Stop Beating Yourself Up God Already Did It

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello everyone, thank you again for joining me in another episode of the Dorsey Rush show. Today's guest brings a deeply thoughtful and refreshing perspective on faith, identity, and what it really means to experience God in a personal way. Tom and I think our guest today is the author of From Sinna From Sinish The Story of Becoming, a powerful and introspective work

Welcome And Why Identity Matters

SPEAKER_00 0:33

that challenges traditional ways of thinking about faith and invites readers into a more relational, grace-filled understanding of God. Rather than blocking spirituality through rigid doctrine alone, Tom draws from his own journey, moving from uncertainty and a sense of insignificance into a grounded identity of a beloved son of God. His writing blends storytelling, scripture, and real life experience to help people rediscover themselves within the biggest story of grace and redemption. With over fifty years of life experience, a deep love of scripture, and a passion for authentic connection. Tom offers a message that resonates, whether you're firmly rooted in faith questioning it, or somewhere in between. Tom Anderson, thank you so much for coming on the show today.

SPEAKER_01 1:39

Well thanks, Dorsey. Have been really, really, really anticipating our time together. I've read your story, and I like to say I I really resonate with people who have gone through the meat grinder and come out sweet sausage. You know, it's not that you've overcome, we all overcome things, but I think it's more uh that you've let God define you. I think about this uh generation right now where this thing about self-identifying, what's it about? It's about uh deep hunger in these young people's heart to know who they are. And uh they're there's trying to find that. And as we get older, sometimes we just say, well, it is what it is. And but to really begin to not not just overcome, but really to have our life defined by the love of God. John said in his epistle that we've come to know and believe the love that God has for us. And that's been the story of my life, and that's my writings are all about that. And I think the big thing for the church right now is to really uh really begin to focus on who we are. Because uh when I look at uh uh the the climax of the uh uh of of the the age is uh when when the sons of God are unveiled, when the sons of God are revealed. So this has to happen in the church that we have to come to an understanding of who we are. And so that's been the that's been my life, that's been my wife's life. And as I've uh connected with people, I've tried to I I call I call it dropping little pebbles into the pond. You can't drop big rocks into a pond, you have to drive little pebbles. And understanding what the love of God is, if I could just say this before we start our conversation, I've really come to see the love of God in a in a greater way. Typically, how the love of God is defined, and it has to be defined this way, is that God's love for me. So he saw this this broken person on the side of the road, and because he is love, he loves me. But that love, while beneficial and uh it says a lot about who God is, it says that I'm a loved one, but I could still be the broken, the leper. I could be the phido, as it were, that God loves, but that's not the love of God in terms of eternity. The love of God from eternity has been the love of the Father and the Son and what they've had for each other. And that's what I've been trying to explore and say, God, just show me what that love is, because that's a love I've been included in, in this relationship of relationships. And so, anyways, I'm sure we're going to be talking about that and other things, but but again, identity is such a huge, huge topic. I think it's a zeitgeist of the age.

SPEAKER_00 4:22

I would ask you, what's the one thing you think the young people today, especially the youth, need to hear about identity and need to know about identity?

SPEAKER_01 4:33

Yes. Well, I think identity is your default system. If you want to use a computer term, it's what runs in the background, really defining who you are, and it it's it's your comfort zone. So when I think about the three basic soul needs that every human has, regardless

