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Rediscover Prayer: From Performance to Presence (Addison Bevere) · Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and Culture

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  Speaker 1: The world is becoming increasingly proficient at telling stories that
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  Speaker 1: deny God. As such, we need Thinking Christian to become
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  Speaker 1: as natural as breathing. Welcome to the Thinking Christian podcast.
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  Speaker 1: I'm doctor James Spencer. Through calm, thoughtful theological discussions, Thinking
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  Speaker 1: Christian highlights the ways God is working in the world
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  Speaker 1: and questions the underlying social, cultural, and political assumptions that
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  Speaker 1: hinder Christians from becoming more like Christ. Now on to
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  Speaker 1: today's episode of Thinking Christian. Hey everyone, and welcome to
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  Speaker 1: this episode of Thinking Christian. I'm doctor James Spencer and
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  Speaker 1: I'm joined today by Addison Bevie, and we're going to
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  Speaker 1: be talking about his new book, which is actually based
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  Speaker 1: on a previous book he wrote, Words with God. We're
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  Speaker 1: going to be talking about Words with God, Prayer Journal,
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  Speaker 1: as well as some of the other things that he does.
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  Speaker 1: He's president of Messenger International, which is the discipleship ministry,
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  Speaker 1: and he also started something that's called Rediscover Prayer dot Com.
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  Speaker 1: And so Addison, welcome to the podcast. Man, thanks for
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  Speaker 1: being here.
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  Speaker 2: Thanks Doctor James's honorby on the show.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely so.
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  Speaker 1: I think you were talking a little bit before we
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  Speaker 1: got on and started recording. But I mean, I'd just
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  Speaker 1: be interested. How did rediscover prayer start? I think that's
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  Speaker 1: a cool story. It might be a nice place for
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  Speaker 1: us to jump into the conversation.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely. So I grew up in a home with
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  Speaker 2: two amazing parents who are both authors ministers, and so
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  Speaker 2: I grew up in an environment where prayer was modeled
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  Speaker 2: for me. My dad is the kind of person who
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  Speaker 2: would get up early in the morning, would be out
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  Speaker 2: there four point thirty five m in the morning. He
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  Speaker 2: would go out and pray for a couple hours. Come in.
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  Speaker 2: I would get up. I would see him reading his
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  Speaker 2: Bible in his study, and so that was modeled for
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  Speaker 2: me my entire life. And I've got to be honest
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  Speaker 2: with you. I would watch him do it, and I
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  Speaker 2: would think to myself, I could never do that. He's
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  Speaker 2: on another level. And so I would see that, and
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  Speaker 2: I would think to myself, man, because he just going
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  Speaker 2: out there for two hours and just praying to God,
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  Speaker 2: just saying after thing after thing, articulating the you know,
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  Speaker 2: the depths of his soul. Like I start praying for
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  Speaker 2: three minutes, and I feel like my mind wanders, and
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  Speaker 2: I feel like I get distracted and I lose interest,
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  Speaker 2: and so I had this performative view of prayer, and
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  Speaker 2: the enemy did a really good job of convincing me
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  Speaker 2: that prayer was more about my performance and less about
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  Speaker 2: God's desire to be a constant presence in my life.
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  Speaker 2: And that led me on. That led me on a journey,
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  Speaker 2: come to find out years later. Okay, so I'm in
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  Speaker 2: my early thirties. At this point, I'm having a conversation
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  Speaker 2: with my dad and this is two funny. I'm like, Dad,
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  Speaker 2: I have to know, like, what were you doing? What
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  Speaker 2: do you do when you go out and pray for
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  Speaker 2: twevers of the morning. He's like, well, Addison, I prayed
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  Speaker 2: for like fifteen minutes and then I just listen. I listen.
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  Speaker 2: I just pace and I'm quiet, and I'm still. I'm like, Dad,
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  Speaker 2: you're telling me you just go out there and you listen.
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  Speaker 2: He said, that's what like that. I had this idea
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  Speaker 2: of you just being out there going through every single
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  Speaker 2: scripture going through He's like, no, No, that's not what
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  Speaker 2: I'm doing. And what was amazing is God taught me
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  Speaker 2: that in a different way, through a different experience, but
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  Speaker 2: it was it was fascinating to see how we both
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  Speaker 2: arrived at the same place. Even though our styles are different,
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  Speaker 2: our emphasis is different. It was neat for me. It
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  Speaker 2: was a full circle moment because I had this idea
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  Speaker 2: of my dad that actually wasn't accurate. Yes, he was
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  Speaker 2: a man of prayer, but the idea of prayer was
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  Speaker 2: different than what I thought. It wasn't. What I found
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  Speaker 2: out James studying prayer is that ninety eight percent of
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  Speaker 2: corn to Barna, roughly ninety eight percent of people they
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  Speaker 2: share this this sense that they're bad at prayer, that
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  Speaker 2: when it comes to prayer other people they have it
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  Speaker 2: figured out and we're missing it. And I think the
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  Speaker 2: accuser does a really good job of making prayer about
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  Speaker 2: a performance that we have to get right, turning it
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  Speaker 2: into a transaction rather than a transformational experience that extends
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  Speaker 2: outside of a moment, energizes every moment of our lives.
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  Speaker 2: And of course, shame is a powerful disqualifier when it
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  Speaker 2: comes to intimacy, so of course he wants prayer to
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  Speaker 2: be a place of shame where we think we're never
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  Speaker 2: doing enough, we're not enough, we don't know the right words,
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  Speaker 2: we don't know how to long to pray, we don't
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  Speaker 2: know the forms, we don't know the place whatever it
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  Speaker 2: may be, or you haven't been doing this well, so
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  Speaker 2: of course God's not going to engage with you in
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  Speaker 2: your moment or hour of need. And so I love
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  Speaker 2: going into that dissonance, that question and be like, Okay, no,
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  Speaker 2: what really is prayer all about? And how does God
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  Speaker 2: meet us in that intimate place of purpose and peace
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  Speaker 2: and provision and protection.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah?
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  Speaker 1: Do you find that, you know, as you've been working
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  Speaker 1: with people on prayer and interacting with people on prayer,
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  Speaker 1: do you find that many people have as much difficulty
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  Speaker 1: starting sort of the talking part of prayer as they
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  Speaker 1: do slowing down to do the listening part of prayer?
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  Speaker 1: I mean, when you talk about your dad's experience there
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  Speaker 1: he prays for fifteen minutes. I can almost get my
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  Speaker 1: head around that. But then pacing around and listening for
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  Speaker 1: the other, you know, hour forty five, I'm kind of like, man,
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  Speaker 1: it just it feels like our fast paced world really
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  Speaker 1: squeezes that time out, And you know, so you're like, well,
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  Speaker 1: what am I doing? Shouldn't I be on the treadmill
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  Speaker 1: multitasking my prayer life or something like that?
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  Speaker 3: You know what I mean? Do you find that people
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  Speaker 3: struggle with that aspect.
