speaker-0 (00:00) Well, Veronica, here we are still in Shannon’s beautiful home. Shannon, thank you for, we came and invaded your space. were thrilled. So hopefully our listeners should have listened to our first podcast. Tons of great information about story. But before we jump into that, Shannon, I wanted to give you just a quick chance. You also do a podcast as long as an author speaker. have, I’ve been blessed several times to be a guest, but you’re.

speaker-1 (00:08) Great.

speaker-0 (00:29) podcast name is Live Like It’s True. And what’s the format? What’s the, I don’t know if point is the right word, but like, what do do on your podcast?

speaker-1 (00:36) Yeah, well, usually in a typical episode, we look at a story of the Bible, and then we unpack it, you know, and look at we talk about like, what makes this a good story? Like, what’s what are what’s the surprise here? What’s unusual? You know, why isn’t it? I went to the mailbox and came back. That’s not a story. So what makes it ⁓ you know, what’s what’s interesting about it? And then we get to the point where we’re looking at it from a spiritual component and asking, how can we live like this is true?

know, how can we like this story packages up truth? So how can we align ourselves and live like the story is true? And how do we not do that? You know, and so that’s, that’s really the point. And I just love stories of the Bible. It’s my favorite genre. Like we talked about before, and you’ve been a guest. We’ve, let’s see if I can remember. We, ⁓ we talked about Jesus rising from the dead, like the women, and you talked about first fruits. That was so great. ⁓ We just did the, ⁓ Paul, Paul’s conversion.

speaker-0 (01:35) Did we do that on the- Maybe we did.

speaker-1 (01:36) podcast? I think so.

Maybe I’m just thinking of another conversation, but I’m pretty sure we did that one. And then we also just did a couple of episodes on Jonah. Well, and I was, listened to you guys as series on Jonah. So good. And you know, Veronica dug up all of Erica’s or all of Brian’s research and stuff. was really, really good. So, ⁓ I, I like keep telling him, I think he needs to that book published.

speaker-0 (02:05) It’s a great podcast. So I’ve enjoyed the ones I’ve listened to. I would heartily recommend it to our listeners as well. And now we’re going to jump back in. So I’m going to turn the microphone back over to Veronica. So we’re going to continue that conversation of stories and Shannon’s going to walk us through kind of how to do the story and bring it into our real world. Yeah.

speaker-1 (02:30) think, ⁓ you know, last time we talked about, can just interject these stories into conversations and how they create good talking points. So you’re not just arguing about abstract ideas. You’re looking at something that has concrete pieces that don’t move. know, so let’s say you’re even you’re talking to someone about gender and marriage. You know, you can take them to the teachings of Paul, which are all very, you know, those are great. And they have, they fill things out really well.

But you go back to Genesis and you talk about the fact that God created a man from the dust of the ground, and then he breathed life into the man, and then he took a rib from the man and created her out of the man and brought her to the man. ⁓ the word says that it’s like this mirror image, you know, they fit together. And so the two become one. And there’s this marriage ceremony where God brings the wife to the husband. And so like we can,

talk about that. Like that’s a story and the pieces don’t move. so like, why do you think that’s the story God told? didn’t he, first of all, like, why didn’t he make them both out of the dust of the ground? What was he saying about that? ⁓ why, you know, what’s unique about even the way that he formed their bodies, if we know that he formed their bodies, what is he, what story is he telling by the way that he formed their bodies? And I mean, there’s such intricate detail, what parables.

these bodies telling and the fact that to become one, you know, I mean, we’re talking about sex there, right? And so what, what story is God telling with sex? And so, and then marriage is like this, um, it’s something tangible. It’s real. It’s physically to becoming one, but it tells another story that is abstract, you know, is about Christ and the church. And so like, there’s, there’s just a lot that you can do with going back to the stories of the Bible, the concrete.

⁓ that God’s already done the work for you. And so you’re, you know, you don’t have to argue it all out. You can just say, well, what do you think that means and ask questions. and ⁓ so, so any thoughts on that?

speaker-0 (04:39) No, I think that’s, like that you’re, we’re starting at one level and going, there’s so many more levels here. And even in your, you’re describing creation, Adam and Eve, it’s like, oh, there’s so many good conversations you can have and looking at that. how does a woman, how’s a wife supposed to help the husband? just, I mean, starting with the story just blows open the discussion and you go any direction and depending on who’s in the room, conversation will shift.

speaker-1 (04:56) Yeah, right.

time.

