200 episodes

Life Talk is a podcast intentionally designed to enrich your life, deepen your marriage, enhance your parenting, maximize your work life, and dramatically embolden this journey that we call life.

Life Talk with Craig Lounsbrough Craig Lounsbrough

    • Religion & Spirituality
    • 5.0 • 3 Ratings

Life Talk is a podcast intentionally designed to enrich your life, deepen your marriage, enhance your parenting, maximize your work life, and dramatically embolden this journey that we call life.

    Podcast Short: Better or Worse?

    Podcast Short: Better or Worse?

    Better or Worse?
    Will the choice that you’re about to make, make you better or worse?  Will it improve your life, or diminish your life?  The fact of the matter is, it’s going to do one or the other.  And because it is, it’s worth asking the question, will it make me better or worse?
    But that question itself can be clouded by a whole lot of things.  First, there can be people telling us that the choice that we are about to make will, in fact, make us better.  They will look at us square in the face and say that without a doubt, this decision will improve our lives.  And these people can put forth all kinds of reasons as to why it’s absolutely certain to do that.  But do we see that kind of growth in their lives, or do we just hear that in their words?  Are we hearing real life principles and sound values and a truly refined wisdom, or are we listening to flimsy agendas and self-proclaimed platforms and substance-less statements dressed in the finery of something that they are not?  Will these choices make us better or worse?
    Second, the question of whether a choice is going to make things better or worse can also be clouded by whatever is vogue or trending.  We want to be in step with the culture around us so as to not look the fool, or the ill-informed, or worse yet, the rebel.  And it is assumed that if we are in step with the culture, and if we align these choices with whatever is currently trending, these choices are certain to make us better.  They will improve our lives.  And while the likelihood is that any improvement will be superficial and fleeting at best, they will only serve us until that which is vogue is no longer vogue, and that which is trendy is now outdated and a burden to whatever has now been proclaimed as new and cutting-edge.  The question then remains…will these choices make us better or worse?
    Thirdly, the question of whether a choice will make us better or worse is also clouded by our own greed and short-sightedness.  We ask ourselves questions of what a decision will get us, and not so much if the decision is right regardless of what it gets us.  We ask if our choices will position us nicely in whatever way that we want to be positioned, rather than asking how the decision positions us relative to sound principles and a set of morals to which we too often turn a blind eye.  We ask how it will make us look to those around us whom we wish to impress, rather than ask how it will make us look once time has peeled away everything that is false and less than admirable, all of which will eventually reveal the true nature of our choices.  And the question remains…will these choices make us better or worse?
    Will the choices in front of us make us better or worse?  Will they improve our lives, or diminish our lives?  That depends on who and what is informing those decisions.  Is it people with questionable agendas, or is it a culture trending on a rogue wave of self-gratification, or is it our own lack of thoughtfulness and integrity?  Whatever it might be, we might ask who and/or what is informing our decisions?  And how much are they clouding that decision to the point that we will be set up to pay a potentially unimaginable price in making it…for we have all paid such prices before and we would be the fool to pay them again.  For the wrong information, and the wrong motives, and the wrong value system will leave you on the wrong side of every choice, and choices that leave you on the wrong side never make your life better.
    Will the choices in front of us make us better or worse?  And if Godly principles and Biblical values are not providing the guiding function for those choices, we are doomed to live out a life of ‘worse.’
    “Listen to advice and accept discipline, and at the end you will be counted among the wise.  Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails.”
    Proverbs 19:20-21

    • 7 min
    ”The Self That I Long to Believe In - The Challenge of Building Self-Esteem” - Part One

    ”The Self That I Long to Believe In - The Challenge of Building Self-Esteem” - Part One

    The Self That I Long to Believe In - The Challenge of Building Self-Esteem
    “We’re driven.  Whether that’s for our good or our ill, we’re driven.  That drivenness may be born of a free spirit bent on living with unimpeded freedom, or it might be a drivenness used to hold ourselves captive.  It might be a drivenness to face ourselves, or a drivenness to run from ourselves.  We can be driven to do great things, or to hide from great things.  Being driven grants us the ability to fly, but we can use it just as readily to die. 
    If we are bent under the weight of a low self-esteem, our drivenness is often exercised to our own demise.  It’s used to create places to hide, excuses to run, rationalizations to justify the awful person that we are not, and the freedom to embrace beliefs about ourselves that have no basis in reality other than the reality we’ve crafted from the skewed messages of others.  On the other hand, we might become driven to prove ourselves as worthy through various accomplishments and achievements.  We work, we strive, we reach, and we relentlessly press on to show that we are more than what we’ve come to believe ourselves to be.  If we fail in such an endeavor, we’re driven to convince ourselves that we are nothing of the sort so that we don’t ever take on such a preposterous task ever again.  Either way, we possess a drivenness even if it isn’t used in our best interest.
     