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  Speaker 2: Oh absolutely, And I think going back to the fundamental
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  Speaker 2: disconnect is this idea we make ourselves the hero or
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  Speaker 2: the villain of our prayers, and we vacillate back and
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  Speaker 2: forth between the two. It's like, oh, I'm checking the boxes.
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  Speaker 2: I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing, so of
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  Speaker 2: course God's going to engage. Or I haven't done what
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  Speaker 2: I should be doing. I'm not checking the boxes, so
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  Speaker 2: of course God's not going to disengage. And the invitation
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  Speaker 2: that God has extended to me is like, look, I
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  Speaker 2: don't need you to be the hero, and I don't
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  Speaker 2: need you to be the villain. I need you to
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  Speaker 2: be a willing participant. And if you look at first
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  Speaker 2: Sessonians five seventeen, right the famous pray constantly pray without
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  Speaker 2: ceasing a Romans twelve twelve pray constantly pray always or
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  Speaker 2: Ephesian six's eighteen at all times pray this idea of
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  Speaker 2: constant prayer. We hear that if we engage prayer as
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  Speaker 2: a chore, that becomes a burden right that we could
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  Speaker 2: never lift, rather than a blessing, rather an invitation to
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  Speaker 2: constant and intimacy it becomes a burden. And when you
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  Speaker 2: dig into the Greek at First Sessions five to seventeen,
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  Speaker 2: it's actually an invitation to pray from a place of
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  Speaker 2: constant rest, where there's a receptivity that allows you to
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  Speaker 2: engage with what is most real about life, what's most
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  Speaker 2: real in your circumstance, in that moment, where you can
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  Speaker 2: engage the moment for what it really is, rather than
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  Speaker 2: superimposing your own insecurity, your own sense of lack, your
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  Speaker 2: own doubt, your own fear, whatever it may be. And
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  Speaker 2: to your point about this idea of praying, articulating the words,
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  Speaker 2: that's difficult, but then also being ill and rest that's difficult.
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  Speaker 2: I love what James One actually says. I mean, I
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  Speaker 2: think a lot of us when we read James we
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  Speaker 2: don't realize that, James One, that chapter is predominantly about prayer,
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  Speaker 2: and we miss there's an instruction in there where it
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  Speaker 2: talks about actually being being slow to speak, be quick
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  Speaker 2: to hear. This idea of being being sensitive, and it's
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  Speaker 2: it's built on this foundation that our God is good,
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  Speaker 2: that there's no there's no shade, there's no shadow, that
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  Speaker 2: he gives wisdom to those who ask that even though
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  Speaker 2: we go through various trials, we know that these trials
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  Speaker 2: are forming and forging something in us that is of
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  Speaker 2: eternal value. And so when we start to understand, hey,
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  Speaker 2: the pressure isn't on us to perform. We can engage
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  Speaker 2: prayer in a way where when we need to speak,
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  Speaker 2: there is a confidence because we're sensitive to the leading
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  Speaker 2: of the spirit, And when we need to be quiet
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  Speaker 2: and still to receive something that we don't have, we
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  Speaker 2: can just be still and know that He is God.
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  Speaker 2: And then that prepares us to partner with God. When
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  Speaker 2: we do speak, prepares us to partner with God. And
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  Speaker 2: I think about the Lord's prayer not as a formula,
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  Speaker 2: but as a framework. It starts with this sensitivity to
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  Speaker 2: God's goodness, his otherness, his power, his might, his kingdom,
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  Speaker 2: the extent of it and invades every dimension. Our Father,
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  Speaker 2: who is into heavens, who permeates every dimension, everything that
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  Speaker 2: we know about time and space and beyond. He is there.
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  Speaker 2: And from that place that God consciousness is what I
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  Speaker 2: call it. I was, like most of us, we try
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  Speaker 2: to pray from a place of self consciousness. And the
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  Speaker 2: reality is it's really hard to be God conscious when
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  Speaker 2: you're self conscious, and that is why even the way
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  Speaker 2: Jesus teaches us to pray, it's forming this God consciousness
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  Speaker 2: before we move into things like asking for our daily bread,
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  Speaker 2: or struggling to receive forgiveness and extend forgiveness, or understand
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  Speaker 2: the trials, the temptations, the difficult things we're walking through
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  Speaker 2: in life. And so those are the types of things
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  Speaker 2: I like to bring people into before we even talk
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  Speaker 2: about how long we're praying, or are we praying, are
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  Speaker 2: we articulating, are we listening. I'm like, hey, let's go
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  Speaker 2: back to what this is actually all about, this connectivity
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  Speaker 2: with God, and what are some of the foundational principles
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  Speaker 2: that allow us to build a healthy life of prayer.
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  Speaker 1: So much of that you mentioned, you know, sort of blessing,
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  Speaker 1: so much that aligns with the sort of theology of
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  Speaker 1: blessing and the general trajectory that God wants to take
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  Speaker 1: us toward. I just reviewed a book on this. This
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  Speaker 1: gentleman was reviewed or was analyzing the priestly blessing in Numbers,
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  Speaker 1: and the whole book was basically just on that. But
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  Speaker 1: in the process he talks about what it meant to
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  Speaker 1: be blessed and that these weren't just sort of well wishes.
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  Speaker 1: They were aiming to sort of redirect you into the
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  Speaker 1: stream of what God is doing, to allow you to
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  Speaker 1: participate in where God wants you to go. And so
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  Speaker 1: part of the blessing what brought sort of an obligation
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  Speaker 1: that now you knew what that blessing trajectory was, and
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  Speaker 1: now you're supposed to fit within the stream of that.
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  Speaker 1: And it just seems like the way you're the way
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  Speaker 1: you're thinking about prayer would fit so well within that.
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  Speaker 3: Is that Is that a fair statement?
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  Speaker 2: Oh? Absolutely, because again going back to it, the enemy
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  Speaker 2: is the enemy is brilliant in one sense, right, Like
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  Speaker 2: so even if you look at if you look at
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  Speaker 2: the blessing of the garden, the blessing was that God
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  Speaker 2: walked with them in the cool of the deck. The
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  Speaker 2: blessing was this uninhibited intimacy with the reality of God,
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  Speaker 2: with the presence of God. And what does the accuser do.
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  Speaker 2: The accuser comes in and says, hey, actually, you can
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  Speaker 2: have knowledge of good and evil, you can have control,
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  Speaker 2: you can you can grasp for this godness, you can
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  Speaker 2: have it, but you can't walk at the pace of intimacy.