Exactly. It’s so true. And I’ll just get tip my cards. think that God created her from Adam and brought her to him because God made her more relational. know, she’s related to him before she’s even created. She’s related to him and she’s brought to him. And there’s this like beautiful like she and even if you look at the curse, you know, the consequences for the woman had to do with both relationships, her children and her husband or her marriage. And so

and her body, she’s the one who receives and nurtures life and her arm has a different angle to carry a baby. Mary Cassian says this, like ⁓ a man’s elbow is like, if you put it like this, his arm is straight, where ours has a bent because it’s easier to carry a baby that way. Isn’t that interesting?

speaker-0 (05:52) I’m

so going home looking at all my boys tonight. I know.

speaker-1 (05:56) I know. So anyway, we’re just designed for a relationship and that’s why we are so relational. anyway, so I think these concrete physical, know, we just before we hit record, we’re talking about the physical world that we live in and how our hearts long for all to be put right in a physical sense, not just like this ethereal, like spiritual, like, you know, we want to feel things and know, you know, have a tangible physical.

experience of God’s goodness. So let’s move the conversation to like maybe more of a group setting. Like let’s say, you know, I think for a lot of us, the times that we’re gathering with our people are holidays. And so one of the things our family’s done is used when we host, we don’t always host, but when we host either Easter or Christmas or, you know, I guess you could do it at Thanksgiving, you could do it anytime.

But what we’ll do is gather everybody and Ken and I will have a story prepared to tell a story from the Bible. And we will have practiced it so that we’re telling it the same way, you know, and we’ll use like different hand motions or kind of like use the space to to tell this story. I’ll tell it, he’ll tell it. And then we have the group help us retell it. And then ⁓ we have them pair up and tell it to each other.

So they’re kind of like learning, they’re taking in the story first. And so hopefully they go away with like just knowing the story. But then we have a conversation and we talk, we’re just real simple questions. And I learned this from the, the people at story storytellers. It’s a, it’s a division of crew. And ⁓ I had a woman from that organization as a guest on the podcast. And so we were just like, you can go listen to that whole episode.

But I’m just like truncating it all and telling you. the questions that we ask in that group setting are, what do you like about the story? Not, what do you like about the storytellers? You have to be, you know, cause they’ll say, Oh, I like the way you use your voice. No, no, no. What do you like? What’s compelling in this story? What do you like about the story? What do you not like about the story? You know, what is it that you don’t, you don’t like how it ended. You don’t like how it, you know, whatever. And then, and then what does the story tell us about God? What does it tell us about people?

And then how can we live like the story is true? So it’s just like five questions. And they, you know, it’ll take us 30 minutes to walk through those questions and, and a couple of ground rules before you lead the conversation. Cause like in our family, we’ve got some really great Bible scholars and they could pontificate for a long time about many things. And so we tell everybody, okay, the rule is we’re only discussing this particular story.

and only in the way that we have told it because you may know other details in the in telling of the story, but we’re just going to like put those off, you know, like so it’s a level playing field. even the little kids have heard everything that’s going to be discussed and everybody gets a chance to talk about what they think. And it’s really interesting how people respond. so, yeah, how does it, do think you could do that?

speaker-0 (09:05) I

know. Like how long does that normally take?

speaker-1 (09:10) Maybe 40 minutes. You know, it takes about a minute to two minutes to tell one of these stories. So you do it.

speaker-0 (09:16) So you’re really, you’re doing a short fast story.

speaker-1 (09:18) Yeah,

no, it needs to be that. ⁓ And if you want a version that’s already done for you, you can go to Story Runners. Did I say that wrong before? It’s Story Runners. It’s a division of Coup. We can put a link, but they have like recordings, you know? So we’ll often just do that and just listen. It’s a little two minute story. Like we said in our other episodes, like these stories are like 300 words. If you’re going to do Easter, like we just do one little segment of the Easter story. Like we did the women coming to find Jesus.

or we’ve done last year we did on the road to M.A.S. know so for the Christmas story I think last year we did ⁓

Mary and the angel? don’t remember. So like, we’ll just do different component, little pieces of the story. It’s, I think what it can be hard probably for those who, you know, you’ve got Bible scholars in your family too. And so I think getting them on board, you know, like maybe letting them know ahead of time, like, Hey, we really want to just engage the kids and, you know, and if you have unbelievers in your family, it’s a really great way to get everybody talking. Now I will have, I will tell you this, there was someone in our family,

who will remain unnamed, who’s like, maybe having a little memory issues or whatever. It was so funny as we broke them into groups and they started to retell it. And he’s like, we already told

And I like, you just caught, you didn’t catch the idea that, no, this is our third time doing this. anyway, it’s great. But everybody has responded really well. And so now it’s just part of what we do. And I don’t know that it’s for everyone, but I think anybody could do it. We’ve also thought about doing a little neighborhood, like inviting people to do a score, we’ll call them the story discussions. think, you just haven’t found a time in the.

calendar, it’s really been on my heart for a long time. So maybe this is my like, okay, I’m going to do this this year. I think it, you know, just be a great way to whether they’re believers or not, know, discuss, discuss the story from the Bible.

speaker-0 (11:20) Yeah. That’s just such a fun, I want to like little fly on the wall and watch. You know, because in a way I kind of go, okay, this sounds great. And I’m wondering if people are going, but I still have questions. But I think that’s essentially what we’re going to do now is kind of walk through.

speaker-1 (11:34) Let’s do it.

