February 26, 2025

Israeli Hostages, Freedom, & The Happiness of Christ - The Briefcase and the Barn - EP 32

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Kyle: [00:00:00] Welcome back to another episode of the Briefcase in the Barn, a series of the Furiously Curious show with me and Gary. Episode 32. Uh, just some notes before we get started. Um, you can follow us on social media. Uh, follow the show at Furiously Curious Co. Uh, you can follow Gary at Gary Bars Wheel Estate.

And you can follow me at kylevenrettenberg91. I'll put those, um, in the show notes as well. If you're interested in that, people have, a couple of people have asked me how you can watch over time. So there's a few different ways. So I talk about Patreon, patreon. com, forged slash furiously curious. You can also watch it on Spotify.

You can see it there on the feed or on Apple podcast. You can watch it there directly as well. So if you're interested in that, you can do that. And then today's show sponsor is my coaching company, Furiously Curious Coaching. So I help business owners be successful without sacrificing, uh, faith, family, and free time.[00:01:00]

So if you're dealing with that and you're sacrificing faith, um, and your faith life or family time with kids, um, your free time. Just dealing with one more email, one more sale, and all the things that are going on in your business. I can definitely help you with that. I'll read you a testimonial of a guy I'm working with.

His name is Tyler Kemp and he says, I quote, before working with Kyle, I struggled with managing my growing business and lacked confidence as a leader through his coaching. I've become more focused, assertive and effective both at work and at home. Kyle helped me shift my focus to big picture, hold employees accountable and address challenges directly.

These challenges, these changes have improved my leadership and created a more efficient, responsible team. Even my wife has noticed the positive impact. Kyle's ability to highlight strengths and tackle weaknesses has been invaluable for my business and personal growth. End of quote. So if you're curious, curious about that, text the word interested to 604 [00:02:00] 703 9045.

And we'll go from there. Gary,

Gary: how's it going? Good. Yeah. Good. Just, uh, yeah, it was in Mexico for a week with Marie and my sister and mother in law in Puerto Verde. So that was cool. With your sister and mother in law? Sister in law and brother in law. Sorry. Oh, I thought you said mother in law. No. You didn't say mother in law.

Oh, maybe I did, but she's not allowed to come over. But not your mother in law. No, I have went on holidays with her, but not this one. So no, it was good. We had a good time. Went, uh. Yeah. Yeah. We didn't get off the resort a lot, but we did go sailing one day out in the ocean, my brother in law and I. Like actual real sailing?

Like real sailing, like just tiny little catamaran thingy. Guy teaches you how to do it and lets you do your own thing. Okay. Um,

Kyle: yeah,

Gary: we're allowed to have more than four people because the women were going to come along, but, um, weight limit, weight limit. Yeah. And we were definitely been well over the weight limit.

Kyle: That's funny. It reminds me of a story. It was in New York a couple of years ago with a meeting with a writer. When I worked at MDT [00:03:00] and, uh, he wanted to do something special, uh, it was with me and my brother and we were out there and he's like, Oh, we'll give you guys a, a tour of a, um, helicopter tour over New York.

Yeah.

Gary: Very specific weight restrictions.

Kyle: Yeah. And, uh, but he didn't know how heavy we were. So he didn't. Pretty heavy. He didn't dare.

Gary: Two Van Ratenburg heads.

Kyle: Yeah. A lot of weight. Big noses. Big

Gary: noses. Yeah. Top

Kyle: heavy. Hanging over the side of the helicopter. Uh, so he didn't dare ask us how much we weighed, so he texted a guy that we knew that was close, oh God.

Close to us, and asked him and he is like, I'm not sure. And so eventually he just didn't do it and we ended up doing. Now to be fair, you guys

Gary: have both done a lot of weight loss bets, so you do fluctuate quite a bit, right? You and your brother?

Kyle: I didn't, the pilot told him. He is like, well, we can just like go half fuel.

And he's like, ah, now you're starting to scare me. I'm out.

Gary: How was sailing? It was really good. It's really cool. It's like, I'd never sailed before. Um, I'd done like our school from Timothy did the, uh, sailing trip, which was a cool trip. But you really didn't sail. I think it was mostly just, you know, motor, motoring, uh, motoring along at a very slow rate, [00:04:00] uh, through the ocean.

So this was like, you're ripping and you just kind of learn exactly, you know, and it's not about tightening up the sail a certain amount. It's just about being in the exact right angle and basically traversing on 45 switch. There again, I always kind of wanted to watch people sail at Harrison Lake as a kid.

And like, Hey, how do they, like, how do they come back? Well, it's because they're going like diagonally across. There's no like back and forward or whatever. Anyway. So I'm not. I remember that sailing trip

Kyle: that you did. Did you do it? No, I didn't. Oh, you just remember us going? Well, my sister was in your class.

