Blurry Creatures - EP: 405 Hearing the Holy Spirit with Will Acuff

Episode Date: March 10, 2026

Will Acuff is a pastor's kid, former rock and roll guitarist, co-founder of Nashville nonprofit Corner to Corner, and author of No Elevator to Everest. He sits down for a conversation about the blurriest member of the Trinity: the Holy Spirit. Will grew up in a theology where the Spirit was, as he puts it, a weird third cousin nobody knew how to engage with. God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Bible. But a series of life-altering events cracked that framework wide open. He walks through what it practically looks like to develop a rhythm of listening to the Spirit, starting with ten minutes of stillness each morning, getting curious about what you're feeling and why, and learning to distinguish between the voice of the inner critic and the invitation of the Father running out to meet the prodigal son. Will makes the case that spirit-led self-awareness, not the Oprah version but the kind where you never go inward alone because the Holy Spirit is already there, is the missing piece for most Christians who've reduced the faith to knowledge of God without ever learning to walk with Him.But the episode takes a sharp turn when Will shares a story he's never told publicly. His honeymoon ended in a New Orleans psych ward after a perfect storm of sleeplessness, stress, and praying alone over spiritual forces he had no business engaging with at 24 years old. What started as insomnia spiraled into hallucinations, his wife watching his eyes roll back and his body rise off the bed, cops breaking down the hotel door, and a commitment to the psychiatric unit where he was misdiagnosed and put on antipsychotics for two years. Will is honest about the intersection of mental health and spiritual warfare, how being physically compromised makes you vulnerable, how he believes he knocked on a door he wasn't meant to knock on, and how he now never does anything in the spiritual realm alone. The conversation lands on joy, not the dopamine hit happiness of circumstance, but the deep, guitar perfectly in tune kind of joy that comes from living in union with the Spirit, even in the middle of more sorrow than you ever anticipated. Will's life carries more of both than most, and his practical framework for hearing from God is one of the most grounded and accessible we've had on the show. This Episode is Sponsored By: https://go.goodranchers.com/BLURRY — Get $40 off your first order, then $30 off your next two with code BLURRY at checkout! https://timtebow.com/tree-blurry/ — Get your copy of If the Tree Could Speak by Tim Tebow on Amazon today! https://livemomentous.com — Get up to 35% off your first order with promo code BLURRY at checkout! - Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Luke so often, people email us and they have this story. They're out in their woods and they're looking in the bushes and they got, what's that? And when you are pouring your dog food and your dog's bowl, that's the last thing you want to say. What is that? What is the stuff coming out of this bag? You know, I don't think a lot of us think about maybe what we feed our dogs. And that's why we partner with rough greens. Most of us would love to have our dogs live as long as possible. I mean, I just lost my dog in December. And I would have just, I would have loved more time with Carl. And one of the things you can do to get more time with your dog is to feed them better. Dog owners don't usually realize that live nutrients, that their dog needs to thrive or missing from the food. You just talked about. What is that, right? That's where Rough Green comes in. It's America's number one dog supplement that you sprinkle on top of their food. It's packed with prebiotics, enzymes, omega oils, and 20 live vitamins and mineral support digestion, energy and overall health from the inside out. It's all natural made in the USA and thousands of dogs are feeling younger, more energetic and healthier than they have in years. That's why we love it.

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That's RUFF Greens.com discount code blurry. Rough Greens makes any dog food better. The spirit will teach you all things, right? that's a pretty broad category, right? And I had no clue until this kind of transition in my life that teach you all things literally means teaches you all things. Like the Holy Spirit is your custom learning partner in life, right? That as you learn to walk with the Lord and submit your life to the Lord, like you can actually engage with the Spirit saying this is for you. this other thing is not for you, right?

And teaching you, as I would think about it, as you becoming who you were fully meant to be. Or another way of putting it would be like you as your garden self. The history of our earth is so different from what we can imagine. The Smithsonian that if they found out about a large skeleton somewhere was to go get it. I'm going to assume at least one person is right, Because if one person's right to bust the paradigm, it all goes back to the fallen chair. And the problem with the modern day church, they have a very truncated view of the supernatural.

This backdrop that's just pregnant with all kinds of meaning associated with this Mount Herman event. And this guy defects from the kingdom. That's a big deal. We have Will Aikoff in the house. Hopefully I said your name, right? You did. He nailed it. Thank you.

Co-founder of Corner to Corner Nonprofit based here in Nashville, Tennessee. see, Quips, underestimated entrepreneurs with tools they need to support and launch their own businesses. You wrote a book. I like this book. No elevator to Everest, at least the cover. I haven't read it yet. I'll be honest.

We just got it about five minutes ago. I'd be surprised if you did. If you had read it, then let's talk about your mental. Former but purveyor of mustaches. Yes. Great mustache. Didn't see any blurry creatures on Everest, but we'll get into that. But you said this right here.

It says shift to survive to thrive through spirit-led self-aware. And you said the holy, you've been on a journey with the Holy Spirit your whole life. Yeah. And we talk about all the blurry things here. That is blurry. Yeah, the Holy Spirit. Yeah. It's one of the hardest to understand.

Absolutely. So what is your story? Where's your story? Wait, whoa, wait. Wait, wait, wait. Okay, we'll ask you the question. We'll ask you the question. What are your thoughts on Bigfoot?

Do you have any thoughts on Bigfoot? Do you have any thoughts on Bigfoot? Okay. Here's where I land on Bigfoot. The world is a big and mysterious place. And I'm very comfortable with the idea of Bigfoot being a part of that big foot being a part of that big and mysterious place. So I'm pro Bigfoot being real.

And I would also add that I respect his boundaries. Like he's made it really clear that he doesn't want to hang out with me. Yeah. And so I don't need to go looking for him when he's made his intentions. You don't want a toxic relationship with Bigfoot. No, no, no. We talked about this earlier, Nate, that like as we are in a new year at this point, that Bigfoot's New Year's resolutions are always the same is to not be found.

Yeah. And leave him alone. like that meme of him just ripping a heater by the lake. He's like, gosh, just leave me alone. I don't want to see any of guys out here. Yeah, I like that. Stupid games get stupid prizes. Yeah. I'm good. Yeah. Everyone asks where Bigfoot is. You want to know how Bigfoot is. He's clearly said how he's doing and you're not going to intrude. He's a big boundary guy. He's like, listen. You know, healthy boundaries are important. Everything I have done has been to make you known that I don't want to see you. You know what's funny, Will, if you get real nerdy about Bigfoot,

is he does break trees to create boundaries. He just like, don't come past these. He makes structures to like stake out his territory. But sometimes he crosses his own boundaries. He likes to peek in people's windows. That's right. He wants to know what you're doing. But see, maybe that's a bid for connection.

If that's you, then maybe say yes. Speaking of back to the future. He's creepy. Yeah, he's a peeping Tom. Falling out of the tree reference. Oh, I'm familiar. Yeah, it's your first movie. It's your name, Calvin.

So, yeah, we, man, we're already off the California dream boat. Yeah. Well, that's cool. Yeah. I think that I like it. It's like an elevated view of Bigfoot. It's like beyond just like the data and arguing does it exist or not. It's like, no, I think Bigfoot's, he's out there, but he's got feelings too.

Yeah. And I respect him. All right. Yeah. So what about your story? Where does your story start and how do we get into this? Yeah. I mean, anyone's story starts.

When you climbed Everest, I can't wait to get into. No, no, no, that's just the title of the book. It's totally misleading. You didn't climb it. I did not climb ever. I always wanted to until I started watching doctors. about it and I realized how people die on that mountain. I thought in my younger days I was like, I'm going to do it.

And now, and then I climbed Mount Hood. This is my personal story. Twice, not once but twice. And I thought I was going to die doing that. And that's a small mountain. I'm a big man and that's a small mountain. And I, uh, I am not interested. I want the elevator.

Yeah, reframed your perspective. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. We did bring a guy on that found Yetty prince. Yeah, Graham, Graham Hoyland. Yeah, he went on. He found some Yetty friends. He was exploring.

He was out in the middle of nowhere like Himalayas and found with Yeti Prince. It was pacing or pacing his caravan or his group of Sherpas. We're going to inspire you to climb the mountain now. Yikes. You're going to do it. To really do it. Yeah. I think my wife would have to, I mean, double or triple my life insurance policy before she let me take some kind of trip like that. Yeah. Yeah. If you're going to be stupid, stupid, stupid, play stupid games, win stupid prizes. You're like, I need to have a little comp here. 100%. Yeah. But I guess you can start with the Holy Spirit. Like what, what do you think the Holy Spirit is? I think that's hotly debated. How does that work in your life? Yeah.

because that's what you sort of talk about pre-roll. I can't get into it without kind of giving a little background. So I'm a pastor's kid, right? Born and raised in the church. My dad was a church planter, like one of those entrepreneurial type pastors who starts new churches. And so our family moved from the south. Like we were a very southern family.