Yeah, let’s do it. Perfect. yeah, we’ll just try it out with the story of the flood. It’s three chapters in the Bible, so I’m not going to tell the whole thing, but I’ll just basically tell you the story of the flood. This is Genesis six through nine. So God looked out across the earth and he saw that mankind had multiplied across the face of the earth, but also that evil had multiplied. And as he weighed the thoughts and the intentions of the hearts of the people, he saw that they were only always evil.

and this grieved God and he determined that he was going to wipe mankind from the face of the earth. But one man was righteous. He saw that Noah was righteous and that’s because Noah walked with God. And so God told Noah, he gave him instructions for how he could escape this judgment that was coming. And so he gave Noah like measurements and instructions to build this ark that would be big enough for his family.

and two of all of the animals and Noah did it. He obeyed every single thing that God said. When the time came, Noah and his family and two of each of the animals entered the ark and God shut the door. And they waited for seven days. They waited. And then the rain came and it rained and it rained so that the ark lifted up above the face of the earth. But every single

human being and every animal sunk to the bottom. And this was God’s judgment. And so for 40 days, it rained, it poured and it covered the earth. But at the end of those 40 days, the ark had risen and they waited for the waters to secede. And so after months and months, God sent a wind to blow and the waters receded and

was time God told Abraham, Abraham, God told Noah and his family to come out of the ark and Noah built an altar and the sacrifice was pleasing to the Lord. However, he looked and saw that mankind still, even from childhood, still had evil intentions of the heart. And so God promised to never again destroy the earth in this way and the rainbow was his promise.

All right, so there is the story. ⁓ no. So I do those mostly to help me remember, you know, so I did like I did like a crossing of the fingers for multiplying and building like measuring and building the arc. Yeah. yeah. So do you want to try and retell it together? Yeah. I feel like we can. All right. So. OK. All right. So God looked out.

speaker-0 (14:04) is all the hand movements.

And he saw, he saw like evil. That’s right, it was two X’s. Mankind multiplied and then mankind was evil.

speaker-1 (14:30) First mankind was multiplying.

Evil multiplied and he looked at the

speaker-0 (14:41) at the heart and weighed the intention and thought was always evil. was sad. And then decided to wipe it all and start over. But he saw one righteous man and he took and then walked with. ⁓

speaker-1 (14:46) only always evil and it was grieved and.

Mm-hmm. But.

And he walked

with God. That’s what made him righteous. And so God gave him

speaker-0 (15:05) Instructions how to build.

speaker-1 (15:07) Yeah, and how to escape the judgment. then Noah, he did everything.

speaker-0 (15:13) He did every thing.

And two of every kind of animal was to go with him.

speaker-1 (15:19) Yep. And so when it’s time, you know, God called the animals and his family. God shut the door.

speaker-0 (15:26) and got shut the. And

they waited for seven days.

speaker-1 (15:31) I

pointed like a watch. They waited for seven days.

speaker-0 (15:35) rain came down and the ark was lifted up out of the water. But the people and everything else on the earth sunk down. remember that.

speaker-1 (15:46) down.

Yeah. And so they waited for months and then

speaker-0 (15:51) winds came and the waters receded and then the arc sunk down. then no, I don’t remember. I built an altar, but I think I skipped.

speaker-1 (16:01) No,

no. So after God told them to leave the ark and then they built an altar.

speaker-0 (16:06) Rama was pleasing to the Lord.

God saw that man was still wicked from birth, but he said he would never again judge with a flood. And so he put a rainbow in the sky. This is his promise. You didn’t! We’ve got hand motion.

speaker-1 (16:20) And it says prom. I’m so proud

of you! I know. Flying! I know. Well, it’s just me. Ken doesn’t use hand motions when he tells stories, but for me it just helps me remember. So anyway.

speaker-0 (16:34) But it gives

you something too to just some of them I keyed in on, he waited and hitting the the wire.

speaker-1 (16:40) Yeah, mean, they’re helpful for some people, but you don’t have to. But I mean, look at that only took us a couple of minutes, you know, to retell that. And so like, if you want to try it, turn off your, you know, hit pause on the on the episode and try and see if you can retell it. But yeah, let’s just think through some of those those questions. So what do we like about the story?

speaker-0 (17:03) It’s very visual. like just, I mean, we can all picture the rain and the boat and the rainbow. the just, think part of it is probably children’s Bibles are in my head too of the animals coming two by two, but it’s a very visual, active story. You know, it keeps moving. It’s got

speaker-1 (17:24) Yeah.