And you guys did a video. It was filmed, the whole thing was filmed and you guys got a video afterwards. And Of course, okay. You know, we had like three videos to watch growing up and ,

Gary: that was one of them. That was one of that. And the Holland trip, I went into Holland to sing in the choir trip. She probably went on that too.

Yeah, I

Kyle: probably have watched that as well.

Gary: So

Kyle: what about, um, just hanging out. Was it, did you work, did you work much? Did you hang out a lot? Tim said you were, uh, pretty quiet, so he said that was a good sign.

Gary: Okay. Yeah, no, I, uh, did my usual, uh, chatting a bit with a couple different people, but really.

Didn't didn't do it didn't have a super busy week [00:05:00] work wise and exercise nice gym there so did that and Read a couple really good books. Okay. It's actually gonna share them on my social media feed. I read the Book, I think it's when breath becomes air. All right, and it's a guy who a doctor I think he passed away at 38 From the States and he was a brain surgeon, became a brain surgeon and died very, basically upon graduating from, uh, like in his whatever 15th year of med school, um, and had been practicing brain surgeon.

I should say, I don't, I don't know exactly the right terms, but anyways, he wrote it and then his wife finished up the book and published it. And, uh, it was very fascinating, very fascinating read.

Kyle: What'd you like was that just a.

Gary: I love heavy books. I love, like, it was just, like, crushing. I liked it. It was crushing.

It was like, I was just sitting there weeping, I was, no, I was just sitting there weeping by the pool, like, trying not to sob out loud while people were taking shots at the bar. But, um, no, it was just, uh, I guess to me, the most important thing, like, [00:06:00] some people obviously focus maybe on death too much, but most people don't think about it enough.

And it was just fascinating how even this guy was just processing his thoughts on the book. And he had grown up in a very, Uh, solid Christian home, it sounded like, um, and then came like, you know, just kind of walked away from the faith and he talks distinctly about it. And I have people in my life right now that have either done that as doctors or quite a few actually, I could probably walk right off the top.

Yeah. Walked away from their faith. Just, yeah, everything that they grew up with, anything to do with Christianity and God in particular, just the idea of like a divine being. And just they, um, brilliant people get into the studies and then try to reason, reason and explain everything. And life's not like that obviously anyways.

And I think This guy realized that through his process, uh, went back to church. And there again, didn't, didn't go into great detail about where he was at in his faith journey, but, but spoke, I feel like if somebody who was a doctor and not a believer or somebody that had [00:07:00] grown up, like I can think of one guy in particular that I, I've known in my adult years, great, great couple.

And, uh, yeah, they've quit going to church and they're just totally, uh, you know, walking away from the Lord. It's like, Hey, this would be a great book for them to read. Right. Um, because there again, people tend to identify with those that understand them and doctors, obviously, you know, this is, he was the epitome of what a, an intelligent doctor would be.

So I love that book. The other book I read, which was fascinating too, uh, was, um, uh, Patton, second world war, the U S army general.

Kyle: Okay.

Gary: And a lot of his diary notes, um, Talking about his experience and I just felt like every single person should have to like young person should have to read that book there.

Yeah, this is my perspective because because our world that everybody's so soft. Everybody's so pathetic. Nobody has like it's just like do you realize how you've been spoon for like to read the stories distinctly of people? Like just literally freezing to death get in their heads watching their friends literally just head off like in the trenches, right?

And uh, And they didn't see it in [00:08:00] retrospect like we do now where they Where they won the war. Yeah, exactly. Even in the, like this battle was specifically about a distinct battle, the Bulge in Belgium. Okay. And it was like so intense. Um, the other thing that was interesting, and I, there's people that probably understand this story way better than me and understand, um, this character Patton, um, he died very soon after the war.

I think within a couple years he died. Um, and he talks in the book and I, I was sharing this with Marie and she was mortified to some degree, but it was just like, I could identify with some parts of his character where like he was just pumped with the battle and the challenge. And then after the war, like, Where was his purpose and didn't didn't he said it he didn't he didn't know his whole his whole identity was being a u.

s army general and he was a good one, but The other thing I thought was fascinating This is a part where again in our culture where everybody's just watching and criticizing and criticizing an armchair quarterback like that That's the world we live in Like, he did things that were definitely offside and probably could be questioned.

One incident in particular he admitted, where he went in to, because of his ego, wanted to get [00:09:00] somewhere first and just slaughtered. Like, people just got slaughtered at his watch. But in general, a lot of his methods were, you know, probably frowned upon a bit in the military, where they're very structured and very rule oriented, and he was a bit of a cowboy.

But I just thought, yeah, like, It's, it was just a, it's a good word for our culture and our time where everybody's keen to be critical. You know, you know how it is. Like we're all just watching. And even with this flight thing, now this recent plane crash, right? Where the plane flipped upside down. Like everybody's just has an opinion.

It has to be not everybody, but the people that are in that space on Twitter and on social media, either making fun or defending or like just how about say nothing and you know, things will come out as they do. And we, you don't need to have an opinion on everything.

