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Two Peas in a Podcast

Episode 113 - John Kenny Vaughan

John Kenny Vaughan is the 1996 US Water Ski Long-Jump champion. John is an author of multiple books including "The Right Fight", which deals with the question of how to live a loving life. He is also the co-founder of the Shields of Strength, a Christian Jewelry line inscribed with words of wisdom on it.


To connect with John please reach out to:

https://www.shieldsofstrength.com/

https://www.instagram.com/johnkennedyvaughan/?hl=en

Broadcast on:
22 Sep 2024
Audio Format:
other
John thank you so much for taking your precious time to be here with us. I find so much value in the great messages that you are putting out in the world and at the end of the day I just want you to know that I am grateful and so so happy to share this moment in time with you and thank you for sharing your message with our audience. Thanks for caring what I have to say and for listening and even know what I'm saying. It's a big world out there and sometimes I feel like I'm whispering into a storm but appreciate everything you're doing. Yeah whispering into the storm is the perfect way to put it because I find myself too in the same situation of where I'm going hey we have some really important messages. I hope it gets through the right channels to the right people and I just hope that at the end of the day we're able to make a little bit of a difference in someone's life. And John you've you've done that for a really long time for a lot of people. So can you tell us first and foremost who you are and what is it that you do? I'm not a big fan of that question because I don't think I'm much of anything but you know I am the father of three children that's that's probably my greatest responsibility in life and I'm the husband of Tammy Vaughn, my wife Tammy. And then you know I thought I was I mean while I was a ski jumper for most of my life I hate to say I'm not anymore because makes me feel old but I did that for a long time. A battle fear you know my girlfriend at the time now wife of 30 years or 28 I'm gonna get myself in trouble. Start writing scriptures on my equipment. I learned to act on God's Word. I overcame my fear. The dream came true for me and then we started putting scriptures on necklaces that we call shoulder strength and that was like 25 years ago. Now I think we're probably the leading Christian jewelry line in the world. Over 500 pieces now. And then I wrote a book called The Right Fight, How to Live a Loving Life. And that's every video I've ever done on Instagram I'm at John Kennedy Vaughn on Instagram or We're Shield of Strength on Instagram but every video I've ever done is just I just say it's like thousands of ways of saying the same thing. It's about is there's an effort to help people understand what love really is because I believe it's the answer to every question we ever have and the solution to every problem we ever have and I understand I counterintuitive that sounds the first time you hear it I would have unfollowed myself 20 years ago. So my struggle is trying to communicate it in a way people what I make sense but I got on my I guess that's who I am. I'm just a guy on social media trying to share what you learn because I believe it's still a life changer. Yeah and I love that because your message is so so powerful and you already told me that you love tough questions so let me start out with a tough year right away and it's this one. Why is it so hard for people to when they come across content even if it's good content but it's in any way tied to religion they tend to tune out and they tend to just see the religious aspect of the content rather than the messaging that's behind it because it feels like we lose a lot of people just specifically being in the religion space even though the overall message of the love is way stronger and way more powerful than any one specific religion. Okay so that's a loaded question and this is my belief I'm really a big fan of religion either but I want to be real clear when I say that what I mean by that I mean Christianity obviously is what is just known as a religion but I see religion as a whole and I think this is how a lot of people see it as giving to get. In other words if I keep these rules or I keep these laws this is what I get. If I don't keep these rules and I don't keep these laws this is what I'm going to get which obviously is not good. Our problem is if we don't know who Jesus is our problem is we all know that we don't keep them. Like keep down I know I don't keep the laws and I don't keep all the rules and so you're if you're going to talk to me about it my fear is that if I don't have the understanding of who Jesus is then I'm like who do you think you are to tell me how bad I am and what I'm going to get. So religion I'm trying to answer the question properly religion is manipulation in a sense where it's it's as if we believe that God is trying to manipulate it's like as if God would need to ever manipulate it's like he's in control of everything and what we don't what people don't understand and unfortunately when they hear the name Jesus they think this kind of religion they think not a pure religion like religion in his pure formers actually love but but it's they see it as they see Jesus they see any scriptures they see anything out of the Bible because they don't know any better they haven't come to understand who he really is they see it as condemnation and Jesus I mean the word of God the truth convicts us but Jesus doesn't condemn us he's there to set us free from it so it's really hard to and not this isn't just on social media this is anywhere in life you know we all experience it it's like how do you how do you share with someone what you've learned that is so valuable that could be life-changing for them forever and you love this person you want to share it with them but how do you approach them away in a way that at the first sign of Jesus or something else because of who they think he is that he's not really at all that they just run so I think I think the best I think that's why people run because like if G I like to say like this if Jesus was who the people that run from him think he is then they have good reason to run so it's what they believe but if they'll hang around long enough to figure out that's not who he is at all they wouldn't run from him they would run to him and so our responsibility as people as disciples as as people who've been given the gift of his love in our own lives is to try to share it with people in a way they're most likely to receive it and that's it's not easy you know it's a responsibility but if we do that that's the best we can do but your question was you know why do people run from this because they have a false belief about who Jesus is a lot of reason religions I don't think it is a false belief I think it's the truth it means exactly what the religion teaches