Latest / The Wholehearted Enneagram Podcast / Frank Peretti on This Present Darkness at 40 | Prayer, Fear & the Unseen Realm

Transcript

Frank Peretti on This Present Darkness at 40 | Prayer, Fear & the Unseen Realm · The Wholehearted Enneagram Podcast

• 0:09
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the Wholehearted Enneagram Podcast, the Enneagram for Real Life.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_01: Here is where you'll find conversations where faith meets story and strategy for lasting transformation.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_01: I'm your host, Amy Wicks, here to help you find wisdom and wholehearted rhythms for moments that matter most.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: Whether you're learning your type or deepening your spiritual formation, these conversations will remind you that the Enneagram shines a light, but Christ is the transformation.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I was thinking about all my memories with your work.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_01: And I know my mom talks about rocking my baby sister, who's eight years younger than me, and reading your books, especially in the night when the baby was up.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_01: I know.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember that her telling, probably telling us kids that or telling strangers about it when she would share your book.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: And then I remember reading it as a teenager and my eyes and mind being open to wow, I wasn't a stranger to the idea of spiritual warfare, but it took on a whole new level.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_01: And then I have a funny story as well.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: My mom, as I was reading the series, because by this point I think the series had been out, and we're we're talking probably 1992 at this point, but my mom was reading it while on a road trip to who knows where, because that's what we did.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_01: And we had a car, a van keep driving by us holding up a sign, and we couldn't discern what the sign said.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: And we kept, you know, kind of driving back and forth.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: And they held up a sign and they were asking, Are you LDS?
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_01: And we didn't know what LDS was.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_01: Later on, we found out they were asking us if we were Mormons.
• 2:12
  unknown: Right.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_01: Part of the church.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_01: So I just I think you should know that your your work is widely read and held up in honor, even beyond your typical even evangelical church.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: How fascinating is that, huh?
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: That is fascinating.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's been it's been that way.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: I I hear from all kinds of people.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um many of them are not Christians at all.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: They gave me credit for a good story.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you know, I didn't really agree with the religious part, but it was a great story.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_01: That's wonderful.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: Well, sow the scenes wherever you can, you know, and uh let the Lord do the rest.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: So absolutely.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: As one writer to another, I would just love to hear a moment because while I'm sure you did radio interviews back in the day when you were writing the series, I could you just give a little picture of what that writing process is like because I'm in the middle of writing fiction and hearing about different styles and different methods and trying them out myself.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's such a fascinating art and craft to practice.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: It is.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it is a craft.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um it's half intuition and half technical, you know.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: Nuts and bolts.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, yeah, I've encountered some would-be writers, like at writers' conferences and stuff.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: And boy, they've they've got the the spirit, the uh the gift, uh, the aptitude, but they trip all over themselves when it comes to technical uh knowing how to do it.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so there's lots of good resources to learn that.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: But uh yeah, you either have a gift for it or you don't.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: I've come to the conclusion.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um so anyway, the way I write, oh man, that's kind of a toss-up too, because I've gone through when I was Frank Perani.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_01: You're allowed to draw in all the different eras of your life here.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I I think it probably shows how you've evolved as well.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: Back in that era, I was um oh um uh I guess they call it uh um a planner or an outliner.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: I I would brainstorm, I call it well, brain spill is what I'd call it.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: I just start writing down ideas, didn't matter if they're good ideas or not, just keep them coming.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I'd write them down.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: I'd I'd come up with pages and pages of ideas, and after a while, some of those ideas would kind of you know rise above the others.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: These are the winners, you know.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: So then I started outlining and planning.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of like you get a clothesline.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: You lay that out.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: Now that's nuts and bolts there.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you've got your inciting incident and your midpoint and your and your uh apparent defeat and climax, resolution, and all that.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: You take these ideas, you start hanging them on the clothesline.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, yeah.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, no, that's got to happen first.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: So you put that over there, you know, you start working it out, and that's all for me, okay, it was really largely technical.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's timing the thing out, making sure that it baits the curiosity of the reader, keep it moving, keep raising questions.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: Never, never let things resolve, you know, uh ahead of time.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: Keep them guessing what's gonna happen.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: And then uh, okay, after I do that, then I write it, and then I rewrite it.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: So that's the form.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: Because, you know, the the at the first time you write it, get it on the page on the screen, get it out there, because the thing is got it there, there's nothing to work on.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, you I've got I've got a book over here on the other screen that I've just been banging away on, and and I'm looking at it and I'm saying, this is this is pretty bad.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: I said, I I keep telling myself, I said, just keep going, keep going.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: So tomorrow, tomorrow, it'll look different.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: You'll see something different there, and you'll know what to do.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: So um, it's uh a process.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: Now there's I've also encountered writers who are not planners, they call themselves panthers.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, they write by the seat of their pants, is the idea.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, Stephen uh James is really into this, he's even written books about it.