KARMA vs. GRACE: A Misfit's Journey [S2.E2]
Join three former pastors as they dive deep into the messy reality of life and the overwhelming grace of God. They candidly discuss how the most broken individuals—those who feel like total failures—are exactly the ones Jesus came to embrace. From personal struggles to societal expectations, the conversation navigates the tension between self-condemnation and the liberating power of grace. With humor and honesty, they explore how failure can be a painful form of suffering, yet also a stepping stone to new freedom. This episode is a heartfelt invitation to anyone feeling lost or ashamed, reminding them that true belonging is found in embracing our imperfections together.
Takeaways:
- The shame and isolation experienced by those who fall from grace can lead them to despair and, tragically, even suicide.
- Honesty about our struggles is the key to recognizing our shared humanity and breaking down the barriers of isolation.
- We often anchor our identities in our failures, making it difficult to see ourselves apart from our mistakes.
- God's grace is a liberating force, inviting us to redefine our understanding of suffering and punishment.
- It's crucial to approach those in pain not with judgment, but by being present and offering compassion.
- The belief in karma can overshadow the truth of grace, making it hard to accept forgiveness and healing.
Links referenced in this episode:
Companies mentioned in this episode:
- Ashley Madison
- Sampson Society
- Prodigal Podcast
Transcript
There's a pastor that I knew, and he was in a church that would be considered conservative Bible teaching and preaching.
Speaker A:And then Ashley Madison came in tonight.
Speaker B:Millions of names, credit card numbers, and.
Speaker A:Other information from the cheater website AshleyMadison.com has been leaked by hackers and his name made it to the list.
Speaker A:By sundown, the gallows were being built.
Speaker A:The shame drove him at the end of it to take his own life.
Speaker A:Living alone, disconnected from family, disconnected from church, disconnected from everyone.
Speaker A:And he said, they're done with me.
Speaker A:I'm done with you.
Speaker B:The suffering you are going through is God kicking you into a new frame.
Speaker B:Because if you get to the point, like I was, like we all were, where we were ready to take our lives in the darkest moment.
Speaker B:The reason is because we have so anchored our identity in whatever it is we're losing.
Speaker C:Failure is also a form of suffering.
Speaker B:It's the self inflicted kind, but suffering nonetheless.
Speaker C:And it's unlike the things that happen to you because in that case, people are bringing you casseroles and in this case, they just want you to disappear.
Speaker B:You're listening to the misfit preachers, Talian Chavigian, Jean Larue and Byron Yan from ProdigalPodcast.com we're plagiarizing Jesus one podcast at a time.
Speaker B:Now here are the misfits.
Speaker C:A person needs to pay attention to their surprise at another person's failure.
Speaker B:Yes, well said.
Speaker C:Because that is an indicator that we're fooling ourselves about who we actually are.
Speaker A:Yeah, that you, you make these in your mind, you have these projections of future moral successes I would never like I'm now projecting out to me from here to my funeral.
Speaker A:I shall never.
Speaker A:Don't write that sentence.
Speaker A:I think to your point, what happens is the great equalizer here is honesty.
Speaker A:Because when people are honest, they're the same.
Speaker A:And what happened, the dissonance that happens is people aren't honest.
Speaker A:So I'm faking it.
Speaker A:This person's doing this.
Speaker A:And so now I'm forced to be honest.
Speaker A:Body cam, whatever it is, it all comes out.
Speaker A:And the other people, all of a sudden they realize there are other honest people, right, who are honest about their struggle.
Speaker A:I have a friend who says, you know, normal is just a setting on the dryer.
Speaker A:The only, the only normal people you know are the ones you don't know too well.
Speaker A:The conversation made me think about, there's a pastor that I knew and he was in a church that was, would be considered conservative, would have been considered Bible teaching.
Speaker A:And preaching would have been considered historically conservative.
Speaker A:It would have been very clear in terms of expectations, other things like that.
Speaker A:And then Ashley Madison came out, and what was being portrayed as Christian piety or moralism, whatever here was not consistent.
Speaker A:And his name made it to the list.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:And by sundown, the gallows were being built.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:By Christian people.
Speaker A:Correct.
Speaker A:And there were many, to be fair, who loved.
Speaker A:Well, reached out.
Speaker A:Me too.
Speaker A:All that, the shame that could not be born, drove him at the end of it, to take his own life.
Speaker A:Living alone, disconnected from family, disconnected from church, disconnected from everyone.
