Latest / Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and Culture / No Elevator to Everest: Self-Awareness, Joyful Work, and Ownership (Will Acuff)

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No Elevator to Everest: Self-Awareness, Joyful Work, and Ownership (Will Acuff) · 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 2: I'm Dr. James Spencer.
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Speaker 1: Through calm, thoughtful, theological discussions, Thinking Christian highlights the ways
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Speaker 1: God is working in the world and questions the underlying social, cultural,
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Speaker 1: and political assumptions that hinder Christians from becoming more like Christ. Now,
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Speaker 1: on to today's episode of Thinking Christian.
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Speaker 2: Hey, everybody.
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Speaker 1: Welcome to this episode of Thinking Christian. I'm your host,
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Speaker 1: James Spencer, and I'm joined today by Will Acuff. Will
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Speaker 1: is the author of a new book, No Elevator to Everest.
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Speaker 1: Excuse me, that's my Old Testament coming out. No Elevator
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Speaker 1: to Everest, Shift from Survive to Thrive.
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Speaker 2: Through Spirit-Led Self-Awareness.
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Speaker 1: He's also the co-founder of a ministry called Corner to Corner.
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Speaker 1: And so I'm happy to be here with Will, and
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Speaker 1: I'm looking forward to having this conversation.
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Speaker 2: So Will, welcome to the program.
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Speaker 3: James, thank you so much for having me. I'm a
1:01
Speaker 3: fan of the podcast. So to get to be dialoguing
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Speaker 3: with you today is a lot of fun.
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Speaker 2: No, that's sweet, man. I appreciate it.
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Speaker 1: And yeah, we were talking before you, you've listened to
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Speaker 1: the episode with Zach and so Zach Lambert. And so
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Speaker 1: I really enjoyed talking with him and I'm sure we'll
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Speaker 1: have a great conversation too.
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Speaker 2: So absolutely.
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Speaker 3: Yeah.
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Speaker 2: I thought maybe we'd start out. What is Corner to Corner?
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Speaker 1: I know it's a ministry in Nashville, but kind of
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Speaker 1: explain maybe how that came about and what you're doing
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Speaker 1: in that ministry.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure. So Corner to Corner, we are a
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Speaker 3: faith-based nonprofit that helps people from historically low-income neighborhoods plan, start,
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Speaker 3: and grow their own small business with the core belief
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Speaker 3: that ownership ends poverty. But how we got started was...
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Speaker 3: 18 years ago, my wife and I, we were just
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Speaker 3: really convicted that we did not have a theology of neighbor.
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Speaker 3: I'm a pastor's kid, grew up in the church, had
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Speaker 3: all this great framework. But if you said to me,
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Speaker 3: how do you show up and love neighbor as self,
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Speaker 3: as a lifestyle? I couldn't have answered that. I knew
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Speaker 3: mission trip. I knew one-off Christian adventure, but I didn't
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Speaker 3: know lifestyle. And we realized that we needed to move
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Speaker 3: in to that kind of neighborhood, a neighborhood, you know,
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Speaker 3: under resourced with all the normal stats that you see
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Speaker 3: in order to learn how to do that. And so
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Speaker 3: 18 years ago, we moved in and my wife, she's incredible.
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Speaker 3: She's way tougher than me as well. And she immediately
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Speaker 3: got a job at the men's prison. And she became
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Speaker 3: a former offender job training specialist, which is a fancy
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Speaker 3: phrase that just means she helped folks moving from prison
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Speaker 3: back into the community, get stable employment.
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Speaker 2: Right.
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Speaker 3: And they were coming back to the neighborhood that we
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Speaker 3: had moved into. So day in, day out, we started
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Speaker 3: doing life with these neighbors. And what we consistently saw
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Speaker 3: was that you had all these image bearers, with God-given passion, creativity,
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Speaker 3: and drive, but who often didn't have a bridge to
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Speaker 3: express that in the marketplace. And so back in 2011,
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Speaker 3: we launched Corner to Corner with this vision of how
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Speaker 3: do you do economic development where neighbors get to thrive
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Speaker 3: on their own terms? And I think so much of
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Speaker 3: the nonprofit space, we see, hey, let me do good
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Speaker 3: to you like this. Do you know what I mean?
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Speaker 3: And the neighbor's like, well, that's not kind of what
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Speaker 3: I want, right? Or, hey, I'm going to help you
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Speaker 3: get an extra dollar or two more of earnings per hour.
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Speaker 3: And the neighbor's like, cool, I'm still going to be
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Speaker 3: broke at the end of the year. That's not going
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Speaker 3: to move the needle. And so we saw entrepreneurship as
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Speaker 3: a way to help image bearers grow something that they
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Speaker 3: really owned. And so fast forward, started in the neighborhood,
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Speaker 3: just one neighborhood, And now we've launched over 1600 of
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Speaker 3: these entrepreneurs. Last year, we put 37 million back into
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Speaker 3: the neighborhood economy. And we are on track this year
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Speaker 3: to clear, you know, the mid forties for like $ 45 million.
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Speaker 3: That's fantastic. And it's, yeah, it's good. And it's neighbors like,
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Speaker 3: you know, we had one graduate came through the other year,
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Speaker 3: last year. And she's a school teacher in Nashville. Right.
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Speaker 3: And if anybody knows anything about Nashville, it's gotten crazy
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Speaker 3: expensive lately. Right. So if you're a school teacher living
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Speaker 3: off of those wages and you're looking ahead at how
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Speaker 3: you're going to send your own kid to college, right.
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Speaker 3: Cause you value education, man, you're looking at a massive
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Speaker 3: gap in earnings. Right.
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Speaker 2: Yeah.
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Speaker 3: So she came to us and she was like, Hey,
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Speaker 3: I want to launch my own catering business, like as
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Speaker 3: a solopreneur kind of side hustle, right? And her goal
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Speaker 3: was $ 10, 000 in year one, $ 3, 000 of overhead, $ 7, 000 to
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Speaker 3: get that college savings fund going. Well, fast forward the
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Speaker 3: end of the year, I hear from our team that
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Speaker 3: she did over $ 36, 000. And so I called and I
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Speaker 3: was like, what happened here, right? Like, what was your secret?
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Speaker 3: And she's like, well, you know, Will... there's two types
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Speaker 3: of marketing. And I was like, okay, go on, you know,
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Speaker 3: tell me about these two types of marketing. She goes,
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Speaker 3: you can take pictures of your food and put it
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Speaker 3: on Instagram and hope that people order, or you can
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Speaker 3: cater for free and close deals because your food's that good.
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Speaker 3: And I was like, so how did you do it?
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Speaker 3: And she goes, well, I found out that TSU, which
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Speaker 3: is a college here in Nashville, needed a new caterer
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Speaker 3: for their marching band. And this is, you know, the
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Speaker 3: kind of marching band that has like 9,000 different types
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Speaker 3: of drums. This is a lot of people. Grammy award winning. Well,
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Speaker 3: she caters for free and she goes down there and
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Speaker 3: she takes her grandma's caramel crumble cake, right? A recipe
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Speaker 3: that she learned as a six-year-old girl. And if you
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Speaker 3: hear her tell the rest of that, like the story
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Speaker 3: of learning this while, you know, sitting in her grandma's kitchen, Right.
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Speaker 3: You're like tearing up at this story. And you're also hungry. Right.
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Speaker 3: Like you want to taste that cake. And she walks
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Speaker 3: a slice of it over to the band director and says,
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Speaker 3: you know, hey, I made this for you. And he
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Speaker 3: takes a bite. And when his eyes are wide is
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Speaker 3: how good this thing is. Then she says, hey, and
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Speaker 3: I hear you're looking for a new caterer for this season.
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Speaker 3: And she closes the deal. Right. And I was like,
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Speaker 3: that's you're an entrepreneur.
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Speaker 2: Right.
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Speaker 3: And now there's this huge investment into that college savings fund.
