The Schemes of Evil

Why does it sometimes feel like the moment we begin to experience healing or clarity… life gets harder?

In this episode, Dan Allender and Rachael Clinton Chen explore the often-unseen ways evil works to undermine our hearts—not only through obvious suffering, but through shame, distraction, accusation, fear, and despair. 

Drawing from Ephesians 6, they unpack the “schemes of evil” that seek to keep us disconnected from God, from ourselves, and from one another.

Rather than inviting fear or fixation on spiritual warfare, you’ll hear how to recognize these patterns without giving them more power than they deserve, and what it means to stand firm in the authority and love of Christ.

Whether you’re navigating personal struggles, experiencing unexpected opposition, or simply wondering why growth can feel so costly, this episode offers practical wisdom for discerning what you’re up against—and a hopeful reminder that evil never has the final word.

About the Allender Center Podcast:

For over a decade, the Allender Center Podcast has offered honest, thoughtful conversations about the deep work of healing and transformation. Hosted by Dr. Dan Allender and Rachael Clinton Chen, MDiv, this weekly podcast explores the complexities of trauma, abuse recovery, story, relationships, and spiritual formation. Through questions submitted by listeners, stories, interviews, and conversations, we engage the deep places of heartache and hope that are rarely addressed so candidly in our culture today. Join the Allender Center Podcast to uncover meaningful perspectives and support for your path to healing and growth.

At the Allender Center, we value thoughtful dialogue across a wide range of voices, stories, and lived experiences. In that spirit, our podcast features guests and hosts who may hold differing perspectives. The perspectives shared on this podcast by guests and hosts reflect their own experiences and viewpoints and do not necessarily represent the views, positions, or endorsements of the Allender Center and/or The Seattle School of Theology & Psychology.

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If you and your organization would like to partner with the Allender Center Podcast, please reach out to Clay Clayton at cclayton@theallendercenter.org

Episode Transcript

Dan: Oh, Rachael, I’m coming back from an extraordinary experience of a men’s sexual abuse Recovery Week. And let me just underline the privilege, oh my gosh, the privilege of being with men and women who are willing to address something of the, I think some of the darkest labor of the kingdom of evil to destroy tomorrow, something of the glory of the human heart. So that’s just context so that you and I have the context of where this is coming from. But I have another question before I jump back into that. Have you ever really had a terrible haircut?

Rachael: Oh yeah. Yes, I have. I know. Yes. Want me to explain it or just to say yes?

Dan: Yeah. Well, no, I mean just how did you personally handle it?

Rachael: I mean, it was a lot of devastation at the time in the season because I was already dealing with hair loss and hair thinning from medical issues. And then someone put a bunch of textured layers in my long hair and I have really fine hair that just exacerbated the thinness of my hair. And I was devastated and then I cut my hair off.

Dan: Oh gosh.

Rachael: Got rid of all the awful layers. Then I had someone cut my hair off really short to just be like, we’re starting over. We’re starting fresh.

Dan: Oh, okay. Given the nature of the calamities and heartache and really evil in our world, I know this is a very small matter, but our audience can’t see. So I’m just going to show you, can’t you see what happened to my head?

Rachael: Oh wow, that’s the shortest I’ve ever seen. I don’t think it looks bad. It’s just, I’ve never seen your hair that short ever.