Grits for breakfast, sweet tea, you know, 24-7. How are you so skinny? Yeah, I gave up the sweet tea and kept the grits. That's the trick. We moved to Massachusetts for my dad to go to seminary. This is back in the early 80s. And so in 1985, he launched a church in the office of a gas station, like the kind where you bring your own folding chair and or tambourine.

Let's go. Like those memes we see? Everybody's just dancing straight, like stiff dancing. It was my life, right? And later he would be like, hey, Will, it wasn't a gas station. It was a car wash office. I was like, that doesn't make it better. you know, like it's still kind of the same vibe.

But by the mid-90s, it was like a thousand or two thousand people every Sunday. At the gas station. Now we had our own building, right? Did wash and soul, washing cars. Yeah, get your soul clean. Conversion growth, right? Like crazy, crazy thing to see. It was beautiful.

But I think I grew up in a theology. No one actually said this, but they kind of live it. You know, I think as a kid, you get most things through osmosis. Yeah. It's just what you're around. And it was, you know, my Trinity was God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Bible. And God the Holy Spirit was at best, like some weird third cousin that you didn't really talk about or know how to engage with. Yeah.

Right. And so, like, when you read those parts of the New Testament, you just kind of breeze past them. Yeah. And then get to, oh, but Paul really means here, right? And you'd be like, well, really, we just blasted past. Like, Paul understand. that his whole life has shifted, and now he lives in union, mystical union with God the Father, God the Son, God the Spirit. And that union happens in and through the power of the living

Holy Spirit. I had no framework for that. Like no grid. No grid. Um, but I was Southern Baptist no grid either. Yeah. Oh, I had a grid and it was a little blurry. Because I was like, you had like seven Holy spirits. I was like, well, no, not like that way. No, but it was like the, you know, the mid-90s or in high school. Do they wave the flags? No, there were flags in the church. And then we had the, you know, the traveling pastors that came through and were like. I tried a date a flag waver. She didn't like me. Yeah, dude. She saw, she saw what. She did. She saw like, this guy doesn't know. Yeah, she didn't trust that. Southern Baptist. No, I mean, we had like the, you know, the people that came through

in the 90s when there was just this charismatic movement, people praying getting slayed in the spirit. And I was, to me, it kind of did the opposite. Being a little bit of rebellious high school kid, I was like, I'm going to come pray for me. I'm not going to fall down. Yeah. And then I didn't. And then I was like, this is all right. Yeah, we came from different perspectives.

What, what denomination were you? So Southern Baptist was my dad. Okay. You were. Non-denominational in practice because like anything you did in New England was kind of by default non-denominational. Okay. Yeah.

Crabbs and football, man. Yeah. Crabb cakes and football. Yeah. And where I grew up was like a Portuguese immigrant town at that point. Kind of blue collar, no collar. and everyone was Catholic except for me. And so I was just lumped into that like you're a Protestant, you know, was kind of the vibe.

Yeah. But I got a call into ministry, my senior year of high school, came back to the south to see what big ministry looked like on a college campus. And the plan was like go, you know, finish four years of school at NC State and go right to seminary like my dad. Go Terps. And just kind of go do the thing. Wolfpack, I was thinking of Maryland is still crackleasing football. Yeah. Go Wolfpack.

We're clamped chowder, you know, in New England and Wolfpack in Raleigh. But we, you know, I... We're fighting Jacobi Brissettes, indeed. Yeah. We had a... We had a... Coming out of college, I instead fell in love with being in a rock and roll band. Okay.

So, hard shift. Yeah. So by day, I was a research analyst and health policy at Duke, so like super nerdy job. And by night, I was in a touring band playing everywhere from like, the Apollo in Harlem to the Dallas hard rock, you know, kind of weekend warrior vibe. Yeah. Had a lot of fun. Never made any real money.

But like we played live at the Apollo and didn't get booed off, which was my claim to fame. That's a big deal. Oh, man, it's the most nervous I've ever been. Like, because you can, what they don't tell you is they aim a mic at the crowd and then they pipe the booze into your monitors. So pretty nerve-wracking to see that as you step out. Talk about instant feedback loop. right? Yeah, 100%.

Yeah. There was a venue in, I was in band too. There was a venue in the Carolinas with the basketball hoop in the second level. I can't remember what it's called. Not the Cat's Cradle. Maybe, yeah. I think that's what it was. Did you know a band named May.

They were from there. I did. You knew May. Yeah, they're from the Carolinas. The, what was it, the Afterglow? Yeah, I think it was the Cat's Cradle we played in there a couple times. Anyway. Great spot.

Yeah. But over time. Basketball with a bunch of dudes who couldn't play. You guys are a bunch of musicians. A bunch of musicians playing hoops. I played hoops with third day guys once. Were they any good? We played wiffleball.

They were better at wiffleball. I mean, but everybody's better at wiffleball. Yeah, it's, well, dude, I remember playing wiffleball between two tourbuses on Warp Tour and striking out all the, all the... Dude, you can make them Wiffleball do wicked things. So sometimes, yes, it's easier. I struck out some of the legends, dude. Punk rock legends.

Just striking out of those... Wiffleball legends? Yeah. No, no, though. Like, all these dudes in bands, singer of bands, like, you know, striking them out because that's all I did as a kid. That's funny. Anyway, we are really good at staying on track here on blurry creatures. I love it. Yeah, we didn't know you yesterday by the way. Yeah, thanks. Shout out to Josh.

Josh Doyle. Yeah, yeah. Give it out to Josh from no longer nomads who hooked it up. We're going to Israel with him. And I was like, hey, can we get back to Will Story here? Let's get the Holy Spirit to get somebody on the show right now. Yeah. And then it happened. It didn't happen. Now, we spent a lot of time questioning narratives. figuring out where things come from. But if you ever want to trace where great meat comes from, Luke? Good ranchers. Our friends of Good Ranchers are the ones that are doing that.

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Yeah, so fast forward, you know, the band thing was good for my ego, bad for my soul, right? And you know those things that are hollowing you out. Yeah. And it was one of those. And around that time, I met this guy who was a professor at University of North Carolina, expert in the AIDS pandemic. And he started having a small group of us meet at his house every Sunday after church. And we were talking some Bible stuff, some doctrine stuff, but also like, what do you do in the face of global poverty? And he was teaching us all sorts of crazy things I'd never been exposed to. And then we went to Nairobi and we all separated. So like I was staying with this family on the edge of one of the worst slums in sub-Saharan Africa. It's 2002 around the height of the

AIDS pandemic. And the things I saw. we're there for about six weeks, completely destroyed my worldview. And I had one of those moments where I was like, if this level of suffering is real, how dare I say, like, I'm a follower of Jesus? And I don't get into the mix, right, for those who are, like, at the margins. So I felt that, but then also the band and the ego thing was so good. So I was like, hey, God, let me try to ignore that, right? And I'd say my first real interaction with the Holy Spirit, like in this.

in this kind of season was like, you know, if a teenager hears a thumping noise in a car, they just turn up the radio and they don't get it fixed. Right? Yeah. I was like, if I just keep driving with the radio loud enough, that thumping will resolve itself. I turned up the radio on the Holy Spirit, right? Like the Holy Spirit was like, I have made you for something other than this. And I was like, ah, let me double down.

And I think in life, we get the loving whisper of God, first, and when we ignore the loving whisper, we later get the loving sledgehammer. And I got the loving sledgehammer, and we can get into this a little more later, but the short version is my honeymoon ended in the ER. And everything my wife and I thought we were going to build our life around was totally destroyed. And in the aftermath of that, what I kept hearing from God was, I have called you to set your eyes on the marginalized and keep it there.

And so 18 years ago, my wife and I, we moved into a low-income neighborhood in order to get a theology of neighbor, right, and live it out. My wife, who's way tougher than me, if you ever meet her, you'll know that pretty quick. You'll be like, that checks out. She got a job in the men's prison, and she started helping guys transition back to jobs. Wow. Right? Like, she's driving the prison van herself kind of stuff. That's wild. Right?

And they were coming home to our neighborhood. where we were now living, it was their neighborhood. And so we started doing life with these guys. And that was the beginning of me learning how to say yes to the spirit, learning how to listen to the spirit. Yeah. You know, that, I would describe that as like, those were the baby step days.

Will, can you talk? I mean, for a lot of folks out there that maybe don't have, like, don't have or never were given a grid, you talk about a little bit, but when you say you heard from the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit is saying this. How does that practically look like for you? because I think this is not just like a blurry creatures thing.