so I like to say Jesus isn't a religion he's love yeah I love that specific answer because at the root of it it sounds like you're saying hey at the end of the day it's all about love no matter what and the second part of it is this feels like there is just a miscommunication between the messaging that is actually out there and what the reality of the situation is which is that we should all be loving and when you say that I'm so I'm gonna jump in real quick here's the problem one of who we say because I've been doing this for 20 years like all I think about all day long every day is loving what it is it has it communicating the problem when we just like whenever we say when we say the name Jesus or whenever we speak scripture everybody wants to run from that because they have a false belief about who he is well when we say it's all about love people want to run to that normally because they have a false belief about what love is like if you don't know God you don't know love if you know love you know God and I don't think you can know love without knowing him so I just want to make sure people understand when we say it's all about love that does not mean it's all about absolute acceptance it doesn't mean that it's it's all about empathy I mean sometimes love has empathy but all so often empathy is not love at all like empathy is an effort to get from you what I want love is only gonna do what it believes is best for you so so love that's why I like to say love is our offense and our defense so when we say it's all about love that doesn't just mean it's all soft and nice and sweet because a lot of times I say like this love is always kind but kindness is not always love so if I'm kind to you to get what I want from you I'm not loving you I'm using you so love because it's kind it speaks the truth so anyway I just love is it's not easy and sometimes it hurts people's feelings yeah but in the end they know why and if the why's right they know they're loved and I think that that's a good thing right it's a good thing to sometimes feel a little bit of that hurt because genuinely the best pieces of being hurt is that even when it's the ones that you care about the messaging that you get out of this is hey something about what you're doing is not ideal something about what you're doing could be a little bit better and it could put people in your life who matter the most in a better position yeah now and I want what's best for you and if what you're doing isn't best for you I'm not the last one to tell you and I'm not gonna beat around the bush and be sweet about it I'm the first one to tell you but not so I can be right I'm here to tell you for your sake yeah and that's so we can use the truth the truth isn't always love either love is always the truth but the truth isn't always like I can speak truth to you or to someone for the sake of some kind of selfishness to hear them or to get what I wanted to prove I'm right that's my love yeah if I love you I will tell you the truth for your sake and I'll do the best that I can deliver in a way you'll receive it I have so much appreciation because the specific way that you talk about love shows that there is a lot of thought behind it it's obviously a super complex topic in general and one of the biggest things that you already told me why I think you're just this great human being is because you've already told me that you changed your own ideas of what you even thought love was tell me first what you thought love was previously where you went hey I think we're on the path but we're not exactly there yet because I think one of the biggest things that makes you so relatable and such an incredible person is this ability to go hey even the ideas that I held on to previously are not always right and when I change them I can do it in a way where I say the exact reason for why I change the way that I think because a new way of thinking is better so I thought thank you by the way um I thought love was a feeling uh I thought love was you know just being nice to someone being kind being considered so I thought love was what I did and so I did all of those things and it was I would I wouldn't I didn't always I strive to do those things but I never can never really considered why I was doing them and love is not what you do that's not where you find love you find love in why you do it so I had never considered that before the first time it crossed my mind I was in a marriage a premarital counseling setting and the couple we were talking to said love isn't a feeling it's a choice and I'm sitting next to my fiance at the time and when they said that I thought you know that just sounded like something that I hadn't thought about and that might be wise until I start to kind of chew on it and as and they were continuing talking I'm kind of broke off from the conversations in my head I'm going love is not a feeling it's a choice and my thought process was this I was like okay did I choose to feel what I feel for this girl sitting next to me my wife Tami now next to my fiance did I choose to feel it I'm like I absolutely did not choose to feel what I feel for her and so they said love was a choice but I didn't choose what I feel for her so they have to be wrong so I didn't tell them they were wrong but in my mind I was like that's actually one of the dumbest things I've ever heard because I definitely didn't choose to feel this and I and we moved on and then we started running you know we've done fine in our marriage but thanks already coming up our marriage is like the result in this feeling not necessarily being there and just to spare you the long story I would say what I eventually learned was this I hope this will make sense was was that I was right I didn't choose the feeling I had for Tami the feeling I had for her was not a choice but what where I was wrong was that I was assuming that the feeling I had for her was for no reason at all when the truth was it was definitely for a reason and the reason that I had the feeling I had for her was because Tami was loving me and without even knowing it at times I was actually loving her and so what I mean by that there's in first Corinthians 13 there's seven things love is and there's eight things that love is not it reads like love is patient love is kind it's not envious not boastful that kind of stuff but if you look at it there's seven things love is there's eight things that love is not so think of it like like this so what Tami was loving me so loving is the choice like those people told me the feeling of love is the fruit of love all right so if someone loves you you can't help but feel love for them okay so Tami was being these seven things that love is patient kind truthful protecting trusting choose you know persevering in love I don't remember all seven I'm off top of my head but she was doing those things but imagine this if Tami had become the eight things that love is not she's angry rude envious