Certainly Not! — http://thegodjourney.com/wordpress/2009/09/04/certainly-not/

I remember when we first started this whole podcast thing, we just came up with the name God Journey. Some people didn't like it. I think it's perfect. This is not about me. This is not my journey. I am a supporting actor in a greater drama that's going on. This is about him. Thinking outside the box isn't about whether you go to a meeting or not. It's about breaking free of the obligations of religious performance and living in the adventure of a relationship with God as our Father. To our guys talking about life, that's good to know. Slinging freedom all over the place and making no apologies, this is the God Journey. I'm Brad Cummings and I'm Wayne Jacobson and greetings from Raleigh, North Carolina. We're not there, but you were there. I was there. A lot of people said you go back and tell Brad man how much we love, dig on, groove on the God Journey and how grateful they are for it. And so yeah, a lot of greetings back to you. A lot of love to you and Sarah. Oh, I've received it. It's kind of funny on this trip. I got asked more times on this trip how I met you than how I met Sarah. Uh-oh. That's a little off. Does that make me your girlfriend? Of the two stories. I like telling the Sarah one better, but how did you meet that exactly? Like why do you care? People care in North Carolina. They do care. Yeah. So we had a great time. A lot of folks, a lot of different folks, boy, a lot of different venues, a little frustrating on the one hand because we got these three two-hour deals that involve a large people in a room and there's people that you just, I'd love to get to know that person and that person. And it's just not happening. There's not a venue for us to go deeper with. I mean, others we did. We had some small group meetings with various group kinds of things, but those were more, those were not as open as they normally are when I travel. Really? Yeah. So I was with a lot of people full time straight through. But I left a little frustrated that some of the connections I would love to have made didn't happen, but that's the risk, I guess, of traveling and letting folks on the ground sort out how it works for you. But yeah, you do it different than most. The folks I did meet with though, the people I did get to know, I mean, just thrilled with some of the journeys, people trying to unpack lots, pastors, former pastors, people on this journey been on it 15, 20 years still struggling with how they always fit into the family in spite of all that's going on because I get the impression Raleigh is a pretty churched area. A couple of times with seminary students from Southeastern, I bet you got into wonderful theological debates, a little chat chat and a little, you know, penal substitution, which is big among them Southern Baptists. They got to punish something. Something needs to be punished. And even when you start talking to some of the cross, like one guy looking at me and he said, well, it could be a little about cure. I think it's mostly about punishment. OK, well, you get to live with that. That's fine. I'm not going to lose any sleep over that. But yeah, well, I think so much of the gospel has sadly been steeped and that I would say mischaracterization, that when you start talking to different languages like, no, this was all about getting out of jail free. This wasn't about living a different life. Except now they're living a different life to be on the good side of the guy that throws people under the bus, threw his own son under the bus, under the train or whatever. So it is a tough sell. It is. I mean, if beyond the get out of hell free card, now it's you serve the guy because you just have to not because you're endeared to him. Yeah, well, I mean, father. Yeah, there's that sense of fear that I've got to behave well or some very terrible bad thing is going to happen to me. And it's like, but wait a minute. I thought the cross was that once for all for all time. Once for all for all. Yeah. How do they get past that? I we didn't get there. OK. Well, it's amazing, even people that kind of a little bit hostile coming in on some of the questions really soften in the course of the discussion that the expectation that I was of what they thought I would say or what I would defend. It was kind of interesting how it kind of softened and people started really listening and talking and asking questions. So that was pretty cool. That's great. So good time. So I had a quick in and out to Raleigh and now I'm home again. Everybody asked me at the in and out burger. Really, I got one down the street for me. It's not that good. Some people love it. They travel all the way to California to have it. I got to tell you, I'm not a fan. We went sailing in Santa Monica Bay. Oh, get down with you, sir. You're always at a lake on a bay in Mexico. I like the water. You have a great life. I always have your life. I think so. I think so. Yeah, I work hard in between those moments. But I got to tell you, it was so fantastic. It was really bizarre, you know, swimming in the ocean, diving off of this nice sailboat and then looking at Los Angeles with this mushroom cloud fire thing. Yeah. Oh, wow. And just going like, that looks like a nuclear bomb. Yeah. And I just sat there going like, this