This is like a church thing. There's divisions and denominations within Christendom that just say, that doesn't happen. Yeah. Or they say that happens all the time. Yeah, everything is or nothing is. Right. It's a zero-sum game, right?

Yeah. But we talk pre-roll about this. We know that Jesus gives us his spirit. The day of Pentecost, the spirit shows up. And depending on where your theology is after that, we have the Holy Spirit as part of the Trinity. And you made an interesting observation about the way you grew up as far as like, well, that part we don't really talk about.

Yep. And, you know, I had a conversation with a buddy. My name's a foreign pastor this morning about the ideas within, you know, creating this theology around which really, and we talked about on the show, becomes like a moral code. It's just, you're just trying to be good. Just trying to do a lot of good stuff and play by the rules. And it doesn't leave a lot of space for,

this third part of the Trinity, which we know exists in the Old Testament and in the New Testament. 100% to operate. Your book says spirit-led self-awareness. Yeah. And a lot of it is self-awareness. Yeah. The more that grows, the more you can actually listen to the Holy Spirit, I would say. Yeah, 100%. How does that practically operate for you? Yeah. Well, so let me frame it biblically real quick. And then I'll jump into how I would think about it on a practical level. So like biblically, I would look at passages like John 14, right? This is Jesus' upper room discourse. He's about to go to the cross. This is the equivalent. of like the last speech

a football coach gives before the Super Bowl, right? It has that like, this has extra weight because everything's about to go down, right? And in John 14, he says, look, I'm going to send you the spirit and it's going to do two things for you.

It's going to help you remember everything that I said, right? So that's super encouraging because it's going to draw us back to the words in the life of Jesus, right? Awesome. And then it says, Jesus says, hey, and it's also,

the spirit will teach, teach you all things, right? That's a pretty broad category, right? And I had no clue until this kind of transition in my life that teach you all things literally means teaches you all things. Like the Holy Spirit is your custom learning partner in life, right? That is you learn to walk with the Lord and submit your life to the Lord. Like you can actually engage with the Spirit saying,

this is for you. This other thing is not for you, right? And teaching you, as I would think about it, as you becoming who you were fully meant to be. Or another way of putting it would be like you as your garden self, right? Yeah. So practically, then you get into, well, jump into further into like Pauline epistles, right?

He talks about it's no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me, right? And he uses this language of like union with, right? But at the same time, culturally, I was raised with this notion of, hey, the journey of faith is knowledge of God and knowledge of self just to the extent that you know you need Jesus. Right. And in some Christian cultures, like, know that you're a piece of, right, so that you know you need Jesus. And that's it.

Don't ever look at yourself again. That's navel gazing. Who can even know? The heart is deceitful above all things. Right. And you get that kind of thinking, right? And what it leads to is this really warped sense of what the journey of faith is. It's knowledge of God only, right?

That creates a brain on a stick kind of theological system vibe where we become like, you know, butterfly scientists, right? They capture the butterfly and they pin it down. It's dead, right? Versus what I'm talking about is like, ooh, I'm content to see the thing for. fly. And what does it look like to be so attuned to the spirit and so alive to the spirit that that's how I'm living my life, how I'm making my decisions, how I'm resting in the Lord every day? And that kind of leads to the practical. And the last thing I just say is like I was taught that the cross was the

end of the story. And I actually now think it's the beginning. I think the real story is union with Christ that's unfolding. Yeah. So how do you, I mean, how do you discern? I think this is the one thing I think that we find in the community and in the space of people that are trying to live in this way is discerning between the Holy Spirit and in your own voice, right? Yeah. Because I think, and especially in the blurry creature space, there's this, everyone preaches or stands on a soapbox that they call discernment. And we've kind of gone down this trail a little bit, but I know that the Holy Spirit

gives us discernment. But my observation is a lot of people convolut that with, you know, you know, either their own fears, their own voice, or particularly in our space, and people bump up against something that pushes on their paradigm. There's a knee-jerk reaction to be like, well, my discernment went off, Holy Spirit, but told me this. And I think sometimes people don't always have, and this could be the same for me. I'm not just, I'm harping on anyone, but, you know, how do you discern the spirit versus,

you know, is you talk about self-awareness, your own fears, your own, your own voice. But there's a lot of different spirits we've found. Yeah. And they're named. The spirit of religion is one of them, which kind of comes in and wants to snuff out. So you have competing entities that want to tell you stuff. Totally. Which is, or yourself, you know. Yeah, and take every thought captive.

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Yeah. And I'd also say, if scripture's true, and I believe it is, and it says the Holy Spirit is in us, but yet my whole spiritual life, I've been taught that know everything's out here, right? I've never been taught to go inward and actually connect with the Spirit. Right? Does that make sense? Yeah. spirits right here, but all I'm doing is out here. And so I think that one of the first things

that I started to learn and started to develop is like, what does it look like to get still enough, right, to actually start to know what I'm thinking and what I'm feeling? Because I can't take any thought captive if I'm not actually creating a space of stillness. Oh, and that's just like a foreign concept for all of a, for this generation, for most of us that are just like, oh, I have a spare moment, let me put my phone, let me scroll. 100%. There's no downtime. No, constant activity, constant entertainment, right? And then what that means is you've got all these currents that are going on underneath that are guiding you, but you have no idea what they are, right? And so, you know, step one practically is you have to have a rhythm of listening. And that's so uncomfortable

for a lot of people to actually sit still and not, not feel your dopamine receptors and not, you know, or not let your mind slow down to things you have to do what you haven't done. What's on the do list. It's like, there's no, there's no Sabbath in a way, even in micro-mic-sabbit. No, no, forget it. Forget it. But I think growing up, it seems like the Holy Spirit became like sort of a key for church abuse, though. Like the Holy Spirit told me, so you have to follow me. It's the guy in college saying, God told me that we're supposed to be supposed to date. Oh, dude. Yeah. Count me hyper-s suspicious about you getting a word for someone else, right? Like, I tend to be in the suspicious camp about that kind of stuff. But,

because it can lead to such manipulation. And it's like the ultimate card to throw, right? What I'm talking about is you and the Holy Spirit. Right. And so, you know, I'd say practically step one, create rhythms of discernment. One really practical one that I do, because I've found myself and every other human I've ever met,

nobody wakes up neutral, right? Like you wake up and you're running through, what do I got to do today? You're running through, oh, you know, oh my gosh, wait, that conversation I had my wife right before bed, it's weighing heavy right now, right? Or what's going on with your kids, whatever? And in the past, I used to just push that down

and just try to plow through my day, right? Not knowing that so much of the way I engaged with my day was guided by that undercurrent, right? So the first thing I do, I got a cup of coffee, I moved a coffee maker to my bedroom so I don't wake up the kids, right, to do this in my room. Smart. Right?

It's like a little single cupcake, you know, currig. It's not great coffee, but it'll get the job done. I make that cup, I go sit in this chair, and I get still, just a couple, you know, four deep breaths, right? And then I get curious about what I'm feeling the most, right? And I go, huh, why am I feeling that? And I get curious. And that posture of curiosity starts kind of a trailhead exercise, if you will, right, where I'm being willing to go deeper to learn more. What I find often is, oh, I'm feeling afraid, right?

Oh, and I'm feeling afraid because I'm telling myself that if this thing doesn't happen, some disaster is going to happen in my life, right? Oh, so I'm making that thing bigger than the power of God in my life. Yeah. Huh. What would it look like for me to release that fear to the Lord? Right? First Peter language.

Cast all your anxieties on God because he cares for you. I love that verse, but then you're always like, how. Yeah. What does that look like? What's the step? Yeah. Right. And you get the sense that they were telling each other that around the fire. Right. But we don't get those little side notes. No, we don't get the nuance to it. No. No, we don't get the tone of the text. Right. Like I love the Bible, but it's text. How much better is a voice note than a text message? Yeah. Like I was just joking my buddies, like sarcasm stuff through text. Right. 100%. That just seems mean. Yeah. Our friendship is shattered. Thank you. Yeah. So we, yeah, I think we, yeah, I think we,

wake up and first few minutes of the day kind of decides the day in a lot of ways. There's really no other time to get quiet. Yeah. Because you can just get going. Yep. So I would say that's the first step in this create some discernment, right? Create some listening space. The other thing I would say is this is a little bit controversial.