prideful boastful selfish delighting and evil if she had quit choosing to love me instead chose to while this gets me in hot water all time I love herself okay put herself first instead of doing what she believed was best for me if she had become those things before long the feeling of love in my life would have fallen like I would have told you if she's angry rude envious boastful all these things for the next six months or next year or next two years and you and I think love is the feeling then I'm gonna and you ask me do I love her anymore I'm instead of saying I love her all my heart I'm gonna say I think I've fallen out of love with her because I think the love is the feeling so if people ask me you know do you love Tami what I want to say now is I love her with all my heart like I do but really if you want to know if I love Tami you need to ask her because me loving Tami is choosing to be patient kind truthful to protect her am I willing to do what's best for Tami without regard for myself that's me loving Tami that's the choice to love Tami's responsibility so in a relationship with two people both the people have the same responsibility to love the other other person and when both of them do that we mess up we repent but we desire what's best for each other then the feeling of love stays alive in our life so that was my dream you know that was it's a longer story but I went from thinking that love was the feeling and fighting for the feeling okay and when I fight for the feeling of love for you for my wife when she's angry rude boastful and when she does things it makes me lose my feeling or not feel the love then I fight her to make me feel loved and when I fight to be loved I kill love in my own life because I'm no longer loving her I'm fighting her to love me but if I will really love I know okay let's just maybe an example would be helpful here okay yeah so if my wife is you know not if she's in a bad mood today or something went wrong well she's not going to be so patient I mean if she's not choosing to love me yeah you know she could be all these things that love is not but if my goal is to have a loving relationship and I want to feel loved by my wife when she's struggling to love me then I also become what she is angry rude envious prideful boastful because I'm not loving her I'm loving her so that she will love me that's not love that's using love to get what I want that's like the worst form of manipulation yeah because I'm using I'm using God I'm using the the essence the most powerful force in the universe and the planet anywhere else is love and I'm using that as a tool to get from someone what I want instead of using that as the as I'm supposed to selflessly not self-ishly for their sake and when we do that we both become these eight things that love is not I'll talk about all this in the book the right fight now use a tree to illustrate and I'm trying to show you hey if you're these eight things angry rude envy boastful all these things you're gonna be fruitless like it's only a matter of time but sometimes you're loving your patient kind truthful these other things and you're somewhat fruitful but the other person isn't loving you so they're still hurting you and so relationships that goes back and forth here's what happens because hard times always come if we love our way through the hurt love grows stronger in our lives so whenever hard things come along then either love's gonna start dying or it's gonna start growing and the decision is ours and it comes down to when the hard things come who we're gonna put first I'll put you first tomorrow put me first and I can't do both yeah it feels like such a almost common sense definition of love but it feels like a totally shift on love how we view it most of the time right because you're taking away the feeling but you're thinking about being selfless at the same time and even though like the concept seems easy to understand at the same time I feel like it's so hard to implement because we as human beings are so so imperfect and a lot of the time when hard times especially when hard times come about we just tend to forget about other people and spend so much time concentrating on ourselves what I've like have found is that in today's society for whatever reason it feels like easier than ever to find temporary love and find the wrong ideas of love based on technology the availability of partners and so many people today being so so lonely at the same time have you seen the same shift happening based on whatever this social media space is because I feel like so many more people today are just talking about their partners in a more disrespectful way and always find this thing I'm like oh I can just get remarried I can have a different different partner that I'm not stuck with these same problems that this person has yeah so I may say everything you're talking about and so if in the beginning I don't remember exactly what you said in that question but you said something along the lines of you know we're trying to find love for some reason and when you said that I was think or they they're they're trying to get this so they can have love as you said that what I was thinking was that's not love and just meaning this that that's that is what they're doing like they're they're trying to find love but what they're not realizing is that you don't find love love finds you and your responsibility is not to go find love and we need to get out and meet people we have to get around people we've got to give love an opportunity to find us you know if we just say hidden somewhere you know how else are we gonna give love an opportunity to find us but what do I mean by that like what do what do I mean by love finds you if I if my goal is to find love then I'm looking for a person to love me because because I believe that them loving me is me finding love if that's what I believe then I can chase that forever and I'm never gonna find it it's not even possible and less in the chasing I change and I actually find love who is Jesus Christ I find love and who he is and he changes who I am but whenever whenever he changes who I am I'm no longer looking for love I'm looking to love I'm looking to love everyone around me and what happens is if if I'm looking to love instead of looking for love then I love the people around me and I'm around people and then eventually I come across someone who also loves me I come across Tammy and you know I'm not talking about romantic love I'm talking about like relationships don't hang on romantic love your survival doesn't depend on that it depends on agape love like a selfless love for each other and then you if as as you love then love is your offense and your defense so it's love that keeps the wrong people out of your life and the right people in your life you say why because I love you and what you're doing is selfish and harmful to me or anyone else and I love you I'm not seeking to be loved I love you