Kyle: Yeah. I'm also there. I feel like a lack of grace, like Yeah.

We're always making mistakes. We're always screwing up in some area.

Gary: Bingo. Um, yeah. And, and, uh, yeah. Interesting.

Kyle: Okay. Yeah. So

Gary: people that don't understand grace, so that, that, I guess, yeah. Anyways, the book in itself, I just feel like the amount of character that the people had of that, and there again, deep [00:10:00] wounds.

And I thought that was interesting too, right? Where I'm, I said to Marie, like so many of these guys would have been, well, they were doing such awful things, right? Like just literally doing the old bayonet thing, like first world war thing stuff, right? Like, Right? Other young men, like just, these are kids too, 19, 20, like just kids.

I wonder

Kyle: how much of like the effects of, um, the problems in our society today, uh, especially our, our background, which is a Dutch background are because of the war, where you have people that were like my grandma. So my dad's mom would have, uh, she was in, she thinks she lost her dad at like nine or 11 years old.

He was in Rotterdam eating tulips, like trauma, like my, my grandpa ran away from the Germans, like trauma. And like that, that filters down, right? You see it in the Jewish communities about because of the

Gary: Holocaust. It does. And so Marie and I, we've talked, we talked with that in the last week too. And I think it's similar.

To some degree, I would equate it to like residential schools and First Nation stuff, where like, obviously there's, there's, there's deep, deep issues in that culture because of that and the way that they were treated. And it's fascinating. We even look at our own children, you [00:11:00] know, who have been in and out of birth parents homes, foster homes, and then in our house, um, they have reasons for everything, but they still don't have an excuse, right?

Like, you know, you don't, you don't get to get to the end of your life. You don't get to at any point, look at somebody and say, well, I was this right. And, and there again, in our culture. It's a victim mentality and it's, so it's that balance of, Hey, this is a great explanation. And yes, you do need grace and you will get grace, hopefully, if people know your story, but you don't get to use it as a crutch or an excuse your whole life.

And so, yeah, how do you, how do you, you know, and obviously depending on the situation. And I mean, in that case, you're totally right. Like that's what I was thinking. How do you go home as a, as a young man in your late twenties, early thirties to your children after you've just witnessed all this? And even like, it's interesting, the most powerful moment from what I read in the book.

And I'd be interested to know if people that have studied this history a lot more was still when they got to the concentration camps in Poland, um, and in Germany and stuff, and just, I think, yeah, I think it was Germany, you know, to see the impact that that had, that still [00:12:00] seemed to be the point where the guys who had been literally killing people ad nauseum just could not believe the atrocities that had been done.

Right. And went to go throw up behind the building.

Kyle: I have, I've, I'm friends in the, yeah. That are Jews and just very impacted by, you know, even this week with, uh, four hostages coming back dead, um, I think it was one guy and a mom and two kids. And just don't understand.

Gary: Sorry, there was hostages that came back, but they had been.

They were dead already. They'd been killed when they. A while ago. Yeah.

Kyle: I don't know how long. But they

Gary: gave them back.

Kyle: They give the bodies back. Israel will go, I think they traded like 50 live terrorists or people that were in jail for just bodies.

Gary: Like it's. Just so families can have closure. Like

Kyle: Israel, like Israelis will always get their people back, no matter what.

They will go. Okay, burial is important or

Gary: closure or what? Closure.

Kyle: They just say, these are ours. But they just cannot understand that the why and, and, and there is no explanation except for that we're totally [00:13:00] depraved, um, and, and, and broken. And, and, uh, it's only by grace that we're not all like that.

Right. We're much closer to the heart of Hitler than we are in the heart of Christ. Yeah. Um, and if you don't understand that, then you can't, what do you do? Like you're, you're stuck.

Gary: Yeah. You're in trouble. Yeah, and that's what's interesting about so many people that, uh, know so much about the Bible, but don't understand that concept.

So they live in this very weird space. Yes. Of being very, of really struggling, right? Yes. It's just like, hey, this, they're still trying to do the justice thing. It's like, ah, you should understand. If

Kyle: justice was really done, you'd be screwed. We're in deep trouble.

Gary: We're in deep trouble, right? So, yeah, interesting concept.

Anyway, so that would, I read those books and that was That was awesome. And go back to

Kyle: the first book where you said the guy left us faith. Yeah. Um, I find that a lot of people leave their faith because their questions aren't answered in the church. Um, where they're just basically told that you just need to have faith, even though there's like, and they don't give any reasons at all.

Um, which, I mean, there's an element of where you can't fully understand everything, but I feel [00:14:00] like we talked about in the church hurt opposite episode of it with Matt Shantz, where there's just like no reasoning at all or where parents were just really badly modeled Christianity. And then. And that's when, um, um,

Gary: kids leave.