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um, just start writing it, let the story go where it's gonna go.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, but he still follows rules.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: He still follows he does.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: You can't just wander all over the planet, so um uh I've been trying a little bit of that too, because um I've been covering a lot of frustration with this one right here because I'm trying to uh plan it too much.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: And uh this is actually a memoir I'm writing for someone else.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: And uh she's in her late 80s, and her memories just come in no particular order, you know.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: Oh wow.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm trying to organize all this, so it takes a lot of planning and there are gaps.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, um that's kind of how I do it.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I I'm gonna try and mix it up this time.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: Uh get another novel going.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: I'll see what happens.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: I've already gotten some of the characters I'm working on them without even having a story.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: I'm working on the characters because uh the lead character draws a lot from me.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, as a writer, you pour out from your heart what God has put there over the years.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so we'll see where it goes.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we'll try the Stephen James approach and the Frank Purdy approach and make some toss them together.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_01: See how it goes.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_01: See how it goes.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_01: Mr.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_01: Pruddy, I love that so much.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for indulging me.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_01: Again, I um I'm working on my third work.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_01: This time it's fully fiction.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_01: And so I um my other one blended both fiction and nonfiction, which I had a blast, and that's kind of what's led me on this journey.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_01: But I was I was kind of debating between the plotter and the pantzer, feeling like I'm doing a little bit of both because, like you said, you you were closing your eyes as you I know were picturing the people in your mind that you're gonna write about, or maybe the main character.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_01: And that's exactly how it's been for me, where these ideas and flashes and moments and conversations and how they look or how they their gestures and mannerisms, it's like they're so there.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_01: Now I've just got to try to get that on the page.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, that's awesome.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_01: I love thank you.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for sharing that.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_01: I one other thing about the writing.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_01: Did you grow up wanting to be a writer?
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: Or how did this role, this lifelong work, encounter your life?
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I was I was meant to be a storyteller.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, this probably goes into your uh how you say it, enneagram?
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: Enneagram, yeah.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: Uh-huh.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the the this probably goes into that because uh I have noticed that people are they they grow, they change, and they go through seasons, but there are basic elements in their personality that just stay the same.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um for a quick example, my younger brother is kind of an impulsive push ahead and do something without really thinking what the consequences might be kind of guy.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: Uh-huh.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_01: We all know one of those.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: Or our one.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: He got in nothing but trouble when he was a little kid.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: Well, he's a nice mature, uh, grown-up man now, uh, but you can kind of still see this drive, like when he's working in the forest cutting trees, or building a wall, uh, a retaining wall for his yard.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: He gets locked into something and just keeps going.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: You know, he's got this wall you can see from outer space.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um but anyway, my brother, my older brother, is a missionary, preacher, evangelist.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: He has been that all his life.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: Even when he wasn't preaching the gospel, he was preaching.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that is so great.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: And me, uh, just being honest, I think I've just been a performer all my life, a uh storyteller, uh, an actor.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it's not a presumptuous or uh artificial thing.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's just by nature, I'm always on stage.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um so I noticed that about us, how those things don't change.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: And okay, now that's a roundabout way of getting to my answer to your question.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, um, I think the Lord made me to be a writer since the time I was a kid.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: I was writing stories and drawing comics, telling stories to the kids in the neighborhood, and I just did it.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: And uh now they started getting into my adult years and trying different things.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: I was a musician, I was a contractor, I was a printer, who I worked for the factory for a while, which I didn't take a whole lot of brains.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: But um I never felt at peace and happy and like myself, except when I was writing stories.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: And it's you know, I didn't I wasn't published published until mid-30s.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um this present darkness was uh This Present Darkness was first published in 86, 40 years ago.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: And seeing in 86, what am I now?
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: I'm 75.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: Well, okay, roughly 35 years of age before I even got published, but um kept at that's amazing.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: So uh yeah, uh it took me a while to realize it.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's what touches on your your Anaograph thing.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: Uh you've got who you are, really, but it it's a journey sometimes to find out who that really is.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I remember the moment too, like I and the Lord really settled on it.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: A matter of prayer, and uh it's a long story.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I just think I remember the moment when it clicked, and I said, Yeah, that's what I will do.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: And uh took a while, took about maybe five or more years before I even had any success, but I knew what I was supposed to do.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_01: Oh man, I I would love to have that conversation someday because that right there, I think a lot of people are longing for as they sort through their purpose and desire to align themselves with what God created them for and to do.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think that moment speaks well.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_01: It's one I've lived equally in that.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_01: It's like what Eric Little said in Chariots of Fire, right?
