problem. Our issues wind up getting worse, and sometimes not necessarily in the long term, sometimes it's in the short term , especially if you have a medical condition like you're talking about. We put ourselves in a position where we are deliberately, almost intentionally, dragging ourselves down and making our situation far worse than it has to be, simply because I want comfort in the next 10 seconds rather than comfort in the next 10 hours or 10 weeks or 10 years . So we have to make intentional and thoughtful decisions in these areas. Speaker 2: I have been low carb for a long time, and one of the things that low carb is supposed to help you with is a budger, I think, for me. I've learned that I have to include exercise for a long time , and one of the things that low carb is supposed to help you with is a budger, I think, for me. I've learned that I have to include exercise, and I guess the argument that I would say with that is it's not like I didn't know the answer. I didn't want to prioritize the answer. There are 12 things that really want my attention right now, but the thing that's going to make sure that I can do whatever else I need to do make sure you take care of yourself, make sure you're taking care of what God has given you, and I think that's a lesson I've learned way too many times for me to forget it over and over again. Speaker 1: Those who know my podcast know that I have this tendency to relate everything to board games. I know that I have this tendency to relate everything to board games. There is a game called Forbidden Desert. The key in Forbidden Desert is to survive. You are stranded in the middle of this oasis, in the middle of the desert, and your job is to find airplane parts and put the airplane parts together so that you can get off the island and go home before you die. If the desert consumes the oasis, you're going to die. This is a battle the oasis is going to lose. It's just the way that it is. The desert will make more and more encroachments into this area and eventually the desert will win. If you manage to get off the island, you win, and if you don't manage, then you lose. That's how I see my life. As a Christian stranded on Earth, I am trying to escape, and there are factors mitigating against me. I have very limited control over, and what I need to do is take control of myself and do the work that I need to do. While time remains, I thought of three lessons from Forbidden Desert that I'll share with you here, and if one of your listeners takes some lessons from this, and so much the better. What you need to do first of all is to venture into threatened and dangerous territories as seldom as possible and get out of them as quickly as possible. There are areas of the world that we just deal with on the job, at school, whatever, that you just can't get out of. This is the world. Things that are important to you, things that are important to your life, are in these areas . You have to go into those areas . Important to you. Things are important to your life are in these areas. You have to go into those areas , but you can limit your contact and escape those areas as quickly as you can. There are zones where you can live and let it define your life , and it will erode at your psyche. It'll erode at your values. It'll erode at everything that you say you value, and eventually the desert will consume you. In those areas, you will lose. You want to get out of that you say you value and eventually the desert will consume you. In those areas, you will lose. You want to get out of that as quickly as possible. The second thing you need to do is make the most of your time. There is a job you need to do. We're not saying that you don't ever stop to take a breath, but don't get off task. Remember what you're doing here . Remember what the objective is. There's always going to be distractions. The third thing you need to do is you need to shore up your areas of safety as much as you can. There are measures that you can take where the areas that you really need to keep safe can be kept safe. There are parts of your life that should be sacred territory for you. One tile is for your wife or your husband. One tile is for your children. One tile is for your faith. One tile is for your health. There are certain areas that absolutely need to be shored up. I cannot afford to lose this in the context of the bigger picture. Now, we're not saying that these kinds of things, as important as they, are the big picture. They're not. Heaven is the big picture, but I can get to heaven a whole lot easier if my wife is on my side, if I'm not burdened down with unnecessary problems with health and all that kind of thing. If I can keep that safe, then it frees me up to focus on important things, if I can devote myself to making sure that the really important things are. Okay. That's going to alleviate a lot of stress in my life and free up my attention for the things that I keep saying are the important things. That's not distracting from the mission, that's facilitating the mission, that is empowering the mission. So, by making sure that quality time is spent in these quality areas, I don't get distracted, I don't get overwhelmed. It's a big desert out there. There is a lot of trouble out there, and the more time I spend looking at it, the more hopeless I'm going to feel. I don't watch the news much anymore and this is a large reason why, because it's nothing but bad. And I don't think that's because I'm getting a narrow view of it, although perhaps I am. I don't think that's it. I think it's view of it, although perhaps I am. I don't think that's it. I think it's just that the world's a really