Self-Discrepancy: Who We Are vs Who We Want To Be

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, Warren and Jennifer Smith, your host of the Marriage After God podcast. If we’re all being honest, we would recognize that there’s a discrepancy between who we are and who we desire to be. And right now we are going to dive into this idea and find some encouragement along the way. Would

Speaker 2 (00:19):
You please take some time today and share this episode on your social media? Share it with your friend, share it with your family. Invite them to listen along with you. It’d be an awesome conversation starter. Some people have even taken our podcast and turn ’em into little Bible studies and they meet with a few couples to go through them. And I think you’d be an awesome way to help grow the show, reach of it. And then lastly, before we move on we wanted to bring up a new way that we are inviting people to help support this podcast. We don’t do ads. If you noticed the only ads, we talk about our books and our free prayer emails that we send out every day. But one way you can support is you can join the Marriage After God podcast patron team. And what this is, this is a group of husbands and wives all over the country who support this podcast and support our daily prayer emails financially. And if you would like to do that, if this shows blessed you, if you are blessed by our daily prayer emails, we’d love, love to invite you to join the Marriage God podcast patron team by going to marriage after god.com/patron. That’s P A T R O N, marriage after god.com/patron.

Speaker 1 (01:33):
While we are in a new year, 2023, can you believe it?

Speaker 2 (01:36):
Did we say 2023? Is it 20? 23? 20?

Speaker 1 (01:39):
Just 23.

Speaker 2 (01:40):
Just 23.

Speaker 1 (01:42):
Just 23. Happy New Year everybody. You might be surprised to see us. We’re really excited to be here with you guys starting out the new year.

Speaker 2 (01:52):
Why would they be surprised though?

Speaker 1 (01:53):
Oh, fresh. I think because when we finished the last season, which was just in December we told everyone to look forward to another season launching in the spring.

Speaker 2 (02:05):
And it’s not the spring,

Speaker 1 (02:06):
But hey, it’s never too early to dive into a good marriage podcast.

Speaker 2 (02:10):
And we’re back and we’re excited.

Speaker 1 (02:12):
Yeah. So instead of doing a seasonal podcast, we thought we’d go all the way back to like we did when we first launched the podcast back in 2018,

Speaker 2 (02:21):
Which is crazy.

Speaker 1 (02:22):
We had to go back and look

Speaker 2 (02:23):
It up. We both didn’t realize we started this far back. We thought it was 2019.

Speaker 1 (02:27):
So back when we started in 2018, we were doing a weekly episode and that was really exciting and really great. And then after, I don’t know how, I

Speaker 2 (02:35):
Don’t know, I think it was like 75 plus episode stream.

Speaker 1 (02:38):
I don’t remember. We switched it to doing a seasonal thing, which gave us, in our family a bit of space in between the seasons, which was really great.

Speaker 2 (02:45):
Lots of new babies between then.

Speaker 1 (02:47):
Yeah, for sure. So here we are and we’re going to try a new thing, a new old

Speaker 2 (02:52):
Thing, a new oldie goodie thing.

Speaker 1 (02:54):
Well, speaking of oldie goodies, if you are new with us, you can go back to those 2018, 2019 and up episodes if you haven’t listened to ’em. And yeah,

Speaker 2 (03:04):
There’s a check ’em out there a lot for you there. I was just letting Jennifer know some of that analytics cause I like to look at all that data. And one of our episodes, it’s called Jesus is our Passover, has had 58,000 downloads. Crazy. So you should definitely go check that one out. And then the last little bit of numbers I wanna throw out there, we’ve just, I think just last episode of the last season, we broke 3 million downloads of our podcast. That’s

Speaker 1 (03:29):
Awesome. Yeah. That’s so cool. Thank you guys for listening.

Speaker 2 (03:32):
Yeah. This that only happens cuz you all who listened to this podcast. So thank you.

Speaker 1 (03:38):
Okay, so what can everyone enjoy from us this next year? I should rephrase that. What are people going to want to tell their friends when they talk about our podcast?

Speaker 2 (03:48):
Hopefully good things hard things sometimes but I think I’d love for people to say that we’re real. That we like to be honest, that we’re not in any way experts but definitely experts at sharing our story.

Speaker 1 (04:04):
I was going to say funny. I want them to say, Hey, this podcast is really funny.

Speaker 2 (04:08):
We do like to laugh a lot.

Speaker 1 (04:09):
I think I’m funny.

Speaker 2 (04:11):
Yeah. Words like relatable, truthful those are things that we desire to be as podcast hosts sharing this content with you all.

Speaker 1 (04:19):
And on a more serious note I would want them to tell their friends what they say doesn’t matter. It’s what God says through them when his word comes out of them. It’s just really good.

Speaker 2 (04:32):
It’s a prayer. I often pray before I teach is Lord let it be your words, not mine.

Speaker 1 (04:37):
Exactly. If anything, it’ll be a good dose when you guys follow along this year of Oh yeah. Or good idea or ouch. I need to work on that for the purpose of encouraging all of us to pick up our Bibles and pursue our spouse. Right.

Speaker 2 (04:55):
And to be honest, we actually say these things about our own content because when we’re preparing these and thinking these are things that we’re going through so we actually feel the same way sometimes. So

Speaker 1 (05:04):
Yeah. Okay, so let’s do that now let’s get into this very interesting topic we have here today

Speaker 2 (05:11):
Here and we’re in December. And a lot of happened since you

Speaker 1 (05:15):
Didn’t say we’re in December.

