Speaker 1: Life Audio. Welcome to the Praying Christian Women Podcast. I
Speaker 1: am Milana here with Jamie. How are you? I'm doing great?
Speaker 2: How about you?
Speaker 1: I'm okay. We were just talking off there how we
Speaker 1: both are feeling tired and rusty. So I was going
Speaker 1: to play a really mean joke on when me and
Speaker 1: our listeners to give them an example of our topic
Speaker 1: today and tell them we are both so tired and
Speaker 1: Jamie's got a headache and I've been in bed for
Speaker 1: fifteen hours straight. But we're going to pull through this.
Speaker 1: But guys, just bear with us. And I was going
Speaker 1: to use that as an example of if we start
Speaker 1: an episode like that, that is the perfect epitome of
Speaker 1: what we're talking about today. So can you introduce us
Speaker 1: to our topic of the day. Someone knows what we're
Speaker 1: talking about.
Speaker 3: Yes, our topic of the day is self fulfilling prophecies.
Speaker 3: And I was actually thinking, because I just said, oh,
Speaker 3: I'm doing great, even after I just told you, oh,
Speaker 3: I'm kind of dragging.
Speaker 2: I'm not doing this great.
Speaker 3: My self fulfilling prophecy will be if I say it,
Speaker 3: it will be. So, so I'm going to say I'm
Speaker 3: doing awesome. This is going to be the best episode ever.
Speaker 1: It probably will be.
Speaker 2: It probably will be.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So I've been really excited to chat about this topic.
Speaker 1: I want to piggyback this onto some of what we've
Speaker 1: been talking about with Bible memorization, because I discovered that
Speaker 1: some of my Bible memorizing blocks we're turning into self
Speaker 1: fulfilling prophecies in a kind of humorous way. But before
Speaker 1: I tell you that story, can you give us just
Speaker 1: a definition so that we're all on the same page
Speaker 1: it with what we're talking about here.
Speaker 3: Yes, the Britannica definition for self fulfilling prophecy is a
Speaker 3: process through which an originally false expectation leads to its
Speaker 3: own confirmation. In a self fulfilling prophecy, an individual's expectations
Speaker 3: about another person or entity eventually result in the other
Speaker 3: person or entity acting in ways that can firm the expectations.
Speaker 3: So kind of in Layman's terms, it's like you believe
Speaker 3: something and it comes true because you believe it, right.
Speaker 1: And I think that if we take the term like
Speaker 1: prophecy with the big P like the Old Testament prophets
Speaker 1: or Biblical prophecy out of it, and if we want
Speaker 1: to think about it just in terms of common sense.
Speaker 1: To me, this makes logical sense in the same way
Speaker 1: that something like the placebo effect makes logical sense. It's
Speaker 1: not going to happen every single time. It's not more
Speaker 1: powerful than God. But it makes sense that if you
Speaker 1: go to school every day and tell yourself that you're
Speaker 1: terrible at math, that you are not going to get
Speaker 1: as good of test scores in math. And so you
Speaker 1: have basically taken this prophecy with a little p that
Speaker 1: you're bad at math, and you have made it come true.
Speaker 1: And sometimes the self fulfilling prophecies are things that we
Speaker 1: say to ourselves. Sometimes they're negative, sometimes they're positive. Another
Speaker 1: self fulfilling prophecy is when Jamie says I'm having I
Speaker 1: feel great and we're going to have a great episode,
Speaker 1: and that lifts up our energy. And let's say she
Speaker 1: and I hadn't had this back and forth before we
Speaker 1: got on the air, and I showed up sluggish, and
Speaker 1: I'm thinking to myself, Oh, this is going to be
Speaker 1: so hard to get through. And Jamie shows up and says,
Speaker 1: this is gonna be a great episode. I'm so excited
Speaker 1: to be doing this. That can become a self fulfilling prophecy,
Speaker 1: because then I read into her excitement and buy into
Speaker 1: her excitement, and so then I tell myself, even if
Speaker 1: it's all on a subconscious level, oh, I better rise
Speaker 1: up and match her positive energy. I don't want to
Speaker 1: be the one to bring her down. Whereas if we
Speaker 1: started the show off kind of like a jokingly, guys,
Speaker 1: we are so exhausted. If we sound terrible, bear with us.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of podcasts I listen to where they'll
Speaker 1: start by saying, like, we're recording in a new spot,
Speaker 1: the acoustics are going to be strange. You and I
Speaker 1: have done it before when one of us has had
Speaker 1: to record on the phone as a listener. I never
Speaker 1: noticed until they bring it up. But yeah, if you
Speaker 1: start by saying, you know, sorry, listeners, today's episode is
Speaker 1: going to be really terrible. We're going to stumble over
Speaker 1: our words all the time. Not only is it more
Speaker 1: likely that you and I are going to stumble over
Speaker 1: our words more than we otherwise might. Even if we
Speaker 1: stumbled over our words the exact same number of times
Speaker 1: that we do in a typical episode, listeners would be
Speaker 1: more likely to recognize it, right because like, oh, they
Speaker 1: warned us, Oh, Yep, there she goes again, you know,
Speaker 1: forgetting the word that she was trying to think up.
