i love God but i don't like His rules.

hey homegirlssssss.

you probably gave this title the side eye and i get it. i struggled with understanding and even agreeing with God’s rules for a HOT MINUTE. 

if you’ve ever felt guilty, confused, or frustrated trying to live up to what it means to be a 'good Christian,' you’ll definitely relate.

but God's idea of you following His rules aren't what you think.

in this episode, i talk all about...

• why you need to acknowledge God's love FIRST
• what the grace of God really means for you
• why God's rules make sense
• how recognising His holiness was what took me to the next level

i pray this gives you an insight into the Father's heart <3

instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thelessofmepodcast | https://www.instagram.com/elodiechristina

tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@elodiechristina?_t=8pi97EYTp2X&_r=1

buy me a coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/elodiechristina

Transcript

0:11

Hey, my beautiful people, I am back and I'm better with another episode. I'm feeling good. I'm feeling excited. I am realizing how much I love doing these and how much I've missed doing these. I think after the last one, it's like how the devil will get in your mind and kind of tell you, like, oh, you didn't like it, or like, maybe it wasn't for you, and then you start over, complicating it in your mind, and then you keep holding it off. And then when. When you actually do it, God's like, I told you, like, I told you this was good. I told you you enjoyed it. I told you that you find it not just like. Not just like, you know, it's going to make it impact on other people's lives because God's in it, but that is making an impact in your life. Like, in my life doing this, I just find it the best thing. And I do feel like God speaks to me even in the midst of me talking, which like such a blessing that I'm getting spiritual downloads just as you guys are at the same time. And if you haven't listened to my previous podcast, definitely do. Because if you knew that I was gone and you don't know why I'm back, that will explain everything. And if you didn't know I was gone and you're new, hey, you can listen to this first. It's up to you, but listen to that if you're interested. I do feel like it will be beneficial to anyone in any situation. I talk about something in particular going on in my life that led me to reject God's purpose for my life, which was very specific, but I think it can speak to everyone in a multitude of ways. So I do pray that that blesses you. But I am back, and I am feeling good. I'm also feeling good about the fact that I'm being vulnerable, that I was vulnerable about everything, and, like, it's okay to not have it all together. Like, don't get me wrong. I think part of the reason why I neglected this podcast for so long was because I'd left it for so long. I felt guilty about coming back. And then it kept, like, me putting it off and putting it off because I felt like it was embarrassing to, like, come back and be like, hey, how y'all doing? Like, it was just awkward. But it was even yesterday, I was doing a Bible study with some girls from my church, and I'm so grateful for them. By the way, a little shout out to them because I have looked forward to our Wednesday nights so much. They are like, proper girly time, even though they're on WhatsApp video. We switched from Zoom, by the way, because the 40 minutes cut off is so ghetto, and now you can't even share the same link. You have to, like, wait 15 minutes. They really profited off of COVID and now they're just not seeing us win. But WhatsApp, we're grateful for you because we didn't have to do that, and it was free. So, yeah, anyways, that was a. That doesn't matter. But the point is, in the Bible study that we did yesterday, we were talking about the pressure of just life in general, but particularly for women, in terms of having to have it all together and not showing your imperfections, not showing your struggle, not showing where you're maybe questioning God, not fully understanding God because of how it may be perceived and how we really want people to, like, see us as so holy and so mighty, which, when you think about it, yes, it's an insecurity, but it's also a level of pride. Because why am I lifting myself up over the glory of God? Because I can still show my imperfections and still show God's perfection as he works in me. Surely the fact that people are seeing me go through ups and downs, coming out of those ups and downs, being resilient, building endurance, having the faith through hard times, being diligent to God's word, even though it's hard, surely that shows God's glory more than if I were to say everything's perfect, because that doesn't reflect an average person's life at all. No person, period. There is no one who. Yes, there might be people. And when you look at, like, the grand scheme of things that may have struggled, like, so say more than others, like, subjectively more than others. But there is no one in this world that is without struggle. There's no one in this world that is without