Speaker 2 (05:16):
No, we’re not in December we’re just out. We were out of December. But a lot of stuff’s been going on. So since we ended the season, yeah,

Speaker 1 (05:25):
I will say in December it was challenging for us. We kicked it off with being sick as a family and really sick. Sick, really sick. And that was terrible. What was most terrible about it is it’s the beginning weeks of December is like you’re just starting to have Christmas festivities. At least I am with the kids festivities. And I was super bummed to miss out on those things.

Speaker 2 (05:47):
But we got to make some of it up cuz there was some really fun things that we got to do. We got to make sugar cookies always. And we love cookies in this family. They

Speaker 1 (05:56):
Don’t last very long.

Speaker 2 (05:57):
No eat ’em all cookies the same day. Usually I eat most of the dough before it makes into the oven.

Speaker 1 (06:01):
I had to wait till we got much better before I jumped into that one. We also, did you already say this? Make gingerbread houses?

Speaker 2 (06:09):
I didn’t say it. Okay. No, but I was thinking of gingerbread men, which we’ll talk about a second. We will. Well how would we dress up for the Oh yeah, yeah. Christmas

Speaker 1 (06:18):
Party. We went sledding Christmas shopping.

Speaker 2 (06:22):
Yeah, we did all the things even though it was a pretty heavy with sickness, once we got all better we’re like, okay, let’s jam it all in. We have to get all things in before the end of the year.

Speaker 1 (06:32):
One and a half weeks go.

Speaker 2 (06:33):
Yeah. So we went to a Christmas party.

Speaker 1 (06:36):
It’s an annual party that we like to do with our friends

Speaker 2 (06:38):
And this one did. We don’t always dress up. We was this a special one this

Speaker 1 (06:42):
Year? We just decided, we called it nacho average Christmas party. And it was just so fun.

Speaker 2 (06:48):
Yeah. It was what I dressed up as a, you dressed me up as a Well

Speaker 1 (06:53):
We wanted to go as a couple. And so I was like gingerbread. That’s awesome.

Speaker 2 (06:57):
But what? You were a

Speaker 1 (06:58):
Pinata. I was a pinata gingerbread. And

Speaker 2 (07:00):
You, your costume, it took you days to make. Cuz she literally glued all this burn. What is that stuff called? It’s like streamers. Streamers all over her dress. And then I was a ninja bread man

Speaker 1 (07:12):
And we were the greatest couple of all time. So

Speaker 2 (07:14):
It was amazing. Anyways, that was a lot of fun.

Speaker 1 (07:18):
We played Family Feud, we played some Minute to win at games. The candy cane drop. There’s some good

Speaker 2 (07:26):
Ones. There was, there was a really fun, oh anyways, there were fun games. Oh, the box grab. Yeah, the box grab one was fun. There was a one

Speaker 1 (07:33):
Except you were supposed to let me win and then didn’t

Speaker 2 (07:34):
One of the wives there was so fast. She was so fast. She beat everyone.

Speaker 1 (07:38):
Okay, we need to move on here. Okay. Okay. Amid the hustle of the season and experiencing joy, which we hope you guys all enjoyed over holiday break, we also encountered some back to back hard marriage moments some ways of responding to each other. That’s Merry

Speaker 2 (07:54):
Christmas does.

Speaker 1 (07:55):
No, it was hard. And more so I just wanna personally admit that the Lord revealed to me how I was being disrespectful to you Erin and how I was communicating and I hurt you. And in the midst of those things happening, I also was reminded by looking my journal that I hadn’t been abiding in reading the word consistently throughout December. And I know that that plays a huge role in how I feed my flesh instead of walking the spirit. And so there was just a lot of ups and downs emotionally and some 10 moments of tension within our relationship that kind of just influenced our experience.

Speaker 2 (08:45):
And it didn’t help that I was also not abiding in Christ really well this last month in the month of December. And that made my responses not so great to how you were responding to me.

Speaker 1 (09:00):
We were both irritable and just sloppy in our relationship.

Speaker 2 (09:05):
It wasn’t good,

Speaker 1 (09:07):
But the Lord’s good. And he showed us and reminded us that we need to have grace with one another. That reconciliation is so important. And we came back together and got

Speaker 2 (09:23):
Through these things. We are reconciled and and God using that situation he has in the past with other situations to show us that there’s change that he desires in us, that he’s not okay with where we’re at because he desires better for us and we’re not okay where we’re at because we desire better for us.

Speaker 1 (09:40):
It was during those was it like a week and a half, two weeks of mm-hmm. Being up and down together that the Lord simultaneously put a desire in our hearts to switch the podcast from being put off till spring to, to launching it in the new year and doing this weekly thing. And I think that’s, I was going to say funny, it’s not funny, but dealing with shouldn’t communicate, shouldn’t crisis well dealing with communication issues and then going, Hey, let’s be professional communicators just about

Speaker 2 (10:09):
Our marriage that we’re having a hard time

Speaker 1 (10:10):
With you. And I always see in hindsight a lot better. But I was telling you this Erin, that once we made that decision to launch the podcast, being reminded that we have an enemy that doesn’t like what we’re doing, he’s like, Uhuh, I’m going to sabotage that one.

Speaker 2 (10:28):
Well all the more why we’re called to put on the former of God and to not be mm-hmm lax in our vigilance, in our faith to

Speaker 1 (10:35):
Guard ourselves better

Speaker 2 (10:36):
And our marriage and we and I wasn’t you and the fruit of that was evident.

