Advent - Embracing Unexpected Gifts
God's primary concern is not necessarily your happiness. There's something greater than your happiness. Welcome to The Uncut Podcast. I'm pastor Luke.
Cameron:And I'm pastor Cameron.
Luke:And this is The Uncut Podcast where we have honest uncut conversations about faith, life, and ministry. Mhmm. Welcome back, everybody. It is thoroughly December
Cameron:at this point. December. Very December. The snow is real. Snow is real.
Luke:Cold is real.
Cameron:Christmas is, if you listen to our last episode
Luke:Mhmm.
Cameron:Is not here But it's coming. But it's coming. That is the ultimate theme of Advent, which is what we're talking about here. These, last episode and today's episode and probably some episodes here in the future Mhmm. Is the theme of Advent and its focus on waiting Yep.
Cameron:On waiting for the Lord. Mhmm. If you didn't listen to last week's episode, we encourage you to do that. We talked a little bit about how
Luke:Just what Advent is in general.
Cameron:How it's not just a
Luke:Fancy way of saying Christmas?
Cameron:Right. Or, once a year celebration Mhmm. Or observance. What that Advent is really, I think, clearly a major theme of all of scripture. Mhmm.
Cameron:Always waiting on the Lord Yep. To do something, to move, to bring deliverance, to I mean, when we preach when we preach in Exodus in 2025, it could be an Advent.
Luke:It could be. There's so much waiting in Exodus.
Cameron:Yeah. Waiting for the Lord to deliver. Yep. Waiting with hope and anticipation and expectation. And then similar to our last episode where we talked about, like, the darkness and the waiting.
Cameron:Yep. There's a lot of darkness in the waiting Mhmm. Of exodus as the people were, like, waiting for the promised land Mhmm. Waiting to get to the place, waiting for the Lord's deliverance, but also just freaking complaining about it the entire time. Yep.
Cameron:Like, this is miserable, lord. We would rather go back to captivity Yeah. Than wait like this any longer.
Luke:Yeah. It's not supposed to be funny, but sometimes in the Exodus story, it is just comical how how much they wanna go back to being slaves for some reason. Yeah. Yeah. They're case study in a generation that did not wanna wait very well
Cameron:Mhmm.
Luke:And the consequences of that.
Cameron:Yeah. Or really how how enchanted and in love we become to being in bondage. We love slavery.
Luke:It's comfortable.
Cameron:Yeah. Well, we are not we were never made to be masters.
Luke:Mhmm.
Cameron:You know, we're we are creatures. Mhmm. We are not creators. Mhmm. And so we were always meant to be in service to or under the lordship of another.
Cameron:So, yeah, lots of themes of Advent and waiting and Exodus and beyond and all the biblical stories. But we had talked a little bit about last episode about maybe a situation where we were, waiting on the Lord, and you shared a little bit from your personal experience. And I was thought was a really good application.
Luke:Yeah. Well, I wanted to hear from you on your side where you had, where you've had to wait and, where the Lord kind of how the Lord ministered to you in that waiting.
Cameron:Mhmm.
Luke:And then maybe see where some of those themes take us into our larger conversation.
Cameron:Yeah. So I would say that probably the time that waiting on the Lord was most pronounced in my life. And this would be, I would have to say, in our life because my wife is included, is when we first got married Mhmm. And we wanted to become parents, and we felt like the lord early on, not just in our marriage, but early on in life for both of us. We both felt really strongly that the lord had, for lack of a better term, put parenting in our hearts like that we were meant to be a father and a mother to a child or children.
Cameron:And so we which made waiting for that so difficult.
Luke:Yeah. Because it felt like it was something from the Lord.
Cameron:It felt like it was something from the Lord, and we felt like, we felt like there's no way, yeah, there's no way, Lord, that you put this in our hearts. But then are saying no Right. In the circumstance Mhmm. Or in, like, the reality. So we we we started to try to get pregnant probably 3 months after we were married.
Cameron:3 or 4 months after we were married. And, you know, didn't know what it was gonna if it was how quickly we would get pregnant or not. We had no idea. Yeah. So turns out we, we never were gonna be able we never were gonna experience that.