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  Speaker 2: You can't walk at the pace of wisdom. You have
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  Speaker 2: to actually circumvent God's way. If you eat of this,
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  Speaker 2: if you partake of this, then you're going to know,
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  Speaker 2: You're going to understand, and you are going to be
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  Speaker 2: God's in your own right. And I feel like James
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  Speaker 2: in so many ways prayer. The enemy has misconstrued prayer,
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  Speaker 2: and he uses religiosity to do this. Misconstrued prayer as
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  Speaker 2: this thing that actually allows us to go outside of
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  Speaker 2: God's design for wisdom, because God offers wisdom at a
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  Speaker 2: relational pace. Okay, So even as you're describing the priestly
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  Speaker 2: blessing and tying that to James one where James is
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  Speaker 2: describing these various trials and this process of perfection in
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  Speaker 2: the Greek, I know you know this. It's to Laos,
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  Speaker 2: it's this journey. It's a perfection that only comes through
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  Speaker 2: a process. So it's not a perfection that comes from
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  Speaker 2: knowing all the right answers. See, so often when it
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  Speaker 2: comes to prayer, when it comes to life, we think, oh,
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  Speaker 2: if I just do all the right answer and I'm good,
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  Speaker 2: and we forget that God actually doesn't need us to
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  Speaker 2: know all the right answers. What he wants us to
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  Speaker 2: do is he wants us to walk closely with his person.
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  Speaker 2: He wants us to understand his ways, and from there
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  Speaker 2: we participate with him to do whatever it is he's
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  Speaker 2: called us into. And if I'm honest, James, this is
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  Speaker 2: just me. Maybe you're different. If I'm honest in my life,
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  Speaker 2: when i'm really the anxiety of being is coming at
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  Speaker 2: me right, the questions of protection, of provision of purpose,
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  Speaker 2: when those are coming at me. If I'm honest, I'm like, Hey, God,
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  Speaker 2: this whole like relational pace, this pace of wisdom, it's
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  Speaker 2: not working for me. Here's what I need. I need
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  Speaker 2: you to give me the answers. I need you like
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  Speaker 2: I'm gonna fast, I'm gonna do whatever I like. I
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  Speaker 2: need the answers. And I would never articulate this, but
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  Speaker 2: it's almost like God, I'm saying, give me the answers,
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  Speaker 2: then get out of my way. I don't really want
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  Speaker 2: to walk with you and encounter the messiness of real
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  Speaker 2: relationship and dependence on you. I'll be faithful, I'll do
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  Speaker 2: the right things. And I think of James, I think
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  Speaker 2: of Isaiah thirty because I love this. I love this
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  Speaker 2: picture of how God speaks to us because I tell people,
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  Speaker 2: when it comes to matter as a prayer, God states
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  Speaker 2: his will in you more than he speaks his will
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  Speaker 2: to you. And even when we say things like, hey,
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  Speaker 2: prayer isn't a monologue, it's a dialogue, people are like, Okay, great,
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  Speaker 2: I don't hear God. Like why you say that? Right?
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  Speaker 1: Maybe that works for you, but he heard voices I'm
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  Speaker 1: not but.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, like, I'm not hearing these voices. And what's sad
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  Speaker 2: Because again, prayer has become so transactional and we reduce
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  Speaker 2: prayer to our idea of a conversation. We forget that
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  Speaker 2: God designed our entire person to be a receptor. So
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  Speaker 2: even if you look at the life of the Son
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  Speaker 2: and I'm gonna come back to Isah Isaiah. Thirdy look
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  Speaker 2: at jesus life. There's only three times when the Father
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  Speaker 2: audibly speaks into Jesus' situations. It's Baptism, Mount, Transfiguration, and
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  Speaker 2: John twelve. All three times the Father speaks. Truly, the
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  Speaker 2: Father is mainly speaking for the people around Jesus. He's
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  Speaker 2: actually not really speaking for Jesus's sake. And we read
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  Speaker 2: in John five Jesus says, I only do what I
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  Speaker 2: see the Father. Doing so, he's living in step with
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  Speaker 2: God through the power of the spirit. This is why
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  Speaker 2: he tells us in John fourteen fifteen sixteen different ways,
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  Speaker 2: it's better for you that I go away. There are
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  Speaker 2: things that you are trying to grasp intellectually, conceptually that
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  Speaker 2: can only be understood as you surrender to the reality
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  Speaker 2: of My spirit. Something about your internal reality, your interior
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  Speaker 2: life is going to change when you receive the spirit
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  Speaker 2: of God. This is the I think of Luke e
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  Speaker 2: Levin where Jesus makes a statement. He says, even though
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  Speaker 2: you are evil, know how to give good gifts to
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  Speaker 2: your children. How much more will your Father in Heaven
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  Speaker 2: give his very spirit, his nature to those who ask.
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  Speaker 2: It doesn't say that he's going to give them the bread.
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  Speaker 2: It says he's going to give them his nature. And
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  Speaker 2: when when I think about how God speaks to us,
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  Speaker 2: and I think of my own life, when I when
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  Speaker 2: I look back and those moments when it seemed like
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  Speaker 2: God was silent or it seemed like things weren't clear,
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  Speaker 2: I know there was an invitation to step in faith.
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  Speaker 2: And then it was like as I was taking that step,
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  Speaker 2: the clarity came, the wisdom came, when I just stood
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  Speaker 2: there and I was like, all right, God, give me
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  Speaker 2: the answers. It was almost like I was like, hey,
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  Speaker 2: just start, just start taking that step, and to watch
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  Speaker 2: what I do. Watch how I will confirm that if
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  Speaker 2: you look at it Day thirty, where it talks about
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  Speaker 2: this voice behind you guiding you when you step to
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  Speaker 2: the left or the right, it's this idea that when
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: you start taking the step, it's like he's directing it.
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  Speaker 2: It's not before, it's actually when you start taking the
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: steps of Okay, God, is this the right move? Okay, okay,
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  Speaker 2: you want me to move a little left, I'll move
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  Speaker 2: a little left. And when I started to understand that,
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  Speaker 2: a life of prayer and a life of connection with
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  Speaker 2: God started to take on a different form than I
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  Speaker 2: was like, God, I better get the exact answer, and
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  Speaker 2: I bet it. Have all my boxes checked, and I
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  Speaker 2: better know the point and all the sub points and
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  Speaker 2: have all the clarity. And then I roise, you know what,
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  Speaker 2: I'm just a control freak, and God's inviting me beyond
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  Speaker 2: the anxiety that comes when I'm a control freak.
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  Speaker 1: It's a really interest. I mean, they tell you this
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  Speaker 1: in seminary. You know you'll never be able to apply
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  Speaker 1: everything that you learn. And I think that's true, you
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: never are able to apply everything that you learn. But
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  Speaker 1: I think what they sometimes miss is that in applying,
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  Speaker 1: you're going to learn more than you could ever know.
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  Speaker 1: And so you sort of sit back and you're like,
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  Speaker 1: you know, I love going to Malachi three ten. It's
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: sort of been co opted sometimes by the health and
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  Speaker 1: wealth kind of stuff, But you look at that dynamic,
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  Speaker 1: it's perfectly describing what you're saying. God is telling me Israelites, Hey,
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  Speaker 1: you've held back these sacrifices from Me and you're expecting
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: that to solve your immediate problem. The logic makes sense,
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  Speaker 1: but the theologic doesn't make any sense, right, So bring
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  Speaker 1: me the tithe test me, you know, test me by
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: trying me. This is the kind of test that we're
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: supposed to have. And I think it's a beautiful dynamic
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: that you're painting there with prayer, because it is just
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: it's not about saying the right words.
