0:00:00 - 0:00:25 I just noticed this fan is on, hopefully that's not too distracting for you. Um So um it's obviously it's distracting to me because now I'm thinking about all the reasons it's on. Um it, it was uncharacteristically warm yesterday and I left the fan on at night because I have a server running in here 0:00:25 - 0:00:53 and uh we use it for heat. It's actually mining Bitcoin. It's a long story. Um I, I wanted to share some, some metal level thoughts. I guess the Lord has a charge that could be summed under the heading, come and see. And I know that uh while there are plenty of people who would prefer me to stop talking 0:00:53 - 0:01:17 uh in ways that illuminate my own experience, thoughts, feelings, whatever. Um That is part of the charge that I've received from the Lord. He's been quite particular about it. Um For and against over time. I think I shared a story once about my experience in writing Seek you this Jesus, which I'll repeat 0:01:17 - 0:01:48 here if I don't forget. But I wanted to begin this by saying um it's, it's almost always the case that the Lord will uh entice me to make a video by highlighting thoughts and feelings and then shifting that as I make the video, he uses my weakness um to his purposes. None of this is unique to me though 0:01:48 - 0:02:10 , the general principle could be described as bait and switch, which is an advertising tactic that, you know, is not very honest, but it, it can be used for good, which I hope people aren't so simplistic to, to reduce this down to me saying that dishonesty is ok if you use it for good, that's not what 0:02:10 - 0:02:36 I'm saying. I'm saying when something has real benefit and it's a set of things set real benefits. The person you are trying to persuade is not going to recognize everything in that set as good. If they do, what are you actually providing because they will already see what you see and do what you would 0:02:36 - 0:02:59 do if you're approaching it from this angle, it's intrinsic to the situation that they will only see a subset of this as good and desirable. So what you do is you just talk about the things that they recognize as good to entice them to move towards what you know, will contain these other good things 0:02:58 - 0:03:18 as well, right? So for example, if you have your kids in horseback riding, you're not going to, you know, go on and on. If you're trying to persuade a kid to ride a horse or to get into that sort of thing, you're not gonna go on and on about all of these benefits that they can't possibly understand and 0:03:18 - 0:03:40 won't find desirable at all. Um, so you focus on the things about horseback riding that little kids get excited about that are true. That's the difference. See, with the, the world's version of bait and switch, you don't get the good that you were originally advertising with the Lord's version. You at 0:03:40 - 0:04:02 least get to enjoy that for a little while. I, I say that with a wry smile on my face because um it is frequently the case, frequently that what you think you're going to get is not what you get, but you get to hold to that hope at least for a little while and that's worth something. We, we um we denigrate 0:04:01 - 0:04:26 this, we diminish this far beyond what we should that, what do we, what do I mean, the, the idea that the idea that something that fails to provide what you thought it did is a failure or mistake. We, we, we diminish the value of something that has the power to hold our hope. Think about that, right 0:04:25 - 0:04:58 ? The pa this connects to the theme, suspension of disbelief. What, what value is something that has the power to hold our hope, tremendous value, tremendous value. Uh so many, it's, it's what, what actually has the ability to fulfill what we think it will provide. That's a question for you. That's a 0:04:58 - 0:05:19 very important question. If you have no idea. I, I, I'm asking a question. I know you don't have the answer to which I, I do from time to time. If, if nothing else it will help you have greater appreciation for the answer when it's given to you. Jesus did this all the time. You know, he, he, uh, he invited 0:05:19 - 0:05:39 people to think about what they hadn't thought about before knowing that they wouldn't come to the, the answer to the question. But the, the question itself is a gift if you wouldn't have thought of the question yourself, and then it's a double gift because it helps you see the answer when it comes and 0:05:38 - 0:05:58 value it more than you would have because we take things for granted. He did this with, with things, not just questions, things and people. Um, he invited the apostles to miraculously feed the crowds before he did it. He said, feed these people. He didn't say with a miracle, he just said, feed these 0:05:58 - 0:06:14 