00:00:00.960 Hello, everyone, and welcome to MilMac Musings, where Allison Miller and Gerard MacLellan reveal the intersection between God and science for living wholeheartedly. Hey, everyone. Welcome back to MilMac Musings. We're just, at this point, I'm going to be vulnerable again. We are going to be talking about authenticity, values, and other things as well.

00:00:25.980 So as we were talking before the show, I really, for me, it's a learning process to be authentic. For almost my entire life, I was not knowing how to do it. I didn't even realize that was part of what I should be doing. So because of that, we talked about in the last episode about the, the way you suppress things.

00:00:53.100 And when you're suppressing things and not being authentic, how horrible that is for your life, and how horrible it is in a way that you cannot connect with the other person, truly connect with the other person in a loving way. Right. You're just hiding, you're masking, you're doing things that and because I didn't know. Again, everything is from born again beyond is where I've learned. But prior to that, I can just think of, again, how much time is wasted on things that are not part of what God designed us to be.

00:01:25.740 And authentic being authentic means that you have limits. You have boundaries that are set in place. And when you're dealing with interpersonal relationships, the other person in a healthy way should have that as well. So you can meet in the middle and understand the other person and not be taken aback by their behavior in a way that you think, again, speculative imagination, would create such turmoil. Right. So do you have anything you'd like to add?

00:01:54.840 Well, you know being authentic makes me think of just living in alignment with your true self. And your true self is understanding, first of all, like you said, until after you come through and have this understanding and this life with Christ, understanding what you really value in your life, understanding the importance of things in your life, and understanding how they mesh into your life.

00:02:25.020 And then recognizing, I think, when they don't and what is going on in your life that's causing that to happen. So I just want to say, living authentically, for me, has so much to do with, first of all, knowing who I am in Christ, and then understanding how he uniquely created me and how there are certain things in my life that I value and putting those in an order, understanding them, what they mean in my life, and then living those out.

00:03:00.060 And then if you come into a relationship with someone, you know maybe you share values. Because maybe the values that someone has for their life are way opposite of what you have for your life. So from a marital perspective, if you're so far off on your values, it may not be a good fit. Right.

00:03:26.940 It's like John Gottman says, you know, he can give you a test and he can see if, by the way, you answer certain things, he can tell you whether or not your relationship is going to survive or not, just based on your answers, which probably includes values. But I wanted to say that because I know for me, I didn't know either. Mm-hmm. I was just in constant turmoil. Right. That's a great way to put it. Yeah.

00:03:57.360 I know that very well. Right. And that, that has led to a lot of dysfunction in my life. Mm-hmm. And it led to dysfunctional relationships and decisions. Right. And decisions, too. And it's going through it, again, you don't have to go through these things. But because you're not understanding how to do this, then you will go through it. And it's just natural. That's just a natural progression.

00:04:26.100 If you don't know. Then if you don't know how's the old saying go? No, I just I'll let that go. But anyway, the when I What you don't know can hurt you. Thank you. Thank you. That was a tough one. I couldn't remember that. Well, I just thought we should say that. Thank you. I appreciate that. Yeah. Yeah. So when we're looking at the values, I just something came to my mind as we were talking.

00:04:53.640 And, you know, as born again believers and people in Christ, you may have other family members who are not. And they see and even though you're going through the transformation and everything, they still remember the old you. Right. And they're not walking a walk with you. They're in their own space, and they're dealing with their own issues, and they're dealing with their own inadequacies in their heart. And when you're dealing with that as a family, that's tough to deal with. Very difficult.

00:05:22.680 I mean, you have our hearts as we talk. I hope it's plain to see that we love God. God is working through us to work through the ministry to help people. But when your family is they've known you from day one, and they have their own way of thinking about you. I only bring that in because you could be walking a walk, and that could be something that could be detrimental or try to pull you back. Right. And you don't want that. Because of their perspective, instead of it being from through His eyes.

00:05:52.860 Right. Yeah. And that's where, for me, it's not just the immediate family. It was just the people who surrounded me in my life up until, you know, until I was born again. I had some very good relationships, too. I was very fortunate, you know, with Kathy to have that. But, you know, when you're looking at how that can that can alter you being authentic, you can really looking back, say, "Oh, my gosh." How having a relationship with God Him first, His love, and then trying to understand that's all you need.