Speaker 1: And so my story of why I've been so excited,
Speaker 1: I think I've kind of turned into a nag to you,
Speaker 1: so I might need to offer you an apology. Let's
Speaker 1: do self fulfilling prophecies, and then like two days later,
Speaker 1: I can't wait, We're gonna do selff. Can we do
Speaker 1: self fulfilling prophecy soon? I'd really like to do self
Speaker 1: a feling prophecies.
Speaker 3: No, it's perfect because my mind is like a sieve
Speaker 3: and I don't think so every time you said I
Speaker 3: was like, Wow, what a great idea. This is all
Speaker 3: of it a great concept, even after.
Speaker 1: I excited five times. So you and I were talking
Speaker 1: about Bible memorization, and I loved that little mini series
Speaker 1: that we did. By mini series, I mean two part episode.
Speaker 1: But I got me thinking about some of my blocks,
Speaker 1: and I share that historically I had noticed a correlation
Speaker 1: between going into deep Bible memory work and going into
Speaker 1: a pretty depressive funk, like as I was starting, and
Speaker 1: for a long time I just told myself that that
Speaker 1: was the activation energy required, and then it was like, okay,
Speaker 1: this always happens when I start memorizing a big passage
Speaker 1: and then it's going to get better, kind of like
Speaker 1: I tell myself, the middle of a novel manuscript for me,
Speaker 1: always feels kind of sluggish, and so I tell myself
Speaker 1: it's like, Alana, you've been here before. You know it's
Speaker 1: going to pick up again. It's gonna be fine, So
Speaker 1: just get through this part that doesn't feel as good.
Speaker 1: And so I started memorizing some from Romans eight the
Speaker 1: very next day after, like I think you and I
Speaker 1: both memoriz like a verse or two. Because we were
Speaker 1: recording on short notice, it didn't have a ton of
Speaker 1: time to work on a full passage. But like the
Speaker 1: day after I started like a whole paragraph. I was
Speaker 1: like in bed for a day and I'm like, okay,
Speaker 1: here we go again. It was sort of like yep,
Speaker 1: I called it. And so I did that thing I
Speaker 1: do where I told myself, Okay, you know sometimes this happens.
Speaker 1: It's going to be worth it. It's gonna be two
Speaker 1: or three kind of mentally sluggish days, but want it
Speaker 1: be nice to be back into regular Bible memory work again.
Speaker 1: And I was even gonna text you and be like
Speaker 1: it happened again. But of course when you're in that
Speaker 1: kind of funk, you don't text anybody and tell them,
Speaker 1: then you're in that kind of a funk. Okay, So
Speaker 1: here's where self fulfilling prophecy comes in. And I am
Speaker 1: like laughing hysterically on the inside, because this is not
Speaker 1: a story of poor Alana who gets depressed but then
Speaker 1: musters through it so she can memorize the Bible. By
Speaker 1: day three, like everybody was noticing, I was going to
Speaker 1: bed at like five or six at night. Finally Scott's like,
Speaker 1: what's up. I'm like, I don't know. I didn't want
Speaker 1: to bring up the Bible memory thing to him because
Speaker 1: it just sounded silly. And then I went to the
Speaker 1: fridge where I keep a little I think it's a pint.
Speaker 1: I had a pint of dairy free sorbet, and that's
Speaker 1: my treats to myself. I get it on the grocery orders.