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: It's not like a magic incantation.
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: We have to get all the accents right and all
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: the you know, say all the right things, and then
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: all of a sudden, that's like you know, rubbing the
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: Genie in the bottle and we get all our wishes.
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: The reality is it's about the process of just doing it. Yes,
• 17:26
  Speaker 3: I often use the now.
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: I was a personal trainer when I was doing my
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: MDIF and I'll tell people, you know, I never had
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: a client come in and say, Okay, today for your workout,
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: you're gonna sit in the corner and watch me lift.
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: Like there are just some things you have to do
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: yourself for you to get any benefit out of it.
• 17:41
  Speaker 3: You've actually got to do the work yourself.
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: And that's what I kind of hear you saying, is
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: that prayer has to become this practice because not so
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: much because it's a yes, it's an act of obedience,
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: but also it's really formative that will change you as
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: you do it, even when you're.
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: Not doing it, you know in the quote unquote.
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: Right way maybe right like you know they're not doing
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: it as you're the best prayer or something like that.
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: Sure, So okay to use your metaphor, because I think
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: that's a great metaphor. Jim showing up in the gym
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: uh regularly. You know, getting in the gym with a
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: with a regularity is more important than intensity. Wouldn't you agree, okay,
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: So so what what I have? What I have found,
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: So there's an interesting relationship here. What I've found is
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: showing up with what we have is a great place
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: to start. Now that being said, you know this, if
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: someone gets in the gym and they start doing an
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: exercise in a way that is going to hurt them,
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: injure them, they're going to end up being out of
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: the gym for a long time, okay, or unable to
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: do any kind of movement that is specific to that area.
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: And James, I think this is what has happened with prayer.
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: When you make yourself to hear or the villain of prayer,
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: you stop showing up because you become disillusioned, You become injured,
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: You bere like, no, this isn't working when I go
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: in here. Actually there's just there's more pain, there's more suffering.
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: I'm not able to navigate my daily life in a
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: way that's healthy. And no, it's not. It's not that
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: the gem is the problem necessarily, because pain is formative.
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think about what Hebrews five says and
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: describing the sun. Though he was a son, he learned obedience,
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: he learned what it was to be a son through
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: the pain that he navigated, through what he suffered, and
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: I love what you called out from Alci three ten.
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: Going later in Hebrews Hebrews nine and ten, where the
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: writer of Hebrews is describing this dynamic of Look, God
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: doesn't want your transaction. Really, it's not about the blood
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: of bulls and goats. It's not about something that is
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: at arm's length. It's about purifying the consciousness of the worshiper.
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: The worshiper needs to be able to enter, going back
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: to chapter four, enter the Throne of Grace. If I'm
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: mercy and grace to help in their time of need.
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: There needs to be this confidence that isn't predicated on
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: what you've done and what you haven't done, but on
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: your submission. You're surrender to the work of Jesus in
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: the spirit of grace and the transformational power of grace,
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: which gives you the ability to do what you otherwise
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: can never do in your own strength. It's not about
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: your own moral muscle. It's about the work of the spirit,
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: the sanctifying work of the spirit that makes the impossible
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: possible in your life. And so for me, when it
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: comes to prayer. There there's so much religious bondage that
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: keeps people from moving from this place of self consciousness
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: to God consciousness. And when you're God conscious in prayer,
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: there is a freedom, there is a liberty. You're practicing
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: the right forms if you will, so you're able to
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: increase weight, You're able to go places with God in prayer.
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: And I'm talking getting real with God in prayer. I mean,
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: I think about what Jesus, Jesus prays on the cross,
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: quoting David sal twenty two, My God, my God, will
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: have you forsaken me? I mean that's that. I honestly
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: think that is the most real prayer any of us
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: can pray. I think when when Hebrews two and Hebrews
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: four describes Jesus someone who is who has fully understood
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: the human experience, I think that right there that prayer
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: captures perfectly captures the greatest temptation of the human experience,
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: which is to believe that God has abandoned us. Sure,
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: because and you know, the end of Psalm twenty two
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: is actually this, I think is his first twenty four
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: is is you do not abandon the afflicted in their affliction,
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: nor do you turn your face from them, but you
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: hear when they call. And then Psalm twenty two is
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: this beautiful messianic psalm that talks about the reconciliation of
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: the nations being brought into you know, the Family of God,
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: the Kingdom of God. And so that's not where it ends,
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: but you better believe that's where it starts. And I
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: tell people all the time, listen, God does not tell
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: us to deny our pain, but we are invited to
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: defy our pain. And you cannot defy by pain if
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: you're not honest about its existence. And prayer is such
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: a powerful and intimate place for us to be honest
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: with God. To let messy words fly if you will.
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: That was what my book Words with God was all about,
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: the first one I wrote back in twenty twenty three.
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: It was this idea, like a messy prayers, messy words
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: with God, there is there a right way to pray?
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: What does that look like? And I've had so many
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: people reach out to me who are in their sixties, seventies, eighties.
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: I had one gentleman reach out to me. He was
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: in his eighties and he said, I can only imagine
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: what my life would have been like. If I would
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: have read this book four decades ago when I got sicked,
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: he and he actually asked his daughter. I didn't know
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: this until after he passed, but he asked his daughter.
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: He said, you know, when I passed, would you please
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: reach out to Addison and ask him to do my
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: funeral because the book had such an impact on his life,
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: which was, I mean, an incredible honor, and I was
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: able to fly down and do his funeral. But my
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: point is this, my passion is I don't want people
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: to be held back in that place of prayer because
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: I think, James, I think even putting prayer in a
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: spiritual discipline's bucket is problematic. And you might be like, okay,
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: and I've opened your pushback here because it still puts
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: it in this place of like something you do, you
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: start your stop. Don't get me wrong, there's certain types
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: of prayer that would belong in that spiritual disciplines bucket,
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: but prayer isn't a thing on the list. It's the
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: thing that energizes the entire list. And I think we're
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: losing We're losing people, especially younger generations, who I would
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: say are more spiritually just because the nature of our world.
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: There's a spiritual hunger that's unique to gen Z and
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: they're turning to manifesting, they're turning to diy spirituality, They're
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: turning to these other things. And I think a part
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: of it is we've lost the robustness of prayer. We've
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: truncated the domain of prayer. And I want people to
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: realize it's like when Paul is using temple language, like
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: in first Cindu history, when he calls us God's temple.
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: That's not hyperbolic. He's saying, your embodied experience is a
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: microcosm where Heaven touches Earth. God wants to inhabit your
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: embodied experience in a way that releases grace, is transforming power,
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: his spirit in and through you and into your world.
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: And that can't happen if we categorize and we systematize,
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: and we limit how God speaks to us and how
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: He works through us. As you can talk so a
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: little passionate about.
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: This, No, it's really helpful.