The Three Soul Needs

SPEAKER_01 4:52

of culture, regardless of gender, regardless of age, regardless of the time they lived in in the universe, it's it's to know that you are valued and loved for who you are, just intrinsically. And so if we don't know that, if that's not who we think we are, then we're gonna try to find that in relationships, try to find that in in drugs. I mean, we're gonna try to find that a lot of different places that I have worth. Uh, the other great soul need is to know that we're significant, that God is uh God has made me uh important. And the things in front of me, whether it's setting up chairs or running a company, it doesn't matter. Whether it's it's uh it's being in a relationship with my wife or seeing someone on the street. I mean, everything that God has put in front of us is significant, and then also to feel safe. You know, that anxiety is just telling us that we don't have a secure future. And so when I look at, um I'm actually writing through the book of Jude right now, and the first uh verse of Jude says that he's writing to those who are loved, called, and kept. So how God sees us and how, and I think again, for young people, you lay it out there, but knowing that it's it takes it takes time for this just uh just to saturate our soul, to know that we are in the Father loved. We're loved as much as Jesus, uh to know that we're called by the Spirit, and called means that we have significance beyond our imagination, and to know that we're totally safe because Jesus is keeping us. And so those things, I liken this to two realities. You know, we live in the reality of what we experiencing, but then there's this reality of being in Christ. I think the the the struggle of struggles, and I think not only the struggle of struggles, but uh the greatest mission we can have is really to grapple with that tension. Lord, I I know for me, my looks when I was growing up, as I didn't like my looks, I hid a lot. I didn't put myself out there because I didn't I didn't think I was worth anything. And uh I definitely didn't think I was significant, I didn't think I had a had a glorious future. But over the years, especially the last 10 years, I would say, uh, God has really uh really given me an inner sense that just as I am, I'm loved. Just as I am, I'm significant. And so it really, it really defines me and defines what I do. Uh but with young people, I think declaring the gospel, which you are loved. Um I remember Jesse Jackson, he just passed away. Uh he would go into schools uh and uh uh of of kids who are just marginalized, poor. And he said, uh he got them to say, I am somebody. And that's that's good. We need to do that, but we need to know this based on how God looks at us and not just because we're trying to pump ourselves up.

SPEAKER_00 7:51

Right. You know, you also have a book out called From Kinship to Konship, the story of becoming. How does that title capture your own spiritual transformation?

SPEAKER_01 8:06

Yeah, so I guess definition of terms is really important, right? And uh the the book is really given it to defined terms. So I talk about censorship is our starting place, sonship is our ending place, and becoming is the process by which we go from a mentality that I don't measure up,

Loved Called Kept In Jude

SPEAKER_01 8:26

right? I I think uh there's some people who think, boy, I'm really I'm really better than sliced bread with butter and jam on it. But again, they come to a certain place, like Peter, to realize that who they thought they were was a was a fraud. You know, I think there's some people with just an elevated sense of self that God has to put a pin in. But for most of us, I think we all live with a sense that we don't measure up, that we're not worth much. And uh and life seems to confirm that, you know, life seems to beat us up. But so that that that's where we start. Where we end is sonship. And how I define sonship is through the life of Jesus. Jesus is the son. And so if we're going to have have a goal, as it were, have a definition of what a son is, it's Jesus. And and there's two things I see with him. He has a relationship with the father, and he also has a position of authority in the world. So as I see my life, my relationship with the father defines me. I'm called a son. And I want to say that son is not a gender term. I know there's a lot of Bibles that uh that take this word hu-yos, which is the word for son in scripture, and they make it children just because they think it's offending ladies, but it doesn't. We could say sons and daughters, but sonship is actually being like Jesus. And then also having a position of authority in the world. Jesus is over all things. So God's given me little gardens to serve and protect. You know, my relationship with my wife, I have a part-time job where I manage a church facility, so I set up chairs and take it down, and it's my my gardens that I've got's given really given me to learn how to become like Jesus. And uh Jesus, who is the Son, knew who he was in a very elevated sense, but from that sense of self, he willingly gave it all up because he knew that the nature of God is the cross, the nature of God is serving. Jesus just didn't come to say, hey, hey guys, this is the best way to live. I'm just gonna be an example. He's really expressing the nature of God as he came and lived among us and embraced us and washed our feet, and then he's calling us to do the same for others. So back to your question. You didn't ask the question about my life. So I started in a deep hole. You know, we all we all have uh holes that we uh are grown up with. Um never thought I was loved. I was in a family. My father didn't like me. I really perceived that, and my mom never expressed her love. Uh I was, like I said before, I I hid a lot. You know, I just stayed in the background. If somebody asked me to do something, I'd do it. I was a yes, yes man because I wanted people to like me. Sometimes that's a good way to protect yourself and also project a good image. And um, and then we got married.