Speaker A:And he said, they're done with me.
Speaker A:I'm done with me.
Speaker B:And that's why what Paul's all said to me was so helpful, that the suffering you are going through is God kicking you into a new freedom.
Speaker B:Because if you get to the point, like, I was like, like we all were, where we were ready to take our lives in the.
Speaker B:In the darkest moment.
Speaker A:Yep.
Speaker B:The reason is because we have so anchored our identity in whatever it is we're losing that we don't know who we are without this thing or without these people or this reputation or whatever.
Speaker B:And that means we're enslaved to it.
Speaker A:Yep.
Speaker B:So that's why Paul's carefully worded sentence was so liberating to me.
Speaker B:And for the first time, I saw light peering through the clouds.
Speaker B:And I had this aha moment.
Speaker B:Oh, okay.
Speaker B:So God's not punishing me as a result of this.
Speaker B:He's setting me free because of this.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:And that changed everything for me.
Speaker B:It made me see the painful process that was ahead of me as a good thing and not a punitive thing, a helpful thing, not a hurtful thing thing.
Speaker B:And.
Speaker B:And I think the reason a lot of people don't end up sort of walking that road is because they believe that God is who they told us he was.
Speaker B:God is punitive.
Speaker B:God is angry.
Speaker B:God is punishing me.
Speaker B:God doesn't like me as much as he did yesterday.
Speaker A:He's getting even.
Speaker B:Right?
Speaker B:He's getting even.
Speaker B:He wants his pound of flesh.
Speaker A:We, I firmly believe we naturally, we believe in karma, not grace.
Speaker B:Absolutely.
Speaker A:You break it, you buy it.
Speaker A:There's no question that that's how this thing works.
Speaker B:There is no question.
Speaker B:There is no question.
Speaker B:No question.
Speaker B:The.
Speaker B:The Freddie Mercury quote.
Speaker B:I found it.
Speaker B:It's actually let me do it accurately this time because I think it's even better in that scene from Bohemian Rhapsody.
Speaker B:He looks at the record executive and says, when the record executive says, why should we sign you?
Speaker B:This is what he says, we are four misfits who don't belong together and we're playing for other misfits.
Speaker B:They're the outcasts at the back of the room.
Speaker B:We're pretty sure they don't belong either.
Speaker B:We belong to them.
Speaker B:And I'm like, that's this.
Speaker A:Yeah, that's this.
Speaker B:That's exactly what this is.
Speaker C:When you.
Speaker C:When the experience that you went through and you went through of coming to the realization that at least this is how I framed it in my own mind and have categorized it, that failure is also a form of suffering.
Speaker B:Absolutely.
Speaker B:It's the self inflicted kind, but suffering nonetheless.
Speaker C:And it's unlike the things that happen to you because in that case, people are bringing you casseroles and in this case they just want you to disappear.
Speaker C:And it was when I got my mind around, oh, I had the same epiphany experience that and like my attitude flipped.
Speaker C:It's.
Speaker C:I was in that dark moment down that hallway contemplating, I'm done, I'm worthless, I'm out.
Speaker C:Nobody loves me.
Speaker C:What I'm just taking.
Speaker C:I'm just burning oxygen on this planet.
Speaker C:But it was in that I had to get to that point to just give up and, and drop the idols and what my identity was then.
Speaker C:And it stripped me of all that.
Speaker C:And I remember the line in east of Eden, which is like the line of that book and a lot of literature where a character has failed.
Speaker C:If you know the story and there's a line that comes, oh, good, now that you don't know that, you know, you don't have to be perfect.
Speaker C:Go be good.
Speaker C:Yeah, like there's a gigantic paradigm shift.
Speaker A:I showed you the pic.
Speaker A:I mean, I can remember in the, in the days leading up to my court case, I showed you the picture.
Speaker A:I sketched.
Speaker A:I grew up drawing artistic.
Speaker A:And I remember sitting in the middle of a field in a state park outside of Nashville with a sketchbook and I had sat down to ostensibly like, okay, let's totally 180 degrees.
Speaker A:I grew up as an artist.
Speaker A:I'm going to draw the trees or a little boat on the water, whatever.
Speaker A:And I ended up sketching this picture of a naked man with his hands down and his face on the ground and darkness all around him and in the middle of a sunshiny feel.
Speaker A:And that's what I'm this macabre picture.