Cameron:And so about 7 years into trying,
Luke:we as 7 years is a long time, Cam.
Cameron:7 years is a long time.
Luke:It's a long time.
Cameron:Yeah. Very biblical number.
Luke:Yes. Very biblical number. But, like, I just wanted to pause because I know I've heard this story, but I was just again, I was just like, 7 years is a long time Yes. Yeah. To get a no an answer of a no or what feels like a no.
Cameron:Yep. Yep. You know, and in that time, like, man, we tried just about every way. Mhmm. Just about.
Cameron:Not every way.
Luke:Right.
Cameron:But just about every way to kind of, you know
Luke:Assist nature?
Cameron:Yes. Yeah. And, you know, we probably one of our last times where we were getting a fertility treatment, Sherry in particular heard the Lord say to her, in a really clear way, you need to stop. Let me do this my way. And we didn't really know what that meant.
Cameron:I mean, we know what it meant. It meant stop.
Luke:Yeah. Right.
Cameron:But, like We didn't know what was next.
Luke:What was it what was it look like to let God do it his way? Right.
Cameron:And so we did. We stopped all fertility treatments. But what we probably stopped doing the most was worrying about it. We stopped letting it be the one of the main orienting, like, situations of our life. Yeah.
Cameron:We weren't, we were, we stopped being obsessive about it. We stopped letting it dictate our mood, our moods. We stopped letting it become the thing that we were, like, making decisions off of. Like, we're not gonna do this because what if we get pregnant or we're not gonna go here or we're not gonna make these types of life decisions because we're trying to have a family and, you know, can't move here, can't buy that house, can't, you know, whatever. Mhmm.
Cameron:We stopped just letting it. We stopped it it from becoming that that central focus of our life. Mhmm. And there was a part of it that was where we believed the Lord. We believed that in some way, he was gonna do.
Cameron:He was gonna fulfill that desire of our heart. Mhmm. But in other ways, we were like, well, maybe what the Lord is gonna do is to replace our desire. Like, maybe it wasn't so much that he was gonna fulfill the desire as he was gonna replace the desire. Like, we're no longer gonna have the desire to be parents like we once had.
Cameron:And we had kind of accepted that that was likely gonna be the reality. And so we kind of started praying that the Lord would make us holy to the task Mhmm. Or the calling, of whatever it was that he had for us in replacement of that dream, whether and whether or not that dream was our own or whether it was from him or not. You know? In that whole time period, there was kind of one, one scripture in particular that kind of, like, kept me specifically tethered to the promise of God.
Cameron:And like God's because, you know, we talked last episode about what do we do in the waiting Mhmm. And how do we wait well Yeah. And how do we wait poorly? And and how are we, like, conducting ourselves in the waiting? Nope.
Cameron:And I don't like, I'm not trying to draw any parallels between Abraham and Sarah and Cameron and Sherry. It's not it. Sure.
Luke:Yeah. Yeah.
Cameron:But it just happens to be that they also were infernal and Yeah. Whatever we need.
Luke:Patriarch of a nation.
Cameron:No. We get it. Right. Yeah. But in, Romans chapter 4, where Paul is talking about Abraham being justified through his faith, he says this.
Cameron:He says, against all hope, Abraham in hope believed, and so became the father of many nations. Just just as it had been said to him, so shall your offspring be. Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead since he was about a 100 years old, and that Sarah's womb was also dead. Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had the power to do what he promised. This is why it was credited to him as righteousness.
Cameron:So for us, the waiting became a, an act, kind of an act of the development of our faith in, like, letting the Lord persuade us towards his faithfulness, believing that, no, this is something that the lord put in our hearts. And that the word that the lord gave to Sherry, let me do this my way, really was him being like, no. There I have a way Mhmm. That I am going to do this. And, don't waver through unbelief regarding my promise, but be strengthened in your faith and give glory to me being fully persuaded that I have the power to do, what I have promised.
Cameron:Mhmm. And so it was really at that time where we were like, okay, lord. We we release it. Mhmm. We release control of it.