Kinship To Sonship Explained

SPEAKER_01 11:12

I uh a girl finally liked me, and uh, this is 53 years later. We just had our 53rd anniversary. You know, I thought that was going to answer my questions because sometimes marriage, I think I'm I'm gonna be the greatest husband and she's gonna love me, but that just wasn't the case. And it was a good uh we came to the Lord right away because of our marriage. We saw it was failing. Uh, but it was a good eight years before God really intervened and really began to answer some questions. So we're hanging on by our fingernails for quite a long time. And um, and so uh there came a moment in time where I saw that I wasn't who who I thought I was. And then there was another moment in time when I saw that how I was doing life, how I was saying how I was protecting and projecting myself was not of God. And uh from that point I really began to change. And I like myself now. I love Jesus, I like myself, and I know God's given me something that's very precious. I I liken it to treasure in a plain wrapper. It's what's in what's within that God's God's really trying to bring out. And so in the book, let me jump back to that real quickly. I I begin to talk about the image of God in terms of Adam. But the question is, and this is a great question for your youth also, how do you discover who you are? That's a good question. If someone could tell you forever that you are this, and usually we'll agree with, I am a uh no good, rotten SOB, right? We'll agree with that, but we don't agree with, well, you're really special. But because there's something within us that just resonates with, I'm a no-good SOB. You know, I don't measure

Tom’s Story Of Becoming

SPEAKER_01 12:50

up. But we're not gonna find that in the do's and don'ts of the Bible. You know, the do's and don'ts are important, but we're not gonna find it in doctrine. You know, those are all important things, but that's not the purpose, the main purpose of the Bible. The main purpose of the Bible is that we discover a God whom we could never have imagined, and discover ourselves who was imagined before time. So when I look at these narratives in scripture, that's how we're gonna discover ourselves. And God's gonna have to unveil it to our heart. But if we know that these narratives are given to show me who I am, so Adam, when he was created, the first thing God did was he kneeled before him. You know, it the word barak or bless is barak, which means to kneel before and honor. And so at that very moment, Adam became the center of God's attention. So fast forward to when Adam sinned, what happened there? There was a disconnect. You know, that uh the plug was pulled out of the wall. So this need to be the center of one's attention never left Adam. He was trying to find it in other ways. But being the center of one's attention is really a God-given thing. It is met in God because God centers his attention on us as we center our attention on him. But the next thing he said was, be fruitful, multiply, and fill. And so he was basically saying, I've put in you an expression of me that I want I want the world to see. And so that this is the being, I call the being part, the the who I am part. I'm I I'm I'm a I'm a seed that God has planted in the ground and and wants to come forth and blossom. But then the next chapter, he took this, takes this expansive picture. When we think about what he said to Adam, he said, You're you're to rule the universe. But what did he do in the second chapter? He put him in a small, small space. And that's our life. You know, God has this expansive picture, his he wants us to shine. I mean, that that's the nature of God. You know, if we think about God as being this uh person on the throne dictating, we'll never really come to know who we are. God is this person who created us to shine, and as we stay connected with him, it doesn't uh it doesn't affect his glory, it increases his glory. But then in the garden, he was put there to learn how to become like God. He he was put there to serve and protect. And so when we see Jesus coming, what did he do? He came to serve and protect, because that's who that's who he is, and that's that's how we can become more like him by just take taking where we are and and giving ourselves self to those uh those tasks, as it were, and learn how to serve it and learn how learn how to protect it.

SPEAKER_00 15:39

Right. The writing focuses on God and oneself in in new ways. Does someone's perception of God shape their perception of self and vice versa? And how would a new understanding of God transform one's life?

SPEAKER_01 15:58

Well, I I I guess I would say if we were at the River Jordan and the heavens opened up and said,

Adam And The Search For Self

SPEAKER_01 16:05

You are my beloved son, you are my beloved daughter in whom I'm well pleased, how would that change our life? What we do in the church well is we exalt Jesus and we should. I mean, Jesus, nothing, nothing, no one greater, uh, you know, he's perfect, he's he's amazing, but Jesus came as the new Adam. So he came as the as a uh progenitor or the father of a new humanity. So if my dad was, let's let's pick a figure, my dad was George Washington, and I was a son of George Washington, how would I how would I uh purport myself? How would people look at me? You know, he he's he's George Washington's son. Well, you know, that is the sense of self that we need to embrace and struggle with until it becomes a reality, uh, because otherwise we're gonna think ourselves as a red-headed stepchild, right? The second class son. Yeah, we're a son, but you know what that means? We're just really a servant. And I I gotta learn how to find out what God wants me to do. And so if we have everything based in what we do, it's gonna, it's gonna wear us out. But if we begin to see that God loves me with the same love he has for his son, because he has no, he doesn't have two different types of sons or daughters. He is he has sons and he has daughters. So that again, that's like I said, is a coincidential struggle we all face to to really embrace who God has called us to be while knowing that we still have flaws, we still screw up, and uh, but that that's not what God's not that worked up about those things. And when you think about little children, young men, fathers, if a little child doesn't fall down and doesn't speak uh the king's English right from day one, that's great. You know, that's not where they are. So they learn they learn the father through uh through love, through forgiveness, through training, through patience. A young a young man, though, has come to a different sense of self that, hey, I can do things. I'm strong, I can do things. But the end result is being fathers, where we we really have the heart of the father. We know that we relate to him on a just a different level than a young child or an adult or a young uh or adolescent.