But, you know, in scripture, the person who's called the accuser is Satan. Yeah. Right. The Holy Spirit, I think, speaks to us in a way that sounds like the father of the prodigal son is always going right here with me is where you belong. I love you. I love you. Welcome home. Right. And that it's his kindness that leads us to repentance. Right. So in your self-awareness. Passion worship record. Right. But in your self-awareness journey, you often come up with a self-critic. Right. So you talk about different spirit. Yeah. Right? And I meet so many Christians who think the Holy Spirit is their inner critic. Yeah. Right?

And I fundamentally do not think that is true. You think the Holy Spirit can convict us of our... Oh, absolutely. Right. But it does it in a way that is calling forth to remind you of who you are and whose you are. It's calling you up. There's no shame. No.

There's no guilt. No, it's invitation. Yeah. It's, hey, do you hear the party? The music's warming up and it's your well. Welcome home party. This is where you belong. Because I think a lot of us grew up, depending on what kind of relationship we have with

your parents, everything feels like shame. Everything feels like critique. There was never a space. I mean, you heard from your parents often. And it was like, now I feel worse about myself. Yeah. I was already telling myself I sucked. Now you've confirmed it for me.

Yeah, which isn't, you know, I don't. That's never the work of Jesus. No, no. He always says, go and send no more. Yes. Right? Like, get up. Yes.

There's a new life over there. I have come that you may have life and have it to the full. Yes. I have that verse tattooed. Yeah. I mean, it's funny because men too, I think that, you know, there's that verse that's better to live on the corner of your roof and deal with a nagging wife. And I think that.

And I think that. If you bring that one up, that's going to go over well. Well, I mean, the point is, is like a man already has all that negative thought going on everywhere. Yep. At work and your profession, your friends. I mean, men are not good at encouraging each other. No. Then you come home.

No at all. Look at our, yeah, look at your group text with your pals. Yeah. No. Yeah. Then you come home and then you get that. Uh-huh. So then obviously all that to say is that the Holy Spirit would sound a lot like that critique.

You're just another failure. Totally. Aren't you? Yep. But when a woman speaks life into you as a man, everything's negative and then she's like, you got what it takes. You're like, man. Yeah. Put a ring on that.

Yeah, 100%. Yeah. Yeah. Let's go. It reminds me, I have a friend who says, you know, thank God, the Holy Spirit still speaks. And 90% of the time, it sounds like my wife, right? Which I think is also a great indicator. But that's hard because I think that obviously the father-son relationship, all this familiar language, and Holy Spirit's part of this.

You have a bad family. Yep. You can't hear it correctly. Yeah. Well, I think part of this is in any good spirit-led self-awareness work. And let me be clear, I'm not talking about self-awareness as it often comes up in popular culture these days, right? I just take care number one. Yeah.

Love me some me, that kind of. Totally. I'm got to be true to my truth, et cetera. Oprah. Yeah. What I'm talking about is spirit-led self-awareness, which I would say for Christians, when you go inward, you never go alone. Like, if scripture is true, you have the Holy Spirit there who will guide you, right? And so what it will feel like over time is more, oh, man, hey God, I didn't know I was living out of that story about my dad, my actual earthly father and how he treated me.

And I was projecting that on you, right? But thank you for making me aware of that and starting to heal that wound and starting to unwind that. But we don't heal those wounds and unwind those hurts and those stories. if we're like, man, I wake up, I hit go button on my day, and I just go try to grind it out, right? We never have the space. You're compartmentalizing all that. Totally.

We're just, boom. So you start your day with that. You start your day by getting quiet. Yeah. Four breaths. And then just asking the Lord what he wants to do. I made a joke on Facebook a couple years ago. It said like self-awareness is your Amazon review, you know?

Like what people would say about you? Yeah. And how much can you predict your Amazon? Amazon review. Yeah. Like, and I think that's where people get real, real bold and honest is like, this is the kind of person you really are. And it can hurt for a while.

Yeah. Speaking of being in a band, I remember being in a band was hard because like either you got, either you had self-awareness or your band broke up. Because you just get to, you just get to a place where you're so much tension. That's a sermon series right there. That is a Nashville sermon series. This morning, Luke, I popped the omega-3s by Momentus to give my brain a little edge. And I've been taking it the last couple weeks.

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Nobody ever modeled that to me. So obviously, I don't know how to do it. You're right. And then that was the beginning of like, okay, that doesn't hurt to say that. Yeah, I don't know how to admit I'm wrong. Why? And then it was like a slowly learning like, hmm, man, I'm very defensive. I have this core around me and I'm very, I can't be wrong.

I don't think that was modeled to me. But the Holy Spirit speaks to, you're saying, to us like the prodigal son, which is the father's like, runs out to save his son from all the people that are ready to stone the guy, beat the guy, yell at the guy. He's like, no, no, no, no. And put a robe on him, bring him back in the house. Love this guy. So that's a different voice than, I don't know if anyone has that voice in their life in that. in like this human, we don't really have

somebody who believes in us like that. No, and also doesn't lie to us, right? Because what that friend said to you or that bandmate, hey, you don't, you gotta always be right, da, da, da, da, da, right? You heard that and it connected with you as truth. Yeah. Right?

And you sat with it and it started to shape you. And so in what I'm talking about, the Holy Spirit will start to reveal things to you that are truth about you that you connect with. right? And I think about this in the language of Jesus where he's like, yeah, I am the light, right? Like when I expose something, when darkness is brought into light, right, things change. And so there's a part of this that is you starting to go, oh, I thought this was the story. Oh, it's not. This is the

story. Right. And I'm willing to do the work. Because if you do this, I promise, you do this 30 days, like 10 minutes in the morning, you will start being a more full version. version of yourself and your spouse, those closest to you, will start to notice. Well, I remember that too, like when Jesus calls disciples, he, he changes a couple of their names. He says, I'm going to change what you call yourself. Yeah. To something that is my calling to you. I don't know some people go out there and changes their names, but he does that to Peter.

Yep. I mean, he's like, this is who you are. Yeah. Where do we start to hear like a different voice or how do we know, discern which voices that's, that's me, that's the Holy Spirit, that's... Yeah, because I can go off the rails quickly, right? And it does. And we talked about the manipulation.

It does. It's like, God told me this. Yeah. God said that. Absolutely. I discern this. And so this is my truth, which is really just a repacking of Oprah. That viral video he was talking about, it was a guy who was on stage in church.

He's like, God told me that I'm going to meet my wife today. So if you're out there, come talk to me. And it was just like, we've all know that guy. Yeah, totally. There was a guy in my college group that says telling all the girls that he thought were available. They got to tell them they were going to get married. And I was like, you can't, he's not telling you all these. Yeah, this is not a Mormon church.

You're not getting married to all of them. Yeah, you can have seven of them. You choose. That's all you get. Yeah. Oh, man. Shot fired. Yeah.

You know, I think what I'm trying to get at is this also has guard rails, right? You have the written word of God. So if you're being told or you think you're being told something that is contradictory to God's word, Right. Alarm bells should be going off, right? You will also, I tend to find that the Holy Spirit is affirming, coaxing, and building up things that were already a part of me. Right. And what I mean by that is, you know, you have meetings. You have moments in your work life that you go, oh, that was what I was put on earth to do. Right. Where you like you kind of feel that full body yes moment, right? I think those are actually affirmations of the Holy Spirit saying this, buddy. this is how you were made. Do more of this. And they feel so deeply true to you that you have that moment. It's that chariot's a fire, right?

When I run, I feel his pleasure. I feel God's pleasure. Right? You know those moments, right? And that soundtrack. Yeah, and that soundtrack. You just hear it. And you can only do whatever you're doing in slow motion

if that soundtrack is on. Right. But so it doesn't feel discordant with who God has made you to be. Right? Like it feels, even if for somebody else, they would go, that seems scary. Or why would you put yourself in danger, right? Like I remember a guy, I told him I was leading a Bible study.

This is years ago with a bunch of former gang members in Nashville, right? And he was like, Will, do you ever bring a gun to Bible study? And it was the most natural question for him. And I was like, no, I find it's a mixed message if I'm like, I'm here to tell you about God's love. But if it gets scary, I'll shoot you, right? Like I'm going in unarmed. Not the machine gun preacher. Yeah, like I'm going to go and.

be with you, right? And for him, that was scary, but for me, it made me feel alive, right? And, like, knowing that that's how I was wired. Yeah. So I think you have scripture. You have who you are and who you're becoming, right? And then you have your community. This should not be you in isolation, right? This should be you part of a body of Christ, part of a church, part of your family, right? Like, you should be doing this in dialogue with others. So the rhythm, the rhythm is to get quiet. and you said if you do it for 30 days it's going to change. I promise you, you will be tasting and experiencing more of the joy of the Lord if you do this 30 days, 10 minutes a day.