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Speaker 3: And so, you know, we have one thousand six hundred
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Speaker 3: and thirty two of those stories. Yeah. Because at the
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Speaker 3: end of the day, ownership ends poverty for a family
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Speaker 3: and for a community.
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Speaker 2: That's really fantastic.
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Speaker 1: It seems like, so having read Elevator to Everest, it
7:16
Speaker 1: seems like some of the things that you talk about
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Speaker 1: in Elevator to Everest, well, would apply really well into
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Speaker 1: this sort of entrepreneurial space as you're working with people.
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Speaker 1: Because entrepreneurship isn't, I mean, the successes are awesome, but
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Speaker 1: it's often, you know, a series of failures before you
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Speaker 1: hit that success button.
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Speaker 2: Absolutely.
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Speaker 1: And so getting people to be that sort of self-aware
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Speaker 1: and spirit-led, it would.
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Speaker 2: Seem like those two would really merge well together. Do
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Speaker 2: you find that?
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Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely. I think, I mean, the reality is if
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Speaker 3: you ask any entrepreneur if fear plays a role in
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Speaker 3: their work, they're going to be like, oh, heck yeah, right?
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Speaker 2: Yeah.
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Speaker 3: But so often we then move subconsciously from that fear, right?
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Speaker 3: And it makes us increase kind of frantic action, right?
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Speaker 2: Yeah.
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Speaker 3: And all the studies show that it increases our cortisol,
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Speaker 3: our stress hormones, right?
8:10
Speaker 2: Yeah.
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Speaker 3: Which decreases our creativity and makes us make worse decisions, right?
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Speaker 3: And so self-awareness to go, oh, I am really afraid
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Speaker 3: of this. Okay, what's the story I'm telling myself, right?
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Speaker 3: And for people of faith, often we are telling a
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Speaker 3: story that is not shaped by God, not shaped by
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Speaker 3: His Word, and not shaped by His living Holy Spirit, right?
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Speaker 3: And instead, we're telling ourselves a narrative of fear that
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Speaker 3: then drives our actions. So, yeah, great, great connection point there.
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Speaker 2: And for you, it didn't really emerge out of that.
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Speaker 1: Like this book doesn't come out of a place where
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Speaker 1: you had, you know, some sort of big entrepreneurial failure
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Speaker 1: and all of a sudden discovered something. Yours was more
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Speaker 1: familial and, you know, just your everyday life.
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Speaker 2: I've heard you talk about it. I watched a couple
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Speaker 2: of the other interviews you did.
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Speaker 1: And to me, it's like life was just sort of
9:01
Speaker 1: running ahead of you and you're just trying to keep up.
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Speaker 1: And so talk a little bit about, you know, what
9:06
Speaker 1: prompted you to write this book?
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Speaker 2: What prompted you to find these practices? You know, how
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Speaker 2: did all that come about? Yeah, absolutely.
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Speaker 3: So, um, corner to corner had this kind of trajectory of,
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Speaker 3: you know, roughly up into the right. So if you're
9:23
Speaker 3: watching from the outside, you go, Oh man, these guys
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Speaker 3: are killing it.
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Speaker 2: Yeah.
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Speaker 3: Meanwhile, at home, what was happening was both my kids
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Speaker 3: are through domestic adoption. Both my kids out of Memphis,
9:37
Speaker 3: my wife and I really felt called to grow our
9:40
Speaker 3: family that way. And our son was, At a rate
9:44
Speaker 3: around age two and a half. And we were with
9:46
Speaker 3: both kids from birth. He stopped sleeping through the night,
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Speaker 3: not just like once or every so often, you know,
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Speaker 3: but like, I mean, months and months and then years. Right.
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Speaker 2: Yeah.
9:57
Speaker 3: Um and that started us down all the specialist doctors
10:01
Speaker 3: all the diagnoses you know um which we we started
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Speaker 3: living a life that was very different from our peers
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Speaker 3: right yeah um And the stress and the pressure and
10:17
Speaker 3: the lack of sleep and the intensity, right. That was building.
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Speaker 3: And then simultaneously, you know, I had come from a
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Speaker 3: background where if you find a problem, you just work
10:28
Speaker 3: your butt off until you solve it.
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Speaker 2: Right. Yeah.
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Speaker 3: Um, and if it hasn't been solved yet, just work harder.
10:34
Speaker 2: Right.
10:35
Speaker 3: Yeah. Rinse and repeat until it's solved. Well, this ability
10:39
Speaker 3: doesn't respond to that. Right. Um, And so I was
10:43
Speaker 3: in a recipe for just emotional burnout. And I remember,
10:49
Speaker 3: I remember feeling like battery acid, right? Just like, oh,
10:53
Speaker 3: like I'm just hollowed out and kind of toxic. And
10:57
Speaker 3: my wife was like, hey, she had gone to this
11:01
Speaker 3: great trauma therapy place. And she was like, hey, you
11:04
Speaker 3: need to go. And I was like, do I? You know,
11:07
Speaker 3: aren't we kind of therapized enough as a family? Right.
11:11
Speaker 3: which side note, like marital advice here, don't invent words
11:15
Speaker 3: to debate your spouse. Like that's not a, that's not
11:18
Speaker 3: going to work out for you. But, but she, my
11:22
Speaker 3: wife is an Enneagram eight. If you know that world, right?
11:25
Speaker 3: Like she's, yeah, yeah. And I am as well. Right.
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Speaker 3: We're both eight. And, but she drew a line in
11:36
Speaker 3: the sand and I listened and I went and And
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Speaker 3: I went to this trauma place and like, it's a
11:43
Speaker 3: retreat center. Day one, I'm there with a chip on
11:45
Speaker 3: my shoulder. You know, I'm here to fix my wife,
11:48
Speaker 3: that kind of approach, right? Just, oh, just the arrogance
11:51
Speaker 3: of it. Again, I only have one model, fix, right?
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Speaker 3: And by the end of day two, I was cracked open.
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Speaker 3: Like it's hard to describe, but I was connected to
12:06
Speaker 3: God's infinite love for me. And just such a profoundly
12:09
Speaker 3: healing way that I had this transformative experience, but I
12:16
Speaker 3: knew I was going back to a really hard context,
12:20
Speaker 3: you know? And so I, I was like, okay, God,
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Speaker 3: I don't want this to be this one mountaintop experience
12:28
Speaker 3: I had.
12:29
Speaker 2: Right.
12:29
Speaker 3: I mean, how many of us have gone to a
12:31
Speaker 3: retreat or a church thing? And then like three weeks later,
12:34
Speaker 3: it feels like nothing changed. And so I took my
12:39
Speaker 3: whole life and I said, God, here's everything. Let's turn
12:43
Speaker 3: it into a joy lab. Let's figure out what does
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Speaker 3: it look like to live more joyfully in the Lord
12:51
Speaker 3: every day. And so I just started coming up with
12:55
Speaker 3: all these different ways and practices and rhythms. A lot
12:59
Speaker 3: of them grounded in kind of the tradition of contemplative
13:03
Speaker 3: prayer and faiths. Um, and, and that's what gave rise
13:06
Speaker 3: to the book. The book is really, I took that
13:08
Speaker 3: journal and turned it into a book. Okay.
13:12
Speaker 1: So when you're, um, just kind of returning to a
13:15
Speaker 1: little bit of this, I mean, I went through, I've
13:17
Speaker 1: been in counseling as well. And one of the things
13:20
Speaker 1: I did is knowing myself as an eight, I was like, Hey,
13:24
Speaker 1: I can't go. And I, so, um, I'm a theologian, right?
13:27
Speaker 1: I did the whole PhD theological studies thing. So I'm like, yeah, yeah.
13:33
Speaker 1: I probably shouldn't go to a Christian counselor. That was
13:35
Speaker 1: my first thought. I'm like, like, it doesn't need to
13:38
Speaker 1: turn into a debate. And so what I found was
13:41
Speaker 1: my choice of counselor was really crucial. to getting anything through, right?