Speaker 1: When Scott goes into town, he brings me back like
Speaker 1: a pint of dairy free ice cream. So I went,
Speaker 1: I'm like, probably the sugar's not gonna help, but oh well,
Speaker 1: I go to unscrew the lid. I realize this pint
Speaker 1: of ice cream that i'd been just kind of, you know,
Speaker 1: eating through for the last week. They hadn't given me
Speaker 1: the dairy free version, and so like I've known for
Speaker 1: over a year that dairy really messes up my brain
Speaker 1: and my inflammation and my joints and my mood. And
Speaker 1: so I just had to laugh, like I've been I
Speaker 1: the moment I noticed that, Like, I didn't run up
Speaker 1: the stairs because my joints were not at the ability
Speaker 1: to run, but I had a lot more energy going
Speaker 1: up the stairs than I had in days. To tell Scout,
Speaker 1: like I figured it out, I'm not broken, I'm not dying.
Speaker 1: I'm not being punished for memorizing the Bible. I ate,
Speaker 1: I've been eating this dairy for like a week. And
Speaker 1: so but here's the thing. If I hadn't a learned
Speaker 1: how to muster through that of Okay, it's going to
Speaker 1: be hard and then I'm going to get through it,
Speaker 1: I would have just quit. I would have said, Yep,
Speaker 1: Bible memory leads to depression. Depression is not worth it.
Speaker 1: And if I had not been open to you know what,
Speaker 1: because picture me at my pridefulest worst, could you picture
Speaker 1: this tiny bit of like I'm so special that the
Speaker 1: devil has to punish me when I try to memorize
Speaker 1: the Bible, do you know what I mean?
Speaker 3: Like, oh, definitely, because there's I mean, there's just like
Speaker 3: a whole theology, kind of sub theology I think in
Speaker 3: Christian culture about well, if the devil's not persecuting you,
Speaker 3: you're not doing it right, and exactly kind of a
Speaker 3: pride in Oh, yeah, I'm suffering these attacks because I'm
Speaker 3: doing this thing. And not to say that that doesn't
Speaker 3: sometimes happen because it doesn't have to, but it doesn't have.
Speaker 2: To, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I think this was a perfect example of a
Speaker 1: self fulfilling prophecy that in my brain I was like, well,
Speaker 1: obviously this has to be because I started memorizing the
Speaker 1: Bible again, But it had nothing to do with that.
Speaker 1: I had to deal with the fact that I was
Speaker 1: eating like spoonfuls of dairied ice cream all week long.
Speaker 1: And I think one of the most common self fulfilling
Speaker 1: prophecies that Christians can fall into is this idea that
Speaker 1: you just talked about. Before I do something big for God,
Speaker 1: the Devil's gonna come after me. And yes, we should
Speaker 1: always be aware that certain things will open us up
Speaker 1: to spiritual attack. But there's a huge difference between that
Speaker 1: and I think about Gideon. So here's the enemy army,
Speaker 1: here's the Midianites. And they hear one of their men
Speaker 1: talking about the stream he had where Gideon attacked and
Speaker 1: destroyed all of them, and so they tell themselves, Oh,
Speaker 1: this must mean that Gideon is going to attack and
Speaker 1: destroy us all. So they're already getting into a superstitious funk.
Speaker 1: And then they hear these trumpets that Gideon is blowing.
Speaker 1: Gideon and his three hundred men, who without any type
Speaker 1: of divine intervention and without this superstitious belief that the
Speaker 1: midia Knites have bought into, have no means of defeating them,
Speaker 1: but they're already primed to be prepared to be defeated
Speaker 1: by Gideon. Did they kind of go crazy and turn
Speaker 1: on themselves. I don't want that to detract from the
Speaker 1: miraculous deliverance God view of the Israelites that day, But
Speaker 1: I think that even somebody who didn't believe in God
Speaker 1: but still believed in the historical events it's written in
Speaker 1: judges could look at that and say that that was
Speaker 1: a self fulfilling prophecy that the fact that the Midianites
Speaker 1: were so terrified that they were going to be defeated
Speaker 1: is what ultimately led to them being defeated. And I
Speaker 1: think as Christians we do that to ourselves. And I
Speaker 1: think it's also important to remember self fulfilling prophecies can
Speaker 1: be for positive or negative things.