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_01: The story of his running.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, the pleasure.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_01: He feels God's pleasure when he runs.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I would suppose that's probably when you put pen to page.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: Same thing.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: You know, when I write, I feel this pleasure, you know.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that, you know, that also touches on your relationship with the Lord.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: When you're on the track he purposed for you, it kind of opens up a whole new uh sweetness of communion with him.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: Because um, it's kind of like, okay, the scripture that comes to my mind is when Jesus uh confronted Paul on the road to uh Damascus, and he said, Paul, why are you persecuting me?
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: And then he said, it is hard for you to kick against the pricks or against the guns.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, Paul, you keep resisting me.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I'm trying to get through to you.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: You're way off base, Paul.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: You're not doing what I made you to do.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: And it's tough, you're making life difficult for yourself.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's when Paul got on the track and realized with the Lord Jesus, this is who I am, this is what I need to do.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: Ah, ah, fall speed ahead from there.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I can identify with that.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_01: Amen.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, that's so good.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_01: I kind of want you to put on um Pastor Paretti hat, so to speak.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_01: And I want you to pastor us a little bit.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yep, put that hat on, uh, through this situation.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_01: And it really aligns with some of the questions I know you're answering in this season, because there is a general skepticism among Christians, among believers, the body of Christ in general, even around spiritual warfare language.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I think I know why, but there's the situation here that I know neither of us know the full details and and the can know the whole context.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_01: But my um, I have two girls in college, and one of them had a roommate come to her who's doing pre-engagement counseling, which this is new, right?
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_01: Not pre-marriage, but pre-engagement.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, and and my daughter has had some concern about the church they were in.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_01: But the couple who is mentoring them recently addressed some of the anxiety and anger she had in the relationship.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_01: This is my daughter's friend, not my daughter, and and said that she was probably demon-possessed.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_01: And they were going on sabbatical, though.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_01: And so she needed to meet with someone who only charged$100 an hour but could help deliver of this demon.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_01: Because she immediately responded, Well, can you just pray for me?
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_01: And so this sweet young girl, just 21 years of age, you know, just new, new in faith and life and trying to figure things out, encounters this moment.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I think what's really sad is that I know this is not just one of them.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_01: It's one of many.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: And so I would just love to hear as you pastor some of us through maybe the heartache we've encountered when people have misaligned and misabused the context or the the truth of spiritual warfare, because you and I know spiritual warfare is real.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_01: And we are better armed when we understand that.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_01: But it's really hard when it's maybe been turned against us.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: This is uh there's a lot of that out there, which is basically I I some of it is charlatanism, but some of it is just play deception.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um and you might uh you might have some clues in about this from your model that you're you're working.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: What is it about some people that they just gravitate toward they go off the rails.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um and you and I've met them, they just seemed they seem so susceptible to the extreme, the weird.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: And um they also gravitate to churches that reinforce that.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um they gravitate to traveling evangelists and televangelists and uh oh there are some horrendous deliverance ministries out there that are a real circus, but I think at the core of it, of course, and you can have your spotlights on this, is uh these people, they're the ones with the problem.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: They're the ones that need the attention.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: They're the ones that uh I need to be significant, I need to feel I'm important, I need to feel that God is, you know, I'm not significant unless God is working through me.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um that kind of thing.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: And you if you look past that, oh, that's the problem.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: There's so many people who are hurting and in need and and need to get their wrinkles ironed out.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: But demons are not the problem.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um, that's another thing, too, is uh it's easy for us to look for a quick fix.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I had friends involved in a uh old, let's say an ex an ecstatic oriented church.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: You know, where experience and histrionics and all this stuff, they had a whole big section of the altar divine and offering uh deliverance and casting out demons.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: They were, but this was uh everything was a demon.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: I am a demon of procrastination.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: I am a demon of not being able to get out of bed in time.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: I am a demon I mean it just it just got crazy.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I think one of the reasons is this is one syndrome you get with Christians, especially young believers who don't have good solid teaching, they want a quick fix to everything and don't realize how complicated things can be.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um and and then you've got other people that they have plenty of problems on their own, but they make a ministry out of it.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_00: So uh this is um yeah, I encountered a lot of that.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I wrote, you know, these books about spiritual warfare, which had an entirely different uh intent, but then I got letters and I got phone calls, and I met people out on the road that were just in all kinds of extreme um deceptions, delusions, self-aggrandisement.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and I uh I had a real problem with it after several years.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: I just didn't want to hear it anymore.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_00: I was real tired of it because I knew it was false.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: I really appreciate the uh pastors and the ministers who they just stay solid.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: And uh there's uh and you you know, I've read their their books and heard them speak and so forth.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: There are sometimes people come in for counseling.