Speaker 1 (10:42):
So being professional communicators here, we are not exempt, exempt from the ways of the flesh just because we run a podcast. There’s times that Aaron and I are mean to each other. There’s times that we can be selfish. There’s times that we, I am disrespectful or struggle with submission and struggle with the things that I want versus what you want. And we

Speaker 2 (11:04):
Clash, both of us just struggling with

Speaker 1 (11:06):
Irritability,

Speaker 2 (11:07):
Being Christian, just walking in God’s spirit and being more fleshly than spiritual which comes out of us when we’re not abiding in Christ and when we’re feeding the wrong thing in us, as everyone listening would understand cuz we all do it. So yeah, we’re not exempt at

Speaker 1 (11:27):
All in recognizing that we struggle with communication At times I get down cuz I think there’s no way we can do a podcast. Yeah. We’re not worthy. We share with others that unworthiness thing to which you and others in my life say because God doesn’t use perfect people. That’s true. And you reminded me of what Paul said in one Corinthians 12, nine. But he said to me, my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

Speaker 2 (12:00):
Which is funny cuz often we don’t boast in the weakness. We boast about being strong and then when we feel weak we’re like, oh we can’t do

Speaker 1 (12:07):
This. So here we are confessing that we’re weak and we desire the power of Christ to rest upon us. That’s the only reason I know I can sit here and be doing this right now.

Speaker 2 (12:19):
Well and it’s good because we need people to know that we too them need Jesus.

Speaker 1 (12:25):
Yeah. Always. All

Speaker 2 (12:26):
The time.

Speaker 1 (12:26):
Yeah. I also wanna admit that this is hard for me, the tension of perception and how I want others to view me as if I am perfect. If I am going to do this podcast and I’m going to be sharing with people, then I want them to see me as someone who does walk rightly or does know what she’s talking about

Speaker 2 (12:43):
And doesn’t make mistakes.

Speaker 1 (12:44):
It doesn’t make mistakes. But the truth is, the reality is I am still learning and I am still growing. We are. And we’re still have great days and we still have harder days. We still walk in righteousness and we still are confronted by our sin.

Speaker 2 (12:59):
Well and God also used these moments, this time of struggle between us to remind us that one of the things that we prided ourselves in the beginning of this ministry, starting the unveil wife years ago and later on husband revolution, is that we would share the reality of our life and not try and make it sound perfect, but actually show what God’s teaching us through our imperfectness. That was something that we prided ourselves in and we get reminded of it in the middle of our brokenness and we’re like, oh, that’s what we need to be open with that stuff.

Speaker 1 (13:37):
So I guess that’s the first little bit of discrepancy right there. But we’re, we’re going to talk about that in a minute.

Speaker 2 (13:43):
Before we move on any further though into talking about the main topic, I just wanted to remind everyone again one more time if you enjoy this episode, if you l any episode actually instead of just leaving a review on the podcast for the podcast as a whole, which I’d love for you to do if you wanted to we thought it’d be awesome if you guys would leave us reviews for individual episodes. Let us know which one you love, why you love it, what maybe if there’s something in it that stood out to you. And I just think that would add a lot of value to people reading the reviews and looking for why they should listen to these podcasts. So if you could do that, if you could take five minutes today and do that, we would really appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (14:23):
I wanted to share something that we experienced kicking off the first week of January with our church family. Was it the first of the year? It was the first of the year.

Speaker 2 (14:32):
Yeah, it was. It was the first Sunday of

Speaker 1 (14:34):
The first Sunday, first day, first of the year. We thought it would be cool to, well all the men decided to come prepared to share desires that they had, hopes that they had for our church. And we do home church. So we’ve talked about that in the past. And so we have an intimate group of a handful of families with a lot of children. We

Speaker 2 (14:56):
Have about 10

Speaker 1 (14:57):
Families. And so we just popcorned around and different people shared different just heart’s desires to see growth in our church. Some said to see more dedicated prayers of first response to circumstance resting in the Lord regardless of circumstance. So being able to have that peace and that rest. There was a ton of affirmations of giftings and roles that people have that we see in each other. There was a desire for more growth and maturity and there was this a remembering that we have influence and a role to fulfill within the body. And I think that it was so cool as a church to be able to walk through all of that and hear what everybody thought about fellowshiping together and what they hope it looks like in the future. And

Speaker 2 (15:49):
Yeah, it was, do you love it? It was really encouraging to hear from the hearts of everyone there, all of our friends, but our whole church of what they want to see from themselves, from our church, but really what is God doing with us? What does he desire from us as a church? And so that was really encouraging. We got to pray about it as we went. So someone would bring something up, I’d love to see this, I’d love to see our fellowship operate this way, or the men do this or the women do this, or whatever it is. And then we would just stop and pray about it and say, okay, Lord, show us. Reveal these things to us. Give us wisdom and lead us essentially

Speaker 1 (16:26):
What I loved about the experience is usually at the end of the year we’ll talk about our dreams and our hopes for our marriage or our business this time, but our church did it this time. And it just felt really refreshing I

Speaker 2 (16:39):
Think. Well, and it’s encouraging too to know, it was cool to hear everyone’s hearts like, oh wow. Yeah, everyone’s in some levels aligned and then on others’ like wow, we, there’s some things that we can grow together. And

Speaker 1 (16:53):
It was super cool. Well, I kept personally hearing this word. I just felt like God was encouraging me with this one word.

