your main character syndrome is at war with God.

main character syndrome... we’ve all been there.

the world tells us to put ourselves first, chase our truth, and make everything about us. but let’s be real: when we make ourselves the centre of the universe, we’re at war with God.

in this episode, i get real about how self-glorification (aka main character syndrome) directly opposes God’s purpose for our lives. i unpack why striving for control, validation, and self-exaltation doesn’t lead to freedom but to bondage.

what i talk about:
✨ what main character syndrome is and how it wars against God’s authority
✨ why putting yourself above God leads to spiritual emptiness
✨ the dangers of pride and self-glorification (spoiler: it never ends well)
✨ how to let go of control, surrender daily, and trust God fully
✨ the freedom, peace, and joy that come from living a life centred on Christ

scriptures i mention:

• john 3:30 – "He must become greater; i must become less." 
• matthew 6:33 – "but seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you."
• proverbs 16:18 – "pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall." 
• luke 9:23 – "if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me."
• philippians 2:3-4 – "do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others."

Transcript

0:09

Hey, guys. Welcome back. Welcome to the Less of Me podcast. I am so excited to be back. I'm so excited to be here with all of you guys, to connect with you all again. God has been taking me through a season, let's just put it that way. A season of waiting, a season of stepping back, reevaluating, and learning to walk before I can run when it comes to content, and to really kind of strip back until I'm ready to be moving forward again. If you're listening, you're thinking, what is this girl even talking about? Well, you're missing out today. You're not, but you're kind of. I am doing the first ever video podcast of the Less of Me podcast, and this is my first ever official video in almost a year. YouTube has always been my baby. It is where I begun this whole journey of content creation at the age of 15. And it will always hold a special place in my heart. But I had God telling me that I can't do a whole bunch of things. I need to take a step back. But he has given me conviction after conviction, to be honest, in the last three months. But I've just kind of wanted to move slowly because I. I felt like he was telling me, like, soon you're going to do it, but not yet. And then I was like, oh, my gosh, I'm ready. And God was like, not yet. And then I was like, am I ready? And God was like, yes. So that's kind of where we're at right now. And I am just. I feel at home. I'm so excited to be talking with you guys again. I'm excited to connect with you guys because I think I mentioned it in my live yesterday. I actually went live. Yes. Well, it won't actually be yesterday. It'll be a week ago. A week ago, I went live on YouTube and I kind of spoke about this whole thing in a bit more depth. So if you want to hear a bit more of that, go to that video. I was kind of talking about how when you're doing a normal podcast, it can feel quite lonely. Like when you're just doing audio, not uploading to YouTube. Spotify now has, like, a comment section, but I don't think a lot of people know about it, nor do I think people are right now inclined to be commenting. Some people do every now and then, and I love you guys that do that. But. But YouTube is a whole different level of community for me. It always has been and it always will be. I connect with you. Home girls like More than anyone else. I love you guys so much. You have been there for me in ups and downs. Some of you have been there since like 2019, following me, which is crazy. That's before I even gave my life to Christ, before I, like, shifted to a new channel. You guys have been here from the beginning and I'm grateful. And for all of you guys that have come after, I'm grateful for you too. And I'm just really excited to start this new journey of podcasting, talking, vibing. And, you know, since it's my launching episode, I wanted to talk about something that kind of just came with a bang, came with some. Some conviction. I didn't want to be nice and soft. When am I ever really and truly, when I get talking in a topic, I do it out of love. I do it out of the love of Christ in me, but I will say it with truth. And I kind of thought, you know, for those who haven't yet listened to my podcast or maybe haven't listened to it in a long time, what would be a good topic to talk about? That all goes back to the less of me aspect. Less of me, more of him. And one of the things I talked about in my first ever episode was the main character syndrome. So today we are going to be talking about. Your main character syndrome is at war with God. Are you ready? Because I don't even know if I'm ready. We all have it. Let's just first of all put it out there before you think you can click off, before you think you can listen to this in a third party way and think it can apply to someone else and not to you, baby girl. It's you. Not your friend who you're thinking about sending it to, not that enemy who you're thinking that this is what their problem is. You. You, baby girl. So let's define main character syndrome. I've got my notes here for those of you who are listening. I am a paper note girly. Like, I have physical notes. I don't like looking at my phone. I just feel like it's too small. The only time I'm going on my phone is to look up a scripture. But today I've been really organized and I have my scriptures already written down. Love that. But we're going to define main character syndrome. Main character syndrome is the mindset of seeing ourselves as a center of the universe where everything revolves around us. Can I be a teacher? A second class? Can you put your hand up if you think that this directly wars against God? Aliyah should put your hands up right now because this