SPEAKER_00 18:23

Yeah. You know, you I mean, you took you have your book from sinnership from to sonship. How would you define those terms and why is it so foo for believers today?

SPEAKER_01 18:38

Yeah, I I I write in the book that I could have titled the book From Unrighteousness to Righteousness, The Story of Becoming, but I didn't do that because we narrowly define righteousness as being right with God. But if you look at what happened when Adam fell, I think this is really instructive. But when Adam fell, four things happened because we all live in four different spheres. It says that he knew something was wrong within him and he hid. He made put on fig leaves. So that so uh the sphere of our relationship with ourselves is we walk into Christianity, walk into life with it screwed up. We don't know who we are. But the second sphere of relationship that that was unright, so unrighteousness is not just not being right with God, it's not being right with ourselves, also, but it's it's also not being right with God. And so it's important to know that God never changed. You know, his heart toward Adam never changed. Adam's perception of God

Serving And Protecting Your Garden

SPEAKER_01 19:40

changed. And so uh God knew he had an issue to begin to address, but it wasn't because he didn't love Adam. He wanted Adam as close as he could. Adam, he had to set up barriers, but Adam wasn't right for that. But the next relationship was his relationship with his wife. And so the sphere of our relationships are not right. And also the sphere of our our interaction with the environment, your thorns came up. So those four spheres really define what unrighteousness is that we're not right in those areas. They also define what death is. Death is really not being right in those relationships. So what Jesus did, and this is the gospel, which we don't believe, Jesus came when he said it is finished, he totally redeemed all those areas. And so when I look at my life, I look at my life as being perfectly perfect, even though I know it's not. Because Jesus is I'm walking into that as opposed to I'm trying to make it happen to uh it's my efforts to make it happen instead of knowing that God's already done it. But so that's that's that's sinnership. And sonship, again, like I said, is just knowing that we are, because God has really brought us into this relationship. And it's nothing that I've done, but it's something I'm gonna enjoy and embrace and really pursue and try to explore. Dorsey, that's a good question. So again, sinnership, uh, as I look at that, I I look at Adam, what happened when he fell, when he sinned? This uh it seems to seem to be that the scripture is saying that he lived in four spheres of relationship, so that when he fell, he became unright. And so when I was thinking about the title, title of the book, I could have written from unrighteousness to righteousness the story of becoming, but the church has a very limited definition of righteousness. Typically, it's not being right with God. And righteousness is being right with God, and that's true, wonderfully true, but it's just part of the story because when Adam sinned, he became unrighteous. And those were in four areas. And the first was he, in fact, it says that he uh put on fig leaves because he wasn't right with himself, and that's where we all begin as Christians, we begin. Become Christians because we know we're not right, right? And for me, it wasn't not being right with God, it was not being right with myself. I said, Oh, God, I need help. But then also there is the relationship with God. He hid from God. And so we have to really know that God's attitude toward Adam never changed. He was still the one with his arms open. He's still the ones that wanted to interact with Adam. And he did the best he could, but Adam's perception of God changed, and that's where we are. And I think that part of our life is just coming to discover this unimaginable God who loves us so much. And then the other area, other sphere of relationship that became unright was his relationship with others. You know, he began to blame his wife. And so, and then the last sphere of relationship we live in is our relationship to the world. You know, thorns came up. And so the the gospel, the absolute good news is that we are now right. We are now right. God has made us right in Christ. And what that means is, and I see this in uh the book of Ephesians, uh, those the four spheres of relationships that were ruptured in the fall, God has already restored. And and so when he said it is finished, and this is what has really helped me, uh, even though I have a long way to go, Jesus said it's finished. And so my relationship with myself is right, and it's becoming right, it's becoming more right because I believe that it's already right. You know, God has made me whole. My relationship with God is completely restored, even though we're struggling, right? We say, God, I I need you, I don't know you, I need to know you more. Our relationship with others is completely restored, and I've really seen this with my wife and I. You know, we've we've walked into wholeness. It wasn't that we've been trying to struggle to be whole, but because we are whole, our relationship has become whole. In fact, uh about two months ago, we both really realized our relationship has gone to another level. And we've had a good relationship, but there's just a greater sense of ease, of joy. And then also the thorns that came up in Adam's life are not have now blossomed. And so when we look at uh Ephesians, and this is something God opened up to me, it says, be filled with the spirit, right? Actually, the word is be filled in the spirit. So as I picture that, I question how difficult is it for a drunk to remain drunk if he's living in a vat of beer? Not too difficult, right? But God has put us in this atmosphere of the spirit, and we just need to learn how to drink. And so he gives four participles or four ways to do that, and one is speaking to yourself. And so that sphere that was broken in the fall, God is redeemed, and we have to begin to speak into life into us that that psalms, hymn, spiritual songs, that we are the beloved of God. Then it says, uh, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord. So that sphere has been totally restored. I mean, if I put my face two inches from you and began singing, you'd slap me, right? But that's that's the intimacy God is wanting from us and has made available to us because that relationship has been made right. And then it says, giving thanks for all things. So those circumstances in our life no longer are against us, they're absolutely for us because God has redeemed those relationships and then the relationship with our environment and then submitting to yourself one to another. We can freely give ourselves to someone else because it's no longer about us. Those relationships have already been restored. So that's really changed my life as I began not only thinking that, but actually practically doing those things. And that's how it works, isn't it? That we we have to do the practices before it becomes part of us.

