Latest / Coffee and Bible Time Podcast / Living with Curiosity and Faith | Bob Goff

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Living with Curiosity and Faith | Bob Goff · Coffee and Bible Time Podcast

• 1:01
  Ellen Krause: At the Coffee and Bible Time podcast.
• 1:03
  Ellen Krause: Our goal is to help you delight in God's Word and thrive in Christian living.
• 1:07
  Ellen Krause: Each week we talk to subject matter experts who broaden your biblical understanding, encourage you in hard times and provide life-building tips to enhance your Christian walk.
• 1:18
  Ellen Krause: We are so glad you have joined us.
• 1:21
  Ellen Krause: Welcome back to the Coffee and Bible Time podcast.
• 1:29
  Ellen Krause: This is Ellen, your host.
• 1:31
  Ellen Krause: Life can often feel mundane and predictable, like we're stuck in endless cycles of planning and uncertainty, especially this time of year.
• 1:41
  Ellen Krause: It's easy to lose our sense of wonder and joy when the weight of responsibilities and unknowns press in Well.
• 1:49
  Ellen Krause: In this episode, my guest Bob Goff and I are going to discuss what it means to pursue a more meaningful life.
• 1:57
  Ellen Krause: Bob will also discuss his new devotional Catching Whimsy 365 Days of Possibility.
• 2:05
  Ellen Krause: In it, he invites us on a year-long journey of discovering curiosity, joy and the incredible possibilities God has placed in our everyday lives.
• 2:16
  Ellen Krause: Bob's reflections will show us how to start seeing God's immense love in the small moments.
• 2:22
  Ellen Krause: Let go of over planning and embrace spontaneity.
• 2:26
  Ellen Krause: Life can feel heavy and monotonous.
• 2:29
  Ellen Krause: When we ignore these opportunities for joy and whimsy, we risk missing out on the beauty of God's presence in the ordinary and the extraordinary alike.
• 2:39
  Ellen Krause: So let's choose to approach today with an expectant heart.
• 2:44
  Ellen Krause: Bob Goff is the New York Times bestselling author of Love.
• 2:49
  Ellen Krause: Does Everybody Always Dream Big and many more.
• 2:53
  Ellen Krause: He loves balloons, cake pops and helping people pursue their big dreams.
• 2:59
  Ellen Krause: Bob's greatest ambitions are to love others, do stuff and, most importantly, hold hands with his wife, sweet Maria, and spend time with their amazing family.
• 3:09
  Ellen Krause: Please welcome Bob.
• 3:11
  Ellen Krause: Hey there, welcome Bob.
• 3:15
  Ellen Krause: I'm so glad and excited for you to be joining us today and I have to say your message is so encouraging.
• 3:30
  Ellen Krause: I feel like you know so many people right now are just feeling weighed down and I'm curious about what inspired you to write Catching Whimsy and how you feel that will impact others.
• 3:40
  Bob Goff: Yeah, I want people to get a tap on the shoulder and remember.
• 3:44
  Bob Goff: Sometimes what we do is we forget stuff along the way.
• 3:48
  Bob Goff: It's just natural, and the older I get, the more I forget.
• 3:50
  Bob Goff: But even people in their 20s are forgetting how God has shown up, and I love in the scriptures how people's heads were on a swivel.
• 3:59
  Bob Goff: They were looking for where God showed up Acts 1-1, theophilus, lover of God, look for many convincing proofs that Jesus is still alive.
• 4:07
  Bob Goff: These are people that had their head turning and they're wondering what was happening.
• 4:12
  Bob Goff: They weren't making it up and they weren't seeing cloud formations that look like John the Baptist.
• 4:16
  Bob Goff: They were instead engaged in seeing the movement of God in people's ordinary lives.
• 4:22
  Bob Goff: There's a great verse it's Acts 4.13, and it says that they saw Peter and John and they knew they were just unschooled, they're ordinary guys, but they saw their courage and they knew they'd been with Jesus.
• 4:36
  Bob Goff: What I want to do is, in words, remind people, just be a tap on the shoulder to say, hey, get out there, he's everywhere, he's doing stuff, and I know we all face really difficult times.
• 4:48
  Bob Goff: You know, I don't know anybody who's exempt.
• 4:51
  Bob Goff: I know people who are oblivious, but I don't know anybody who's exempt.
• 4:55
  Bob Goff: And so when we have these difficulties, what do you do with them?
• 5:01
  Bob Goff: And certainly you grieve when sad things happen, but then if faith guides your steps.
• 5:07
  Bob Goff: Again it's Romans 8, this idea that suffering produces endurance, endurance, character and character turns into hope.
• 5:15
  Bob Goff: And I'm kind of a type A guy so I want to go straight to hope.
• 5:19
  Bob Goff: But I need to realize that suffering turns into endurance, turns into character, turns into hope.
• 5:25
  Bob Goff: And so for people who are right now going through a hard time, to just it's not putting a happy face on it, it's just remembering that this is the pattern and remember how that's been in the pattern in the past.
• 5:38
  Bob Goff: Do you know?
• 5:39
  Bob Goff: In the scriptures, the idea remember is in there 8,670 times.
• 5:44
  Bob Goff: I didn't count, but Wikipedia wouldn't lie to me.
• 5:47
  Bob Goff: This whole idea of remembering is what devotionals are about.
• 5:53
  Bob Goff: It's a great opportunity to kind of remember how God showed up, how we get to respond.
• 5:58
  Bob Goff: Yeah, that's what I want to do.
• 6:00
  Bob Goff: I want to just spend a lot of time remembering.