13:47
Speaker 1: I just needed someone to help guide and I didn't
13:50
Speaker 1: need to have a fight with anybody in the room, right?
13:52
Speaker 1: Not a physical fight, but just like, I didn't want
13:56
Speaker 1: to be, you know, sort of in that competitive mode
13:59
Speaker 1: that eights tend to get into. How did that, so
14:02
Speaker 1: when you're in this sort of trauma counseling sort of
14:06
Speaker 1: setting and you're having this big breakthrough, Can you identify
14:09
Speaker 1: some of the elements that really helped you get there?
14:12
Speaker 2: Like, how did you open yourself up to it?
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Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, great question. I mean, so I should say
14:18
Speaker 3: this place that I went to is not faith-based, right?
14:24
Speaker 3: And so it just so happened that in my small group,
14:27
Speaker 3: like my therapy small group, we were all believers. And
14:30
Speaker 3: there was, you know, I laugh at God's, you know.
14:33
Speaker 3: his love for me in that, you know? But I,
14:39
Speaker 3: one of the things they did was they can, they
14:42
Speaker 3: helped me see that so much of my life had
14:44
Speaker 3: been driven by performance. And it made receiving love very
14:49
Speaker 3: hard for me because I linked performance to love. And
14:54
Speaker 3: so I always needed to get better in order to
14:57
Speaker 3: be okay enough.
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Speaker 2: Right.
15:00
Speaker 3: Almost like you think about the older brother and the
15:02
Speaker 3: prodigal son story. Right. You get this sense when, when
15:05
Speaker 3: the father and his mercy goes out to the darkness and,
15:09
Speaker 3: and to check on his older son who won't come
15:11
Speaker 3: into the party, you know, he, he hears him out
15:15
Speaker 3: and the son's like, you know, you won't even give
15:18
Speaker 3: me a goat. Like, right. Like you're fatted calf for
15:20
Speaker 3: the younger son. Who's an idiot. But me, I don't
15:23
Speaker 3: even get a goat for me and my friends. Right.
15:27
Speaker 3: And the father says to him, wait a minute. All
15:30
Speaker 3: that I have is yours. In other words, this sense
15:33
Speaker 3: of like, you thought this was about like you achieving
15:36
Speaker 3: or you get into a level where then you could
15:39
Speaker 3: have the party. And the father's like, you could have
15:41
Speaker 3: been having a party every single night, right? Like you
15:46
Speaker 3: have all of my love, you know? And so that
15:51
Speaker 3: was a big thing that happened there was unwinding that.
15:56
Speaker 3: And then another big shift for me was I was
15:59
Speaker 3: in a massive victim mindset. um, without realizing it, you know? Yeah.
16:05
Speaker 3: And kind of that, I won't be better unless this
16:09
Speaker 3: thing gets better. That person does this. Sure. Fill in
16:14
Speaker 3: the blank. And they introduced me to the idea of
16:16
Speaker 3: radical responsibility. Um, and that I was a hundred percent
16:21
Speaker 3: responsible for my own physical, emotional, and spiritual wellbeing. Um, and,
16:27
Speaker 3: and I don't mean in a salvific sense, right?
16:30
Speaker 2: Understood. Yeah.
16:31
Speaker 3: Uh, They helped me to see, oh, wait a minute.
16:35
Speaker 3: If I'm staying in that victim mindset, then I'm always
16:38
Speaker 3: waiting for context to change versus grabbing a hold of
16:42
Speaker 3: the change myself. And I was ready for it, man.
16:47
Speaker 3: Once I saw that, I was like, oh my gosh.
16:50
Speaker 3: And that gave me a ton of freedom.
16:52
Speaker 2: It's interesting.
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Speaker 1: I mean, I think I went through that experience as well.
16:55
Speaker 1: I kept saying, well, if I just get past this
16:57
Speaker 1: season at work or, you know, once.
16:59
Speaker 2: This thing gets done, then.
17:01
Speaker 1: I can be normal again. Now I can slow down.
17:04
Speaker 1: And it never happened. Around every corner was just another sprint,
17:08
Speaker 1: you know? And so it didn't matter what I turned,
17:11
Speaker 1: whatever happened, it was like, I'm sprinting again.
17:13
Speaker 2: And all of a sudden I'm back in the exact
17:15
Speaker 2: same patterns.
17:16
Speaker 1: And so, you know, I had to figure out how
17:18
Speaker 1: to sort of put the brakes on and actually break
17:21
Speaker 1: the pattern without, and, and I'd be interested to hear
17:25
Speaker 1: your thoughts on this. You, you had a little, you know,
17:27
Speaker 1: your context is a little different than mine in, in
17:29
Speaker 1: dealing with some of this. But one of the things
17:32
Speaker 1: I found was that I became, I had to wrestle
17:35
Speaker 1: with going from overly ambitious James, right. To no ambition, James, right.
17:43
Speaker 2: Because when you start putting the brakes on, you know,
17:46
Speaker 2: my tendency is always the extremes, right.
17:50
Speaker 1: And so finding that sort of sweet spot where I
17:52
Speaker 1: can say, no, I'm ambitious, but I also recognize that
17:55
Speaker 1: a lot of the things people are asking me to
17:57
Speaker 1: do aren't going to have the effect that even they.
18:01
Speaker 2: Think they're going to have.
18:02
Speaker 1: And so how do I start sifting and sorting and
18:04
Speaker 1: actually doing the things that are going to, in your.
18:08
Speaker 2: Words, produce joy, right? What's going to add to that joy?
18:12
Speaker 1: And sort of in my context, what's going to have
18:15
Speaker 1: an impact on the work or an impact on the
18:18
Speaker 1: family or what have you? Like, what are those things
18:21
Speaker 1: that I need to be thinking through? What's going to
18:23
Speaker 1: have the most impact? And then doing those and sort
18:26
Speaker 1: of just being okay, not having control over most of
18:29
Speaker 1: my life, right?
18:31
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, yeah.
18:33
Speaker 3: Confronting the illusion of control.
18:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, so maybe talk a little bit about that. Maybe
18:40
Speaker 1: if this connects, that whole designing your day concept, I
18:43
Speaker 1: think in your book really resonated with me. I thought
18:45
Speaker 1: that was fantastic the way you described it. So maybe
18:48
Speaker 1: if it connects.
18:50
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Well, so I'd say like, I kind
18:53
Speaker 3: of went on this progressive journey, right? Where the first
18:57
Speaker 3: thing I was doing was developing a daily practice that
19:00
Speaker 3: connected me with enough self-awareness to start shifting my day, right?
19:05
Speaker 3: And when I say self-awareness, what I really mean is,
19:08
Speaker 3: you know, kind of the language of Paul, take every
19:10
Speaker 3: thought captive, right? That assumes that you're developing awareness to
19:15
Speaker 3: actually know what's happening in the landscape of your heart
19:18
Speaker 3: and mind, right? And so I started getting still every
19:23
Speaker 3: morning so I could go, oh, here's the big thing
19:26
Speaker 3: that's making me afraid today. Or here's the big thing
19:29
Speaker 3: that's driving this anger, right? How do I name it,
19:35
Speaker 3: release it to the Lord, right? Like cast all your
19:37
Speaker 3: anxieties on God because he cares for.
19:39
Speaker 1: You, right?
19:40
Speaker 3: Like how do you actually do that? And once I
19:43
Speaker 3: did that, kind of a big second phase was what
19:45
Speaker 3: you mentioned, this design your day, which was around, okay,
19:50
Speaker 3: if it's true that I'm an image bearer who has
19:53
Speaker 3: the abiding Holy Spirit, then on some level, I have
19:56
Speaker 3: everything I need to grow in the fruit of the
19:59
Speaker 3: Spirit right now, right? Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, et cetera, right?
20:06
Speaker 3: And so what I started to realize was, In my day,
20:10
Speaker 3: my normal day to day, I would have work activities
20:13
Speaker 3: and things like that that made me feel incredibly alive, right?