pain. And I think if we as christians reflect our lives without pain, we can't have, speak and disciple those who don't know the Lord. And this kind of, like, links on a little bit to what I'm going to talk about today. So the title of this episode is, obviously, I love God, but I don't love his rules. And I think this is a topic that maybe people don't want to talk about because who's gonna relate to me? Or, like, do I sound like a bad Christian or is this gonna stop me from getting blessings from God? Or should I really, like, try and have it all together on the external, but I don't fully, like, understand it in the internal and actually breaking down internally. I don't, like, have a relationship with God. I don't understand his word, but I feel guilty that I'm not following it. Or maybe you're someone who are listening and you haven't actually properly given life to Christ yet. You're dabbling in and out. Maybe you've read a little bit of the word. Maybe you've attended church every now and then, but you don't know God and you haven't received him as your lord and savior simply because you don't think you can do it. I love God. I love the idea of God. I love that he's there for me. But me being there for him and what's required of me is hard. And you might be in, like, a few different scenarios. It might just simply be because it's hard. And this, like, is for anyone, whether you're a Christian or not, it's hard or I don't understand it, or I just simply don't agree with it because we could, like, be like, oh, okay, I guess, like, that might be helpful, but, like, why does that really matter to me? But there's another line of, I literally don't agree with what the word is saying right now. And I don't want to follow God out of this reason. This is like holding me off because I don't want to drop this thing and it's like a big part of me or it's been something that I've been doing for so long, so why should I stop now? It's a lifestyle that I've lived for so long. Why should I stop now? And I want to start this off by kind of delving into my, um, testimony in relation to this and sort of how I've battled back and forth with this idea of rules. Um, and I'm going to break it down in terms of rules because I don't want, when I come into this or when you start listening to this, that you think that I'm going to start shoving rules down your throat and just telling you to follow them because God is really good and you should do that and he's gonna be really angry if you don't. That's not the angle that I'm coming from because it's actually not biblical. There are rules in the word of God. There are things that God expects us to follow, but the reasons as to why he expects us to follow it are not what people assume, and it's definitely not what I assume. So, a little background. I became a Christian when I was 18 years old, just before lockdown. So I was growing in my faith during lockdown, which I am grateful for, even though I didn't have church and people around me, I think the world shutting off gave me the time and the space to really get in my word. But basically, I ended up giving my life to Christ because I had a really bad breakup, and I realized that my self esteem was in the gutter. I didn't have self esteem. I didn't know myself. My mental health was non existent. There was no health. It was just mental. Like, honestly, I was struggling, and I essentially got to the point of suicidal thoughts and self harm. And right before this actually begun, I gave my life to Christ. So, funnily enough, I gave my life to Christ. Then I got in the depth of depression. We could talk about that another day in terms of how I battled that. But this is, like, in the moment where a few days following breaking up with my ex boyfriend, obviously crying out to God, just heartbroken, trying to read God's word, I end up picking up my journal, and I write in there, sort of like, how I feel, you know, maybe I should start talking to God. Maybe I should try this christian thing, because I don't actually know what else to do. Like, I don't have any other options. It is my only option, but I'm not doing it in the way that people assume that I should do it. I am not about to be following God in the way that people expect me to follow him. I actually explicitly said that I'm not gonna stop living my life the way that I was living. And at this point, I was just being a teenager. I was doing all the things that you would expect teenagers to do, all the things of the world getting very caught up in my flesh, and I wasn't willing to drop that. But I was like, okay, I'm interested in God, but, like, that's as far as it goes. We're not taking it any further than that. We're nothing going overboard when it comes to being this really pious and righteous christian girl, we ain't gonna do that. I just need to be held from my depression, and I'll keep it stepping type thing. And obviously, that is talking from a place of ignorance. I didn't know my word enough. I didn't know how it worked. I didn't understand, really, the foundation of my faith. Even though I was raised as a Christian, being raised as a Christian