completely opposes God's plan for us. This. This completely opposes God's plan for everything, because God is God and God is everything. As soon as you take that throne above God, as soon as you say that, your whole life revolves around you. Around your feelings, around your experiences, around your skills, your giftings, your friends, whatever it may be, even your faith, even when you have faith. But you're saying that God revolves around me. Girl, let's not even go there. Let's not even be disrespectful to our God. I remember when I was a new Christian and I would kind of. I took the role on as a believer. I took the role on as someone who believes in the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ. But I applied it to an aspect of my life. Like, I've talked about this in videos and podcasts before. You have the pie chart, and it's you in the middle, and you have all these offspring, school, friends, relationship, kids, faith. Faith is one slither of the chart. And a lot of people may say, well, at least he's part of my life. I have to juggle with these things. See, that's where we're going wrong. What we're going wrong with is we are assuming that we are almost doing God a favor by adding him into this chart of life. And I can't lie, it took me a lot of slap in the face to get to that point because I was a teenager living in a culture which we are still living in, probably like 10 times more amplified than it was in the past. That is all about you. Everything is about fulfilling life for you. Everything is about making your choices and following your truth and focusing on yourself. Even though that can sometimes be packaged in a really nice way, it can be packaged in self, love, self development. Those two things that I took really, really seriously when I first became a Christian because of what had led me so becoming a Christian in the first place. To kind of break it down for you in the most simple way possible. Your girl had a breakup, realized she was insecure and had to sort herself out, came to God because it was only option, but it wasn't my only option. I had God, but I also thought that God mixed with me having this insane amount of, like, sensitivity to self, thinking about myself more, putting myself on a higher standard, which logically makes sense. If you see yourself as important, if you see yourself of value, you are going to behave in a better way. And for me, that was all about not Letting men take advantage of me and not settling for relationships that were not serious or men that weren't going to treat me in a way that was acceptable. And you know, I'm not going to come on here and say that your main character syndrome is just simply you caring about yourself. No, that's not what we're going to talk about. Because actually God wants you to care about yourself, but he wants you to care about yourself under the submission of him because you identify that he cares about you. And if God is a valuable source of one that you trust to have the final say, you will treat his children preciously. It's not about you as your sole entity saying that I am a good person and I take full priority over my whole life. Because as soon as you do that, where's God in the picture? Because we let ourselves down every single day. This is my one flaw about the self love movement, the self development movement. It kind of drips into spirituality a lot of the time, which was part of the reason why I kind of dropped it in the end. And I got convicted by God as I was reading through. Not that I ever became spiritual. Like that was never me. But I know some people who have now come back to Christ, have started off with, you know, the self love journey. Then they go into the crystals and the positive affirmations. Next minute they open up their chakras, whatever they're called, and then they're opening up the devil and they are experiencing, experiencing and exposing themselves to something that directly wars against God. And the one thing that I've always found a flaw with, just the self love aspect, not even the spiritual side of it, is when someone decides to focus on self love. The reason why they decide to focus on self love is probably because they went through a season where they focused on self hate. The self hatred alone should be an indication that you are a flawed being who makes mistakes, who has skewed perspectives of life and lets emotion get in the way. So when you are fighting self with a higher sense of self, you're still fighting with yourself. And you are going to fall right back into that repetitive zone of self hatred, talking negatively about yourself, and you're never going to break free of it. Self centeredness conflicts against God, and in fact it conflicts and it wars against the plans and purposes that God has for you. It wars against the sensitivity of the Holy Spirit, it wars against the Holy Spirit, period. For the Holy Spirit to do any work inside of you. If you are pushing it to the side and you're saying I want to focus on me. You are directly arguing against the word of God that says to put the Spirit first, that your flesh has been crucified so that Christ may live in you. You're resurrecting the flesh because you think it's serving you, but in fact it's stripping you away from the goodness and the glory and the peace and the prosperity that God has to offer you. And that comes with surrender and humility. Two words we hate to hear these days. We don't want to hear about surrendering to God. We don't want to hear about putting his ideas and his plans and purposes above us. And we most definitely don't want to be humbled. To be humbled. No. I want all the glory for myself. The whole world is all about celebrating themselves and celebrating why they're so good and doing what's good for them and putting themselves at the forefront. But this is a lie from the enemy that will trap you and tell you all of these sparkly things to only lead you right back to rock bottom. I have a