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: I mean, I've thought a lot about the spiritual disciplines
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: and tried to get my head around them because one
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: of the things I used to have this buddy in
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: college and we talk about recipe theology, and recipe theology
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: is like you know, here, you just here's your list
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: of ingredients, and you do these things and then all
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: of a sudden, you turn out in your life is wonderful.
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: And intuitively I kind of knew that was wrong, but
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: then what's the alternative? And so when you look at
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: the spiritual disciplines, they can really start to feel like that.
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: They can feel like these are ingredients on your recipe list,
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: and whenever you use all of them, and you know
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: you bake the right cake, you're going to eat well.
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: And it's not exactly how we should be thinking about
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: them at all. But I also think prayer does hold
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: a unique place within the Christian life, and so there's
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: a fine line. And maybe you agree with this, maybe
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: you won't, but I would say there's a fine line
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: between helping someone figure out how to move into prayer,
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: how to practice it, what to do with it, and
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: there does take some level of discipline or a renewed
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: cadence of life, but ultimately that's not supposed to be
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: what you do your whole life. This should these things
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: I often talk about. It is like prayer should become
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: as necessary as breathing right, like it should just be
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: what we do. It's no longer a practice that I
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: put it into my day, It's just what I do.
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: And so, I mean, I wanted to ask a question
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: as you were talking. One of the things sort of
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: struck me is a lot of the things I've read
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: about prayer. You hear about the power of prayer and
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: how prayer can affect things, and you know, you hear,
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: you know, the old storage of George Mueller, right, this
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: man of prayer, and you know he gets this orphanage
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: funded all the time. Sometimes I think, you know, those
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: are amazing stories, obviously, but they also set a different
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: sort of standard right for prayer that doesn't always realize itself.
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: And so I'm wondering, if you think.
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: That prayer in our common church discourse, the discourse about
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: prayer that we normally use in our in our conversations,
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: how does it need to change so that we understand
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: what prayer is.
• 26:52
  Speaker 3: Going to do on a sort of a corporate level.
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: I think, you know, you kind of hit on this
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: a number of different ways, but I'm thinking about like
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: great awakenings, where you know, prayer is the first.
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: Thing we do, and those kind of aspects.
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: But I think there's a sense in which prayer can
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: become a little bit of a magic incantation, right where
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: we point our wand in something and it also transforms.
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: That's not the sense that I get from you, but
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: sometimes that's the sense I get when I'm reading about prayer.
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: I'm kind of like this sort of fell into a
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: magical moment here. So, yeah, any thoughts on how we
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: situate prayer, how we begin to talk about prayer differently.
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: So that we really understand the dynamic that's happening here.
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, No, I love that. And to go back to
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: what you're saying for me, don't. I don't like formulas.
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: I love frameworks. Though frameworks give us, give us handles,
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: but they create space for the Spirit of God to
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: personalize that experience in a way that reflects whatever we're
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: navigating in that day and whatever we're called to. So
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: there's so much when it comes to prayer about the
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: power component, which, don't get me wrong, prayer is, prayer
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: is powerful, and I've seen I've seen the power of
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: prayer in my life. I was just real quick. Sorry.
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: This summer, I was speaking at a men's event and
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: this I mean, this is wild. I'm just gonna warn
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: you this is this is a wild war speaking out
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: of this men's event. I get up there and I
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: have this pain in my back right like back right
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: of and I'm like, what is this pain? And I'm
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: not ready to get up to speak, and they're finishing
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: worship and I get up there and I'm not please hearing,
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: Like I'm not someone who like gets up and I
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: do believe that God heals supernaturally, but I'm not someone
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: who gets up there and they're like, all right, it's
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: healing ministry, like that's that's That's just not me. And
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: I just I'm just gonna leave it there. So I
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: get up there and there's just pain in my back fright,
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: and I'm like, God, what's going on? And then the
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: Holy Spirit, this this just comes out of my spirit,
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: I would say, through the back of my mind, into
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: the front of my mind, out of the deep mind,
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: and into my conscious experience, and I just I knew
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: that there was someone in this room who was experiencing
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: this pain and that God was going to heal them.
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: And I haven't I haven't preached, I haven't shared my message,
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: Like I'm just great, and I'm my God, like this
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: isn't like, this isn't my thing. I'm not going to
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: begin this message like I'm not started, Like what if
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: no one raises her hand?
• 29:23
  Speaker 3: I feel like.
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: Just like this, Hey, did you forget who I am?
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: Like no, I'm more of the teacher, Like this is
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: not me anyway. So but it would lead me in
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: this sense, was just like, hey, God wants to heal
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: some Ofe's room. So I just go, okay, hey, if
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: you're here tonight and you've got a pain in your
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: back right and I just you know, described it very specific,
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: would you know, would you please would you please raise
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: your No one raises her and I'm like, oh gosh,
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: And I just gave it like ten seconds. And then
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: second row, right in front of me, this young man
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: raises his hand, and I knew it wasn't about me.
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: I did don't want the room to make it about me,
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: and I just I told the guys around, was like, hey, guys,
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: would you please just lay hands on him and pray
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: for him. God God's going to heal him. And so
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: I didn't do anything. They prayed, they laid prayed on him.
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: I didn't even want to know if anything happened, because
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: I didn't want my message.
• 30:16
  Speaker 4: I didn't want that in my head when I was speaking,
• 30:19
  Speaker 4: So I went through, did my you know, share the
• 30:21
  Speaker 4: message got done, and this young man comes up to
• 30:23
  Speaker 4: me and he tells me I was in a terrible
• 30:27
  Speaker 4: motorcycle accident.
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: I've lived in chronic pain for two years. I told God,
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: I said, I can't even go to this event's not
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: I can't sit for two hours. And he just sensed.
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: I told God, tell me, if you go tonight, I'm
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: going to heal you. And and he was. He was
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: miraculously healed. Saw in the next day healed heard a
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: story after it healed, had had multiple surgeries like all
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: they said. It was just completely healed. The pain was
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: completely gone. I know I had nothing to do with that,
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: but I also know like there was a prayerful component.
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: He was praying. I was praying going into the service.
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: God moved in did something miraculous. But here's the key
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: when it comes to prayer, its presence. We typically make
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: it about the second, the third thing, the fourth thing,
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: the key to prayer. And you can even see this
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: in the Lord's prayer. Because Jesus didn't give us many things.
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: We're very clear. Was like, this is how you do something,
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: and he was pretty clear with the Lord's Prayer. He's like, hey,
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: there's something to the Lord's Prayer that we need to
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: be careful not to move past. And what he's saying saying, Hey,
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: the opening movement of the Lord's Prayer is actually a
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: call to realize the reality of Emmanuel. And so for me,
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: when it comes to prayer, I firmly believe even the
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: power of prayer, and I've seen this in my life
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: comes from when I'm living in the reality of Emmanuel
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: God with us. Then from that place, and that's why
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: I think the shame and the voice of the accuser.
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: I tell people you struggle to hear the voice of
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: God or articke the voice of God because you look
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: for his voice in the tone and tenor of the accuser.