What do you like about what happens in the story?

speaker-0 (17:31) that Noah saved.

speaker-1 (17:33) Yeah, you like that God is merciful that he doesn’t wipe every because I mean what we find out at the end is that Noah too is evil.

speaker-0 (17:44) that God shows emotion in the story. Because I think so often we do like, I view my sin, I know my sin hurts other people, but to remember that my sin hurts God, that he is not untouchable, that he feels. I like that reminder because I so often like, he’s God, he’s fine. Well, no, He grieves him.

speaker-1 (18:04) hurt. that’s so

true.

speaker-0 (18:07) Because that shows relationship, that shows that he’s actively involved. I can hurt for people across the world and go, that’s sad, but I move on. But when it’s my own children and their heart is breaking, it pulls me and compels me even more so to know that God is actively grieving. It shows he’s right there.

speaker-1 (18:19) out.

And if you think about like this generation, if they were only always evil, like this was a wicked, you know, this is like a city, you didn’t leave your doors unlocked, you know, this was, these were evil people. And it makes a difference that that hurts God, that he feels that and that he doesn’t want evil spreading. Like that tells us, you know, I like that. I like that, that God doesn’t want evil spreading. I also like the fact that there is a limit.

speaker-0 (18:53) Yes.

speaker-1 (18:54) You know, like I like that, that there’s a limit. I don’t want there to be endless evil, right? And I think right now we’re crying out for it to be, you know. What are we not like about the story?

speaker-0 (19:06) think we don’t like that the people die ⁓ because we don’t put that in our children’s Bibles. I can’t remember which comedian it was, but he’s like, maybe Tim Hawkins. I’m painting pictures on my children’s walls. And he goes, we never have the ark and all the people in the water drowning. ⁓ It’s just the ark. And it’s like, isn’t it wonderful? And it’s like, you know what? But we forget that everybody died. Other than eight people, everybody died. And you go, that’s a…

speaker-1 (19:10) All

Yeah.

speaker-0 (19:34) That’s a lot of people, that’s a lot of death and destruction and we don’t

speaker-1 (19:39) Well, have you ever thought about when the waters receded? Still the remains of them.

speaker-0 (19:41) Yeah

And those people

they knew. Yeah. Those neighbors, family members. mean…

speaker-1 (19:49) Yeah,

don’t like that at all. It’s like a horror story. yeah, I think it gives me a good picture of how bad sin is, you know? yeah, that’s not fun. Anything else that you don’t like?

speaker-0 (20:04) All the animals dying too.

speaker-1 (20:06) Yeah.

What about those seven days? Do you like that or not?

speaker-0 (20:10) It

was in, we were just talking about that in the car coming down.

speaker-1 (20:17) you were about those seven days? We were. What’s your thought on it?

speaker-0 (20:22) It was a detail I hadn’t paid attention to. So when you said it, because my mom was talking to me about it the other night and I was telling Erica the conversation and it was like, okay, seven days, what’s the purpose? And now are you sitting there going, okay, why’d we get in this early? I mean, because like our dad, when we go to the airport, when we were younger, he wanted to be there like.

hours if not days early. And it’s like now we’re sitting here waiting. I still like to get to the airport early because I’m prepared. you go seven days of just sitting around.

speaker-1 (20:56) Well, and just think about like all that was at stake, because they hadn’t had this sort of rain before. for decades, at least, he’s building this thing, this monstrosity. so this was a test of faith. also, this is God is about to let the waters fall back. It’s like, you think about creation, and we went from chaos to order, where he’s dividing the waters from the land and the heavens, you know, so this is where he’s going to let it all fall back together. So this is like those seven days. This is like,

a reversal of. ⁓ But okay, so what do we learn about God in this story? You already mentioned something that God sees. What is, you know, he sees and he responds, he’s emotion, you know, has emotions.

speaker-0 (21:45) I think we see both mercy and judgment, which I know either we’ve just talked about this or you hit on this earlier when we were discussing it. like, yeah, he does judge evil, but there’s mercy, there’s a way out. And so I feel like you get both in this.

speaker-1 (21:59) Yeah,

no, it’s in its one movement. It’s not just God doesn’t toggle between judgment and mercy. He is one God and He has one movement. So think you’re exactly right. It’s like this is both His judgment and His mercy at the same time, the flood, you know, in the arc is like, don’t just look at the people falling to the bottom. You know, look also at the arc. Don’t miss that.

speaker-0 (22:22) I think you see God punishing but providing. And I think as you’ve looked, if we had time and look back at God punished Adam and Eve, but yet He provided for them. God punished Cain when He killed Abel, but yet He provided that mark. So you go, okay, you see that in God’s punishment, in disciplining us, He still provides and takes care of us. Because to me that just communicates He still loves us.

speaker-1 (22:45) Yeah.