people. And they said, we can't, we don't have enough food. We, we hardly have enough for ourselves. And he said, ok, and then he did it now, if he had just done it, it never would have crossed their minds. Oh, we can't do this. This is something greater than we have the power to do. So, the value that 0:06:14 - 0:06:38 they found in the situation would just be food. But instead of that, there was a greater value that Jesus was highlighting when he s he, he helped them see that this was not something they could do themselves anyway. It's frequently the case that I am enticed to make these videos because God will highlight 0:06:38 - 0:07:00 the value that I have for certain ideas or feelings or whatever and, and then as of making them as he just did, he will, he knows full well that he's just gonna dash all this stuff on top of it and mix it all in. And um maybe I wouldn't have been persuaded with that if he did it directly. But what I 0:07:00 - 0:07:22 find is almost universally the case and this is a hidden thing that you wouldn't know unless I told you is that uh let's see, let me approach this from a different vector. The, we read the story of Moses brought up into the presence of God. And then after that experience, he's exhausted. That's an understatement 0:07:21 - 0:07:54 , but he's, he's just totally wrecked. And um that is a really important thing to understand when you, when you experience the flow of light in greater than normal quantities. Um when that aperture is opened to your perception, it is overwhelming to say the least. And it's something that you have to 0:07:54 - 0:08:17 be developed in um I remember a story from the history of the L DS church when there was a time when Joseph Smith and I believe one other person, they had this experience with an angel appearing to them or vision or something like this and it was a joint experience. And then after the fact that the person 0:08:16 - 0:08:40 with him was, was totally exhausted, and Joseph Smith made a comment about the need to get used to that sort of thing. And for him, it was just no big deal. You see this, uh we can appeal to scripture to illustrate this principle where Moses by the time they got to Sinai uh as a as a nation, the Children 0:08:39 - 0:09:06 of Israel were accompanying him, they were completely overwhelmed by the base level experiences which, which happened in a physical parallel at the base of the mountain. And even the strongest among them will say, uh the elders of Israel and Joshua and Aaron came with Moses. They, they agreed to at least 0:09:06 - 0:09:31 come up part way up the mountain and they were overwhelmed by that. But Moses just sort of gingerly skipped ahead like, like uh with the grace and seeming impossibility of a mountain goat walking up a vertical face. Moses just sort of gingerly danced up the rest of the mountain like he had grown accustomed 0:09:30 - 0:00:00 to doing to go into the presence of the Lord, not to say that that was an easy task. Now, we're gonna, we're gonna possibly branch into some interesting things with that, but he was much more accustomed to that. He had a uh a greater bandwidth, but also it, it's not just it, it wasn't easier per se. 0:00:00 - 0:10:17 That's not. So maybe to help understand this or bring more people into comprehension of this. I can use a parallel which at least some of you will get something out of which is, uh, dealing with great physical pain. Um, some, some of you have had particularly, particularly physical trials and you've 0:10:17 - 0:10:49 got, some of, some of them have gotten to the point where these things just don't affect them as much. And we're tempted to think, oh, people who do better in the face of pain, it's easier for them. And, um, that's, that's not typically the case. There's something else that, that, that changes. It's 0:10:49 - 0:11:12 not that it hurts any less and in fact, many times it hurts more. If you have chronic pain, usually it just keeps getting worse. Right? If you have a bad back or, you know, cancer or something, it's, it's not going to hurt less ever. It's going to hurt more all the time till you die. Right. The, but 0:11:12 - 0:11:41 what changes is you can change in your perspective of that pain and it's not that the pain reduces. It's that the purpose increases. What a, what a very important idea. The pain doesn't decrease the purpose increases. I remember once having a conversation and now I'm using my, my, I'm trying to anonymize 0:11:40 - 0:12:15 this experience, had a conversation with someone about this kind of idea. And I said, you know, the main difference is a person who does better with pain cares more about the good that could bring for others than someone who does poorly with the pain. Another lateral example of this would be that there 0:12:15 - 0:12:41 are