Dan: Oh, it was just unbelievable. And so she’s cutting. And I just said, because it’s been fairly short compared to my normal hair length. And I just said, “Just take an inch off.” And then she kept hacking. And then it was so clear on one side it was way shorter than the other. And again, not to in any way besmirch this particular company, but I do. I go to the cheapest possible haircutter in the universe. And she was trying to even, I kept looking at her in the mirror and then saying, “It looks pretty different on that side.” So she would cut on that side. And then the other side would be longer. So it was just like. Anyway, here’s the point. Evil is going to work against you no matter how big and dramatic, like for us, the reality of doing work in the realm of sexual abuse. Or something at one level I want to say as small as having your hair butchered, knowing only too well it will grow back. The schemes of evil are at work in almost every dimension of life. And I found myself after the haircut of being drawn to Ephesians 6 and then beginning to think about, look, okay, you’re feeling shorn, naked, violated, and not particularly attractive. Now you’re going to need to put on, I know this is just crazy, you’re going to need to put on the armor of God. So the reality of, oh my gosh, the craziness of life, it just forced me to again come back to what’s evil working to do against you, me? And it can be as small as what I put words to. So just reflection first of all on your part. What schemes do you see evil working? And really, I’m reflecting out of that Ephesians 6 of knowing the schemes of evil. We are not. Put on all of God’s armor, verse 11, chapter 6 of Ephesians. “Put on all of God’s armor so that you’ll be able to stand firm against all the schemes of evil. For we are not fighting flesh and blood enemies, including haircuts, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world and against evil spirits in heavenly places”. So your first thoughts.

Rachael: Well, one thing I want to say as we enter these waters, just for those listening, it’s really important to understand the schemes, right? To be at least aware of them. There’s always a temptation that we can outsmart them or we should be able to think like them or we should be looking for them. And I think for those of us who come out of context where there was almost a hyper fixation on the schemes of evil, just know that Dan and I’s primary orientation is we are fixing our eyes on Jesus. And that’s really what we’re looking for. But it’s also really important to know these things. And so I wanted to name that just as kind of a pastoral grounding of how we enter this or at least how my heart needs to enter this. And I think in part is because I feel very much in a season where we have experienced levels of, I would say, bombardment of just things that feel like destruction that range from the pretty extreme to the minor you’re talking about. But a bad haircut doesn’t feel minor when there’s a thematic scheme at play. And so I was just telling you beforehand, I’ve definitely throughout my life had to grow in wisdom and maturity and the wisdom to put on the armor of God to know what we’re up against. And I feel like in this season, and we’ll get to this, it’s almost like I’m being punished because there was actual growth in healing from initial wounds and in growing in wisdom of how evil loves to use shame and fear to keep us bound. And so now we’ve got a mold issue in our home, which again is a part of new construction in Philly. So in some ways I could go, oh, well yeah, it’s just who’s not dealing with this? But the particular season that we’re dealing with it in, how pervasive it’s been, how it’s colliding with multiple other things that are coming. And so I do feel very much like I’ve had a kind of sobriety of, okay, I need to be more clear and more prepared in how I’m praying, in how I’m moving about the world. And so I don’t necessarily feel defeated. I don’t feel a sense of, oh, I should give up, or I’m afraid, or I should cower. But I do feel a sense of humility and a sense of, I need to be reminded of what could be working against me and us and our greater collective too when you take a step out and you look at what’s happening in our larger context that we’ve been talking about so much. So I’m appreciative of you. I’m not appreciative of your haircut that I could hear felt like a violation, but I am appreciative of the ways in which you allowed it to take your heart to a text that I’m grateful to be reminded of.

Dan: Well, and I love the pastoral and hermeneutical orientation that Lewis put it so brilliantly in the introduction to The Screwtape Letters. And that is you can spend too little and you can spend too much time reflecting on the nature of evil. And I think one has to know that the reality is we both hold that there is an unseen world and that that is operating against us at individual, corporate, personal, interpersonal, marriage, cultural issues. And so schemes, to me, it’s like putting on your seatbelt. I don’t drive somewhere in every instant worrying about a car accident, but I do my best to drive defensively and to provide as much protection as possible. So that’s all we’re in one sense hoping to accomplish in this conversation. So to step back, schemes, we could spend the whole time on this word scheme and schema. A schema in some ways is sort of an organized systemic understanding of something. So you have a schema about how you want to go about doing your summer vacation. So we create schemas all the time to provide a collection of understanding of complex data, which is different than a scheme, which is in some ways a plan, an intentional plan to influence or change someone or something to our own end. So obviously there are schemes like surprising Becky for her birthday almost always involves a scheme, but it’s not for harm. So the word scheme for the most part is talking about some malevolence, but it can be a good scheme, scheming for good. But in this case, we’re obviously talking about a scheme for harm. Advertising almost always involves a scheme. And to say that it’s meant for harm is a little too far. But what do you think of when you think of insurance and ostriches or insurance and ducks?