is so bizarre. I am one hour away from what's going on. And you can just think of the hellish existence that those people are scrambling having to deal with. And here I am. And you're back stroking through the swastika. I'm spouting water like a swastika. The front of the boat and hanging on to a rope. And I just sat there going like, this is such a bizarre paradox of life that, you know, you got these great things going on, and it's all this other stuff. And you're just like, wow. Yeah, and I get a lot of email going, are you guys OK? I mean, the fire is far from us at the moment. As far as it can be in LA. It's a little smoky. But we're not in any threat of danger at the moment. It's supposed to cool off this weekend. That's going to help things. But everything here is tender dry. That could change tomorrow. Something else goes up. But you look at the map. It's like the entire national, little state force there is nearly burned. Last time I flew in from Australia, I remember coming in in the early morning, it's left side of the aircraft. And we're coming into LA. And it was that big fire that cut through Simi Valley and then up in the Thousand Oaks area. Another fire going over there by Pasadena. Another fire over in San Diego area or something. I'm flying in. And it's that one, it's that still morning where all these plumes are going straight up. It looked like terrorists had ravaged. I'm not kidding. It's an eerie look. It really is eerie. I know. Because it looks like you're in the middle of a war zone. With all the smoke and fire and devastation, it's kind of a mess. But that's the way it is. It's hot out here in California. It was just, I had an interesting thought while just floating in the ocean. Is I did just sort of go, gosh, Lord, with all that's going on, you could listen to the news and stay glued. And even though you're not in the thick of that, you could be emotionally drawn in as if you were. And I think at times it's like, do we allow God to direct our focus in stuff? I don't know. You're looking at me like, where you go with this? I'm a patient man. I think you'll figure it out. No, I think that the thing that I recognize is, gosh, Lord, so many things are calling for our attention. And they do produce their bevy of emotional responses. And I just recognize that was a very refreshing day for me. Because I'd been engrossing a whole bunch of just lots of work. And it was a great, just complete break from that. And I just went, gosh, this is such a better space. And I just went, Lord, I want you to direct my focus. Because stuff is always going to be going on. I mean, life can be at a volume of 10 all the time. And it's like, there is the ability to know God's peace and to follow his lead in direction. And as opposed to, well, how are you? It's more like, Lord, I want to take my cue. How am I? Yeah, and if you're a firefighter on Sunday, you can't just say, well, I think I'll just go down and jump in the Pacific Ocean seven. I mean, there are times when our lives are in those kinds of places. And it's right for us to be there. It really is. It's not like, I've got to get out of this. Find a boat in the Pacific Ocean and go lounge around and refresh. But I like, well, you can't always live there. You can't just keep going from crisis to crisis to crisis to crisis in your life, even if it looks like that's the way your life's going. You've got to find that space to get away. And I don't mean to get away going on a long trip. I mean, just withdraw to the closet. Just go to a walk and find that God again who surrounds us with life even in the midst of really horrible crud that's going on. Yeah, I just look at the news cycle and how it's addicted to crisis and how if that's where you're taking your cues. Yeah, you got to shut that puppy off. Well, you go to the travel channel, I guess, and then you can jump in the bay. Well, we've sure got a lot of hostile email of late. Have we not? Well, yeah, I've had a few hostile things. And weird email. People are supporting Brad against Wayne the jerk who's incredible. I think that's the thing that I was like, no, what's going on here? I'm not speaking for a side. I'm not presenting here's, I'm in a balanced way now. You're just going like, I'm speaking for myself. Yeah, and some people are so uncomfortable. I mean, when I got one thing, don't you ever talk politics? Again, I'm so frustrated with both of you. I shut the thing off. And I'm going, gee, you know, we're not sitting here trying to have the conversations that everyone would love with the little tag on two real brothers talking about life. And that's what we're doing. Times we're frustrated. Times we're excited. Times we're whatever. I don't think every podcast is going to make everybody happy. But one of the things that's bothered me about this whole political thing, and I see it in the country as well as in our little microcosm of the God, your guidance, how absolutely certain people are about their conclusions on political issues and how stupid anybody is who disagrees with them. Yeah, that does seem a bit unfair when you just go like, if there's one thing I'm kind of clear on, I don't know. I don't know. I have strong opinions about stuff. But that doesn't mean I'm right. It just means that's how I see it. That's how I want to talk about