people who are really squeamish around blood and guts and there are people who have no problem with that. Typically, the people who have no problem with that are either uh sociopathic in some way. And I don't mean that in a bad way, obviously at the extremes, that's an issue, but sometimes good things 0:12:41 - 0:13:04 can happen when people are less sensitive to certain things. Ok? Or it's, it's just sort of an acquired lack of empathy through continuous exposure. And anyone, you know, surgeons, surgeons develop this, they're constantly operating on people and they don't see them as people anymore when, when they're 0:13:04 - 0:13:29 in the or it's just a process that has to be completed. And this is why they're not allowed to operate on family because it's known that this will bring the empathy back in and they'll perform worse. So there's an example where lack of empathy is a good thing. Um But there are also, this is, this is 0:13:29 - 0:13:55 always a, a wonderful example of something that looks the same on the outside is very different on the inside. Um There are people who care so much that their squeamishness, let's say at the blood and guts is much greater than these people for whom it's just sort of a visceral saturation. It's just too 0:13:55 - 0:14:23 much for them to handle and they get queasy and pass out or whatever or puke. Um There are people who care so much about the person who's suffering that they would be overcome if not for the fact that they care so much about the person. And they have to set all of that aside as they care more than the 0:14:22 - 0:14:46 normally squeamish person would and they have to set that aside, actively subdue it in preference for, for cool rational performance because they know that that's the only thing that will actually help that person. It's an amazing thing to think about. Now, in the heat of the moment, you probably won't 0:14:46 - 0:15:10 see a difference between any of these people except that two types of the three jump into action. I guess we had four, someone who truly doesn't care is not going to do anything about it. Um, doctors do care typically about money but, but there are those who've gotten into it for the desire to help people 0:15:10 - 0:15:29 so they'll spring into action. They won't just, uh, sit around when someone says is their doctor in the house. Um, you know, they'll, if, if they see something happening, if they think they can help, they'll try to help. But, um, you know, that squeamish person is not gonna do anything helpful. In fact 0:15:28 - 0:15:53 , they'll make the situation worse. And this is the, this is an interesting thing they say that the reason that they're out of control is because, um, they care so much and it can't stand, you know, they, they'll claim that it's in an empathetic response. But the real situation is they care about themselves 0:15:53 - 0:16:16 more than those around them. They care more about how they feel about the situation than the person actually suffering. And this is proven by the fact that they almost always make things worse. So imagine I'm, I'm going to have to try very hard to say this superficially and I hope I can do it. Imagine 0:16:16 - 0:16:38 if you were watching, imagine if you saw your child get shot and because of your knowledge of first aid, you knew it was terminal, let's say the bullet went through the child's liver and you could tell that by the, the darkness of the blood and the location and the copious amounts and you know that that 0:16:38 - 0:17:12 child is going to die and there's absolutely nothing you can do about it. How do you react? See the, the person who is out of control is going to lose their minds and scream and cry and freak out, they will increase the suffering of that child. But someone who really cares, he's going to be stoic and 0:17:12 - 0:17:50 just say it's ok. It's ok as a child dies, it's gonna hurt a lot more for them. In fact, if their heart and mind is coming from the right place, they will experience more pain than the child. But it's worth it for that, for that increment. That they make it easier for the kid. That's why they're doing 0:17:49 - 0:18:39 it. So, as I'm enticed into making these videos, it's always the case that I get sucked in to a depth of thought and feeling that I wasn't intending to traverse, but God knew and that's why he led me to it and every single time as these videos wrap up and it hit stop the vacuum of coming out of that 0:18:39 - 0:19:15 stream back into the present world. It's um, nothing I can say about it will be anything but the grossest understatement of how unpleasant it is. And all of a sudden you feel the emptiness of what you, what remains after pouring out what you just did, which are not, you can't feel while you're in the 0:19:15 - 0:19:41 stream. But when you