    Driven to Prove Our Worth
    Maybe this whole mentality of drivenness has been a product of our life story; having to do it all ourselves because no one was there to help us.  Maybe this left us with the need to prove ourselves and to establish our worth by whatever means we chose to prove that.  Often we have the need to display our intellectual prowess, to exercise the muscle of our skill-set, or flaunt our expertise in order to secure our place in some sort of ill-defined and vague pecking order that defines our sense of worth and value.  Our identity then becomes entirely defined by all of the things that we do to prove our worth and the efforts that we put forth in doing them. 
    In some instances this happens because we’ve lived in someone’s shadow and we need to show ourselves as bigger than the shadow that was cast upon us, or at least prove that we’re as big as whosever’s shadow that was.  At other times we’re out to prove people wrong, to conclusively show beyond any shadow of a doubt that we’re competent even though people repeatedly said we were entirely incompetent.  It can be the product of a deeply ingrained behavioral pattern where we grew up being affirmed when we performed, with such affirmation being clearly withheld when we didn’t.  In the end, it’s typically ourselves that we’re really trying to convince simply because the toughest audience that we play to is ‘us.’
     
    Driven to Prove Our Lack of Worth
    Or we’ve done the opposite of all of this by being driven to surrender to minimums.  We’ve decided to withdraw from it all and just do what we need to do to get to the next day.  It’s about being driven to draw away and hide so that others won’t see us for who we are and thereby judge us, or we won’t see them and subsequently judge ourselves by comparison.  We’re driven not to be driven so that we avoid failure, or anything might even remotely resemble failure.  Or, we’re often driven to surrender before the battle ever shows up so that surrender was a choice and not a pathetic manifestation of our inabilities to fight the battle. 
    In embracing this mentality, we’re not driven to disprove this sense of worthlessness.  Rather, we’re driven to prove it by not disproving it.  It’s a battle of a different sort.  It’s not a surrendering to any battle that we’ve fought.  To the contrary, it’s a surrendering to the need to fight for something that doesn’t exist to be fought for.  Surrender then indisputably evidences our worthlessness wh

    • 26 min
    ”LifeTalk’s” Thought for Life - Running Away

    ”LifeTalk’s” Thought for Life - Running Away

    LifeTalk's "Thought for Life" is a weekly one-minute thought that touches on one of today's pressing issues.  Each of these brief presentations is centered on one of Craig's personal quotes.  All of his quotes are specifically written to challenge, inform, and inspire.  Today's thought is:
    “Running from what we fear is like throwing a bunch of stuff in the bed of a truck and somehow thinking that driving the truck will distance us from what’s laying in the bed.”
    Follow all of Craig's daily quotes on Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, Linkedin and Instagram.

    • 51 sec
    Podcast Short: Who Are You Giving Yourself Away To?

    Podcast Short: Who Are You Giving Yourself Away To?

    Who Are You Giving Yourself Away To?
    Who are you giving yourself away to?  To what propaganda have you come to subscribe?  To what bit of media polished bias or refined political spin have you succumb?  Who has your ear, and therefore holds the heart to which your ear is attached?  What are the voices that have methodically and patiently lulled you into some sort of comatose complacency where you no longer engage this rare, but incredibly precious thing that we call common sense?  What podium have you obediently sat in front of that has led you to believe that you cannot think for yourself, or maybe that you can, but that you don’t need to?  Who has told you that facts are irrelevant, and that the truth is simply an irritating obstacle to be quickly discarded if they don’t neatly fit on the preferred end of some ever-changing political spectrum?  Who are you giving yourself away to?
    We would likely say that we have not given ourselves to anyone.  That none of these things are happening, and if perchance they are, we have successfully and rather astutely avoided them.  We would say that we are not so gullible nor so pathetically naïve as to fall for such trickery.  But are we?  Have we?  Really?
    How often are we deceived into believing that some shining leader has been intimately touched by the cry of our hearts, and has been so moved by those cries as to lay aside everything near and dear to them in order to respond to those cries, despite the cost to them to do so?  How many times have we been fooled into believing that some cause been raised up because the collective voice of the people has been blatantly ignored by all of the other causes that purported to serve those people and heed those voices?  How many times have we been beguiled by the rhetoric of power-mongers’ who are quick to prey upon the disadvantaged in the culture in order to build small camps that are then set to war against each other, for the way to control is to divide.  Who are you giving yourself away to?
    Are these ideals and causes and beliefs and values ours?  Really?  Or were they made to appear that way?  Have we been bamboozled?  Have we fallen for the old snake-oil sales pitch?  Have we drunken the Kool-Aid not by the glass, but by the gallon?  Have we been sold a bill-of-goods while believing that we have hit the mother-load?  Have we been so deceived that we are living out someone else’s convictions that having nothing to do with us?  Are we nursing someone’s else’s agenda we our life blood?  Are we erecting podiums built for some leader who will soon forget every single person who built it for them before the leader themselves falls away from that very podium?  Are we slaves who don’t recognize the fact that we have sold ourselves over to slavery?  The question remains…who have we given ourselves away to?
    What are you giving yourself away to?  Into whose web have you fallen?  For you were not created for the convictions, or the agendas, or the podiums driven by someone else’s self-serving purposes or self-glorifying agendas.  You were created for greater things.  Life-altering things.  Things that make history as much as it changes it.  You were made for much greater things than the slavery of deceit.  So don’t squander your life falling for someone’s slight-of-hand, or slippery spins, or buttery smooth verbiage. 
    Rather, discover what God placed you here to do and refuse to do nothing less than that.  Be who God created you to be and not what someone else wants you to be, for to be ‘you’ is to be the greatest person that you possibly can be.  Do not give yourself away to those who are certain to throw you away.  Rather, give yourself over to be the person God infused you with the life and the power and the authority and the wisdom and the privilege to be.  Be you, for your greatest life lies in doing that.
    “Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were writ