00:06:31.260 That's all you need. And then when you're living authentically, based on, you know, with the love of God and He's working through us, to work through other people to other people. Right. Living authentically is the key. Biggest key. And the values, the core values that you have are very important. Would you like to elaborate on that? Well, I was just going to say too, first of all, like you talk about your relationship with Christ.

00:06:55.320 I mean, every one of us who become born again believers understand that our value and our worth come only through Him. We know that we are nothing without Him. We know that we can do nothing without Him. So our foundation, the bedrock for our life, is that understanding, and who He is, and who we are to Him.

00:07:21.420 And so then understanding how we're uniquely wired, you know how he has created each of us to be unique individuals. And we are a masterpiece of his. We are his masterpiece. And so your values may not be the same as my values. But you know there are numerous values that people can have. It could be making money.
That could be a value that they have, or it could be their faith, or it could be family, or it could be integrity. And all of these drive every decision that we make in our life. So you know you go back to when you think about our life before and it was just chaos and our thinking was distorted. Oh my gosh. So were the ways that we communicated distorted.

00:08:18.120 And so so were the ways the actions that we took out of that distorted. But when you come into alignment with understanding what your true core values are, and you can define those, and you want to live out of those, and it's an intentional movement. It's totally intentional. You really work on that.

00:08:42.660 But when you do, that place is almost like a I don't want to say a wall, but it creates this undergirding for your life to where you understand this is what you believe in. This is what you value in life. This is what fills your buckets. You know And so you live from that and you operate from that.

00:09:09.420 And again, it may be that you have friends that have different values, but they may have something in common with you. Maybe it's their faith. Maybe it's whatever. And so you connect in those places. But then there are some that have totally different values. Right. And I think it can be a cultural thing too. You know That's another thing we have to look at when we're dealing with interpersonal relationships, the cultural aspect of things.

00:09:36.000 But as we're dealing with the body of Christ and we're dealing with people within the body of Christ, two Christians, we really have to have a moral compass. I mean that in a good way. Because truly, because of what God did for us, we want to please Him. As a child, we want to please our father or mother. Right. That's what we do for our Lord. So I say that because when we live authentically, we have core values which are unique to us, but, you know, it could be unique to other people as well.

00:10:05.100 But if we live by them, and then we have our limits, and then we have our boundaries, that helps us to love other people better. So what I mean by that is an example is, if you have frenzy running around and you just don't have and a friend of yours asks you to help them with something. And for me, I would say yes. And I'm pushing myself, and I don't really want to do it. So it's not out of love I'm doing. It's out of an obligation that I feel that I have to try to do it. And that's not living authentically.

00:10:36.300 It's not having the correct way of looking at things. Yeah. Because for me to say, you know, you look back how many times I just said, "I'm sorry. I can't do it right now." But, you know, if we do it tomorrow, I certainly can do it tomorrow. But right at the moment, I just physically and mentally, I just can't do it to help you. And I mean that because it could be something, as I said, you're frantic, or you're running around, and you're just tired. Yeah And somebody's asking you, and they would rather you say, I know from experience, "Sure, no problem." You know, but so many people say, "Oh, I got to do this.

00:11:09.120 I have to do this." And then some people think because they're Christians, "Oh, that's the way I have to do it. I just have to give, give, give, give, gives." No. Well, and part of that, don't you think Gerard is like coming from a place of pleasing because you want to be accepted. Right. And so, that's not living in alignment with your values because you're already accepted. You're accepted for who you are, how you're uniquely wired, how you are in Christ.

00:11:36.060 So when we're constantly saying yes and we're getting into overwhelm and we're, you know, being like, "Oh, I don't know how to carry this heavy load." It's where we're operating from a sense of, "I just want you to like me," or, "I just want you to accept me." And that's burdensome. I want to please you. I don't want you to get mad at me if I say no. But really, what happens when you actually say no, I can't do it like you said today, or I can do it next week, or I'm sorry.