Cameron:Mhmm. We release ownership over it. We release any sense of, like, our own expectation of what it's gonna look like or how it's gonna happen or what it's gonna be, and we fully surrender our we fully surrender this thing to you, we're gonna pursue holiness to Jesus Mhmm. And trust that when the time is right, this will become you know, that promise will be fulfilled. Yep.
Cameron:I wish I was a little bit more clear about, like, the timeline between then and, and when we became became parents. Mhmm. But it was not we're not talking years. Mhmm.
Luke:We're
Cameron:talking months. It was like it was like months where we were finally like, okay. We're done. Mhmm. We're done.
Cameron:Done fighting this. Right. Then trying to do this on our own. And then it was like it would must have been just a couple months later.
Luke:But not even a pregnancy?
Cameron:No. Not even a pregnancy. Yeah. No. We weren't pregnant, that we were, like, just kind of literally just kinda fell into an adoption process Mhmm.
Cameron:For our, who is now our oldest son, Noah. Mhmm. And, it became clear at that moment like, oh, okay. If we had gotten pregnant Mhmm. Had our own kits, we would not have bed in the situation that we are in now Yep.
Cameron:That would have allowed us or placed us in a position to be where the connections that were made, you know, without going too much in the story about how we came, how we came to adopt Noah, There was some some personal connections made to, Noah's birth mom that were like like, oh, yeah. No. I know this couple over here Mhmm. Who would be willing to adopt. And then there was, like, a, like, a telephone game of connections that was made to Noah's birth mom.
Cameron:Yep. And then that got that's how the whole thing happened. And so it was, without us being in that situation of childless but wanting children Yep. Those connections would have been wouldn't have been made, and we wouldn't have we wouldn't have Noah today. And so there it began to be clear that the lord was positioning was positioning us, it seemed to us, even to this day still seems to us, positioning us to be prepared or to be, like, available to be Noah's mom and dad.
Cameron:Mhmm. And, and then after that, you know, it's like we had Noah, and we were, he was 2, 3 ish. Mhmm. And then we went from 1 child to 4 children in 6 months Mhmm. Through foster care and adoption.
Cameron:And then another 18 months later, a 5th child Mhmm. Which is where we said, okay, lord. We get it. You can you provide children. We gotta slow down.
Cameron:Thank you. Yeah. So Can we can we pause the promise, please? Yeah. And, so we we waited for a long time.
Cameron:Mhmm. And then it was like, what what the waiting the waiting was let me say this. It's like we were waiting in our own strength. And it feels like we, in some ways, weren't necessarily waiting on God, but we're just waiting was just waiting for it to happen.
Luke:Yeah. Mhmm. Yeah. I see what you like, that's a small distinction there. Yeah.
Luke:But, like, just like waiting for, like well, this is a thing that's just gonna happen, like, on its own natural consequences. It'll work itself out Yeah. Versus God's the one who's going to make this happen.
Cameron:Yes. Right? We weren't our waiting wasn't with kind of an expectation of God's faithfulness. It was what it was it was more of like a expectation of, well, we gotta get it right at some point. Yeah.
Cameron:It's gotta happen at some point. Mhmm. Right? Because there was no biological reason why we couldn't. Like, we had every test you could possibly have.
Cameron:Yeah. Like, there was a 0 there is was zero biological explanation for why we couldn't conceive. And, in fact, the doctor, our fertility doctor, guaranteed us conception. Wow. He was like, I've seen people with way worse numbers than these.
Cameron:We're gonna get you pregnant. Talk about Foot and mouth. Talk about hubris
Luke:Yeah.
Cameron:Of, like, the lord being like, listen, bro. You don't control life. Yeah. You don't control life. I do.
Cameron:That's wild. Yeah. So, yeah. It's interesting. It was interesting.
Cameron:Mhmm. Somewhat of a god complex there. Oh, yeah. But, so, yeah, there was a that, you know, in in our waiting, it wasn't necessarily like we were, waiting in expectation or anticipation of god Mhmm. Miraculously showing up or intervening or, but we're more, like, just twiddling the thumbs Mhmm.