that which means I will tell you the truth even if I lose you that's that's the first requirement to love someone is a willingness to lose them if you're unwilling to lose them you can't love them because at every step that you think you may lose them you're not gonna love them you're just gonna please them you're gonna do whatever it takes to get them to not leave you because you don't want to lose love because you fought so hard to get it but if we really love people and they're doing things that are selfish or harmful to us or anyone else then we tell them and we ask them why not for our sake but for theirs so I beg like you know my wife started beating me all the sudden all of a sudden I wouldn't like it because all kinds of things that could go on but but my first hopefully my my first thought might be God only knows what right because I'm like everybody else you know okay you hit me again I'm gonna hit you back you know I'm not able to hit you back but but then hopefully from there I go to what's what's going on with my life and that's going to wreck her life and I don't want her to be that person like baby what's how why are you doing this hang on if if this person's like because I want to and this is what I do when I do it then love won't let me help you do that I can't participate in that or help you do that because that's going to destroy your life so that's love defending me but if this person is willing to go you know what you're right and I'm sorry and repent and I actually start working on changing because they also love then we find love in relationships so we end up in the wrong relationships not always but a lot of times because we're not we're not seeking to love we're seeking to be loved yeah and we're giving it gets that makes sense it's such it's just such an interesting idea because in the root of it and I like try to break things down to what's at the base of it and it feels like the message keeps being at the end of it as long as you are a giver and you're able to give love then the thing that comes back to you is the same pure love in the best form does that sound right yes love doesn't take love gives and receives so relationships are not 50 50 that's that's the manipulation like I'll do my part you do your part a loving relationship is 100 100 it's all of me for you and it's all of you for me now they end up around 50 50 because at best I get it right half the time you know and the rest time I'm repenting it's like repenting is my best friend I don't here's and what you said and that was a process I went through it's like when I started realizing that loving actually worked like loving my wife gets me loved like loving people makes me it results in most of the time not all the time and me being more fruitful then I wanted to start loving for the fruit and I realized that that wasn't love anymore yeah right so if I love you for the benefit of loving you I'm not loving you I'm loving me my wife my wife has shifted from you back to me so yes love does give and sometimes love takes not for its own sake but for the sake of others it takes things away because those things are harm and others if it can a lot of times we don't have control over what other people do but it's all of me for you I'll give I'll give a quick example because I was thinking about it and while I go when I went through you know some of the things love is and isn't sometimes it can be confusing so and how it works in real life so one time my wife and I were coming on in my pickup truck and so I had been talking to my brother and he was he was trying to make this deal on this kind of old house he thought he could fix it up and you know fixing it up and I could sell it for more and then but my wife and I've already had discussions that you know I don't do anything like this without talking to her first and that makes sense right yeah so but we've had a couple of heated ways because what happens is we start talking to me my brother start talking about something and I'm like I don't want to tell Tamia because this is never going to happen but she finds out about it for I don't and then she thinks I was planning on it so we don't you know so we had just come out of one of these little arguments when I won my truck we're riding down the road and my brother calls me on speaker fall he calls me on answering on speaker fall and he starts in on about a contract on a house and I'm like oh like Tamie said like I hadn't said anything to her about it because I'm thinking I don't want to do it anyway that's spun out of control like this was the worst fight argument not fist fight screaming yelling match we've ever had and I mean it just ramped up you know from me trying to tell her you don't understand what's going on to her to her yelling at me you know how many times we just talked about this to me yelling back stuck in the truck once any five miles down the road can't get out of the truck I'm about to jump out the window you know I mean literally Igor I was screaming so loud that when I got home I kind of didn't have a voice man and I'm like yeah I'm the guy talking about love you know what I mean and she goes in the house and you know the next morning I'm just like I don't want to see her I'm gonna talk to her um I don't care you know what I mean that's the first thing fear does fear things I just don't care everybody else told me I don't care I don't care everybody says I'll care yes you do I mean the whole reason you don't care because you care so much you know so um but that's where I'm going but when I get up to go to work um she always makes me coffee puts it in his cup she put a cup of coffee on the counter she wasn't in there but I walked in there's my coffee and my first thought was like give a little bit to the dog make sure you don't kick it you know that followed me I love that thought so anyway I drink the coffee I don't say anything we don't say a word the whole day and we don't ever do this we did this time and then the next morning my coffee was there again you know I was like he was convicting me you know and um but anyway long story short after that we sat down and we talked you know in communications valuable but I used to think I don't have time to communicate all this stuff the reason communication is valuable because it reveals the truth it's the truth the truth that sets you free love is always the truth so what I learned in the conversation was how much you know she felt betrayed by me not what had just happened there but what I had done before about talking about stuff and my function and what she learned was that I wasn't really trying to do that but here's the crazy thing when that whole thing was over and we had our conversation and we hugged and went about our day when I walked away I was going to say I love her more than I've ever loved her in my life so hurt is an opportunity for love to grow stronger or for love to begin to die and love always comes but I mean I'm sorry