Speaker 2 (17:02):
This is this idea. A lot of people have of a word for the year, that

Speaker 1 (17:06):
Sort of thing, which I’ve done in the past, but I don’t do it every year. But I kept hearing this word and I, I’m like, okay God, why don’t you just walk me through this one this year? But the word became the theme for today’s episode and the words discrepancy and just, I don’t know why I’ve been so sensitive toward this word, but it’s been really cool to dig in and say, okay God, what does it mean? What does it look like in my life? And why is it important?

Speaker 2 (17:34):
Yeah. And this word came out of a, I don’t know what you were looking for, but you were doing some sort of research probably for this episode or for yourself. But

Speaker 1 (17:44):
I think it started because I was trying to look up bible verses that have to do with discrepancy, but it didn’t quite turn out that way. And then I went on a rabbit trail.

Speaker 2 (17:52):
But it was cool, you came across this article about this concept of self discrepancy theory. And you read me some of the stuff from the article and you told me, I was like, wow, that’s a really cool thought. The way they describe it

Speaker 1 (18:08):
On Wikipedia, it states that according to self discrepancy theory, that individuals compare their actual self to internalized standards or the ideal or odd self. So self discrepancy is the gap between two of these self representations that leads to negative emotions.

Speaker 2 (18:26):
So that’s the definition of self discrepancy theory, which we’re not necessarily going to dig into this specifically, but it got us on this journey of, okay, what discrepancies are there between the two selves of us who we desire to be in Christ and who we are today? Who

Speaker 1 (18:46):
We actually are,

Speaker 2 (18:46):
Who we actually are because how

Speaker 1 (18:48):
We

Speaker 2 (18:48):
Operate. That’s where this word discrepancy comes in is for you might see yourself as supposed to be or want to be this one way, but then a different person comes out in the day to day. And the same for me. I see myself or want to be <affirmative> this way or should be biblically this way and yet I’m this person over

Speaker 1 (19:11):
Here. And that gap or that tension, the definition was saying and leads to negative emotions. Those negative emotions can be depression, anxiety or struggling in that space of thinking I’ll never change. And that’s frustrating,

Speaker 2 (19:25):
Which we feel because I mean that’s what you feel. I felt, why do I keep doing this? Why does this keep happening? And we’ve all asked these questions, I’ve tried so hard and I never change. Why can’t I be this person?

Speaker 1 (19:39):
Or maybe you do experience incremental changes but not in this one particular area Or maybe or you have experienced a lot of change in a lot of different areas, but then it comes back and you’re struggling again and it’s just hard

Speaker 2 (19:55):
Life. Well, and this is normal for the human condition and we’re going to get into this more a little bit, but God knows this about us because we have ideals or versions of ourselves that we believe should exist in the real world. But yet we are who we are now and it’s not that person.

Speaker 1 (20:18):
And I was going to add to that by saying perceived perceptions projected when we’re in front of one group of people or someone else but at home where someone else,

Speaker 2 (20:32):
Well, and this is probably going to be, we’re going to talk about later episode or we might talk about this, but that when we pretend to be that projected person, that person over there, that’s hypocrisy because we aren’t that person. We act like we are, but we’re not. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (20:50):
Okay. So another definition from Miriam Webster says an instance of disagreeing or being at variance.

Speaker 2 (20:57):
Being at variance.

Speaker 1 (20:58):
I know these are kind of more technical terms, but I kind of taking things like this and applying it to spiritual well

Speaker 2 (21:05):
Being at variance there, I just literally thought of this it made me think of how we’re supposed to be one. But when we are at odds with each other, we’re at variance with each other. We’re not unified and there’s a discrepancy, there’s a like, oh we’re not, we’re split versus fused. Being balanced or balanced in harmony.

Speaker 1 (21:28):
Disagree. This was something else I looked up in my little search. Percent percent discrepancy or error. The discrepancy in a measured quantity for an instrument is the difference between its measured value and true value. The difference between these values is known as the absolute error, which I love that absolute error. That’s true. When I read that, I was like, well it’s an absolute error when God’s word says to be a respectful wife and then I’m disrespectful.

Speaker 2 (21:56):
So something should weigh X. But when it’s measured, it’s measured at Y.

Speaker 1 (22:01):
So yeah. So if God’s word is the measure by which we live, what is the difference between that and how I choose to respond and

Speaker 2 (22:09):
Act? Well, absolute error.

Speaker 1 (22:10):
It’s an absolute error. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (22:12):
Well I love that. This is why where the gospel comes in when we recognize we are actually in absolute error because we are not living up to the standard, the actual true measure, the true value which is Christ. Which is Christ we we’re in absolute air. That’s really good.

Speaker 1 (22:32):
All interesting things here guys. Okay, so Google, when I Googled sometimes they have these questions pop up, it said, how do you identify discrepancy? And then this was the response, identifying discrepancies in data is simple. You compared two data sets for the same period of time and look for numbers that don’t match up. So again, kind of technical, but let’s dig a little deeper here. The real challenge is understanding what caused the discrepancies and how to reconcile them.

Speaker 2 (22:57):
No, we just wanna see that there

Speaker 1 (22:59):
Is so

Speaker 2 (23:00):
Because that’s too much <laugh>

Speaker 1 (23:01):
With

Speaker 2 (23:01):
The Lord. How do we get to that number

Speaker 1 (23:03):
With the Lord? Putting this word discrepancy on my heart, this is where I’m at for the year. The challenge for me is to understand what causes the discrepancies. Well I guess identifying them, but what caused the discrepancies? And then how do I reconcile them?