Yeah. He didn't allude to anything to do with his parents. I felt in there again. I mean, I read the book quickly. I mean, I, I, I mean, I wouldn't, I wouldn't want to be misquoting the guy, but, um, it was way more that thing it's felt like to me. That experience, and I had a conversation very recently with another doctor that I just met through a group of friends, great guy, and just kind of had grown up in a very similar home to ours, and then just got into medical school, and just got into the theory space, um, and uh, I don't know if it's that.

There again, this guy, I don't know. He, the guy who I met the other day, he, he, he didn't give me great detail. But I also wonder if, um, like doctors are probably the epitome of well respected people in our community. I don't know if that's a fair statement, but to some degree, right? Like they're literally [00:15:00] saving lives.

And even the, the cool thing about this book too was like, he shared all of it. He shared about his brokenness as a doctor, his shortcomings, like talked about really Challenging things that most people, if they were still a doctor today, wouldn't have the courage probably to say, but he was, he was done, right?

Like he was dying. And so he wrote this book, literally when he finally realized that the cancer is back, he put the last bit of energy left in his life. And, uh, and it was special too, cause he had just had a baby, like him and his wife, and he Anyways, I'm sharing the whole book now, but definitely worth a read.

Um, but yeah, that, that concept of kind of, the other thing I'm, I'm thinking as you're sharing, I don't know if you remember if you were at the sermon where Matt did on the evening of February, like really, really explained the gospel really well and talked about, you know, just how, how dead we are in our own sin and how the spirit needs to move in our hearts.

And so like, there is that piece of it. Right. And I guess it's the old, uh, you know,

Kyle: Yeah. I had a conversation with a guy actually listens a couple of weeks ago about this, about Um, he was, he was thinking there was actually another way, not [00:16:00] Armenianism, not

Gary: Calvinism. Oh, he thought there was a third way.

Yeah, I'm sure there is.

Kyle: Um, yeah. And, and, and basically trying to figure it out. Uh, and I didn't have, I don't have the answers, but it's, yeah.

Gary: The thing is, so I'm, I'm just, I was reading through the book of John the other day in the morning and then like, there's like, you can literally just like, I, cause I, Everything I read, I read through the lens of like even our conversations here in the Bible, and I'm reading through the lens of all the people that I know that have such a strong opinion based on one side or the other.

Right. And, uh, uh, Like for instance, on, on, uh, you know, I mean, I, I don't, I hate the term Armenian Calvinism because there's just such stereotyping. I'm having

Kyle: our Salvation Army pastor buddy coming on. Okay, great. That'll be great. Armenian. Yeah.

Gary: Is he in Armenia? Not by choice anyways. Um, the, uh, the, uh, he, he will be entertaining.

Um, but I think that there again, it's like, if you're worried about those things, you don't even get it. Like, why would you be worried about that? Like, where's like, [00:17:00] Well, I mean. Other than in the sense of like, yeah, you would worry about what are your children being taught or what are being taught, but like, like if you really, if you're not a believer, like, yeah, it's not the issue.

Kyle: And also when you're, um, but I think it is a stumbling block for a lot of people where they feel stuck in that, stuck in that spot, but ultimately. Stuck in a dark spot.

Gary: Yeah. It's really sad. You're not

Kyle: saved. Uh, the reason you're not saved is because you don't want Jesus. Yeah. There's no excuse.

Gary: Yeah.

Another thing I put in the show notes is that, um, Saudi Arabia, I don't know if you saw that. I did. I have a

Kyle: question before Saudi Arabia. Oh, go ahead. Were you relaxed? Did you relax in Mexico? Like, was it good? You live a pretty busy life. You have a lot of kids. Like, did you come back and feel more energized?

Does Marie feel better? Or was it just like, eh?

Gary: I like the heat. I mean, I don't know. Did I relax? I don't. What's relax? Yeah. What is that? I don't know. I don't have an answer to that. Sorry. Okay. Go to Saudi Arabia. Oh, yeah. So I was, uh, speaking with some people, uh, and listening to them, uh, talk, and there was a couple there and it was just fascinating story.

It just made me think of our culture [00:18:00] there again of like, well, back to my briefcase, right? Because like, as I came into the podcast today, I said to Kyle, uh, I bank at TD Bank, one of the many banks that I do business with. And I've been with TD my whole life. Like my dad set up an account when I was a little kid there.

And, um, I got a letter from TD today. So I don't know if I've shared this in the podcast. So I got my briefcase back. So that's why we're still the briefcase. Well, I didn't get it back, but I got all the stuff back or I thought I did. Um, This happened like in November, let's say, and now we're in February.

Um, but all of a sudden in January, my bookkeeper was doing bank rec and it turned out that the criminals had kept some of the cheques. And so they had written two fraudulent cheques. They did a test one for about three grand. That went through like, you know, December 16th. And then on December And I mean, fraudulent, like they fake the signature, put a fancy stamp on the line and just put it into their own account, even with the wrong name or whatever.

