Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:00 Welcome to the Life Refresh podcast. My name is Ryan Robinson, and if you are looking for a podcast that is designed to uplift, encourage and revive your heart, mind, and spirit. You're in the right place. Welcome to the Journey of Becoming the version of You God designed from the foundations of the earth. Now let's begin.
Speaker 0 00:00:36 Hello and welcome back to Life Refreshed. This is Ryan. Welcome back again to this, uh, solo podcast. Um, all of 'em have been solo podcast. Um, but uh, I'm excited to, uh, just share with you guys. We're gonna be doing some interviews here in the, uh, next, uh, next month or so. Got some incredible, incredible guests that will, will be sitting down and having some real conversation and talks. I know it's been cool you guys get to hear me all the time, but, uh, I really think it's important to have dialogue. Cause again, these are, you know, mine, some perspectives that I've studied. I've learned, I've, I've gone through, um, many of these personally, but I think there's some real cool opportunities for us to actually do some, um, some real, uh, deep dives with people and learn and glean from one another. Um, not just what we are doing, uh, individually, but collectively.
Speaker 0 00:01:35 How can we exhort one another and build each other up as we are going through this thing called Life <laugh>. Um, one step in, one day at a time. Um, I wanna, this one's gonna be a, uh, kind of a good, maybe like a, a bridge, um, podcast, if you will. Um, I was, um, one of my favorite, uh, movies of all time is The Matrix. I, um, I've watched it multiple times and, um, not because I, I I like the fight scenes, but I like the allegory of what it's all about. And, um, how most of us are willing to endure comfort and sacrifice the pain of knowing. If I could call a podcast a title, probably the pain of knowing the Bible says my people perish for lack of knowledge. It's not that you don't know or don't have the capability to know or learn, it's just that information that is needed to be actionable is not provided to you, nor have you sought, uh, that particular piece of information in order to make a change.
Speaker 0 00:02:52 And, um, it's such an unfortunate thing because the people in the Matrix didn't know they were in the Matrix. They have been, um, in this world, had no idea. They were like human batteries after. I mean, again, this is when Neo wakes up and he's, after he's had the pill, fast forward, um, he's had the, he's picked the appropriate pill. I think it was The Red pill. Yeah, the red pill. And, um, it was the first time that Neo became aware of the oppressive, parasitic nature of the Matrix. And I think it, it is such a, a, a powerful thought is that now that he was informed, he saw things that he necessarily didn't like. And it was, uh, it is something I think that in this particular movie, like he didn't know. He woke up, he saw all these machines, he didn't know what was going on.
Speaker 0 00:03:54 Um, he didn't even know he wasn't eating on his own. He didn't know he was getting plugged up like a light bulb to the Matrix and all those things that went along with it. And he had to go through, you know, it, I don't know how much time had passed, but it looked like year or not years, but months or weeks of rehabilitation to activate his muscles because he never used them before. He didn't know how to, all he knew was what he knew in the Matrix. And now this world that he was once in that had skyscrapers, had technology and all these things, he was no longer in the comfort zone of knowing what to expect. But he always on the inside knew and he was always reaching out for something different, uh, something new following the rabbit hole and trying to like, this doesn't feel quite right, but I'm gonna keep seeing what's happening.
Speaker 0 00:04:50 And, you know, the Matrix tried to do its best to remove the threat that Neil was to the Matrix, that he was the one. But it, it wasn't until he had some people that believed in him that he started to activate. Um, this particular gift set that he had, and I I, I want to bring this up again, is that when Neo's eyes were opened, he had a lot of questions. And I could only imagine. And, and you can see in in Neo's facial expressions that like he didn't know what to do. He saw what he saw wasn't real before. He didn't have any hair on his head at the time. He just was a different person and it wasn't as pretty, there was no sun. They were in like a spaceship and eating oatmeal, you know, to, to sustain themselves. So, I mean, there's so many things that now that he was knowing he was now responsible for and, and, and now had the responsibility of helping the team not just dismantle the matrix, but find other individuals and galvanize those individuals to free them from something that they didn't know that they were in.
Speaker 0 00:06:11 And you know, it, it brings me back to Romans chapter 12, verse one and two says, <unk> therefore brethren, by the emergencies of God, presenting your bodies a living sacrifice wholly and acceptable unto, unto God, which is your reasonable service, and do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you are that good, acceptable and perfect will of God. So what is all that saying? He's saying first it is our responsibility to be examples to individuals that are one in this, in this case looking to Christ and being Christ-like and sacrificing what our perspectives and ideals and what we want in our lives every day. Um, a living sacrifice, which means daily we are crucifying our flesh to, to the cross and asking God to be God and us to sit back so that we know that God, he's, God I'm not, I'm going to sit, I'm going to trust and I'm going to surrender for he knows what I need and he knows my what's best for me.