Speaker 2 (23:16):
Which this is a good question for all of our listeners and a good recognition. We all can see easily the discrepancy in our walks. I know when I’m not in the word like oh there’s a discrepancy, I believe the word, but I’m not in it. Like you said, you know, should respect and submit to me based off of what the Bible says. But there’s a difference in how we respond. I know I’m supposed to love you sacrificially and I don’t. So that’s easy to see. But like you said, the why does that exist and how did we get to that point and

Speaker 1 (23:54):
How do we move

Speaker 2 (23:54):
Past and how do we reconcile the numbers on the sheet? Yeah,

Speaker 1 (24:00):
That’s

Speaker 2 (24:00):
The harder thing for sure.

Speaker 1 (24:01):
Something I think God wants me to be paying attention to are the differences I see when I compare who I am to how I wanna be according to his word. And when I see it, when I see it, I get frustrated. I don’t know about you, you said it’s easy to see. I’m like, I get it so frustrated cuz I’m like that’s who I wanna be.

Speaker 2 (24:20):
This goes back to that discrepancy theory. How you respond to the discrepancy is based off of whether you have an ideal or an odd. And I think you see that person as an odd, I should be this person but I’m not. Why not? And so you’re frustrated and an anxious about it.

Speaker 1 (24:37):
So I wanna answer the question, how do I reconcile those differences to become one in the same?

Speaker 2 (24:44):
I think when you were asking me this question earlier, I was thinking, well if we have the wrong definition of the person we’re trying to be, then we’ll never be able to. No, that’s true. Reconcile. So if I’m like, well I need to be this person, Jennifer b Jennifer, version B is who I need to be. But reality is Jennifer B doesn’t exist without Christ. So there is no Jennifer B in the picture unless there’s Christ in the picture. And so like you said, when we’re not inviting in Christ, when we’re not seeking that image, when we’re not seeking his righteousness and his kingdom and those things, then there can be no reconciliation. So I think it’s first

Speaker 1 (25:28):
Recognizing if the person that we want to become has nothing to do with God’s word, if it’s not defined by God’s word,

Speaker 2 (25:37):
Then we’re, it’s always going to be redefined every moment. But if we define it the correct way, then we can at least know what we’re shooting for. We we’re shooting for the Christ and his perfection, which we understand we can’t attain on our own. We need him.

Speaker 1 (25:59):
And when we were talking about this earlier, you said to me well there’s a fight going on inside of you and who you want to be. You cannot be on your own. You can’t

Speaker 2 (26:11):
Do it. Yeah. Cuz you’re constantly the who we are today is constantly fighting who we want to be to be tomorrow. So I think the general solution to how do we get from A to B, how do we fill that gap? I think it starts with a surrender. Our current self has to surrender to Christ the future self and say, okay, if this is the true value what you say, then I need to surrender to that. And that’s, that’s how we shrink that gap. Cuz there is no perfection to be attained. And I hope that’s an encouragement everyone listening is we’re not talking about, hey, we can’t actually get there. No, I think one day, well when we were with our father in heaven, there’s going to be with him and

Speaker 1 (27:00):
Life is and him and life is the journey and the process every day inching closer to

Speaker 2 (27:07):
That. Well and I think even just a revelation I just had is instead of trying to constantly be the better me tomorrow that the journey is are we’re constantly moving toward Christ

Speaker 1 (27:23):
Or recognizing his power in us.

Speaker 2 (27:27):
So instead of always feeling a failure because we didn’t live up to whatever we’re trained to imagine, we’re just constantly moving toward him. Paul says it really good in Romans seven, verse 24 when explaining this dichotomy between our flesh and the spirit. And he says, wretched man that I am, which is how we all feel. So

Speaker 1 (27:49):
You’re saying now, oh I suck.

Speaker 2 (27:51):
Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin. So he’s showing this di dichotomy of I want to serve the law, but I also have my flesh. And he says, who’s going to deliver me from this problem? And he says, thanks be to God through Jesus Christ.

Speaker 1 (28:19):
I really think you should keep reading cuz moving on into eight. It really,

Speaker 2 (28:23):
So in verse in chapter eight, he says, therefore, or there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Speaker 1 (28:32):
Which pause. There’s been so many times that I’ve felt just the guilt of the shame and the full weight of my sin. And you’ve repeated this verse to me so many times. So husbands, wives, anyone listening, tuck this verse away for when someone needs it. Go ahead.

Speaker 2 (28:50):
Well, in verse two, for the law of the spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death for God is done with the law. Weakened by the flesh could not do by sending his own son and the likeness of sinful flesh. And for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the spirit. The law of the spirit when we walk in the spirit is freedom. We’re set free in Christ Jesus from this bondage that you feel that I feel of, oh, I’m not performing right, I’m not fulfilling the law. I’m not being the person I’m supposed to be. Right? No, we’re set free from that bondage of that. But when we walk in the spirit, we actually produce the things that the spirit produces, which is good.

