Wake Up, Look Up

Hello, everyone, and thanks for listening to Wake Up, Look Up, a podcast where we connect events happening in real time to the gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm Zach Weihrauch and in today's episode, we're asking the question, who tells you the truth? This is prompted by an article I read recently in the Washington Post about the epidemic of toxic flattery. Now, toxic flattery is not encouragement. It's when someone chooses not to tell you what is actually true in order to make you feel good about yourself. Now, we see this as a rising epidemic in our culture. Let me just give you some examples. ChatGPT. Great example. If, like, the rest of us, you've been using large language models like ChatGPT, what you know is they're overly affirming. They think you're brilliant, they think you're wonderful. And if you thought maybe you were the only one ChatGPT was speaking that way to, you're not. ChatGPT is programmed to make you feel good about yourself. It's probably what keeps you coming back. But what about when you need to hear something a little critical? You see this in politics. The Trump administration is rife with this. Everyone who works for the president seems to understand you're supposed to sing his praises in public, never criticize or challenge him. You see this in education, where classrooms are rapidly becoming spaces of conformity, where students are not supposed to challenge teachers, teachers are not supposed to challenge students. Students on college campuses aren't even supposed to challenge each other. You're seeing this as a widespread phenomena in just about every area. Tell me something not something true. And I don't know if you've noticed this in your own life. The problem with toxic flattery is, of course, everything about me is not good. And if no one's telling me, then I'm going to keep heading down some roads that are ultimately not going to lead to my flourishing. When I read this article, I couldn't help but think about this incredible Proverb in Proverbs 27:6, which says this. Faithful are the wounds of a friend, profuse are the kisses of an enemy. What a one liner. What the writer of Proverbs is saying is that sometimes the people who seem like they love you are actually the ones destroying you. They're the ones telling you everything's okay, don't worry about it. It's not a big deal. They're the ones in the family conflict who are telling you you're right and the other person is wrong. You shouldn't apologize. You should, shouldn't feel sorry. They're the ones at work telling you you're the hero and your boss or your co workers just need to get out of your way. What the writer of Proverbs says is that the best way often for an enemy to destroy you is to whisper things that make you feel good but aren't actually true. The converse, of course, is true as well, that sometimes the best way for people to love you is to say really hard things to you that might not make you feel great, but are actually true. In other words, think about it this way. I don't know how you think Satan will come to you, but if Satan shows up in my life with overt evil, if, he comes to me with kind of a red pill, blue pill situation. Zach, do you want to destroy your family, or do you. Do you want to destroy your career? Push this button. I'm never going to push the button. But if he comes to me and he says, zack, what if you're right and everyone's wrong? What if this. This sin that you're holding onto is actually something you deserve? It's something that. That you should have for yourself? Well, that's a button I'm going to push. That's a whisper. I'm going to listen to. What the Bible tells me is I need people in my life who love me enough to tell me the truth. I need people in my life who love me enough to risk upsetting me, maybe even risk the relationship in order to ultimately lead me to my good. The writer of Proverbs is faithful. Are the wounds of. So here's a challenging question for those of us that are thinking about how to have a great 2026. Who is allowed to wound you? Oh, that's such a tough question, because like many of you, I can be wildly insecure. I don't want to be around people who make me feel bad about myself. I already do a good enough job about that myself. But I need people who will tell me the truth. I need people who will say, zach, your wife is right and you're an idiot. Zach, you do owe an apology. Zach, at work, the way you're describing it, you really did run over someone. I need someone who loves me enough to wound me, because otherwise, I'm going to listen to the whispers I shouldn't listen to. I'm gonna become the worst version of myself, and so are you. So the question is, do you have any friends like this? In a culture of toxic flattery, do you have friends who will tell you the truth? And if you don't consider that, maybe you do, you just haven't given them permission. Maybe a few of us need to go to coffee or breakfast or lunch or dinner and say, hey, I need you to tell me the truth. I'm giving you permission this year to say hard things to me so that I can become who God wants me to become. Maybe those who are whispering the things we want to hear are actually those we should be worried about. And maybe those we've written off for telling us the truth are those we should go back to with an apology and an appreciation for actual friendship. Hey, thanks for watching this episode of Wake Up, Look Up. If you enjoyed it, please help us get the word out by sharing it with someone you think might benefit from it. 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Have an article you’d like Zach to discuss? Email us at wakeup@ccchapel.com!