Yeah, that’s a

speaker-0 (22:51) The punishment needs to come.

speaker-1 (22:54) Like who would he be if he did nothing? You you think of a rape victim or a murder victim or like a child that’s gone missing. Like who is God when he does, if he does nothing, like we don’t want that God, but nor do we want a God who gives us no escape. Like we said in the last episode, if Jesus came the first time to destroy evil, well, we would be all like there’d be no one left to save because we are all evil. so, ⁓

Like we want, we need both, we want both. And we’re provided with both in this story. So yeah, we see both things in God. What about the fact this part of the.

speaker-0 (23:31) The building. She’s acting like she’s got a tape measure. I’ve just, Timmy, it says God’s involvement. Noah probably didn’t know how to build an ark. mean, and how, okay, go build an ark big enough for your family and all these animals. Noah doesn’t have all the plans and all the data. How long are we going to be there? How much water is going to be around us? How much food do we need? I’ve just, God giving, okay, here’s what you need.

speaker-1 (23:55) Yeah.

Yeah, giving the blueprints. But also, that guide involves us.

speaker-0 (24:05) Yes. That’s what I was doing. So I was thinking like Noah had to walk this out. He had to put feet to his face and he couldn’t just sit around and wait. Okay, God, you’ll provide a bow. You’ll all this. Like he has to do something. God partners with him, if you will, for salvation. Not that he brought his own salvation, but in obedience. That was the, God saved Noah.

speaker-1 (24:18) Yeah.

Yeah, there’s like this hammer and nail faith, know, it’s like pick up your hammer every day because you believe God and that’s mean, that’s out. Yeah, you walk it out. You walk the like that’s really you walk the text. And so. All right. So what do we learn about mankind in this story?

speaker-0 (24:37) You watch it?

They’re evil. We haven’t changed much. guess that’s how I feel. Like, yeah, we’re still, there’s a lot of junk.

speaker-1 (24:57) Yeah.

speaker-0 (24:57) But I think with that then, there are rays of hope. There are people out there who are not perfect, clearly Noah wasn’t perfect, but walking in obedience to God, it just goes, when you feel alone, there could be somebody else that you don’t know who’s walking it out.

speaker-1 (25:15) Yeah, it’s so true. Yeah, like he, says that he was the only one in his generation, which may mean that even his family members and I mean, just think about that a whole wicked world and he’s the only one. And I think for us, I wrote this in my, in my new book that’s coming out. ⁓ for us, we think of that, like, that’s a really good characteristic that he’s got the standout standalone righteousness, but the, think the Hebrew

mindset is so much more collective that they would have looked at that like there’s no way that he could have been righteous if he didn’t have outside help. And then the answer is provided. It’s because he walked with God, you know, that’s why it’s so important to put that detail in when you tell the story that Noah walked with God. That’s why he was righteous. It wasn’t just because he was better than everybody else. So, and so I think that tells us something about mankind that we can either get swallowed up in evil and it’s going to multiply no matter what it’s just going to keep multiplying and spreading.

But there is a way, a different way to live. And it involves not just walking with good people, but walking with God.

speaker-0 (26:20) And when you have nobody around you, you can still have God and that’s enough. can do it. I mean, because I don’t think we can say that all of mankind is evil right now. Right. You know, so I go, at least I have family and friends that I’m walking with and go, okay, I really got it better than Noah. ⁓

speaker-1 (26:24) Yeah.

Right? It’s so true.

Yeah. I think it was a distinctly evil time and it may have something to do with the Nephilim, but I have nothing to say about that. Yeah. Yeah. That was, that was off the table. That’s, know, we didn’t put that in there. ⁓ but okay. So how can, how could we live like this story’s true?

speaker-0 (26:51) in the store.

I think you walk it out daily with God. go, okay, daily, daily, spending that time with him going, what do I do today? How do I act today? Where are you today? Yeah, that would be so nice. I like really specific blueprints though, just well.

speaker-1 (27:15) Or where are the blueprints? Right?

have our Bibles. That’s our blueprint for life, right? Life and godliness. We’ve been given everything we need for life and godliness.

speaker-0 (27:29) I think I was just struck by the fact Shannon that Noah was very practical. He just did what God called him to do, build a boat. To me it’s like, well, if the end is coming, you should be out there preaching. You should be out there teaching. But no, he was called to build a boat. Like right now I’m called to raise my kids. That for me is building the boat. That’s what God has called me to do today. No matter what it looks like in the eyes of the world, I’m a mom.