Speaker 1 (29:46):
Yeah. There was a few other verses that came to our mind when considering discrepancy and what does the Bible talk about and how to identify that in us. So one of the first ones was Matthew seven 15 through 20. Do

Speaker 2 (30:02):
You wanna read that? Yeah. And it starts off talking about false prophets, but I want to get to the point here. So it says, beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thorn bushes or figs from thistles even so every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Therefore, by their fruits you will know them. The point here is it’s showing that on the outside, like I said earlier about this hypocrisy, these people show one thing, but on the inside or something else, God’s telling us when we walk in the spirit, he changes the inside even before the outside represents what’s on the inside. And so to bear good fruit, we must walk in the spirit which God uses to change us from the inside. So instead of trying to find this, seek this outward thing, we should be seeking that inward transformation, which then does actually change us.

Speaker 1 (31:16):
Another one is also James three, nine through 12. It says with it we bless our Lord and talking about our tongue <laugh> with it, we bless our Lord and Father and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God from the same mouth come blessing and cursing my brothers, these things ought not to be. So does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and saltwater. Can AIG tree my brothers bear olives or grapevine produced figs? Neither can assault pond yield fresh water.

Speaker 2 (31:46):
Yeah. This is talking about our tongue and our words, but it’s showing the discrepancy between things we say on one side of our mouth and things we say on the other side of our mouth that we bless God and we curse our brother. We have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in our hearts, yet we boast about our altruism and our love for our brother. This is discrepancy. This is something that we deal with. So the fact that sometimes we like, oh, I want to be this kind of person, but over here we’re not okay with using, having a discrepancy in the way we speak and the things we say. And that’s where, this is another thing where looking at the true value, the true value is what God says. And as the word says right here in James, these things ought not to be so <laugh>, a discrepancy that needs to be a gap that needs to be closed there.

Speaker 1 (32:38):
Just going a little personal, is there anything that you’ve recognized that is, is there discrepancy in you or in something that you’ve recognized lately?

Speaker 2 (32:50):
One of the things that you haven’t have had an issue in the past and something that you’re recognizing is how you communicate To me, I’ve had the same issue with, you may not be in every circumstances, but when you’re having a hard

Speaker 1 (33:03):
Time, your issue is how I communicate with you. I’m

Speaker 2 (33:05):
Kidding. No. How I communicate with you, how I respond to you When you communicate to me a certain way instead of me being self controlled and doing the right thing, I just do the wrong thing also this

Speaker 1 (33:16):
Cycle.

Speaker 2 (33:17):
But I also, I’ve realized that, and it’s something I have grown in, but I have a problem with the way I’ve talked to my communicate children way I can communicate to my friends. But

Speaker 1 (33:28):
You’ve gotten better at Yeah, I have. But just to affirm you, you have grown in that

Speaker 2 (33:32):
And I appreciate that. But that that’s something that God has showing me through this thing that’s been going on with us and just saying, okay, God wants to deal with this discrepancy.

Speaker 1 (33:42):
He wants to chisel it out of us.

Speaker 2 (33:44):
He wants to cut it out. Yeah. There’s just kind of highlighting more of this. I’ve been, I been listening to a new podcast called Hidden Brain and I’m really liking it. It just talks about these concept of how our brains work. And he was talking with a guest, the main host, and she said something that reminded me of this. She said, there’s two versions of ourselves existing at the same time who we desire to be and who we are and that’s why we’ve been talking about this. But she called it the present self and the future self. And often,

Speaker 1 (34:17):
Do you ever catch yourself talking to yourself in that way?

Speaker 2 (34:21):
I don’t. No.

Speaker 1 (34:21):
Do you do that? No. I mean, I’m not going to admit it now. Sure. Not.

Speaker 2 (34:25):
No. I don’t think I talked to my future self, but she said something that was pretty profound that we often make our future self pay the consequences of our presence. Self choices.

Speaker 1 (34:37):
Well, that’s true. The donuts I eat today are going to affect me.

Speaker 2 (34:42):
So your future self has to pay the consequences of that current and this now this podcast at all. But she’s saying things, I’m like, oh, that’s exactly what the Bible says. Talking about how when you want to be healthy, you want to lose weight, you want to whatever your future self desires, but you’re like, you want this momentary, fleeting thing. You’re like, well, I’m going to sacrifice my future self’s problems so today can have the pleasure instead of sacrificing the pleasure today so that you can enjoy the pleasure later. So I just, it’s good. It was reminding me of everything that you were talking about with this, and then I heard this episode and I was like, that’s exactly what we’re going through is we often, we sacrifice our future selves. We make them pay the consequence of our current actions.

Speaker 1 (35:32):
And just so I don’t sound crazy, I immediately got that thought in my mind of how people write those letters to their 17 year old self. Or going back

Speaker 2 (35:40):
Into, oh, talking to your past self maybe, or

Speaker 1 (35:42):
Going back and forth.

Speaker 2 (35:43):
What I You look crazy. I’m sure there’s a lot, everyone listening, there’s probably a bunch of people like,

Speaker 1 (35:46):
Yes, I don’t talk to myself.

Speaker 2 (35:48):
No. But having conversations with your future self, I don’t know.

Speaker 1 (35:51):
It’s interesting.

Speaker 2 (35:53):
I don’t usually think that far ahead, but that’s also a problem. I need to think a little bit further ahead. Think ahead. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (35:59):
All right. Where are we at?

Speaker 2 (36:00):
Well, so we’re getting closer to the end of this, but I think the idea, what I love about God and his word is the Bible is very clear and honest about who we are as humans. That’s

Speaker 1 (36:13):
What I was going to say is honest. It’s

Speaker 2 (36:14):
Honest, it’s it. It’s a mirror. It says it’s sharper than any two edge sword cutting through the bone of marrow. No one’s hidden from it. And you read the word, when you truly read it and you look at it, you see your truest self. You’re like, oh my goodness. I like when we just came out, oh, I’m absolute error. That’s the truth.