nasty place out there and I'm not saying you don't deal with that, it's real. It's encouraging me to want to get out of here as quickly as I can, but that'll come in time If I can take care of myself and take care of the people who are close to me and get ready for the time that I'm going to be called out of here. That's going to make the time in this space considerably more bearable and even pleasant, enjoyable and fulfilling. Speaker 2: You're not wrong. There are a lot of obvious answers to what I need to do. I'm going to lead the spiritual out of this just for a second. So, for example, I could try to go find another job, but one of the things that I really love about what I do is I love what I do. Being a faculty member has been one of the greatest gifts of my life, and maybe that gift is coming to an end. I don't know, and I would have to redefine myself. But I could do that. And right now, what I'm struggling with are. I feel like I'm doing something important here, because right now I find purpose in helping students figure out that time between 18 and 22. And that, to me, is a worthy vocation, because I remember what I was like at 18 to 22 and I sure didn't know much and not hiring you because they're looking for your skill set. If problems of an organization could be solved by a 22-year-old student, they would have fixed those problems a long time ago. You guys are basically cheap labor and that's good for you and it's good for them, because you're able to learn what needs to be learned. I guess one of the things I'm trying to learn myself is. I could start over at 55 and have to do exactly the same thing, and yet I find purpose in what I'm doing. Now I feel like I'm still making a difference in what I'm doing is important and maybe it's not. Maybe I don't have a good answer for that, maybe I just cannot see what I cannot see. Speaker 1: I was just thinking of the movie City Slickers with Billy Crystal back in the day. And he's 38 years old, 39 years old, he's dissatisfied, he hates his job and he thinks that going off and herding cattle for a couple of weeks is going to change his life. He comes home after this life-changing experience and his wife tries to comfort him and says if you want to quit your job, we'll figure it out, don't worry about it. And he says no, I'm not going to quit my job, I'm just going to do it better. And I said yeah, there you go. That's the answer. Speaker 2: Sometimes quitting the job is the answer. Speaker 1: But so many times we want to implement some kind of long-term solution to a short-term problem. I'm unhappy right now, so I'm going to peeve my entire life my to a short-term problem. I'm unhappy right now, so I'm going to peeve my entire life. My husband doesn't appreciate me, so I'm going to leave him. I'm going to start dating in my 40s. Good luck with that. Yeah, that just sounds fun. Why would you throw away the part of the oasis that you're confident in, the part of the oasis that works, that's stable, that you're happy in Because that works, that's stable, that you're happy in because you're dissatisfied with the way the world is? You anchor down in your oasis. You build something here, you fortify it. My wife, my children, my job this is what anchors me. Why would I let that deteriorate? Why would I sabotage that? I'm not sure who I am, so I'm going to go have an affair with my secretary or my neighbor or whatever. No, don't do that. That's short-term thinking, that's destructive thinking. Speaker 2: And you talk about anchoring to an oasis, and ultimately, this is the Christian application. The entire part of Abraham following God was. Abraham was comfortable, abraham did have a life, he had lived an entire lifetime, and God calls him to a different adventure. Right, and what didn't change, apparently, was that relationship with God, but everything else did. I realize he was still married to Sarah, but everything else changed. You could say the same with Job Everything changed. You could say the same with Job Everything changed. And in that situation, he even allows, in my opinion, the wife to change as well, that the wife becomes a hindrance, which I think was part of his temptation . And, by the way, who can blame her? She just watched all her children die. She just watched her husband basically lose every piece of health that he had, and she just watched their fortunes go from good to horrible. I do not fault Job's wife at all. She's part of his temptation, I think, though. So I think one of the things is you got to figure out, especially at times like this, maybe my vocation is not nearly as important as other things that are going on in my life. Speaker 1: And that is a difficult call to make, obviously because we are used to thinking of the job being at the core of our existence, because it's where we are 40 hours, 50 hours, 60 hours a week , whatever it seems like that is defining our life, and in terms of time management, perhaps it is to a certain degree, but in terms of true priority, in terms of true identity, I hope that none of us ever thinks of themselves first and foremost as a banker or educator, a nurse, a captain of industry, whatever it happens to be. If that's how you define yourself, there's a very good chance that you're going to succeed very well in that area, but that is going to be leaving out an awful lot of other things that I consider to be more important. That's not how that has to go, and that is a really tough decision to make. Obviously, that's why we have prayer, that's why we have confidants and brothers and sisters in Christ, people that we trust, people who can look us in the eye and say, hey, it's time to make