Right. And, um, I probably cashed it, just cash. Maybe, but there would have been a five. No, there would have been a five day hold. Like they for sure would have put a five day hold on it [00:19:00] because the second one in this, it was for a 20, 000. And I just got a letter today saying I'm not getting any of the money back because I didn't keep control of my checks, but it wasn't like the checks.

I didn't sign the checks. It's not like I had pre signed checks or something laying around blank. Right.

Kyle: I, I had that before I went to the cops. Yeah?

Gary: Yeah. Okay. Okay. I got to find the officer that actually did the initial investigation and talk to him about it. In

Kyle: Saudi Arabia, you get your hand chopped off.

Gary: Yeah. That's where I was going with that. They have a square and I don't know if they still do. There's, there again, there's way more intelligence. You can

Kyle: leave your wallet and gold watch. Still? Oh yeah. Still? Okay.

Gary: It is like, you do not. Okay. You do not steal. Anyways, this guy, uh, who was at the resort was 50 some years old, I'm guessing, maybe early 60s.

And in the 80s and 90s, he was working in Saudi Arabia as a young man. And he said that it was, there was a square chop chop square. It was called. By the, whatever, maybe everybody, I don't know. And, uh, he said he was, he remembers going down there on his first day, and depending on your crime, depending on what they chopped off your body, whether your head or your hand or your foot, and, uh, he said [00:20:00] he was like a, the only white guy around there.

They always grabbed the westerners, they drug them right to the front and made them watch the whole thing. Life changing. So, and it was fascinating because it was another couple, me just mostly eavesdropping, but just kind of like being part of the conversation, older couple from the US, these two couples, older, all the older listeners now are pissed off because I said the 50s and 60s, you're not old.

You're just barely ahead of me. Um, it's just a relative term. It means nothing. It's from whoever the speaker is. But anyways, the, uh, it was interesting. They, uh, they were having this debate, not Christians having this debate kind of about, Oh, Perspective and like, Oh, that sounds really awful. Yeah. But it seemed like you would be a real deterrent.

And it was just like, it's fascinating how people process. Yeah.

Kyle: I mean, it is a real big thing. Like when there's statistics that show when they got rid of the death penalty. Um, in some of the U S States, the amount of murder convictions went up, uh, because people, um, juries wouldn't be like, they knew they were, um, do you think that there was

Gary: more people that got [00:21:00] falsely convicted?

Kyle: I'm not sure, but they also, at the same time, um, when the, um, amount of murders went up too, like they, when, when the consequence was the death penalty, murders were, um, lower and there is a direct correlation to consequence to the crime. Anybody that parrots realizes that. Yeah, but not the government. I mean, look at Canada.

There's no, like, there's a, I posted it on my story a couple of weeks ago, there was some guy that raped some girls, whatever, and he got like, like a one year in jail or something else like that. Well, you're not, like, people know that you're not going to get in trouble. You know, it's, it's, it is, it is. The bizarre

Gary: part is, is that, you know, that you get in more trouble for the retribution.

That if you actually meted out some kind of justice, or even in my case with my whole thing, if I, if I, and I know who the guy is, if I went and found him now and did something and kind of, Hey, you need to pay the price or you need, I need my, I want my 20 money back or whatever, you, I know that's how screwed up we are.

I know that I'll, I'll face the brunt of that. Right. And so it's just like, at that point you have a society that, uh. But if you have a society that doesn't,

Kyle: The [00:22:00] government or whatever, that doesn't do justice, people will start taking justice in their own hands as well. Like it increases the amount of people that are like, okay, you're not going to actually put a guy in jail.

Like I'm going to go do it myself. Like it, it, it motivates people to like, I, you know, people want justice. Justice is important.

Gary: It's definitely important for the fabric of a society, right? And definitely, I mean, most of us would agree that to some degree, the wheels are falling off and in our society, which brings me to another interesting point because it'll be, uh, this will be the day of actually is, yeah, this podcast will come out on the day when, if you are in listening to this and you're in Chilliwack, there is a school board, uh, by election because the lady that, uh, was the school board person got elected, uh, provincially.

So, um, if you care about that. The fabric of our society in Chilliwack and do your homework and do some digging on who you should vote for and, and go vote, do your civic duty. Literally people died. And that was another thought that came, the whole, because we're, you have another show note about the flag and the anthem and the, at the hockey games, and it all [00:23:00] tied into like the people getting their head blown off in the trenches.

Like, what were they fighting for? They were fighting for freedom. And I mean, that term has been overused and it's been a point of. Conflict, but it shouldn't like we do anybody no matter what end of the political spectrum Would agree that as a general rule in canada. We have a lot of freedom, right? Yes, and we should appreciate that you have the freedom to basically do all kinds of weird things that you probably shouldn't but I mean Whatever like yes, so

Kyle: yeah

Gary: anyways that reminds

Kyle: me.