Cameron:Type of thing.
Luke:So what was the shift in your heart that had to happen then? Like
Cameron:You know, I think it it was there was 2 types of things that I think happened. 1, it was the really clear word from the Lord to Sherry Mhmm. Which was very impactful for us because of its clarity and because of her confidence in it.
Luke:Yeah.
Cameron:So she was not she's not ever been like, the Lord told me this very clearly
Luke:Right.
Cameron:Type of so when she did say that, I'm like, got it. Believe you. Yep. Believe it. Mhmm.
Cameron:So there was that. If I had to be honest, I would say that the other part of it was like, the other part of it was like, fine. I don't wanna be a father then. There was a little bit of like obstinacy Yeah. Or like rebellion Mhmm.
Cameron:In the waiting. Like, fine. I'll just go back to captivity. I I'm just gonna go back to slavery then. Whatever.
Cameron:Yep. Like, I tried. I waited. Like, what else do you want me to do? So I would say that that's really only on reflection.
Cameron:Mhmm. That that was probably you know, here we are, you know, 13 years later. And I would say that that was probably there there was a, there was a sliver of that there. There was a portion of that there. Looking back on it with maybe a little bit more generous interpretation of where we were, we were also, like, at the point where we recognized that we were making an idol out of a child that we didn't even have.
Cameron:Mhmm. Like, we're just chasing after it, and it was the key to our happiness.
Luke:Yeah.
Cameron:And we thought we knew what was going to make us happy.
Luke:Mhmm.
Cameron:We thought we knew what was gonna be the silver bullet of happiness. Yep. Yep. And what we, I think, began to recognize is that is that god is not inclined to give us the things that make us happy, until we are, inclined to have only his holiness.
Luke:Yeah.
Cameron:Yep. And so when we chase after happiness in to the detriment of our holiness, then we get neither. We get neither what we get we don't get what makes us happy, and we don't become more holy when we chase after the happy thing.
Luke:Yep.
Cameron:But when we chase after and fully pursue, okay, Lord, Happiness is not my goal. I desire only to be conformed to the image and likeness of your son, to be consecrated in use for you in this world and in ministry and in life. Here I am.
Luke:Yep.
Cameron:Then when that consecration happens, what, like then he gives us the desires of our hearts. Yeah. Delight yourself Mhmm. In the Lord.
Luke:Yeah.
Cameron:And he will give you the desires of your heart. Right? It's not like he will give you the desires of your heart. And then when you're happy with all the things that you have, then you will delight in the one who has given it. Right.
Cameron:Happens the opposite way, or at least that's the way that it happened for us.
Luke:Yeah. Well, god's not a cosmic vending machine.
Cameron:Right. And so, and so I think we had to come to the point of being like, yeah, this is just something that is this is just something that we're chasing for our happiness. We're not sure that we that it's functioning as a part of, like, our pursuit of holiness. Yeah. So that's how we when we had to let it go.
Cameron:And when we did, then the lord showed up. Yeah. Interestingly enough, I will say that it is in parenting Mhmm. Where god has done the most work in me towards holiness. It's like I we are pursuing him in holiness.
Cameron:He gave us what we thought was gonna make us happy, children. Yep. And in the process of having children, he used that experience Mhmm. To really sanctify, purify, burn out Yep. Unholiness in us Yeah.
Cameron:In the midst of being parents Mhmm. Even now the current time, present day, like parenting is the it it is the purifying fire of my life. It's the crucible. It is the it yeah. Parenting is the crucible of my life.
Cameron:Yeah. It's not for everyone. Mhmm. Other people, their jobs Right. Is the crucible of their life.
Cameron:Their finances, the crucible. Their health, the crucible of their life. Their merits, the crucible of their life. For us, it's parenting. Yep.
Cameron:Like, parenting is the crucible of our life. I think once again Mhmm. So the lord can fully establish himself Yeah. As lord Mhmm. Over our kids.
Cameron:Yeah. Because had our parenting experience been different Smooth. I can see us making an idol
Luke:Mhmm.