20:18
Speaker 3: Some have called them like a full body yes. And
20:21
Speaker 3: I think all of us can relate. We might have
20:23
Speaker 3: that one work thing where we come away and we're like, yes,
20:26
Speaker 3: I could flip over a car with my bare hands, right?
20:30
Speaker 3: And then later we have a meeting with a couple
20:31
Speaker 3: of people and we walk out feeling like we were
20:33
Speaker 3: hit by a bus, right? And so I started a
20:37
Speaker 3: journal every night at the end of the day. just
20:40
Speaker 3: going through the list of things that I did, not
20:43
Speaker 3: in great detail. And then I noticed, did they give
20:45
Speaker 3: me energy? Did they keep me neutral or did they
20:48
Speaker 3: drain me? And my belief was, and still is, that
20:53
Speaker 3: the things that gave me energy were almost like Holy
20:57
Speaker 3: Spirit breadcrumbs going, hey, this is what you were made for.
21:01
Speaker 3: The reason it feels so good is because that's you
21:04
Speaker 3: being played in tune, right? By the Most High. Gotcha.
21:08
Speaker 3: So then, then it's the belief that I can actually
21:11
Speaker 3: move towards more.
21:12
Speaker 2: Of those and.
21:14
Speaker 3: Design my day around that versus, I mean, usually when
21:18
Speaker 3: you talk to somebody, they're like, oh, you know, most
21:20
Speaker 3: of my day kind of sucks. I get to do
21:22
Speaker 3: one thing a lot, you know, like there's just this
21:25
Speaker 3: acceptance of so much awfulness. It's like, I actually think
21:29
Speaker 3: he gained that you may have life and have it
21:31
Speaker 3: to the full. Right. Yeah. Like not maybe someday when
21:35
Speaker 3: you die, but actually right now you were meant to
21:38
Speaker 3: be an ambassador of the good news. What would it
21:41
Speaker 3: look like for you to live like that's true? Yeah.
21:44
Speaker 2: Yeah.
21:45
Speaker 1: So what do you do with the aspects of your
21:49
Speaker 1: life that are inevitably there that aren't life giving? So
21:55
Speaker 1: designing around those experiences, I can get my head around that.
21:58
Speaker 1: but you're not encouraging people to go on sort of
22:01
Speaker 1: a permanent vacation and just do whatever makes them happy.
22:04
Speaker 2: Right. So, so yeah, that.
22:06
Speaker 3: Will quickly make you miserable by the way. Yeah. If
22:09
Speaker 3: you just check out.
22:10
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
22:11
Speaker 3: Yeah. Uh, work by the way was in the garden
22:13
Speaker 3: right before the fall. So like we are meant to
22:15
Speaker 3: create and build. Right. Um, yeah. So the way I
22:20
Speaker 3: look at it is, um, those things that are draining, right. Um,
22:24
Speaker 3: you run those through, if you, if you keep this
22:27
Speaker 3: kind of journal, right. Say like even just two weeks,
22:30
Speaker 3: you'll notice some patterns. Um, and you take the ones
22:33
Speaker 3: that are draining you and then you delete them, you
22:36
Speaker 3: delegate them or you do them differently. Right. Delete, delegate,
22:41
Speaker 3: do differently. Yep. Delete. You'll often find there's a couple
22:44
Speaker 3: of things you're doing that you started years ago and
22:46
Speaker 3: you're like, why do I even still do it that way? Right. Uh, delegate,
22:52
Speaker 3: especially if you're working in a team or even in
22:55
Speaker 3: your family, right? Like for example, at home, I don't
22:59
Speaker 3: mind cooking. Like I kind of enjoy that process. I'm
23:02
Speaker 3: not good, but I don't mind it. And I don't
23:06
Speaker 3: want to do the dishes after. My wife doesn't want
23:09
Speaker 3: to cook, but she'll do the dishes, right? So that
23:11
Speaker 3: kind of delegation. Now I've, you know, handed something off
23:16
Speaker 3: that I didn't enjoy. She's got it, right? And there's
23:19
Speaker 3: plenty of ways we can do that at work. But
23:23
Speaker 3: then the trickiest one, to your point, is do differently, right?
23:29
Speaker 3: Because that requires you to actually seek the wisdom of
23:32
Speaker 3: the Lord, right? And really get still enough and invite creativity.
23:38
Speaker 3: And often I'll pray prayers like, hey, God, this thing
23:42
Speaker 3: is on my plate and it's not going anywhere. What
23:44
Speaker 3: do you want me to know about it? How do
23:46
Speaker 3: you want me to engage in it differently?
23:49
Speaker 2: Right?
23:49
Speaker 3: And sometimes that's small wins. I tell anybody, don't start
23:55
Speaker 3: your day with email. Way to start a miserable reactive
23:59
Speaker 3: pattern for the rest of your day. Instead, take that
24:03
Speaker 3: first hour to really think through what the big priorities are.
24:08
Speaker 3: What's really going to have that big driving impact that
24:10
Speaker 3: you're excited about? And then time box your email later
24:14
Speaker 3: in the morning. But don't do it all day. Do
24:17
Speaker 3: it for 15 minutes. You know, there's things like that
24:20
Speaker 3: that create different patterns for us that by the end
24:24
Speaker 3: of the day, we're energized rather than drained.
24:28
Speaker 2: It's really interesting.
24:28
Speaker 1: Like when I read through that chapter, some of the
24:30
Speaker 1: things I've been thinking through lately are the difference between
24:35
Speaker 1: work prior to the fall and work after the fall. Yeah.
24:40
Speaker 1: You know, prior to the fall, we have this vision
24:42
Speaker 1: of work that is, um, cooperative with creation we might
24:47
Speaker 1: say creation is moving in the same direction that we're
24:50
Speaker 1: working so tilling and keeping the garden is not a
24:52
Speaker 1: chore it's it's the job that we're doing but the
24:55
Speaker 1: whole creation is actually doing it with us in harmony
25:00
Speaker 1: yeah yeah versus after the fall we've got all this
25:03
Speaker 1: toil and struggle and difficulty and so now inevitably we're
25:08
Speaker 1: working against creation in a lot of ways like the
25:11
Speaker 1: things are working against us and It just strikes me
25:14
Speaker 1: when you're talking about these challenges that we face in
25:17
Speaker 1: the day, part of it is that we're working against creation.
25:21
Speaker 1: That's not to say that we're going in the wrong direction.
25:23
Speaker 1: It's just to say that we live in a fallen world,
25:26
Speaker 1: and now the world doesn't respond to us in the
25:28
Speaker 1: way that it used to respond pre-fall.
25:31
Speaker 3: Yeah, totally.
25:32
Speaker 1: And so we're trying to figure out how do we
25:34
Speaker 1: repattern ourselves so that we're aligned with what God wants
25:39
Speaker 1: us to do with the Holy Spirit, that we're sort
25:42
Speaker 1: of participating fittingly yeah we're co-laborers yeah.
25:48
Speaker 3: Yeah i mean on on that point i've been i'd
25:51
Speaker 3: be curious you know with your your phd like i
25:54
Speaker 3: you know i went to reform theological seminary i come
25:57
Speaker 3: out of you know that uh a less uh studious
26:01
Speaker 3: version right um but one of the things that i've
26:06
Speaker 3: been thinking about is in some ways what we have
26:09
Speaker 3: now is better than the garden and here's what i
26:13
Speaker 3: mean In the garden, we have we're with God, right?
26:17
Speaker 3: Kind of side by side, that image of like we're
26:19
Speaker 3: walking in the cool of the garden, right?
26:20
Speaker 2: Yep.
26:21
Speaker 3: And then we have post-fall, you might describe it as
26:24
Speaker 3: like man flees, God pursues in love, right? Like there's
26:28
Speaker 3: this tension. And then we get God with us again
26:33
Speaker 3: in Jesus, right? Emmanuel, right?
