Ryan: Welcome to the Thee Generation Podcast. This is Ryan, and I'm joined here again with my wife, Stephanie. And she was with me last time at the live podcast that we did at the Youth Summit in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin. But we need to finish up the Q&A. We had quite a few questions come in. And what would you say? Did we get through half of them at the time? Probably not. No. So we have a good amount to go through today. If we can get through them all now, we will. Otherwise we'll push it off and do a third session on them.

Because this is, I see this as some of the most important episodes as we do when we're actually answering people's, or our listeners questions directly. And it also gives us an idea for future series, which did anyone, we had what, one person recommend a series? Yes, I think it was. Just one, so we'll. take that into consideration here in the future. We did announce that our coming series is going to be on thought life and I'm excited to get into that looking forward to that but I do not mind pushing that off here while we finish up these questions.

I'd like to get Stephanie involved more this time than last time we were in such a hurry there at TGYS and I ended up talking too much and not allowing her to speak. We are, this probably is our first ever outdoor podcast that we've done. So you'll get the feel of what our, the ambient sounds from our outdoor studio, i.e. our deck. You'll hear the crickets and the birds and the frogs and the trains and everything else.

But, and the crackling of the fire, as you probably can hear, we just wanted to rub in this balmy 66 degree weather here on. the 16th of November so hopefully you can you're not too jealous from wherever you're at. It's beautiful weather here. But let's go ahead and jump into this Steph she's already gone through and categorized some of these. I have not heard these questions yet we wanted to keep it fresh for you guys so we'll hear them at the same time and work these through and see how many see if we can get through them all today and if not we'll hold off until next time.

Let's go ahead with first one stuff. All right, so we have two questions that I feel like kind of go together. How do you deal with past failures and purity when you've had sustained victory? So like your past haunting you and then somebody else kind of asked about insecurities. I feel like that kind of can tie into that as well. We did discuss this a little bit on the last, I think it was the last question that was asked which was can you ever get your innocence back? And that was a a really powerful discussion that I've put a little bit more thought into afterwards.

But what we arrived at was you can have better than your innocence. And that is to, innocence being defined as to go back to ignorance, like just like you were before you ever got into this stuff. And now…

It seems to be a huge liability because you have all these thoughts and thought patterns and things coming back to you but the fact is you do have the experience that you have and now God can Take what the devil meant for evil and use it for good So that was our focus and the answer that question when we talked about that at TGYS is that Just seeking innocence Can almost be selfish when you see it as now, yes, I'm not controlled by my past, but I'm not in denial of it either. And it can be an opportunity to help others. And the Lord will give you a ministry.

And we just talked about how the ministry we have was put together through no effort of our own. It was just simply, as you see God deliver you, it's inevitable that that's going to spill over and you're gonna find others that need help. And that's just how it works. So really any one of you that has had a past or is struggling even now, you need to have that mindset change that God wants to use this. So I was thinking like that's the way the devil wants you to be with your purity journey. He wants you to be ashamed of it and not able to use it again.

So it's almost fighting against that, that mentality the devil's trying to push on you. Because yes, there's time to grieve for your sin. Yes, there's time. Like we haven't dealt with it, right? You know that conviction. your conscience and the Holy Spirit brings, but when that's dealt with, the goblins used to move forward on that. So I think viewing that, like your past haunting you is just viewing it actually you're fighting against the devil in that, in his mindset. So just, yeah. Yeah. And that's a good point too. You, you can't skip the brokenness stage. Yeah.

So you do need to come to a point where you are absolutely broken and desperate because of your sin. If somebody goes straight from absolute failure to, hey, I'm pumped, we're gonna see the world changed, and misses that point of humility on their face before the Lord, overwhelmed by the gravity of their sin, that's probably not healthy. You do, we absolutely need to, in that confession and forsake stage, there has to be, you know, confess being agreeing with God. We've gotta… be willing to see this the way God sees it as the Holy Spirit allows us to do so.

So we can't skip that stage and I don't want to come across that way because sometimes, often times we can be way too overly optimistic about our failure and our victory as well and not have the gravity that we need to about it. But when they mention insecurity as a part of that question. it's revealing because it's clearly that implies there's an ongoing battle of feeling I'm not good enough to serve for the Lord. I'm not fit. I'm not capable because of my past. And obviously that is not the mindset that the Lord would have for us. So to counteract that just get a vision beyond yourself.