SPEAKER_00 25:54

Why do you think the the term wording sonship is so downplayed by people? Uh which word is that?

SPEAKER_01 26:04

Sonship. Sonship. Um well it it's so unbelievable uh you know to to think that we the relationship we have with God is is uh it's different because I'm not Jesus, but it's not different because I'm a son. You know, when you look at the prodigal son, you know, he has two sons, uh actually three, one who's in a far-off country, one who's still working in the father's field to earn God's favor, and the other in the father's arm. You know, and so Jesus has, in fact, uh my one of my favorite verses is Galatians 3. It says, because we are sons, not because we're trying to be sons. Again, sonship is is being like Christ. Sonship and not only in terms of our behaviors, but in terms of our relationship. And so when we think about these two parts of our life, we have the being part of our life and we have the doing part of our life. And too often the doing part of our life drives us, even in the church. You know, we we we get in church and what we serve a lot, but if we let the doing part of our life rule us, control us, it's gonna wear us out. We have to know that we are the loved of God. We are we are his beloved son, uh, in whom he's well pleased. So again, sonship, as I mentioned, is just has to be defined by Jesus. And uh, and that's having a relationship with the Father, which is without question uniquely wonderful, and having a position of authority here in the world. And I'm not looking for places to rule. God's given me these little places to rule, and uh ruling is defined by serving and protecting. So I serve and protect my wife, my friends, the chairs I set up and uh set up and take down. I'm serving by doing that with all of my heart.

SPEAKER_00 28:01

You mentioned several times now the term, you know, when Jesus was on the cross, he said, it is finished. What does that really mean? And how does grasping it king's everyday life?

SPEAKER_01 28:15

So again, it is finished is a doorway into the expanse of God. On the surface, we say, well, it is finished, Jesus' work is finished. You know, he's he's died, so our sins are forgiven. But to know that our sins being forgiven, however wonderful and great it is, and it's wonderful

What It Is Finished Really Means

SPEAKER_01 28:34

and it's great, it's the smallest part of what God did on the cross. Jesus said, If I be lifted up, I will draw all into me. Uh uh actually, all unto me. That word is P R O S prose, which means all face to face and getting closer. That's what that word means. And so Jesus died on the cross to again restore all things,

Sinnership And Four Broken Relationships

SPEAKER_01 28:58

restore what Adam lost, which was unimaginable significance, intrinsic value, and knowing that he had a secure and glorious future. And so while it's not about me, the gospel is also about me. So when he said it is finished, he said, Tom, Dorsey, in fact, the Hebrew says that he is making perfect those he's already perfected. So that's that's what it is finished means. So, Tom, you're already perfect, and you just keep connecting with me, and I'm bringing you to that that place where you're gonna be a hundredfold or a thousandfold or however fold it is, the seed that I planted is gonna uh come forth and just blossom and just fill fill its space. So that that to me is what it is finished is.