I’m a stay at home mom and I understand mom’s work. get that. But like this is what God’s called me to do today, to be with my kids and teach them. that’s, regardless of what the world says, this is me being obedient.

speaker-1 (28:08) Well, and I love that because God did put a hammer in Noah’s hand, right? And so he’s given you some sense of agency in the world. He didn’t just say, just wait for the ark to appear. Like you have a part in building it. And I think he wants for us to be productive and to be ⁓ about this good work that he’s called us to, which for you is raising kids. For all of us, we have our assignments for the day.

speaker-0 (28:35) little sister isn’t married and she has her own business. And so for her, building the boat is running her business well and making her staff and her clients like bringing God glory through making them happy. it’s a very practical.

speaker-1 (28:50) Yeah, it’s so good. ⁓ Anything else?

speaker-0 (28:54) I was even thinking just what are the truths there is evil in this world. All evil, evil. Acknowledge this. It’s okay to say people. What happened to you was evil was wrong.

speaker-1 (29:05) God grieves over that. Like he grieved so bad over that that he wiped the world clean at some point. But there’s also a rainbow. know, yeah, he’s not going to do that again. We don’t have to worry. And yet, you know, he’s made this other provision. Like he’s a merciful God. think for me, like the biggest, how to live like this story is true is keep my eyes on that arc because the arc rose above the judgment. that’s where

speaker-0 (29:14) Right.

speaker-1 (29:31) the camera, like if there’s a spotlight, it’s going to go on the arc, right? That’s where the story’s headed. And that’s what God wants for us to know and remember about Him. That’s where all of the ink is spilled. I think I said that in the last episode. you look at where all the ink goes, there’s only a few verses that talk about all those people that their life was snuffed out, that everything that had breath died. But ⁓ the rest of the ink goes to the preparation with the arc.

the creation 2.0 story and so living like it’s true is like there is, God has made a way for life to continue. ⁓ so I think that’s, those are all really good things. Okay. So I love to, when we talk about the stories of the Bible, talk about how can we embrace the truth and reject the lies? Because I think, you know, we’ve talked about how we live in this world full of lies. So how about this? I’m going to propose this. I didn’t ask you this ahead of time, but what if I give you a lie?

that you might be confronted with in a conversation or whatever, how could you use the story of Noah and the flood to refute that lie? Like what’s something from this story that you could use to embrace the truth and reject a lie? Are you up for that?

speaker-0 (30:41) Yup. ⁓

speaker-1 (30:46) Okay, so here we go. How about the lie that God doesn’t care what I do or how I

speaker-0 (30:52) Go for it. Well, just God’s watching. He sees it and it grieves him. So, God, He’s watching the good and the bad. So when I do the good, that it does bring him joy. Doesn’t say that in Noah’s, but if he’s grieved and saddened over the bad, then I would think the opposite is true when I’m doing the right thing. When I choose that hard thing that is right and reject the sin, that it would bring him joy and pleasure.

speaker-1 (31:15) Yeah.

Yeah. Well, if you picture God looking out at that generation, he took great pleasure in that Noah was righteous. He walked with God. He wants all of us to walk with him. very good. to get the next question. Okay. I decide what’s right for me and you decide what’s right for you.

speaker-0 (31:38) Well, God apparently had one standard if he’s going to wipe out everybody based on sin and Noah. there had to be what some Noah did something right that everybody else did wrong. And so you may think it’s right for you. I mean, all these people thought they were doing what was right for them in their own eyes. And it wasn’t so good.

speaker-1 (31:59) True.

Yeah, I God is the one who ultimately decides and you can raise your fist against God and say, no, this is right for me. But he, the story shows that he has authority and he said they were evil. And ⁓ yeah. And I think too, when you, when you think of the future judgment, ⁓ the fact that there is a judge who judges, I think that’s what he’s telling us in this story. Like he, there is a judgment and all of us have fallen short.

you know, even knowing his family at the end. All right. Having Jesus in my life won’t make anything better.

speaker-0 (32:36) That’s such a lie. ⁓ It may not make it easier. Yeah. ⁓

speaker-1 (32:42) This

story isn’t easy, right?

speaker-0 (32:46) But you’re saved. mean, Noah lived at the end of the storm. But Noah had to work. wasn’t, I mean, God could have just went, boom, here’s the ark. But he didn’t. He required Noah to put in day after day after week after week after month after year.

speaker-1 (32:49) Yes.

and go against the grain of every, know, building this boat was not what anybody else was doing.

speaker-0 (33:07) And

to go, you had to put the time and effort and energy into it. I’m going to save you. I’m telling you exactly how to do it. But I think sometimes we want the easy button. God, I’m struggling with this and just take it from me. Well, if he just takes it, then it’s easier to fall back in. But if I know the blood, sweat and tears I put in, overcoming that temptation, that addiction, that whatever, I’m less likely to go back.

speaker-1 (33:33) Yeah, and just that walking with Him is part of that, that breaking free from the evil of the swirl. It’s like, you can’t, there’s no shortcuts to walking with Him. And I think sometimes we do, we want that shortcut. ⁓ But having Jesus in our life, mean, Jesus is like the ark in this story. And when we’re in Christ, we already are saved. And so then living like we’re saved means like, we don’t want to go back to

just live like everybody else. Like we won’t save from that. and like, that’s what’s so sad at the end of this story. Like that’s actually, you know, when they get off that boat, they build the sacrifice and it’s this pleasing aroma. we’re like, okay, everything begins again. It’s awesome. It’s wonderful. And then we did, okay, this is, I’m breaking my own rules, but we have the story of Noah getting drunk and it’s just like, ⁓ no. Cause it kind of repeats Genesis three. There’s fruit, there’s nakedness, there’s shame, there’s a curse. And you’re just like, ⁓ no.