And I think this is a very natural thing. So if If you don't feel this way, it's definitely, as Steph said, it's the devil that is giving you these thoughts. Because the most natural thing is, as you start to see deliverance, even the smallest amount is just to think, who can I take along with me? Which of my friends are struggling that I can also bring them along in this journey?

That's a great way to get your eyes off yourself and be sure that the purity you're trying to attain to reach here, the victory you're looking for is not just motivated by selfish reasons of wanting to feel better or have more peace or have an easier life or whatever. Again, I don't think there's a wrong motivation for wanting to be pure, but there certainly is better ones. And getting your eyes off yourself is going to be crucial in fighting self. You can't fight self with self, so you've got to get a motivation outside of yourself. Look for others. If you're feeling insecure about it, you're too focused on yourself.

And so get a vision and a burden for those around you and start asking the Lord how you can help others come to victory while you yourself are on this journey. Okay, what do we have next? How can I balance the dangers and good uses of social media as a person who wants to use the platform for ministry? Let me know if you have thoughts on this stuff. The first thing that comes to mind is this is going to be different from person to person.

I don't have Facebook or Instagram on my phone, even though we use both for both our business that we have and our photography business, as well as using both to an extent in ministry, we don't use it very frequently either way, but technically the court app has its own Facebook page and we've run ads and things like that. But I've just, for me, I don't want that on my phone for distraction's sake and especially for the temptation that can present. However, I'm not saying it's wrong for everyone.

So how to balance that I think is something you're going to have to work through with the Holy Spirit and with counsel for people that know your situation in particular. If that is an area that you've fallen to before. then obviously you're gonna have to be more careful than someone that never struggled on Facebook or social media at all. Any thoughts on that Steph? Yeah, I mean just having the accountability there right off the bat to protect from falling if you haven't fallen. And then if there's any slippage towards going the wrong direction, that's where you really have to reevaluate to see if what you're doing is right.

Cause it's gonna be a tendency to want to have it and the devil can use that to. The excuse that you're using for ministry, you'd want you to keep in it. So really it's easy to use it as an excuse I guess. That's a great point because there's many things like that we tend to excuse and we just think, well this is fine because there's good in it. Like YouTube is, just for example, another example, YouTube, I learn how to do stuff on there and there's good uses for that. Facebook is good for this and that.

And most of the time what you're doing is arguing with some other voice of reason within you which is the Holy Spirit. So recognize if you're trying to give an excuse to something in your mind, that probably means you're arguing against something the Holy Spirit is leading you to. So everything's on the table and make sure that you're not. just trying to come up with an excuse for something the Holy Spirit's really leading you to do, a step to take. And maybe what you need to do is not an indefinite, I'm never gonna be on Facebook again.

Maybe what you need to do is say, I'm gonna take a month or two months. and I'm not going to be on it for this period of time, and then we'll reassess after that. And you should have someone else that's in on that for a married person, a spouse, or for a single person, an accountability partner, a parent, and you say, I'm doing this for two months, and then we're going to meet again after this, and we're going to talk it through and see if the pros outweigh the cons, see if we should add this back in or not. And there's nothing wrong with that.

Stephanie: I think short-term goals and action steps are much more helpful than indefinite commitments. Okay, so next question. How do you talk slash act around someone of the opposite gender without being inappropriate? There's a couple things that come to mind. There's respect of the other person. Just because something is not awkward to you or it's not doing anything for you emotionally doesn't mean it's not to them. And you always need to err on the side of being careful in that way. There is a form of thinking that, well, I don't mean anything by this, and I'm not thinking of boyfriend, girlfriend, and I'm not thinking anything of marriage.

So it doesn't matter if I give them this look or joke with them this way or treat them that closely or especially like that. This has happened over and over and over. And every time this argument is the same, well, I'm not thinking about them for marriage, so it's okay. When doesn't that kind of make it worse? You're treating someone in a special way to an extent that other people are likely noticing it, but it's okay because… you're not thinking anything of marriage, and most likely you don't think that the other person is thinking that way. Or you've even said to each other. Yeah, maybe you said that.

Maybe you've communicated to each other that this, you know this is just a friendship, it's not gonna be anything more than that. And the funny thing is, and Steph and I have seen this over and over and over in different, so many different instances, is that no matter what kind of commitment you have between each other. verbally, even if you've communicated, this is not going to be anything more than marriage. Or this is not going to be anything more than friendship. There will always be a possibility that one of the two is wondering about it. It's just how it is, even if it's been communicated.