SPEAKER_00 29:46

Yeah. You know, as as Christians, you know, you easel and continually we make mistakes, you know, we we do things, we make up,

Living In The Spirit Daily

SPEAKER_00 29:54

you know, we still sin that you know that we still sin and everything. How do how do we grasp, you know, that you know, determined finish that we are perfected, that we are perfect, that we are sinless, or at least God sees us as sinless.

SPEAKER_01 30:10

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 30:11

How do we how do we grasp that? How how do we understand come to a you know understanding of that?

SPEAKER_01 30:17

Well, I I think practically we confess,

Confession As Identity Not Shame

SPEAKER_01 30:20

right? That there is there is an aspect to confession that when we've uh really blown it, we say, hey Dorsey, I've really blown it. I'm in a small D group, uh discipleship group, and uh we we just we talk about those things, but confession, that's just a small part of confession. Uh I mean when we think about confessing sins or confessing, we think about the negative. We go to some traditional churches, have a whole uh series on, you know, God be merciful to me, a sinner. And again, while that is true, it's not the truth. Confession is much more confessing who we are. So I I liken it to confessing sins is is the way out. Confessing who we are is the way in. And so uh that that verse, which is really a famous verse, is for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. You know, you can almost hear that thundering. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. No, oh no, oh no, let me look at my sin. That's not what that verse is saying. But there's five different uh verse words in Greek that talk about sin

Why Sonship Feels Unbelievable

SPEAKER_01 31:27

as a moral term. The word sin there is not a moral term. It says, for all have fallen short, all have missed the mark, actually missed the mark. So it's a picture of an archer, you know, bone hand trying to hit a target, and it just he misses it, right? And so when you think about the teacher who's standing next to this young student, he said, You have blown it, you gotta confess. No, he says, Look, guy, great try. You know, and I I don't want to minimize sin. I'm not minimizing we need to do what we can to put boundaries up, but we all have hooks in us that draw us into things that we shouldn't be. But again, to see that is not the issue. The issue is staying connected to God, whether it's forgiveness, his mercy, his kindness, because for all of sinned, all have missed the mark and fall short of what? Of what? Glory of God. The glory of God. You know, it's it's we've we've missed that, but then the next part, there's a comma there and not a period, because we lot a lot of times we use that verse for all of sinned and falling short of the glory of God and put a period there. Paul puts a comma there, having been freely made right, have having been freely restored due to the redemption of this in Christ Jesus. And so when we begin to put ourselves in a different perspective, because we beat ourselves up way too much. You know, that's the devil's job, right? But but we we get out the hammer and we hammer our toes or hammer our hands. I have a friend of, we've been friends for many years. He said uh about three, four years ago, Tom, I'm no longer going to be gonna beat myself up. I said, Hallelujah. You know, because again, while we acknowledge our failure, I don't think we have to acknowledge the fact that we're clueless, uh, because cluelessness is just an opportunity for God to open up new avenues of Himself and ourselves to us. How do we discover who we are? It's interesting that the Bible is mostly narrative, it's 43% narrative. And uh, as we said in the beginning, we don't we cannot discover who we are by the do's and don'ts of the Bible. Uh we don't discover who we are by doctrine. Uh we definitely discover who we are as we look at Jesus. It says uh looking at to Jesus we become like him. Uh but uh in in the narrative, I I I've seen uh a thing called a meta story, and this is this has changed my life. Um, you know, so a meta story is a story

