Episode 23 - Why Hard Times Are Signs Of Love

What if the toughest moments are not proof you’re off course, but invitations to reconnect with what matters most? We pull at that thread across stories, scripture, and lived experience, and the weave that appears is both bracing and hopeful: tribulations can function as love taps, not verdicts. The question isn’t “How do I make this go away?” but “What is this small nudge asking me to see while it’s still small?”

We dive into the heart of free will and consequence, using clear, grounded metaphors to make a complex idea feel human. If every move were forced, reward and punishment would be meaningless—like praising a robot for running the code you wrote. Instead, life offers signals you can choose to ignore or heed. Listen early and the correction is gentle; resist and the volume rises. That shift in perspective transforms anxiety into agency. You stop trying to dominate the world and start engaging with it.

The story of Adam, Eve, and the snake reframes comfort in a surprising way. The snake’s “curse” of endless food and effort-free living turns out to be the harshest fate: comfort without connection. We draw a modern parallel with the absent, wealthy parent whose gifts replace guidance. It feels free at first, but it quietly starves resilience, purpose, and relationship. Discipline, by contrast, is care in action. It sets boundaries that protect growth, and it invites trust to become a daily practice rather than a slogan.

You’ll leave with practical steps to catch the tap before it turns into a shove: notice the small misalignments, ask better questions, and make the next honest move—apologize, plan, rest, give—while the stakes are low. If this conversation sparks something in you, follow the thread: subscribe, share it with someone who needs a reframe, and tell us which small signal you’re ready to act on today. Your story might be the sign someone else is waiting for.