    • 7 min
    Flecks of Gold on a Path of Stone - Simple Truth’s for Life’s Complex Journey” - Part Two

    Flecks of Gold on a Path of Stone - Simple Truth’s for Life’s Complex Journey” - Part Two

    Flecks of Gold on a Path of Stone - Simple Truth's for Life's Complex Journey" - Part Two
    Forgiveness often seems to be one of those things that’s a genuinely nice idea, but not really a life liberating reality.  Life is full of nice ideas; those trite sayings, gentle stories and brave concepts that would make life a whole lot better if they were really real.  Nice ideas often seem to be spun of the threads of idealism and the fabric of fanciful thinking.  The reality is that they don’t really seem to work in the real world.  Sometimes the very things that we wish were true simply dissolve and disintegrate when the reality of life hits them.  Forgiveness seems to be one of those things.
    Sometimes the greatest, most profound truths seem to be the very things that are completely removed from the reality of the lives that we live.  In reality, it’s not that they don’t fit or are idealistic or naïve or far-fetched.  Most often it’s simply the fact that we don’t know how to incorporate them.  Sometimes the greatest truths are so big and so encompassing that we can’t figure out how to figure them in.  And because we can’t somehow make them fit, we assume them to be irrelevant, weak, inadequate or just plain stupid.  Such often seems the fate of forgiveness.
    The Oxford English Dictionary defines forgiveness as “to grant free pardon and to give up all claim on account of an offence or debt.”  The American Psychological Association expands the definition of forgiveness “as the process of concluding resentment, indignation or anger as a result of a perceived offense, difference or mistake, and/or ceasing to demand punishment or restitution.”  Whatever your definition might be, forgiveness is about letting go in a manner so total that the offense and the restitution are released.
     
    Obstacles to Forgiving
    Forgiveness is a releasing which makes it difficult on at least three basic fronts.  First, we typically demand restitution be obtained or that justice be meted out for whatever offense we have incurred.  There is a deep sense of justice that demands correction of an offense through some sort of action that both compensates us for whatever loss we’re sustained while teaching the offending party that such actions are inappropriate and intolerable.  The act of forgiveness works against this feeling, making forgiveness difficult and contrary.
    Second, forgiveness creates a perceived sense of vulnerability.  If we “grant free pardon,” do we then open ourselves up to have the same offense perpetrated upon us again?  Are we giving space and opportunity for the offending party to do to us what they did before?  In forgiving, have we relinquished power that we can no longer hold over the person who offended us in order to keep ourselves safe or make them pay?
    Third, we see forgiveness as letting someone ‘off the hook.’  It’s a free pass, a mulligan, a turning away where we permit ignorance to erase that which should not be erased.  We feel we do an injustice by not handing out justice and instead waving off an offense in a manner that seems both irresponsible and ignorant.  Forgiveness is often seen as an easy way to resolve or bypass something that should be dealt with.
     
    What Forgiveness is Not
    Forgiveness is not saying that the offense was ‘okay’ or somehow less than what it really was.  It’s not watering down the offense or somehow sweeping the whole thing under the proverbial carpet in some sort of passive gesture.  Forgiveness has nothing at all to do with avoidance or passivity.  There’s nothing placating or escapist about it.  It’s not an act of weakness nor is it a means to maneuver around that which we find unsavory or downright scary.  It is in reality an act of the utmost strength, the highest form of sacrifice and the deepest manifestation of our humanity. 
    The truth is, it’s simply saying that to hold the offense against the person is simply too toxic f

    • 10 min
    ”LifeTalk’s” Thought for Life - Fear or Faith

    ”LifeTalk’s” Thought for Life - Fear or Faith

    LifeTalk's "Thought for Life" is a weekly one-minute thought that touches on one of today's pressing issues.  Each of these brief presentations is centered on one of Craig's personal quotes.  All of his quotes are specifically written to challenge, inform, and inspire.  Today's thought is:
    “It comes down to 'fear' and 'faith'. 'Fear' of what stands in front of me. 'Faith' in believing that the resources I possess can handle what stands in front of me. If I stop at the former, I will change nothing. If I embrace the latter, I can change everything.”
    Follow all of Craig's daily quotes on Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, Linkedin and Instagram.

    • 51 sec

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