Speaker A:And I was like, that's how I feel.
Speaker A:There are dogs walking by, people throwing Frisbees, and Schroeder is.
Speaker A:Has got the.
Speaker A:The one rain Cloud above his head.
Speaker A:Lightning.
Speaker A:God is punishing me.
Speaker A:I shall die here.
Speaker A:And there are people out there sketching that picture right now.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:They're looking at pictures through their phone, and they go, I remember when I used to be happy.
Speaker A:I remember when life used to be good.
Speaker A:And.
Speaker A:And they finished the sentence until I destroyed it.
Speaker A:And the karma kicks in, and I believe I deserve it.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:And I should be alone, and I should be discarded, and I should be unwanted, and I should be abandoned.
Speaker B:And even though we love Grace, believe in it, want other people to love it and believe in it.
Speaker B:I still do that all the time.
Speaker B:Every single time one of my adult kids goes through something difficult and painful in their personal lives, whether it's my oldest son, Gabe, my middle son, Nate, or my daughter Jenna.
Speaker B:Every time my internal, immediate reaction is, I did this to them.
Speaker B:They're suffering because of what I have done.
Speaker B:And there's a part of that that's true.
Speaker B:Their lives were set on a different course.
Speaker B:But the self condemnation, that comes instinctively, naturally, when they're struggling or.
Speaker B:I have three grandsons, and we're trying to get them.
Speaker B:We were trying to get them into a different school, which was expensive.
Speaker B:And I'm sitting there depressed as all get out on a Sunday afternoon.
Speaker B:And Stacy was like, what's the matter?
Speaker B:And I'm like, I blew it.
Speaker B:I blew it.
Speaker B:She said, what do you mean?
Speaker B:And I said, I blew it.
Speaker B:Like, I had all of the resources I needed to be able to get my grand boys into this school.
Speaker B:I had the connections.
Speaker B:I had the financial resources.
Speaker B:All I would have had to do 10 years ago is make a phone call, and these boys would have been at the top of the list and in class.
Speaker B:And I said, I blew that.
Speaker B:My grandkids are now suffering because of what I did.
Speaker B:So it is.
Speaker B:The karmic mindset is deeply ingrained in all of us.
Speaker C:My frame is.
Speaker A:That's really, really powerful.
Speaker C:My frame is bent this way.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker C:And if I take the hands of.
Speaker B:Grace off the wheel, it'll go naturally into the ditch.
Speaker C:And I hear that rumble strip on the side.
Speaker B:Mm.
Speaker C:And I.
Speaker C:I kind of know that I'm there, and I just have to shake myself out of it and put Grace back in the seat and.
Speaker C:And get myself back over there.
Speaker C:But it's a constant battle, especially with all the circumstances that.
Speaker C:That we face now.
Speaker C:We're not saying there aren't earthly.
Speaker B:Oh, my gosh.
Speaker B:The horizontal consequences are real, and we're living proof of that.
Speaker A:You don't want them A.
Speaker C:It's a simple math, right?
Speaker C:You do this, the point will happen.
Speaker A:Like, I think it's so helpful.
Speaker A:Cuz we're not fixed.
Speaker B:No.
Speaker A:And that's the.
Speaker A:A week and a half ago, I got a haircut.
Speaker A:It was the second one by the same lady who had cut it a week earlier.
Speaker A:And it was just.
Speaker A:We.
Speaker A:I mean, I'm.
Speaker A:It's not great, but it was.
Speaker A:It's much better than it was.
Speaker C:Can I tell people how much I wish I had your hair?
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker C:I mean, look at it.
Speaker A:Please do.
Speaker C:Okay, go ahead.
Speaker A:Can we start the fan with a fan blow?
Speaker B:But you want my hair?
Speaker B:I got hat head.
Speaker B:You want my hair?
Speaker A:Oh gosh, I love it.
Speaker C:No, I want.
Speaker A:And so.
Speaker A:So this woman, I went and I said, can you do this?
Speaker A:And so she fixed it.
Speaker A:And this sweet lady who's olive branch, Mississippi, at a strip mall haircut place.
Speaker A:I mean, nothing fancy about it.
Speaker A:And I got up and I said, okay, I'll venmo you.
Speaker A:She goes, no, you don't owe me anything.
Speaker A:And I said, no.
Speaker A:I came back, I asked her.
Speaker A:She goes, it was my mistake the first time.