Rachael: Well, the duck, I think of Aflac.

Dan: Right.

Rachael: But I don’t know about ostriches. I think of a gecko with Geico.

Dan: Yeah. Yeah. Got the gecko, Geico. We’re not going to get too far on this, but I remember sitting with my children and trying to help them begin to measure. In advertisements, what are they working to accomplish? They’re not looking to offer you information. They’re working to create persuasion through a scheme to get you tied to laugh with a duck to make the Aflac sound like a duck connecting. Because how do you sell insurance? It is a laborious, complex, and from my, I’ll just say it, a side standpoint, it’s like a satanic organization. So okay, I need to deny that, but it’s how I feel. Anyway, so to operate with it, schemes are happening all day long with regard to almost everything around us. When you go to a grocery store, I think it’s helpful to know that the most expensive material is going to be at eye level. So if you want something cheaper, reach high or stoop low. So schemes are just part of how we know are operating. It’s common, but why would we not think evil has its own schemes? And that’s obviously what scripture is pointing us to. So to me, the initial structure for almost all its operation, given the fact that its primary stance is to be hidden, to not be seen, or if seen, to be mocked like the little red devil. So the idea of temptation, where you are drawn to do, to feel, to think, to act in a way that you know is fundamentally contrary to who you are and who you want to be, I think is his first core structure. And in that deception seduction, as it remains hidden, this is just an important phrase for me. I don’t think its primary work is to get you caught in an addiction or caught in doing something that violates, because that’s too easy to own and just go, “Oh, that was not helpful to have that third cookie. I didn’t need to eat that.” Or whatever it might be. It’s that it follows up with accusation. So temptations have as their purpose to create an accusation for having relented to that temptation. And in that, to instill doubt and to underscore there really is no way back. Ultimately, I think what it’s attempting to do virtually with all temptation is to inculcate shame. Does that ring true?

Rachael: Yeah. And actually where my mind was going was the garden. In so many ways, this is the initial scheme of evil that we see play out in the midst of God’s good creation. You see this seduction and deceit, this accusation, but also accusing God too in it. It’s like a dynamic multi-pronged accusation that you are bad for giving into this, but also God is bad. So yeah, I mean, this feels very familiar. And I know many of us could look at places of repetition or where our brokenness is the most. Yeah, where there are schemas of brokenness and say, yeah, that feels very true if we can actually tolerate looking at our shame and being curious about it as opposed to just being annihilated by it, if that makes sense.

Dan: Yes. I mean that stance of being able to say every temptation has something in it of desire and desire at some level for something really beautiful and good and holy. So when we simply look at temptations and make judgements that we are bad, we are wrong. And again, I’m not saying that there isn’t brokenness in that, but I think what evil wants at its core is that suffusion, that submergent in shame where there just is… ugh. And then to create a context where you vow to not struggle with this again. And yet because you have a history of several thousand times failing in that, there is that sense of then a desire for something different yet this long interior/exterior of failure that just leads you back to, yeah, I’ll probably do it again. So with that sense of hopelessness, you can see the judgment that you make against yourself.

Rachael: Oh, I mean, absolutely. To me, that’s part of the most tragic pieces of the wickedness that it’s such an invitation to turn against ourselves and to turn against ourselves in a way that there’s a lot of isolation. So all the pathways toward healing, toward repair, or toward restoration do feel completely cut off and unavailable and inaccessible.