a call, it's time for you to pull the trigger on this. Speaker 2: And that goes to another belief that I have about God. I do not understand how God acts. I just don't, and I would not want to speak on behalf of God and how he chooses to act. I don't know if he's telling me that education is closing for me or not, or if he's telling me to soldier on and this is going to resolve itself. I don't have answers for that, but I think if I decided to quit education, god would be with me . And if I feel like I'm going to soldier on in this, I think God will be with me. I don't feel like there's a fate that is waiting for me, so much as there's a God that is standing beside me. Speaker 1: I totally agree. I think that the opposite of that is a very dangerous way of thinking. We can wind up empowering ourselves in a self-destructive opinion. If nothing else, what we're doing is we're getting into the mind of God and telling him how to do his business, which I think is a very poor policy. I don't know how God wants me to go whether a left or right in any given day to day kind of decision Quit this job, start this job, date this girl I don't know for sure. What I do know and I think you're saying essentially the same kind of thing what I do know is, wherever I go, whatever decision I make, I'm making it in the context of being a child of God and I'm going to find a way to glorify God where I am and where I am going to be tomorrow. And if I think that I can do a better job at that in this vocation rather than this vocation, then pray about it and make the change, go ahead and do that and however that turns out, success, disaster in between I find a way to glorify God. The burden is taken off of me to make the quote-unquote right decision. To make the quote-unquote right decision. It's not so much a matter of I'm either saving or ruining the next 50 years of my life with this decision right now, boy that's some stress right there, my entire life depends on the left or right decision right now , man, your brain's going to explode over something like that . We're not equipped to handle that kind of thing. I don't think that God wants us to try to handle that kind of thing. We trust that things are. His Proverbs talks about how the lot is cast, but the decision is the Lord's In. Acts chapter 1, when the disciples don't know which apostle to choose to take Judas' place, they cast lots, something akin to throwing dice. I don't know exactly how lots worked back then I'm not sure anybody does but the point is is this is a decision that's beyond us and we're going to trust God to do it. I'm not suggesting that you cut the cards to find out whether you take the job or don't take the job. We're not suggesting that that choice becomes God's choice and now we know it's the right choice. I don't think that's the point in Acts 1. I don't think that's the point in Proverbs and it's not the point for us now. But what it does do is remind us that God is guiding us, god is sheltering us, shepherding us throughout these decision-making processes, and maybe his objective is to put us in a prosperous and comfortable and blessed place so that we'll be able to share what we have with other people. And maybe his mission is to bring us down a notch and to humble us and to rob us of things that we think we need but actually we don't, to keep us focused on his things. Either way, whether it turns out to be a quote unquote good decision or a bad decision. Either way, we have the opportunity to lean on God and to trust in him for these things . Speaker 2: Yeah, one of the things that I would say about Abraham or Job, or the most important thing they learned, was, quite frankly, not about God, it was about themselves. Job learned that he really did trust God when push comes to shove. He was not going to be shoved out of his devotion to God, by the way, same for Abraham, and when you think about the offering of Isaac, he didn't know how that was going to work out. He just knew that he trusted God and whatever God had up his sleeve, he was just going to have to trust sleeve. He was just going to have to trust. I had a recent conversation with Stoneheart not too long ago , and he was talking about Kelly , his wife, being diagnosed with breast cancer, and one of the things that he told me that he learned was that this faith in God really was there, that when he had no control over what was going to go on with Kelly, he really did trust God. He really did trust God, I guess one of the things that I would say in my situation. There are a lot of things that I've had to let drop, not that I think that I'm going to drop them forever. So, for example, if you've been looking for me on Facebook, you haven't seen me on Facebook Because I've got other things to do, and that, to me, is fine. Do I as well as I do? I am somebody who really believes in digital stuff. I do think it has an important role to play. I don't think it's the most important role, but I do think it plays an important role, and so would I be on there if I could be? Yeah, I would be, but I can't be right now. So who am I going to trust? Am I going to trust myself and my judgment, or am I going to trust God? And I guess part of that is do I really trust him or not? And I think that's one of the things that I'm hopefully learning about myself right now that maybe religion, maybe Christianity, is not just talk for me. Speaker 1: I love the Abraham and Isaac story. I mean, who doesn't? Well, I'll tell you who doesn't ? Control freaks don't. Control freaks hate that story, and I can understand why because we don't like the idea of God controlling the future. We want to control the future. That's