• 6:03
  Ellen Krause: Yeah, absolutely, which is very typical of what we see also in the Old Testament, right when God used the stones with the 12 tribes of Israel to create this remembrance and remembering to tell the next generation.
• 6:17
  Bob Goff: Totally.
• 6:19
  Ellen Krause: So Bob, tell us what the role of curiosity is in this process and what does that look like in our daily lives?
• 6:29
  Bob Goff: Well, you know, if somebody has to define it for you, then you're not a curious person.
• 6:35
  Bob Goff: If you're thinking like you're listening to this, you're stuck in traffic and you're going like I just wonder what curiosity is?
• 6:41
  Bob Goff: I think most of us would be curious why am I stuck in traffic?
• 6:45
  Bob Goff: This is a highway, we're supposed to be moving along, and so sometimes we can just be responding and reacting to whatever's going on around us and ricocheting off all the people and all that.
• 6:57
  Bob Goff: But and again, you don't need a Bible verse for everything, but sometimes it's a great little anchor.
• 7:04
  Bob Goff: Philippians 2.20,.
• 7:05
  Bob Goff: It's Paul talking about his buddy Timothy.
• 7:08
  Bob Goff: He said I don't have anybody like Timothy.
• 7:10
  Bob Goff: He's a guy who takes a genuine interest, insert curiosity about everybody.
• 7:16
  Bob Goff: And so I think the people that are unschooled and ordinary like us I don't care if you have your PhD, you're a lot more ordinary than you think.
• 7:25
  Bob Goff: What you've got is extraordinary, but you're still ordinary.
• 7:30
  Bob Goff: And so what I want to do is to say okay, so, given that we're all kind of walking with a limp, can we stay curious, not just about what's going around us and the traffic jam that we're in and what the cause was, but to think there's probably somebody wrapped around a tree in front of us and to take a genuine interest in them, instead of saying hey, I'm getting late or I'm inconvenienced.
• 7:54
  Bob Goff: Think like somebody's going to get you know, head to heaven or have some real lot of metal damage to fix.
• 8:02
  Bob Goff: And so I think that would be the distinction to just like lift your eyes from what's going on in our small world.
• 8:09
  Bob Goff: And we're born to be thinking about our needs, right?
• 8:14
  Bob Goff: You're a little baby, just like Jesus arrived, and you know you wet your diaper.
• 8:18
  Bob Goff: And you're thinking I'm kind of uncomfortable right now.
• 8:21
  Bob Goff: And you know you wet your diaper and you're thinking I'm kind of uncomfortable right now.
• 8:23
  Bob Goff: And you're like you're 65 and maybe the same thing's happening, but you're thinking like it's too hot, it's too cold, it's too stressful, the crowds are too big.
• 8:31
  Bob Goff: And I want us to lift our eyes and think about, like, what are some lasting things here?
• 8:36
  Bob Goff: I want to remember those lasting things.
• 8:38
  Bob Goff: And again, that's the reason for writing a devotional, because I want to remember those lasting things.
• 8:43
  Bob Goff: And again, that's the reason for writing a devotional, because I want to not talk about the petty stuff anymore.
• 8:44
  Bob Goff: We're spending just a weird amount of time.
• 8:46
  Bob Goff: If you ever hear me talk about sports.
• 8:48
  Bob Goff: Nothing wrong with sports, I've just my only sport is cheesecake.
• 8:51
  Bob Goff: But if you talk about all the petty stuff and never get to the real stuff and I'm not saying sports is great if that blows your hair back, but let's make sure we talk about who's the second baseman and then also what's going on in your life.
• 9:07
  Bob Goff: What's keeping you from hitting a home run?
• 9:09
  Bob Goff: What?
• 9:09
  Bob Goff: What is it that last time you got beamed by a ball?
• 9:13
  Bob Goff: Like let's talk about where the pain points are as well and then talk about what's going right.
• 9:18
  Bob Goff: We don't just be Eeyore and just talk about what's wrong.
• 9:22
  Bob Goff: It's a cloudy day, but that's why I live in San Diego.
• 9:26
  Bob Goff: Like a bad day is 72 and Sunday.
• 9:29
  Ellen Krause: Oh boy, I can't relate.
• 9:31
  Bob Goff: You can influence some of your circumstances by changing your viewpoint, and you can also change your location.
• 9:40
  Bob Goff: You can literally.
• 9:41
  Bob Goff: If you're over Illinois, then come on out here.
• 9:44
  Bob Goff: You won't like the house prices, but you'll love the weather.
• 9:49
  Ellen Krause: Yeah, I'm quite sure of that, Bob.
• 9:52
  Ellen Krause: One of the great things that you do in this devotional is that you use so many stories to really bring to life the message that you're trying to convey.
• 10:03
  Ellen Krause: Do you have an example of this curiosity, a memorable story from the book that highlights that?
• 10:12
  Bob Goff: Well, yeah, here's the first thing about stories, and it comes from Matthew 13.
• 10:16
  Bob Goff: It said that Jesus never spoke to anybody without telling him a story or two.
• 10:20
  Bob Goff: And so when I am in faith gatherings and they want to tell me about the four words in Greek for love, agape, phileo, I'm just like I want to hurl.
• 10:30
  Bob Goff: I don't care.
• 10:31
  Bob Goff: It's not that I don't care about scripture, I just would care a lot more about somebody who loved you well, somebody who did something selfless, something that pursued you without an agenda.
• 10:42
  Bob Goff: I'm like these are the stories.
• 10:44
  Bob Goff: That's why Jesus pointed to sheep.
• 10:46
  Bob Goff: He wasn't talking about words in Greek, he pointed to sheep and he says it's like when one of those gets away, and everybody's like I know exactly what that feels like.