hurt always is always coming and our responsibility is to choose the love to do what's best for the other person and because love is your offense and your defense you can do that but whenever we think we have to protect and defend ourselves without regard for other people we're really gonna have a hard time loving we're not trusting God we're not trusting who he is we're not trusting these words like you know what God I know what you say about all these things and what I'm supposed to be but I know better in this situation and then we fail to love and then things can start falling apart the wonderful thing at any moment we can repent start loving again and from there relationships are rebuilding and I'm happy that you said that because I feel like at the very end of the day we are kind of always on this seesaw where at certain times we are much better at giving love we're much better at being in tune with love in our life but then based on whatever is going on in life a lot of the time it just feels like you get out of that balance what are some of the biggest tips that you have for people to once they start heading down the wrong route and they go hey I'm not leading these conversations and I'm not being as loving to my family to my friends as I could be how do they turn it around and move in the right direction so I used to think love was a balancing act but it's it's like it's really not it's it is or it is not so in other words I either am loving or I am not loving there's not a balanced way to love you know and it's either me it's either for me or is for you and so the I think the right way to handle it when it because we've like I feel I feel as much you or much or probably more and than anybody I know all the time but the the the the the solution is repentance and what I mean by repentance is is a willingness or really are you really willing to accept the responsibility of your own failure to love and I think so if we have conflict with someone my first responsibility is to own what is mine before I attempt to address what is yours even if just 1% of the problem or I believe I was 1% of the problem and you were 99 I need to own my 1% before I attempt to address yours and then when I address yours I need to I don't need to assume I know because I always know I think I know right I always think I know mayors just like that especially with my life we've been together for 25 years like it's like I know exactly what you mean I know why you mean it so I'm just gonna go ahead and do what I want to do or say what I want to say because I'm right and all of that's a failure to love so even if I think I know it doesn't hurt me to ask you know you can't lose anything by asking why or help or seeking to understand before you seek to be understood because what happens in that process is sometimes you are actually wrong and you're about to love less not more so you seek to understand understanding that the truth is your defense you don't have to defend yourself you seek to understand if what you understand is not the truth and love has this responsibility say I understand everything you told me but I don't understand it because it's not the truth it's like the wonderful thing about love and the truth is it's actually very simple it's not easy but it's very simple you can show anybody in the world a selfish thing and a loving thing of any kind and they know that selfish this is loving I mean unless it's just right down the line of something so so you seek to understand before you seek to be understood do that as patiently as you can and you have the courage to repent to say that you're sorry you know you're sorry for what you have done that is selfish you don't have to be sorry for the truth let the truth be its own defense so you stand for the truth the truth will stand for you and for them does that make sense yeah that makes total sense and I feel like just in today's society it almost feels like we moved away from this ability to say hey I apologize I was wrong towards this totally phase of like every single thing that I do is right and one of the biggest things that I value in my own marriage is this ability to go hey like at the end of the day I know that not every decision that I make is going to be a good one and sometimes good intentions still lead to bad outcomes where I did not show love in the right way but I intended to do that and I just feel like a lot of the time it's a miscommunication where people aren't able to verbalize it they do the right actions and at the end of the day they're not able to say hey sometimes it's not about the outcome it's about what I intended to show with that and it sucks that it worked out that way I apologize and we move on with life have you seen that to be true yes but you know if someone is sincere and your intentions were were proper they really appreciate that you know I mean if I'm if I'm so worried about you hurting me love is self less not self more okay so if if you and if what you did you intended for my say even if you kind of butchered it I know you love me like I know you don't have to tell me you know if I really understand that your intentions were were good for me then I know that you love me even if I don't respond properly or whatever or express it and I know I think that's what I think why we're doing what we're doing matters now it does matter we can't say we have good intentions and at the same time you know just be rude in our delivery because we know I mean that's not a good intention being rude you know I agree unless you think you have to sometimes we have to be tough with the intentions that it's going to take me being tough at this point to wake you up or help you to see the truth but I think I think intentions do matter and they matter a lot sometimes we you know but yes we could say hey I'm sorry for where I delivered that I could have done better um or if it is I'm sorry for that I believe this is the truth I believe it's best for you if that's what we did you know but if what we did was really selfish and for our own sake then it's just a flat-out repentance I'm sorry I did that you know and they may want to know why we did it because I was afraid you know afraid you did so afraid of that and I'm certain you know but I'm sorry and I'm gonna work on not doing it again but now I live in a constant state of repentance I think I think anyone if you meet some if you meet people that are really loving people they're not walking around in defense of themselves they're not their eyeballs are not inwardly focused they're not so worried about what everybody else thinks of them or says about them or how they look at me that stuff their eyeballs are actually looking outwards and they're paying attention to other people and it and it just matters to them if they if they do something wrong and so they they want to say they're sorry you know I mean it's a wonderful thing to be able to say I'm sorry you know I agree but if we're afraid