00:00:00 Thanks for joining me on episode 657 of the inspired stewardship podcast. Hey, there I'm Cassidy cash. The host of that Shakespeare life. If you'd like to impact the world Monday like Shakespeare, one way to do that is listening to this it's inspired stewardship podcast with my friend, Scott made her what someone who's willing to change their opinion. If new information comes along,
00:00:32 despite being something that a lot of people hold up and say, this is a bad thing. Look, they keep changing their view. I actually view that as a positive thing because as new information comes along, people should revise and reconsider their view. Welcome. And thank you for joining us on the inspired stewardship podcast. If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be,
00:00:57 then you must learn to use your time, your talent and your treasures for your true calling in the inspired stewardship podcast. Learn to invest in yourself, invest in others and develop your influence so that you can impact the world. And today's spiritual foundation episode about investing in yourself. I talk with you about the difference between wisdom and fear while you can prepare and it's labeled fear,
00:01:32 but you don't know the real heart of others and why this can create so much argument right now this morning, I was reading through James chapter three and I came across this verse who is wise and understanding among you. Let them show it by their good life by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom. But if you Harbor bitter, envy and selfish ambition in your hearts do not boast about it or deny the truth.
00:02:01 Such wisdom does not come down from heaven, but is earthly, unspiritual and demonic for where you have envy and selfish ambition. There you find disorder and every evil practice. But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all, pure then peace, loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere peacemakers who sow in peace,
00:02:26 reap a harvest of righteousness. That's from James chapter three verses 13 through 18. And y'all right now. I see a lot of argument. I see a lot of people feeling like others are doing things out of fear. And those folks saying that I'm doing this out of wisdom, whether it's wearing a mask, whether it's social distancing, whether it's not going out or working from home,
00:02:53 whether it's staying six feet apart, while you're standing in line at the grocery store, all of these things are things that some people choose to do. And then others label that out of fear, they label that a fear reaction. They label it something that people are doing to be controlled. You know, there's this feeling, perhaps there's some bigger story.
00:03:15 There's a conspiracy there's things going on. And I'll tell you the truth. I don't know. Maybe there is, but I will tell you that oftentimes what we see and others, we will label a certain way. We'll label it, fearful we'll label it, malicious we'll label. It mean what in reality, that is simply that person doing the best they can to be wise,
00:03:42 to be peace, loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial, and sincere. It may be that the person is doing these things because they're doing the best they can in an uncertain situation. You may not know. They may have a, a mother at home who's ill or a husband who could come down with it and it would be vitally bad for them because they have an immuno compromised situation.
00:04:10 You don't know no what's going on in that person's heart. That's causing them to make the choices that they are, but we see things. And then we label them. You don't know the heart of others. We only know what's going on inside ourselves. And what's often happens is we look at other people and out of our own fear, we argue and label and attack others.
00:04:38 The truth is that you can be prepared and undergoing things that you think are the right things to do. And it's not out of fear. It's out of trying to do the best you can in an uncertain situation. But right now, all of this creates horrible arguments. I have literally seen and heard stories of people getting into fist fights over whether or not you should wear a mask.
00:05:03 I've seen people getting into arguments about whether or not this entire thing is made up in a lie, or if it's motivated by politics, it's going to go away in November. Because as soon as the election's over, everything will magically get better. I've had some of my friends explained that this is a liberal conspiracy and others who feel that it's a conspiracy by conservatives.
00:05:30 The, the truth is this entire situation is one where we're all faced with huge amounts of uncertainty. And out of that, uncertainty, we do tend to have a reaction that is at least in part base out of fear of that unknown fear out of that uncertainty. But what happens is often we will harden whatever belief we already have. If we trust the situation,
00:05:56 then we'll it more. If on the other hand we were angry about the situation. We'll be more angry if we were in fear before, we'll be in more fear. You know, the truth is it's impossible to know right now what the right thing to do is, and what is the wrong thing to do? The truth is there's not enough information out there.
00:06:19 We don't know enough yet. We haven't studied it enough. We don't know enough about the virus and the situation. This is in some ways a situation where we're all doing the best we can in a remarkably uncertain situation. But I come back to that description of heavenly wisdom, pure peace, loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy, and full of good fruit,
00:06:44 impartial and sincere. And when I go to say something to someone, even someone I disagree with, I have to think, am I being considerate? Am I being loving? Is this building more peace in the world? Or is this breaking it down with the fruits, from this conversation, be good fruits full of mercy, sincere and impartial. And if not,
00:07:12 then oftentimes it's better to just keep our mouth shut. You know, the arguments that I see happening on Facebook and other places, the truth is arguing. There will convince no one because the folks that already believe it are going to read the post and nod their head and the folks that don't believe it will argue and go find something that shows that their opinion is correct.
00:07:38 We all have this tendency to fall into the confirmation bias and when times are uncertain and we're a little bit frustrated and tired and maybe even a bit fearful, it's even easier to fall into the confirmation bias. And that's true of me too. I know that there are things that I see that I dismiss. Not because I've done extensive research, but because my gut instinct tells me that can't be right.
00:08:05 And I have to force myself to slow down, to pray on it, to go back and look up the original sources to read what's behind that story and to think about the person, their possible agendas, but also what's in their heart. What have they shown? Have they shown themselves to be someone who's approaching this with mercy and thought, or have they shown themselves to be someone that believes one and only view and discounts all other information.
00:08:36 If that, then I tend to move on to the next piece of information. I want someone who's willing to change their opinion. If new information comes along, despite being something that a lot of people hold up and say, this is a bad thing. Look, they keep changing their view. I actually view that as a positive thing, because as new information comes along,
00:08:59 people should revise and reconsider their view. Staying with the same view that you had over a year ago may not actually be wisdom. So I caution you during this time. Think about it. Are you falling into the confirmation bias? Are you willing to sow peace? And from that reap a harvest of righteousness. Thanks for listening. Thanks so much for listening to the inspired stewardship podcast,
00:09:35 as a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen, but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your calling. If you enjoy this episode, do me a favor, go over to facebook.com/inspired stewardship and like our Facebook page and market that you'd like to get notifications from us so that we can connect with you on Facebook and make sure that we're serving you to the best of our abilities with time and tips there until next time,
00:10:15 invest your time, your talent and your treasures, develop your influence and impact the world.