scripture here, John 3: 12:36

30. He must increase, but I must decrease. And the NIV says he must become greater, I must become less. And do you want to know why that is? It's not just because God is good. It's not because he's got the right plans for you. It's not because he's just God. And we'll just leave it at that. God is naturally above all. He sits higher than principalities and powers, all principalities and powers. Jesus is seated with the Father at the right hand in heaven. He is exalted. Anyway, it's your choice if you want to exalt him in your life. Because he's already there. He's already far above. He's already in the spiritual realms. And as soon as you try to change that dynamic with what, with. With your human ability, because I don't know about you, but I can't even reach the top of Mount Everest, let alone to heaven to tell God to get his butt down here so I can rule up there. You as a human being have no power, no authority to take God from that throne. So why do you think you can take it from your life? And why do you think if you take that from your life that you are going to somewhat still thrive, somewhat still manage to defy the odds, to be happy, to be peaceful? I think a lot of people take on the term Christian as self glorification. I think they take it on because it sounds good and it sounds like you know, like when girls put in their bios like, I'm fearfully and wonderfully made, it's almost to be like, I'm fearfully and wonderfully made. And you're not just. Just letting you know that God made me really special. I hate to break it to you, but Christianity is not a personality trait. And the people that have this main character syndrome and still manage to apply God to it, that is exactly what they're doing. Life as a believer is a life of complete rejection of your natural self. And I don't mean rejecting yourself, because you are supposed to embrace the spiritual person that God has called you to be. But you cannot embrace that until you embrace him. I talked about faith in my previous episode, and I said how a lot of people are striving to have faith, but they're not doing it in the confines of a relationship with God. They're wanting to have faith, but they're not focusing on the one that they should have faith in. They're focusing on the faith for the thing, but they're not focusing on the faith for God. When you are trying to go about your Christian journey taking the reins for yourself, you're literally missing the point. You're missing the point of what God stands for. You're missing the point of what true fellowship and communion with God is. And you may be thinking, I don't think I've really got much of a main character syndrome. I think that I'm quite humble. I think that I'm quite chill. I think I tend to, you know, give things over to God. Well, I've got some things written down. Striving for validation, approval, control, trying to be better than other people and choosing your way above God's. Matthew

6: 16:19

33. This is my mum's favorite scripture. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. I don't know why we think that we can just take little sprinkles from God and then still take a little bit of our own sprinkles and still be like an okay person. Because wasn't the reason why we came to God in the first place for his sprinkles was because our sprinkles weren't satisfying enough. So why are you adding to it and not taking it away and then having all of this? Clearly, God's sprinkles taste better than yours. Yours have gone off and moldy and not pretty and not tasty. Gods are full of life. It's like saying that you want A new hairstyle, and you hate this hairstyle. And you just change one side of the hairstyle because you're still emotionally attached to the first one. Like, baby girl, like, why are you attached to something you don't even like? You weren't happy before Christ. You're still not happy now because you're literally having both. You're not happy now because you're still choosing yourself above God. And God is telling you, baby girl, I have so much more for you. He's telling you, seek first my kingdom and my righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you. That piece that you're missing, I give it to you. That satisfaction, that's me. The feeling of fulfillment. Me, feeling like you can cast your burdens and cares onto someone, that's me. Because you know what main character syndrome does that God taught me a few years ago. Fighting to stay relevant for yourself, fighting for your truth, your peace, doing things your way is literally the definition of being bound. It almost coincides with the idea of being bound by the law because you are putting yourself in a standard of, I am only good enough or worthy enough if I do these things. You may think you're being in bondage by following God, but you're actually in bondage by following yourself, because your standards are more than what God would ever have for you. And you probably will be looking at me like, elodie, what are you on about? There is so many stuff in the Bible that is so hard to follow. Have you heard the word grace? Because I don't think you have. Grace is