Transcript

Love Taps And Free Will

Consequences And Robot Analogy

Easy Lives As Hidden Punishment

Adam, Eve, And The Snake

Why The Snake’s “Ease” Is Worst

Neglectful Parents Analogy

Discipline As Love

Closing And Listener Invitation

SPEAKER_00 0:17

Hello and welcome to the Trust Factor Podcast, the only podcast that guarantees your success when you implement its divine age old teachings. Hi, everybody. Thanks for joining us on today's episode of the Trust Factor Podcast. It's Friday. We've made it through another week. Thank you for sticking through this week. We've had a lot of very meaningful discussion. We're going to continue with that very same meaningful discussion that we are at in the book. We're talking about tribulations. And I've given you example after example of how tribulations are designed, not just for your benefit, but specifically how they benefit you. And that being that they're love taps from your from your father, from your spiritual father in heaven. He knows what's going on, he knows where you're holding in life. And so you haven't been trained as a pilot and when to check in. And so sometimes he needs to give you a love tap on the shoulder. Hey, time to check in. If you listen and you check in, then you win. If you don't listen and you ignore it, because you're like the first person who says, I run the world, I control everything. Everything plays to my tune. When those things happen, when the tribulations get in the way, they get upset and they get anxious and they get nervous and they do whatever they can just to get rid of the problem. Instead of trying to understand the problem, they're so bent on getting rid of it. And that's the worst thing that you can do. Because what happens is when you don't acknowledge that God is tapping you on the shoulder through a lost button on your shirt or the wrong coin in your pocket or something insignificant, then the taps become harder and they become louder and they become less bearable to the point where you have to pay attention. You understand? And that's how it works. That's exactly the recipe. The recipe is that if you don't pay attention when he taps you lovingly and gently and lightly to get your attention, then those taps become smacks, they become punches, they become things that knock you off your feet, where God forbid you end up in a doctor's office with a very bad diagnosis. Who do you think that comes from? It doesn't have to get there. You don't have to get to the point where God forbid you're dealing with crazy tribulations. If you deal with them right away when they're small and loving and caring, and acknowledge that it's coming from your loving Father in heaven, that he's doing it in order to make you better and happier and more fulfilled, then it will never get to the extreme point where you're screaming to the heavens, why me? It's not supposed to be you. And the only reason it's you is because you haven't taken notice in all the years that he's been trying to connect to you and get your attention. That's it. He can't come down and move your legs and move your arms. He can't come down and guide you in a specific direction and put blinders on you and say, No, you're not allowed to do anything you want to do. You have to do only what I want you to do because that's the best thing for you. Just like a father would. A father in this world, if they saw their child going in the wrong direction, walking into a fire, they would do whatever it takes, including coming over, grabbing that child, turning them around and pointing them in another direction, and saying, You're not allowed to walk in any other direction but the direction I'm putting you on. That's what a loving physical father would do. The spiritual father cannot do that. And the reason he can't do that is because if he does, he takes away your free will to make decisions. And if he's taken away your free will to choose, good or bad, left or right, then there is no such thing as consequence. There is no such thing as negative or positive consequence, punishment or reward. He can't reward you for something that he made you do. He can't reward, and it doesn't make sense for us to reward a robot, right? You program the robot to go and bring you a drink from the fridge. And then when it goes and it does that very same thing, you give it a reward, you say, good robot? What do you mean? You're the one who programmed it. You should be getting the reward. So it doesn't make sense for him to come down and point you in a direction and lift your hand and move your eyes and do all the things that you're supposed to do and make sure that every single thing you put in your body's kosher and take the money out of your bank account and give it to somebody else because you didn't do it. He can't do that. He can set up certain situations for you to figure out that maybe you're not doing the right thing by giving you those love taps. But first you have to know that those love taps are from him. As soon as you do, your fear and anger and anxiety and angst melt away because it's no longer you controlling the world, it's no longer happenstance and coincidence that you get upset about. It is now clearly a message from a loving father. Bottom line, that's how it works. Indeed, he says, an easy life in this world and no difficulties is not a good sign. You hear this? If the creator lets a person live a life of falsehood, it is not a sign of love. Even worse, an easy, problem free life is the worst possible punishment a person could have in this world. Every loving parent tries to guide his or her child in the right path. They're delighted when their children accept and heed their reprimands. The disciplined child benefits from the parent's guidance and their wisdom in life, yet some parents give up on the systematically undisciplined and stubborn child. They stop trying to guide the child. A stupid child is happy in such a situation because he no longer has parents harping at him, yet he is now free to make mistakes that he will ultimately regret. But if the child had any sense, he would try to reconcile with his parents. I want to explain this by way of an example. From the Torah, we know the story of Adam and Eve. We know that Adam and Eve ate from a tree that they weren't supposed to eat from. And who was the culprit? The main culprit in this story was the snake. We had three parties involved in this crime Adam, Eve, and the snake. The snake meets Adam by the tree, the very same tree that Adam told Eve, be careful. In his diligence and his desire to keep God's word, he told Eve to be very careful not to eat from the tree. In fact, because he was so bent on