it. Somebody convinced me of something different. I'm good with that. But when we start throwing down, and here's the deal, I think, that always ruins a good conversation or even a debate. Somebody talked about the robust conversation between Wayne and Brett. Oh, good one. We didn't come away angry to each other. We left the house and life went on. See ya. Friendship's good. But for people who just can't be in that kind of space of discussion, the way it always goes bad is when we stop talking about what we see differently and start making assumptions about the other person's motives in the conversation. Or lumping them in another group. I mean, I think those were some of the frustrating emails I got is someone's reacting to something in their own country about someone's something. And I'm just like, I don't know anything about that. Nothing of what I said had anything to do with that. But they associated them. And therefore, they were responding. And I just sort of feel like when you start with that heated response, it's like the knee-jerk reflex. Someone smacks your knee and then your leg kicks. And there isn't the listening. Is that what a knee-jerk reaction is? Yeah. It's that kick on the knee. It's the hammer head against the knee. That's what that is. See, I'm learning stuff. I'm learning something at the God Journey. And I think that so oftentimes people aren't really listening to each other. They're trying to win a debate, win an argument. And I also think those things go awry because what if someone over-talks somebody else and you don't feel like, well, I don't feel like they heard me. Or I don't feel like I got to say my thing. It's like, well, if you're trying to listen to each other, you're going to learn something out of every conversation that way. If you're trying to win a debate, I don't know even if you think you won, that you could have changed anything. You didn't win. That's the thing. When you just over-alternize the other person. When you overwhelm somebody with your point of view and people give up, you haven't won them. No. They just gave up. Yeah, they just gave up. Done with you. See you later. But here's what's remarkable to me, how certain people are politically. We had a little bit of a political discussion over the health insurance issue. And we get all kinds of emails just absolutely certain about what side of this they're on. Stipped a lame mine. Every other email we get from people, every else we talk about is people are so uncertain about their own lives and what God is saying to them and what should I do next? And how does God put the body of Christ together? It almost seems like, I don't know if this is true because maybe this is one of those surmising people's assumptions, but so certain about these political things when we've got pundits and news channels that will back whatever point of view we happen to have on this topic and vilify anybody who disagrees. And when it comes right down to what do we know about our own life and how's God leading us and how's God speaking into our lives and how do I love my wife, love my kids, love the world around me. Well, there aren't a lot of news channels that are talking about those particulars. And we can only do an hour a week. So, you know, we can't feel that special. Well, I mean, I do think that a lot of people listen to what other people have as opinions that give all their facts and all their basis and all their justification. And if I like the person, I take it as true. It could all be Balderdash, you know? Right. But if I like the person, I take it as true and then I adopt that as my position. And it may well be, it's like, but it's been shaped by what someone else thinks. What happens to those people when the information gets, you know, leaked out that maybe that's not correct. Maybe it was overstated. That is a moment of truth for that individual. I mean, I have these conversations all the time because I mean, there's, we don't live in a real conservative land. At least these neighborhoods. Not even the snuck of the woods, no, I'm sure. And so I would probably, you know, I don't fall under the same liberal label categories as other people. And so every now and then, I'll like, but what about this? And I'm not championing the punditry of the other side. I'm just going like, I have a little different thought here. I'm not adopting yours. I'm not embracing that. But what about this? And then it's like, it's like, you just don't hang grenade on somebody. It's like, I'm not trying to blow you up. I'm just asking the genuine question. What do you think about that? It's like, well, that's not part of my equation. I don't know. And they get really mad. Yeah, I've got, I've got to write my favorite pundit and find out what he would say about that. Yeah. Because I don't know what to think. And it's like, I think so often times, I mean, part of the whole basis of this podcast is this thought that there's this mass missing middle out there of intelligent thinkers who are really wanting to wrestle through genuine issues of life and faith. And how does that fit in what I do in this world? And I go like, And doesn't mind that being nuanced and there's not an easy black and white answer to bash someone over the head with. You can look at it from this perspective and this kind of