Maybe a guy says that and the girl is thinking, well, you know, maybe he just didn't want me suspect that, or maybe it wasn't at that point, but it could grow into something more serious. Because it's so natural. for that to happen. For something to move from a close friendship to a boyfriend girlfriend in consideration for marriage is there's almost no separation between the two. It is very natural to move that direction. So this argument, don't even allow yourself to go there, that it's okay because we're not thinking anything for marriage and there's nothing romantic there. There just, there is no gap there.

And I would not have said that when I was in high school or college. But again, this is just from seeing this happen over and over and over, where there was a communication even saying there's nothing there. And then it was found out later that a girl was crushed. because even though that was stated very clearly, she still couldn't help but wonder and hope eventually because that friendship was growing and growing. And we as guys can be… We as guys can be… um, incredibly disrespectful to the emotions of a lady that way.

And just assume that we have them figured out and this one, this relationship is different because we've communicated that. And my, that might happen to other people, but not to this one. And it's so, so sad to see guys just absolutely crushed these girls by doing that, assuming their situation is different. So. Steph, I'll let you speak more to this, but I think any kind of a special relationship between a guy and a girl, in other words, you're treating her a little bit different than other girls, you're treating her different than you do other guys, then there's probably something there that should not be going on.

Again, if you're of marriageable age and God is leading this way, well, obviously, He could lead through… a friendship towards someone to marry. But that is in itself the reason why you should be taking this very seriously. It's just don't assume that your situation is going to be different and there's nothing there, nothing that could be romantic and so this is fine. Whatever that special bond is that's holding you to someone that you don't think is going to be your spouse someday, you need to realize just like we went through in our series on emotional purity. You have one desire that is leading you towards that person.

And it's a desire for intimacy, not saying just physical intimacy, but that emotional connection you feel with them. Like you feel like they listen to you more than anyone else does. Like they understand you more than anyone else does. That is intimacy. You feel like there's a special connection when you share your, what God's teaching your devotion with this person, that is spiritual intimacy. These are all forms of things that are supposed to be shared within a husband-wife relationship. And just you need to understand what's drawing you to that person and stop living in denial over it.

You're likely going to hurt someone terribly and there could be a lot more going on in the other person's heart than you would know or they ever could tell you. Yeah, I think especially you just want to keep every aspect for that one that you're going to have. So when you're giving part of your heart just to be able to talk to them like, well, they understand my heart. That's something you've given away before marriage to somebody else potentially. even just those little things, you want that special connection, even a spiritual connection with opposite gender at first, to be your wife.

And you don't ever want to have this comparison later on of like, oh, yeah, she understood me this way, but my wife now, you know, you don't want to get into that can of worms either. And a lot of it too just comes down to selfishness on both sides sometimes because you're both being fulfilled in some way through that relationship. So just being aware of that and being careful. That goes beyond just, am I being appropriate? So that's kind of where the question was, right Steph? Is what's appropriate? Well, maybe there's things that are appropriate that are not very helpful.

And so if you have that perspective that as guys, we're the initiator, and so it's really easy for us. to be completely unfeeling or uncaring to the position that the girl is in. She's lots of times just sitting there going about her life wondering. It's all she can do. She's not the initiator. She's not gonna come and ask you, most likely. You are the initiator and it's easy for us then to just, you know, we're wrestling all these through and we think our side is hard.

Well, I'm convinced the girl's side is a whole lot harder than ours as they try to have a faith perspective and not just spend their whole lives wondering is it this guy, is it this guy, is it this guy? And you can help her out a lot by being so much more careful. Some people say it should be all business with the opposite gender. And I'll leave that up to you if it needs to look like that and go to that extent. But it, for sure, you need to be thinking from their perspective, does it look like I'm treating them in a special way?

Does it look like I'm giving them this glance to communicate something in this look or whatever? Just think, take some time to empathize with the situation the girls are in, and whatever way… Just be sure that you are above board. So maybe what's appropriate is the wrong question. Just think of what is most helpful to the girls in my youth group? What is most helpful to the girls in my class? What's most helpful instead of what can I get away with and still not be sinning? But what is going to set their heart best for… walking by faith in this and saving and helping them save themselves for their husband.