unmerited favor. And when Romans 12: 18:57

1 2 says, offer your body as a living sacrifice. Be transformed by the renewing of your mind, then you will know the perfect will of God, what is pleasing to him. And perfect. That is talking about grace being transformational. You cannot do that with yourself. I've tried it. I've gone down that road. I've gone down the life of defining life for myself. I have fallen every single time. I've let myself down every single time. Why? Because I'm a mere human. And the sole purpose of why I'm even stressing about it would simply be because I don't think that I'm capable of it. But when I put my life in God's hands and I say, you know what, God? I'm not perfect. Sometimes I stumble, sometimes I have pride. Sometimes I fall short of your glory. But, God, I have you. I have the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, I have Alpha and Omega on my side. Who has forgiven me through the precious blood of Jesus Christ, setting me free from my sins, freeing me from my transgressions, and giving me a hope and a future, filling me with the fruits of the Spirit, giving me an understanding of who I am in Christ, the identity I have in the heavenly realms. Because a lot of people will be talking about, you know, being a Christian is all about trying to act like a better person. Me and my boyfriend had this conversation the other day and he says something so profound. He said, I stopped trying to act like a man of God and I started being a man of God because God called me to be a man of God. God prophesied that over my life, from the dawn of time, before I was even knitted together in my mother's womb, I was called fearfully and wonderfully made, and I was called a man of God. So when I'm trying to act like a good boyfriend and I'm trying to think that I have to act like a good husband, a good father, a good leader, I know that I have all these things in Christ. It's all waiting for me. It all comes with that almost realization of the finished works is already done in heaven. You have that reassurance that there is nothing to strive for, but everything to learn. This journey is not about doing. This journey is not about fighting. This journey is not about being at war. This journey is about remembering. And sometimes that may feel like spiritual warfare, sometimes that may feel like having to put yourself in situations that are difficult, but it's with the mindset of Christ that it is finished. Have you ever heard that type of gospel talked in the self love world, in the world that tells you to put your main character, mindset above everything else, that you are the center of the universe? Do you have that confidence that when you wake up in the morning that regardless of what you do, there is forgiveness in Christ? And do you wake up in the morning having that empowerment to not just do anything you want to do, but be empowered by the Holy Spirit to do things that are of good works? Do you have something in you? Oh, I have my conscience, baby girl. Your conscience has let you down. Look through the whole of society, every single war, every single political uprising, every single murder, whatever you want to talk about in human history, that is when humans choose themselves over the glory of God. That is when they choose flesh. That is when they choose conscience. So if you want to be like all of them and you want to just live a life of flesh, a life of hedonism, a life where you only live to satisfy you. Be my guest. But I have the Holy Spirit living inside of me. The Holy Spirit that calls me his child, that calls me his friend, that I can call my helper. The Holy Spirit that is with me 247 in the day, giving me nudges towards the word of God. I have the word of God that is alive and active and sharper than any two edged sword that I can lean on. Do you have a Bible? Is there such thing as. When you're focusing on yourself all the time and you're trying to fulfill things on your own, do you have a step by step guide? If there is one, get rid of that straight away. I don't know who wrote that, but most of you guys are looking at tick tock. You're looking at your favorite celebrities, you're looking at yourself in the mirror and you're tearing yourself apart. Main character syndrome starts with hating. It starts with picking apart unrealistic aspects of yourself and telling yourself that you need to be better. Putting your faith in Christ is acknowledging that my natural identity, my fleshly identity is warped. But my heavenly identity, who I was called to be before any of that existed, I get to rest in that. In Christ, you get a new identity that's already been given to you. In Christ, you start with that conviction that should not lead into condemnation, but lead to repentance and a real understanding of who you are, A real understanding of what self love really looks like. What I wouldn't really call self love, I would actually call it a love for Christ and Christ bestowing his love on me. Think of it as, you know, having a dad. My dad will call me beautiful, he'll call me pretty, he'll, you know, say great things about me. And I don't have to go away outside of my dad and sit and look at myself in front of the mirror and say, elodie, you are beautiful. Oh my gosh, Elodie, you're so stupid. But like, oh, but you. I guess I need to try and tell myself that I'm pretty again. I get to have my father tell me these things. And the Bible says, you know, if this is what your earthly fathers can do, think of what your Father in heaven can give you. Your Father in heaven, through the Holy Spirit and through His Word, can just shower you with words of identity, with words of telling you who you are, with words of encouragement, words of promise, words of fulfillment. What the cross really meant for your life, day to day, right now, that is what we have. That is the glorious experience that we get with God, that we don't need to sit and convince ourselves that we are worth something. We get the Heavenly Father, the one who reigns above all, to tell us who we are. And I've got written down two Timothy three, two, four, and I've written down a little part of it, but I want to read the whole thing to you guys because every time I read this section of the Word, I am so convicted and so challenged. And I just love it. I feel like it's a real representation of the world right now. And I'm going to start in verse one. But I understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty for people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self control, brutal, not