Speaker 0 00:07:24 It's a hard perspective, right? But then also be transformed by the renewing of your mind, meaning that our mind is always going through some kind of renewal. So the thing is, you cannot be prideful in thinking that you know everything, because we're going to have to change thought patterns. Let's think about this. The way you thought about life when you were 24 years old is probably a bit different when you get into your mid thirties. I'm telling you, it is <laugh>. If your thought process now is the same as it was when you were in your mid twenties, it's it, there's a problem. <laugh> there's a problem. Because the thing is, life has a way of exposing us and and challenging our thought processes. And the thing is, everything isn't clear cut like we thought it would be. And I don't know about you, but the more I've seen, more I've been exposed to in my life, I have more questions than I have answers.
Speaker 0 00:08:28 And I ask people, I, you know, I ask God and I'm like, why did that happen to that individual? I, I thought they were, you know, this kind of person. And the thing is, we have no answer for that. We don't, cuz we're not God. So going back to the Matrix examination, um, of, of <laugh>, I guess you could say, the, the piece that I'm pivoting around with this is that, that once Neo got out of the matrix, he now had a very unique perspective of what it was like to be in it and then what it's like to be out of it. So he knew the rules on how which he needed to govern himself cuz he started training in the Matrix, right? He, he got downloaded the skills of Kung fu and, and, and had that, um, sparring match with Lawrence Fishburn and him trying to pull out of him what he believed that was in him, this capability of being the one that was going to dismantle the matrix from the inside out, Disman immense threat.
Speaker 0 00:09:38 And the, the only thing that I remember, the thing I do remember about that film is that Neil always came close to being Neo as we know him to be when he stopped thinking about being the one, did you, have you noticed that like he just naturally would start moving his being the one, like no one had seen the, the in famous bullet dodging portion of the film. No one taught him that he was just in mid motion and just did it. Many of the fight scenes that we saw that created this epiphany of mobility that Trinity Morpheus and the team had never seen before, all came out of him just being in a natural. He wasn't trying, he was just doing, he was being the 1 1, 1 of the things I just want us to re be reminded of is that there are gifts that we've all been given naturally.
Speaker 0 00:10:42 Um, I believe in, in three quadrants, if you will, of set gift sets. We have spiritual gifting, which is used for the church and uplifting of individuals. We have natural ability. So ability that is, um, gifted to us like LeBron James being a basketball player, ba uh, you know, Michael Jordan. Those are natural abilities given, but they need to be worked on, right? And cultivated and there's, everyone has a gift. You might be gifted in painting, drawing, sketching, uh, speaking, whatever that is. But those are natural abilities that everyone's been endowed with, right? And then there is acquired skill. Acquired skill meaning you have been taught is something you went to school for, you've been educated on, you found your way to do it, but it has now become a part of your tool bag and your gift set that now, even though you may not have been the gifted person in it, you have developed a skill around your talent that is marketable and highly received by other people.
Speaker 0 00:11:50 So the thing that we live in, we live in either, you know, these three boxes, but sometimes we don't know what these three things are. And I feel like this is an exercise that we have to really go through, particularly for those who don't know what they're gifted in or don't know what they want to do in their life. Um, I read a ton every day, <laugh> at least 30 to 40 minutes, I read something or listen to something. And there are, there's information out there that I wish I had known when I was in my mid twenties, but I'm glad I got it now. And the key of it is that now that I am exposed to this information, I am now responsible for implementing that information because now I have the pain of knowing, I have the pain of knowing. Now this is the thing, if you didn't know that's on you, that's, that's, that's one thing.
Speaker 0 00:12:45 But if you know that you know now and you still don't do anything about it, that's on you. Okay? Now this is the thing, it's, it is the, the power of knowing that, uh, you have this gift and it, it just runs naturally, right? That's what Neo was doing. He was natural in his capability, he was natural in his gifting. And uh, I think it's just really important for us to do the exercise that I just spoke about because we may know it intrinsically in our, in ourselves, in our soul and our spirit. But until we put it on paper, until we see it for ourselves, no one can tell us. No one could really tell Neo that he was acting different unless they had someone on the outside monitoring his movement. Cuz to him it's all natural, right? That's why we need to have the right people around us to tell us the truth.
Speaker 0 00:13:39 To be able to give us inside like, oh, what you just did wasn't normal <laugh> the way you put that together. That's not something everybody does. We need to have those kind of people in our lives. Cuz if we don't, we will be going around thinking that what we have is common and we will treat our gifting as such. If we don't get perspective on the, our own gifts and our own abilities, recognizing that those are not typical, they're not typical. So, um, I'm, I'm gonna, this is again, this is gonna be a short pod, but I wanna at least bring us up to like understanding like there is a painful process of knowing that you've been gifted. It, it, it is the awakening of it, the, the exercising of it, and then the being that's difficult. Especially now that you're, you know, once you know you're held responsible and held accountable to that gifting.
Speaker 0 00:14:39 Cause the Bible says it clearly, my people perish for lack of knowledge. And sometimes people just want to be left in the dark cuz they don't know what they're gonna see on the other side. But there ladies and gentlemen lines the crossroads of a life, well stewarded or a life lived on accident, that you happen to do this and you happen to be in the right place at the right time. We need a life of intentionality. And I hope that through this you understand that knowledge isn't bad, it can be painful, but would you rather know than not know at all? That's a question for another day. Thanks for tuning in. Y'all catch you on the next one.