looks like it might, you can look at it from this other perspective and then I'm not so certain. And, but what is it that you think that brings such certainty to people's political positions and such uncertainty to the vastly more important questions of life? Self-interest. Oh gosh, don't pull that card. No, I think the reason I would say that is I think so often times, I think people feel victim to the governings of our country. That there's all these things being debated. Someone is putting something into law. It is a representative government. It's not a true democracy. I'm not really voting. My opinion doesn't really count. On these matters they don't. No, it's true. It's being decided for me and then I am the victim of. And I think people really get into a defensive posture that is that policy in my best interest. I don't think they're asking the question, is that what's best for everyone? The common good. Yeah, I don't think that focuses on anyone's opinions. It's certainly not the punditry. It's like most time people are arguing for what suits them. The unions are bashing the elected officials to get what they want for their constituency. Now, 20, 30 years after this. And that's what they're arguing to do. Because of their effectiveness and arguing the case for their constituency. But those decisions that were made in the immediacy of those circumstances weren't seen as the outcome of what's gonna happen. And I just like, gosh, I don't know how a government's gonna function unless someone's looking at the long-term realities and really committed to not my best interest, my constituency and my getting reelected or what's gonna happen to my tax situation, but what's gonna be for the common good of everyone? I don't hear any of that. No, I tell you, working with bridge builders for 15 years, we exactly did that kind of thing. How do we get on a school issue problem? How do we get to the common good? How does what we decide, how is it fair to the differences in the room? Not how does my point of view win over your point of view, but how could we craft the policy that's fair to the differences? And I'll be honest with you, I've never been in a room where when that option was presented, it didn't win immediately. For most of my work with bridge builders, my fee is guaranteed. If I don't come up with a solution, 80 to 90% voted on by whatever committee you pulled together, I didn't get paid. I was never not paid for that kind of consulting. When you talk about the common good, people who don't have a vested interest in the union, the political reelection, the Wall Street payout, the people who don't have vested interests will say, wow, that's, and I think that's what the ideal of this country was built on. It was a common good. And I think we've lost that, but we're not gonna get back to it if people stay so polarized in their political positions, and that's not- Yeah, I think that's the discouraging thing when someone wants to just say, well, it's just politics and they just throw it off as if, okay, well, it's gonna go away. And anybody who disagrees with me is the antichrist. That's the other, and they're just out for their own this and that. No, there's some very important issues that we need to talk about. I'm gonna talk about a lot of them here. This show isn't about politics, but it gets to the wider thing because even when I travel like this last week in Raleigh, I'm with some people who are asking some fairly hostile questions to what it is that I teach and what it is that my life is about, living loved versus living in obedience to God because he's God after all. And I've noticed that the more uncertain people are with their point of view, the louder they scream. Really? Yeah. When you get right beneath it all, the whole angry rhetoric of, I am right and you are wrong, the more uncertain people are of their truth, the more they have to- Is that defense mechanism to scare somebody off? I don't know if it's that or it's, I'm still trying to convince me. And I've read this in Proverbs. People who are most sure of the truth relax in the discussion, don't have to have the last word, offer a point now and then. If it doesn't resonate with people, they're not gonna try and cram it down their throat. You know, I'm perfectly okay with being in a room and people are, and this didn't happen in Raleigh, but I've had it happen, where people are yelling at me for something I do and say, well, hold on a minute, here's what I'm thinking. Right. And if it doesn't resonate, I don't mind walking out of the room. I mean, I don't mind when the night's over, I go home. I fairly- So, but you're not living so as to please that little group of people and bound by their opinions. Or not even convince. Yeah. And that's, I think, what people miss in this whole dialogue. I spent 90% of my energy as a pastor trying to motivate the complacent. In some ways, that's your job. You've got hundreds of people sitting here, seriously. That's what the 20% pay you to do for the 80. I don't know if it was 20. I would say, and I've asked pastors, as I've traveled around, I've asked pastors, is how many people in this congregation would you say, I love their relationship with God. I think they're whole, doing well. I'm blessed by where they're at in their spiritual journey. I've never