and following Christ are two very different things in the sense of how your mindset adjusts to it. So I was a baby, like, whilst, yeah, I'm glad that I had the foundation that my parents gave me, and it gave me a prompting to go back to God. I was starting just as fresh, just as confused as everyone else, because when it's time to actually make the sacrifices, I didn't understand why, and I didn't agree. I didn't agree with, why does God care about what I do with my body? Why does God care about how much alcohol I drink? Why does God care about if I swear, why does God care about if I have sex? You know, it didn't click in my mind, it didn't make sense to me, and I was pretty much okay with that. And obviously, over time, I started reading my word more. I mean, I'm here now. That's why I say obviously not, like, obviously, obviously, I sorted myself out. No, that's not what I mean. I mean, obviously, like, okay, the story ended well because here I am literally doing podcasts about God. But I, yeah, I carried on reading my word, whether I understood it or not. I just kept going. And slowly but surely, things started to change in me. I started to feel less comfortable in certain conversations. I'm not saying that it went away straight away. I'm not saying that I was a perfect christian very fast. In fact, I was not. And I had very big ups and downs in terms of temptation and, like, giving into my flesh. So, you know, it's not like easy sailing and it's not like God was any less gracious to me because of that scenario. And I think that's the one thing that, as I delve into this, I want to make sure that, you know, that God isn't sat there waiting with like a timer for you to sort yourself out and then his wrath is going to come on you. Our God is very slow in terms of, he will go in the pace that makes sense for you. And I want to put that to you right now, because if your sin, or even if you don't understand it to be a sin right now, if your lifestyle is not correlating with the word of God, and that's what's getting you in the way of coming to God, baby girl, I can assure you that your salvation will make the angels rejoice regardless of where you are at right now in your life, regardless of what lifestyle choices you're making, regardless of what beliefs you have about how you choose to live your life, how you choose to identify, I can promise you that heaven will rejoice. Despite of that, heaven will not be thinking about, oh, we just gained a life, but, oh, you know, he still lives with his girlfriend. That is not a thought. What the angels are rejoicing in is we gained a life, period. And let me guarantee you have that life now in Christ. And your journey begins now. Whether you understand or you know how your life is going to change, whether you're open to that or you're not. When we think of rules, we shouldn't think of rules. When we're meditating and worrying and stressing about rules, we shouldn't think of rules. Don't dwell on rules. Dwell on Jesus. Dwell on knowing him first. Don't dwell on, oh, but God says, do this. Oh, but in Leviticus, blah, blah, blah, it says this, oh, but God said that I shouldn't live like this. Oh, but there's oh, but that. If you understand goddess, first, let that be your first focus. Because me, speaking from experience, I didn't focus on the rules, if I'm honest. Like, even though I knew they were there and I might come across them every time I read my word, but that wasn't my focus. My focus was I just, like, literally want to kill myself right now. So I'm gonna put oceans on repeat, hillsong on repeat. I'm gonna read my little verse today, and I might read a psalm, and I'm just gonna try and see if this God can provide me with any sense of peace. Fast forward. I felt just an overwhelming sense of desire to seek him more, even if that meant I didn't understand what came with that my focus was to seek him more. So it's the first thing that I suggested to any of you, is just to seek God. Just start with that. Just start with having a relationship with him, because he is not going to deny you simply because your actions don't align with his word. He just wants you. And one thing that I remember when I was so deep in depression and I had read my word and I'd watched a bunch of sermons, at this point, I was still struggling with self harm, but I was just fighting through it, because every time I got and my word, I just felt it dissipate. Every time I neglected my word, I felt it heighten up again. So I knew that something was happening. I knew that I was feeling this piece. Every time I put on Hillsong, your girl was feeling like, I'm in another world. I feel like I can actually switch off from what's going on in my life right now. And one thing that I got really convicted on in that point of my life, and that I look back on a lot, is the fact that I had nothing to give at this point. I was a broken person. I didn't have anything to show for my life. Like, I was literally 18 years old. I didn't have no job. I didn't have no money. I didn't have no status. I didn't even live life in according to God's way. So how on earth am I worthy of