Cameron:Out of it. An idol out of being a father. An idol out of being a mother. Yeah. But as it stands, we're like, lord, we need you.
Cameron:Oh, we need you. Every hour we need you. Yeah. And so, Yeah. Yeah.
Luke:It's crazy how so much striving. It's like we can we can expend ourselves in so much striving, and then it it so often just comes when we finally commit to stop striving
Cameron:Mhmm.
Luke:In our own power. Mhmm. There was, there was a clip that I saw today that just hit me over the head because I was so true, from the late great Tim Keller.
Cameron:Mhmm.
Luke:And it was a sermon clip of his. And he was I won't go through, like, the whole thing, but his point was is if you find someone and they're just generally, like, you know, they either can't forgive themselves or they're, like, living in regret or they're just absolutely, like, miserable. They're constantly sinking down into this mire. He's like, if you look deep enough, what you will find is you will find that they have a hope that has been unfulfilled in some way. They were hoping in something to make them ultimately happy, ultimately satisfied, find significance, meaning, purpose.
Luke:That hope has let them down and they are now beating themselves up with that hope. Like your example, like, would be like hoping to be parents. Mhmm. That hope was unfulfilled.
Cameron:Mhmm.
Luke:And I imagine that that was a heavy thing to live underneath. Mhmm. For me, it's been at times like a hope of, a relationship because I was single for a long time. And if you were like, Luke, what's wrong with your life? I don't have anyone to love.
Luke:It would have been the thing that I was like, that's what's wrong with me. Mhmm. Mhmm. When I was like, when I was trying to find when I talked about in this last episode, trying to find a pastoral position. You know?
Luke:Like, I had to go through this wrestling of like, okay. My job, my career as a pastor is not the thing that defines me or gives me hope and meaning. It has to be something else.
Cameron:Mhmm.
Luke:Because I was squad I was being crushed underneath the hope that was being unfulfilled.
Cameron:Yeah. Yeah. Hope is never in a thing.
Luke:Mhmm.
Cameron:It's never in a thing. It's always in the hope giver. Yes. You know? And so every time we try to find hope out in a thing or outside of him who gives hope, who is hope himself.
Cameron:Like, it is God's presence. He doesn't God doesn't give us hope. Mhmm. He he is. He is the hope.
Luke:Mhmm.
Cameron:He is the presence. It's his presence that is hope. And so I, yeah, anytime we find which we're trying to find hope outside of him and spouse or job or kids or healing or
Luke:Mhmm.
Cameron:Whatever. We end up, we end up holding on to something that's roots are not very deep. Yeah. It's not really tethered. We don't really tether ourselves to something very deep, and it it tends to get it tends to get plucked out by circumstances pretty easily.
Cameron:Yep. Because then at any time, it doesn't produce happiness for us. Mhmm. We become hopeless. Yep.
Cameron:Not more hopeful.
Luke:Right. And the temptation will always be in order to fulfill that hope to compromise in some way. I think.
Cameron:I
Luke:think so often we will compromise, like, our holiness in in a, desperate attempt to either protect our hope or to get our hope fulfilled.
Cameron:Well, Sherry and I call we we have a term for this Uh-huh. Based out of our own experience. Mhmm. We call it pulling a Hagar. Yeah.
Cameron:You know, and if you're familiar with the old testament story of Abraham Mhmm. And Sarai, and we got some at that point, it was Abraham and Sarai, promised descendants, father of many nations. Yep. Right? Both super old.
Cameron:Yep. Not getting pregnant. Right. But promised to have But promised to have descendants.
Luke:Right.
Cameron:And so what does what does, what does Sarah do? She says, well, like, this isn't happening. Mhmm. We're waiting, and it's not happening. So, Abram, here's my slave girl.
Cameron:Go sleep with her and can see for us a son. And so Abram takes one for the team.
Luke:Yeah. Go, Abram.
Cameron:Right. He goes and does it. And Hagar Mhmm. The slave girl gets pregnant
Luke:Mhmm.