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: Here's an extreme example, anyway.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_00: Uh a lady comes in for counseling and uh she's already been told by other ministers that she has a demon.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: She comes in for counseling, and uh the pastor begins to talk to her, he begins to pray for her, and then out comes all this stuff, you know.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: He stopped right there, he said, Okay, pick up your stuff.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Grab your purse, get out.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: You come back when you're ready to really deal with this.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: Because this demon stuff is nothing but an excuse.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: You need to deal with your real problem where it really comes from.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: And when you're ready to humble yourself and be honest, then we'll get somewhere.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: And uh you know That's good.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, of course I'm open to of course demons can get in there and they can aggravate things, the the problems you already have.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: But uh don't look for quick fixes and making excuses and shirking responsibility and shifting the blame.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: Face what you are at what you have, and let's deal with it there.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: And if there's some kind of demonic attachment from uh your past or dabbling in the old cult or abuse or whatever, we'll get to that.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but that's not the quick fix.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I gotta quit talking.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: You got me going here.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_01: Oh no, this is brilliant.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_01: I love this, it's exactly what I was hoping for.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_01: I okay, I I wanted to, I really wanted to talk about that because I know that is what my friend is thinking about, even as she maybe sees your name or remembers the book.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_01: And so, like this, this is real.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_01: And and and I wanted to almost address the objections up front in a way, because there are amazing stories.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_01: You have some beautiful testimonies of people's lives impacted and changed for the better because of your work.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_01: Otherwise, it wouldn't be coming out for the 40th anniversary special edition, right?
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_01: So this is a beautiful moment.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_01: So I'd love to hear what some of those are.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_01: I know they it's been impactful and a blessing in my life.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_01: I've seen fruit of it in others, but what have what are some that have stood out to you through the years?
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you know, broadly, generally speaking, the book uh has been very encouraging and in its own way by the Holy Spirit enlightening to people.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: They never thought about spiritual warfare before.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_00: Well, spiritual warfare.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: What is that supposed to mean?
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's two words.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um it's ambiguous.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it is.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's ambiguous and it's uh misinterpreted.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we're we're talking about spiritual struggle, good versus evil.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, yeah, there's a there's a devil, yeah, there are demons, yes, there are angels.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, boom, we got that established.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: Now, how does all that play in?
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: That's what's fascinating.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_00: You you you just kind of open your eyes for a moment, you recognize what the Bible says about it, which is pretty basic outlining kind of stuff.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't go into a lot of detail, but uh there is a struggle.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_00: And boy, after all these years, it's unavoidable that the main spiritual warfare you're ever gonna go through is right in here, it's in your own heart.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um it's easy to be looking everywhere else, you know, and uh what seeing a demon behind every lamp, you know.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um and yeah, there's big stuff going on out there.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: Uh okay.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: As a matter of fact, part of my challenge is to find the bad guy for these stories, you know.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_00: Sure, sure, sure.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there's so many villains and so many bad guys.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: I'm trying to figure out over what am I gonna write about?
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: And then the villain within, which is ultimately that's that's where we're going now, is the villain within, because uh okay, uh you know, we blame Satan for a lot of things he didn't he didn't have to do anything, we came up with it ourselves because we do have a sinful nature, and uh there's an innate rebellion in there.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_00: You've raised kids, you know what it's like.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yes.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, and uh, you know, that stuff stays with you, and if if you don't address it and let the Lord purge that from you, then you're gonna stay that way.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: Now, where spiritual warfare happens, uh generally speaking, yeah, um the whole realm of temptation, and by that I mean any kind of handle that Satan can find in your life, um you know, unconfessed sin or continuing in a sinful behavior or uh or or arguing for yourself.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I deserve this, or uh, I'm entitled to this, or so-and-so does it, or all that stuff we go through.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_00: That's demons are all too happy just to come in there and say, you know, you're right.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_00: You know what's right, and they don't, you know.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_00: Uh here's another one.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, this is a big thing in my life, is regret, you know.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_00: Sure, yeah.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_00: Because Satan hates the cross of Jesus, he hates forgiveness.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, if he can defeat that man, that's why he wants you to remember your sins.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_00: He wants you to remember every mistake you've ever made.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_00: He wants you to feel the shame and the regret and forget that Jesus paid the price for all of that with his own shed blood.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, well, he wants the chains on there.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: He doesn't want you to be free.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, so okay, that's the kind of thing that goes on in here.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so it seems to me that even as you were, you know, teaching and counseling in your model that you you're doing, there's that potential for the the aggravation, let's call it.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_00: The um you know the you've got these various quirks and things little crooked, and you gotta straighten out.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_00: Well, there's demons pulled the other way.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, right.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_01: So um or telling you, even like you said, convincing to try harder, right?