Dan: So to me, we’ve said this before, the name Satan comes from kind of an ancient near Eastern understanding of someone who accuses. So the one who judges, the one who accuses, who passes kind of a final indictment against you. So the structure of temptation is the labor of judgment. I am frail. I am stupid. I can’t stop. And all that leads, again, to that fundamental place of contempt. So we have hopefully bridged this category many times for other podcasts, but where there’s shame, there will always be contempt. And so there’s a sense of evil wanting you to bring judgment. So as I got home from my haircut and I looked at Becky and she started laughing, which was maybe not initially one of the best gifts, but she was like, “I know you think it’s horrible and it’s not good, but it’s not as horrible as I see in your face. You have come to a judgment that it would be better.” And I had already worn a hat. I don’t generally wear hats that much. So she’s like, “Are you planning to wear a hat for the next several months?” What she did in that playfulness, even though at one level it stung, at another level, it was like this invitation to step out of the judgment of I’m ruined into it will grow back. So the freedom to bear in some sense, the laughter of the resurrection, the ability, we’re not trying to come to a quick solution here, but just the ability to undermine accusation by that, in one sense, confidence of where’s your sting, oh death? Or there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. That’s right. In that moment, if that phrase sort of takes away the judgment and accusation, well, bless you. That’s a level of maturity I’ve not achieved. But it’s kind of an anchor. It’s like the seas are roiling and I’m going to be a little bit nauseous for a while, but at least I know there’s some ground here that I will be able to come back to. I think when you have that disruption of shame, evil, if I can put it this bluntly, is not going to relent, but it doesn’t have the same power when shame gets disrupted. So I think that’s when I’ve begun to see with more clarity, it goes to a second level, to it’s sort of a secondary plan, which is to begin repeating the accusation, but maybe in another area. In other words, you might be able to manage the haircut better, but then there’s just this general feel around you of a dark cloud. And I think it begins to pull in all sorts of other data. And I would wonder if that’s the case for you, like mold, problems getting prescriptions, realities of four or five other areas around you that at some level, even if it doesn’t have this language, it at least has something of the intention of saying you are cursed.

Rachael: Yeah. And you’ll never, in some ways, I think it feels like a setup for failure too, because you can only work so hard. You can only try so many things before you just start feeling that it moves you from the shame and contempt to the powerlessness and that sense of, yeah, I must be cursed or I must be doing. If we’re in a toxic hermeneutic, I must be doing something wrong. Or I’m not yes, this other place of sin that maybe I’ve gotten some freedom from, it’s opened the door to all this harm. I’m bad. Or I just will never be free. This is what I will always anticipate. And I would say for myself, that often comes from not only when I’ve tasted some sense of freedom, but when that freedom has led me to walk in such a way with greater courage, greater clarity, probably greater power in the realm of the spirit, so to speak.

Dan: Yes. Yes.

Rachael: Yeah. And then I can feel the like, oh, things are intensifying with the accusation. Things are intensifying with the feeling of cursing. And then that sense of clarity, that sense of courage starts to get, well, it feels a little too risky. Maybe it would be more comfortable to be distracted or to be dissociated or to let some of those lighter addictions have a place to just bring a little more comfort because this feels really scary. This feels overwhelming. This feels like, is it worth it? Is all of this kind of cursing and darkness and feeling of oppression worth it?

Dan: Yes. Again, to me, the hugely important sentence is that when you start utilizing the power of the authority you have, that you literally sit at the right hand of the Father. And all authority has been given to Jesus over the unseen realm. And your participation in seeing evil’s scheme, then standing against it, naming it, calling it out, and then in one sense, bringing the cross between you and the work of evil, sending that specific assault to the throne for judgment. It’s actually power. You’ve been given power. And it’s not like evil at that point goes, “Oh, let’s go somewhere else.”

Rachael: I wish it did. I wish it did.