00:12:08.460 That's just not something I can do for you. Right. Either way, you're being true to yourself and what you believe in, and then that person respects you. But they do. And that's the thing that I found hard to understand for so long in my life. Yeah. Because I am a people pleaser. That's my go-to, so to speak. But that, you know, through everything that we've been going through over the last number of years, that's not healthy. No. And I understand that. And, you know, I just, at some points, would say, "No, I'm sorry, I can't do it." But the person recognizes that.

00:12:40.800 So it's following up with what you're saying. They respect you for that. Because they're not in a lot of cases, they're not trying to do something to you to put this burden on you so you to help ease themselves, meaning that they just need a favor. Right. And they're not asking you to do it, you know, "Please do it." You know, "You're my slave," or, "You're this." No, they're just saying, "Can you help me?" Mm-hmm. And when people respond to me saying, "I can't do it." Ah, yeah, no problem. I certainly get that feeling. Yeah.

00:13:09.660 And if you don't do it, then the limits and boundaries in your life are, are not healthy. Right. And I think God says, you know, do it cheerfully. Yes. You know, if you're going to give, give cheerfully. It only includes money, but it includes everything. Time and everything else that you can help with the interpersonal relationships. So as we look at that aspect of how we're supposed to how we're supposed to act, when I say supposed to, it's God's way of telling us to just do what you can do for yourself because we're human beings, not human doers.

00:13:42.060 Right. You know? So as we as we work with interpersonal relationships, and then the other person respects that, they understand that they can't or they won't do that because they don't want to hurt you. Yeah. And then in turn, you have to respect them if they do the same to you. Right. So I think it's a win-win when you get to that point. Yeah. Values, core values, we were talking about that. Mm-hmm. And I think it's really, really important to, to have them fixed, to have them as your compass going forward.

00:14:18.360 You had mentioned before some of the values that in your life and things like that. Do you want to elaborate on some things on that nature at all? Is that too much or have you feel your voice? No, it's fine. I mean, I said faith, family, and friends. You know I feel like my faith is the most important thing for me. It's something that I value the most. And when I say my faith, I'm thinking about my relationship with our Heavenly Father through Jesus.

00:14:47.100 And so for me, I mean, it's just operating in every part of my life with that. Not necessarily only being around people that believe in that too, but being able to be that person that He's created me to be. And not out of my own strength or power, you know because I can't do it in that. So it comes through His.

00:15:14.280 But it's also about understanding that that is a value of mine, that I understand that that does fill me up when I can be operating in that, and that it helps me to be the best version of who I am. And my family is very important to me. My children, my grandchildren, my extended family, my parents, my siblings, all of those people are very important to me.

00:15:43.920 But also, when I talk about family, it's the family of God. My brothers and sisters in Christ. And you know there is nothing better than having somebody to be able to communicate with that understands where you're coming from, that understands the language that you're speaking. So, having that as a core value for me, I know that I have family that God gave me.

00:16:16.500 Right. And he chose that family for me. Right. And then I know that I have family through being born again with him that will be with me all the days of my life and hereafter. And so I guess you know seeing them from the perspective that God created them, I always go back to that because I feel like you know we not feel I believe we are all created in his image.

00:16:46.140 So to see and I don't always do this right. I'm not saying I mean, there are situations that we get into. We can be deceived or we can deceive ourselves. So you know we can be in the middle of a place where everything starts feeling out of order. And that is a sign for us, I think, to go back to your values, to look at what it is that is good for you, that you know is something that is valuable for your life, that brings goodness into your life, and go, "Okay, where did I veer off?

00:17:24.000 What is going on here? Was it me or have I you know allowed something to come into my life that is not in agreement and is affecting that?" Right. That's a great way to put it. And just to kind of piggyback off of that, for me, when I get into that situation, because it does happen, the enemy will throw things at you too. And you can get overwhelmed and busy. And one of the biggest telltale signs for me is my sighing. Your what? Science. Oh, okay.

00:17:53.280 And when I start doing that over and over again, I step back and I say, "Okay, I have to do something here to eliminate this issue of science because I feel overwhelmed with what I'm doing." And so, first and foremost, it's relationship with God. Secondly, for me, it's the Bible studying and just to really just get into the Word and you know we said it in other podcasts. We're lifelong learners.