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_01: To to put that thing that tells you to try harder and and keep holding on in a way where you're carrying responsibility for things that you were never meant to carry, and instead responding to the Holy Spirit.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_01: So the yoke is easy and the burden is light instead of the religious pressure that I think, like you talked about, where the enemy would just like to help create confusion so we forget the cross and what the cross is done, and we either live in regret or this try-hard posture that is defeating and in the end self-sabotaging.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_00: That is really a good observation.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_00: I I I witnessed with that uh in many of our church cultures, our church experience, uh, I can say mine in particular, um, very stringent.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_00: You know, well, if you're a Christian, you have to be this way, and you have to think this way.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_00: And uh there's a lot of, yeah, uh, what would you call it?
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_00: Bootstrap righteousness.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm going to build my own righteousness, I'm going to conquer this myself, because if I don't, God won't be happy with me.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_00: And all my friends and family in church are going to be looking at me and saying, Why aren't you there yet?
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_00: You know, um, well, then they compound the problem.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_00: Satan, you know, Satan is having his way with you.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, oh yeah, then you have like this gal, you have a demon, you know.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_01: Oh the mess, the mess we make in our humanness and our forgetfulness of grace.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_00: Grace.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_00: And that, you know, learning grace.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_00: Hey folks, learning grace is a continuing life process.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we grow, I think that's the term.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_00: We grow in grace, we come to understand it more and more.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_00: We are accountable for our actions, we're accountable for our choices.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but I was thinking, I I know a gal who she doesn't know the Lord yet.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it's the gal writing the the book about her memoirs.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: And uh she doesn't know the Lord, and often as we're going through her life, she will say something to this effect.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_00: I was not a good person.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not a good person.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_00: And she understands that, you know.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_00: And when the when the weather, when the temperature is right, when the Lord opens the opportunity, I'm gonna start by telling her, well, why don't you just go to God?
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you don't have to go through a priest or go to a particular church or anything.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_00: However, you want to talk to him, uh in the privacy of your of your home, go out in the in the woods, go out in the field and look up at the sky.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: I don't care.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_00: Just go to God and just tell him you're sorry.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_00: Just say, God, I'm sorry.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_00: Please forgive me.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, she doesn't know the whole gospel yet, but that's a start.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_00: It is.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_00: Just you know, don't go through your whole life.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I don't know if I believe in God or not, but I wasn't a good person, or I'm not a good person.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_00: You believe in God enough to know that you're not a good person, but you need to know, just tell him you're sorry.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_00: Get that started.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, you folks listening, if you're carrying something, you can always go to the Lord God and say, you know what?
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_00: I I'm sorry.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_00: This is who I am, this is what I've done.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_00: This is Lord, thank you for your grace.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_00: Let's work on it.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I know you can forgive me.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_00: You gotta be like that publican in the temple, beating his breast, you know.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_00: Oh God, be merciful to me, a sinner.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_00: And Jesus said that man went and went justified, rather than the, you know, the religious guy.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_01: The pious ones.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the pious one.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_01: That was a beautiful invitation, Mr.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_01: Pratty.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much for that.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_01: I I would love to hear where your what your understanding has, how it's shifted or grown in ways, because 40 years is a long time for new insight.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_01: Life, so much life happens in 40 years.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, what what do you feel like you know now that you didn't know then when you wrote these books, which I imagine is a lot and maybe yet maybe more true than you ever thought possible as well.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_00: Well, uh I I've been rereading them.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of funny they're coming out of me.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_00: I guess I should read them to know what it was I wrote.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you're a few big books in, so you're allowed to forget and need a refresher.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's uh there's there's areas.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the writing I know I do different because you know, sure, written a long time, so uh I wouldn't use quite as many words.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_01: I hear that the most, and uh cut your darlings, right?