Speaker A:I'm going to pay for it.
Speaker A:She goes.
Speaker A:She goes, looks like there's a preacher who needs to learn to accept a little grace.
Speaker B:Yeah, that's true.
Speaker A:I was like, thanks.
Speaker B:Don't feel.
Speaker B:I mean, it's one of the reasons why I agreed to do this.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Because I need this.
Speaker B:I tell people all the time the reason I preach the radicality of God's grace with as much passion as I do is because I am doing everything I can in the moment to convince myself that this is true.
Speaker B:As much as I'm trying to convince you.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:I mean it.
Speaker B:This is.
Speaker B:We don't come into this world believing this stuff.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:In fact, the apostle Paul says the law, what to do, what not to do, and the consequences that flow from that, that's already written in your heart.
Speaker B:That's.
Speaker B:That's inside you.
Speaker B:Grace comes from outside of you.
Speaker B:It's otherworldly.
Speaker B:And so we'll wrestle with this for the rest of our lives.
Speaker B:There's no question.
Speaker B:We will wrestle with this for the rest of our lives.
Speaker B:And we.
Speaker B:And that's okay, right?
Speaker B:It's okay.
Speaker B:It's honest to admit that we're going to wrestle with this for the rest of our lives.
Speaker B:And for anybody who's listening, who's wrestling with.
Speaker B:Why don't I get this more than I do?
Speaker A:It's okay, right?
Speaker B:Like, it's fine and I've been in that position that we had talked about before where we become very ungracious toward those people who don't get grace.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:And you know, if anybody couldn't.
Speaker A:If you can't see it, there was this kind of shoulder shimmy when he went, don't get grace.
Speaker B:Right, right.
Speaker B:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker B:Don't get grace.
Speaker A:I mean, I think maybe this is what we put on TikTok.
Speaker C:Those who don't get grace, let's not be mean girls.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:Okay, keep going.
Speaker B:So I.
Speaker B:I love what we're doing.
Speaker B:I believe it.
Speaker B:I believe in what we're doing.
Speaker B:I know how badly I need what we're doing.
Speaker B:And to allow people the freedom to admit that it's okay to not be okay, that we will be in recovery for the rest of our lives, all of us.
Speaker B:And like I said in a previous episode, there are two kinds of people in this world.
Speaker B:People in recovery who know that they are, and people in recovery who think that they're not.
Speaker B:But there is no one who is not in recovery.
Speaker C:That's true.
Speaker C:That's true.
Speaker A:Can I put one last bow on?
Speaker C:Please?
Speaker C:Please.
Speaker A:My hope would be everybody knows that person who's in the darkness, you know, when they sink into it, you don't know what to say.
Speaker A:You don't know whether to go over there or not.
Speaker A:I mean, there's all these things where you second guess yourself and everybody wonders, man, is there any.
Speaker A:Anything.
Speaker A:Is there any sermon?
Speaker A:Is there any song, is there any stories in your book, any movie, Anything we could connect these people with so that they knew life isn't over?
Speaker A:And I hope what happens is they just hit send.
Speaker A:Because I'm not sure they would have listened to a sermon I preached.
Speaker A:I'm not sure they would have listened to a lesson in a church, Sunday school or something like that.
Speaker A:But if their buddy says, hey, listen, there's these three guys and I know you're not going to believe this, they all used to be preachers, kind of are now, not really like anything you've ever met, who are frickin honest about their shit, and they will love you and help you learn to love and accept yourself and other people.
Speaker A:Bring it on.
Speaker A:That's why we're here.
Speaker B:The Sampson Society, which is an organization that my friend Nate Larkin started, posted this a while back, and I think this describes very well our posture, or what we're hoping our posture is, when somebody falls apart, don't try to put them back together.
Speaker B:In fact, don't try to reassemble them at all.
Speaker B:That's not your job.
Speaker B:Instead, lay on the ground with them and scoop as many of their broken pieces into your hands and every now and then, whisper to those pieces.
Speaker B:This is not forever.
Speaker B:That's it.
Speaker A:Jeez.
Speaker A:Leave it there.
Speaker A:The end.
Speaker C:Leave it there.
Speaker C:So yeah, we'll be back with more of the same.
Speaker A:Thank you.
Speaker B:You've been listening to the misfit preachers like subscribe and share more grace centered resources@prodigalpodcasts.com that's prodigal P R O D I G A L podcasts with an s dot com.