to say we're sorry we're afraid to repent we're allowing fear to rule our life and it's going to slowly drive all the love out of our lives yeah and I feel like this is the other big piece that people don't talk about and it's just how strong of an emotion fear is because it can make us do really really silly things that we naturally know isn't in our nature but sometimes we just go down the wrong path can you tell me why you think fear is as strong of a motivator and as a strong of a feeling as it is well fear is a feeling and and I don't I may be wrong but I think we either choose love or we choose fear I mean I either choose me or I choose what I believe is best for you I'm making it just every single decision I make I'm making a decision based on who I think is going to benefit or who it's best for and and so we choose one or the other the problem is love isn't a feeling it's a decision that results in a feeling fear is the feeling that if we follow it results in a decision and so whenever so fear comes first I would say so whenever whenever the first thing that presents itself to us all the time is fear fear comes first and it comes first as a feeling like like we are all instinctively aware if you know this if I do this if I do this it's going to cost me something and it's going to and listen love always love is love is not a free ride love always costs you something but it never costs you more than what not loving will cost you now love costs you right now but the fruit won't appeal and appear until spring yeah you don't get anything right now for loving someone you know any you you just I mean you do over time you know you stay connected to the vine you get that but you don't see the fruit of loving people a lot of times immediately but you do see the fruit of acting on your fear immediately it's like I'm afraid of this I'm gonna protect myself from this I'm gonna make you get away from me and or I'm gonna do whatever I'm gonna do based on this fear well that gives you immediate relief but we but you keep you continue doing that and the spring comes and there's no fruit yeah so and we're faced with fear all the time it's hard it's not love is not it's simple it is not easy just it's like sometimes one of the hardest things ever you still love someone that you don't even like I have so much appreciation for the openness that you talk about this topic because I almost see it as like putting money in the bank hey on the first day you just do it because you think it's the right thing 10 days out you still see no results but you keep doing it because you have a strong belief that something good is going to come out of this and buy a thousand's day 10 thousand's day this feeling that you get of doing the right thing that you get of showing true love without anything in return is the payoff it's just a lot of people just don't have the patience for it and it's crazy that as good as it feels to be on the other side of it we're just not patient enough to get there for some people yeah the only way you can get there I think or at least sustain it is you have to truly die to yourself otherwise you it's all Jesus you have to come to a place not that if I love is an investment okay because it's all you know it's you're going to be fruitful that's your destiny if you live a loving life but if you love people so that the investment will pay off you're not going to make it because you haven't you have expectations for when this investment is going to pay off and how it's going to pay off and it's not going to pay off when you want it to and how you want it to and sometimes you love and then you got to love again like you thought it's going to pay off and now you're going to pay out again and and so eventually if if we're loving for the investment to pay off then we're not going to make it eventually we're just going to give up on love because we think love is hurting us but love doesn't ever hurt anyone it's selfishness that's hurting us so we really have to come to this place where we say it's no longer about me like one like it's not now this is a daily battle it's not like you do it once and it's over with you got to it's a daily battle but it's just not about me period and I'm going to love you whether you love me or not and I remember a guy I don't know why sorry messing with me but I came into our shop one time and bought some jewelry and a lady that was helping her name was Mindy and he was an older gentleman he was just super kind you know some people was just like the love of gods all over me and I was like you know hey would you stay for a couple more hours we could use it you know but when he was leaving I heard him talking to her and then I heard him say but I told you after he said I love you and there's nothing you can do about it I thought what did that mean what did he mean by that I love you and there's nothing you can do about it I didn't immediately understand it because to me if I loved you there was something you could do about it like if you were hateful to me if you betrayed me if you did different thanks to me then I wouldn't love you anymore but the truth is if I love you and you do something different and I don't love you anymore I never loved you to begin with I love what I was getting from you and this is what people don't understand about God he doesn't love you because of who you are he doesn't love you because of how you perform he doesn't love you because you're better or you're worse or or what you accomplish or what you don't accomplish God's love for you has nothing to do with you it's because of who he is it's not because of who you are yeah I love you because of who he is he is love so he loves you now he corrects you because he loves you God's wrath is his love so he is love so our responsibility that's what I think that's what the old gentleman was saying is I love you and there's nothing you can do about it so when someone really loves you it doesn't say anything about who you are says something about who they are yeah and we're all out there trying to get love so we feel love because we think that someone loving us means that we're valuable and if no one loves us we have no value well that's all a lot if someone loves you is they're valuable and if someone doesn't love you they're hurting their own value they still have value but there but how people treat you says nothing about you yeah because it's not about you know at the end of the day it's not about you yeah it's about who you are it's about who you are and how you feel does not say how who does not speak of who you are so the fear you feel does not define who you are but if you act on the fear and follow the fear instead of choosing the love then you start becoming what fear is and if you stay that course then you find yourself going you know I'm loving all these people but there's but there's no one loves me there's nothing going on you know all these well you you're probably failing to love