PTP:084. The Devil Made Me Do It!

Brad Miller 0:00
pathway to a promise podcast with Dr. Brad Miller Episode Number 84. The devil made me do it.

Unknown Speaker 0:11
I’m Bill McDonald from Bill mcconnell.me, author of conquer What’s next? Thank you for listening to the pathways to promise podcast with Dr. Brad Miller, living your life with peace, prosperity, and purpose.

Brad Miller 0:26
You are on the pathway to promise with Dr. Brad Miller. Brad leaves every person has a god given promised life of peace, prosperity and purpose, and that you must have a plan and a guide to get there. The pathway to promise podcast Not only is your guide through the wilderness of depression and disappointment that stand between you and your promise life, but also brings you insights and direction from inspiring successful thought leaders who have transformed their lives. Welcome to the pathway to promise now here’s Brad Hello

Good people. And welcome to the pathway to promise podcast with Dr. Brad Miller. That’s me glad to have you with me today as we have a conversation about things of value about making promises and keeping promises and the power of promise. That is to say, we really believe here that you can overcome any adversity in your life. Anything that happens in your life, if you make a commitment to follow a pathway, that you have a god given purpose in your life, a god given gift in your life, of love and power and bold action, and have discipline in your life and that’ll help you get through any adversity and to achieve what we believe is your God given promise, life of peace, prosperity, and purpose. And we’re glad to be here to help you to do that. You can always go to our website pathway promised calm, you can find some good insights there for some other guests which we have on our podcast and from some of the teaching and the things that I like to share.

One of the things I like to share is stories that happened in my life. And just some thoughts that happened. And I’m thinking today as we have the interesting justice juxtaposition between good and evil, which is indicated by today, I’m recording this on November the first 2019. It’s a day, then in the Christian world we call All Saints Day. Today when we remember folks who have passed away, especially in the last year, and we talked about the this the connection, the spiritual connection between those who have departed the dead and our earthly connection that we have here. We remember those folks and we remember that spiritual connection. But we also think about All Saints Day in terms of what happened yesterday. Yesterday was Halloween. Halloween. is a time of a lot of fun, isn’t it? I know in my neighborhood, it was rainy and cold and sleet was coming out but still a lot of kids are out Trick or Treating, there was one kid dressed up like a tuba toothpaste. There was another kid who was dressed up like a cloud formation. I’m sure how he did it. He had a whole bunch of white stuff that made it look like he was in the clouds. And there was lots of fun going on that way. And the weather didn’t keep the kids from Trick or Treat because it’s a lot of fun. But the whole thing about Halloween is is supposed to be you know, everybody dressed up like you know, kind of ghosts and goblins and witches and scary stuff. Because Halloween is all about of course, the last day before All Saints Day. Halloween stands for All Hallows Eve. And hallows. The word hallows means holy. And so it is basically kind of the time of mischief and a time when all the ghouls and the goblins would come out. They had their last kind of party before. This is All Saints Day. So the transition between October 31 and a Remember first is this, this point of intersection between good and evil. And I think in your life in mind, we’ve got some intersections of good and evil as well. And I like to what? Sometimes we may have heard the phrase, the devil made me do it. That’s all about temptation. And what I want to give to you about that is that there is a dominant show my age here. Now, there was a comedian back in the 60s and 70s, a guy named maim a Flip Wilson he had his own TV show, and he had a character is a black gentleman, and he would dress up like a woman character, Geraldine. And you know, and she would isn’t a high pitched voice. She would talk about her problems with her boyfriend and other things that she had in her life. And then she talked about some situation she had to do and then she would say, that devil made me do it. I didn’t say very good, of course, but that was the whole deal with her. The devil made her do it. And she don’t talk to him about all the trouble that she gets. And with with her boyfriend Fang and and all that kind of stuff, and that the devil made you do it. And that’s what Flip Wilson was known for that catchphrase, the devil made me do it.