loving, good, treacherous, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God. Having the appearance of godliness but denying his power. Avoid such people. And do you want to know what's funny? We say avoid such people, but is that you? Is this telling you to avoid that version of yourself that you're becoming? Because I only have to read through this. This is people that want prosperity, but they're getting poverty. They're not getting anything out of this fleshly desire, fulfilling this fleshy desire. They're wanting one thing and they're getting the complete opposite. This is not a life I want. And I can guarantee you that this is not a life that you want either. And I just love where it says having the appearance of godliness but denying its power. Some of you are trying to be this woman of God. Some of you are actually using the word of God to try and be who you're trying to be. But you're trying to be this person. You're trying to be this main character. Strip God of him being the main character to get to this biblical point without holding God's hand on it. Pride is and will always be at the center of every single one of our falls. People talk about sin and the Bible talks about sin and how sin, you know, is at the core of everything. Sin is at the core of everything in action, as in this is what impacts the world. Sin impacts the world and impacts the trajectory of our lives. But where does sin come from? Sin comes from trying to do things your own way. Sin comes from seeing yourself above God. Sin comes from pride. And pride is the leading driving force of main character syndrome. And main character syndrome is like a really Nice way of saying self glorification. It's a nice way of saying that you see yourself as God over God. You see yourself as that golden calf that you worship every morning. You see yourself as worthy of praise, of accolades, of endless time thinking of oneself more than surrendering your life and your body and your time to the Father. And whenever God convicts me of my pride, I'm always drawn back to Proverbs 16, verse 18. And this says, pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fool, AKA prideful spirit. Pride literally leads to our downfall and main character syndrome. Self glorification is powered by pride. You are headed for a fool even if you do it in the name of God. Because as the Bible says, many will come to me and say, lord, Lord, have I not done all of these great things for you? Have I not casted out all these demons for you? And I will turn around to them and say, I never knew you. This, this is a large part of it, the prideful aspect of saying that I can do this on my own, I can prove myself on my own. I want other people to know that I've proved myself on my own. I don't want people to give glory to God at the end of the day, I want them to give glory to me. I want to be at the center. I want to be the one that gets the celebration. So now what? What can you do? How can you get out of this trap of living in this main character personality, of glorifying yourself above God? Because it is our default. And whilst I talk with a lot of truth and a lot of passion, I talk from a level of understanding because it's not natural. It is when you're, when you're, you know, in the Word and you have a true relationship with God. But the devil will always try to resurrect your flesh and tell you that this is the right way to go and this is how you lean on your flesh. And I think before I even go into any of these things, I think it's really important to recognize that whilst we all have a tendency to give into our flesh, the flesh is dead spiritually. And I never used to understand this because I'd be like, well, it's not dead because why am I still in temptation? It's not dead because why do I still fall into temptation and sin? It's not dead because I still put myself above God at times in the physical realm that we are in as mere visitors to this land and we are just passing through, going to heaven and Rejoicing with the Father at the end of all of this. Yes, in the moment the flesh is around us, it is an active thing. But spiritually, if we're thinking on the basis of who we are in Christ, the flesh is dead and gone, baby. It's never to be resurrected. And as soon as you give the world more power than the heavenly realms, you are leading yourself down a much harder path than someone who just acknowledged who they are in Christ. That's not to say that you're ignorant, but you tell yourself who you are and you stop the rhetoric of my flesh. No, the flesh is weak, but the spirit is strong. Your flesh is merely physical, meaning that it's here today and it's gone tomorrow. The same way as when we give our lives to Christ and we acknowledge that all these things in the world provided us with no goodness. And we realize how temporary this world is. So instead we put our focus on the one that is eternal. God wants you to do that with your identity. Stop putting your. Your faith, almost your worship and your. Your thoughts into something that should be very much dead and gone in your mind, in your heart. If the Holy Spirit lives in you, focus on that spirit. Focus on the fact that Jesus has conquered death, conquered flesh, and now gives you the ability to live and behave like a child of God. Do you understand what a child of God really means? A child of God is a spiritual name on your life. Daughter of God, Son of God, child of God. This is a spiritual calling from God, meaning that you have the authority to behave and speak and act and do things through the spiritual realm. So whilst you're putting all this emphasis on here, God is saying, hold on a minute. If I called you to be the image and likeness of me, let go of that. Stop putting emphasis on that. Stop giving it the power when I've taken it away through the cross. Anytime you feel that temptation, you tell yourself, I am a child of the Most High God. You talk through all the promises and the things that God has said in your life, through the Word, through prayer, through God revealing different things to you. You tell yourself who you are spiritually. In Ephesians, it talks about setting your mind on things above and not things below. That includes who you are. This stuff down here is not worth an ounce of your time. The enemy will tell you that it is. The enemy will tell, try to convince you that this is really important. And you can't let this go, because as soon as you do, I'ma come straight for you. But you know what God says? God says, those who carry heavy burden, I will give you rest. Meaning, stop