heard a figure over 10%. Never. But yeah, the angst of one of those pastors is, how do I get these people? And then when people- You can't. And then when people spill out of that, the question I get is, how do I get my wife? How do I get my best friend? How do I get my parents? You can't. You can't understand X, Y, or Z. And the great freedom is that. You are not the great condenser. You're not. Yeah, I mean, it's not my job. I let go of that job description as if it was my job. And I gotta tell you, there was some religious detox for a while that was really, I mean, I was schooled. Why is this the man who saves souls? It's my job to go out there and get there. Like, little X's on the side of my little fighter pilot. I'm gonna go get me some. Fighter pilot saving souls, blasting people? And you just go like, I don't think God functions like that. I don't think the truth is that weak. And I don't think when you are the compelling force in an argument, I don't think there's lasting change. No, there's not. And I do think the Holy Spirit, John 16, Jesus said, he's the one that convicts the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment. And when that's happened, you don't have to do anything. There's the ring of truth and reality in somebody. When that is settled on them, that's what leads to change. That's what I've loved about the last 15 years. I don't go into a room or go to a trip or sit down with a couple where I feel like I have the responsibility to convince you of what you do not see. I just don't. It's exhausting. I don't mind putting it out there. I don't mind saying, I'm seeing this a little differently. Here it is. If you don't pick up on it and you don't resonate with it, I don't go deeper down that hole. And I think what we haven't wrestled with is the harder I try to convince you that I'm right, the deeper in your defensive hole I push you. And that's particularly true of people on this love journey, grace journey, living love, living outside the box, not fitting in with all the rules and rags is when you come out of that thing, oftentimes our passion is I've got to convince the people in there that I'm right. It really comes back to how uncertain I am. I need their validation or I need them to not reject me. My capacity to convince them will affirm me. Yeah, and the fact is for the last 15 years, I have not spent an ounce of effort trying to convince anybody of anything. When I hang out in a place like Raleigh or places I travel, I'm looking for hungry hearts whose eyes are already opening. If I can equip them to live more deeply, more freely in Christ, then I've had a valuable experience with them. If I just got a hostile crowd that wants me to convince them, and I didn't have hostile crowds in Raleigh, I know people in Raleigh go, who was hostile here? It wasn't that bad. No, he likes you. But I had a lot of questions of the how do I get so and so to see this or do this? One of the great freedoms of this journey is it's not my job to get you to do anything. It's my freedom to live deeply in Christ today, to love whoever's around me. And sometimes loving somebody in a deep dark hole is letting them stay in a deep dark hole until the Holy Spirit coaxes them out. Then maybe I get to help them. I think it's the whole purpose of Jesus telling parables and saying, I'm talking about this so they won't understand me. And the whole religious construct I used to live under was, that's because he didn't want the Pharisees knowing because they'd repent and he'd have to forgive them and he didn't want them knowing the truth. Because you can read it with that emphasis. And yet when I read it now, Matthew 13, where he's telling the parables what he's saying is, they can't understand now because they don't know what to do with it. And it's only gonna drive them deeper into this defensive, whether it's a political or doctrinal hole they're caught in. And it's just a wonderful thing to say when the Holy Spirit begins to awaken a life, when there's proximity to whatever's collapsing in their life, whatever disillusionment's going on. So now they're asking questions, not to defend turf, but to grow and to learn. Genuinely clear, yeah. Now growth happens, that's... So really stop, I said this to a few people, stop trying to change people. And that's particularly true if you're pastoring a group and somehow you wanna move the whole group toward renewal, you're having to convince a group to go where they're not convinced they wanna go. And the freedom is, you go, you go live the life God's called you to live. Some hungry hearts will come along and say, as we talked about last week, I want what you're eating. But until they're asking that, you don't have a responsibility from God to go convince anyone of anything. Live open, live freely, live honestly. But I think that's where the challenge of the trumpeted message from up front, the religious manipulation, the coercion of, we've gotta go live our faith in some crusading effort as if you've gotta go out and change this, that is a constant exhortation from so many places that for someone to sit there and go like, well, I don't have to do that. That is a radical thought for a lot of people who are in the midst of those kind of religious confinements. If our most important consideration is that I'm right, then