them yeah now I have so much appreciation for your message on love and I'm 100 bought in and I just wanted to make sure that I pre-face this next piece because I know that you wanted to have a tough conversation and there is one road that I want to take you down that is a lot of the time not talked about the right way I love this because you are a man of Jesus and you are very very religious in a lot of your stances and it's clear that the beliefs that are coming from you are just coming from such a loving place so let me ask you this hard question and it's this one what is God is love God is love he's a being no one really knows God like we we desire to know him but the the infinite everything that he is is beyond our wildest imaginations to to imagine that we really know who God is is foolishness you know it says God's word tells us you know we see now is through muddy water you know only then what we see clearly so so he's beyond our wildest imagination but who he is and who we believe he is because we need what we need who we believe he is needs to be the truth and who God is God is love but what does that mean like what is if I say God is love what does that mean about who God is to me because what happens is I think a lot of times when people say God is love what they mean is that they can just do whatever they want and God's still gonna love him and I would say actually that's true you can do whatever you want and God is gonna love you because God is love but what you don't understand is that because God loves you he doesn't want you doing whatever you want I mean the reason God hates sin is not because sin destroys God sin doesn't destroy God he's sinless sin destroys us so the reason that God hates sin is not because he hates the person he hates sin because he loves the person so he can't support you in your sin if God if God encouraged or supported or blessed our sinful behavior he wouldn't be loved like I mean imagine your own children you know if you if you bless them and encourage them and things that are gonna destroy their life at least don't come tell me you love your children you're failing to love your children because if you love them then whatever they're doing that is not best for them you will not support it you won't go with them there you know you do anything you can to stop it if you can and so I wish people had a better understanding of who God is the best example of who God is is Jesus like Jesus was a picture to us of who God is of the character of God and you know we think it's we think it's either a really harsh God looking down trying to find a way to punish or spank someone for everything they're doing wrong well God doesn't ignore our sin but everything he does not to punish us but to save us from punishment because that's what we're trying to punish ourselves you know we're setting ourselves on the course for our own destruction so he's loved and if you want to know who he is you know learn who Jesus is I say start in the book of Matthew and read the New Testament you know read James Philippians Romans the book of John you know he if you get in there start reading the first thing you're gonna realize is Jesus not who you thought he was there's so many great parables you know you have time for a parable equipment sure all right so um one of my favorite ones I think this is a the prodigal son you'll read that story that's a picture of who God is well let's just do that okay so okay if you don't know about the prodigal son yeah you got these two brothers this is a quick quickie version right so you got these two brothers one of them is just you know he's doing everything right for the wrong reason you don't have this right he's wise not in the right like but you don't know that initially all you know is this big brother he's doing everything like the father as an inheritance the little brother he's just hoodle you know he's running wild doing whatever he wants to do little brothers he's he's so selfish he comes to the father says hey before you die I want my half of the inheritance now he takes his half of the inheritance and he takes off and he goes out in the wherever he goes and wastes it all and and and riots is living and prostitutes all these different things right waste if finally he runs out now he's living in pig pens eating with pigs and and he eventually he comes to himself and he just says hey if I could go home and my dad would allow me I wonder if he would let me be his servant and if I could be his servant his servants eat better than I'm eating now they have it better than the life that I've given myself in my actions right so he goes home and when he's coming home up the driveway as I'm reading this story for the first time I'm going when I see this mom I'm seeing him coming up the driveway I'm like telling big brother hey get me a branch you know I mean I got about to wear him out you know me yeah thanks you're gonna go take half his hurts wait sit make me suffer all this time now he's gonna come home I'm you know he's gonna be wishing he didn't come back here right but he comes back humbly and the father runs to him he doesn't even wait for him to get there he runs to him and grabs him up says get asked says get him a rogue slaughter the fattied calf we're gonna have a teleparty for him everything well the big brother this is this is jesus telling this parable to show you guys okay so that's God's approach to him coming up now I think if the little brother had come home I don't know this this isn't scriptural okay but I imagine if he had come on and say hey dad I want some more money so I can go back doing what I was doing I think the father would probably give him a hug he'd been broken heart he'd been crying and he said I can't give anything you just have to go back you know that's what love does and but this Eddie came on with someone so so now the big brother because that's what happened he comes on me sliding that big brother here's all the ruckus he's like what's going on and one of the services like hey your dad's slaughtering the fatty calf your little brother he's like what slaughtering the calf calf from my brother wow he never slaughtered one for me I've been this and I've been that and I've done all these different things and I've been a good son and he's never done anything like that for me then the father goes to him and he's like look your brother was lost and now he's found you know please come and celebrate with us but what happened I think those two brothers were the same one was prideful he was doing all the right things for the wrong reasons the little brothers do all the wrong things for the wrong reasons but when we repent what God's saying is I don't want you I don't want y'all doing the wrong things for the wrong reasons both of you doing the right things for the right reason because I love you so if you want to go and sin and live in your sin all I can do is let you go yes I love you and what's so like powerful