Does the Holy Spirit wait? I mean, does the Holy Spirit tell you to be quiet? Self-awareness isn't always just, you know, the offensive loud thing. Oh, we want to feel that noise sometimes too, right? Or the lack of noise. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've had, I mean, this gets, we're starting to get into the blurry, into the woo-woo, right?

But I've had moments where I'm out jogging and all of a sudden very clearly, I will feel like it feels like a download, right? The Holy Spirit being like, hey, on that project, like I had one recently where Holy Spirit was like, hey, I want you to stop working with that person. And I was like, what? And this is one where you can't go to like John 317 and be like, oh, here's where it says about who did your projects with, right? Like you're out in your own, right? And I hear people going. How did that feel? Like, how did you hear that?

Man, it's hard to describe. It's like, it's less an auditory sensation, right? I don't mean like I'm hearing a booming voice. No tree around me lit on fire. Yeah, you're not burning bush. But it felt like from the tip of my forehead all the way down to my toes, like an awareness of this truth. And what I said back, like dialogue, you know, just kind of in dialogue. inwardly, I was like, hey, Holy Spirit, like, okay, I'll do that like this summer.

Like, I needed this, I needed a couple more things that happened in this project. Yeah. And the Holy Spirit said back very clearly, it'd be better if you did it now. Hmm. Right? And I was like, oh, this is going to be so awkward. Like, I can't call this person and go, hey, I need to wrap up this project because on my run today, the Holy Spirit told me to, right?

Right. Yeah. But I did it. And I needed the money. Yeah. Like this was a financial... This one's counter to your safety. Right?

Yeah. But I, like, again, there's always going to be people who go, yeah, that sounds too boo-boo for me. Sounds too, whatever. But I think when, again, that John 14 language, I think this is the kind of stuff that is included in the words of Jesus. So like when you're a parent, you have a kid and you realize there's certain stages when you can actually... I mean, every kid, there was a comedian. And every parent lies to their kid. And he's like talking about all this stuff, you know.

And it was funny. But it's like there is a point when the information can't be handled based on the maturity. Self-awareness is like there's lots of people who can't hear from the Holy Spirit because they haven't gone through enough experiences to be able to listen. It doesn't matter how loud it is. Yeah. Yeah.

So what is that? Where is the difference between the voice? being heard and the experience to hear the voice. Yeah, I mean, I would start with, ask yourself the question, does the living, abiding Holy Spirit have a role in my faith life right now? Be honest with yourself. Right? Yeah. And for a lot of us, you're going to go, oh, man, no. Right? Yeah. And then I would just start by reading the Bible. You know, on any software app these days, you can just search Holy Spirit. and get all the verses with the posture of, hey, God, will you teach me about your Holy Spirit? I would start there, right, as like a beginning kind of process, right?

And my hunch is if you- Or start a band. Yeah, start a band. Yeah. We've learned in this episode is either a train wreck or it's a train wreck that's also group therapy. It's a group, it's free therapy. Well, it's not free, but it's- It costs you everything. Exactly. But yeah, I mean, so it's sort of stepping outside of yourself because like I was listening to a podcast of the day and he was saying couples who survive inject humor in their fights.

It's almost like let's step out. Let's look at ourselves as like a couple over here. Let's take a couple of jokes. Look at look at how ridiculous this is, you know, versus just taking digs. So when you start taking digs at yourself and you can't even laugh with God about the absurdity of a situation. Yeah. Like you're talking to a burning bush and you just like step back and like, this is ridiculous. Yeah. But I'm but but but I'm here and I'm going to listen. So yeah, there's a lot of block blocks into actually seeing ourselves. That's what I'm trying to get to. And for me, it was like very hardheaded stubbornness that ran up against my desire to play rock and roll was greater than my ego. So I was willing to die to parts of my ego so I could continue doing this thing. that was the heart passion of mine. But it took years to get to that wall. Yeah. And some people, it's their deathbed. Totally. It's that moment they go, I was wrong.

I got a lot of stuff. And I'm sorry. How do we get to the deathbed long before? Oh, man. Well, I was, I mean, again, start with scripture, right? If you're listening to this and you're going, man, this guy is full of it. Like, okay, cool, read your Bible, right? And ask yourself the question, what role does the Holy Spirit play in my life?

And then in regarding of like, what we're getting at here is what I would think of as like more like spiral kind of growth, right, where you might be touching some of the same issues, some of the same themes, right? But the repentance cycle is shorter. The trust in God is greater, right? And some of the same things where you were like, oh, man, this is bump it up against my ego, but I'm willing to die to that in order to do this, right? It wasn't the last time you had that friction point, right? No. But your ability to deal with it gets better and better, right? So that's one thing I would say is like we grow in our ability to engage with, rest in, trust in, et cetera.

And the more you put faith in the Lord, right, in real world scenarios, the more your faith grows, right? Like when my wife and I moved into the neighborhood, I still for a while had a really good job in a software company, right? I mean, talk about another moment I heard from the spirit. We were growing our nonprofit kind of as our side hustle, right? But it was getting too big for us to maintain out of our own family budget and our own time. And the owner of that company took me aside one day and he was like, hey, I've got increased responsibility for you. I'd like to groom you for like next level leadership. And here's the salary that would come with that, right?

For the last six months, I'd been wrestling with the Lord. What should I do? Do I stay at this company? Do I go full time in the nonprofit? As soon as he said the number, right? Boom, instant clarity. And it was, again, one of those, I didn't hear anything, but it was just like the veil was removed. Right?

And I said, hey, I can't take that role. And in fact, I need to give you my notice. it's time for me to go full time in this nonprofit. And then I came home and had to talk to my wife about it. Look, I just turned down all this money. Yeah. And she was like, okay, let's go. Right?

And since then, I've now had, like, my whole life only exists because of the generosity of the saints, both the donors who support the nonprofit as well as like, you know, both our kids are through domestic adoption out of Memphis. And my son, who's now 13, we've been with him. birth, he's got like five different disability diagnoses. Our everyday life with him is hyper challenging. And we made a choice to be downwardly mobile. And you know what costs a lot, raising a family with disabilities. Yeah. Right. And over and over and over again, when I've been totally stretched, or my wife and I've been totally stretched, the Lord has provided where like

there was a time where our roof was leaking because of a tornado, right? Insurance would cover it. You must live in Nashville. Yeah, exactly. My car was, I literally had parts of my car that I had zip tied together, right? Yeah. And it was on its last legs. You know, my son needed all this medical support that we couldn't afford because it was all out of pocket. And within about three months, all of that had been taken care of. Wow. Friends had donated all the money for the medical support. A guy who didn't even know me paid for the replacement of the roof, right? 12,000 dollars, another guy had come to me and said, hey, what are you going to do about that car? I was like, oh, you know, I'm going to buy a used car off my brother, which is, by the way,

the thing you do if you're in ministry. You like buy a used car for family members. Everyone of the family's had this car. Totally. Yeah. And you're also going to have to take a bank note to do it, right? Like it is both and. And he's like, I don't want that to have to happen for you.

Here's a check, right? Like, all of it was sorted. And my point in bringing that up is the more I've said yes to God and stepped out in faith, the more that the ground has felt firmer, even though I don't know the details, and the more my kind of interconnectivity with the spirit has strengthened. How does that relate to,

I know you talk about this in your book, but how does all this relate to joy, right? I mean, we're told in our society that, like, what's most important is that we're happy. Yeah. They pursue happiness. The pursuit of happiness, right? And we know that actually runs contrary.

The Bible doesn't talk about that. It talks about joy and joy being a different, different than certain. circumstantial sort of rushes of dopamine, right? So how does that play into this conversation? Deep gratitude is different. Yeah. Yeah, great, great question.

I mean, let's go to the fruit of the spirit, right? Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, self-control, right? Joy is right there, right? And what I'm describing is your context no longer defines how well you're doing. Mm-hmm. Right? Your union with the most high is what defines how you're doing. And to the greater extent that that is where you are grounding yourself and living out of, right, again, it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me.

Paul still got his butt kicked, right? Like he talks, oh, we try to get into Asia and, you know, we're thwarted over and over again. Like we were despairing. And yet he also writes about this incredible. joy that he has, right? And so I think what I'm getting at is, to the extent that you are more and more living a life that is in union with the spirit, your context will no longer be the thing that defines you, which is happiness, right? That's the dopamine hit. That's the hedonic treadmill, right? I will be good if. Right. And this is all diminishing returns. As long as you live

realize that's just like it's less and less. 100%. That's the, that's the, that's the, that's the Ask the billionaire, how much more money do you need and they go just a little more. Right. Right. Yeah. And you go, to buy what? Do what? Do what?