I've gotta go convince the world that that's true. And that's doing them a favor. If the growing- But they never receive it that way. No, it's not a favor to them, this is true. But if the growing conviction is I'm loved, then I can live in the world as a lover, which is very different than a convincer. It doesn't mean love travels without light, as we've said over and over again on this spot. Yeah, it's not as if love isn't convincing. Love's not dishonest, I just, people who, I cut some of this this weekend still, love is just being nice. Love is never about just being nice. It's not about being mean. Where are those people? It's just sad that also God loves us, so God's just this nice little do-it-and-not, it's not the God of the Bible, but love carries light. And usually as a lover in the world, you get to carry light too. But don't shine your light in the face of somebody who just woke up in the darkness. It's not going to be helpful. And you wonder why they react to it, and you go, oh my gosh, as if you're offended that they're reacting to my gift of light. Yeah. I mean, it's interesting. When they're ready, it'll be a blessing. You know, I'm working with my oldest son, Jared, and you know, within the whole task of parenting, there is the correction moments. He doesn't like correction, you know? Who does? A shock, shock, shock, really. And he doesn't receive correction as privileged learning. It's that whole sense of rejection. And I sat there going like, okay, so I've recognized, okay, right now, his main goal is he doesn't want to feel in trouble. Anytime someone brings correction, regardless of who it is, he feels whether it's his youngest sister or whether it's an authority, somebody correcting him, that causes emotional pain for him. I'm going like, dude, this is just becoming so hard. Rest in what you know to be true about yourself. And if someone voices an opinion that's different than that, so what? If you're confident of where you're at, you don't have to be so threatened by that. And so, so much of what we're talking about is in that same kind of emotional context of, you know what, the powerful thing about the truth and you're knowing it as you get to relax. I don't have to fight for it. I don't have to prove it. You know, so it was just, two plus two is not four. I do not need to get in that argument. You're just going like, well, I think it is. Yeah. The way I balance my checkbook, I use that. It's just sort of derive everything else. And I looked at the fact that there's times that I wanted him to get something and I just realized the best thing I could do right now is, hey, you know what, if that works for you, great. Where I'm not going to try to correct and rebuke him because right now it's not being heard or received as the reproofs of life. You're just going like, you know what, when you're ready, I'm here, I'm available. And it's so interesting, the immediate 180 that happens when he doesn't feel like he's all of a sudden put on the defense. I could blame him all for that or I could just go like, you know what, if my goal is to love him and help him, then I've got to find a way to communicate that doesn't put him on the defense, but that allows for a dialogue and for the longing to learn. And sometimes people just enjoy enrolling in the school of hard knocks. They're not going to help. No one gets to help them avoid the disaster. So go ahead, we'll help scrape you up out of it. I just finished my latest read of Proverbs and how many times in there saying the wise man loves correction, loves it. And I would- Yeah, not tolerates it. Yeah, no, gosh, I've done it. But just go, even if correction is off, even if somebody who's intending to correct you might be wrong, the fact that they are from the receiver standpoint, and I know most people correcting people are obnoxious, but from inside, if you can say, is there something true in here I need to grab on to? And if it is, I'll respond. Yeah, is there anything in this? Even if the person does it in a wrong spirit with a wrong heart and you're just going like, you know what, frankly, if we were to score that, that doesn't even get marginal scores. If there's still some illumination of truth in there, I heard someone say, you know, just always tell someone who's correcting you, tell them thank you. And at the time I just went, you're nuts. I mean, you know, I was like, what do you mean thank you? I don't know, prove I'm right. If you love it. I look back at it and I recognize, gosh, that is a great impulse to develop for receiving it. I will benefit. And obviously there's the obnoxious people that are always correcting everybody and we're not gonna be grateful there. But for the most part, if someone you love is telling you something they think will be difficult for you to hear, do you know how much it has taken for them to advance it? If you can remember that, that'd be helpful. Then that's worth thanking them for. So I don't think communication is all that difficult. I mean, we're talking about things that, if you don't have to convince anybody of your agenda, if you don't have to vilify their motives in a situation, relax, live love, listen, enjoy what's helpful, offer what's helpful, but stop trying to beat the world overhead. It's not worth it. But you know, I think the people