come out, you, you know what Jesus meant when he said the virtue has gone out of me. And uh it's, it's not, it's not a nice thing. Uh Because now somehow you have to face the rest of the day in this depleted state. And typically what happens is, um, once I start recording I'll, I'll 0:19:41 - 0:20:06 probably do a chain of videos and, you know, six hours might pass by if, if I got up early enough. Um, and then mixed into that will be however many hours in the balance of writing, which is can also be, uh it's different, but it's a similar stream of you just don't feel that what you're actually pouring 0:20:05 - 0:20:33 out, you've just lost yourself and you're just dumping all in your full faculties are plugged into something much greater than you. And then when it's time to stop, um, you realize just what, just, what, just how little is left and it, it, it's, it's negative, it's not even zero, it's your way, way less 0:20:33 - 0:20:55 than zero. And then you have to face the rest of the day in that depleted state and, and no one is gonna give you any slack. There are no accommodations for that. You just have to do it. And it's funny because I think that there are people who look at folks who get up early and say, well, wow, that's 0:20:54 - 0:21:12 , I'm not sure how you'd face the day getting significantly less sleep than everyone else, but you still have to do at least as much as everyone else depending on how many people are relying on you and what your job is and whatever else, you know, your particular circumstances. But that's the easy part 0:21:12 - 0:21:32 as, as hard as that is, which incidentally there are also a, there's a contingent of people who have no clue what that's like. Uh which is hard for me to believe. I mean, everyone's gotten up early to go to the airport or something, right? You know what kind of a zombie you are the rest of the day. But 0:21:32 - 0:21:50 again, it's the human tendency to diminish what we don't want to face in in terms of differences among people and you probably just assume while it's easier for him or her than it would be for me. Well, that's a convenient assumption to make. Why don't you try it and then have something to say about 0:21:50 - 0:22:12 it. Right. You try not getting enough sleep for a week, even just, just for seven nights, get, uh, let's say, two hours less of sleep and then once you've, you're able to perform such that no one notices that you're getting less sleep, right? So, so there's no difference, discernible difference in your 0:22:12 - 0:22:33 performance. Take it out to two weeks, take it out to three weeks, take it out to three months, take it out to three years and then let's have a conversation about what it's worth and what it costs, right? And again, this isn't none of this is about um you know, flexing or anything. This is the point 0:22:32 - 0:22:54 is to show you the, the value of what's freely given. And, and not for me, it's, it's ultimately everything is from God. And we have to have a clear idea of the value of things or we'll never have the joy that we're meant to. And if, if, if we rise up to the same value, that's great and that's the ideal 0:22:53 - 0:23:21 . But at a bare minimum, we have to rise up to the, the gratitude that something deserves that all the gifts of God deserve in order to receive more of the joy that he's already paid the price to give us. We just haven't paid the price to receive it yet. So anyway, um this idea of bait and switch, this 0:23:21 - 0:23:44 isn't just something that applies to total weirdos. Ok. Every single person faces this in life because God always takes us to better things through the value of what we already see. It's very important. It's another reason why we have to crank up that uh justified gratitude in our lives. We need, we 0:23:44 - 0:24:04 need to increase gratitude up to the actual value or towards the actual value of what we've already received. Because that opens a window to things that are greater than what we've already received or things that whose value we have not recognized at all, not just things whose value we only recognize 0:24:03 - 0:24:29 some of, and you'll be shocked to see those things as they're revealed to you. So bait and switch is a thing and God will lead you up to and through things in your life and through people in your life. Um where you think it's gonna be one way when you go into it and it turns out to be very different 0:24:29 - 0:24:59 than you thought. And that experience will yield more than you thought it would in some ways and also much less than you thought it would in others. And that's how he turns everything we experience into a stepping stone into something uh towards something better. So there you go that's pulling back the 0:00:00 - 0:00:25 I just noticed this fan is on, hopefully