Speaker 3: I think, yeah, this is self fulfilling prophecy. So our
Speaker 3: son was out shooting pucks and stop me if I've
Speaker 3: shared this before, like recently, I feel like maybe I did.
Speaker 2: Have I shared it.
Speaker 1: I think you did, but I think it was on
Speaker 1: True Crime Junkies because we recently talked about an episode
Speaker 1: about like the power of positive.
Speaker 3: Indem Okay, yes, yes, So that's a different podcast, same story,
Speaker 3: So go for it. If you're not a Christian True
Speaker 3: Crime Junkies listener, this will be new. If you are,
Speaker 3: then it won't. But that's okay. So he went out,
Speaker 3: he was shooting pucks and at the net we have
Speaker 3: in our backyard, and he has this little radar gun
Speaker 3: that sort of like gauges the speed of the bucks.
Speaker 3: So he was trying to make it over seventy miles
Speaker 3: an hour, and he was getting.
Speaker 1: Like sixty eight sixty eight.
Speaker 3: Sixty eight was like the top, and he said, as
Speaker 3: soon as I get to seventy, I'll be able to
Speaker 3: do it a bunch, like because he knows, you know,
Speaker 3: he kind of knows like once I because I'll know
Speaker 3: it's possible. And so it's that's sort of a similar thing.
Speaker 3: Like basically, so he finally he inched up sixty nine
Speaker 3: and then seventy and then like he was able to
Speaker 3: shoot a few more at seventy miles an hour because
Speaker 3: he knew that was possible. And so I don't know,
Speaker 3: that's kind of a self fulfilling prophecy might be having
Speaker 3: the mindset there's no way I can get over seventy
Speaker 3: sixty eight is kind of the max.
Speaker 1: Right, Okay, wait a minute. I am shocked right now
Speaker 1: because you told this story. And I was like, okay,
Speaker 1: that's a great example. And then I started to think,
Speaker 1: seventy miles an hour, that's actually pretty fast, and then
Speaker 1: I realized this is not on ice that we're talking about.
Speaker 1: It's on fake ice.
Speaker 3: So we have little you know, like the preschool like
Speaker 3: square mats that interlock with the little fingers that interlock together.
Speaker 3: We have that, only it's fake ice. It's not Okay,
Speaker 3: you can't skate on it. There's some that they make
Speaker 3: you can, but this you can't skate on. But it's
Speaker 3: just basically like a certain kind of plastic that mimics
Speaker 3: the ice. So we have a big pad of that,
Speaker 3: and so they'll stand there on the pad with the
Speaker 3: pucks and shoot it and then it goes you know,
Speaker 3: five feet, and then they lift the puck anyway, so
Speaker 3: you know, it goes a little bit and then lifts
Speaker 3: and so yeah, that's how he can get it going
Speaker 3: faster because there's way less friction than like the concrete.
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, No, that's really cool. I mean even on
Speaker 1: ice and ice equivalent seventy miles an hour. That is
Speaker 1: really fast.
Speaker 2: He's got a pretty strong shot. That's cool.
Speaker 1: That is very cool. So yeah, when we talk about
Speaker 1: self fulfilling prophecies, have you, like, I know, Christians don't
Speaker 1: love the word jinx, and I don't either, because it
Speaker 1: does bring superstition. But I think that sometimes the idea
Speaker 1: maybe comes from the same root. It's this idea of okay,
Speaker 1: if you believe something like That's why I'm not the
Speaker 1: kind of person who believes in jinx. Is like there
Speaker 1: are times where even with Christians, all say something like
Speaker 1: it has been a great week, we haven't had any
Speaker 1: days under thirty below, and they'll be like, don't say that,
Speaker 1: don't talk like that, because that's gonna make it happen.
Speaker 1: And I've I've just decided to adopt the mindset of
Speaker 1: the more I call out wonderful things that happen in
Speaker 1: my life, the more grateful I am. And that I mean,
Speaker 1: that could be a period that could be enough right there,
Speaker 1: But why in the world would that make God less
Speaker 1: likely to want to keep on blessing me? Right? So,
Speaker 1: can you think of any times in your life where
Speaker 1: you've kind of fallen into traps like this, either with
Speaker 1: like self fulfilling prophecies of your own or anything along
Speaker 1: the lines of what we're talking about.