There's a um, uh victor orban Um, he was on an interview a couple weeks ago. He's a um, I think it's I can't remember one of the, um, European countries, um, where he's the president of, and, uh, he was talking about, um, that people in West, they did a big survey in Europe and people in Western Europe got asked, do you think your kids lives are going to be better than your own lives?

And in Western Europe, they said, no, our kids lives are going to be worse. And in Eastern Europe, they, they voted mostly that their kids lives are going to be better. And his reasoning for that was in the Eastern Europe, they, they've still felt communism. He [00:24:00] himself was in communism himself. And it's like, this is awful.

Like, I don't want this. And so they're working hard to make it different and better. And they are. And in Western Europe, they've had, you know, three, four generations of, of peace, mind you, the war, but not communism. Um, and most

Gary: of the people now, like the boomers alive were. Yes. Babies are not even born, right?

Exactly. That would be fair, right? That's right. Yeah. Most are pre 50 now at this point because we're in 19, uh, 20 years. And so

Kyle: they don't know what they're fighting for. They don't know, they don't know what they have. No. Um, and it's not being taught. It's actually the opposite is being taught. I mean, so.

In Western Europe, do you think the, do you think that there's not enough history being taught anymore? Not enough history. No, not at all. I mean, most of my family in Holland, uh, would be like, they would have vote for Kamala, Kamala. Like they're, they're socialists. Like they don't believe in free speech.

They don't, they don't, um. You know, it's

Gary: just, I, that I found, I don't know how you found your experience at our school that we grew up in, but I felt like they did an amazing job with history and, and especially like, we just really learned about the world wars. We learned about, I thought social studies [00:25:00] 11 was awesome.

I, yeah, I thought we had

anyways, that was, uh. That was the Mexico trip. So

Kyle: anyways. The, um, we'll go to chapter three of gentle and lowly. Um, the title of the chapter is the happiness of Christ. So we're going through the book, gentle and lowly, uh, the heart of Christ for sinners and sufferers one chapter a week. Uh, Marie, Gary's wife messaged the group yesterday and said, 10 minutes, too long, skipping that part.

Fair. On the flip side, I do also think that if we were reading about how angry God is at us, people wouldn't skip through it forward as much because people don't like hearing about the love of Jesus.

Gary: I don't think it's that. I think that Marie figures that people should just read the book themselves and that us reading the book to them is hard to listen to compared to the, uh, banter about Chop Chop Square.

But we digress. We'll keep it very short. I always have a one point, but I'll let you make your point first.

Kyle: Okay. I'll start with. It started. So first of all, the, the, um, [00:26:00] the title is The Happiness of Christ. Mm-hmm . Which Christ being happy would've been, uh, Olta growing up that would've been, you can't call Christ Happy.

Um, that would've been, uh, irreverent or irreverent or something, but

Gary: Okay. Okay.

Kyle: Thomas Goodwin wrote that. Christ's,

Gary: but can I interrupt? Yes. We would've been taught as kids that, um, Jesus on Earth would've ex expressed all emotion that all people, that any person would, would not have.

Kyle: Uh, they might've said that, but they still wouldn't have talked about the joy.

But they wouldn't have talked about, about him actually being that way. Because of omission

Gary: more,

Kyle: you know, like you only talk about one side of Christ, which is what this book actually talks about a bunch as well. Like, uh, we only focus on one side. Okay. Sorry

Gary: to interrupt. I just, okay.

Kyle: Um, Thomas Goodwin wrote that Christ's own joy, comfort, happiness, and glory are increased and enlarged by, now how would you finish that sentence?

Gary: Say it one more time. Joy. Joy.

Kyle: Christ's own joy, comfort, happiness, and glory are increased and enlarged by, I

Gary: think the book says, by us coming to him with our [00:27:00] problems.

Kyle: Yes, but how did you finish that sentence? Did you think about it before you came to the, found the answer? I wrote, when we enjoy him, so that, um, his answer is Goodwin completes the sentence like this.

Christ's own joy, comfort, happiness, and glory are increased and enlarged by his showing grace and mercy and pardoning, relieving, and comforting his members here on earth, Christians. And he explains it with a story. So I'll read the story. It's kind of interesting. A compassionate doctor has traveled deep into the jungle to provide medical care to a primitive tribe afflicted with a contagious disease.

He has had his medical equipment flown in. He has correctly diagnosed the problem. The antibiotics are prepared and available, and he is independently wealthy and has no need of any kind of financial compensation. But as he seeks to provide care, the afflicted refuse. They want to take care of themselves.

They want to heal on their own terms. Finally, a few brave young men step forward to receive the care being freely provided. What does the doctor feel? [00:28:00] Joy. His joy increases to the degree that the sick come to him for help and healing. It's the whole reason he came. How much more if we If the diseased are not strangers of his own family, so with us and so with Christ, he does not get flustered and frustrated when we come to him for fresh forgiveness, for a renewed pardon, with distress and need for emptiness.