26:35
Speaker 2: Yeah.
26:36
Speaker 3: And then Jesus in John 14, he's like, y'all, I'm leaving.
26:41
Speaker 3: And something better is about to happen. I'm sending you
26:44
Speaker 3: the spirit, right? And he says, we'll dwell with you
26:47
Speaker 3: forever and we'll be in you, right? Gives us that
26:50
Speaker 3: really comforting location, right? Because if the spirit's in us,
26:55
Speaker 3: then he's always close enough to help, right? And that
27:01
Speaker 3: in us feels to me like, oh my gosh, we
27:05
Speaker 3: were either with or in, you know, being chased by,
27:09
Speaker 3: but now we have in right that idea of union
27:14
Speaker 3: is ours so even if the world is still a
27:17
Speaker 3: hard place to till right we are in a new
27:21
Speaker 3: and dynamic way um connected into the life of the
27:26
Speaker 3: trinity right like and and i think where it gets
27:30
Speaker 3: really complicated is if i try to move from my
27:33
Speaker 3: own energy right It's like I'm a hundred watt light
27:37
Speaker 3: bulb versus I'm plugged into the nuclear reactor of the
27:41
Speaker 3: Holy Spirit's life-giving energy. Do you know what I mean?
27:45
Speaker 3: And so that's an idea I've been thinking a lot
27:47
Speaker 3: about that having the Holy Spirit indwelling us is just
27:53
Speaker 3: such an interesting and dynamic shift into what we have
27:57
Speaker 3: access to.
27:57
Speaker 2: Well, and I think also it speaks to.
28:02
Speaker 1: In the Old Testament, we have, I think it's Exodus 32, maybe,
28:06
Speaker 1: the Spirit of God is given to Bezalel to create
28:09
Speaker 1: the apparatus of the tabernacle. And all of that is
28:13
Speaker 1: done according to a pattern. And so a lot of
28:16
Speaker 1: times when we think of creativity, what we think of
28:18
Speaker 1: is what's coming out of my human imagination that I
28:21
Speaker 1: want to create today that would be different and new.
28:24
Speaker 1: But in that context, his creativity, his skill, his artisanship, Right.
28:30
Speaker 1: It's all used to conform to a pattern that God's
28:33
Speaker 1: already given.
28:34
Speaker 3: One hundred percent. Yeah.
28:36
Speaker 1: And so when we fast forward in the New Testament,
28:38
Speaker 1: we're looking at we're filled with the Holy Spirit.
28:40
Speaker 2: And what are we to produce?
28:41
Speaker 1: Well, we're to produce things in keeping with the pattern
28:44
Speaker 1: that God desires us to establish. So you've got this
28:47
Speaker 1: sort of patterning that the Spirit helps us sort of
28:49
Speaker 1: figure out. It empowers us to live according to that pattern.
28:54
Speaker 1: And as we live according to that pattern, now we're
28:57
Speaker 1: open to these new possibilities. We're open to these new
29:00
Speaker 1: opportunities that God wants to give us. And I think
29:02
Speaker 1: that really does, again, as I was reading through your book,
29:05
Speaker 1: I'm like, that really does relate to what you're talking
29:08
Speaker 1: about with this idea of, you know, designing your life,
29:13
Speaker 1: doing the things that aren't life-giving differently.
29:17
Speaker 3: Yes, yes. Right.
29:19
Speaker 1: Like that slides right in there. And it's like, this
29:21
Speaker 1: is how we do that. We're led by.
29:23
Speaker 2: The spirit into this.
29:24
Speaker 1: We're constantly looking to provide, you know, peace, joy, you know,
29:29
Speaker 1: you know, all the different fruits of the spirit. And
29:31
Speaker 1: that's how we approach these things differently.
29:34
Speaker 2: That's how we do them differently.
29:36
Speaker 3: Yeah, 100 and i think that directly pertains like you
29:41
Speaker 3: know you're not gonna get creativity in you know from
29:46
Speaker 3: god in a way that harms humanity right like that's
29:50
Speaker 3: not you know no you're actually gonna get uh you're
29:54
Speaker 3: gonna build things that create flourishing yeah right And not
29:59
Speaker 3: just for you and your family, but also for your neighbors. Right.
30:02
Speaker 3: Like that, that sense of the spirit will empower you
30:08
Speaker 3: to do the pattern that is good for the people
30:11
Speaker 3: that God loves. Right. So I love that connection point.
30:15
Speaker 3: That's really good insight.
30:17
Speaker 2: Yeah.
30:17
Speaker 1: It's, it's just such a fascinating, I think, like I said,
30:20
Speaker 1: when I was reading through your, your book, I was like, wow, yeah,
30:24
Speaker 1: this is all kind of coming together. And these practices
30:27
Speaker 1: that you're referencing, I think they do really fit that
30:30
Speaker 1: understanding of how the spirit works in our lives, the
30:33
Speaker 1: patterns that you're creating. And then I think some of
30:35
Speaker 1: the other intentional practices really do underscore that. If I
30:40
Speaker 1: can pivot just a little bit, because I'm interested also,
30:43
Speaker 1: you mentioned cortisol earlier. And I think this is one
30:46
Speaker 1: of those areas that's sort of beginning to emerge within
30:49
Speaker 1: Christian circles. It's not like we didn't know it. that
30:54
Speaker 1: the spirit, the mind, and the body are all connected, right?
30:58
Speaker 3: Yes, 100%.
31:00
Speaker 1: We don't think our brain sits in a vat or something.
31:02
Speaker 1: So we've known they're all connected. But I think when
31:05
Speaker 1: I say I think it's emerging within Christian circles, I
31:08
Speaker 1: hear a lot more conversation about the.
31:10
Speaker 2: Connection between these things.
31:13
Speaker 1: And so I know in the breathing chapter, at the
31:15
Speaker 1: very least, what you had was this research that shows.
31:18
Speaker 2: This technique, just breathing. Yep. does different things to our
31:24
Speaker 2: hormone levels in the body.
31:26
Speaker 3: Yep. Yeah.
31:27
Speaker 2: Right. And so we're having these physical changes that are
31:32
Speaker 2: prompted by a spiritual practice.
31:35
Speaker 3: Yep. Yep. 100%. Yeah. Yeah.
31:40
Speaker 2: So I mean, I'm not sure.
31:42
Speaker 1: I think it's just such an interesting, I guess I'm wondering,
31:46
Speaker 1: you know, I definitely caught it with the breathing chapter.
31:48
Speaker 1: I guess I'm wondering, How do you experience that across
31:53
Speaker 1: these other practices, even if there aren't research studies or
31:56
Speaker 1: anything like that? Like, how does that mind body connection,
32:00
Speaker 1: an actual feeling of calm?
32:03
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah.
32:04
Speaker 2: Isn't just a feeling. It's a it's a whole set of.
32:07
Speaker 1: Things that are happening in your body that produce calm.
32:11
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, so to me. One, and I'm
32:16
Speaker 3: sure you know way more about this than I do, but,
32:18
Speaker 3: you know, I think historically we got into some sort
32:21
Speaker 3: of platonic dualism in our thinking in Christianity, right? That
32:27
Speaker 3: is not biblical, right? Like we're, we are a whole thing, right?
32:32
Speaker 3: And so, like, one example of this would be, like,
32:34
Speaker 3: growing up, I was taught that emotions were bad, right?
32:40
Speaker 3: And just don't even use those as a reference point, right?
32:43
Speaker 2: Yep, yep.
32:44
Speaker 3: But, you know, as I've grown up and as I've learned, like, oh, no, no, actually,
32:48
Speaker 3: emotions are things I'm meant to learn from. Like, God
32:51
Speaker 3: is giving me this great sensor pattern, you know?
32:55
Speaker 2: Yeah.