That's good. I gave that from a guy's perspective, but I'm sure a lot of those things girls could take to heart as well. I will appreciate a guy that is being careful with their heart and not just playing games with them. Good. With the questions that are remaining, because we're probably gonna have to split this up and finish them next time, is there another one that goes along those lines of emotional purity or are we going to get into another subject here? I think that's, I mean, there is one. So it's phrased this way. Are, aren't boundaries in a Christian relationship based on Bible first and non-specific sound conviction?

Forgive me, but that sounds like somebody that's trying to get away from the thing. Yeah, there's a backstory here. There definitely is a backstory. Um, if we, we could easily overlay that with the principle we just laid out in this last one, even though this is within a relationship. Again, whenever we find ourselves asking, what can we get away with and not be sinning? That's basically what they're saying. As they're saying the biblical rules would be what's actually right and what's actually wrong.

The convictions are how we apply those and more specifics, but it kind of boils down to what technically can we get away with without sinning? it technically being sin. And it's just not the right perspective. If you're in a relationship, not even just the fact that you're dealing with some very, very powerful emotions and, well, that's all true, but you're also dealing with a relatively short period of time that is setting up your future relationship. But It's also just, it's too short and special to mess it up because you couldn't wait.

And I guarantee whatever this person is thinking of, that maybe someone told them that they couldn't hold hands or they couldn't hug or something like that. Did you know that once you get through this period, be it a year or two years or whatever, and let's say it does work out and you get married, are you aware that no one's gonna tell you that you can't hold hands and hug once you're married? And so… It really, though it seems like a huge deal to you now, I don't think you will ever regret being more careful in this period of an unmarried relationship.

When it comes to the physical, it can tend to be selfish because you're also receiving something from it when you're giving it. So when you're developing it without the physical, it really helps you analyze the selfishness of it and not have that as a distraction. Right, in the relationship, you will never think you're being selfish. When you're feeling what you're feeling, you just think, oh, I love that person so much, and that's why I'm doing all of this. But the physical is so mutual that you really cannot discern whether or not I'm doing this for them or I'm doing it for me. And inevitably, there's some of both.

But it's so important, it is so, so important that your relationship is… not built on selfishness, that it is built purely out of love for the other person, that it's that much more helpful to separate the physical and the emotional and the spiritual bond and all those things. Because like when Steph and I started, it was all writing letters and I hate writing letters. So as I'm sitting down and spend a couple hours trying to formulate words, and do a handwritten letter, I know I'm not doing it for me.

There is not much enjoyment there, but yet there was some enjoyment just because I'm getting to communicate how much this person means to me. But I now know that fulfillment was not based on my personal intrinsic desire to pen and paper write letters because there's none of that there. It was all born out of- just love and wanting to communicate my care for Stephanie. Now, if it was sitting down and holding her hand or giving her a hug, that's doing a whole lot for me, especially when we hadn't before.

So there is no way that I could have said the same if we were sitting there holding hands, trying to have a conversation. There would have been doing so much for me. And it's not that it's wrong to be. fulfilled and pleased in that way physically. It's just, it needs to happen in its time. And for us, that was after we were married. And I think based on the principle there of not wanting to kindle a fire between us and something that could become inappropriate, then I think that's a great place to be and the safest place to be is just to keep from all physical.

But again, back to the question. It's not just what can we get away with here. Your relationship long-term is gonna be so much more powerful and real and unselfish in a true bond if you will change the question right now instead of in what things can we get away with without technically it being sin. And instead, what are some new ways that we can protect ourselves so that the 40, 50 years of marriage that we have down the road is so much more special because we were willing to save ourselves and be careful during this year to two years here.

Okay do you think we should end it there or do we have? Yeah I think that's good we have different categories for the next one. Okay good well I think we got about halfway through the rest of the questions here and so we'll call it right there this became really a focus on emotional purity today I didn't know totally fine. And we will come back next month and finish these off before we jump into our next series on the Thoughtlife. So hope you enjoyed our back deck here and the ambiance and airplanes and fire and the neighbor who's vacuuming out his car currently.

You probably can hear all of that, but that's okay. It's a real life in the Swanson home deck. So. We will end it for today and look forward to talking to you guys next time. And hopefully these things are helpful as we continue this journey to be less gratified and more satisfied with Jesus Christ.