that's not too distracting for you. Um So um it's obviously it's distracting to me because now I'm thinking about all the reasons it's on. Um it, it was uncharacteristically warm yesterday and I left the fan on at night because I have a server running in here 0:00:25 - 0:00:53 and uh we use it for heat. It's actually mining Bitcoin. It's a long story. Um I, I wanted to share some, some metal level thoughts. I guess the Lord has a charge that could be summed under the heading, come and see. And I know that uh while there are plenty of people who would prefer me to stop talking 0:00:53 - 0:01:17 uh in ways that illuminate my own experience, thoughts, feelings, whatever. Um That is part of the charge that I've received from the Lord. He's been quite particular about it. Um For and against over time. I think I shared a story once about my experience in writing Seek you this Jesus, which I'll repeat 0:01:17 - 0:01:48 here if I don't forget. But I wanted to begin this by saying um it's, it's almost always the case that the Lord will uh entice me to make a video by highlighting thoughts and feelings and then shifting that as I make the video, he uses my weakness um to his purposes. None of this is unique to me though 0:01:48 - 0:02:10 , the general principle could be described as bait and switch, which is an advertising tactic that, you know, is not very honest, but it, it can be used for good, which I hope people aren't so simplistic to, to reduce this down to me saying that dishonesty is ok if you use it for good, that's not what 0:02:10 - 0:02:36 I'm saying. I'm saying when something has real benefit and it's a set of things set real benefits. The person you are trying to persuade is not going to recognize everything in that set as good. If they do, what are you actually providing because they will already see what you see and do what you would 0:02:36 - 0:02:59 do if you're approaching it from this angle, it's intrinsic to the situation that they will only see a subset of this as good and desirable. So what you do is you just talk about the things that they recognize as good to entice them to move towards what you know, will contain these other good things 0:02:58 - 0:03:18 as well, right? So for example, if you have your kids in horseback riding, you're not going to, you know, go on and on. If you're trying to persuade a kid to ride a horse or to get into that sort of thing, you're not gonna go on and on about all of these benefits that they can't possibly understand and 0:03:18 - 0:03:40 won't find desirable at all. Um, so you focus on the things about horseback riding that little kids get excited about that are true. That's the difference. See, with the, the world's version of bait and switch, you don't get the good that you were originally advertising with the Lord's version. You at 0:03:40 - 0:04:02 least get to enjoy that for a little while. I, I say that with a wry smile on my face because um it is frequently the case, frequently that what you think you're going to get is not what you get, but you get to hold to that hope at least for a little while and that's worth something. We, we um we denigrate 0:04:01 - 0:04:26 this, we diminish this far beyond what we should that, what do we, what do I mean, the, the idea that the idea that something that fails to provide what you thought it did is a failure or mistake. We, we, we diminish the value of something that has the power to hold our hope. Think about that, right 0:04:25 - 0:04:58 ? The pa this connects to the theme, suspension of disbelief. What, what value is something that has the power to hold our hope, tremendous value, tremendous value. Uh so many, it's, it's what, what actually has the ability to fulfill what we think it will provide. That's a question for you. That's a 0:04:58 - 0:05:19 very important question. If you have no idea. I, I, I'm asking a question. I know you don't have the answer to which I, I do from time to time. If, if nothing else it will help you have greater appreciation for the answer when it's given to you. Jesus did this all the time. You know, he, he, uh, he invited 0:05:19 - 0:05:39 people to think about what they hadn't thought about before knowing that they wouldn't come to the, the answer to the question. But the, the question itself is a gift if you wouldn't have thought of the question yourself, and then it's a double gift because it helps you see the answer when it comes and 0:05:38 - 0:05:58 value it more than you would have because we take things for granted. He did this with, with things, not just questions, things and people. Um, he invited the apostles to miraculously feed the crowds before he did it. He said, feed these people. He didn't say with a miracle, he just said, feed these 0:05:58 - 0:06:14 people. And they said, we can't, we don't have enough food. We, we