that, and I am all for exercising whatever control you can. I think it's irresponsible to not do that. But ultimately, isaac is the future, and, by this point, more than that, because Isaac is old enough to walk next to the donkey anyway, and God takes this child. Everything depends on him. Abraham thought he had an adequate substitute and God said no, that's not it. This child right here, he's the future Now. I want you to give him to me, I want you to hand him over to me , and Abraham is willing to do that. The Bible doesn't talk about him fussing or talking back or whatever. I don't know exactly how the conversation went, but I do know that it took him less than one day to get on the road. I'm going to give God my future . Hebrews chapter 11 tells us that Abraham had faith that God could raise Isaac from the dead. That's what he thought was going to happen, which is remarkable considering that we have a Bible that contains a handful of examples of people being raised from the dead. Abraham did not have that. Abraham had never heard of someone being raised from the dead before, not a single time, and yet he comes up with this on his own. This must be what and, as always, abraham's wrong about how exactly? God's going to carry this out but he's right in the sense that God is a worthy custodian of my future. I can put my future in God's hands and I'm going to be okay. God will still accomplish the things in me that he said he's going to accomplish. I don't understand how, I don't understand why, I don't understand when, but it's going to happen somehow. That's why Abraham is considered to be the father of the faithful. He struggled, he failed sometimes in his faith, but ultimately he was able to ride the ship and come back to his base, come back to who he really was at his core. That's who we need to be. I am a child of God. I am beyond this. God has promised that he will empower me to succeed. I don't know how much comfort, how much consolation I'm going to have in the short term, but ultimately that is irrelevant. It may not seem irrelevant in the moment, but ultimately, in the big picture, it's irrelevant . This is about surviving this life, moving on to the next life . The more I can build my faith in that, the more I'm going to be equipped to deal with these situations that are trying to distract me. Speaker 2: The faith of Abraham is not in grand gestures for the most part. Yes, sacrificing your child, that is a fairly grand gesture, but the fact of the matter is most of the decisions that Abraham made were not all that big, they were cumulative. Abraham made were not all that big, they were cumulative. The other thing about Abraham is the promises that God made to Abraham he largely did not see, With the exception of a place to bury his wife. He didn't own anything in the promised land. He basically ended up with two boys and that was his seed promise. The nations of the earth would be blessed. The nations barely knew who he was. The promises of God outlived Abraham and Abraham somehow knew that's exactly the way that would work Trusting God to a level that everybody else would say what are you on? How crazy are you? You realize this has never worked out for you. Speaker 1: Well, paul mentions the piece that passes understanding in Philippians 4. It does pass understanding. It passes our understanding to a certain degree and it certainly passes other people's understanding. They look at this hunkered down smile on your face kind of mentality in the face of difficulty, hardship, stress, and think what's he smoking? Because if I were looking like that, if I had that kind of expression, I'd be smoking something. That's the only way I could get there. I want some of what he's got. I'll tell you what I got Jesus. In fact, in Ephesians, chapter five, I find it interesting that Paul compares song worship and worship in general to getting drunk. In verse 18, he says this is dissipation, just getting drunk. I want to get into this state where I feel good about myself, where I feel good about my future. I want to feel like my life has meaning, like I'm important, like I have friends, et cetera. And I'm going to do that by going down to the bar and getting absolutely hammered. A lot of people do that and their life falls apart as a result of that. Here's an alternative you go to the church house, you sing praises to God, you sing songs of instruction to one another. That's a high that will give you satisfaction in the short term and in the long term it will draw you closer to your true objective term. And in the long term it will draw you closer to your true objective. It does not blow your life apart. It gives your life substance and meaning and focus. In these places, this is who you truly are and you live a life of purpose and confidence and faith. Because the desert's consuming all of us, people who don't know God. They're in the same mess that we're in. They see the same problems that we're seeing. Their life is just as miserable and helpless and futureless, et cetera, as ours is. But when we have hope, when we have purpose, the world's not getting to us should be something immensely attractive about that to us should be something immensely attractive about that. I want some of that. I've been trying plan A for a long time now and it's not working at all for me. Speaker 2: Maybe I should try plan B. We started off by talking about the answers that I don't have, and we're going to end off by having none of those answers still. Whether I should stay in education is still a question mark for me. Yeah, all of these struggles have shown me are the people who care for me, and that's been useful. I've seen