• 10:54
  Bob Goff: So, knowing about what it feels like to lose hope or to lose faith, I bet there's somebody stuck in traffic, not only losing faith that they're going to get somewhere on time, but maybe they just have some big questions about their faith.
• 11:10
  Bob Goff: I love the honest conversation a dad had in Mark 9.
• 11:14
  Bob Goff: It's like I believe just help me with all the parts.
• 11:17
  Bob Goff: I don't believe right now, and that can be what it feels like.
• 11:20
  Bob Goff: And rather than having somebody give me a Bible study about belief and where it comes from.
• 11:26
  Bob Goff: And faith is confidence in what you're hoping for and assurance of what you haven't seen from Hebrews.
• 11:31
  Bob Goff: I don't want to know all the Bible verses they know.
• 11:34
  Bob Goff: What I want to do is have you tell me a story of when, a time, you were in a similar circumstance and what you learned, and don't make it about you.
• 11:42
  Bob Goff: Make it about them, right, because we make everything about.
• 11:45
  Bob Goff: Well, I did this and then I did this, and I did this In writing books.
• 11:50
  Bob Goff: I allow myself one me, my or I, and everything else has to be the words we, us or our.
• 11:56
  Bob Goff: So when you write your memoirs, file that away One me, my or I, and then everything else is we, us and our, because people don't want to see your vacation pictures and it was great, I'm glad you went to Maui, that's awesome, but with the person said, hey, what was the last time that you felt like bedazzled by someplace and like that kind of conversation?
• 12:23
  Bob Goff: These are the reasons Jesus told stories.
• 12:25
  Bob Goff: He pointed to deep truths, eternal kinds of truths, and he onboarded them with stories.
• 12:30
  Bob Goff: So that's the reason for the stories, and then the stories that come to mind are just that everyday things, for no particular reason.
• 12:39
  Bob Goff: I was thinking yesterday about learning how to fly an airplane, and this isn't a 747.
• 12:47
  Bob Goff: It's just like a little Cessna, like barely had wings, and those had duct tape on it.
• 12:52
  Ellen Krause: Oh dear.
• 12:54
  Bob Goff: It was a pretty lousy airplane, but you finally get to the place where you do your solo.
• 12:59
  Bob Goff: It's like your first time and you take off and you're all alone and it's a little bit anxiety producing because it's, you know, if you have somebody in there that knows what they're doing.
• 13:09
  Bob Goff: But flying solo and this, if I was telling that story I would immediately talk about we all have had that first time.
• 13:16
  Bob Goff: Right, there was a first for everything.
• 13:19
  Bob Goff: I'd probably talk about Revelations 2.
• 13:21
  Bob Goff: The problem that he had is that we'd forgotten our first love.
• 13:26
  Bob Goff: So I would use a story to onboard a principle.
• 13:30
  Bob Goff: I would tie it to scripture because I'm a Bible verse guy and yet, other than a devotional which has Bible verses, the other 10 books I've written don't have any Bible verses.
• 13:41
  Bob Goff: Isn't that awesome, because I write books for the guy at the tire store.
• 13:46
  Bob Goff: So Jesus was telling story for shepherds who actually had sheep, and he talked about sheep the way shepherds.
• 13:53
  Bob Goff: He talked to people about lepers who were in a colony that had lepers in them.
• 14:01
  Bob Goff: So what I want us to do is find those relatable stories.
• 14:04
  Bob Goff: Well, even if you haven't flown a plane, you could probably relate to this.
• 14:08
  Bob Goff: You don't want to hit the other plane that's up in the air, right, relatable, right.
• 14:16
  Bob Goff: And yet in our faith communities see we, us, our, yet in our faith communities.
• 14:22
  Bob Goff: That's, we're colliding with opinions and we're colliding with people's positions about this and that, and we are keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus from Hebrews 12.1.
• 14:31
  Bob Goff: Like what we're doing is we're colliding with each other.
• 14:34
  Bob Goff: And so then I would go back to the story and, as I got up, to like altitude and level the wings, you look at everything all at once and then you chunk it up, 10% of the sky at a time.
• 14:47
  Bob Goff: So look at this 10% to take a really hard look.
• 14:51
  Bob Goff: And what if you took a look at your life during this time, during this season of Advent that we're in right now?
• 14:57
  Bob Goff: What if you looked at just 10% of your life?
• 14:59
  Bob Goff: Look at your faith, look at your family, look at your friends, look at your finances, everything with an F, you can look at philanthropy if you can't spell.
• 15:07
  Bob Goff: But to chunk it up a little bit.
• 15:10
  Bob Goff: And so, as I was looking through the window, 10% at a time, I realized, oh my gosh, there's a huge jet airliner out in the distance and it seemed like we were on a collision course because we were both like he was right in the center of the window.
• 15:25
  Bob Goff: And so I'm no dummy, I was not freaked out, but I was a little mindful and so I said I'm going to gain altitude.
• 15:32
  Bob Goff: So I went up 2000 feet and here's the crazy part the other guy went up 2000 feet.
• 15:38
  Bob Goff: We're still on this collision course.
• 15:42
  Bob Goff: I'm like, oh yeah, and you can't just like call the other guy Like you're just, you're up there and you just miss him.
• 15:49
  Bob Goff: So I turned to my left and as I turned to my left he turned to his right and it's a little bit bigger in the windscreen.
• 15:59
  Bob Goff: And so I thought, ok, don't freak out, just descend back to where you were.
• 16:04
  Bob Goff: So we're down a couple thousand feet.
• 16:06
  Bob Goff: I think he was thinking the same thing, because he went down 2,000 feet and just as he was getting a little bit bigger, I realized it's a bug on the window.