Speaker 3: Yes, One really interesting thing for me is I always
Speaker 3: tell people that I'm really bad with names that I'll
Speaker 3: remember face I can't. I'm good with voices, Like I'm
Speaker 3: really good with voices, Like if I hear if I'm
Speaker 3: watching a movie and I hear someone talking and like, oh,
Speaker 3: that's so and so, but I don't remember their name,
Speaker 3: Like I'll connect the dots and like what's that actor's name,
Speaker 3: but I'll know that it's the same person. So anyway,
Speaker 3: I've gotten into this habit of, say, of just being like,
Speaker 3: I'm really bad with names. But I remember one time,
Speaker 3: and it was in high school and I was at
Speaker 3: a party and I decided, like I basically said, I'm
Speaker 3: going to be good with names, and I focused on
Speaker 3: the people and I even told it to someone. I'm like,
Speaker 3: I'm going to be I'm going to remember everyone's name
Speaker 3: like that I and.
Speaker 1: I actually was. It was weird.
Speaker 3: It was like, as soon as I like tell intention
Speaker 3: for that to be a priority, I actually And so
Speaker 3: I look back on that and I think, you know what,
Speaker 3: if I could do that on command. Maybe in general,
Speaker 3: I don't focus on names enough and I let them
Speaker 3: go in when you're and out. The other kind of
Speaker 3: like when I ask my kids what they want, you know,
Speaker 3: for a snack, and I give them three options and
Speaker 3: then I don't listen. I don't pay attention to what
Speaker 3: they say. But it's like what you focus on can
Speaker 3: particularly be done. So I've been, you know, I think
Speaker 3: I've been trying to tell myself things like, cause I
Speaker 3: tell stories about myself. My stories are I'm disorganized. It's
Speaker 3: hard for me to keep my house clean. I am
Speaker 3: never on time, you know, just name the things. And
Speaker 3: I've created these stories about myself and I live up
Speaker 3: to them unless I choose to say something different. And
Speaker 3: this whole conversation is making me thinking that I would
Speaker 3: like to not only say, oh, like this is going
Speaker 3: to be the exception to the rule. I'm going to
Speaker 3: just I'm going to overcome this one day by saying, oh,
Speaker 3: I'm going to be organized today, but you know, just
Speaker 3: create different narratives, like replace the old narratives. And I
Speaker 3: know a lot of people have said that you need
Speaker 3: to do this, but it's powerful for sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I know with names, because I've gotten to
Speaker 1: where I can catch myself before I say something that
Speaker 1: I think might be a self fulfilling prophecy.
Speaker 3: You're really good, by the way, at I noticed very
Speaker 3: much like you're very particular about your word selection, and
Speaker 3: I love that. And it has over the years, whether
Speaker 3: I've said it or not, I've noticed it, and it
Speaker 3: really has been a good example for me. Anything from
Speaker 3: like there are certain words that you won't say, like
Speaker 3: I'm trying to think of the ones.
Speaker 1: Like lazy, the biggest lazy procrastinate.
Speaker 3: Those are the two that I said something late about
Speaker 3: lazy and like the look on your face, I was like,
Speaker 3: I said something wrong, and that was like early on.
Speaker 3: I think it's been years, but it was early on
Speaker 3: in that hole and then you kind of explain. But anyway,
Speaker 3: I didn't mean to interrupt, but I love that. I
Speaker 3: really am the kind of person that interrupts a lot.
Speaker 1: No, you are the kind of person who has amazing
Speaker 1: ideas and can't wait to them. And to be fair,
Speaker 1: since I do a little bit more audio edits right now,
Speaker 1: like I interrupt you all the time. So but I
Speaker 1: learned about being particular with my language, especially when the
Speaker 1: kids were little. And some of it was because we
Speaker 1: were around so many medical specialists and I was every
Speaker 1: time one of them would say something like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter because he's not going to ever do this,
Speaker 1: like it was. It wasn't just a cringe, it was
Speaker 1: I am going to take this curse that you are
Speaker 1: throwing at my child, and I am going to be
Speaker 1: the force field that is immediately going to surround our
Speaker 1: entire family from those words. You know what I mean?
Speaker 1: That is so good man? There was also a parenting philosophy.