32:56
Speaker 3: Like if I'm feeling really sad, well, if I get
32:59
Speaker 3: still and get curious, then I realize, oh, there's something
33:02
Speaker 3: that I need to mourn and let go of. And
33:05
Speaker 3: I need to get curious about what that is because
33:08
Speaker 3: God has called us to lament the heartbreak, right? I'm
33:11
Speaker 3: not meant to repress that. I'm meant to understand it
33:14
Speaker 3: and give it to the Lord, right? And so for me,
33:18
Speaker 3: part of it is the physicality of our emotions, right?
33:22
Speaker 3: And then also the physicality of our thoughts. So, for example,
33:28
Speaker 3: if I get cut off in traffic and I believe
33:31
Speaker 3: that person is a selfish punk who's just trying to
33:35
Speaker 3: get to some meeting faster, right? Then I'm going to
33:40
Speaker 3: drive differently. I'm in turn going to be more aggressive
33:43
Speaker 3: and all those things. Whereas if my thought is, oh,
33:48
Speaker 3: I actually don't know what's happening there. Maybe they're on
33:51
Speaker 3: their way to the hospital.
33:52
Speaker 1: Suddenly....
33:55
Speaker 3: In my body, I feel different, right? And then I
34:00
Speaker 3: drive different. Oh my gosh, right? So, I mean, take
34:05
Speaker 3: that to our relationships, right? If I get home and
34:11
Speaker 3: I'm hoping my wife says something really kind and encouraging
34:14
Speaker 3: and she's kind of short-tempered with me, right? And if
34:18
Speaker 3: I instantly get on the defensive and I make up
34:20
Speaker 3: a story that that's because she's being mean, right? Next
34:23
Speaker 3: thing I know, My behavior, my physical setup, everything is awful, right?
34:30
Speaker 3: Whereas if I go, oh, actually, I wonder how her
34:33
Speaker 3: day was. Hey, honey, what actually happened for you? And
34:36
Speaker 3: now she shares a tough day. And I go, oh,
34:40
Speaker 3: that's why I'm this short-tempered, right? But to connect it
34:45
Speaker 3: all the way to the spirituality piece, our actions, like
34:49
Speaker 3: our sins, they don't exist in a vacuum, right? They're
34:53
Speaker 3: driven by a physical body, right? And a whole being.
34:59
Speaker 3: And so I really love when, you know, the theologian
35:01
Speaker 3: John Stott, somebody asked him, what's the key to spiritual development?
35:06
Speaker 3: And he said, a good night's sleep. You know, there's
35:10
Speaker 3: something really true about that, that we have to take
35:15
Speaker 3: ourselves as a whole person.
35:16
Speaker 2: I mean, Paul talks about disciplining his body, right?
35:21
Speaker 1: Not just, disciplining his mind or disciplining spirit, but disciplining
35:26
Speaker 1: his body.
35:26
Speaker 2: And so, yeah, it struck.
35:27
Speaker 1: Me as I was reading through this, you know, cause I,
35:30
Speaker 1: you know, give your example with your wife, you know,
35:32
Speaker 1: let's say she has a, you know, sort of a
35:34
Speaker 1: short comment and you take it wrongly. You're not advocating
35:37
Speaker 1: that you stand there and do four breaths in that moment. Right.
35:40
Speaker 3: Which, you know, maybe sometimes, maybe sometimes, but.
35:45
Speaker 2: I, I have found personally that I should probably just
35:47
Speaker 2: move away. And if I need to do that, but yeah.
35:50
Speaker 1: I think what I, at least the tone I got
35:52
Speaker 1: from your book is this is all preparatory. This is
35:55
Speaker 1: stuff that you should be doing ongoing so that when
35:58
Speaker 1: you hit that, that moment, your first response isn't anger
36:02
Speaker 1: or frustration or whatever. It's, it is curiosity because you've,
36:07
Speaker 1: you've sort of prepared yourself for the various challenges that
36:12
Speaker 1: you're going to face and your response is just different.
36:16
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, again, we can get into the neuroplasticity stuff, right?
36:20
Speaker 3: And this idea that you're rewiring your brain, right? Or
36:23
Speaker 3: anything that elite athletes know, they envision what's going to happen.
36:29
Speaker 3: And so if you have none of that training, right,
36:33
Speaker 3: then often we're just in reaction mode. And like a
36:36
Speaker 3: great example, this is from the book, but part of
36:40
Speaker 3: my son's challenge is he's very dysregulated at times, right? Yeah.
36:46
Speaker 3: And we're driving home from a school event for my daughter.
36:50
Speaker 3: And my son's very upset, very dysregulated. He can't control
36:55
Speaker 3: his body. I'm driving down the highway and he kicks
37:01
Speaker 3: the windshield so hard that it starts to spider crack,
37:05
Speaker 3: you know, this loud popping.
37:07
Speaker 2: Yeah.
37:08
Speaker 3: And because I had at that point done so much
37:13
Speaker 3: meditative work, And knew what anger felt like in my
37:16
Speaker 3: body and, you know, all these things. I felt that
37:20
Speaker 3: rising flush, you know, where just like that demand that
37:25
Speaker 3: I must get control now. Right. I think if we're honest,
37:29
Speaker 3: a lot of us know that feeling. Yeah. Right. And
37:34
Speaker 3: I realized that was happening. And in the car instead,
37:37
Speaker 3: I said, nope, we're going to bring up some of
37:39
Speaker 3: the stillness we cultivated this morning. And I got very
37:43
Speaker 3: calm and I got very still. And then he responded
37:47
Speaker 3: to my calmness and we got home safely.
37:50
Speaker 2: Yeah.
37:51
Speaker 3: And then I helped get him to his room safely, right?
37:55
Speaker 3: Where he could kind of not be as in sensory overload, right? Right.
37:59
Speaker 2: He can have a space where he can kind of
38:01
Speaker 2: calm himself down.
38:02
Speaker 3: 100%. And then I came back to the kitchen where
38:05
Speaker 3: he couldn't see me, right? And I let myself feel
38:09
Speaker 3: that anger fully. I didn't try to pretend that that
38:12
Speaker 3: wasn't there. Because I find that if you just try
38:15
Speaker 3: to ignore it, then it will recycle itself.
38:18
Speaker 2: You can't bury it.
38:20
Speaker 3: No, I was like, oh my gosh, he cracked the
38:23
Speaker 3: window on the highway? Are you kidding me? Right?
38:27
Speaker 2: Right.
38:29
Speaker 3: And I think sometimes if you get into some of
38:32
Speaker 3: the contemplative faith circles, they often act like holier-than-thou introverts
38:37
Speaker 3: who are floating above the ground and don't feel feelings anymore. Right, right.
38:42
Speaker 3: And that is not at all what I'm saying, right?
38:45
Speaker 2: Yeah.
38:45
Speaker 3: But I felt it fully and I processed it. And
38:49
Speaker 3: I was like, oh, yeah, that sucks. And now I'm
38:51
Speaker 3: going to have to get that windshield replaced. Right. You know,
38:54
Speaker 3: not how I wanted to spend $ 400. But I did
39:01
Speaker 3: that in a way that kept my son safe and okay.
39:05
Speaker 3: And not me acting in my anger in a sinful
39:08
Speaker 3: way towards my son.
39:09
Speaker 2: Yeah.
39:11
Speaker 1: That's really interesting. I mean, I will say I, so yeah,
39:15
Speaker 1: I don't do a lot of meditative practices. After you're
39:17
Speaker 1: reading your book, I'm thinking about it. Like maybe I
39:19
Speaker 1: should get into some of these. I would say the
39:21
Speaker 1: one that I do most closely is the journaling aspect.
39:25
Speaker 2: I write an awful lot. And there was a time
39:28
Speaker 2: where I was coming out of one career.
39:30
Speaker 1: And moving into the next. And I really felt angry
39:33
Speaker 1: leaving my previous job. And so I started a blog.
39:37
Speaker 1: And before I published anything on the blog, I'd run
39:40
Speaker 1: it past my wife. And she'd go, nope, too angry.