Cameron:And births a son. And, and the lord is not pleased. No. The lord is not pleased. Mhmm.
Cameron:And that son, is not a son of the promise. Mhmm. Actually, you know, it becomes a somewhat sad, somewhat revealing, tangential story Yeah. In the Abrahamic religions.
Luke:Mhmm.
Cameron:You know, the son born to Hagar and Abraham was Ishmael Mhmm. Who they who the is in the lineage of the Muslim faith.
Luke:Right.
Cameron:And so, like, both Abraham and Sarai at a certain point, at least, were not convinced that God was gonna do what he said he was gonna do. Yep. That God was not gonna come through.
Luke:Mhmm.
Cameron:And so, okay, well, God's not gonna come through. So what are we gonna do? We're gonna do this on our own. Mhmm. We're gonna we're we're pulling a Hagar.
Cameron:And so we do that. Yeah. We compromise our values. Mhmm. Or I don't remember I don't remember how you put it, but it was really good.
Cameron:Nice. But we we we try to manufacture Mhmm. The fulfillment of the promise Yep. Outside of god's time Mhmm. And it.
Cameron:I wanna say it never works out well, and it doesn't. I was gonna say it doesn't. It never works out well.
Luke:Certainly not in an ultimate fashion.
Cameron:Yeah. Well, you know, there may be, like, the thing is is like, there's always the redemptive purposes of God, even in the midst of our rebellion and our sin. And so, you know, there it's all so like it it's God is so gracious
Luke:Very.
Cameron:And kind Mhmm. That even in the midst of our rebellion and trying to manufacture the fulfillment of promise Mhmm. To us on our own, we may get something that will destroy us or has the potential to destroy us.
Luke:Mhmm.
Cameron:But he still is kind enough to often redeem those that circumstance in our lives.
Luke:Yeah.
Cameron:And I don't know, like, I guess you could say that Abraham and Sarai's sin in trying to manufacture the fulfillment of their promise has led to every generations, like, every generation of the people of God, their enmity with the line of Ishmael Yeah. Can make that case probably. Yeah. Well, there was
Luke:I think there was something in there about there being, like, enmity between the 2 lineages.
Cameron:The 2 brothers The 2 brothers. Forever. Mhmm. And here we are. Yeah.
Cameron:You know, 2000 years later. Right. And what's going on in Israel right now is one just one such example. Yeah. Why did you use the Muslims hate each other so much?
Cameron:Do they even know why they hate each other? I bet you a lot of modern day ones don't. Mhmm. But, I don't have an I don't have an explanation for it other than that.
Luke:Yeah. Me neither.
Cameron:Yep. So, anyway, we we started talking last episode about the applicability of
Luke:Advent. Advent. Waiting.
Cameron:Waiting on the lord. Mhmm. And so in my scenario, like, what I would say is the the applicability is that when we wait on the Lord Mhmm. How we wait well is we wait on him, not the thing.
Luke:Yeah.
Cameron:Like, we pursue him Mhmm. Not necessarily the thing that we're waiting on, hoping for, expecting Yeah. Needing to see in the future. Mhmm. That we seek his presence and his holiness and his, like, sanctifying work Yep.
Cameron:In our lives that he would make us into the people that are fit to receive Mhmm. The thing that we that he's been that we've been promised. Yep. So Yeah. I don't know.
Cameron:I I could do I think I would like to I mean, I didn't really recognize the reality or the dynamic of how when I finally said no to a pursuit of happiness in parenting Mhmm. And yes to a pursuit of holiness that the thing that God gave me that desire, but then used the fulfillment of the happiness to create more holiness in me. Mhmm. Like, that is something that I don't know that I've recognized until just sitting here talking about it. Yeah.
Cameron:Mhmm. I
Luke:think it's a really big it's like a paradigm shift. It's I think it's kind of, it's almost such a big paradigm shift that it's hard for people to wrap their minds around it because it's so much the water we live in. But, like, god's primary concern is not necessarily your happiness.
Cameron:No. Mm-mm.
Luke:There's something greater than your happiness. It's his glory and your holiness.
Cameron:Mhmm. Right.