00:18:20.280 And when you're dealing and from a Kennedy perspective, we're delving deeper into God's Word and deeper into being His image and understanding all of these things that was going to be an eternal from an eternal perspective. So when we cross to the other side, we'll know then. But just it's lifelong learning. Yeah. Because you know, a lot of people feel this world is just this is it. We're just, you know, we're going to go up into heaven and play harps. No, no. That's not going to be a new.

00:18:48.720 It's going to be a new heaven and new earth, you know the new Jerusalem. Yeah So we will be as we are now. We'll just be perfected in Christ. And so I only say that because we are each of us. And this is the brilliance of God. And the vastness and just the incredible love, each one of eight billion people are his masterpiece. Can you imagine that? What a great artist. Amazing.

00:19:17.580 I know. Really? He is the wonderful artist. And so when you look at it, if we would only follow his direction and path for our lives, each one of us, that's why we're doing the ministry. We're doing the ministry for him to work through us to help people to get out of that area of that prison that they're in. So they can come to know how to live the life God has given them to live.

00:19:47.400 And as we said before, to be the best me that we can be. That's what God wants. Yeah. And that's living wholeheartedly. Right. Yeah. I mean, you know I just remember the pressures and the stresses and the constants of trying to strive. You're just striving, striving, striving where it's very different when you're operating with him and in his design. Exactly.

00:20:14.520 And there were times when we've talked about it before where I've gotten ahead of God's design and plan for my life. Yeah. And because of that, that's exactly what I went through, the striving. So I was trying to do it out of my own strength. And that's tiring. Yeah. Oh, my gosh, is that tiring? And so you really have to give everything to God. Trust him. And Andrew's Andrew Wamex really has a great illustration of how he was talking to an astronaut in the early part of the space program.

00:20:42.840 And when they went to the moon, he was so happy to be interviewing him. And he thought it was a straight trajectory. No. It's course corrections. Right. So we can go this way, but the law can bring us back. How do I say GPS? God's whatever it is. What is GPS? Guidance. It's a guidance. So God will guide us back. And we go this way, but we'll go back. But why are we doing that? Because we're seeking Him. And we don't do everything perfectly. Right.

00:21:12.780 Because we are humans. And there's a spiritual element to us, as we've talked about. But to follow His direction for our life takes work. And it's not a heavy work. It's just seeking Him. Seeking Him for His guidance, seeking Him for how best we can help each other, praying and praying, communicating with God to get the guidance as to as to how to do something better, or maybe make a decision, or whatever the case may be.

00:21:42.300 And then when you're in that situation and praying with God, you know that He hears us. Right. And He does answer us. Mm-hmm. And it's a lot of people out there say, "Well, maybe God doesn't want this for you. Maybe He doesn't want that for you." If you're praying within a biblical perspective, you're going to get it. Right. Because that's in John 14:12. He says, "If you ask anything in my name, I'm going to do it." I'm going to do it. And I think that's a promise. Yeah.

00:22:11.340 You know I know we're getting away from a little bit I'm taking a little rabbit trail there, but getting back into the values. And it kind of encompasses how we're supposed to live in Christ. Yeah And if we don't do it, then our life is going to be in turmoil, and it's going to be burdensome, and it's going to be heavy laden. Well, and that's not what Jesus died for. That's not why he died. He did not die to give us that kind of life. He gave us a life of freedom in him with him to operate with him.

00:22:41.340 So it comes through, I believe, living in alignment comes through knowing God's love for you. I mean, we talked about this earlier. His love is so amazing. You gave an example of, you know, a person loving their child. And I mean, you know how much you love your children. Right. And that's God's purpose for us. Yes.

00:23:08.400 And we were saying that, "Do you think God's going to love us less than we love our child?" No, that God is love. And God's given us the ability to love. Yes. And that's what he wants to love and nurture. So in a perfect world, that's the perfect family unit for a baby to come in, love and nurture, and grow up, healthy, and continue on for that generation. And when you're looking at curses and things of that nature, we're not looking at curses per se.