Speaker 1: I'm sure you came across it too. I think it
Speaker 1: ties a tiny bit into maybe a little bit of
Speaker 1: gen parenting, which I never got like super into. But
Speaker 1: the idea is, if you're let's say you're four year
Speaker 1: old at was it Valley of the Sun or Valley
Speaker 1: of the Moon park and Anchorage val okay, and do
Speaker 1: you remember how it had that super tall tower like
Speaker 1: it looks like one hundred feet or higher and kids
Speaker 1: would love to climb up it. And I would always
Speaker 1: stop myself for our our oldest he was always our climber,
Speaker 1: just climbing everything. And what I was taught by other
Speaker 1: moms kind of by example. But I think even sometimes
Speaker 1: like deliberately not to say was don't do that because
Speaker 1: you'll fall, right, because the minute they hear in their brain, oh,
Speaker 1: mom says I'm going to fall. Mom is an authority figure.
Speaker 1: Does it mean a hundred percent of the time it
Speaker 1: will make them fall? No? Does it mean that their
Speaker 1: brains will be more likely for them to fall? I
Speaker 1: think it absolutely does, especially since as the mom of
Speaker 1: a young child, you are seeing as such an authority,
Speaker 1: and so you could say something like don't run on
Speaker 1: the ice because it's not safe. But you wouldn't under
Speaker 1: this philosophy. You wouldn't say don't run in the ice
Speaker 1: because you'll fall and break your arm. Right that is
Speaker 1: because in a way, that's like a mini curse that's
Speaker 1: telling them, if you do this thing, then you are
Speaker 1: more likely to fall and break your arm. So I
Speaker 1: definitely want to put limits around this because I think
Speaker 1: that the philosophy gets very abused, and even in Christian circles,
Speaker 1: and maybe even especially in Christian circles. I almost love
Speaker 1: to think of this philosophy as connected to the Bible,
Speaker 1: as staying hydrated for your health is connected to the Bible,
Speaker 1: like I don't see them as enmeshed, and they're also
Speaker 1: not contradictory. Where I see danger is when somebody says, oh,
Speaker 1: if you tell your child don't jump on that rock,
Speaker 1: or you'll fall and crack your head open, then God's
Speaker 1: going to hear you, and he's going to make them
Speaker 1: fall and crack their head open.
Speaker 3: Or the power of your words, apart from God, is
Speaker 3: going to make that happen, because then that even puts
Speaker 3: the power on you and your words in a.
Speaker 1: Kind of witchcraft.
Speaker 3: Sense as opposed to just in like the general biblical
Speaker 3: or non biblical sense of keep it positive and it
Speaker 3: will not be negative.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: And it can be abused in Christianity when you try
Speaker 1: to use positive thinking to twist God's arm right, So
Speaker 1: just affirmations, in my opinion, are great, but they can
Speaker 1: go overboard if you're believing in the power of the
Speaker 1: words that you're saying outside of God, or if you're
Speaker 1: using them for just very selfish motivation. So well, that's
Speaker 1: kind of the limits that I put on it. I
Speaker 1: don't want to make it so that like God has decreed.
Speaker 1: I just think that this is kind of general good
Speaker 1: common sense, like don't swear at your kids and don't
Speaker 1: tell them they're about at math. Like, to me, that's
Speaker 1: as simple as it has to be or as complicated
Speaker 1: as it has to be. But also be careful. You know,
Speaker 1: if you wouldn't say it to your kid, don't say
Speaker 1: it to yourself even internally. And the flip side, because
Speaker 1: so many of us are raised to be so scared
Speaker 1: of pride that we have the opposite. We would have
Speaker 1: a hard time looking in the mirror and saying I
Speaker 1: Jamie Hampton am organized and peaceful and great at podcasting
Speaker 1: and a wonderful mom. Like we're afraid that by saying
Speaker 1: those words we might fall into pride. And we have
Speaker 1: this sense. And again I think this is where this
Speaker 1: idea of Jingston comes in. We have the sense at
Speaker 1: the minute we get prideful, God's gonna come and like
Speaker 1: He's just waiting for us to show that tiny smidge
Speaker 1: of pride so he can smack us down. And if
Speaker 1: you think about like the way you think of your children,
Speaker 1: there was never a moment where anything even remotely like
Speaker 1: that feeling came into you. And so like, if we
Speaker 1: being sinful parents don't think that about our kids, there's
Speaker 1: no way God's thinking about that. And so the way
Speaker 1: I see it, if you want to say, if it's
Speaker 1: negative words that you would not tell your child, don't
Speaker 1: tell it to yourself. Similarly, if it's positive words that
Speaker 1: you think your children deserve to hear, tell it to yourself.