Yeah. You will die naked and alone. Well, I, I, yeah. The subtleties are hard in the church because I think Luke and I run into this is like the really nuanced ideas. Like, we bring on people on the show that talk about, um, casting spells on people. And I've, you know, was researching a guy to bring on the show saying that if when you pray to God, God in a way that's like, God, do this, do this and do this. That is a form of witchcraft.

You're trying to manipulate God to do what you want to do, but you think you're having this meaningful prayer encounter with God, which I would say is a lack of self-awareness. And then you tell that person, I'm praying for you to blah, blah, blah, blah. It's like we've run into a lot of- I'm trying to divinely manipulate it. Yes. It's very manipulative and it's subtle.

It's micro-manipulations. And very southern. Yeah. God bless you. I know. Bless your heart. Bless your heart. And so it's like that is a hard part.

And I think that creates this. I don't want anything to do with it. So I'm going to be out here and I'm not going to, I'm just going to be on my own path with God and I don't want to be a part of any community. Yeah. Because a lot of us have gotten involved in the community, got hurt. Totally. And so we move into these pockets of Christian faith and denominations where they're

There's no gray area. You're talking about a lot of gray area. Yeah, totally. And it's hard to live in that gray space of, I don't know how I'm going to pay my bill next month. Check flaws out of the blue from some dude. Yeah. That's hard.

Well, this reminds me of like a little bit of like what Charles Windall said, which is life is 10% of what happens to you and 90% of how you react to it. Yeah. And if we're, I think if we're in a suspicion where we are in communion with the Holy Spirit, the way that we react to the 10% becomes completely different. So our 90% changes. right? Absolutely. And it's not Polyana-ish, right? This is not like trying to minimize the hard.

No. Because there will be, there are moments with my son where I'm just like, oh, Lord, like my heart is breaking for what he's having to go through and endure. Yeah. And if I could, like I have prayed for healing and haven't received it. Yeah. Right. I'm longing for him having this different experience. And the manipulative thing would be saying, you're just not. praying the right prayer. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, as if like God is a cosmic ATM and if I get the pin code right, then I win. Yeah, or a magician. You're just like just.

Yeah. No, and what I'm talking about is like, I can have deep lament, hey, Lord, here is my heart. Yeah. And I'm putting it all out before you. And yet I'm trusting in you and what you're going to, you know, bring to the table here. Yeah. And I think there's Jamie Winchip. I don't know if you come across some of his stuff.

He has a great little prayer where it's, hey, what do you want me to know about this? Like, what do you want me to know and learn about this? And then what do you want me to do about this? And then sitting in a heart posture of listening before the Lord. Yeah. Yeah, because I mean, is that where you find joy? Yeah. I mean, I, this is hard to describe because we're getting into, you know, really out there things.

but my life has more sorrow in it than I could have ever anticipated when I was a kid, you know, and I have more joy than I ever would have thought possible. Yeah. Every day. Like, I can't, there are moments where I'm just like, I can't believe God has me doing this. Yeah. Like, and it's the, you talk about being in a band, right? Yeah.

I'm a guitar player. Yeah. And when you perfectly tune a guitar and then, like, you play that chord. Mm-hmm. And it's just like, oh, this is what this was made for. Yeah. That's the feeling that I'm describing. Yeah, unless you're Bob Dylan.

You don't care. Neither my voice nor this guitar is in tune. Yeah, right. Doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. I'm a little pitchy. Yeah. Right?

But like, it is you being played in tune. Like, God, this is me alive to my purpose. And you working in and through me. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. That's what joy's found. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It is joy. Yeah. You know, there's a moment where Indiana Jones just steps out and just goes, I don't know, the steps are going to come from. And they do. So it's like it's faith, but it's the Holy Spirit, self-awareness. I can throw a little sand out there to see it, though.

Yeah, it's awesome. Sean Connery. Yeah. There's just. The dog's name was Indiana. It's a dog's name. Yeah. Everybody thinks they have a great Sean Connery, by the way.

He's one of those voices. Oh, dude, The Rock. Yeah. I just saw the movie The Rock. It's excellent. Welcome to the rock. I think we talk a lot to people because like, for instance, like Luke and I deal with a lot of people who are struggling and suffering in the blurry verse,

which means they have entities messing with them. And so people go, those entities don't exist. And then you have the emails that go, thank you for talking about this because I deal with this and nobody believes me. So it's like imagine like a suffering in another dimension almost. And we're like, that doesn't happen to me. Yeah. I don't know.

It's like a Beastie Boys song. But we, I mean, we could go there because I've, I've experienced that. I was going to ask you, I want to hear some of these stories we talked about pre-roll. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, so to unpack the best honeymoon ever. Right. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, because you tease that one. Yeah, a honeymoon that ends in an ER and then requires your mom to come to where you are to help get you guys home, right? Like, that's not. Right. Not the best one you're right. I'm on my own. We're getting married. Yeah. Yeah. So I'll get into that story. And I've never shared like some of these details. So. Well, thank you. Vulnerable stuff here. But we, you know, the background was leading up to our wedding, but like four of the five kind of really stressful things that can happen in, you know, kind of a country like America, right, all happened at once for me. Got a different job, moved into. the place that we were going to be living once we were married. A kid in the youth group that I had served with, she died in a car wreck. So her funeral was the same day as our wedding.

And then I got married, right? All that happened in the same week. The only one that didn't happen was like having a baby, right? Those are like kind of some of the top five. But I had four of them. I didn't know anything about spiritual warfare stuff and didn't know anything about mental health, right? So clueless, 24 years old. And we get married and our honeymoon night, like, I'm all keyed up. I can't sleep. I'm trying to read myself to sleep, right? My wife's asleep. I think I actually had a copy of Chronicles of Narnia with me. Oh, really? Right? The voyage of the don't treader, I believe. And I'm trying to read it to sleep and I can't. So I just stay up all night, right? Then we go on our honeymoon trip to New Orleans. This is a year to the day before Katrina.

And for the first time in my life, I feel called to like pray about kind of spiritual realm stuff. And the Orleans is dark. Right. And I'd never really prayed anything like that. I'm praying it on the plane. Well, get there. I'm still keyed up. I don't sleep night too.

Right. That was like Sunday night. This keeps going. I'd try to get to sleep. Wouldn't my wife would fall asleep. And I would stay awake. And then eventually I start having. having full on like my senses are deceiving me, right?

The hallucinations. Hallucinations, et cetera. Like I'm wandering. I took all of our money that people had given us and I just walked around New Orleans and gave it away to homeless people like at night while my wife was asleep, right? So. Dude. And I'm making phone calls to people back home and they're like, what is going on with Will?

Yeah. I mean, I think the technical term would be like some sort of psychosis. right so then my wife is like whoa this is getting crazy like let's get home so like she pulls an audible we're going to fly home early

takes us to the airport try to get on a plane and there's no flights right and this is before like your smartphone where you could do that kind of thing easy get to like go to the airport right? Like the ticket counter?

Yeah like a ticket counter two tickets home yeah can't do it and at this point I am so out of it that like the only thing I can think about at the time is like don't lose sight of your wife, right? Like my cognitive, my... You haven't slept in three days?

No, at that point it was, I hadn't slept since Friday night and it's Thursday. It's almost a week. Yeah. So I'm fully gone, right? We can't get on a plane, thank God, right? Because who knows what would have happened? You know, kind of an air marshal nightmare, maybe that scenario. So my wife's like, all right, we're going to fly out tomorrow morning.

She's terrified, right? Doesn't know what's going on. Because I haven't even told her I'm not sleeping, right? She's like, you're just behavior. Yeah, you're just like, what happened? Like, you've seen broken, right? So we go to a hotel near the airport. So we're in this hotel room.

And this is where, like, full on spiritual stuff that I'd never seen or encountered or experienced before ever started to happen. Like, my wife, you know, she would tell you, my eyes, rolled up in the back of my head. Like, I'm speaking in some language that she is like, what is happening? Literally, my body started to rise off the bed and she's like trying to hold me down. It's like an exorcist. Right?

Like straight up and down. Right? And I'm having, my experience of it was I'm having all these crazy hallucinations. Right. Terrifying, right? It was like I was watching my body. Right. You had an eye body experience.

Yeah. Yeah. So this is happening on my honeymoon, right? Yeah. Like terrible, terrible. And I would, looking back on it, I would say the lack of sleep, the stress and and praying in ways that I was knocking on doors I didn't know about, right? We're all like really dangerous things that I shouldn't have done.

And like if I had known about melatonin, maybe we could have avoided all this, right? I mean, that doesn't make you float off the bed. No, no, no. I mean, at the sleep, right? Yeah, yeah. Because I think you and I talked about this. I think we aren't a body and a spirit. I think we're all like kind of one thing.