hardly have enough for ourselves. And he said, ok, and then he did it now, if he had just done it, it never would have crossed their minds. Oh, we can't do this. This is something greater than we have the power to do. So, the value that 0:06:14 - 0:06:38 they found in the situation would just be food. But instead of that, there was a greater value that Jesus was highlighting when he s he, he helped them see that this was not something they could do themselves anyway. It's frequently the case that I am enticed to make these videos because God will highlight 0:06:38 - 0:07:00 the value that I have for certain ideas or feelings or whatever and, and then as of making them as he just did, he will, he knows full well that he's just gonna dash all this stuff on top of it and mix it all in. And um maybe I wouldn't have been persuaded with that if he did it directly. But what I 0:07:00 - 0:07:22 find is almost universally the case and this is a hidden thing that you wouldn't know unless I told you is that uh let's see, let me approach this from a different vector. The, we read the story of Moses brought up into the presence of God. And then after that experience, he's exhausted. That's an understatement 0:07:21 - 0:07:54 , but he's, he's just totally wrecked. And um that is a really important thing to understand when you, when you experience the flow of light in greater than normal quantities. Um when that aperture is opened to your perception, it is overwhelming to say the least. And it's something that you have to 0:07:54 - 0:08:17 be developed in um I remember a story from the history of the L DS church when there was a time when Joseph Smith and I believe one other person, they had this experience with an angel appearing to them or vision or something like this and it was a joint experience. And then after the fact that the person 0:08:16 - 0:08:40 with him was, was totally exhausted, and Joseph Smith made a comment about the need to get used to that sort of thing. And for him, it was just no big deal. You see this, uh we can appeal to scripture to illustrate this principle where Moses by the time they got to Sinai uh as a as a nation, the Children 0:08:39 - 0:09:06 of Israel were accompanying him, they were completely overwhelmed by the base level experiences which, which happened in a physical parallel at the base of the mountain. And even the strongest among them will say, uh the elders of Israel and Joshua and Aaron came with Moses. They, they agreed to at least 0:09:06 - 0:09:31 come up part way up the mountain and they were overwhelmed by that. But Moses just sort of gingerly skipped ahead like, like uh with the grace and seeming impossibility of a mountain goat walking up a vertical face. Moses just sort of gingerly danced up the rest of the mountain like he had grown accustomed 0:09:30 - 0:00:00 to doing to go into the presence of the Lord, not to say that that was an easy task. Now, we're gonna, we're gonna possibly branch into some interesting things with that, but he was much more accustomed to that. He had a uh a greater bandwidth, but also it, it's not just it, it wasn't easier per se. 0:00:00 - 0:10:17 That's not. So maybe to help understand this or bring more people into comprehension of this. I can use a parallel which at least some of you will get something out of which is, uh, dealing with great physical pain. Um, some, some of you have had particularly, particularly physical trials and you've 0:10:17 - 0:10:49 got, some of, some of them have gotten to the point where these things just don't affect them as much. And we're tempted to think, oh, people who do better in the face of pain, it's easier for them. And, um, that's, that's not typically the case. There's something else that, that, that changes. It's 0:10:49 - 0:11:12 not that it hurts any less and in fact, many times it hurts more. If you have chronic pain, usually it just keeps getting worse. Right? If you have a bad back or, you know, cancer or something, it's, it's not going to hurt less ever. It's going to hurt more all the time till you die. Right. The, but 0:11:12 - 0:11:41 what changes is you can change in your perspective of that pain and it's not that the pain reduces. It's that the purpose increases. What a, what a very important idea. The pain doesn't decrease the purpose increases. I remember once having a conversation and now I'm using my, my, I'm trying to anonymize 0:11:40 - 0:12:15 this experience, had a conversation with someone about this kind of idea. And I said, you know, the main difference is a person who does better with pain cares more about the good that could bring for others than someone who does poorly with the pain. Another lateral example of this would be that there 0:12:15 - 0:12:41 are people who are really squeamish around blood and guts and there