Speaker 1: You know, I think there's a huge difference between pride
Speaker 1: and pride and I wish we had better words. You know,
Speaker 1: there is the difference of like, Jamie, I am proud
Speaker 1: of you for doing all the podcasting stuff you do,
Speaker 1: and I am so proudly arrogant because I'm the very
Speaker 1: best podcast co host and Jamie chose me. Right. Those
Speaker 1: are two different kinds of pride, but we don't have
Speaker 1: two different words for them, the kind of paternal pride,
Speaker 1: like you did something that bears acknowledgment, so let's acknowledge it.
Speaker 1: I don't think that that. I think that is so
Speaker 1: separate from what God is warning us against when he
Speaker 1: tells us to remain humble, that it's like saying, you know,
Speaker 1: it's the sin to wear blue, Like it's it's so
Speaker 1: out of left field, like they're not even related to
Speaker 1: each other.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense. And yeah,
Speaker 3: I think it's one of those things where it is
Speaker 3: hard for us sometimes to separate those two things, especially
Speaker 3: as women. And yeah, yeah, but I think it's healthy
Speaker 3: to think about it and try to practice it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely. So in addition to being careful about the
Speaker 1: words we say, how could we tie this into practical
Speaker 1: takeaways for our prayer lives.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 3: I think maybe as we not being afraid to pray big,
Speaker 3: I feel like sometimes I limit God by the limitations
Speaker 3: of either what has been done before what seems possible.
Speaker 3: Going back to the seventy miles an hour thing. If
Speaker 3: if I am basically thinking that I want to ask
Speaker 3: God for something, let's say that I have limited God
Speaker 3: based on what has happened before, what I expect as
Speaker 3: the status quo, and I think by asking bigger, we
Speaker 3: are doing the same thing as if we are you
Speaker 3: know that seventy miles an hour being the limit. As
Speaker 3: long as I believe that seventy miles an hour is
Speaker 3: the limit, I'm never going to get pass it. So
Speaker 3: if I ask above that, knowing that the sky is
Speaker 3: the limit, and then you know, it gives God more
Speaker 3: room to operate in ways or bigger.
Speaker 1: And I'm not.
Speaker 2: Talking specifically about prosperity.
Speaker 3: I'm talking about anything, whether it's you know, I prayed
Speaker 3: for this person for ten years and they have not
Speaker 3: come to Christ. Now I'm praying for this person and
Speaker 3: I know, of course God's not going to really move
Speaker 3: in their lives for a very very very long time,
Speaker 3: but expecting more opening the doors maybe for good to move.
Speaker 1: I don't know, do you have any ideas we think
Speaker 1: about this being used in if not, like in our prayers,
Speaker 1: I could see it definitely be used in how we
Speaker 1: think about ourselves as women who pray. So if you
Speaker 1: always tell yourself I'm really disorganized in my prayers, or
Speaker 1: the minute someone gives me a prayer request and mine
Speaker 1: forget it. What I've trained myself to do with names
Speaker 1: because I have a really hard I'm remembering people's names,
Speaker 1: and if it's somebody that it's really important for me
Speaker 1: to remember, when I'm introduced to them, i will look
Speaker 1: them in the eye and I'll say, Megan, Okay, I'm
Speaker 1: going to remember that. And so I'm basically making a
Speaker 1: commitment to them that I'm going to remember their name.