being one of his chosen ones? How am I even worthy of him speaking to me? But when I felt his peace wash over me, it was in those times where I just surrendered. Even if it was just a little bit, even if it was like, okay, I want to listen to lil baby right now, but I'm gonna put on Hillsong. And that little switch of choice to surrender and understand, okay, something beneficial might come out of this. I felt God move so powerfully, and one thing I realized was that God doesn't care if I give him anything other than my heart. He doesn't want perfection. He doesn't want you to have it all together. He doesn't want you to have all the answers. He doesn't even want you to fully agree with his word. He just wants your heart. If you can just give him a piece of your heart, a little bit of your attention, a little bit of, you know, God, okay, I'll see how this goes type thing. If you just give him that, he will be able to work in your heart to show you that he values a relationship with you. He wants to talk to you. He wants to bond with you. He wants to be your father, he wants to be your friend. He wants to be your companion. He wants to be the one that you come to in times of confusion. He wants to be the one that you come to in times where you think, God, I don't understand this. Even when God has been like, girl, I've been telling you to do XYZ for a whole while now, but you keep disobeying me. You keep, you know, running away. Remember, it's you that ran away. He never left. He's there. So anytime you feel ashamed, anytime you feel confused, whether it's biblical or not, whether you feel down because of something that is righteous or not, he is there. He is there to love you. He is there to support you. And he is there to shower you with the truth that sets you free. But you won't know that truth until you just let him work in your heart. So that's step one. Step two is that his grace is sufficient. I don't know how many people don't know this, whether it's christian people that's concerning, but we're going to work on that anyway. And non christian people, that's understanding. But I also think the christian people is understanding when certain church cultures and christian culture in general, christianese culture is very self righteous. Do you know what grace means? Grace means a merit of favour. It means that you did not earn the love and the care and the sacrifice that Jesus gave on that cross for you. You didn't earn any, any of that. Nothing could have made you worthy. So when you're looking at the rules and you're debating on whether you want to follow them or not, remember that Jesus bore that all on the cross and it is not up to you to have it all together. There is power in the cross. There is power in understanding that the very person that you rejected took on your sin and died for it and rose again. So when Jesus died, I want you to think of it like this. When Jesus died, he died with your sin, your depression, your shame, your confusion, any suffering that you have gone through that you feel like you can't make sense of, any rejection, any abuse. He has bore all of that on the cross. And then when he rises again, do you know what he rises with? He rises with redemption, he rises with peace. Because a lot of you, you needed that. When Jesus died for your distressed heart, he rose again with peace. He rose again with hope, he rose again with righteousness. For you, his righteousness means that you are defined by his righteousness. He's not saying, oh, I rise again, and now y'all better act right. He's saying, I'm rising again. So when God looks at you, he sees you through the lens of me. When I put on glasses, I'm seeing things clearer. When Jesus rose from the dead, God could put on Jesus glasses. So when he puts those glasses on, he sees a righteous, worthy person who does not have to work or earn his love, his salvation, his goodness, his blessings, none of that. And this, for some people might not make sense because why would God have these rules but then tell us that we're not defined by those rules? And there's a lot of different things I could delve into that. And I think that is a really good question if you have that question. But I want to put it this way. First of all, when God forgave us once and for all on the cross. He was not saying that it's a free for all for sin. That's not what he's saying. He's not saying, I want you to take the mic with it now. What he's saying is, I want that love to transform you. I want that love to be so strong in your heart, which it is, because when you look at your life, I could write pages and pages and pages of things that I've done wrong in my life, or if I don't see my sin right now, I could write pages and pages of times that I've let myself down, that I failed myself, that I've made a mistake, even if it might not be sinful. The times that I felt so depressed and I can't pick myself up again because one of the things that I think maybe in terms of when you're thinking of God's rules and, you know, you're seeing in the Bible that we're all sinners, it's like, well, I'm not a sinner. I'm a good person. First of