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_01: Is uh is what they say.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_00: That's good, yeah.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_00: And uh another author used the term as long as.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, in other words, we're gonna keep this and keep this.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we can change this as long as we don't change this.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_00: No, everything's up for correction, for cutting.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_00: You can't have any darlings.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I think I've talked about that a little bit already.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_00: The uh kind of the more ooh be be informed and be wise uh approach to all of this.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um I wrote adventure stories and as I read them now Yeah, okay.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they're they're good stories for the most part, they're good.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um I would want people to be inspired by them, but over the years I well use the word moderation, I can't really think of what other word.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um in my in my uh uh Christian upbringing and uh my Christian tradition, I was raised in a Pentecostal church, and uh we, you know, boy, we got into it.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_01: Uh-huh.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_01: Energy energetic for sure.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah, yeah.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_00: And we were also open to a lot of uh manifestations of the spirit that we uh we took at face value, I guess we believed they were real.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um just to be clear, I believe that the works of the spirit are real.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_00: I also believe, boy, we can sure come up with a lot of stuff the Holy Spirit isn't really doing.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, for certain.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_00: So I um, well, for example, if I were to write, say, a third darkness book, I would have a much more subdued, inquisitive, reflective approach to it.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_00: I wouldn't be so quick to say, aha, it's a demon, you know, or uh, you know, let's rebuke that in Jesus' name.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_00: You know, um these we're a lot more complex than simple answers, but the grace of God is so deep, like Corey Tan Boom said, there is no pit so deep that he is not deeper still.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_00: And uh the answer is there, the answer is there.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_00: So, well, that's the other thing.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um people have derived so much from these books.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, now I'm getting into the scripture in James about letting not many of you become teachers, my brethren, knowing that as such, we incur a stricter judgment.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_00: So now I'm thinking, well, I've got this readership.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_00: I'd better be sure that I, you know, kind of put on my pastor-teacher hat and make sure I I uh I uh encourage them and prod them in the right direction to uh walk with the Lord, study his word, and really have a good discernment on all these things.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't want to give a false idea that, oh, well, you know, here's the formula, let's do that, you know.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_01: Right, right.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_01: Because so much of our faith, uh, in fact, our whole faith, there's not a formula or recipe, there's just ingredients that make that.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_01: And besides, you know, gee, I always say the center of the bullseye, Jesus Christ, the son of God, Holy Spirit, and the redeeming work on the cross.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_01: As we get further and further from that, they're just ingredients, and you can't follow it like a rule book.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, very well done.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_00: That's it.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, some folks, you know, they they pop out to maybe the second or third circle, you know, yeah, and they try to do it the easy way.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_00: That sounds that sounds kind of uh you know, accusing, but that's what it is.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's try to do it the easy way.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_00: Let's lay hands on you and cast out this demon of what jealousy, whatever, you know.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_00: So the person goes and they go away next week, they're back.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_00: Now I now I got a demon of XYZ.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I guess we never really dealt with the real problem, you know.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, you're the one that's come up with all these little fleshly quirks, you're putting them out on your front porch, kind of like food for the raccoons, you know.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_00: And the demons are coming.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_01: You know, um so great illustration.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's beautiful.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I acknowledge, yeah, we're in a battle, and Satan is only too happy to get in there and mix things up.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_00: But let's, boy, the word of God is so rich, it addresses everything that you need to know.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_00: You uh it'll speak to you, and uh that's right, do this, God, work in my life.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_00: I give you all that I am, and I trust you to work it out.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um you got you were talking about your uh what's that word?
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um things you don't want to cut out of your writing.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um, cut the little darlings.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_00: Ah, the little darlings, thank you.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_00: Well, see, we have little darlings in our lives too.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_00: We do little justifications and things.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's just the way I am.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_00: That's the way you are.
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_00: Now let's let God work on that.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_00: Because that's you know, which kind of gets back to your uh Aneagram model as far as don't ever use that as an excuse.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_01: I'm always saying it's your starting point.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't have to be your stuck point.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_01: And that is that because thanks to the transforming work of grace in Christ, that we can look at Enneagram knowing we can orient ourselves on the map and understand where we begin.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_01: And from there we can go.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_01: Because to your point, we go easily in the all or nothing.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I love how you brought up even your background because what you experienced that fueled your fervor and love for the Lord was real in the fact it grew your relationship with the Lord.
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_01: And just because you now approach life with more curiosity and maybe in a tempered spirit, it doesn't make what happened in the past any less real or true in your walk with the Lord.
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_01: It just has been informed and transformed as you've grown in Christ, which we never stop doing until we're with him face to face.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_00: That's really good.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um like oh, being bullied uh uh uh when I was a kid, and then um growing up with this sense I can never please my father.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_00: Uh see those things accumulate and they basically program you, and you grow up with that, and uh so the trick is all the more to let the Lord turn that around and help you to see yourself through his eyes.
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I I don't fully understand everything he was trying to do and is still trying to do, but what's cool about it is I do trust him.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_00: I know he's working on me, he's working on me.
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_00: And well, I can tell, you know, I'm 75 years old.
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_00: I I can tell looking back, oh you know, we really have been working on that.
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_00: There, yes, there really was a reason for that.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_00: So I have every reason to believe God is still working, and we're gonna find out some more, you know, can it change?