Speaker 1 (36:35):
But you also see the truth of who you are in Christ.

Speaker 2 (36:39):
Well, and that’s what I’m saying is God created us and totally understands that we go through this stuff.

(36:47):
And what I love is it tells us that Jesus himself, he was tempted in every way, common demand. So all these things that were tempted with, tempted with feeling guilty about this or that tempted with knowing that we who wanting to do something this way, he’s felt those temptations. No he didn’t sin. He understands us. Romans seven 18, here’s a good example for I know that nothing good dwells in me that is in my flesh for I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. Again, this is Paul talking about this. The Bible knows that there’s nothing good in us in our flesh alone, but we do have the desire. God’s like he sees this split, he sees this chasm. But what’s awesome is with Christ

Speaker 1 (37:38):
We

Speaker 2 (37:39):
Can, yeah, Christ even says, he says, it’s good that I go away because if I go away, then God will send you the helper, his Holy Spirit. He sent him specifically to be our helper because he knows we need help so much with everything in life.

Speaker 1 (37:56):
And when we yield to his authority and we yield to his headship in our lives, we do see transformation. Aaron has to remind me of this because sometimes I get cloudy and my woe is me. I’m so sad that I haven’t changed yet. And you remind me of the good that’s come. You remind me of the transformation that we’ve already made.

Speaker 2 (38:16):
Well now remind you that you have changed. Yeah. That who you are today, that’s

Speaker 1 (38:19):
Not who

Speaker 2 (38:19):
It was, is a stark contrast to who you were 10 years ago. And you, you’d be proud of the woman you are. Yeah. But it’s so hard for us to see. Clearly. We think we do, but we don’t see. That’s

Speaker 1 (38:32):
True. Marriage tip number one, we don’t see clearly. Okay. So with this being a word that I’m going to be committing to dwelling on this year, a few questions came to my mind. And I don’t necessarily have the answers to serve alongside these for you just yet, but more so I’m just posing the questions and asking God to help me dig a little deeper in order to be refined or chi. And

Speaker 2 (38:53):
These are questions we want them to

Speaker 1 (38:55):
Consider. Yeah. Why don’t you guys take the opportunity to just let it soak in and ask yourselves the same thing. So the first one, is there a discrepancy in my spiritual walk between the things that I say I believe and what I actually believe? And this is where doubt really gets at me. This is where I know that I, it comes out in my actions because I’m going to do what I believe.

Speaker 2 (39:23):
And so it’s different. Believe, yes. But I do this other thing. Really. I don’t believe

Speaker 1 (39:27):
That. Exactly. And that’s a problem. That’s identifying,

Speaker 2 (39:31):
That’s a discrepancy.

Speaker 1 (39:32):
Interesting. Yeah. Okay. <laugh>, another question is, in my marriage, do I have a double standard? I love you or serve me, but I can’t serve you. Do I have that mentality? Do I make commitments and say them to you, but don’t carry them out? Discrepancy in marriage. Do I perceive myself to be a submissive wife? But do I have that integrity in me to be able to answer that truthfully? And then the last one is, when it comes to parenting, am I,

Speaker 2 (40:10):
That’s a good one. This is convicting for me.

Speaker 1 (40:13):
Am I telling my kids to be kind, but I’m not being kind? Or even in small things? No, you can’t have that or you can’t watch that TV right now. And then not following through, through and immediately letting them. So that’s just silly examples. But it happens. So oh, the other part of parenting is, am I sharing with other moms examples or, Hey, you should try this or do that. But I myself am not doing that. And it just makes me think absolute error.

Speaker 2 (40:45):
Well, and these questions are good for the husbands to be asking also. I mean, they just need to change some of the details. But we should be asking these questions of ourselves.

Speaker 1 (40:55):
I have one more. I skipped over it. In friendships, am I paying attention to what I’m saying and what I’m doing? Do I view myself as a good friend, but really in my actions I’m showing something else.

Speaker 2 (41:08):
So it’s a good thing for us to ask the Lord, say, Lord, show us. See if there’s any wicked way in us as David prayed. Find those things in us and help us change God, help change them in us so we can be more like your son Jesus.

Speaker 1 (41:25):
And then, so that was kind of the group of questions for relationships that I’m dealing with. And then bottom line is, how do these discrepancies hurt myself and others? And I think that’s a really important question to ask because obviously we don’t wanna go around hurting our spouse or hurting our children or hurting our friends.

Speaker 2 (41:46):
Well, Proverbs 11 says, the integrity of the upright guides them, but the crookedness of the treacherous destroys them.

Speaker 1 (41:54):
I love that contrast of having integrity versus not, and how obvious it is what we

Speaker 2 (41:58):
Should choose. One’s straighten upright and one’s crooked and treacherous. So when we don’t walk in integrity, when we have deep discrepancy, cuz we, again, we’re, we all have discrepancy, we all have a distance between who God wants us to be and who we are today. But there are things that we can recognize, those questions you asked that can actually bring immediate integrity and uprightness into our relationships versus not having and just staying more atten and it causing brokenness and anger. How does it make you feel when we end up in these areas where the discrepancy’s actually hurting us?

