Hi friends and welcome to Robcast number 46. This one is called the futility and the fire and I just want to give a big shout out to everybody listening in Australia and all of my UK friends

listening in England and Ireland and Scotland and all the friends listening in Iraq and Iceland and those of you who are right now stuck in traffic sitting there in your car and those of you who are working out and those of you who are home with the baby

and the baby, man love and grace and peace to all of you. I'm so happy that you're listening and just before we jump into the futility and the fire I do these two day gatherings hearing Los Angeles that are literally some of the most rewarding things I've ever done and three of them are coming up in January at the Viper Room.

One of them is art and the creative process one of them is on spiritual leadership and one is on business and it's all about helping you find your groove thinking through calling and passion and work life balance and understanding your interior life and what's happening in the world and why does it seem like faith and spirituality are going through these massive reinventions and one of my goals in doing these events is to get all of you in the same room.

Because then you find out that you're not alone and to create a space where you can ask all the questions that you don't have space right now where you can ask those questions and so anyway all that info about the January Viper Room events are on at robbell.com and then I am thrilled to let you know that I'm going to be doing a Christmas show at Largo Club here in Los Angeles on December 21st

and so all that info you can go to Largo site and tickets and all that and this I'm telling you it's called a revolutionary Christmas and the thing I've got planned good Lord it's going to be fun so

would love to see you there as well and now we have to get into this futility and fire thing because I am well I'm fired up about this.

So here's what I want to do in this podcast I want to take you through a prayer it's a prayer that's found in the old testament it's a prayer from a man named Jeremiah and it's sort of an obscure passage in the Bible and maybe you don't have a lot of familiar with the

Bible family already with the Bible maybe you have a hard time with the whole God Jesus faith thing I totally get it but let me tell you this prayer and what it says and teaches us about what it means to be human

it's just lately got me thinking about all sorts of things and it's one thing leads to another and this truth sort of takes you into this and it's just there's so much so

what I want to do is take you through the prayer then I want to give you a bit of a background on where this prayer comes from and then from there I want to just pull out a couple of things that that have really helped me about

unresolved tension in life and I want to talk about anger and rage and hatred and the things that sort of churn within us that we don't sometimes quite know what to do with and then expressing themselves and all sorts of weird ways

and then I want to talk about your interior life will probably start there and then I'm at the end I want to talk about the relationship between futility and fire so the prayer is found in the book of Jeremiah sort of very middle of the Bible and Jeremiah begins this prayer like this he says you deceived me Lord and I was deceived you overpowered me and prevailed I am ridiculed

all day long everyone mocks me whenever I speak I cry out proclaiming violence and destruction but the word of God has brought me insult and reproach all day long now first line of the prayer you deceived me God and I was deceived now what's really interesting to me is that some translation don't translate the word deceived from the original Hebrew word they translate it God you coerced me some say Lord you

enticed me and I was enticed some say you persuaded me but some translations translate it seduced you seduced me God and I was seduced you overpowered me and prevailed notice that's almost like a like a sexual violent language Jeremiah opens his prayer with a rant with anger with wound God you

deceived me I was deceived you seduced me you overpowered me you prevailed and now all that happens is I'm insulted all day long and you brought this on me that's how the prayer starts he's just letting his God haven't

now maybe you have questions about you know all the basic questions about how can there be a God and what he what is prayer who you praying to how does all that work maybe don't believe in even I got you I'm with you but just stay with the story with me for a minute because what we're doing is we're trying to learn more about what it means to be human now a bit of background on this prayer

Jeremiah comes from a Jewish tribe who had this promise deep in the bones of their people because they're sort of founding patriarch father was Abraham and Abraham as many sons and many sons has father Abraham and I'm one of them so are you

Genesis 12 way early in the Bible and if you're new to the Bible there's this really interesting a story that unfolds over the course of the Bible

because this man Abraham is told that he is going to be the father of a nation he's going to be blessed and his nation is his tribe his family is going to bless all the other tribes now this was a brand new idea because tribes always are about themselves tribes naturally

veer towards self preservation tribes default to are we meeting the bottom line is enough money coming in with offerings by the way do you like that

little subtle thing right there you see what I'm talking about tribes generally have a center of gravity which is their own self preservation protecting

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