focusing on this stuff down here and recommit your eyes. Look upwards again. But some practical things alongside that. How do you combat the main character syndrome? First of all, recognize it's pretty simple. Acknowledge it, pray about it, put it to God's hands, be honest, journal, talk to a friend. In James, it talks about confessing your sins to one another. Confess. It might be hard, but this is something that everyone has gone through. I mean, Paul talks about it, that there is nothing as believers that we have gone through that someone else hasn't. Pride being the root of everything and everyone having a little bit of main character syndrome. You should not feel any guilt or condemnation going to someone about this. If they make you feel like that, they have underlying pride and main character syndrome too. So talk to trusted people, be honest and acknowledge it. That will help, first of all. Second of all, surrender daily. Like I said about the spiritual realm, setting your eyes on things above and not things below. This is an active thing you need to be doing constantly. Because our surroundings anyway, with whatever it is, whether it's pride, whether it's lust, whether it's an addiction, the world will try and set your eyes back on that. Even if it's like doom scrolling on social media, there is something to distract us. But as we set our eyes and recommit our eyes back to God every morning, like how the Word says, give us this day our daily bread. This is a constant thing. And my favorite verse when it comes to this, something that I have always prayed and need to be praying more is Psalm 139, verses 23 to 24. And this says, search me, O God, and know my heart. Test me and know my anxious thoughts. Point out anything in me that offends you and lead me along the path of everlasting life. That alone saying that prayer, alone committing to understanding what that prayer means is gonna be such a shift. It's gonna have such a shift on your mindset. And then the last one, which is like one of my favorites, that just sounds like, oh, the typical church talk of like loving others. But like, let's be honest, that is a core aspect of who we are. I think a lot of the time as Christians, we want to go like really deep in our spiritual walk. And somehow when we hear like the basic things about the Gospel and the basic things about how believers should behave, we almost just like brush over it. Like, that's really not that life changing though, is it? Yes, it is. Serve others, do you know how valuable it is as humans to shift the focus off of ourselves and put it back on someone else. We live in a world, like I said at the beginning, that the culture tells us that we are a top priority as long as we put ourselves first, almost like we're invincible. And I think that mentality stops us from being there for others and putting our focus on others. And actually, when our focus is too much on ourselves, we can get quite downtrodden. And I talked to one of my friends about a tough time that she was going through recently, and her therapist said to her, if I was you right now, telling you all the things that I'm going through in life, what would you say to me? And she said, I would tell you that you're doing an amazing job and to stop worrying. And her therapist said, well, why don't you say that about yourself? The reason why we don't say it about ourselves is because we're too busy looking at our own problems and not looking at others and seeing how we can serve them and be of use to them. And I remember listening to a podcast not long ago on Diary of a CEO. I love Diary of a CEO, by the way. I really just think it's so interesting seeing different people's points of view and, like, their specialisms. I just love it. It's very, like, intellectually engaging for me. But Simon Sinek was on there. He is, like, a motivational speaker, author, does a bit of everything, and I really like him. Even though he's not Christian, he has a lot of biblical perspectives in his speech. And I think he's challenged me a lot, like, a lot to get in my word and to really understand, like, the core principles of the word. Because I think his main thing is just the core aspects of what it means to be a good human. And I know that obviously this can go back to the main character syndrome, and you can focus too much on being a good human. But like I said, a lot of us don't acknowledge, like, the core aspects of our faith, and we take it as like milk, but these things are so important. And he was talking about this story of a friend who was going through a divorce. I think she was having some financial problems as well. And she called him and told him about it, and he said, you know what? Every Wednesday, I'm free for an hour. Do you want to catch up and go for coffee? And we just talk about it. So every Wednesday, they went and they talked about. And he saw that she was kind of doing some progress but then she would go away for the week and it would all just go downhill again and they'd have to, like, unpack it all over again. So he thought to himself, okay, we're not going anywhere. This is kind of frustrating for both me and for her. I want to make a change. So he messaged her and he said, hey, ahead of our catch up, can we do like 30 minutes where I tell you a few things about my life and you can try and help me out, and then 30 minutes, we'll talk about you again. And she's like, yeah, of course. No problem. They get into the coffee shop that Wednesday, and she spends the hour talking about him, giving him advice, pouring into him, letting go of her own problems, her disastrous situation with a divorce and financial problems. And she gives him real practical advice and time and affection and empathy. That was when she changed. And I found this out the other day that actually in Alcohol Anonymous, there's, like different stages that you have to go through to, like, get over your alcohol addiction. And the final step is actually helping someone else out with a problem that they're going through. Alcoholism, or being addicted to any substance will make you very selfish. And it's almost like, okay, now you're thinking about yourself and you're thinking about how you can be a better person, but use that better person to be a better person for someone else. And that's exactly what the Bible talks about. Love your neighbor as yourself. So acknowledge that God has amazing gifts for you, that he loves you, that he calls you his child, that he has transformed you by the renewing of your mind. Use that to be of good for someone else as