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: You expect God and the voice of God to sound
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: like the tone in the tenor of the accuser. And
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: that's not how God communicates. It's just that's not how
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: the spirit of God leads and guides and woos and forms,
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: and so that's that's that's how I explain it to people. Look,
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: it's actually about presence and then from presence. And this
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: is why Saul five three, I'm a big fan of
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: what David says in the morning. You hear my voice
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: in the morning, I prepare a sacrifice or I lift
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: my prayer to you, and I watch he's describing this
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: awareness that we even understand now through physiology studying physiology.
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: When you wake in the morning, there's a sensitivity. You're
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: a reticulated activist, activating system. It can go inward and
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: not just outward in the morning. That that's unique to
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: the morning, where you can be more aware of the
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: entire embodied experience, what's happening within your deep mind, the
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: unconscious level. You're more sensitive in the morning. But if
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: you pick up your phone, what do you do? That
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: experience ends to start feeding just disrupted. You start feeding
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: the idea that you need to be omniscient or omnipresent,
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: all knowing, You need to be all places, know all things,
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: which is what the phone represents. First thing in the morning,
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: you shortcut what God's trying to do in your body
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: on a physically physiological physically, oh, physiological level, tough word today,
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: physiological level. You shortcut that with how you're engaging first
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: thing in the morning. So there's there's so much of that,
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: But for me, James, is about presence.
• 33:29
  Speaker 3: It's interesting.
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: We did a campaign called go Darksheine Bright and one
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: of the things we were it came about we were
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: kind of saying, how do we how do we help
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: God's people pray more?
• 33:40
  Speaker 3: What does that look like?
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: And what we ended up hitting on was prayer was
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: in competition with shopping on Amazon, scrolling Facebook, you know,
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: watching reels on Instagram, you know, all this kind of stuff.
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: And so what we challenge people to do is to
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: take a seven day fast off social media completely and
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: replace that.
• 33:58
  Speaker 3: Time with Bible study, prayer.
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: And then we did some guides and different things like that,
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: and people really resonated with it. I mean, the testimonies
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: we got back were, I do feel God's presence more
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: in my life. I feel more almost like awake and
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: aware of what's going on around me, as opposed to
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: having ourselves buried in the phone. And I think you've
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: mentioned this narrative a couple of times at Genesis three narrative,
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: where you know, we tend to think that the more
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: we know, the better off we are, and this is
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: sort of at least part of the temptation that Eve
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: is given. Right, Hey, you can know right now, you
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: can get this information right at this moment, you no
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: longer have to live in this paradise with God. You
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: could be freed from this prison and just you know,
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: realize your full potential right at this moment. But what
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: we consistently heard back from people who did the challenge
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: was man stepping away from it. I just feel so
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: much more at peace, at rest. And there was a
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: sense in which a couple of the people I talked to,
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: they said, no, I felt God's presence more, or I
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: felt wiser, I didn't feel just inundated with stuff right.
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: And so we had several folks tell us that they
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: just didn't go back on social media, that they kept
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: up that cadence, kept up that practice and.
• 35:19
  Speaker 3: Enjoyed it.
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: And so I think there is something too the way
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: we've managed ourselves, the way we've sort of put ourselves
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: in the position of needing to have all the information
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: we could ever possibly have at our fingertips. It is
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: very disruptive early morning, one hundred percent and even throughout
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: the rest of the day. I think we're really short
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: changing ourselves of what we could be, what we could
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: be experiencing, versus what we are actually experiencing.
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: Oh. Absolutely. And the structure of the prayer journal that
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: you mentioned earlier, what the way that I built it
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: is the first movement, so at forty days and every
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: day has the same structure. There's a reflect component that
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: invite people to engage with the reality of God in
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: a way that kind of like, huh, that's a little different.
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: So I tease out different qualities of God or a
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: life of prayer that might make people pause and have
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: to reflect. Then it goes into this place of recenter.
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: So the first one is reflect, then it's recenter. And
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: the idea of recenter is it's a breath prayer. It's
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: just I am here, and the reality is that we
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: can only be in this place. We were prone to
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: chronological wanderings, but only God exists outside of time and space,
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: and we don't get to do that. And so this
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: idea of God, I'm going to surrender to what you're
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: doing right here, to the presence here, whether that's other
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: people or that's you here with me. The reality of
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: I am here, God is here in our midst So
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: like that's that prayer. I am here, and then it
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: moves into rest because rest is not easy to enter
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: into and people are like, oh, well, what am I
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: going to do? How do I rest? And so for me,
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: it's like, hey, let's reflect, then let's recenter. Then we're
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: actually gonna be able to rest. And I invite people
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: to articulate and release any thoughts, any ideas that are
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: keeping them from rest. People don't realize that that's actually prayer.
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: If you're writing down to if you're identifying, Hey, God,
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: these are the things that are keeping me from rest
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: right now with you, that is a form of prayer.
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: And then after they release, then there's an invitation there
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: to receive. So, okay, take inventory of how God has
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: come through for you, what you've received from him, Where
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: was the evidence of his goodness yesterday? And then what
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: are you asking God to do today? Not in a
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: petulant or childish way, but when we ask, we become aware,
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: We start to connect the dots. We see how God's
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: moving in our world. And we're invited to ask with boldness,
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: with assurance, not because we're we're going to get everything
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: that we demand, but because we have the right relationally
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: to go to our Father and ask, and then ultimately
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: he's going to decide whether that's best for us or not.
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: But we are to come to him with boldness and ask.
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: And the final thing is respond, What is the spirit
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: of God leading you to do today? What is that
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: one thing? Those two things? And that's the structure that
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: I use. But something that came out of the Words
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: with God book was that prayer I am here. And
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: so many people now have told me I use that
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: prayer all throughout the day when I feel overwhelmed, when
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: when I feel lost within the shuffle and the hustle
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: of the day, they take a neat breath and pray
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: I am here. But James, as I'm talking talking to you,
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: I'm thinking about this because I preached a message at
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: this church back in July, and it was all about
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: how we wake determines how we watch, which determines how
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: we worship. Right, So it is that and it was
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: from Psalm five specifically, But how we wake determines how
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: we watch or what we see. Because you're ras in
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: the morning, if you feed it one thing, the rest
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: of the day, you're going to see that thing. You're
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: going it's the confirmation bias. It's that reality and your
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: RAS is your gatekeeper of consciousness. So you're going to
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: look for things that confirm and affirm that belief. And
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: so if you feed black, if you feed self sufficiency,
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: if you're doing that first thing more, it's going to
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: compromise the rest of your day. But you hit the
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: nail on the head. You set attention. And the reality
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: is attention is the currency of our day. Everyone in
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: our world is fighting for our attention. And so when
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: you defy the systems, the structure of our world. And
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: even if it's just the first hour of the day,
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: if you say, look, I'm not going to get on
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: my phone for the first hour of the day. And
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: I've been doing this for years, but I'm not gonna
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: get on my phone for the first hour of the day.