Dan: I know. The greater power you have, the greater threat you are to the kingdom of evil. So the idea of you’ve had some significant movement, your soul was moving in directions that were under the dark cloud of that scheme. And then all of a sudden you begin to shift it because of the power you do have in the name of Jesus, in the blood of Jesus and the power of the throne. But what I tend to find, and you put words to it is the more you grow, the more there’s bombardment. It just sucks.

Rachael: Well, and we see this on a larger scale and just thinking about the recent gutting of the Voting Rights Act. After 60 years of this kind of very intentional scheme to undermine, it’s not new. It’s like what, the third or fourth wave of a kind of pushback against more civil rights and more equality and maybe a tiny step toward reparation or repair. And yeah, that feeling of even for a collective of what’s the point you should just give up. You’ll never win. We’ll keep coming. And just what it looks like to. So I’m just thinking about that in the collective, but coming back to this kind of third wave plan, it feels like if you somehow found a way to not be bound by shame, and then the kind of secondary scheme of bringing contempt or bringing a reenactment, a sense of powerlessness, judgment, a reenactment of addictions, if that gets disrupted, then yeah. And it does feel like there’s, I would say for me, what I start hearing louder is a threat to harm to me. Not death. In some ways it’s never like, I’ll kill you. It’s always like, I’ll torment you or you’ll be humiliated or you’ll know violence or you’ll know whatever. Or I’ll harm those you love if you take one more step. I’ll harm your children. I’ll harm your spouse. Or yes, that bombardment of illness or calamity. And again, I think in some ways what Satan did to Jesus in the wilderness, that sense of if you kind of basically do what I’m asking you to do, if you take a step back with Jesus, it was different because it was basically like save yourself. Basically forsake humanity. Forsake humanity and I’ll stop this or whatever. You can do this. I think what I hear, because I’m not Jesus, is if you just are willing to just be a little more quiet, take a step back. Just give up. Give into despair. Give into cynicism. Become more nihilistic or give your heart over to envy and contempt, then this can relent and you can be free from this.

Dan: Yeah. So the first category, again, just to underscore, the accuser, Satan, the name. I will bombard you with something to undermine your sense of identity and your integrity. And then in so many ways, the word devil comes from the Greek word diabolos, which means to scatter. And that’s what you were putting words to with that second category of, I’m just going to bombard you. And really the despair plays itself out with distraction. When you start looking at the reality that the average American spends 6.5 hours on screens every day. So in some ways, evil doesn’t really have to do a whole lot if you’re watching TV, you’re playing games, you’re looking at reels. And again, I’ve been looking at myself when I say that.

Rachael: Absolutely.

Dan: When I got back from the Recovery Week, I sat for a couple hours and Becky was like, “I know you need rest. I know you need care. Do you wish to find all that in your phone through the reels that you’re looking at?” And I’m like, she was accurate. I’m being tempted into a distractive gathering. But when you begin to name those schemes and stand against them, we’re not going to spend a lot of time putting words to what do we mean? What does it mean to stand firm against by putting on the armor? But in knowing what the scheme is, it requires a response. But that third word that you just put words to. I will harm your children. I will take away what health you do have. That’s where evil now doesn’t need to hide anymore. And it’s going to directly take, in one sense, your maturity against you with the invitation, as you put it so brilliantly, into something of the same temptation of, I will give you all the kingdoms of the earth if… So I think that phrase of threat, where have you felt that? What has it been like for you?