• 16:20
  Bob Goff: There's a deal like the things that look really big and ominous in our life they're usually little things that we just got really close to.
• 16:28
  Bob Goff: We got so close to them that we couldn't see them for what they were.
• 16:32
  Bob Goff: And so what Jesus did is he always told stories and he always landed on an eternal kind of truth.
• 16:39
  Bob Goff: He gave them this idea, and so he'll say you know, you've heard it said, but now.
• 16:45
  Bob Goff: I say you've heard it said, but now I say and you heard it said, but now I say and so I think the devotionals are a great little tap on the shoulder to remember that maybe some of the big stuff in front of you right now isn't so big, it's just that it's right in front of you.
• 17:00
  Bob Goff: And front of you right now isn't so big, it's just that it's right in front of you and so it feels big.
• 17:03
  Bob Goff: It's the only thing you can see and you try to go above it.
• 17:05
  Bob Goff: You can't.
• 17:05
  Bob Goff: You go, try to go below it and that doesn't work.
• 17:06
  Bob Goff: You try to miss it on the left and the right and at some point we just need to deal with it.
• 17:11
  Bob Goff: But we need to figure out what it is before we deal with it.
• 17:14
  Bob Goff: Um, so if you're saying right now, like I'm feeling stressed out, which is a common feeling for a lot of people Just let's tease it apart and say what are you stressed out about?
• 17:23
  Bob Goff: Let's go through our Fs, faith, family fund finances, you know whatever, maybe a Ferrari Just paying the insurance on that thing.
• 17:32
  Bob Goff: So what I want you to do is that let's do a little bit of an internal audit.
• 17:37
  Bob Goff: Jesus, you know, was asked to pay tax and he told the guy to go catch a fish and pull the coin out.
• 17:46
  Bob Goff: Now we never know if he actually paid the coin over.
• 17:48
  Bob Goff: But I really like the idea of like even Jesus was audited from time to time, that there are people saying what are your motives, what are your intentions, what do you think?
• 17:57
  Bob Goff: And so to do that for ourselves in a really beautiful, winsome way and to get there through stories, head on a swivel, looking for Jesus and evidence that he's still alive.
• 18:09
  Ellen Krause: Absolutely, you know.
• 18:10
  Ellen Krause: That reminds me of the passage in scripture that talks about I think it's maybe at the end of John, where he says if they would have written down all of the things Jesus have done, there wouldn't have been enough, you know, room paper to write it on.
• 18:25
  Bob Goff: I mean, that's one thing that I'm excited about.
• 18:27
  Ellen Krause: Heaven is to say, be curious, like all these things that weren't written out, what was he doing, and the stories he was telling, and how fun will that be to know someday.
• 18:36
  Bob Goff: Well, I think too, having some humility.
• 18:40
  Bob Goff: There's a famous saying that there's two types of people in the world humble people and people who are about to be.
• 18:46
  Bob Goff: So when somebody speaks to me with absolute certainty about pretty much any topic, then I just wonder if they've got themselves convinced.
• 18:59
  Bob Goff: Certainly, but I just try to stay humble on those things rather than feeling like I've got it nailed every time.
• 19:07
  Bob Goff: They can do what Paul said to check the scriptures.
• 19:11
  Bob Goff: But even then that verse I was telling you about in Matthew 5, like you've heard it said.
• 19:16
  Bob Goff: But now I say, because you've heard it said is scripture.
• 19:19
  Bob Goff: And he said but now I say that's scripture.
• 19:21
  Bob Goff: He said you've heard it said, now it's scripture.
• 19:24
  Bob Goff: And then now I say that's scripture.
• 19:24
  Bob Goff: He said you've heard it said, now it's scripture.
• 19:26
  Bob Goff: And then now I say and so to, just because I'm a Bible verse kind of guy, I really want to search the scriptures.
• 19:32
  Bob Goff: I want to actually know what it has to say.
• 19:38
  Bob Goff: But I don't try to clobber people with it.
• 19:39
  Bob Goff: I don't say well, if you disagree, here's three verses.
• 19:40
  Bob Goff: Because sometimes in our faith communities we're doing this kind of wimpy jujitsu thing on each other with Bible verses and that's just so uninspiring and it's actually uninspiring for the people who are involved as well.
• 19:54
  Bob Goff: They don't care, they're just trying to win an argument.
• 19:57
  Bob Goff: And I would say, if you want to just argue with everybody, be a lawyer.
• 20:00
  Bob Goff: I was for 30 years and then I just bailed.
• 20:04
  Bob Goff: I'm like I'm not doing this.
• 20:05
  Bob Goff: I'm not.
• 20:06
  Bob Goff: I'm not Jesus's lawyer anymore.
• 20:08
  Bob Goff: I'm not trying to win a bunch of arguments.
• 20:10
  Bob Goff: What I'm trying to do is be faithful to the things that he's given me, and I'm just not there yet.
• 20:16
  Bob Goff: I don that.
• 20:16
  Bob Goff: That is so refreshing for the world to hear.
• 20:18
  Bob Goff: Instead of hearing what you think you've got wired, hear what you're still trying to figure out.
• 20:23
  Bob Goff: Yeah, so instead of reaching our weak hand towards people this weak hand which is sometimes embellished with all kinds of other things we think we're certain about, to kind of pretend we know more than we know or that we have more game than we have, just be humble.
• 20:53
  Bob Goff: Just say man, I'm trying to figure that out too.
• 20:55
  Bob Goff: Just be more interested in where another person's at than trying to convince them over to where you're at.
• 21:03
  Bob Goff: Yeah, then that's actually really good advocacy for a guy who wins arguments for a living.