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: I'm telling you like a disproportionate effect. If you sacrifice
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: that set it aside. You wake, you listen, you read scripture.
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: You don't get up and perform. You get up in
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: your sensitive to what the spirit of God is telling
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: you to read. I'm telling you journal right down. Whatever
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: it is the spirit of God speaking to you, I'm
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: telling you it'll transform your life. So I shared this
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: message back in July with this church, and it's a
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: church I'm a teaching pastor, and I go back there
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: few times a year, and I went I went back
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: there a couple of weeks ago. I probably had fifty
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: fifty people come up to me and say, hey, I
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: started doing what you did, what you told us to
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: do with that list, and it's completely changed their life,
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: like my life. I can honestly tell you my life
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: is completely different today than it was five months ago.
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: And it was just that first hour in the morning.
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think people don't give enough credibility,
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: and I think we're seeing more and more research come
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: out of it. But the you know, we're not a
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: distinct mind and a distinct body. In other words, those
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: two are really intertwined together. We're a whole, integrated beings
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: and so you can't parse this stuff out. It's not
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: as if you decide you're going to go on a
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: you know, no sleep bender for a week, you're going
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: to be particularly functional after the end of that. I mean,
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: I think there's a reason that, you know, after Elijah
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: does his you know, little marathon away from Jezebel and
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: finds himself in the desert alone. You know, he's distraught
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: and he you know, you can just the exhaustion. And
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: that is not just spiritual exhaustion emotional exhaustion. There's a
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: physical aspect of this as well. All of it's sort
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: of intertwined, and so I think we have to be
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: really careful about how we're allowing our physical bodies to
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: interact with the world. And I would just say, I mean,
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: I love Ian Mcgilchris's work. He's done a lot of
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: work on attention. He's got some really interesting stuff. And
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: one of the things he's emphasized is, you know, attention
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: is a moral action, and I've kind of picked up
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: on that says it's not really a moral action, it's
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: a theological action first, because yeah, when we recognize God
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: as infinitely more relevant than any other actor or a
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: factor we're going to face during the day, now our
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: attention is rightly oriented and we're well prepared then to
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: respond to God from within situations as opposed to responding
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: to situations as if he's not there. And I think
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: this mode of prayer that you're talking about, this way
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: of thinking about prayer, fits so well. With that we
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: enter into a theological.
• 42:09
  Speaker 3: World early in the morning.
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: This is now the symbolic world that we inhabit, a
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: world where God actually exists, where He is active and present,
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: where we can experience Him throughout our day versus you know,
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: a world that is largely contained on a small device
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: and is really knocking us around, you know, depending on
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: whether it's good news that day, bad news that.
• 42:31
  Speaker 3: Day, rumor here, rumor there like.
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: This is not the symbolic and theological world we want
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: to inhabit. We want to inhabit the temple of God.
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: We want to be in the sanctuary with him. We
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: want to be in his presence, and this is where
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: we want to land.
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: I mean, I had a situation yesterday, James where I
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: you know, as I mentioned, I've been doing this for years,
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: and I will tell you it's been probably the most
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: transformative thing I've ever done. I actually struggle with insomnia
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: for five years.
• 43:01
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: And I made it all about what I was doing
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: at night, but when I actually changed what I was
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: doing in the morning the morning. Actually, I know that
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: sounds crazy, and I've shared that with different people because
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: I write a lot about this in Words with God,
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: specifically the insomnia but when I started to see that
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: differently in the mornings, and how that does set the
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: attention for the rest of the day. I love how
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: you said it's a theological issue. And as you were
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: saying that, I threw that in there behold. This is
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: that concept of behold. You'll find it thousands thousands of
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: times in scripture, and it's this invitation you don't see
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: things as they truly are. You should look again or
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: be willing to be held by something that you haven't seen,
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: that you haven't held before. And as you do that,
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: things start to change in your world. But yesterday, so
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: I got a call. I got a call from a
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: friend who's navigating an extremely difficult situation. Her husband is
• 43:57
  Speaker 2: on his deathbed and they live in you my Arizona,
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: And she called me early in the morning, late at
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: night and early in the morning, and you know, I
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: didn't have didn't have my phone on me, and I
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: came out of that time and I immediately saw I
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: had a call from her. Well you, I mean, you
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: know you served in this role. It is very difficult
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: to enter into that moment with people. Yeah, and we
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: feel this pressure when you enter into that moment. You
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: want to have the right words. And of course the
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: gift of presents is the most powerful gift right in
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: a moment like this. But when you don't, we're not
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: able to give them the gift of presents because they're
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: in Arizona. That looks different. I'm telling you, James, it
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: was way better for her and for me that I
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: called her. After I came out of that time. I
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: was a I was a better friend, I was a
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: better man. When I think about my kids, you know,
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: I've got four kids getting I'm ready for school yesterday.
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: I'm a better father for them getting them out the
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: door to school because I've had that time where I'm
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: not feeding this belief that I am God and that
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: I need to order my world in a way that
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: a God could or a God would. Instead, I'm looking
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: for the reality of God, the Kingdom of God becoming
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: real in my life through the work of the Spirit.
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: I'm looking for that, and what's happening I'm watching. I'm
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: seeing differently, And I love what Psalm FO talks about,
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: because when you prepare this sacrifice, the sacrifice of attention,
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: you watch differently. It says, I prepare sacrifice for me
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: and I watch you start to see things that you
• 45:36
  Speaker 2: couldn't see before, and it's like, and how did I
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: miss this?
• 45:39
  Speaker 5: It was always right here? And God's like, well, if
• 45:41
  Speaker 5: I would have shown you this, it would have only
• 45:44
  Speaker 5: fed this strange idea that you had this idolatrous notion
• 45:48
  Speaker 5: that you are God, and you would have gone deeper
• 45:51
  Speaker 5: than your problem. And I tell people, and I wrote
• 45:53
  Speaker 5: this words with God.
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: I tell people God is a way of not delivering
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: us from a thing when he knows that that thing
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: is ultimately going to deliver us to him. And he's like, look,
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: it's not this thing that you really want, it's actually me.
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: And then that thing becomes whatever it needs to be, because,
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: as you know, James, there's always a thing after the thing.
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: Like you might move through one thing and then there's
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: another one, and then there's another one, and there's another one.
• 46:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, No, it never stops. It's always that endless pursuit
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: of something. And if that endless pursuit of something isn't God,
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: we get ourselves into trouble. I've thought about this in
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: a number of different ways. I haven't thought about it
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: in terms of prayer, but you know, in terms of
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: making decisions what does it look like for us to
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: make decisions so that only God gets the glory, keeping
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: our attention tied to him even as we're making certain
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: decisions and really kind of looking through the scriptures and
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: seeing how different characters make decisions that are God glorifying
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: even though they don't really make a lot of sense,
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: you know, And it's like, these are the kind.
• 46:56
  Speaker 3: Of things we need to master.