Right. And so there's interplay between all this. Right. It's like having the earth. Well, no, I mean, and that's usually when this stuff starts to happen in your mid-20s. You're eating Taco Bell your whole life. And then all of a sudden, you know, your body doesn't get what it needs to shut off. Yep.

I went through about of it when I was like 27. Insomnia is very frightening. Yeah. you, when you experience it and you go and then you start like panicking. Yeah. And then the panic, more adrenaline, more adrenaline, more stressed, can't sleep. Yep. Feeds itself. Yeah.

And you're like laying there and you're like, please sleep, please. And you're like looping. And your anxiety about your lack of sleep? Yes. Yeah. Spiral. Yeah. Yeah.

I feel for your wife too. She's probably like, who did I marry? This is not the guy. But this goes from like needing a sleeping pill to full on. Need an exorcism. Yeah. Crazy, crazy, crazy. What is that like? Again, never talked about this publicly. What's she thinking?

I mean, she's terrified. She has no idea. So she's calling family members. So you're speaking in the language? What language? No idea. I've never been able to. She's never, again. And your eyes are rolled in your back here. Yeah, and we don't have smartphones right at the time. There's no anything. Probably thank God. Yeah, one of my family members that she had been talking to, he called the cops. because he was so scared.

He didn't know what was happening. All of a sudden, boom, cops bust in the door, right? And the next thing I remember, there's a police officer holding, like, the top of my head and shining a flashlight in my eyeballs and be like, what the kind of drugs are you on? He's swearing at me, right? And my wife's like, he's not on drugs, right? And she's screaming at him, and there's officers flooding this little tiny hotel airport room, right? And my wife, she is a fighter, right?

So she's like bowing up, like trying to get in between me and the cops grab me. And they start dragging me out of the hotel room. And at this point, I'm like, what is even happening? Where am I? Right? And I kind of came back to my body, right, in this moment. They go and they strap me down in the ambulance outside. And I start begging because my heart was pounding so hard.

I think I was having a panic attack at this point. at this point. On top of all this. On top of all of this. And I'm asking the ambulance driver to please shock my chest because I was like, I'm having a heart attack, right? Because a panic attack feels that way. And he won't like shock my chest.

So I'm like, he wants me to die. Yeah. Right. And they drive me to the ER. We get to the ER. And my wife doesn't know what she's signing, the paperwork, etc. And they end up committing me. And so if you think New Orleans is,

a crazy city. And then you add a layer of like, what's the ER like in New Orleans? And then add another layer. What's the psych ward like? Oh my. Right? So I, and the psych ward, there were two parts of it. There was like the people who were like working their way out and then the people who were like me who were in. And craziest experience of my life. I end up in the psych ward for multiple days. What happens in there? I mean, the first thing they did was they drugged me to the gills, right? Like, drooling style. Do you sleep finally? Yeah, yeah. It knocks me, knocks me out. I'm still hallucinating. And so, like, I believe, like, this is one of the things they don't tell you about mental health stuff and, like, psychosis. Your brain is so good at making connection points. So you weave a hugely elaborate story where everything makes sense.

Right. Right. Yeah. And so I'm, like, kind of weaving this narrative. internally that makes sense of everything I'm experiencing. Yeah, like one of the guys name, one of the nurses names was Timothy. And so I had this whole biblical story wrapped around. I was like, oh, that's Timothyus would be his name in the Bible, you know? And I'm like making connections that aren't there, all that kind of stuff. Like, where's Philip? He's going to translate. Yeah, all of that, right? But this goes on for three days in which point my mom arrives, right? The hallucinations do? Yeah, the hallucinations. Yeah. And, And again, it's hard to describe,

but like all of your senses are deceiving you, but your brain is trying to make connections with the data points, right? It's like a beautiful mind, you know? It's like schizophrenia, early stages. And then it gets to a point where you're like, something's really, really rough. Something's really off.

Hmm. And so my mom and Tiffany, my wife, they were able to convince the doctors, hey, you know, if we kind of keep this drug regimen up, will you release him and let's drive him home. So that's what I ended up happening, driving back from New Orleans to North Carolina, where we were at the time.

And then misdiagnosed. Like they thought, you know, I had a serious mental condition. So they drugged me to the gills for like the next two years, right? At which point I had a new doctor who's like, this story doesn't add up. There was more to this going on. And he's like,

and the only way we will know if this is, you know, real, and this is going to be something you deal with for your life, like forever, is if we wean you off of your medicine and see what happens, right? And I remember these conversations with Tiffany. She was like, oh, my gosh, like that was my nightmare. It could happen again, et cetera. But he, you know, led me through weaning off this medication. And, dude, it was like...

Is it an antipsychotic? Yeah, it was an atypical antipsychotic. Okay. Yep. Which flatline you. Like, just blah. Yeah, they take you off your highs and they fill in your lows. And it's the equivalent of like living in an emotional gray scape.

Right? And I remember he weaned me off of those meds and I came back to myself and like suddenly could see in color again. Like it was incredible. And in the course of that, that was like a two year period. that was when I first started and you talk about somebody who'd be naturally skeptical of like hearing voices

right? Like anybody who's listening right now is like that guy shouldn't be listening to the Holy Spirit, right? Right, right. He's going to get committed again. I mean, I think 20% of people

I remember reading a statistic don't experience a mental health situation and the rest of us do. So you're not in the majority if you don't ever have a mental health. This one's a little wild though, yeah. But this is like, what do you think about the, the, it's like a spiritual threat in there of, of, I mean, some people have mental health issues and they take some, an SSRI and they come back, right? Yep. Yep.

But this is like floating off the bed and things like it's not. When you look back on it, what do you think? I mean, where's your faith in relation to what's going on? And then, because that's a hard thing for, we've had several people say that they confronted their spouse or whatever, like, hey, you were. were manifesting and they're like, no, I wasn't, you know, it's like, no, you were. And speaking in language, same thing, same kind of story, but they don't, there's like this thought in Christian church, well, if I'm saved and I don't, I don't deal with any of these things. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And all that. So what do you think? Yeah, I've thought a lot about this. I think one is when you are physically compromised, right, you're more vulnerable. Yeah, yeah. Just in general. And I mean that at large. You're more likely to. You're more likely to. to get a cold.

Yeah. Right? And again, I'm coming from a worldview that I believe that this stuff is real. Oh, yeah. Right?

Like the powers and the principalities and spiritual things and the unseen. And so I think one is like, I am, I can't tell you how diligent I am about sleep. Right?

Like, I'm on my game. Me too, man. Get a little sleep report from my watch every morning, you know? Yeah. The other thing I think about is like for a Christian,

I don't know if I'd be comfortable, saying that a Christian could get possessed. Yeah. I would say something more like a Christian might be able to get driven, right? Like, meaning like I was exposed in a way where there was something happening internally to me. Like I was not lost. I was not fully taken over in some capacity or something, right?

But I was vulnerable to the point where something else was in there. Yeah. Right. Well, people describe just having a near-death experience and then they have out-of-body easy. Like they'll pop out of their body after they had a near death experience. They had this

their body was pushed to the brink. Your body was pushed to the brink. Yeah. And then it's like almost supernat. They would call it supernatural, but we don't, we usually don't use that word because it doesn't,

it does not helpful ultimately in these conversations. But when your body's pushed to the brink, things feel like, whoa. Yeah. We're not dealing in three dimensions. Yeah, I'm gonna say, do you think it was just like you hit this perfect storm of stress? And then the tipping point was you took on, you took on something that was much bigger that you weren't called to.

I genuinely picked a fight. Yeah. Right. And I did it alone. That's the other thing I would say. Just the arrogance of youth was there. Right. Right.

And what are you praying that's causing this, you think? Oh, man. I, I am literally praying about spiritual forces and kind of, I'm praying for the city. I'm praying about this stuff. I'm praying in a braggadocious way, right? You got the spotlight then just turned, and it was like, oh, this guy. Yeah, I, again, the best language I have is like, I think I knocked on a door. I wasn't meant to knock on.

And, you know, fast forward, I don't do anything in any of this stuff alone, right? Like, in the nonprofit space, I don't go do something by myself. Like, I have a great team and we're prayed up and we're united, you know? And so I think that's the other, like, I changed my sleep pattern. I When you, let me just go because we kind of cut it off

But like When you get weaned off Off of the antipsychotics You just Yeah You flip the switch back to me and Will Like you're just Oh yeah

It's back Yeah Yeah And the doc's like hey You don't need this Like you just need to Yeah Whoops sorry

Knocked the mic Yeah And that has continued Right Right That was Oh 4 Oh 4 was the event

O6 was the Your wife is a saint Hey I mean Because honeymoon and then you just, you turned into the girl from the exorcist. I mean, right? Like, I didn't vomit. So I had that going for me.