Luke:And that is super, like, counterintuitive to the culture we live in. Mhmm. Like, what makes you happy?
Cameron:Mhmm.
Luke:Right? Like, what you do you. Whatever makes you happy. Right? Mhmm.
Luke:Right now, we're in the middle of, like, peak advertising season. And, I've learned a lot about, like, marketing and brands and all this stuff. The it's interesting. But the thing is, and I was even I was just listening to, to, John Mark Comer's book, the ruthless elimination of hurry. And he was reading these different examples of different marketing reads and campaigns from, like, I don't know, like, pre world war 1 or world war 2 and and how marketing has shifted.
Luke:And marketing used to just simply be buy this thing. It's durable. It's functional. It'll solve this problem. When you watch like, car commercials are like the greatest example of this.
Luke:Pay attention to the next car commercial you see. Car commercial, it's not really trying to sell you how well the transmission works. It's not trying to sell you how great that engine is. It's trying to sell you a feeling.
Cameron:A lifestyle.
Luke:A lifestyle. If you have this car, you will as be as cool as Matthew McConaughey. Right? You'll be as Alright.
Cameron:Alright. Alright.
Luke:Right? Like, I remember those, like, those Lincoln commercials he did, like, were the personification of cool. Mhmm. Or, like, in my head, was it the Chevy Silverado commercials back in, like, the nineties that had the, like, Leica rocks, song set to it or whatever, and they were going like, I'm a kid. And I when those were commercials on television, they still stick in my head.
Luke:Right? Like, this idea of this truck going over this enormous mountain. Most people own trucks.
Cameron:Ain't never gonna do anything like
Luke:that one. Right. Right?
Cameron:Right.
Luke:You know? At most, you're gonna do a little bit of snow here in New York. Yeah. Mhmm. But it's this idea of what it's selling you, this happiness, this lifestyle, this, like, oh, if I have that Mhmm.
Luke:You know, then I'll be happy. Mhmm. Then I'll be this type of person because I have this type of smartphone in my in my pocket or this type of gadget or whatever. Mhmm. And it's just all around us.
Luke:Yeah. And it's really hard for us to let go of the dream that happiness is what it's at what it's all about.
Cameron:Man, like, the writer of Ecclesiastes had it right. Yeah. Toil. Mhmm. Toil, toil, toil.
Cameron:It's all frigging meaningless. Mhmm.
Luke:Yeah. Yeah. Because there's nothing new under the sun. Yeah. And, like and that's the that's the thing is it's, you know, you talk to people who end up having it all, and they end up, like, they end up realizing that it doesn't give you everything that you want.
Luke:Mhmm. I think it was Jim Carrey. Jim Carrey had, like, this massive like, he blew up as an actor. Mhmm. I think he made, like, Ace Ventura both Ace Ventura movies, like the mask and Dumb and Dumber all within like 2 years or something like that.
Luke:Anyways, enough about my Jim Carrey knowledge. But he had this quote I think where he says that like, I it's my desire. I wish everybody could have all their dreams met and all of their money given to you, so that they could find out that money money doesn't make you happy.
Cameron:Mhmm. Mhmm.
Luke:You know? Mhmm. And that's you you read that's Ecclesiastes is, is this it's like this idea of just like, well, if you got it all, you're gonna find out that
Cameron:it's still
Luke:not enough. It's still nothing.
Cameron:Mhmm.
Luke:So whether you have little or great Mhmm. What is there to do except for fear of the lord? Yep. Yeah.
Cameron:Right. Super cheery
Luke:episode for Advent.
Cameron:Yeah. Super cheery. But I bet applicable. Yeah. I bet more I bet people felt feel like, these last two episodes feel those themes of, like, waiting and the happiness and waiting in darkness and what's gonna happen.
Cameron:And Yeah. So, anyway, we're gonna continue these conversations through the month. Yeah. And, hopefully, you find them helpful. And, as always, if you could like this episode or share it, subscribe to it.
Cameron:That would help us, or we would really be encouraged by that. So thanks for listening, and, we'll see you next time.