• 21:10
  Ellen Krause: I'm just saying Right, right, you know, Bob, I thought one of the things and I actually did a word check in your devotional for the word ambition, because I noticed that it kept coming up over and over again, over 50 times in the book, the word ambition, and you talk about it, and it just really did build an excitement within me.
• 21:36
  Ellen Krause: Why is it important for us to identify and go after our ambitions?
• 21:40
  Bob Goff: Yeah, I know a lot of people that have great doctrine, but it feels like their theology is a little weak and I'm not pointing a bony finger in their direction.
• 21:50
  Bob Goff: It's just like there's a theology of just loving people the way Jesus did, and he never asked one person to agree with him.
• 21:57
  Bob Goff: He said if you believe these things, do it.
• 22:00
  Bob Goff: Galatians 5, 6,.
• 22:02
  Bob Goff: The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.
• 22:05
  Bob Goff: And then the crazy part is he doesn't need our help.
• 22:08
  Bob Goff: I keep asking him every morning but Jesus, what can I do for you?
• 22:11
  Bob Goff: He's got a thing, he's got it.
• 22:15
  Bob Goff: But what we can do is, as an outgrowth, an outflowing of what we actually believe, you'll do, that you talk about the stuff you love.
• 22:23
  Bob Goff: I love Dippin' Dots.
• 22:24
  Bob Goff: I love them.
• 22:26
  Bob Goff: I won't go a day or two without talking about Dippin' Dots.
• 22:28
  Bob Goff: I can't afford them, but I love Dippin' Dots.
• 22:31
  Bob Goff: Have you ever had those at the mall?
• 22:32
  Ellen Krause: Yes, yes.
• 22:34
  Bob Goff: People who buy Dippin' Dots at the mall, like me, maybe, like you, and we went to the mall and we forgot what we went to the mall for.
• 22:40
  Bob Goff: We didn't go to the mall for dip and dots, and so sometimes people forget why they're here, that we get this period of time and I just want to be helpful.
• 22:53
  Bob Goff: You know, when Jesus asked, summarize the whole thing the way that he summarized it was to be loving people that are just adjacent to us, are just adjacent to us, and that takes actually a level of ambition Because there's been in my youth.
• 23:10
  Bob Goff: I didn't grow up in the church.
• 23:12
  Bob Goff: I didn't know anybody who went to church.
• 23:14
  Bob Goff: I didn't know anybody who talked about church.
• 23:16
  Bob Goff: I was in high school before I met somebody who said faith was a big deal for him and he was actually a screw up.
• 23:24
  Bob Goff: He was all messed up, and the more I realized that it wasn't this kind of buttoned down thing, that it was like there was room for people who were messed up that had it wrong.
• 23:36
  Bob Goff: I mean, jesus' disciples were with him for three years and they didn't even know who he was.
• 23:40
  Bob Goff: You know, they thought he was going to go in and conquer Jerusalem and he's like oh, no, no, no, that's not how it works.
• 23:47
  Bob Goff: Can you find a donkey for me to ride in on?
• 23:50
  Bob Goff: And they're like wait what?
• 23:52
  Bob Goff: And so, and one of the disciples one of his own Sunday school class members, you know went the other direction for him.
• 24:00
  Bob Goff: And there's still this compassion.
• 24:04
  Bob Goff: Right, if I had one last meal to eat, I wouldn't have it with a person I knew who would betray me.
• 24:11
  Bob Goff: And yet I see that modeled and I've seen people who live a really authentic, engaged faith that they start doing things that other people don't understand, that they themselves don't always understand.
• 24:24
  Bob Goff: People don't understand that they themselves don't always understand.
• 24:29
  Bob Goff: And I think that is just really attractive to me to say that if you're really that confident that God is who he said he was, that you could start acting and interacting with the world in a different way, in a humble way, and then people will not meet your opinions, they'll meet Jesus, like they won't say what's your position on?
• 24:45
  Bob Goff: Insert here the social issue of the day.
• 24:48
  Bob Goff: Not that they're unimportant, but compared to the things that are important to me, they're unimportant.
• 24:53
  Bob Goff: And so I just I don't want people to like know us for what we're against.
• 24:59
  Bob Goff: I want us to know us for what we do, what we engage, what we embrace, what we're doing, uh, all the time knowing God doesn't need our help, but it's an outflow.
• 25:09
  Bob Goff: It's like me talking about Dippin' Dots have I mentioned that again?
• 25:12
  Bob Goff: And like if somebody says you know I was at work and I mentioned Jesus at the water fountain and you know, I really think it's taken hold.
• 25:20
  Bob Goff: This isn't a secret handshake kind of thing, that's not.
• 25:23
  Bob Goff: That works.
• 25:24
  Bob Goff: It's like what you do is, I would assume, just know where you're at in your faith, because you're just living a life that's extraordinary.
• 25:35
  Bob Goff: They saw their courage and they knew they'd been with Jesus without Peter and John saying a word.
• 25:42
  Bob Goff: I love Matthew 16, the Simon Peter moment.
• 25:45
  Bob Goff: He says you know who does?
• 25:46
  Bob Goff: Everybody say I am, and uh, and Simon Peter reported back that you know, some say you're a teacher, and he actually was an awesome teacher and he said others say a prophet, he was all of that too.
• 25:57
  Bob Goff: But then Simon Peter says but I think you're God.
• 25:59
  Bob Goff: And then Jesus responds to him Don't tell anybody.
• 26:11
  Bob Goff: What was the mind of all my evangelical friends, and I think the next verse really clarifies it it's flesh and blood.