I think that's why she stayed. Yeah. I like this is a good conversation because like the lines get blurry between mental health, demonic attack, schizophrenia, like chemicals in the brain, people taking drugs and inducing spiritual experiences. Yeah. And where does it happening? Is it happening in reality? Is it happening somewhere else? Is it happening in the mind?

Yeah. I mean, these conversations go on and on and on in our space. Whereas you can have your sort of doctor explanation. Even when we've had a lot of people talk about their children, right? There was one story in particular where he gets to a point where he takes his son to adopted a kid from Haiti and takes it to the doctor. The doctor said, this is outside of my purview. You need an exorcist. You need somebody to come in and deal with this problem.

And he's like, a doctor's telling me. Someone who doesn't say that sort of thing. We have a rational explanation for everything. So where do you think those lines kind of intersect of how to make sense of all those kinds of lanes kind of coming in the middle there? Yeah. I mean, the first thing I'd say is like, are you willing to accept that this world is full of mystery? Yeah. Right?

So one part of this is I don't try to solve anymore, right, for something like this. Yeah. And in general, I think trying to hold a heart posture of like, Lord, what do you want me to know about this? What do you want me to do about this? And how can I be faithful to you? Right? That means I'm taking myself off the hook from making it tidy.

Right? A situation, like there's no sticking the landing on this. Our honeymoon sucked. And the sorrow and the brokenness of those next two years where Tiffany over and over again was waiting for me to go down that path again. Do you know what I mean? Like awful. Awful anxiety too, right?

Yeah. Will's just not going to be well. Totally. It's going to happen. And it has taken us, I mean, we've been married for over 21 years now. Mm-hmm. And the effects of some of that, right? The shrapnel, right?

We're still doing some healing work. So self-awareness would be someone in the line of too much eagerness. I'm really eager. I want to go in and fight. Oh, dude, the arrogance of like, I'm God's special. warrior let me go alone. Yeah. Like I'm David.

We're all going to slay all these giants. Yeah. Bro, you're not David. David was David. And it's the same thing as like, you're waiting for a burning bush to speak to you. And we've got evidence that that happened once, right? Like God might be trying to speak you in a different way, like be willing to hear it. Oh, it's like with David.

Like everybody wants to jump in there and slay giants, but they forget that like David was called to this. Like this is what. One hundred percent. You know, this is God saying to you. You go do this. Not like, hey, I'm just going to take on whatever. in front of me because I can. And I guess something that the people like struggle with it,

if church is divided upon that. Like, well, we have the Holy Spirit in us. We have the authority. Well, absolutely. But it doesn't mean that we go rambo on, on things that God's not saying go there and do that. Yeah, could and should are different things. 100%. Yeah.

Well, 40 years in the- Just like plausible and probable are different things, right? I mean. I don't know if we needed to stay 40 years in the desert. No. On his watch, but on our watch we did. Yeah. Same with there's a great theory that I,

recently came across that I think has a lot of merit to it, which is maybe the people of God didn't need to be in bondage for 400 years. That Joseph, right, in that story, when he gets aware of the famine coming, he creates an economic structure that makes the Pharaoh more powerful, putting him in a position to enslave more. We're even told, like, people are trading their kids for food, right? And this guy's theory was, hey, actually, I don't think they had to be there for 400 years. If Joseph had come up with a different economic system that blessed people rather than

concentrated power in the pharaoh, maybe that was one generation and you're gone. Yeah. Interesting. There's so many layers there with that story. There's an episode. And that's a family. That's a family story for sure. Yeah. You love those family stories. Well, no,

I just think that's all it is. I think this is all a big family story. Absolutely. And so I would say, speaking to families, All right, so Abraham probably called to do one of the greatest faith acts in the history of humanity, right? He's waiting his whole life for this kid. A kid comes, and then God's like, all right. Abraham doesn't do that as a young man.

He doesn't do that in his 20s. Yeah. But he does it as an old man. So what happens in Abraham's life in terms of self-awareness then until he's like, okay, God, all right. Sounds crazy, but I'll do it. Yeah. I think that's self-awareness, right? Yeah.

Yeah. That's him learning the lesson of dependence on God in a million different ways over and over and over again and not getting it right frequently. But in the friction of that, learning how to go back to that place of trust. Yeah. We kind of ask NT, write a similar thing. How would you have written this book 30 years ago, right? And there's something about life that we don't value experiences.

God saying it's going to take 20 years for you to understand what's about to happen. And we want it to happen tomorrow. I was Israelized in the desert. No patience. Yeah, yeah. No patience. I want to be just starting a podcast, right? Something like this.

Like we're six years in. We knew we had a other friends. It's because it's a six year, five year journey to get to the point where you're and you start and you go. And if someone hands you a successful podcast tomorrow, you're going to destroy it. Yeah, totally. He's like, oh, we got what it takes. We're going to do this sort of thing. And there's no humility.

small steps growth same thing being in a band you know you get you get your first show three people come yeah and you're like and then one day you get 500 people to show up and you're like man there's a long journey from here to there and i think there's nothing different than the human experience of of time learning we're we're slow creatures to get it and yeah but there is no shortcut there's no elevator to everest there's no elevator you said it yeah yeah but like but I think the difference I would make is, I think in culture, we say, I'll be good when I hit that milestone. Yeah, yeah. And I think the journey of faith is learning how to be in the joy and in the presence of the Lord every step of the way.

Yeah. Right? Because then it's like, man, the whole journey's good. Yeah. You think about Everest. Yeah, you don't, the view is still really good halfway up the mountain. Yeah, yeah. It's enjoy the journey.

Yeah. Yeah. It's cool running. It's peace be the journey. Oh man, we just introduced our kids to cool runnings, by the way. Best Bob's Suddick movie ever. Dude, I'm the best push car driver in all the makeup. It feels like it always comes back to the band thing.

We used to joke that, you know, when you go on the voice, nobody on the voice knows how to back up a trailer, you know? Like, nobody paid their dues. Nobody knows what it's. You can't enjoy the view at the top. Yeah. If you never like halfway up the mountain, you took a view. Yeah, it's good.

Oh, man, look how far we've gone. Yeah. We sort of had this invisible miles, like, one. Like once I get here, then I'm good. Then I'm good. And then we forget the whole journey, the whole point was every single moment. So you're saying every day. Every day.

Wake up. Back full circle. Yeah. And the book is stories of our family's journey with the, honestly, the hard work and the suffering that comes in a family affected by disability. Like it's told through that lens. But then it has, every chapter has practical steps. Like try this this week.

And really invitational. Like, try it on. See if it works. Adjust it if it doesn't for you. But all towards learning to listen to the Holy Spirit and tune your heart to that. Love it. Where can people find the book? Yeah. I mean, it's on all the places. Amazon, Will Joy Acuff on Instagram if you want to, you know, catch up with daily little notes. We want to follow the journey. Yeah. If you want to. The peaceful journey. The peace be the journey. Yeah, exactly. Cool runs, baby. I mean, this is the lifelong conversation. This is the conversation that we all have. every day, you know, where we feel like big kids in this world and you're making little lessons, and little, and then you get to an age in your 40s, it seems, where it all kind of falls apart. And you're like, I don't really know anything.

Okay, God. Like, I had it all figured out in my 20s and 30s. Yeah. And I told you, God, what it was like. Yeah. Like, I was the teacher. Isn't that funny how that works? Yeah.

And then you fall apart and God starts to rebuild you. Yeah. Thanks, well. Yeah. Yeah, this is great, man. Thanks for having me, guys. New friends. Dude, thanks for happening.

We got to go to the bullpen and we're like, hey, we need to get it here. Funny, funny thing, real quick. I was in Arkansas yesterday meeting a new friend. His name is Jeff, and we're talking about like, what do you like to do when you're driving? Because in Arkansas, this guy's work, he's driving all over the state. That's how, man, I listen to a podcast. I said, oh, what's your favorite podcast? And he goes, oh, man, blurry creatures.

No. Right? And he says, hey, and my, my son. and my daughter-in-law are members and like we are full in, right? And then it was three hours later that I'd get the call from Josh about it. Shout out Jeff, let's go, B.B.

We got a special gift for you to wrap this all up. Make a full circle, Luke. Oh, boy. Oh, special gift. I can't even imagine what we're... Oh, man. It's an original.

Actually, we've never given one of those away. Never given one away. First ever. Yeah. This is not a tradition by it now. we got to get this an autograph with the ball here yeah 100% yeah I'll draw some pictures on it yeah thank you guys for having me yeah thanks well thank you thank you