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: But I think to your point, we master them by
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: starting well every day. We master them by entering into
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: this world where we recognize that God is present, that
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: He is God and we are not. And just those
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: basic sort of theological affirmations now prime us to make
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: better decisions through our day. They prime us to really
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: enter into prayer at various moments in our lives. And so, yeah,
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: I really I love the way you've.
• 47:25
  Speaker 3: Phrased that night.
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: I think that the way you talk about prayer has
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: a much more biblical and theological feel to it than
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: just prayers and practice here go do it, which I love.
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: So yeah, thank you, thank you. It's been a it's
• 47:44
  Speaker 2: been a journey for me. Yeah, it's been a hard
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: journey for me.
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: I believe it, man, I always I've had a few
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: people want to talk about prayer, and I always I'm
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: really honest, I'm like, I do I still write out prayers.
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: I have trouble keeping my attention, and so I still
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: write out prayers. And it's like, I wouldn't necessarily recommend
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: that everybody do that, but it's it's one of the
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: ways that helps me to focus in on what I'm doing.
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: And so I think there's always that Studying always came
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: really easy for me.
• 48:16
  Speaker 3: Prayer was always really difficult.
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: And I think part of it is that, you know,
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: to pray is in part to just surrender control, and
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: it involves that at the very least, and that's not
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: something I usually like to do. So, yeah, I'm with
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: you on the prayers a journey.
• 48:34
  Speaker 3: Let me ask you if we're getting kind of to
• 48:36
  Speaker 3: the end of the episode. So I usually ask my
• 48:38
  Speaker 3: guests one last question.
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: I'm kind of interested in this because you know you're
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: doing you're doing a lot of stuff.
• 48:43
  Speaker 3: You're doing prayer, you're doing discipleship, and.
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: So here's the question, what's one thing that you see
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: the church sort of falling short on God's people falling
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: short on that they really need to be doing faithfully
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: in order to be and make disciples in today's world.
• 49:05
  Speaker 2: Wow. I mean that's that's a big question. Uh, of course,
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: of course, my my ben is going to go toward prayer. Yeah.
• 49:16
  Speaker 2: And you know, and this idea of rediscovering prayer uh
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: as as the as the central life force of the
• 49:26
  Speaker 2: Christian life, because it's so easy for it to devolve
• 49:30
  Speaker 2: into so many different things where it becomes a social club,
• 49:34
  Speaker 2: where it becomes a you know, a religious competition. I mean,
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: there's there's so many things that we we just look
• 49:41
  Speaker 2: at church history where we missed it and and I
• 49:45
  Speaker 2: feel I feel that you mentioned earlier episode, like this
• 49:48
  Speaker 2: call to revival or practicing the presence or this awareness
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: that God is moving me, He's doing something in our generation,
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: He's doing something in this moment. I think it's respecting
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: the the presence of God and the presence of others.
• 50:04
  Speaker 2: I think it's it's I think it's that convergence is
• 50:07
  Speaker 2: like practicing the presence of God in community and letting
• 50:12
  Speaker 2: the sacredness of the presence of God, letting that spill
• 50:18
  Speaker 2: into our everyday lives. I mean, you know, the idea
• 50:20
  Speaker 2: of consecration, it's this idea of like with the sacred,
• 50:25
  Speaker 2: and so you're doing it with the sacred. So if
• 50:27
  Speaker 2: I'm consecrating my life, I'm doing it from this, this understanding,
• 50:32
  Speaker 2: from this revelation that Paul uses again and again when
• 50:36
  Speaker 2: he calls his holy ones, he calls his saints and
• 50:38
  Speaker 2: his epistles. This idea that my life is holy and
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: the God's doing a holy work through the intersection of
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: the presence of the people that He's put in my world,
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: and what happens when we connect those dots really is powerful.
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: It's it's synergistic. It's that idea one can put a
• 50:58
  Speaker 2: thousand of flight two and put ten thousand, and I
• 51:01
  Speaker 2: think discipleship, and I've seen this. I'm a part of
• 51:04
  Speaker 2: a men's group on Tuesday mornings, a couple's group every
• 51:06
  Speaker 2: other Tuesday night, and then I lead a younger men's
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: estopship group on Thursday evenings every other Thursday evening. And
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: those moments where we just create space for God to move,
• 51:19
  Speaker 2: they energize and they feel the rest of our days.
• 51:24
  Speaker 2: And so it's this idea of both being intentional but
• 51:28
  Speaker 2: then also opening up and allowing them more of our lives,
• 51:31
  Speaker 2: more of our sense of self to belong to the
• 51:34
  Speaker 2: holiness and the presence and the active nature of God.
• 51:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah. No, it's really helpful.
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: I think so often we get hung up on the
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: idea of holiness being about our moral character. It's not
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: that that's missing from the definition. An over emphasis on
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: it tends to leave us without these sort of cultic
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: and sacred varies, sort of present activities where we are
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: ushered into a moment where we.
• 52:06
  Speaker 3: Are really consecrated to God. So yeah, I love the
• 52:09
  Speaker 3: way you explain that.
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: Well, Man, tell tell folks where they can get Well,
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: you can get your book at Baker book House dot com.
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: I'm sure it's available everywhere, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, all
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: those fun places. I'd encourage people to get both Words
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: with God, but also then the new one Words with
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: God Prayer Journal, Right, I understand the intended to go together,
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: and then check out recover I'm sorry, Rediscover Prayer dot com.
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: Rediscover Prayer dot com. I'll have the links to all
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: this stuff in the show notes, but I don't have
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: the Messenger International website.
• 52:46
  Speaker 3: Is there a website you want to provide people with that.
• 52:49
  Speaker 2: I think the best oneud be messenger x dot com.
• 52:51
  Speaker 2: That's our establiship app. We have millions of users on
• 52:54
  Speaker 2: that app in virtually every country and so that would
• 52:58
  Speaker 2: that would be a great place to start. Messenger x
• 53:00
  Speaker 2: dot com.
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: Messenger x dot com, Addison Man, thanks for being here.
• 53:04
  Speaker 3: This is a This is a great conversation.
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: I enjoy these, you know, it's nice to be It's
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: nice to have somebody who really has mastered their understanding
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: of something on and we can.
• 53:14
  Speaker 3: Have like a really good back and forth. It's a
• 53:16
  Speaker 3: lot of fun for me.
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: So this has been great, and uh, I'm I'm kind
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: of motivated to get get back in and uh, you know,
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: figure out the presence of God myself.
• 53:27
  Speaker 3: Make sure I'm not.
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: You know, checking my phone right when I get up
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: out of bed, and so some good practical tips here too.
• 53:32
  Speaker 2: So thanks, thank you, James. That means a lot.
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: All right, everybody, Well we'll catch you on the next
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: episode of Thinking Christian.
• 53:38
  Speaker 3: Take Care.
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: I just want to take a second to thank the
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: team at Life Audio for their partnership with us on
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: the Thinking Christian podcast. If you go to life audio
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: dot com, you'll find dozens of other faith centered podcasts
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: in their network. They've got shows about prayer, Bible study,
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: parenting and more