all, there's a lot of different ways that I can prove that you're a sinner and that I'm a sinner without Christ. But I am whole and I am righteous with Christ. So I don't define myself as a sinner anymore without God, absolutely. But with God, no. And I can understand when people see themselves as a good person, see themselves as someone who doesn't necessarily need saving. But I want you to look at your darkest moment in life, the time where you have felt the lowest, whether it's sin or not. Did you feel capable of doing it on your own? Did you not just feel like, I just want to hug right now, I need someone to just take off this burden, whether you got through it in the end or not, or you low key got through it, but you're still kind of struggling. You're still kind of carrying that weight. You still feel that burden on your back. Do you not just feel like, gosh, I could so do with a savior right now, someone to take me out of this pain, someone to give me the hope and the peace and the stability that I can't give myself? If that's what you think, I want you to remember that that's what God is for you. That's who he wants to be in your life. And as you begin to unravel these things, the sin will come out, but it won't come out in a way that condemns you. God is not a God of condemnation. If you feel any sense of condemnation, of confusion, of hurt, of pain that is not from the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit will convict you. He'll make you feel like, wow, I need, you know, I didn't realize that that was so bad, but, wow, the Holy Spirit is so good. And it makes me want to change. That understanding of God's glory despite my sin makes me want to change. And that is the most important thing about grace. When we say that God's grace is sufficient, I mean that God's grace is enough for you to seek God without having it all together. But it's also enough to give you the power to not let sin have power over your life. Remember that when you're dealing with the sin, when you're feeling like you're going around in circles or you're feeling like this feeling doesn't match up to the word of God, God's grace is sufficient. God is. Jesus has already died on the cross for that struggle, for that confusion, for that trial, and he has made you new, even if you don't feel it right now. But your identity is new in Christ. When you give your life to Christ, you are no longer living in the old. You're no longer living in even what might feel very real right now. Your identity is not defined by that. It is defined by the grace of God and the unmerited favor that God has for you. And in the Bible, there's a parable called the prodigal Son. And this son basically gets all of this money from his dad, and he goes away and he spends it all, and he basically ruins his life, and he has no choice but to go back. And obviously he's worried. He's like, my dad is gonna kill me right now, but I need him because I don't have anywhere else to go. He comes back, and before his dad even gets a chance to embrace him, he puts on a welcoming party. He wants to throw the biggest party bash for his son returning. Praise the lord that my son is returning. I don't care. Don't tell me. Oh, but he did wrong. Don't tell me that. I don't want to hear it. All I'm grateful for is that my son came home, and that is basically representing what Christ is. But how amazing would that be? Let's say you got, like, an inheritance of 2 million from your grandma or something, and she's still alive, bless her heart. My grandma's dead as well, so that was dark humor out of experience. Anyways, love you, nanny. Grace. Rest in everlasting. Peace. Let's say grandma just gave you money, just put money in your account. She hasn't died yet. She just wants to bless you with two mil. That'll be very nice. And you go away and you spend it all. You spend it on prostitutes, you gamble it all away. You make some bad mistakes. You're now homeless, you're hungry, you don't even have the clothes on your back anymore. And you come up to her house and she throws you a party, she gets you cake. Oh, but, Nan, I spent it all. No, I just want to celebrate you. Oh, but, Nan, like, I had sex with loads of prostitutes with your money. Oh, but you're back. Wouldn't that make you love your grandma so much? Wouldn't that be like, wow, what an amazing woman. Like, she's not even seeing me in relation to my mistake right now. Because when you make mistakes, you feel like there's no one in the world that could love you. There's no one in the world that would accept you anymore. You feel like the lowest of the low. And that would have been, like, how the sum would have felt in the Bible. Wow, this is the lowest of the low that I could ever be. And no one's going to accept me, but I'm going to have to try. Like, I'm going to have to, like, hope that someone still loves me. For someone to love you, even when they know everything that you've done, to love you, to shower you with care, affection that just makes you want to act different, that makes you want to. You know what? Like, I'm actually start listening to this God, because if he can