that are really the only ones empowered to do that are the ones that are kind of walking in that sense of knowing they're loved. If you're in that place of security, then it seems like doing exactly what you said really isn't hard. It's not even a strain, it's kind of like natural. If you're unsure of those things and you're kind of like out there bobbing on the ocean just trying to make sure you don't drown, then there's a whole lot of thrashing going on. Yeah, and we're just talking about basic community between people. We got a couple of letters. I'd like to finish off with these. We got a couple of letters from the True Face podcast. One from Laura says, I didn't want the True Face podcast to end. That's back when we interviewed the brothers who wrote True Face and the upcoming Bose Cafe. So much good stuff. In fact, I've listened to it three times. So many good one-liners. This is the place I've been looking for. If not all of my life, most of my adult life, I could almost promise you that I'm not the only one. I've waded through so much bubble wrap. Interesting. To come to the point of even recognizing that this is part of my longing, part of my feeling so distant from the congregations in which I currently affiliated, when, how, and where will we find, create, invite the kind of community that you guys talk about is still a mystery. However, this is becoming less of an anxious mystery to be solved. How do I? And increasingly a miraculous unfolding of God's amazing grace. I see His grace transforming us first individually, and then us as a couple, and we are looking forward with joyful hope that we will also live and move in the grace and community. I can hardly believe it can be so, but discussions like this give me so much hope. You know, in the whole Bose Cafe novel, that whole thing about allowing that whole process of trust to happen where you can let your life open up to a community around you, I think that's a lot of what we've been talking about is that how do I do that in a way that I'm listening, I'm able to love, I'm able to respond, I'm not having to force that for somebody else? I mean, I love that there's a great hunger for that. Yeah. But that we keep getting sucked into this defensive convincing posture. There is great hunger. And when you live inside, like you and I, we could have a very robust conversation about health injury. Doesn't even get close to impacting the relationship. Not one bit. And you know what I think one of the secrets of that is? And I think I've learned this with you in the last eight years. I don't ever feel like you're trying to convince me. I've learned an awful lot of things from you because you think differently. We're not alike. No, we are not. I mean, in many, many ways, we are not alike. But I always enjoy, because you're allowing me to see something I couldn't see on my own because we're not alike. And therefore, this relationship is always growing with the sense of going like, you know what? I'm just constantly challenged, stimulated to think differently, trying to figure out how do I then appropriate that for me? And the nice thing is I don't feel cougars. I don't feel like you have an agenda of you gotta get me someplace. And you know what I feel like is we can talk about anything and the relationship isn't gonna be impacted. Yeah. In a negative way. Yeah. There's so many relationships you have that if I say the wrong thing, the wrong person is gonna judge me. All of a sudden, the whole relationship blows up and you're going, gee, what was that all? Just cause we didn't see it differently? Just cause, I mean, just cause we didn't see it the same way? There are things that you think that I go, that's whacked. And I know there are things you think. And I know you think it's whacked. Yes. But I love, and I might be, that's the piece I have. I might be whacked. I just don't know it yet. So time will tell. But I do think there is something really wonderfully unique in the fact that I can celebrate that with laughter, not with a sense of angst that I've got to change you. Yep. Like, I can't be your friend unless you think the way I want you to think. And I'm just going, you know what? Yeah, that's good. I don't know what does that other than the fact that I'm not trying to impose something on you. That really would seem like a violation of our friendship. Even though when we first met, we both had hope that the other one would come our way. Yeah, I was trying to re-engage this disillusioned tie on the sidelight. It's so much to offer. And I was getting my shovel to scrape you up from the sidewalk, because you were going to get your rear-end kit. Then this from Dave. Just finished listening to the podcast you did with the true-faced guys. Still have a few tears in my eyes, not sure why. I guess the truth has a way of speaking deeply to our need to be loved. A few years ago, you took us through a couple of things that set me back. That religion, all religions, religious Christianity is based on appeasement view of God. That one truth has been knowing at me ever since. And I mean in a good way. And secondly, maybe this was the second night, you introduced the possibility the cross was all about healing the disease and not about punishing the sinner. That one's been knowing at me too. Do you guys really