39:44
Speaker 1: And I mean, it was like it was like nope,
39:47
Speaker 1: too angry for like six months until she finally approved
39:50
Speaker 1: a blog post to go out, you know.
39:52
Speaker 2: So I just had this.
39:53
Speaker 1: Empty blog because she's just like, you know, you're still like.
39:58
Speaker 1: But to your point, like I think I buried a
39:59
Speaker 1: lot of that because, you know, in a professional setting,
40:02
Speaker 1: you you can't just explode like that's not the.
40:05
Speaker 2: Right way to go.
40:06
Speaker 3: Unless you're the CEO.
40:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. Then you do whatever you want.
40:11
Speaker 1: But I think a lot of people probably thought I
40:14
Speaker 1: was working that out in the gym. I do a
40:16
Speaker 1: lot of, you know, lifting and working out, but I
40:19
Speaker 1: really don't enjoy lifting angry.
40:21
Speaker 2: It's tiring. It's more tiring than you think it is.
40:24
Speaker 3: Oh man, you're strumming with the anger. Yeah.
40:26
Speaker 2: Right. So the journaling was where I sort of released that.
40:29
Speaker 2: And I've kept that up.
40:31
Speaker 1: It's actually really, I find it to be really helpful
40:33
Speaker 1: and refreshing for me to just sort of work some
40:36
Speaker 1: things out. And, you know, you kind of make sure
40:38
Speaker 1: the internet's off and you don't write emails and, you know,
40:41
Speaker 1: where you can click send and it gets out and
40:45
Speaker 1: it gets.
40:45
Speaker 2: Done and then you can move on with it.
40:48
Speaker 1: But I think these practices you're hitting on as sort
40:52
Speaker 1: of like you're describing, I think that's a great example.
40:55
Speaker 1: the preparatory nature of them so that you can understand
40:59
Speaker 1: what's happening to you and decide in the moment, Hey,
41:04
Speaker 1: I need something else to go on here and I
41:07
Speaker 1: won't bury that forever. But right now this is not
41:09
Speaker 1: the right emotion to feel. This is not actually going
41:12
Speaker 1: to help the situation. Um, you know, and how do
41:16
Speaker 1: you think about that illusion of control?
41:18
Speaker 2: Right. Um, you know.
41:20
Speaker 1: I mean, you said you're an Enneagram eight, I'm an
41:22
Speaker 1: Enneagram eight. Um, control is just sort of the normal,
41:26
Speaker 1: that's my default. Like I should control this. Right. So yeah, absolutely. I.
41:32
Speaker 3: I think about this all the time and, and where
41:37
Speaker 3: I've gotten to is I think, I know this is
41:39
Speaker 3: true for me and I think it's true for most people.
41:42
Speaker 3: We would rather have control than faith. Like, yeah. Right. Like, um, but,
41:52
Speaker 3: But what that does, like to really pursue control makes
41:56
Speaker 3: your life smaller and smaller and smaller. Right.
41:59
Speaker 2: Yeah.
42:01
Speaker 3: Because there's you realize there's oh, my gosh, there's actually
42:05
Speaker 3: so much I can't control. So if I'm going to
42:07
Speaker 3: go down that path, I'm going to make my life
42:09
Speaker 3: really small. Right. That includes my interactions with people, work, whatever. Right. Yeah.
42:16
Speaker 3: And so what I've found is the key belief to
42:20
Speaker 3: unwind that is, do I actually think I'm safe and
42:24
Speaker 3: in the hands of my loving God? Right?
42:27
Speaker 2: That's good.
42:29
Speaker 3: If that's true, right? And I don't mean that in
42:32
Speaker 3: a doing sense. I mean that in a being sense first. Yeah. Right?
42:37
Speaker 3: Then I can move outward with as much hope and
42:40
Speaker 3: creativity and expansion as knowing that God's going to literally
42:45
Speaker 3: build the best path forward. Like if all things work for,
42:49
Speaker 3: you know, my good and his glory, then I can
42:53
Speaker 3: trust that he's actually crafting what some would consider like
42:58
Speaker 3: a custom learning scenario for me to grow in.
43:02
Speaker 2: Hope and trust, you know?
43:05
Speaker 3: And, and then it's, it's, you know, the self-awareness practice
43:09
Speaker 3: becomes like, how in tune am I am, am I
43:14
Speaker 3: to that?
43:15
Speaker 2: Right.
43:15
Speaker 3: And I really think about this, like, like I'm a
43:18
Speaker 3: guitar player.
43:19
Speaker 2: Right.
43:20
Speaker 3: And when you first pick up a guitar, you always
43:22
Speaker 3: retune it. Right. But depending on a bunch of different factors,
43:25
Speaker 3: it can go out of tune really fast. Right. Um,
43:30
Speaker 3: And if you don't take enough time to go, wait
43:32
Speaker 3: a minute, let's tune it back.
43:34
Speaker 2: Right.
43:35
Speaker 3: You can still be quote playing a song, but man,
43:37
Speaker 3: it sounds pretty bad. Right.
43:40
Speaker 2: Yeah.
43:41
Speaker 3: And so like these practices to me are a way to,
43:45
Speaker 3: to tune our hearts to the Lord.
43:48
Speaker 2: Yeah. That's a great analogy. I didn't know that about guitars.
43:53
Speaker 1: I have no musical ability whatsoever, but I trust you.
43:58
Speaker 3: I live in Nashville. It's part of living here. You
44:00
Speaker 3: have to play.
44:01
Speaker 2: At least one instrument. But I like that idea.
44:05
Speaker 1: Let's tune it back in because otherwise you're going to
44:07
Speaker 1: be doing the right practices in the wrong way.
44:10
Speaker 2: And it's just not going to sound quite right. And so, yeah,
44:14
Speaker 2: that's helpful.
44:14
Speaker 3: And I would also say like, I mean, like there's
44:18
Speaker 3: other key indicators, right? You get this sense from, from,
44:21
Speaker 3: I think some old Testament prophetic passages as well as
44:23
Speaker 3: the new Testament, like that streams of living water are
44:26
Speaker 3: meant to be flowing from us. Right. And I think
44:31
Speaker 3: that living phrase is so key. They should feel and
44:34
Speaker 3: be life-giving both for you and for those around others.
44:39
Speaker 2: Yeah.
44:39
Speaker 3: Right. I mean, like you, that, that image, I think
44:43
Speaker 3: this is an Ezekiel where like the, the water's moving
44:46
Speaker 3: out from the temple and every whatever, 500 yards, roughly,
44:51
Speaker 3: It's getting deeper and deeper and deeper, right? And it's life-giving.
44:56
Speaker 3: Like it becomes fresh water. People are fishing and the
45:00
Speaker 3: trees on the banks are giving fruit and the leaves
45:02
Speaker 3: are good for healing, right? You get this like, oh
45:05
Speaker 3: my gosh. And so I think a lot of Christians
45:09
Speaker 3: I know are not at all living in a way
45:13
Speaker 3: that is leading to more and more of that, right?
45:18
Speaker 3: They're living in a way that's much more self-reliant. self-protection, self-promotion,
45:23
Speaker 3: and doesn't look too different than their neighbors.
45:28
Speaker 1: I think that kind of leads me, because we're going
45:30
Speaker 1: to close the end of the episode here, but that
45:32
Speaker 1: kind of leads me into the question I usually ask
45:34
Speaker 1: for the end. What does the church need to do
45:37
Speaker 1: in your mind to be and make disciples more faithfully?
45:40
Speaker 2: And I think.
45:43
Speaker 1: That your last comment there really points to something that
45:46
Speaker 1: maybe we're missing the boat on. You know, I'm not
45:50
Speaker 1: sure whether that'd be your answer, but what would you say?
45:52
Speaker 1: I mean, what does the church really need to do
45:55
Speaker 1: today to be and make more faithful disciples for Jesus Christ?