• 42:11
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I love this so much.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_01: There has been much about this conversation that has been a delight and a wonderful surprise in a lot of ways.
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_01: I I would love to just hear maybe, maybe your hope for the next generation of readers.
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_01: Uh maybe.
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_01: I I know like like I had read Screwtape Letters by C.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_01: S.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_01: Lewis, and my assumption you've written, you know, read works like his as well.
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_01: And so that was that was a piece to the spiritual warfare puzzle.
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_01: He maybe gave a primer, and you, you, you gave us a little bit more of an exposition on it.
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but what are you hoping for for those who are reading this or who are curious about how warfare does impact their life or what they need to just pay attention to that is mostly unseen.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I think I can't one of the first uh purposes, I guess, that turned out from these books was the acknowledgement that there really is a spiritual battle.
• 43:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um the darkness books, I think one thing they did was put a face on it.
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um it went from a vague, you know, spiritual warfare.
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_00: We talked about that.
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_00: What spiritual warfare?
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_00: Uh a vague understanding of good versus evil, uh, you know, God versus Satan, the devil might be picking on me.
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_00: And just getting down to it, it was fictional, of course, but it's uh a way of painting and an image that it just kind of helped us as imaginative human beings to uh Visualize, you know, and personify what's really going on.
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the reaction I've gotten from my readers.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, just open their eyes to understand it.
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_00: They never thought about it before, uh, that kind of thing.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_00: And uh the next generation, well, I don't know.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna lean a little bit on the old prophetic thing.
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_00: We were on that trip back, we were on that trip back in the 80s with Hal Lindsay and all this business.
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I don't want to, you know, be real emphatic about it, but I see I see some real prophetic trends going on and the way nations are forming and the conflicts arising, and and oh the uh encroachment of uh paganism and occultism into the West.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_00: Right, it was it was starting out when I wrote these books, and it's full bloom now.
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it is, it's uh everywhere.
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_00: This younger generation, that's the world they're gonna be growing up in.
• 45:07
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_00: I I coined it once.
• 45:09
  SPEAKER_00: I said, you know, it's kind of like we're living in Ephesus.
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um Ephesus was a pagan city, and uh I I went on some tours, you know, went to Ephesus, the old ruins and everything.
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_00: Really fascinating.
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_00: But man, you go through Ephesus, there's paganism everywhere.
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_00: There's images of pagan gods and pagan temples, and this temple to this god, and this temple to that god.
• 45:35
  SPEAKER_00: That is the city where there was a major revival and Paul started the church and got everybody all upset because they were burning all of their occult literature, they weren't buying their images of Diana anymore.
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, we visited the big theater where the big riot occurred that you read about in the book of Acts.
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I I just kind of summarize all that now, and I say, yeah, we're living in Ephesus.
• 46:03
  SPEAKER_00: This is we don't live in a nice Christian world where everybody goes to Sunday school, and uh you can quote the Bible, and everybody knows what you're thinking, and uh what the next verse is.
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_00: We're living in a world that doesn't know about that.
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_00: They know about everything else.
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_00: And uh the weird twisted stuff is getting more and more credibility, and people are believing it.
• 46:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of like I think it was G G.
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_00: K.
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_00: Chesterton said, When people don't believe in truth, I believe in God, they don't believe in anything.
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_00: And uh so I think praise God.
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_00: I I really pray and hope that my books that were so effective 40 years ago, now that's one thing I'm finding out on reading it again, and uh I'm I do this different.
• 47:01
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's too many words, but one thing that's coming through is man, this is more true now than it was back then.
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, in terms of addressing the spiritual issues.
• 47:11
  SPEAKER_00: We we can't have any more coasters, you know.
• 47:15
  SPEAKER_00: Just say, well, yeah, I've always considered myself a Christian.
• 47:19
  SPEAKER_00: I go to church.
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_00: No, we need young warriors.
• 47:24
  SPEAKER_00: Uh kind of like first uh John says in his first epistle, I'm writing to you, young men, because you are strong and have overcome the evil one.
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_00: I'm writing to you, fathers, because you have known him who is from the beginning.
• 47:42
  SPEAKER_00: That's been kind of fun in terms of well, what kind of type am I, or what kind of personality am I?
• 47:48
  SPEAKER_00: I know one thing, I used to be one of the young men who has overcome the evil one.
• 47:53
  SPEAKER_00: And now I'm 75 and I really feel a whole lot more like a father who has known him who is from the beginning.
• 48:02
  SPEAKER_00: Uh a peaceful, wise old man kind of rest in the Lord.
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_00: And now I'm watching all these young warriors coming up.
• 48:14
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it's encouraging.
• 48:16
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, especially, you know, after Charlie Kirk was assassinated.