Rachael: Well, the first thing I was thinking about is just how, for me, this is really the realm of psychological warfare. Not that there’s not very real tangible experiences that reinforce you are under threat, but it’s often for me where evil positions in its kind of, it’s exposed, it’s not hiding. Again, we’re in a collective moment where evil is not hiding. And it would have us believe it has won the day, that there is no reason to fight. And yet it is often where I feel like it’s like the shadow on the wall from. It’s actually this big, but the shadow looks like so much bigger. So you’re afraid of the shadow, but the real thing, because of what God has done through Jesus, does not have the same kind of power as it’s positioning or presenting itself to have. Does not mean, for me at least, that the fear is immediately resolved because of that or that there won’t be real threat or harm. One of the first experiences this I had that I can recall in memory where it was so clear to me what was happening is when I was around 16. And it was a couple of years after my call to ministry and I was having my first encounters reading the Bible where it was like the Spirit was just illuminating the kingdom of God. I don’t know how to put it other than it was like the story was coming together even more, making deeper sense to me. And I started experiencing, I would call pretty intense spiritual warfare, sleep terror, sleep disruption. That was scary. It felt deeper than just like, oh, this is just a sleep terror because it would be very evil, like the sleep terror. I would wake up hearing something whisper my name really loud in a way that felt threatening. Again, I could go to a sleep doctor and they’d be like, “Oh, it’s just whatever you’re dreaming about.” It just felt different. And I remember hearing almost like, “If you stop reading the Bible so much, you don’t have to be afraid. This will stop.” And at first I was like, “Okay.” And I actually think for maybe a week I was like, “I’m not going to read the Bible.” And it did stop. But there was something in me that was like, I kind of all of a sudden was like, “Wait a minute. What? No. No, that’s so stupid. Wow. I can’t believe…” In some ways as a 16-year-old, I definitely had a little bit of that you failed the test. And thankfully, God’s presence and grace to me that moment was a lot more like, “Oh, you didn’t fail anything and I’m with you and you don’t have to be afraid and you can stand firm. And just because there’s not a cause and effect here that you just have to give your heart over to.” That’s where I mean the psychological warfare aspect of it. Just because you read your Bible doesn’t mean then you are destined to spend the rest of your life having these kind of sleep terrors. And so yeah, I think about that. That’s kind of just one memory that came to mind where I think I started to understand like, oh, that’s a different kind of scheme that it hadn’t been as clear.

Dan: Well, one of the gorgeous, good-hearted men that we just had the privilege to be with, and I’m changing enough the story that I doubt that if he were to listen to what I’m saying, he would go immediately. But he began to address the reality that so much of his life, he just designed the way he engaged by doing what the people with power wish for him to do. And he realized that that was part of how he managed the sense of his own shame for having been groomed. The abuser had, in some sense, brought him more presence, kindness than anyone else in his life, and that set up the abuse. And what he had learned from that is if he stood against someone differing with what they said or what they wanted, it literally could create such hell that his life would fall apart. And as he began to own something of the scheme of deception, of seduction, of the lies and began to name that, one of the things that began to occur was even in a matter of a day and a half, there was this new, I don’t know what to put better than a glow, a kind of like, “Oh my God, I have been bound in these lies.” And there was that the truth will set you free, but it will also eventually be used by evil to come back. And what evil had begun to do with him is to say, “Your marriage will not survive and your children will not respect you. And your family, larger family, will turn against you.” Now here’s the dilemma. It could be true. Because when you find having a voice, not to be belligerent and not to accuse, but just to tell the truth, just to tell the truth, to let desire and honor move you to having language. Yeah. When you have, in some sense, been bound in a form of compromise over who knows how many decades, and then all of a sudden you even name one or two sentences that disrupt, it will create some degree of initial chaos and havoc. But evil went way beyond, yes, this might be distressing for those of your world who expect you to be this particular way, but then evil took it to that extreme of your marriage will end. Now, I’ll just say there was no indication by virtue of being able to explore with him that his wife was going to turn against him. It might be conflict, but we’re not talking about a woman who’s just going to abandon him. So as we’re trying to put words to the schema, logic, I don’t know how to say it better, logic won’t work.

Rachael: No.