46:00
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I think we need to have a revolution
46:03
Speaker 3: in discipleship, right? And the way I would describe this is,
46:08
Speaker 3: you know, in my background and a lot of the
46:10
Speaker 3: backgrounds of my peers, we grew up learning that the
46:14
Speaker 3: journey of faith is knowledge of God. And that the
46:17
Speaker 3: knowledge of self just a tiny little bit so that,
46:20
Speaker 3: you know, you need Jesus, right? Like be aware of
46:23
Speaker 3: your sin. But after that, the whole rest of the
46:27
Speaker 3: journey is knowledge of God. Right. And I think we
46:30
Speaker 3: end up in this over intellectualized brain on a stick,
46:33
Speaker 3: you know, all that kind of stuff. And, you know,
46:37
Speaker 3: going back, I mean, Augustine, even Calvin, several others, you know,
46:41
Speaker 3: go to the Greek Orthodox pathway. There's tons of this,
46:44
Speaker 3: but it was no, no, no. The, the, The journey
46:47
Speaker 3: of faith is a combined knowledge of God, knowledge of self, right?
46:53
Speaker 3: And so to your question, I think we need discipleship
46:57
Speaker 3: that helps people to deeply connect with self so that
47:01
Speaker 3: they bring their whole self before the throne room of
47:04
Speaker 3: grace and establish their self there and move from that place. right?
47:11
Speaker 3: To put it another way, it's crazy to me that
47:13
Speaker 3: the secular world has far more guidance, right? On so
47:19
Speaker 3: much of this, when we say we know who made us,
47:22
Speaker 3: you know what I mean? Like Christians who say they
47:24
Speaker 3: know the maker, we should be the experts on all things, physical, emotional, spiritual, like,
47:31
Speaker 3: because we say we know the guy who did it all,
47:33
Speaker 3: you know? So that would be my answer is like,
47:37
Speaker 3: I think we need self-awareness discipleship that helps somebody have
47:43
Speaker 3: knowledge of God and knowledge of self that creates a
47:46
Speaker 3: whole journey.
47:48
Speaker 2: That's great.
47:49
Speaker 1: I think it resonates with something that I think has
47:53
Speaker 1: been reinforced to me over my many years now of
47:55
Speaker 1: studying the Bible, which is there's a totalizing effect of
48:00
Speaker 1: the Bible.
48:01
Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.
48:02
Speaker 1: Like, you know, God doesn't ask us for 99.9% of
48:06
Speaker 1: our lives and we can keep that 0.1% to ourselves, right?
48:09
Speaker 1: There's no way to really prioritize him if we intend
48:14
Speaker 1: to get to anything else on our list. Like, that's
48:16
Speaker 1: just the wrong way to think about it because he
48:18
Speaker 1: wants all we are and have.
48:20
Speaker 2: And so as we think of it that way, now
48:22
Speaker 2: what we are is we're immersed in him.
48:24
Speaker 1: And that has to influence us.
48:29
Speaker 2: Everything else about it.
48:30
Speaker 1: We not only know him, we're not only immersed in him,
48:33
Speaker 1: we know ourselves in relation to him. We know ourselves
48:37
Speaker 1: in relation to others. It's the leavening effect.
48:43
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah.
48:44
Speaker 2: And you mentioned Augustine.
48:45
Speaker 1: He talks about, you know, all of our other love
48:48
Speaker 1: should be caught up in the current of our love
48:50
Speaker 1: for God. I love that picture. It's like, you know,
48:54
Speaker 1: little floaties out there just going along with the current.
48:57
Speaker 1: And it's like, that's what it is. So I think
49:01
Speaker 1: that answer is fantastic. It just feels like we have
49:04
Speaker 1: maybe gotten a little too compartmentalized. We've kept certain areas
49:08
Speaker 1: away from God and haven't explored those.
49:10
Speaker 2: To a sufficient extent.
49:12
Speaker 1: And we really need to get back to, I think
49:14
Speaker 1: a lot of the practices you talk about in your
49:16
Speaker 1: book would be helpful to people to really get them
49:20
Speaker 1: moving in this direction of how do I understand myself
49:24
Speaker 1: how do I understand myself in relation to God how
49:26
Speaker 1: do I understand myself in relation to.
49:28
Speaker 3: Others yeah I think At the end of the day,
49:32
Speaker 3: I believe that Christians are meant to be the most
49:35
Speaker 3: joyful people in all contexts because we're flowing in that love.
49:40
Speaker 3: And it doesn't mean that things are less hard, right?
49:42
Speaker 3: I'm not trying to minimize or Pollyanna-ish. But when you
49:47
Speaker 3: move like that and you move in alignment with self,
49:51
Speaker 3: with God, and with others, life can't help but get
49:55
Speaker 3: more joyful. Like, people are like, oh, man, being around
49:58
Speaker 3: you is life-giving. Oh, you know, like, in the same
50:02
Speaker 3: way that, you know, if we're supposed to be little Christs, right? Like,
50:05
Speaker 3: we're meant to be followers. Like, hurting people couldn't wait
50:09
Speaker 3: to get around Jesus, right? Like, a great question to
50:14
Speaker 3: ask is, if your discipleship is working, do hurting people
50:17
Speaker 3: want to be around you or not? If the answer
50:20
Speaker 3: is no, maybe it's time to do a little more
50:22
Speaker 3: of this work. Hang on.
50:26
Speaker 1: Well, Will, this has been a great conversation, man. I
50:29
Speaker 1: really appreciate you being on. And No Elevator to Everest,
50:34
Speaker 1: I would really recommend it for folks. We'll put the
50:36
Speaker 1: link in the show description. But fantastic book, outlined some
50:40
Speaker 1: really great practices that I think everybody would benefit from.
50:43
Speaker 1: And that's not to say that I think it's a
50:44
Speaker 1: self-help book. I think this is sort of a prophetic call.
50:49
Speaker 2: Hey, once you figure these things out.
50:51
Speaker 1: You're going to live more joyfully for Jesus. And so
50:55
Speaker 1: the fact that you get to live more joyfully is
50:57
Speaker 1: sort of a, you know, an ancillary.
50:59
Speaker 3: It's a byproduct.
51:00
Speaker 2: That's right. That's right.
51:02
Speaker 1: And so not totally not a self-help book, but I
51:05
Speaker 1: really do think this is sort of a nice prophetic
51:08
Speaker 1: call to us as Christians. Get to know yourself in
51:12
Speaker 1: service of the Lord. And so very much appreciated it.
51:16
Speaker 2: Appreciate the conversation. And thank you so much. No elevator
51:19
Speaker 2: ever is. Does a corner to corner have a website
51:22
Speaker 2: that folks could, uh, go to?
51:23
Speaker 3: Yeah, totally.
51:25
Speaker 2: Let's make sure we get that.
51:27
Speaker 3: Um, and then it's corner to corner on Instagram and
51:31
Speaker 3: on Instagram, it's will joy a cuff. If you want
51:33
Speaker 3: to follow along along there, I do a lot of
51:37
Speaker 3: like little spiritual guide kind of updates. Nice.
51:40
Speaker 2: Very cool. Uh, we'll get those in the show notes
51:43
Speaker 2: as well, but I just encourage you to check out
51:45
Speaker 2: will his book and, uh, everything else he's got going
51:48
Speaker 2: on corner to corner and, um, Yeah, we'll call it
51:51
Speaker 2: a day. Will, again, thanks for being here. This is great.
51:53
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for having me, James.
51:55
Speaker 2: All right, everybody, take care.
51:57
Speaker 1: And we'll catch you on the next episode of Thinking Christian.
51:59
Speaker 1: Just want to take a second to thank the team
52:00
Speaker 1: at Life Audio for their partnership with us on the
52:03
Speaker 1: Thinking Christian podcast. If you go to lifeaudio.com, you'll find
52:06
Speaker 1: dozens of other faith-centered podcasts in their network. They've got
52:10
Speaker 1: shows about prayer, Bible study, parenting, and more.