That's the whole point. It's what he came to heal. He went down into the horror of death and plunged out through the other side in order to provide a limited Limitless supply, not limited, limitless supply of mercy and grace to his people. I love that story, because I think it's a good illustration of how we often, you know, we know that God offers us forgiveness, but then we see our own sin in our lives, and we're like, we hide it from people, and we, Hide it from Christ and we just like, don't pray, you know, we, we, we go in like we shut down and, and don't go, which shows that we don't really believe in, in what he's offering us.

Gary: Yeah. So I, I wrote just kind of [00:29:00] like a summary of what I thought, start me a chapter kind of tagging on to that. So I put basically we. Like we as humans get frustrated with constant screw ups from people, or at least most, I for sure do, uh, very impatient, just quickly frustrated, uh, we get, we are tired, um, and then I just put, we often just look at the gospel obviously through our human lens because we're human and, um, I think we just pervert it and we take it and we, and so that's what I love about even this chapter where it just quotes verses, right?

Um, and I, and I won't read them all because I think those that are really care about this book will buy it and follow along and, and learn something from it. But I just feel like. Um, similar to what you're saying. And the part that really stood out to me is we hide, we hide, we hide, we screw up. We hide. We feel like it's the old penalty box thing.

We feel like we got to do some time in the penalty box. And boy, does, is Satan love that one? You know, you go do something awful and rather than just cry out to God for help or repent and feel his mercy, we just say, Oh, no.

Kyle: What you're essentially saying when you do that, or when we do that, when I do that is Christ's suffering wasn't enough that when he said it is finished, he didn't really [00:30:00] mean it.

He also wants you to like. You know,

Gary: well, there again, our, our, our forgiveness is so limited. Like we are so limited in our mercy, like. You know, we have all kinds of sayings for it, right? Like three strikes, you're out or, you know, screw me once, shame on you. Screw me twice, shame on me. Yeah. Like the whole idea of like turning the other cheek, like those are like, it's literally, we have sermons preached on it, but we practically, it's probably not explained sometimes as well as it could, what that really means.

Right. So. It says here, when we hold

Kyle: back lurking in the shadows, fearful and failing, we miss out not only on our own increased comfort, but on Christ's increased comfort. He lives for this. This is what he loves to do. His joy in our eyes and. Fall together is this biblical, but he says consider Hebrews 12 there Jesus is called the founder and perfecter of our faith who for the joy that was set before him endured that cross Despising the shaman and seated on the right hand of the throne of God for the joy what joy What was waiting for Jesus on the other side of the cross the joy of seeing his [00:31:00] people forgiven which I think is just Awesome.

But you know, later he talks about that this is also, um, you need to qualify for the joy, that you need to qualify for this forgiveness. And uh, and so it's not for everyone. And so, um, he said, this is who he says qualifies. He wants us to draw strength from his love, but only the ones qualified to do that are sinners in need of undeserved love.

And so if you don't identify as a sinner, um, and an undeserved love, and it's not for you. And it reminds me of, um, the Lord's supper or, um, what do you call that? Um, communion. Yeah. Um, growing up, I kind of thought the people that attended communion were the good, the good people. And, um, the, uh, people that didn't attend communion were the bad people.

It's actually the opposite. If you go up and attend communion, you're confessing that [00:32:00] you are bad. And that you were a sinner in need of a savior. And you remembering what Jesus did. And when you're staying in your pew, you're confessing, I don't actually need help. I don't actually need Christ.

Gary: And I feel like there's probably not enough, um, in all churches.

I feel like there's not enough of, um, Christians just really sharing their, their sinfulness and their, that's why it's very important to share that. Right. For Christians to share that. Yeah. Like pretty, uh, pretty important anyways. Great chapter.

Kyle: Interviewed, uh, Mike Shewton last week. Okay. So that will come out this Saturday.

Gary: Okay.

Kyle: Really, really, uh, awesome conversation. Did you know him pretty well before that or not? No. Okay.

Gary: No.

Kyle: No. So we didn't talk a lot about ARPA and, and the work that he does, but more, um, the motivation of, of what's important in doing that work. And is it just spewing truth or how do we have, how

Gary: do we?

He's a

Kyle: great guy.

Gary: Love

Kyle: and

Gary: truth. And he is winsome.

Kyle: Yes, he is. And

Gary: he's winsome and he is, uh, yeah, [00:33:00] he's, he's, uh,

Kyle: Yeah, it was, it was, I really enjoyed our chat. He's very well spoken. And we chatted about, um, his son. Okay, my buddy Marcus. Yeah, Marcus who passed and, uh, how his, his response to that and his son's response to that, which I was just floored by.

Gary: Yeah, we miss him. I was just floored by. We miss him. Most often at our house, he's still talked about all the time. Yeah. What do you miss about him? Um. Yeah. He was just an amazing young man. Right. And I think it's, well, it's probably even connected to the book I read, um, because I walked alongside Marcus basically right, right until the day he died.