well. Luke 9: 43:12

23 says, Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. Philippians 2, verses 3 to 4 says, do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility. Value others above yourselves. So you will see that scripture, both of those scriptures and which were. Oh, yeah, I guess this is like the theme across the whole Word of God and we just ignore it over and over again. There is so much freedom to be had in a life that lets go of this mentality. There is so much life and so much peace and calmness. Because whilst I have come to Christ and I have accepted the entirety of the Word of God, I do not take little bits for myself. Well, I try not to anyway. But I mean in the sense of. I don't go about Christianity as being like a slither of life. I follow every single step. And that Every single step is difficult and it takes true discipline. But I wouldn't say that's all. It's like being empowered to be disciplined because I'm not doing it on my own. It's a constant walk with God because I'm not isolating myself. You know, this isn't me picking up some self help book and saying, you know, I've got to figure this out on my own now. This is the word of God, meaning I'm holding hands with God and we're going on this journey and he's helping me on this journey. So whilst it's difficult sometimes and I have put myself on a very high standard, I've let go of so many different habits, so many different thoughts, I've submit my life fully to following Jesus and not to myself. A lot of people may look at that and say, wow, that seems quite a restricting tough life. But actually I'm at more freedom than I ever was because having that pressure to perform, to be good for yourself, like logically that doesn't even make sense. To be good for yourself, telling yourself you have to be good for yourself. The whole point you're telling yourself that was because you're originally not good to yourself. So then trying to change that and fight fire with fire. As I said at the beginning, it's like the bad self and the better self is still the same self. It's still you. The same person who had the tendency to make those mistakes, the same person who had the tendency to let you down, the same person with the tendency to go back in vicious cycles. And that's lonely. Having that expectation on yourself is lonely. And with God there is freedom. And that's what I want for all of you. I think this is something that, you know, the Bible is so timely, like reading to Timothy just then, it's like, are you talking to people in 2024? But I think this has always clearly been prevalent, but I think social media, especially right now, it just seems to be pushing it out all the more. And I don't want you guys to fall into that trap. I want you guys to acknowledge the word of God that is the same yesterday, today and forever. You aren't even the same yesterday, today and forever. And that's a scary thing about putting your faith in yourself. We all change day to day, meaning that we can change our values and change our thoughts and change our mindsets like the wind. And then our inner self, whatever you want to call it, is trying to catch up with how we're changing and then we still let ourselves down. But when we trust in the One who was at the beginning of time and will be at the end of time, the same person, we have that stability. Trust in God to give you true stability. But yeah, I love you guys. I'm gonna leave it there. I pray you enjoyed this and I pray that it has helped you move forward in your spiritual journey. Please don't forget to comment on the video if you are watching. Let me know what your favorite part was, what you've learned, what you're working on. If you are listening. Don't forget to rate this podcast five stars. I'm trying to push myself up in the algorithm so I need y'all to to review. Even if you're listening, head over to Spotify or itunes or wherever you watch and give the less of me podcast a five star review and don't forget to follow me over on my socials. It will be on the screen if you are watching and it will be down below if you're listening. But I love you guys so much. Have a blessed week and I will see you in the next episode. Bye.