• 48:22
  SPEAKER_00: All of these young people coming in.
• 48:24
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, oh, oh, no, that's it.
• 48:28
  SPEAKER_00: We need more of those.
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_00: We need more Hank Bushes out there.
• 48:31
  SPEAKER_00: He's a character in the book.
• 48:33
  SPEAKER_00: You'll read about him, but he's the hero.
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you need to be the hero and uh get ready for the warfare, but be wise now.
• 48:43
  SPEAKER_00: Be wise because uh Satan, well, I think he even C.S.
• 48:47
  SPEAKER_00: Lewis said this in a way.
• 48:49
  SPEAKER_00: He said, Satan wants either one of two things.
• 48:52
  SPEAKER_00: He wants you to either be really obsessed with him, so that you know, you just see him everywhere, or not believe in him at all.
• 48:59
  SPEAKER_00: He's happy with either one.
• 49:01
  SPEAKER_00: You fall right down there in the middle, and you'd be wise.
• 49:05
  SPEAKER_00: And uh don't underestimate Mr.
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_00: Flesh.
• 49:09
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I call him, you know.
• 49:11
  SPEAKER_00: That's all right.
• 49:12
  SPEAKER_00: Mr.
• 49:12
  SPEAKER_00: Flesh, I'm 75 and still, I still deal with old Mr.
• 49:16
  SPEAKER_00: Flesh, you know.
• 49:18
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, Lord, uh old Mr.
• 49:20
  SPEAKER_00: Flesh.
• 49:21
  SPEAKER_00: I think he's trying to get into the conversation here.
• 49:25
  SPEAKER_01: This is great context, Mr.
• 49:28
  SPEAKER_01: Pretty, from your illustration and reminder of we are in modern day Ephesus.
• 49:34
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's a really good thing to consider.
• 49:38
  SPEAKER_01: And your, I would I would say your reminder to not be lukewarm, because that's where the enemy has a heyday.
• 49:48
  SPEAKER_01: With that, I have loved from my experience at an early age when I was a young teenager reading these books.
• 49:58
  SPEAKER_01: It invited me to the beginnings of story work that you now know so well.
• 50:06
  SPEAKER_01: And what I do with my Enneagram work and the spiritual formation is that we're storied people.
• 50:12
  SPEAKER_01: God taught us in stories.
• 50:14
  SPEAKER_01: This is a way to, I think, be reminded that our story is far more complex and yet adventurous.
• 50:23
  SPEAKER_01: And that's why we need to put on the full armor of God day in and day out and show up for the story that the Lord is writing and inviting is inviting us to live.
• 50:34
  SPEAKER_01: So I I thank you.
• 50:35
  SPEAKER_01: I thank you for your yes to the work.
• 50:37
  SPEAKER_01: I thank you for even getting out there again because I know this is effort and even distraction from these other things you're doing.
• 50:46
  SPEAKER_01: But um, I'm so honored and I feel really privileged to get to have a conversation with you and to share it with my friends here because um, yeah, I just appreciate what you're doing.
• 50:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm gonna continue to enjoy watching how the Lord uses you and your voice and your pen.
• 51:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's exciting.
• 51:05
  SPEAKER_00: You know, uh God never ceases to amaze me and He He never stops working.
• 51:12
  SPEAKER_00: And uh well, I I I pray the same thing for you that till you're dying breath, the Lord will just keep.
• 51:20
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, Amy, here's what's next.
• 51:23
  SPEAKER_00: This is what I want to do.
• 51:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's that's fun.
• 51:26
  SPEAKER_00: That's uh it is that's a wonderful, yeah.
• 51:28
  SPEAKER_00: So it's the best adventure yet.
• 51:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I don't know how long I'm gonna be around, but I I want to live the adventure to the end.
• 51:36
  SPEAKER_00: And uh all you folks out there, you do the same thing.
• 51:39
  SPEAKER_00: God He won't drop you, He's got a plan, it'll work.
• 51:43
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're great.
• 51:45
  SPEAKER_00: Uh thanks for watching.
• 51:46
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 51:47
  SPEAKER_01: Well, thank you.
• 51:48
  SPEAKER_01: You were delightful and wonderful.
• 51:49
  SPEAKER_01: This was such a pleasure.
• 51:55
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks so much for joining me for the Wholehearted Enneagram Podcast.
• 52:00
  SPEAKER_01: If this conversation spoke to you, please share it with a friend.
• 52:05
  SPEAKER_01: You can also visit simply wholehearted.com to take the free Enneagram quiz and also get your personalized podcast playlist specific for your Enneagram type.
• 52:17
  SPEAKER_01: And remember, friend, your starting point doesn't have to be your stuff point.