And it was like, got to know him really well. And he spoke truth to me, which I don't know if I shared that on the podcast, but like, yeah. When you have an 18 year old or whatever, you know, the day before he dies tell you, Hey, like be a better dad, play with your kids, hang out with these guys, do this, like just a pointed word as he's dying, um, sticks with you and, uh, and because yeah, we just had a great [00:34:00] relationship.

He was entrepreneurial. Yeah. So like did he care? Yeah. So he was very entrepreneurial. And so he and I were, yeah, in a lot of ways, kindred spirits. And it's funny cause like he looked at me, I'm sure as an old man. Like he never called me an old man, but like I know when I was 18 and saw a guy that was 40, he was an old man.

And, uh, but Marie always makes fun of me because I always like try to, like, I hang out with these guys that are 18 or 20 or 24. I'm like, oh yeah, we're all hanging out. Us young guys are all, no, like you're a geezer man, you're an old man trying to live your youth. But, but still have that, like we had that whole idea of like, he would run business ideas by me.

He started a little landscaping thing and I'm sure Mike shared all that. So I won't share the whole podcast, but, um, he cared for our kids really well. And like even Kingston, who's now, uh, five, like Marcus spent a lot of time in our house in 2020, uh, right when, when Kingston came and there's lots of pictures of him on his lap.

And so, yeah, just a big part of our family. And, and I think even the most beautiful thing is, well, first of all, that he's, was a Christian. Um. And then he had such strong faith and there again, like just a lot of people [00:35:00] would ask a lot of questions and, and I'm sure he asked questions and stuff, but he sorted it out with the Lord and he, and he knew that, uh, it was God's plan.

And so, I don't know, I'd be curious to

Kyle: hear how

Gary: Mike shares it, but

Kyle: Often, when people go through suffering, we have a very human response to it that's not Christ like. When we get angry, or we turn to alcohol, or whatever the thing is, like there's a million different things that we respond to it. And from what Mike shared, there wasn't a lot of that.

Um, there was a lot of just really deep faith and being intentional. He talks about that being a gift. So intentional.

Gary: So intentional.

Kyle: And it would have. Yeah. But he talks about that being a, yeah. So anyways, this Saturday. Excited to hear that. Yeah. Excited to hear that. It's a great. Mike and

Gary: Jen are beautiful people and yeah, their buddy, uh, their buddy Dirk, uh, oldest boy is, is, is partners with me in the, in the Rosedale, uh, endeavor.

So good [00:36:00] people.

Kyle: Okay, so this is, um, how long are we at

Gary: here? Do we, are we going here? Yeah. Want one more thing though? We, we, Maggie here, then we'll have into

Kyle: overtime. So, okay. One more thing though. Uh, this, um, next week, Monday, March 3rd, you are doing a buyer's event with, uh, Julius. Yeah. A little real

Gary: estate event for those that are in chill rock.

And you can come, even if you've bought four houses and just wanna come out and hang out. Uh, because we're going to have, you have to register if you go to my Facebook or Instagram page or Julius Maljarz's Instagram page, probably be the easiest, or you can text me and I can send you the link and only because we're going to have food and drinks and, and, uh, stuff.

So we want to kind of have a rough idea how many people are coming and it's going to be in Chilliwack and, uh, and for those young people that want to come and just kind of hear about the process and how that looks or ask real estate questions. Um, like I said, so what's the goal of the evening? What do you hope to move out?

Uh, entertain. Entertain. That's all about entertain. Yeah. No, it's uh, the goal would be for people to have people that have like people know that Yeah, you gotta have a down payment and buy a place That would probably be like for sure people's understanding but they might not know about you [00:37:00] know That you get financing first that you there's a whole process before you even go look at a house There's other steps that are wise to take so you don't waste people's time your own realtors people that have houses for sale like i'm and i've been i'm But you also have questions of like,

Kyle: should you buy right now?

Where should you buy? Yeah, we'll get

Gary: in those weeds. I mean, be careful. Try not to be a prophet because that'll get you in trouble when you're on the human being tour. But yeah, definitely a bit of discussion of, hey, what to buy, where to buy, different options, whether you should buy with your family. Some people, I've had lots of people bring it up in, uh, in discussion since, oh yeah, it's so funny.

I don't think people listen to this thing, right? And then all of a sudden I'm having lunch with some random guy and he's saying, yeah, well, I know you didn't. I said it wasn't a good idea on the podcast, but uh, yeah, I bought with my family and so far. We haven't killed each other. So you're an idiot. No, he didn't say that, but he's just like, it's funny.

So that's that's this one day in money. Uh

Kyle: text julius604 845 75 81 and he'll send you the link to sign up for that And he is a

Gary: first time buyer specialist because uh, he is a first time buyer. He is a first time buyer [00:38:00] We're heading

Kyle: into overtime guys. Thanks for listening. Have a great week. And uh, hope you didn't say anything

Gary: offensive

‍

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