• 26:15
  Bob Goff: Doesn't reveal this to you.
• 26:17
  Bob Goff: It'll be the spirit of God so we don't lead people to Jesus.
• 26:20
  Bob Goff: Jesus leads people to Jesus and I can get on board with that Like.
• 26:24
  Bob Goff: I just want to do my part, my part love people, jesus's part, letting people know who he is, and that doesn't go in wimpy on taking bold things.
• 26:36
  Bob Goff: You know that verse in Peter, to always be ready to make a defense for the hope that's within you.
• 26:42
  Bob Goff: It's almost like everybody wants to lawyer up and then they stop reading there and they don't continue in the sentence and say but do it with kindness and respect.
• 26:50
  Bob Goff: And I just sometimes we miss the kindness and respect part.
• 26:54
  Bob Goff: So I want to, for my dyslexic friends like to like, let's start with that.
• 26:58
  Bob Goff: Read the verse backwards.
• 27:00
  Ellen Krause: Right.
• 27:01
  Bob Goff: You know what, if we start with kindness and respect and then maybe tap the brakes on being Jesus's lawyer?
• 27:10
  Ellen Krause: Love that, Bob.
• 27:10
  Ellen Krause: I feel like you know when we chase after our ambitions, like sometimes that can be scary, depending you know on what that is for you in particular, it requires faith, you in particular.
• 27:28
  Ellen Krause: It requires faith, and I like to think of it as it requires so much faith that you see how it couldn't have been possible without God, and that's where I feel like God's really shown up big in my life.
• 27:41
  Bob Goff: Yeah, I get that that whole idea of having ambitions is.
• 27:46
  Bob Goff: It requires you to take this personal assessment of yourself to say, hey, what really am I wanting to be about?
• 27:54
  Bob Goff: What do I want to do, and what's these things that we do right?
• 27:57
  Bob Goff: These activities, these different things that we, the way we interact with the world, and those are usually tied to emotions.
• 28:17
  Bob Goff: So if a behavior, for instance, is that you're really short with people or curt, it's tied to an emotion, and the emotion is oftentimes insecurity or it could be the emotion of anger, and so then the behavior is being really short with people and that emotion is usually tied to an unmet need.
• 28:34
  Bob Goff: So there's an unmet need which is for love and acceptance and all that, and so you walk around a little bit angry because you're not getting what you actually need, which is love and acceptance.
• 28:45
  Bob Goff: And then the way that that works itself out in a behavior is that you're short and curt with people.
• 28:51
  Bob Goff: So I think, spending a little bit of time in our faith communities to just say, hey, why are we doing what we're doing?
• 28:57
  Bob Goff: And a lot of the things that we're doing are motivated by either fear or love, and so not everything, but I would say 90% or more, and so it's a like.
• 29:10
  Bob Goff: So why do you work?
• 29:11
  Bob Goff: I say, well, like fear that I wouldn't have a place to live.
• 29:13
  Bob Goff: If I did, I couldn't make rent.
• 29:15
  Bob Goff: Or you say I do because I love it.
• 29:18
  Bob Goff: So there might be other mixed reasons for people.
• 29:22
  Bob Goff: But oftentimes if you do a little bit of an audit, like, am I doing this out of fear or love?
• 29:28
  Bob Goff: Another really compelling emotion is the desire for acceptance.
• 29:33
  Bob Goff: So sometimes we do things because we want to be accepted into community.
• 29:38
  Bob Goff: We speak a certain way, we use words that we don't really normal people don't use those words, but we adopt them because we want to identify with a group of people that uses that kind of language.
• 29:50
  Bob Goff: Like here in San Diego, people say dude all the time, like dude, that was so good or whatever.
• 29:56
  Bob Goff: How many people in Illinois say dude?
• 29:59
  Ellen Krause: Not a lot Many, I'm sure.
• 30:02
  Bob Goff: Yeah, right.
• 30:02
  Bob Goff: And then in the Pacific Northeast it's wicked like wicked cheesy, like the Cheetos are wicked cheesy literally says it on there.
• 30:11
  Bob Goff: Not wicked like evil, it's just like very right.
• 30:14
  Bob Goff: So people say we start adopting people's words and when I'm in the South I start saying y'all.
• 30:21
  Bob Goff: And nobody in San Diego says y'all.
• 30:25
  Bob Goff: But I start doing it because it's not a desire for acceptance, it's just I'm around it so much I start doing it.
• 30:32
  Bob Goff: And so what if the language that we use in our faith communities was around acceptance and love and faithfulness to Scripture?
• 30:42
  Bob Goff: You don't have to say the Scripture every time, but you could be thinking where that fits, and not to win a trivial pursuit or a Bible quiz, but that you know where that is and you know that's true.
• 30:53
  Bob Goff: And so then, when other stuff comes your way this is the beginning of Galatians, that if somebody comes and preaches a new gospel or a different one, then run out of the room Because you need to know what the original was, is, so you'll know this is a different one then run out of the room because you need to know what the original was, is, so you'll know this is a different one.
• 31:10
  Bob Goff: And so what?
• 31:12
  Bob Goff: I would say not as a cautionary tale, but if faith guides your steps, then I would say, spend some time noodling around like figuring out when a question comes up about dating or romance or workplace or whatever.
• 31:26
  Bob Goff: John six nine it says that disciples are saying like so, what's our work?
• 31:30
  Bob Goff: Like, what are we supposed to do?
• 31:31
  Bob Goff: And I get that question all the time.
• 31:33
  Bob Goff: I'm supposed to be a lawyer, a doctor, a plumber, what's my work?
• 31:37
  Bob Goff: And Jesus response was your work is believe in the one God sent, and so that kind of guts it.