Dan: Two plus two equals 291. When you believe it’s 291, just trying to show I put four things in front of you and ask you to add it, it’s not going to work. It’s where you have to get into the scheme to begin that process of dismantling the third name of evil. And in Greek, it’s Apollyon, the destroyer. The one who wants you to fear calamity to a point where, I mean, literally your home will fall on you. Your job will be lost. Your marriage will end. And again, as I’m trying to capture, trying to help him be “more reasonable” that this is likely not going to occur actually falls into something in the scheme of evil. Just be logical. Just sort of operate with the left hemisphere, put two plus two together, and you’ll be able to manage reality with a little bit more sensibility. That’s where we have to operate in that right hemisphere and to begin to draw out what are the images? What are the processes? What’s the sense of terror? And for many of us, looking at terror feels like it fragments us, and therefore we turn away again to distraction. Not saying that we have to look at it square in the eye, full and complete, but there has to be a sense of, I will turn toward what you are threatening me with to begin that process of bringing light into darkness. Your thoughts?

Rachael: Well, I think the logic, I mean, I am someone who struggled with, I would say, like I probably could say for a lot of my life, tormented by terror. And that attempt to logic out of terror is just like, it only increases the torment. Because if you can logically, you’ve already tried all the logic. You’ve already been there multiple times to try to climb out. And that has not helped. So you think you’re absolutely right. I think about probably less… Well, maybe we could talk a little more about what you mean by looking at the terror. I do think I also struggle with some OCD, so that’s where my brain was going ruminations and the kind of compulsive ruminations that come are so intrusive. And it does have that feeling of like, that’s not coming from me, so where’s that coming from? And if I don’t take it seriously and I don’t work out every possible scenario to try to get ahead of that, then it’ll be my fault because I got this premonition. And if I don’t take. As if God functions in terror, as if the way God or the spirit would speak would be to terrify you into action. Not like I’m with you and I’ve got you. Or even if this is really hard, your home is with me and my power and love are sufficient. So I do think in some ways, again, it goes back to the psychological warfare of understanding the scheme is that the terror is very pointed in particular. It’s not just generic. It’s coming for vulnerabilities or deep places of wound. And so yeah, I probably have been less. Maybe you would say no, you have. I think I’ve probably been less the person who wants to just stare at the terror, although I have stood down a lot of terror.

Dan: Well, two things that I’ve seen with you, and two that I would underscore is so important before we end. The first is that there be honor for yourself in the middle of the war. To being able to say, my amygdala is more active than most people. I bear more anxiety. And when you stop judging yourself for that, you’re moving toward, maybe not fully yet, but you’re moving toward blessing your body. And that’s why I always go back to Psalm 131. I know how to soothe myself like a wean child. So that stance of being able to go, “You’re a liar.” And even if there’s some truth that if I step back, you will relent to some degree, but I’m not going to trust somebody who’s called the father of lies. But now in being able to stand firm against, now I have to tend to my body and tend to the fragmentation. And saying to Becky at that point when she named that, and I said, “Give me about five more minutes of just being lost in these ridiculous Instagram reels.” But it was like, “Yeah, I can give it five.” And even that was like, “I’m blessing my need right now for distraction, but I’m going to come up out of the water. I’m going to rise.” So I think in that sense, we’re right back to, I need to own up to death and to the death of Jesus on my behalf. But my own suffering of death, like I’m exhausted, I have a bad haircut, and I just want to hide in the bed, name death. But in that, I know I can rise because Hebrews, I know. But give yourself kindness in that. And that five minutes was a way of saying I will be kind to my own heart’s need for at least a bit of distraction. But I think having then that sensibility of the ascension, like I have authority here. And I have the authority to be able to say, I need to go to bed. I have the authority to be able to say, I need to walk for a bit to soothe my nervous system. So all those acts that come with authority have the idea of blessing. I will not be bound to the curse because you took the curse on my behalf. I will participate in what I can with the blessing to undermine this particular scheme. So sort of a final sentence for me. I’m not wearing a hat as often.

Rachael: And I don’t think it looks nearly as bad as you felt. And yeah, I think as we come to a close, I would just say, thank you Jesus for being one who has taken our place, who defies all forms of death, and who calls us back again and again and again to our place in your kingdom.