love me so much, even when he knows every single thing about me, he's not going to hold that against me. He's not going to treat me different. He's not going to force me to make steps that my heart isn't ready for. He is slowly chipping away at my heart and he's slowly making me want and to grow with him as well. So that's step two, recognize that his grace is sufficient. Step three, ask for guidance. Guidance. Did you ever think that you could get that from God? Because I didn't. And funnily enough, I'm actually reading psalm 119 right now, and that is my favorite psalm. It's the longest one, but I promise you, it is incredible. And I don't actually have my phone on me right now, so I can actually read some of the scriptures. I didn't write them down before, but essentially the whole psalm is basically about rejoicing. In God's precepts, rejoicing in God's rules, rejoicing in God's laws, but at the same time asking God to guide him to understand them. Help me to understand, help me to accept, help me to acknowledge, help me to walk in the ways of your laws. If you don't know how, God is not there to watch you. It's not like a test. It's not the bleep test to see how much you can run. It's not a puzzle to see if you can solve it before the time is up. God is with you every step of the way. This is a collaborative journey. God is not the teacher. God is not the invigilator. God is not the lecturer. He is your partner, he is your father. He wants to help you every step of the way. And I highly recommend you read psalms because it shows just how much this particular psalm, psalm in general, but this particular psalm in terms of how much God is open to help you in every single area and he is not going to leave you on your own. And then the final one, step four. Remember his holiness. So at this point, you've acknowledged God. You're working on your relationship with him. You're growing in your understanding of his grace. You're now asking God for his guidance. At this point, you're going to be very much open to surrendering to God. You're going to know technically what is right and wrong. You might struggle with it sometimes, which is fine, because we have a God who is forgiving. And at this point you're going to have that conviction from the Holy Spirit. The more you use the Holy Spirit, the more he's going to give you that little nudging and be like, oh, that probably wasn't right. And one of the things that I now, obviously, I have been a Christian for four years. What? That's crazy. Lockdown. Feels like two years ago. I saw that, like, the lockdown effect the other day and, like, how everyone just can't measure time very well. And that literally was me right then. I was like, what? I'm 22 years old and I gave my life to Christ when I was 18. Hold on a minute. I feel old. But one thing that God has really been pushing me on recently in regards to following him with my whole heart, mind and soul is to recognize his holiness. And it was even in a dream. Three months ago, I was in like a classroom and I was writing, like, you know, on those old desks where the desks, like, you could store stuff in the desks like old school desks, I miss those. To be fair, you had your life in them. But anyways, I was writing on this desk in the front of this classroom, holy, holy, holy, holy, holy, holy. Just over and over again, holy, holy, holy is the God almighty. And I just kept saying that over and over again writing it, and I couldn't stop. And this is something that God has been convicting me on for a long time. But that was like a wow. Like when you get to the point where God has changed your life, you understand the power of the word I. You have seen the physical change in your life. You've had God heal your most, darkest, deepest pains that you thought were irreparable. I was at a place in my life where it never felt possible that I would ever get to a place of healing, but I got there. And when you go through that and you see just God show up in so many different scenarios, you see how much more joyful you are, how much more at peace you are. There's a level of respect that you have for God, and a level of respect that despite your flesh telling you not to respect him, you want to respect him. And God's holiness is not something to be afraid of, which is what I realized. It's something to rejoice in. Because when I talk about God being the alpha and omega, the king of kings, the Lord of lords, that puts an emphasis on his power and ability and love and care and intimacy with me over the schemes of the world, over how the devil is trying to hurt me, over how pain can overwhelm me and take me away from my purpose in Christ, when I recognize that there is literally no one or nothing higher than God, that makes me want to worship him, that makes me want to serve him, that makes me want to drop everything in complete obedience to him. To take up my cross, to offer my body as a living sacrifice to God, to be diligent in being transformed by the renewing of my mind, to meditate on the law of the Lord day and night. That is what God's holiness does for me, and that's what he will do for you when