are people who have no problem with that. Typically, the people who have no problem with that are either uh sociopathic in some way. And I don't mean that in a bad way, obviously at the extremes, that's an issue, but sometimes good things 0:12:41 - 0:13:04 can happen when people are less sensitive to certain things. Ok? Or it's, it's just sort of an acquired lack of empathy through continuous exposure. And anyone, you know, surgeons, surgeons develop this, they're constantly operating on people and they don't see them as people anymore when, when they're 0:13:04 - 0:13:29 in the or it's just a process that has to be completed. And this is why they're not allowed to operate on family because it's known that this will bring the empathy back in and they'll perform worse. So there's an example where lack of empathy is a good thing. Um But there are also, this is, this is 0:13:29 - 0:13:55 always a, a wonderful example of something that looks the same on the outside is very different on the inside. Um There are people who care so much that their squeamishness, let's say at the blood and guts is much greater than these people for whom it's just sort of a visceral saturation. It's just too 0:13:55 - 0:14:23 much for them to handle and they get queasy and pass out or whatever or puke. Um There are people who care so much about the person who's suffering that they would be overcome if not for the fact that they care so much about the person. And they have to set all of that aside as they care more than the 0:14:22 - 0:14:46 normally squeamish person would and they have to set that aside, actively subdue it in preference for, for cool rational performance because they know that that's the only thing that will actually help that person. It's an amazing thing to think about. Now, in the heat of the moment, you probably won't 0:14:46 - 0:15:10 see a difference between any of these people except that two types of the three jump into action. I guess we had four, someone who truly doesn't care is not going to do anything about it. Um, doctors do care typically about money but, but there are those who've gotten into it for the desire to help people 0:15:10 - 0:15:29 so they'll spring into action. They won't just, uh, sit around when someone says is their doctor in the house. Um, you know, they'll, if, if they see something happening, if they think they can help, they'll try to help. But, um, you know, that squeamish person is not gonna do anything helpful. In fact 0:15:28 - 0:15:53 , they'll make the situation worse. And this is the, this is an interesting thing they say that the reason that they're out of control is because, um, they care so much and it can't stand, you know, they, they'll claim that it's in an empathetic response. But the real situation is they care about themselves 0:15:53 - 0:16:16 more than those around them. They care more about how they feel about the situation than the person actually suffering. And this is proven by the fact that they almost always make things worse. So imagine I'm, I'm going to have to try very hard to say this superficially and I hope I can do it. Imagine 0:16:16 - 0:16:38 if you were watching, imagine if you saw your child get shot and because of your knowledge of first aid, you knew it was terminal, let's say the bullet went through the child's liver and you could tell that by the, the darkness of the blood and the location and the copious amounts and you know that that 0:16:38 - 0:17:12 child is going to die and there's absolutely nothing you can do about it. How do you react? See the, the person who is out of control is going to lose their minds and scream and cry and freak out, they will increase the suffering of that child. But someone who really cares, he's going to be stoic and 0:17:12 - 0:17:50 just say it's ok. It's ok as a child dies, it's gonna hurt a lot more for them. In fact, if their heart and mind is coming from the right place, they will experience more pain than the child. But it's worth it for that, for that increment. That they make it easier for the kid. That's why they're doing 0:17:49 - 0:18:39 it. So, as I'm enticed into making these videos, it's always the case that I get sucked in to a depth of thought and feeling that I wasn't intending to traverse, but God knew and that's why he led me to it and every single time as these videos wrap up and it hit stop the vacuum of coming out of that 0:18:39 - 0:19:15 stream back into the present world. It's um, nothing I can say about it will be anything but the grossest understatement of how unpleasant it is. And all of a sudden you feel the emptiness of what you, what remains after pouring out what you just did, which are not, you can't feel while you're in the 0:19:15 - 0:19:41 stream. But when you come out, you, you know what Jesus meant when he said the virtue