• 31:44
  Bob Goff: In a way.
• 31:44
  Bob Goff: It's almost like you said and I don't care.
• 31:47
  Bob Goff: I don't think he wants us knocking off liquor stores, but I think what he cares about is our hearts, and what we do for a day job is almost irrelevant.
• 31:56
  Bob Goff: Just whatever you do out of Philippians, do it like you were doing it for me.
• 32:00
  Bob Goff: So I love that idea.
• 32:02
  Bob Goff: If we were dancing through the scriptures and knew them.
• 32:06
  Bob Goff: Whether you feel like you have a good memory for the scriptures or not, you can just say I remember there's a verse somewhere that says which is awesome, it's not a game show, but just to know where that anchor is.
• 32:16
  Bob Goff: Otherwise, tony Robbins is going to have as much voice in your life as Jesus Christ will and Tony's a great guy, but Jesus is better.
• 32:27
  Ellen Krause: Agree, agree.
• 32:28
  Ellen Krause: Well, bob, as we start to kind of wrap things up, what do you hope readers are going to take away from their experience of going through this 365 day journey?
• 32:42
  Ellen Krause: What can they look forward to?
• 32:52
  Bob Goff: is their stories.
• 32:53
  Bob Goff: I hope they won't see mine.
• 32:53
  Bob Goff: I hope what they'll see is this invitation to this beautiful life that God has invited them to.
• 32:56
  Bob Goff: I hope they'll see each day as this opportunity to like kind of dig in, to do a little bit, push out a little bit deeper.
• 33:05
  Bob Goff: That's the 38 miracles that Jesus did.
• 33:08
  Bob Goff: That's the fifth one, and Jesus invited them to these guys to push out a little bit deeper.
• 33:13
  Bob Goff: And they thought it was a bad idea.
• 33:15
  Bob Goff: They thought it was stupid.
• 33:16
  Bob Goff: They'd been fishing all night.
• 33:18
  Bob Goff: But the verse after that says they did it anyway.
• 33:22
  Bob Goff: So that would be my hope that people would read these pages each day.
• 33:28
  Bob Goff: They'd get a tap on the shoulder, not a pointy uh finger pointed in their face, but just tap on the shoulder to remember why we're doing what we're doing and then be encouraged to just give people a little bit more slack.
• 33:42
  Bob Goff: When people do something super lame, I, just when people do something lame, I picture a little thought bubble over their head, uh and uh.
• 33:51
  Bob Goff: In the thought bubble the words are I'm being really helpful right now, even though they're not at all, but most people aren't trying to be disruptive.
• 34:01
  Bob Goff: They think they're actually being helpful.
• 34:03
  Bob Goff: They'll comment on something you said or they'll get your grill about something In their mind, they're being super helpful.
• 34:10
  Bob Goff: Get your grill about something in their mind, they're being super helpful.
• 34:14
  Bob Goff: We've got a uh, these scottish highland cattle out at a retreat center.
• 34:17
  Bob Goff: I've got, and uh and uh, they dropped a new one off.
• 34:19
  Bob Goff: And uh, and I asked the guy that dropped it off is your cow nice?
• 34:22
  Bob Goff: Because we have people there for equine therapy and all that.
• 34:25
  Bob Goff: They just need that.
• 34:26
  Bob Goff: Their life has been hard, they just need to pet a nice cow.
• 34:29
  Bob Goff: And he said she's so nice and went on and on and so I jumped into the pen and it gored me.
• 34:36
  Bob Goff: Oh, it's like I told him.
• 34:39
  Bob Goff: I thought she said your cow was nice and I'll never forget.
• 34:43
  Bob Goff: He said she don't know she has horns.
• 34:45
  Bob Goff: I'm like every mother-in-law joke right there.
• 34:49
  Bob Goff: So that whole idea that some people just don't know they have horns, that cow thought she was nuzzling me when she was goring me, and so people that are hurting you think they're being helpful to you.
• 35:01
  Bob Goff: And so what we need to do is have the maturity and the confidence in our faith, informed by our failures and our successes, but to walk into that situation and see a thought bubble that says I'm being really helpful right now, and then you don't need to give them airtime because what they did is super lame, so just move on.
• 35:20
  Bob Goff: Talk about sports.
• 35:21
  Bob Goff: I would.
• 35:23
  Bob Goff: I don't care, I just changed the subject.
• 35:28
  Ellen Krause: Oh well, bob, after going through many of your devotionals, I can assure people that they will be so, so encouraged.
• 35:37
  Ellen Krause: Where can they go to find out more information about you and your book?
• 35:42
  Bob Goff: Yeah, I'm a pretty easy guy to track down.
• 35:44
  Bob Goff: I put my cell phone number in the back of three million books, isn't that awesome?
• 35:48
  Bob Goff: I can't get a thing done.
• 35:49
  Bob Goff: I get so many phone calls of 3 million books Isn't that awesome?
• 35:51
  Bob Goff: I can't get a thing done.
• 35:52
  Bob Goff: I just thought Jesus was available to everybody.
• 35:54
  Bob Goff: And you have somebody that writes a country Western song about a big old truck or a big old dog and then people like it and they're not available anymore.
• 36:02
  Bob Goff: Or somebody gets a bit part in a movie and they're not available.
• 36:05
  Bob Goff: They have keepers and cup bearers and all that.
• 36:08
  Bob Goff: And Jesus just said you know 12 misfits.
• 36:11
  Bob Goff: I don't even have 12 people, I just have a cell phone.
• 36:15
  Bob Goff: So I'm a pretty easy guy to reach.
• 36:18
  Bob Goff: Just type in Bob Goff somewhere and you'll find me.