you get to this place in your faith. And maybe you're at this point, you listen to this podcast out of just curiosity, but maybe you're at the point where you need that next step. Step four is for you. Remember his holiness. Remember how powerful and how big and how mighty he is. Remember the testimonies in your life that seemed impossible, but God has a possible for everything. You may say it's impossible. But everything is possible for God. When we look at the cross, when we look at different stories in the Bible, we can so evidently see that he is the kingdom. Kings. When you seek God in that place in your life, you instantly want to do anything you can to serve him. Not because you think you're going to be loved more by him, not because you think you're maybe going to get a chance in heaven, because that's not true. You're going to get a place in heaven by just simply believing in Jesus Christ, your lord and savior. So, you know, we're not doing these things to earn something from goddess. We're doing these things because if God is the king of kings and lord of lords, and there is no one higher than him, surely his rules are for our benefit. Surely the ruler of the world would know how to guide his people. And the one thing that I love about this is God is as equally holy as he is father. He is friend, as he is companion, as he is comforter. So when I say that God is lord of lords and king of kings, I'm not talking about this impersonal God. I'm talking about my father. Like, imagine if your dad was a president. Like, no one could talk to me if my dad was Joe Biden right now. You can't talk to me because my dad, he rules America. If my dad was King Charles, I'd be like, y'all can't touch me. My dad literally runs England, runs Britain, runs the Commonwealth. So step back, please. I would literally be so in awe of my dad. But he's my dad. Yes, he's king. Yes, he's president, but he's my dad. So the same applies to if your God is your dad. That's why people say, Abba, Father, he is holy just as much as he is dad, which is such a beautiful thing because he is that high and can see life from such a perspective where he can guide you accordingly. Where when he says, elodie, I want you to do XYZ, he's not doing it out of spite. He's not doing it to take away your fun. I'm putting in these boundaries so you can thrive, so you can live life in the fullest. I've seen you cry, Elodie. I've seen you in pain. I've seen you cut your wrists because you're so depressed. I've seen you chase men out of the sake of getting satisfaction and fulfillment. I've seen you drink the alcohol to numb the pain. But I want you to know that there is more in me. There is more in heavenly realms in the kingdom of God than there is to offer in a world that is run by Satan. Satan may give you temporary love, temporary joy, temporary fulfillment, temporary, you know, great memories. But he will suck your soul as fast as he renews your soul. But me, I am the bread of life. And when you drink from me, you will thirst no more. That is why God has rules. Not to spite you, not to be annoying, because he knows you more than you know yourself. When God says, well, when the Bible says, but is God breathed that we are fearfully and wonderfully made. God made us so intentionally, so intricately, and he knows what will do us good. And that is something that is so. He is so worthy to be praised. He is so worthy to be rejoiced in. And that might even speak to someone who is way earlier in the steps that hasn't fully understood God's love. But it is amazing to know that God is holy. And I really pray that as you work through these different things, these different stages of God, that you get to that point where you. You fear God. But fear meaning awe. That's what fear means in the Bible, that you're in awe of God. You want to respect him, you want to serve him because of his love on you. But, yeah, I really pray that this was beneficial to you all. I pray that it was helpful, maybe convicting, but showing God's love all the more. I pray that this encourages you to have a one on one conversation with God. You don't need to come to him in some crazy prayer. Just talk. Just say how you're feeling. Find a scripture. Meditate on that scripture. Let that scripture go around in your mind. Write it down. Do a little Bible study on it. Do the soap method. Google that if you don't know what it is. It is really, really easy. I sometimes still do it now because it gets me in the zone. And that's not out of works. It's not because God's gonna treat you better because you've done a Bible study. It's because it's gonna benefit you. It's gonna give you nutrients. It's like, we don't eat fruit because someone's gonna say, wow, Elodie eats fruit. We eat fruit because we know that fruit is good to us and it tastes good. I like fruit. You might not, but I can promise you'll like God. He's cool. But, yeah, I love you guys. Pray that you have a blessed week. I pray that this encourages you in all that you're doing. It helps you ask questions. Questions are good, and God wants to answer them. God wants to guide you in the right direction.