to me it's hitting on the other side of this is even though I'm not religious there is one big thing that I took away early in my life and it was this if you live your life as if you were religious even if you don't fully buy in to the religion itself there is always a better outcome of you doing the right things and just getting in tune with whoever it is that you are as a person and finding the true meaning of love of happiness and of these greater ideas because just like you said I think the real value is in knowing how little we actually know like the people who get themselves in trouble are the people who are so convinced that whatever they believe is a hundred percent true where people who just go I'm not a hundred percent sure on this one I don't know and this ability to say I don't know is where I think you find the intersection of people who are just okay with being lost but know that they're on a path to a better life did that make sense a little bit so just say that I'm glad you aren't religious and I hope I'm not either but I would say that if someone really knows love then they know God and his name is Jesus I would say that there's no truth like I've never found if you do I do agree we have to absolutely seek the truth if we think we know we are fooling ourselves okay but there are some truths we can know and so I think that all truth points to and leads to Christ and love and if you're willing to ask why and seek the truth you will find yourself there so in my personal journey if you will I mean I came to a place where I thought you know what I want to I want to know what love is and I'm going to follow the truth wherever it takes me and that was a scary thing to say because I because I felt like I mean there were things that I believe not because I believed they were true but because I was told they were true and I had to just seek the truth and my fear was that if I just sought the truth eventually I would find a truth that revealed that what I believe wasn't true but I've launched out in that direction anyway and I found plenty of truths that revealed that what I believed wasn't true but I've never found a truth that revealed that Jesus wasn't the truth that sets us free and so I say you know have the courage to seek the truth at all costs at all costs and I find that most people today just don't have that courage to even ask the questions of what is the truth that's hard for it for the people who are struggling with getting to asking the question what guidance could you provide being on the other side of this having asked yourself the big questions for them to start unraveling the questions first before trying to get to a solution well they're gonna have to come to the end of themselves like I mean we all do it in one way or another and I mean you will come to the end of yourself it's just a matter of when and what I mean by that is to a place where you say you know what I just I no longer I admit and I own the fact that I'm not enough I know that's not popular nowadays but but I'm not enough but I don't have to be like nobody's enough and we don't have to be and and that I trust the truth to defend me more than I trust myself the reason that we reject the truth is either we just don't understand it but if we're willing to listen we can eventually understand like real truth is never difficult to understand it's never hard to understand it's not complicated if somebody is selling you a super complicated complex truth then it's probably not the truth at all if it's really the truth very simple and they can boil it down to the simplest things you know and it applies in everything so it's not that complicated but it's extremely hard because for me to go with the truth I may have to go away from what I believe to be true and that makes me feel vulnerable and I don't want to feel vulnerable so I want to protect myself and abandon the truth that would actually protect me and there is no escape escaping being vulnerable like everyone is vulnerable you're my saying to my wife always tell me it's not vulnerable vulnerable you nailed that forgive me for Texas but we are yeah so whenever I accept the fact okay I'm vulnerable there's nothing perfect about me I don't want and this gets me in trouble too I don't want my truth I want the truth like there's if anyone has my truth and it's not someone else's truth well either neither one of them are the truth or one of them isn't the truth and if one of them is the truth it's not their truth it's the truth and it's been the truth forever and it'll always like the truth doesn't change it really doesn't but to accept the truth a part of me has to die you know I have to be willing to say I was wrong I'm just like it's like the best possible thing you could ever do to yourself see so you need to come to the end of yourself and say okay and only way I know to do that is to say okay lord I tried my way 40 years didn't work like I can't take it anymore I want the truth and leave me to the truth help me seek the truth I surrender it's literally a total surrender you don't surrender so that god can be a slave master like you you know you just surrender to him because you've learned that you're gonna you're either surrender into yourself or to him you are surrendered you just thank you aren't certain because you're surrendered to yourself and you're doing everything you want to do you're destroying yourself you know yeah so but when you surrender to him and to the truth and that's what he wants you to do to the truth because all truth comes to him anyway um then it calls you something up first it's hard but you know you really only have two choices you really only have two choices you're gonna trust yourself and I got bad news if you do like it's gonna end in disaster you know it's just a matter of when and at that point you might actually repent and surrender um or something worse you know but then you don't have to wait till then like you can decide right now I mean we're all suffering all the time we're all doing stuff all the time I'm doing stuff now you're probably doing stuff everybody's doing stuff all the time I buy deals with it without the truth you know and so um so surrender yeah I just find so much value in you as a person and I think the world of you and the fact that you are able to have these conversations that are so so difficult from a perspective that's so loving that's so understanding that's so open and vulnerable is part of the reason why your message resonates with everyone who comes across it John I want to thank you so much for the valuable time that you spent with us and we love you we appreciate you and we just can't wait to see where your message takes you yeah thank you Igor and thank you for everything you're doing for Karen what I have to say and I love you all too and there's nothing you can do about it I love that the best way to take us out thank you guys for listening and we'll see you See you next time.