Speaker 1: And so if you tell yourself, yeah, this missionary is
Speaker 1: going to come and I'm going to feel so inspired
Speaker 1: to pray for them, and I'm never going to remember
Speaker 1: it again. Okay, Instead tell yourself, I'm going to remember
Speaker 1: to pray for this person, or go and tell them
Speaker 1: I'm going to remember to pray for you. Sometimes I forget,
Speaker 1: but right now with you, I'm standing here right now,
Speaker 1: and I remember that I'm going to remember. And so
Speaker 1: whatever blocks you have, whatever stories you tell yourself about
Speaker 1: the kind of prayer woman you are, I would examine
Speaker 1: and ask if there are limiting beliefs there, or if
Speaker 1: those are turning into self fulfilling prophecies. Oh, whenever I
Speaker 1: pray for this life gets worse. Whenever I pray for patients,
Speaker 1: God sends something terrible to me. Is that true? No,
Speaker 1: like that actually is a falsehood. I'm sorry to everybody
Speaker 1: who has said it, either in seriousness or in jest.
Speaker 1: That's just not true. And there is nothing that you
Speaker 1: will show me in scripture that tells me that anybody
Speaker 1: who prays for patients is going to experience tribulation, because
Speaker 1: what the Bible says is the rainfalls on the just
Speaker 1: and unjust, and so whatever it is. Sometimes, I know
Speaker 1: you had a blog post that resonated with so many people,
Speaker 1: and it was this idea of if I start really
Speaker 1: praying for this person, I'm almost afraid that God's going
Speaker 1: to make their life bad. Like let's say you're praying
Speaker 1: for a prodigal, I don't want to pray for them
Speaker 1: to come to Christ because I know they've got a
Speaker 1: hit rock bottom before they come to Christ's night. I
Speaker 1: just feel so bad having go through that. Does the
Speaker 1: Bible say that every single prodigal must hit rock bottom
Speaker 1: before they come to Christ. I don't see that anywhere,
Speaker 1: And so we can re examine how the beliefs that
Speaker 1: we have, or even the superstitions we have about prayer
Speaker 1: or about the power of our prayers can be impacting
Speaker 1: our beliefs.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, another kind of along those same lines is
Speaker 3: this idea that if I start praying more, or if
Speaker 3: I start doing this work of God, then I'm going
Speaker 3: to become a target for the enemy. And that is
Speaker 3: that is a superstitious belief that can kind of, you know,
Speaker 3: sort of similar to the praying for someone that they're
Speaker 3: going to go through hard times, but just kind of
Speaker 3: being afraid to pray in general because you think that
Speaker 3: you're going to become, you know, have a target on
Speaker 3: your back. That can definitely be and it can be
Speaker 3: self fulfilling prophecy, not because of necessarily attack, but just
Speaker 3: confirmation bias. You just start to notice, you know, oh,
Speaker 3: I stubbed my toe this morning, and then I lost
Speaker 3: my toothbrush, and then I, you know, slam my finger
Speaker 3: in the door on the way out.
Speaker 1: You know, so things it would have happened no matter what,
Speaker 1: but since you're looking for them like oh this, you know,
Speaker 1: like I would have had a terrible week after eating
Speaker 1: dairy ice cream for a whole week. Like with my
Speaker 1: body being the way it is, there is no way
Speaker 1: short of a truly divine miracle that I wouldn't have
Speaker 1: had all the symptoms that I had. But because I
Speaker 1: was in my brain saying every time I go and
Speaker 1: try to memorize the Bible, this happens, I'm I'm looking
Speaker 1: out for it.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, let's go ahead and close with our blessing and benediction.
Speaker 1: May the Lord open the eyes of your heart and
Speaker 1: fill you with wisdom in the inmost places. May the
Speaker 1: Glorious Father grant you this spirit of wisdom and revelation,
Speaker 1: so you may know Christ, who has become for us
Speaker 1: wisdom from God. In the areas of your life in
Speaker 1: need of guidance, May God grant you his wisdom and abundance,
Speaker 1: so that you will not lean on your own insight,
Speaker 1: but rely on the full ridges of complete understanding, which
Speaker 1: are yours in abundance through Christ and her.
Speaker 3: Benediction comes from Psalm one thirty four, verse three. May
Speaker 3: the Lord bless you from Zion, he who made heaven
Speaker 3: and earth. Amen, we'd like to take just a quick
Speaker 3: second to thank the team at life Audio for their
Speaker 3: partnership with us on the podcast. If you go to
Speaker 3: lifeaudio dot com you will find dozens of other faith
Speaker 3: centered podcasts in their network.
Speaker 2: They've got shows about.
Speaker 3: Prayer, Bible study, parenting, and so much more. That's lifeaudio
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