And we are hitting repeat and it’s like, no, no, no, no. So anyway, but our hope is in Christ. ⁓ Okay. God just wants me to catch his eye by being good or at least being better than other people. We kind of talked about this one already.

speaker-0 (34:55) I mean, it’s kind of

speaker-1 (34:57) It’s tricky because our culture would say that.

speaker-0 (34:59) Yes. But it’s more than just, I’m trying to catch his eye and I’m trying to look good. Noah had to be going continually. I mean, I would love to know, do I just go, okay, here’s how to totally build it. You’re on your own. Or did Noah run into, hey, I’ve got some questions here. does this work?

speaker-1 (35:20) Or

even before the instructions of the ark, just that walking with God, like the whole fact that he was righteous in a wicked generation. There’s only one explanation for that. And it’s just this daily and he didn’t have a Bible. So what does that look like for him? This was at the very beginning of the story. And yet he found a way to do what Adam and Eve did. He walked with God and that influenced his whole life. And it wasn’t about catching God’s eye. Anybody could have had that.

You can have that. can have that. And I think that’s important because I think our tendency would be to make Noah the hero of this story or make ourselves the hero of our own story. Like, look at all these awesome kids I raised or look at this minister I have or look at how I’m so superior to these other people in my church who have addiction or whatever. Well, no, that would be a really poor telling of the story.

Because none of us are these standout heroes. The only explanation for anything good in our life is that we have walked with God and been influenced by him. So that’s, I think that’s, yeah, that’s kind of a lie to say, I’m the standout hero. I’ve done it all. So, ⁓

speaker-0 (36:27) Even if you are, pride comes before the fall.

speaker-1 (36:29) Yeah, that’s true. That’s kind of true. All right, maybe one more. Let’s see. I’m gonna pick a good one. ⁓

speaker-0 (36:38) it’s Erica’s question. I’m going to move the mic while you’re looking.

speaker-1 (36:42) Let’s see. I have no influence. Other people are responsible for their own choices.

speaker-0 (36:49) I would say seven people were saved because of Noah. So you have no clue the influence that you have on other people’s lives or what God may do because of you and other people. I mean, this is going outside the story, like Abraham praying for Sodom and Gomorrah, like Lot and his kids were two daughters were saved because of Abraham’s prayer. So you really don’t know.

speaker-1 (37:13) Yeah. I mean, you look at all of those people who drowned in this story and that’s so sad. Um, and you think, man, I’ll know what only, you know, only influenced seven other people, but he influenced every other person in his family. Right. Like, I mean, if you turn that around, every single person lived that through that flood because of one man and like, so who’s my sphere of influence, you know, who, who can I talk to about this very story today?

Thanks for being my little guinea pigs here. Was it good?

speaker-0 (37:46) It’s a lot of fun.

Yeah. Well, and I like that you walked us, you gave us something at the beginning that I thought, I don’t know if I can do this. Now I go, oh, I could totally do this. It would be fun to try it. think we’d have some storytellers in our family, so you’d have to really go.

speaker-1 (37:54) I do.

Well, and you can do it any way you want. You can tell it and then have one of them tell it. Who wants to try it? And we’ve had that before. one time my son said that he would do it, my son Cole, and Cade was like, well, I’ll provide the background music. so he gets on the piano and he’s doing all this mood music and Cole’s really playing it up. mean, it was dramatic. It was awesome.

speaker-0 (38:25) But I’m thinking you could even do this in a Bible study. You know, I this doesn’t have to be just family gatherings of, get a group of your friends together and go, hey, you know what, let’s get together and just have a time of hanging out as moms and friends, but also going, let’s have some good discussion here.

speaker-1 (38:42) It’s so true. And you know what that brings me back? The impetus for all of this was my husband was leading our small group from church and went to a training on story. It’s called storying. And there’s a book, I can give you the title of it, but he went through this training and then we did it as our small group. So we went through a series of stories of the Bible and they were literally my favorite small group discussions in all the years that we did it with that group. I loved the stories.