What do you think about that for a minute, this juxtaposition between All Hallows Eve and All Saints Day, the day All Saints Day when We remember and celebrate and acknowledge that spiritual connection between those who have departed and those who remain. And All Hallows Eve we’re talking about to remember you know how the dead would kind of take over the evil kind of take over in our life, we got to make some decisions to one of the things I like to share here on the pathway to profits podcast is the power of promise. The power when you make a promise, when you keep a promise and the power of a promise kept. But what is a promise really, a promise as a choice of behavior is a choice of behavior to remain covenant with somebody or something or not? That means it’s up to us. Maybe you remember the image that comes to mind sometimes when we say phrases like the devil, maybe do it if you think about someone who may been images of a person who has a little devil on one shoulder, and a little angel and the other shoulder, and when there’s a decision to be made about whatever it is, you know, the little devils whispering in and do the bad thing. It’ll be fun. It won’t hurt you anything, that kind of thing. And the little angels whispering another year, you know, you need to do the right thing here. You didn’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings. You don’t want to mess things up. And but what’s in between the little angel on one shoulder and a little devil on the other shoulder. It’s your head. Yeah, the little devil, a little angel can whisper into your head into your ears. But ultimately, my friend, you have to make the decision. That’s the cognitive piece of this. That’s the choice that you make. And I want to encourage you to make a choice based on good stuff, putting good values in your life. Read good stuff, consume good stuff, pray, connect with others, be in service, serve your family, have fun together, do some things of value in your life and it will fill you up with a good stuff. When we choose oftentimes to go to bad places, when we are empty in our lives, when our souls are empty, or emotions are empty, or when we have we let ourselves slip off into depression and other things. We feel like a kind of a you know, nobody loves us or nobody wants anything to do with us. Or maybe we don’t even have a trick or treat or couch or house. Whatever it is that we have that breathless, that that that emptiness that is there. But it doesn’t have to be that way we choose and how we fill up our life or not. That’s our choice to make. biblically, if you think about Jesus himself was up on a plateau. And the evil one said, The whole world is yours. The temptation here is for you, and if you just will follow me. And of course, Jesus said, No, get behind me Satan. And he chose to follow a hard path, a hard path. You know the path that led to crucifixion and resurrection. And the Bible is full of stories of temptation. You’ve had your stories of temptation, your life, temptations, have to do something right or wrong to do something that goes against your value system, you know, was right, temptation to do to say some word that would have been helpful. And I just want to encourage you friends to use your head, but fill your head with good stuff. For us your heart, fill your heart with good stuff, use your body and fill your body with good stuff, to give you energy to in order to make good value based decisions. And when you make these two things,

It’s not the devil makes you do anything. It’s not even, you know, if we, if those of us who are Christians believe that there’s free will and free choice, God can’t force you to do anything either. It’s our decision whether we’re going to follow a pathway that leads to the saints, or lead to the evil one. That’s the power of making a promise. When you make a promise to somebody else, you’re saying to them, I value you. And I value being in covenant and connection with you. And I want to share my life with you. I want to share my values with you. Then you follow it up by keeping the promise taking the actions that is necessary. It means doing the hard work that’s necessary to keep a promise. And then the power of that comes in the fulfillment that you have in your life. Then you don’t have to worry about the devil making you do it or anything else. You know that you have good things in your life, and you have fulfillment. It’s almost like that kid who comes comes back with from circuit treating with that, you know with that Jacqueline or that bag full of candy, they’re happy as could be because they went, and they did the trick or treating and they got the treats. When you make good decisions, your life friends, you’re going to have a treat in your life. And the devil is not gonna make you do anything. But you’re going to have fulfilling your life because you have made a promise. You’ve kept a promise, and you’ve experienced the power of promise. That’s what we’re here to do at the pathway to promise podcast to help fill up your life with good stuff that will help give you fulfillment in your life in a world that is a lot of unfulfillment and it and if we could be helpful to you, we want to do just that. You can go to our pet to our website, pathway promise.com you can see some helpful things there are some free gifts for you, and some great interviews with some other folks and give you tips and give you strategies and how to have peace, prosperity and purpose in your life. So until next Time for and when you join me on the pathway to promise podcast with Dr. Brad Miller. I am here to encourage you to keep your promises because there’s power in a promise camp. Thanks so much for taking the pathway to promise with Dr. Brad Miller as a subscriber, you’ll be a vital part of the pathway to promise community visit us on the web at pathway promise.com. Until next time, remember to stay on your pathway to promise

Transcribed by https://otter.ai