understand how profound those two concepts are? I do. I do too. I do. I have those conversations every week and I watch people's eyes going, I wish I got that. I don't think I do. It's incredibly profound. You know, I did have one email that I think might be a little valuable to toss in here. A little? Yeah. Okay. They were saying, you know, what do you do with the anger? When all of a sudden it's like these things start to illumine your journey and you go like, wait a minute. I never got this. And they're thinking of the last 20 or 30 years that they've been journeying and how helpful. It would have been. Or not journeying. They've been jerked around. Yeah, jerked around as opposed to journeying. Yeah. The reality is there is that sense of the detox of anger that starts to surface when they're just reacting to the fact that I've been lied to. Oh, first time I heard the cross, I was really angry. I flew back from Australia going, why has no one told me this before? And I wasn't just sort of thinking about it. I was like, been to Bible college? Had a number of pastors? Been to this? Been to that? No one told me about the cross. So speak to that. How does that process? Grow out of it. What do you do with that? Grow out of it. You're not bigger than your anger. So to say. Say that again, because I think that's helpful. You're not bigger than your anger. So don't sit there and go, I might have heard it from a guy yesterday. Going through a very grieving moment in his life. Lost of a spouse, birthday coming up, her birthday. And he's like, I gotta live in this piece of peace and not let this grief overwhelm me. And I was like, you know what, dude? Go get your grief. Go get your grief and go get your father and sit down and cry that you miss your wife. That's the other side of loving her for 40, 50 years. Don't sit there and think, I should be deeper in Christ than getting to grieve or deeper in Christ than to be angry. If you're angry, you're angry. Go be angry with the father. Go sit down with him and go, I don't know how to unpack this. Will you unpack this for me? And you're gonna see what you need to see. Part of what you need to see is people were whispering this in your ear and you didn't hear it. God was nudging you in a direction you miss. And then as that process is going on, you start experiencing such life in who the father is that you don't care if you were 40 or 50 or 60 until you saw it. You're just grateful you're finally seeing it and finally get to live in it. And then pretty soon, you won't be angry at those people anymore. You'll just love them too and just feel kind of sorry for the fact that they're stuck in places that you're not stuck in anymore. But you're not gonna just, oh, I shouldn't be angry. If you're angry, you're angry. Why this whole, you shouldn't be angry stuff. It's just so, if you're angry, be angry with the father. Take him there with you. He knows what you're feeling. It's not that he hasn't been trying to get through to us. We're just particularly dense human beings. I was 42 years dense before God could win some of these truths in my heart. But I look back and see he'd never stopped trying. There were moments of inviting me to, I put the religion around it. I found comfort in the religious voices. See, I think you only discover that when you are processing that with him and asking him to unpack that. If in reaction to the pain, your knee jerk response is to isolate yourself from the anger. Yeah, oh yeah. Oh, then that can be a terrible prison. That's gonna grow. Yeah, that's not gonna happen. I mean, that'll leave you stuck someplace. That's not helpful. But acknowledging the fact that, yeah, I feel that, that's real. It's normal. It's okay. I don't have to have a whole bunch of summary conclusions about it. Just go take it to the very person you're now being tractor-beamed, which is take it to the father. And that's true of everything we talked about today. You know, whether you feel defensive or I've gotta convince my friend, take that to God too. Don't say, I'm gonna stop convincing people. On your best day, you're not bright enough. That's what I love about this journey. I just look at my own life and go, on my best day, I wasn't bright enough to win any of these things. So I get questions like, how do I stop doing this? You're not bright enough. And they're like, what? Well, none of us are. And to me, that's the greatest freedom of this journey. You learn to live loved and you don't give up any passion for absolute truth. You just know that you're not absolutely sure of that truth, not yet. Because God is still winning in our hearts what we don't know to be true of Him. And you know what you gain out of all this? Is that God is far bigger than us. And right here. And when I'm not lost thinking the other way around, like my problem is so much bigger, when you end up with a really huge, large, loving God, who isn't trying to get me? Man, life is lived differently in a way that I just go like, you know what, it'll sort itself out. I don't know how. I'm not so anxious about making it, but I do know he's engaged, whether I fully understand it or not, and he's for my good. Thank you for joining us today on The God Journey. If you'd like to participate in the conversation, you may do so at our website, thegodjourney.com.