00:23:37.680 We're looking at generational mirroring. Yeah. I mean, just let me say, you know, all my life, you know, you've heard the word curse. You hear that from a very evil perspective. Mm-hmm. And so then when you read about generational curses and that you have this curse on you, then you're like, "Whoa, wait. What's going on if I got an evil curse on me?" Right. And it's not. It's learned behavior. It is.

00:24:07.920 And that comes about from exactly what you're saying. It's the family unit when you're younger. And then, you know, we have the aces that come into effect, and it's the learned behavior. And again, they don't know any better. And it goes back generation. Generationally. Thank you. I'm sorry. Oh, my gosh. I don't know why I couldn't get that out. But anyway, it goes back generation before generation. It's really sad that people and then when you get spiritual warfare, which is so you know in a correct way, it's fine, which is just it's out of love.

00:24:43.260 So love, the demons cannot handle love. We don't have to fight them. Jesus has already done it. We just, out of love, they have to go because they can't stay in love. They can't stay in love. And so that's the true generation of warfare. And we have a divine warrior king, Jesus, who fights for us. Yeah And he is. He fights for each one of us. We are his. Yeah And he's going, "No, no, no. They're mine." That's right. So it's important for us to realize that.

00:25:10.560 And then you have the wrong way of doing it, where you're rebuking and you're fighting them directly because you feel that because of Christ, you can do no, don't waste your time. Yeah They're bound. They're bound. So all of this contributes to how we think authentically. And when you have misconceptions about how best to have spiritual warfare, and it's really outlined in Ephesians 6 very well Yes, it is about what it's all about. And it's about faith and it's about loving God.

00:25:39.960 It's both ways, loving, believing loyalty that works both ways. So I just feel that it's something important to interject there. As we're talking about living the life God wanted us to live or wants us to live as each He has desired us to live. Yeah. Well, and living out of your values, living in true authenticity, you put that armor on that Ephesians 6:12 talks about and through like 16, I think.

00:26:09.480 And so you're operating in your true self. And so you end up having not that everything goes perfect because it doesn't. There's always something that will come in, but you have the armor and you have his love. And that's how you navigate through that. Absolutely. And so when we're looking at Ephesians 6, I think it's, yeah, 10 through 16, as you mentioned.

00:26:35.460 And when you look towards the tail end of that particular scripture or those scripture verses, it says, "Put on the full armor of God." You know, and then you're talking about the Word of God, which is, you know, the sword. That's our sword. Yes. His word. It's his word. And that's how we do it. We don't have to do anything other than that. God has taken care of it all. So as, you know, when we're looking back from my life's perspective, I just look at the times that it wasn't authentic, and I'm working towards it, and how freeing it is.

00:27:09.900 And again, the Lord said, "My yoke is easy and my burden is light." And that's the truth. God does not lie. That's right. So these are areas of my life that I need to constantly work on. And you know I just wanted to say that. And I think it's important for each of us have to do it every day. We just have to focus on that. Totally agree. Any other thoughts? Yeah. No.

00:27:36.600 You know I think there's such a contrast from before understanding all of these things to understanding all of these things and where we've talked about what you don't know can hurt you. It's so important to know these things because then they can't hurt you. Right. So we bring things to the light and we understand this. And when you understand it and you work on journaling, you're working on answering questions that you ask yourself and to work on yourself each and every day.

00:28:07.920 You know It's a relationship with God. And it's freeing. That's all I can say. It's really free. Oh my gosh. You're free to be who you are. Exactly. The way you're created. In a way, in a loving way. Yes. We love each other and we do this together as interpersonal relationships with the body of Christ and with everybody. We try to do our best with everybody. It's not always easy. I mean, we can only do what we can do. That's our main point. Yeah Well, anything else? That's it. Well, thank you.

00:28:36.600 Thank you once again for taking the time to join us today. We're just so excited that we get to do this. I say that so much, but I can't help. I get up saying, "Yes, I get to do this." So thank you again and have a wonderful, blessed week. And any questions, please feel free to email us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. And we look forward to hearing from you. Thank you. Yep.