Speaker 1 (42:40):
I usually feel discouraged and disappointed and disparaging just, well, what’s wrong with me? And I get in my own head and I get down on myself because

Speaker 2 (42:49):
Remember are telling me in the middle of that the discussion when we’re trying to work through it. Like I feel like I never change. And I’m like, well, and that’s what I was encouraging. I was like, well, you have changed right now. You don’t feel like it, but you have. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (43:03):
I think one of the biggest problems is that I’m just looking at myself in those moments. I’m looking at myself and how much I failed. And when we end up staying up late to talk about these things, and you remind me of Romans eight, one and the comfort and peace that I get from having anxious thoughts to relying on God’s word and letting it seep in night and day

Speaker 2 (43:28):
Difference. Well, and I just to close out what we’re talking about a discrepancy in my life, I’m just thinking about what those questions you asked being convicted lately. I’ve always encouraging others in the podcast and my relationships with my kids, with my friends to be abiding in God’s word. And then I myself don’t aide in it that well. I go long periods of time with not getting deep into the word.

Speaker 1 (44:00):
It’s like you do, but you don’t.

Speaker 2 (44:01):
Yeah. I said this at church on Sunday. We know when we’re abiding and when we’re not like, ah, maybe I was this week. No, we know. But that’s that right there. Abiding with Christ means that we’re next to him. So as he walks, we walk. When he sits, we sit. When he stands, we stand. And so if we want to shrink that discrepancy, then let’s walk with Christ. Let’s abide with him. This is the lifelong solution. It’s what God desires.

Speaker 1 (44:38):
What’s really cool about what you just said is I got this picture of earlier you were talking about version A and version B of Jen. If I’m only looking to myself and what I’m capable of as my version B, Jen <laugh> kind of silly to think about that way I’m never going to reach that. And I’m going to feel that discouragement come on because I’m never meeting that

Speaker 2 (44:59):
Because you never get to

Speaker 1 (45:00):
Be here because I never get to that. But what I hear you saying is I’m not looking towards version bk. I’m supposed to be looking towards Christ. And he is my picture. Yep. He is the one.

Speaker 2 (45:13):
Well, and like you said, in one way,

Speaker 1 (45:15):
It’s not a version of me, it’s a version of

Speaker 2 (45:16):
Him. And in one way you’re looking yourself only the other way you’re looking at him. Yeah. Good stuff. So why don’t we give them their new

Speaker 1 (45:26):
We’re done already.

Speaker 2 (45:27):
Yep. Oh

Speaker 1 (45:28):
Man. I wanna keep going.

Speaker 2 (45:30):
All right. Well, they can keep

Speaker 1 (45:32):
Going. Okay. Let this growth start. So we thought it would be fun, since we kicked this off this new year with coming at you every week we thought every month we would add a new growth spurt section to the end of our podcast. And so what we mean is for four weeks, it will basically stay the same. And so we called it a growth spurt because we wanna encourage you guys this year to take those extra steps toward growth in your relationship with God, growth in your relationship with your spouse. And so for the month of January, we’re going to focus on building trust and building integrity

Speaker 2 (46:11):
By doing what you say you

Speaker 1 (46:13):
Will, by doing what you say you will. And it kind of goes into that whole new year commitment thing. I know people do resolutions and things like that, so we wanna kind of tag along for this month, but we want to encourage you guys to do what you say you will

Speaker 2 (46:27):
Do. Let your yes be yes and no. And

Speaker 1 (46:30):
This is the first step towards getting rid of that discrepancy in your life. If you’re someone that struggles in a specific area with discrepancy, let this be one action that you can take to try and close that gap. So it’s really easy. You just get a note card or post it, put it somewhere where you’re going to see it every day and write an area or a sentence on it or whatever a word, whatever you think is going to help you remember something that you struggle to commit to and just make a commitment to do it. Do you wanna give a couple of examples just that will be easy

Speaker 2 (47:07):
For husband’s, wives? I mean, I’m sure there’s a lot of people that are committing to diets and exercise. If you say you’re going to get up up you give an example of if you say you’re going to do something with your kids, do it. I told Wyatt tonight, he always wants us to snuggle him. And I said, I can’t tonight. And then usually I say, and he’s like, well, can you do it tomorrow night? And I’ll say, maybe. But tonight I was like, Wyatt, I will.

Speaker 1 (47:33):
So now you gotta stick to that

Speaker 2 (47:34):
And I’m going to stick to

Speaker 1 (47:35):
Aaron. We know what Aaron’s going to write on his little post-it note. Okay. Another one might be like, if you say you’re going to be home at this time, be home at this time. If you say you’re going to,

Speaker 2 (47:43):
That’s a big one in marriages, I think it

Speaker 1 (47:46):
Could be. Yeah. Yeah, it might be. Anyways, you guys get the idea. This is to encourage you with doing what you say and closing that gap on discrepancy. Awesome. The last thing that we wanna do, which we always have done, which we love doing with you guys, is closing out with a prayer. So please join me, us. Dear Lord, thank you for our lives. Thank you for this new year, and thank you for all of the opportunities you will give us this year to grow, to love, and to honor you. We pray we would be paying attention to the ways in which your Holy Spirit is leading us throughout each day. Please help us tune our ears and our hearts to hear your voice. We pray we would take seriously the commitments we make and strive to live with integrity. We pray we would understand who we are in you, and may our choices reflect our belief that you are transforming us. When we realize a discrepancy in our lives, please show us the way to reconcile how we feel and what we choose to do. Lord, please help us to walk uprightly, to honor our marriage and to fulfill your purpose for us. In Jesus’ name, amen.