making sure that nobody ate from the tree, he told Eve that she shouldn't even touch the tree. She understood that to mean that God told him that you're not even supposed to touch the tree. Now the snake was very cunning, very smart, came over to Eve and asked, Eve, is there anything in the garden that God told you you're not allowed to eat from? And she said, Yeah, you're not allowed to eat from this tree. In fact, you're not allowed even to touch it. And the snake knew otherwise. So the snake bumped into Eve, and Eve fell into the tree and touched the tree. And the snake looked at her and said, You see, Eve, nothing happened to you. You're not dead, right? You touched the tree. Adam told you that you're not even allowed to touch the tree. You touched it, you're still alive, you see. It's all a scam. You're perfectly free to eat from the tree also. And convinced Eve in multiple ways that that's what she should do. And in fact, we know how it ends. She eats from the tree and then she gives Adam to eat from the very same tree that they weren't supposed to eat from. She convinces Adam after she was convinced by the snake. And when the time came to deliver the consequences of their action, their rewards or punishments, God comes over and collects all three of them. He starts with the snake. The snake gets the worst punishment of the three. Now when you hear it, you may not think so. What was the punishment of the snake? The snake's punishment was that they would lose their ability to walk, they would slither on their stomach. At one point snakes had feet no longer. They would have to slither on their stomach, and they would eat whatever was available. Their food would be in abundance. They would eat from the dust of the earth, which meant literally that, that they could eat anything and it would all taste good. Anything goes into a snake and they eat it, consume it, and they're perfectly content. The earth is the source of food for them. Now we know that in the Torah, food is connected back to the earth, the earth that you work, the animals in the fields. Those are the sources of sustenance. So now you may ask, and you should ask, then how is it that the snake's punishment is the worst? He doesn't have to strive, he doesn't have to work, he doesn't have to toil and labor to be able to survive another day. He just slithers on his belly, something will crawl across him, and he's got dinner, lunch, and breakfast. What's the problem? How is that terrible punishment, right? Eve had to suffer in child pain. Eve had to suffer with anxiety and all kinds of emotional issues. Adam had to suffer all kinds of physical issues, working by the sweat of his brow just to have a meal. It would come difficult now. It wouldn't be an easy thing to acquire. Whereas the snake doesn't have to do anything, just slithers on its stomach, and it will eat anything at any time. How is that a punishment? And the answer, my friends, we just read in the book. The answer is the equivalent of a parent who makes so much money and is not interested in parenting their child. They're just not. They're more interested in acquiring wealth. They're more interested in becoming successful materially in this world, and therefore they abandon their parental responsibilities to discipline and raise a child properly. And so growing up, we've all had those friends. You know them, I know them. They're the individuals that have these parents. The parents who simply don't care to be around and take care of their duties as a parent. And as a result of that, that becomes the party house. That's where everybody goes. When the parents are away, that's where we party. And you know what? Even when the parents are there, because the parents are, if anything, they're just really interested in being cool and being friends with their children and their children's friends. So come on over, ingest what you want and how much you want, and we'll even provide it for you. That exists, unfortunately, in every generation, in every circle of friends almost, you have those parents who just aren't responsible. And what happens to that child? That child ultimately, inevitably, it never fails, becomes a recluse. That child has a very difficult adulthood. Things don't work out for them. Yes, they may have money, but that's it. They have nothing else. Those are the kids who lead a life that is full of challenges that we all look back on later on in life when we've grown up and we've achieved certain levels of successes and we know the difference between good and bad and right and wrong, and we look at them and think, you know, back then we thought they were the coolest guy. They were the they had it made, but really they didn't. Their parents simply didn't care enough about them to do the right thing, to limit them, to restrict them. They gave them whatever they want in terms of finances and material wealth. Just leave me alone, kid. Let me go and do what I needed. And that's exactly what God did to the snake. He said, I don't want to have anything to do with you. When you're hungry, don't call out to me. Here, take all the food you want, take all the wealth you want, all the sustenance you need. You will never lack for anything. So you don't ever have to call out to me. And that's by design because God was saying, I'm done with you. I have no relationship with you, and I want no relationship with you. That, my friends, was the worst possible punishment you can get. And I'm tying it back to the book where says very clearly that that kind of life, a life of easy living, of having everything you want your whole life and never being disciplined and never being told no, is a life of punishment. It really is a life that ends up in a very, very bad place. Thank God if you've got parents who invested time and energy in you and made you feel like they hated you, but now you look back in hindsight and you realize that it was all out of love, just like the love of our Creator, only infinitely, infinitely more. Have an amazing day, have an amazing Shabbat. We'll speak again on Sunday. Thank you for spending time with us on the Trust Factor Podcast. If you've heard something today that moved you, save this episode and share it with someone who might need to hear it. Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss upcoming conversations that challenge, empower, and uplift. And if you're on social media, connect with us. Leave your thoughts, drop a quote that resonated with you. Hashtag the TrustFactor Podcast. Until next time, keep growing in your trust and keep living with purpose. I'm Jesse Revivo, and this has been the Trust Factor Podcast. Thanks for listening.