has gone out of me. And uh it's, it's not, it's not a nice thing. Uh Because now somehow you have to face the rest of the day in this depleted state. And typically what happens is, um, once I start recording I'll, I'll 0:19:41 - 0:20:06 probably do a chain of videos and, you know, six hours might pass by if, if I got up early enough. Um, and then mixed into that will be however many hours in the balance of writing, which is can also be, uh it's different, but it's a similar stream of you just don't feel that what you're actually pouring 0:20:05 - 0:20:33 out, you've just lost yourself and you're just dumping all in your full faculties are plugged into something much greater than you. And then when it's time to stop, um, you realize just what, just, what, just how little is left and it, it, it's, it's negative, it's not even zero, it's your way, way less 0:20:33 - 0:20:55 than zero. And then you have to face the rest of the day in that depleted state and, and no one is gonna give you any slack. There are no accommodations for that. You just have to do it. And it's funny because I think that there are people who look at folks who get up early and say, well, wow, that's 0:20:54 - 0:21:12 , I'm not sure how you'd face the day getting significantly less sleep than everyone else, but you still have to do at least as much as everyone else depending on how many people are relying on you and what your job is and whatever else, you know, your particular circumstances. But that's the easy part 0:21:12 - 0:21:32 as, as hard as that is, which incidentally there are also a, there's a contingent of people who have no clue what that's like. Uh which is hard for me to believe. I mean, everyone's gotten up early to go to the airport or something, right? You know what kind of a zombie you are the rest of the day. But 0:21:32 - 0:21:50 again, it's the human tendency to diminish what we don't want to face in in terms of differences among people and you probably just assume while it's easier for him or her than it would be for me. Well, that's a convenient assumption to make. Why don't you try it and then have something to say about 0:21:50 - 0:22:12 it. Right. You try not getting enough sleep for a week, even just, just for seven nights, get, uh, let's say, two hours less of sleep and then once you've, you're able to perform such that no one notices that you're getting less sleep, right? So, so there's no difference, discernible difference in your 0:22:12 - 0:22:33 performance. Take it out to two weeks, take it out to three weeks, take it out to three months, take it out to three years and then let's have a conversation about what it's worth and what it costs, right? And again, this isn't none of this is about um you know, flexing or anything. This is the point 0:22:32 - 0:22:54 is to show you the, the value of what's freely given. And, and not for me, it's, it's ultimately everything is from God. And we have to have a clear idea of the value of things or we'll never have the joy that we're meant to. And if, if, if we rise up to the same value, that's great and that's the ideal 0:22:53 - 0:23:21 . But at a bare minimum, we have to rise up to the, the gratitude that something deserves that all the gifts of God deserve in order to receive more of the joy that he's already paid the price to give us. We just haven't paid the price to receive it yet. So anyway, um this idea of bait and switch, this 0:23:21 - 0:23:44 isn't just something that applies to total weirdos. Ok. Every single person faces this in life because God always takes us to better things through the value of what we already see. It's very important. It's another reason why we have to crank up that uh justified gratitude in our lives. We need, we 0:23:44 - 0:24:04 need to increase gratitude up to the actual value or towards the actual value of what we've already received. Because that opens a window to things that are greater than what we've already received or things that whose value we have not recognized at all, not just things whose value we only recognize 0:24:03 - 0:24:29 some of, and you'll be shocked to see those things as they're revealed to you. So bait and switch is a thing and God will lead you up to and through things in your life and through people in your life. Um where you think it's gonna be one way when you go into it and it turns out to be very different 0:24:29 - 0:24:59 than you thought. And that experience will yield more than you thought it would in some ways and also much less than you thought it would in others. And that's how he turns everything we experience into a stepping stone into something uh towards something better. So there you go that's pulling back the 0:24:59 - 0:25:06 cover a little bit on some things that maybe you haven't thought about before or noticed. But there you go.