⁓ And then our whole church went through Nehemiah and this was our Bible study each week was like we would do the story and we would have a story and conversation about the book of like a segment of the book of Nehemiah. So every week I had to kind of learn the story and retell it to my women. And it was great. I loved it. So yeah, you definitely could do this. Well, and I mean, you guys know the Hebrew mindset and like the Jewish people. I mean, could you imagine that this would be how they would?

speaker-0 (39:32) This applies in so many ways.

speaker-1 (39:42) discuss.

speaker-0 (39:43) Yeah, just, think, cause story just invites conversation. draws everybody in and it connects on so many different levels in ages. mean, yeah, doing this with family setting, you can pull in the eight year old and they’re going to, yeah. the 80 year old, not that we have any 80 year olds right now, but 80 year olds can come. It just, levels the playing field and it brings everyone in.

And you get perspective and you get insight that you might not have considered.

speaker-1 (40:14) Yeah. And I mean, sometimes you get the most amazing insights from the people that you wouldn’t expect. It’s really fun. And so you, as the one leading the discussion, just go ahead and affirm those and say, that is really good. I love that you brought that in. it’s ⁓ like, ⁓ I did actually, I forgot to say, I did actually lead an Easter. Like I told part of the Easter story and I just invited women from my neighborhood. So I did do it. It was so great. And there was a woman there who, like, I just had them say like,

know, what’s your experience with church? Are you part of a church or whatever? And this is a woman who hadn’t been to church since she was a child. And I just remember when we retold the story, I accidentally skipped part of it she goes, you forgot the part about that. And I was like, are right. Thank you. And so she just was really into it. I think, and I had several people tell me afterward, like that was so good. I had forgotten about how much I love those stories of the Bible and how meaningful they are. yeah, I think.

People are looking for ways to discuss truth and this could be a really great way for you to get going. there’s there are lots of tools. Like I mentioned the book, if you want to try it. There’s ⁓ a course that my husband and I took before we started doing like, yeah, with our with our family stuff with story runners, you can go through a course. So there’s lots of options.

speaker-0 (41:31) I think part of what I like too, Shannon, is that you kept it so simple. I think a lot of times, especially being a mom in this situation, the kids will ask questions and you’re like, I don’t know how to answer. Like, what if somebody says something I don’t know the answer to? But by keeping the story simple, it felt like, okay, I can do this. I don’t have to have all the answers and we’re just discussing and I can at least give my kids this. And who knows what God will teach them through the years.

speaker-1 (41:59) Yeah,

and you just let the story answer the questions. You don’t have to answer anything. Well, what did the story say? Well, you know, like, can you think of a question that would be hard to answer about the flood?

speaker-0 (42:09) Not at the top of my head, off the top of my head. guess now that you think that. mean, I know, well, how long did it take him?

speaker-1 (42:16) We aren’t told that. That’s what you say. We aren’t told that. The story didn’t tell us that. mean, we know it must have been a while, but, you can piece it together, you know, but we’re, but we’re just taking the story rather than getting into, and I think that’s really how it’s meant to be. But I could imagine dealing with like, how could God do that? And so then you respond, well, but remember what we learned at the beginning that God was grieved, you know, it made him sad. And so don’t forget that part, you know.

Or what do we learn about God? like, I don’t know. think it might, you might be surprised at how easy it is.

speaker-0 (42:53) this. So I think in wrapping up, ⁓ just Shannon, your podcast is live like it’s true. Shannon has a book coming out in June, kind of judgy. she has multiple other books that are really good.

speaker-1 (43:03) Yeah, kind of judgy.

Thank

you. yeah. And if you want, have this, ⁓ I call it the false narrative watch list. So I have a whole bunch of like, like we looked through some of those lies so you can, can put a link that you can get those. It’s actually embedded in a whole, ⁓ I call it the live like it’s true workbook. So I talked through how to look at a story and evaluate it kind of the same way that we just did. I think the questions are pretty similar if not exactly the same. So, and then, but it’s got this watch list so you can, you can have one of those.

speaker-0 (43:36) But what I like is I feel like we’ve walked to this podcast and the other podcast of just some actionable, simple, but profound things we can try and just how to incorporate talking about our faith, sharing our faith. Stories is the vehicle that gives it to us. Everybody loves a good story. Everybody will stop and listen to a story. And you’ve showed us how through telling the story, then the questions we can ask that just kind of

lead that discussion because sometimes people go, it’s a story, but I don’t know what to do afterwards. Here’s five simple questions. So see where the conversation goes and you’ll never know what seed you’re planning, how you’re encouraging people to grow.

speaker-1 (44:11) Thanks.

I’ve never had, I mean we’ve done this at least a dozen times now and I’ve never had a situation where nobody had an answer to one of those questions. So yeah, I think it’s pretty.

speaker-0 (44:28) So thank you for letting us come and read your

speaker-1 (44:32) It was so fun. for having me. I love what you guys are doing. So proud of you.