the people who are reaching out. You're one of them. That makes a difference to me. It's useful to know who your allies are and who you can count on and who you can trust, and things like that. I'm getting to the point that there are parts of my life that I just might have to lose that maybe I can be okay with, because God has got that part of my life figured out. Speaker 1: because I don't, let me say this Kenny, okay, traditionally, at the end of your podcast, at the end of every one of your podcasts, you say be good and do good. I do so. Is there anything good about stress? Speaker 2: There are a lot of good things about stress. If I didn't have stress, I wouldn't get anything done. Pressure is productive. If I didn't have stress to grade papers, I would never grade papers, because it's a terrible job. Deadlines are helpful for me. Stresses are usually revelatory . In other words, they will explain to you where your weaknesses are. They will also show you where, maybe, those weaknesses are. Fine. Maybe it's okay that you can't stretch yourself really thin on these 12 things and maybe some of those 12 things just need to go. Stop stressing yourself out about those. But this stress over here with your wife, this stress over here with your health, this stress over no, that needs to be taken care of. Those are the things that actually make some difference and maybe you can't let those go . If I ended up in a different profession, I guess I'd still be okay with that, because I've got my God, I've got my wife, I've got my family, and what stresses me out there are the stresses that actually make a difference. They make me stronger. There are stressors that just tear you down and maybe you need to let go of those. Speaker 1: Sometimes failure is the lesson that you need to learn Sometimes. I was just thinking about an episode I did a couple of years ago about bridges and how astonished I was at the process of bridge building as it existed before steel. Anyway, used to be that you would find out how much stress a bridge could take by just building with less and less rocks and ultimately, when you start building with steel, less and less steel and one of these days the bridge fails and you say I guess I need more than that. This is the world before engineering really took off. What a ridiculous way to live your life, but that's the way you do. That's the way that it works. That's all you have. You have to have a bridge there and you can't go on just assuming you need a hundred thousand pounds of stone to build a bridge. We're adventurous, we have to push things, we have to find out what works and what doesn't work and eventually we find out that this bridge that we're building for ourself is just inadequate. I don't have enough time, I don't have enough energy, I don't have enough resources to keep feeding this monster and keeping it going. I'm going to have to let it fall. I'm just going to have to let it collapse, and that's not the end of the world. What is the end of the world is if the one bridge that I absolutely have to have if that fails, that's a disaster. That's what I have to feed. Everything that I have, all the resources that I have, everything I can spare goes into that area and fortifies it and builds it up where I have confidence in that my faith, my family, my ability to cope with really important things in life. Sometimes you find out that the thing you absolutely could not afford to lose, that's exactly what you have to lose. Speaker 2: The people who end up mattering to me are the ones who are reaching out, and that has been a blessing to me. I've gotten to the point very recently where I talk about people being blessings, and my definition of blessing is people who point me back to God. You're one of them who basically point me back to is this what you're doing? Is this helping you? And the other ones that how can I help you get something else done? That, to me, has been a huge so , for example, I have every intention to do the conference again, and the first guy who said can I help? Speaker 1: you with this was you Al, so that means something to be. Speaker 2: I appreciate it, hal. I appreciate what you're doing, not just for me, for other people as well. You're a good guy. You are proving your worth over and over again. Speaker 1: So I appreciate that. I appreciate you very much, that's me to say, and your work here is a blessing to us all. Whatever we can do from a selfish perspective to keep your spirits up a little bit, to alleviate your stress a little bit, keep you on task, keep you serving us. That's what we want to do. You're a blessing. Speaker 2: In some ways this felt like a very personal therapy session, but in another way I thought that this is very common for a lot of people to go through. Another way, I thought that this is very common for a lot of people to go through as we get older, our health starts to deteriorate, our choices become less obvious and it becomes both easier and more difficult to trust that God has the future. Just so you know, this episode was basically recorded about two or three months ago. Kyle and I have been talking very recently about the conference and I'll have more to say about that in the next few days. I want to say again thanks to Hal for doing this episode. I want to thank you for your patience and I ask you again for your prayers. Next episode I plan to talk to Mark Dunnigan. Mark is somebody who I've known for a little while. Me and his wife, cindy, have lived in an RV but also been local to me. For the last little bit we talk about advice he wishes he could give himself when he was younger. So until next time, let's be good and do good.