• 36:21
  Ellen Krause: Excellent.
• 36:21
  Ellen Krause: Okay, well, we will make sure we have links in our show notes as well for people.
• 36:25
  Ellen Krause: Before we go, though, I have to ask you some of our favorite Bible study tool questions.
• 36:30
  Ellen Krause: What Bible is your go-to Bible, and which translation is it?
• 36:35
  Bob Goff: Oh, JB Phillips.
• 36:36
  Bob Goff: It's the.
• 36:38
  Bob Goff: They call it the cookbook Bible, and JB Phillips was a pastor at a church in the UK at the time.
• 36:46
  Bob Goff: In World War II they're dropping bombs and the only authorized version of the scripture was the King James and none of the kids in his class understood all the these and thous.
• 36:56
  Bob Goff: So he sat in a bunker when all the bombs were dropping and he wrote the first living Bible and it's called the JB Phillips Bible for Schools and they put it in every single school in the country.
• 37:06
  Bob Goff: Isn't that awesome.
• 37:07
  Bob Goff: I love that.
• 37:08
  Bob Goff: That's my cookbook Bible.
• 37:10
  Ellen Krause: Oh cool, isn't that awesome.
• 37:11
  Ellen Krause: I love that.
• 37:12
  Ellen Krause: That's my cookbook Bible.
• 37:13
  Ellen Krause: Oh cool.
• 37:15
  Ellen Krause: Okay, bob, do you have any favorite journaling supplies or anything that you like to use to enhance your Bible?
• 37:18
  Bob Goff: study experience.
• 37:18
  Bob Goff: Pen and paper I send myself, and an iPhone.
• 37:22
  Bob Goff: I send myself about 150 emails a day.
• 37:25
  Bob Goff: Isn't that crazy?
• 37:26
  Bob Goff: I get home, I'm like him again, block, but I will encounter people and circumstances and thoughts and little shards of ideas and I send myself immediately a, an email about it and then get this.
• 37:42
  Bob Goff: I stopped having quiet times probably 30 years ago.
• 37:45
  Bob Goff: Mine are super loud.
• 37:46
  Bob Goff: What I'll do is I'll take everything that I sent myself the day before and I'll check it against scripture.
• 37:52
  Bob Goff: I'll just so in the mornings I mean it is loud, it is raucous because I'm trying to like really engage this stuff and so um.
• 38:00
  Bob Goff: So that's the pattern for me.
• 38:02
  Bob Goff: Yeah, I don't write it on gum wrappers.
• 38:04
  Bob Goff: I send myself emails and then the next morning I just get rowdy and like just say, like, let's figure out if this is true.
• 38:10
  Bob Goff: If it doesn't square with scripture, I just don't put it in the next book, and if it does, then I might.
• 38:16
  Ellen Krause: Okay, excellent, okay.
• 38:18
  Ellen Krause: Lastly, what's your favorite app or website for Bible study tools?
• 38:23
  Bob Goff: You know, I just really like Google.
• 38:25
  Bob Goff: I think if I'm trying to find something, I literally I just put a Google, the first coin that was ever minted in the United States.
• 38:33
  Bob Goff: On the one side it said we are one from John 17.
• 38:37
  Bob Goff: Isn't that awesome.
• 38:38
  Bob Goff: And on the backside of that coin it says mind your business, keep that in mind.
• 38:47
  Bob Goff: So, like that whole idea, like so, uh, what will stick with me is that idea something really interesting.
• 38:54
  Bob Goff: I'm not a coin collector, uh, but I got a hold of that coin, uh, and I think there's just something beautiful like these reminders.
• 39:03
  Bob Goff: Constantly I wear a mickey mouse watch I.
• 39:06
  Bob Goff: You know, I walk into rooms every once in a while where nobody's smiling, because there's like a lot of conflict in the air and I'm like me and you, buddy, oh boy, smiling, I'm smiling.
• 39:16
  Bob Goff: So for a tool, I think I just use Google so much to just get right to it, to get to the interesting stuff, because I don't want to talk about the stuff that I've already talked about.
• 39:28
  Bob Goff: I was in oh what's that place that has a real bad water system Flint, michigan.
• 39:33
  Bob Goff: I was in Flint and it was the springtime and I walked out my hotel room and all the roads had been salted and I'm like, dude, it's like 70.
• 39:43
  Bob Goff: Why have you salted the roads and get this?
• 39:46
  Bob Goff: They get their salt next year based on how much they use up this year, and it was a really light winter, so they started salting the roads, even though they didn't need to.
• 39:55
  Bob Goff: I'm like, oh, that'll preach.
• 39:57
  Bob Goff: So what I'm trying to do when it comes to a Bible study or Bible app, to go a little bit deeper, keeping in mind that John 13 telling stories to find interesting things that bring me to the feet of Jesus, bring me back to the scriptures.
• 40:14
  Ellen Krause: That's beautiful, Bob.
• 40:15
  Ellen Krause: Well, thank you so much for joining us today, for encouraging us, you bet, and I just I really appreciate your sense of humor, your curiosity and just the way that you will definitely inspire people if they choose to pick up your book, which I highly encourage.
• 40:35
  Bob Goff: Yeah, or you can wait for a while and get it for a nickel at a used bookstore.
• 40:38
  Bob Goff: Either way, whatever it is that encourages people, just keep doing that.
• 40:44
  Ellen Krause: Absolutely All right.
• 40:45
  Ellen Krause: Well, we just want to let our listeners know we appreciate you.
• 40:49
  Ellen Krause: We thank you so much for listening.
• 40:51
  Ellen Krause: Have a blessed day.