Meta Stories That Reframe Life

SPEAKER_01 34:03

that uh you can fit your life into. And uh Jesus, for example, uh he saw the story of Jonah as his story. You know, he he could interpret his life through the life of Jonah. He knew that he was gonna go through something terrible. He knew that he the reason he came was to uh go into the enemy camp, as it were, and declare God's mercy and kindness. Uh, but I can't interpret my life through that. I'm not gonna go through that. But there's three stories that we can. And and these three stories are are written for many reasons, but uh it's also to show us who we are and and show us why we struggle and show us the way out. And so the first story is Adam, like we've talked about. You know, Adam before he fell is the person God has imagined me to be. We have we have different different responsibilities, but in terms of who we are, I'm honored, uh, I'm the center of God's attention. Uh, I have much value. God wants me to grow into a place where I'm fully expressing what God has put in me. Um and then it also shows us why we're messed up, right? You know, we've been disconnected. We're not disconnected to God, or we don't know we're connected, and so we struggle and try to make all these things happen. We try to become that per that special person and we see it doesn't work. Uh but the second uh story is Peter. Peter is a story of every Christian because every Christian has a false sense of who they are. Now, Peter was a was pretty much full of himself. He knew that he was this a leader and he was going to do things great because that's who he was. I was the other. Didn't think I was great. But the thing is, God has to show all of us that we're not who we think we are. So for Peter, his story began by Jesus saying, Hey, you're Simon, the son of John, you'll be called Peter. He was basically saying, You're just like your old man Simon, but you know what? You're going to be like me, because you know, Peter is is Petra, which is a small stone, and Jesus is Petros, the big rock. And so we see throughout the gospels, Simon being Simon, actually too much Simon, flashes of brilliance, but but it came to an end when Jesus looked at him after he denied the Lord. And so that look penetrated and he broke, he knew he was a fraud. And then when Jesus came and revealed himself again to him, he began to become he was no longer controlled by his personality. And I think that's really what God is is one thing God is really doing in all of our lives. He's he's uh causing us to be able to be controlled by the Spirit. So for me, I'm a servant, I'm in the background, but obviously I obviously I could be in be in a stage if I if that's where God has me, but if he doesn't, I'm totally happy in the background. A leader can be a leader, but he doesn't have to be a leader, he can actually be in the background. So, anyway, so that's the story of Peter, but the story of Abraham, and that's the breaking process. That God has to break us, and it has to he does it in such an elegant way by using our strengths against us. But then the story of Abraham is where he landed most of the book is a story of becoming because Abraham began his life not believing who God said he was. He certainly believed God. He did amazing things because he believed God, but in Genesis 15, God said, Hey, Abraham, I'm your reward. He said, No, you're not, because I'm not who he said I am. I don't have a child. And so the whole story of Abraham is him coming to a place where he fully believed that he was a father of many nations, and it really ended on Moriah, where God asked all physical evidence of his fatherhood back from him, and he said, No problem, I know who I am. It doesn't matter whether I have a son or not a son, I know who I am. I'm a father. And so uh so I I really explore all those things, and I talk about Abraham's life uh through the through the lens of uh him becoming who God called him to be. It's sort of like a seed being planted. It has to die, it has to have the risk go down, it has to have the stem come up before the the flower can uh emerge.

SPEAKER_00 38:15

Right. As we get rid of energy, I always like to ask my guest if you would give us a word of encouragement to my audience. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:27

Um I I think the big thing that I found in my life and the big thing that God really looks for is just honesty. You know, God, I don't get it. God, I've blown it, or God help me. Uh it is uh what what again happened uh when Adam fell,

Final Encouragement And Where To Connect

SPEAKER_01 38:50

there was a disconnect. And God has already connected us. So uh our our just being honest with him uh really acknowledges that we're connected. Uh so it doesn't matter if uh you you're a youth that is uh struggling with uh you know who you are, just say, God, I don't know who I am. Would you show me? Would you really comfort me? If we've blown it, God, thank you for your forgiveness. I I I you know, I I'm coming to you if we're having a good day. I mean, just just honesty.

SPEAKER_00 39:24

Well, Tom, thank you so much for coming on the show today. We greatly appreciate having you.

SPEAKER_01 39:30

Well, thanks, Dorsey. Again, I I really appreciate you again. God's hand is on you.

SPEAKER_00 39:35

And it's amazing.

SPEAKER_01 39:37

It's amazing what he does with with people who are uh plain packages. I I like to call it plain packages. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:44

Well, guys, thank you so much for coming on the show and for listening. Please go and check out Tom's book. We'll have the link for that in the in the show notes. And where can people find your book?

SPEAKER_01 39:58

Yeah, so actually the easiest way to do that, I have a website called Tom Anderson, my name. Tomanderson.in. I I have my blog on there. I I I was asked to preach last year uh about identity. That's on there. My books are on there. And then also if they want to reach out to me and just ask questions, um glad to connect with anybody.

SPEAKER_00 40:20

And uh, you know, continue to check out his information and my information at www.dorchow.com and to get continual updates about new episodes, you can subscribe to the show and download the episodes and until next time. God bless. Bye bye.