Pints With Aquinas - Authentic Masculinity and Intimacy with Jesus (John Eldredge) | Ep. 514

Episode Date: March 12, 2025

John Eldredge is an author, counselor, and speaker best known for his book Wild at Heart: Discovering the Secret of a Man’s Soul, which explores biblical masculinity and the deep desires of a man’s heart. Born in 1960, Eldredge has dedicated much of his work to spiritual formation, healing, and calling men and women to a more intimate relationship with God. He is the founder of Wild at Heart Ministries (formerly Ransomed Heart), which offers resources, retreats, and teachings on the restoration of the soul. His writing blends storytelling, theology, and personal experience, often drawing from literature, adventure, and nature to illustrate spiritual truths.  👉 Get John's new book here: https://www.amazon.com/Experience-Jesus-Really-Strength-Encounters/dp/1400208653?ref_=ast_sto_dp

Extremism on any side, right or left, will not heal nations. If you just care about the moral issues of human sexuality and the sanctity of life, we have had our back against the wall for quite a while. And so now to, quote, be in power, there's now this stick it to them. Scripture says, when your enemy stumbles, do not rejoice, lest the Lord see and remove his hand. The other thing that's going on in the world that concerns me is, Christianity isn't the only religion that's breaking forth. The fastest growing religion in America is witchcraft.

We need to be concerned about that, that people are not just fascinated with, you know, woo-woo and hot yoga and ayahuasca. But what they're looking for is an actual, it's spirituality of actual experience. It's really amazing to have you on as the first interview in the new studio. How fun. Yeah, yeah.

Thanks so much for agreeing to fun. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks so much for coming to come. Yeah Yeah So for those who are watching may not be familiar with you. You have an excellent podcast could wild at heart and at the beginning of each episode you have a pause where You kind of invite people to just surrender everything to Christ. And I admitted to you yesterday in a conversation that I sometimes find that irritating, not intellectually, like I don't rationally think this is wrong.

I realize when I listen to your podcast that, oh, I'm just looking to distract myself right now. I'm not actually... But I always am so grateful for the pause. So I thought we could both ourselves surrender everything to Christ and invite our viewers to do the same. Yeah. Yeah, that's beautiful. Yeah, it's very simple. It goes like this. We pray, Father, Jesus, Holy Spirit, I give everyone and everything to you. Yes, Lord.

We're just settling in and we're releasing, friends. We just say, whatever your day is, whatever the drama, the heartache, the demands, the kids, the work, your parents, Jesus, I give everyone and everything to you in order that I might come back to you for union and for oneness. Thank you, Jesus. Amen. Amen. Yeah, just through my head right there, just the concerns of this podcast, the making the other cameras working is everything getting recorded. Or did I just invite John Eldridge into ruin everything?

Yeah. Yeah, how will this go? Does John like me? Yeah. All that. All that. And then other things too, right? Like, I surrender that I can't surrender.

You know, maybe I don't know how to release it. So I release that. Exactly. Yeah. I often have to ask the Holy Spirit for his help in releasing because it's difficult. We get spun up, particularly in things that matter, things that are dear to our hearts, the health of our kids, you know, school, struggles, aging parents, all that, you know, finances, right? And then the cause of Christ, ministry,

heartache around the world, I need the help of the Holy Spirit, help me release these things, if only for a moment, to find you, God. Right? I've heard you say once, something like, as you kind of cummer before the Lord in this way of praying, you immediately become aware of all that you're holding and carrying. And it's so true. We don't pause long enough to sense that often. We just rush about our day, we wake up and plunge into it. Yes. Yeah, you were talking about the irritation of the pause at the beginning of our podcast. I feel it too. My flesh does not like it. I want to blast. Let's

go. Let's get on top of stuff. Come, you know. Yeah, so it is a simple crucifixion of the flesh, right? I crucify the flesh in order to align with you, God. And by the way, I do like you, so we can put that one to rest with you, God. And by the way, I do like you, so we can put that one to rest. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. Putting up with ourselves as we sort of surrender everything to the Lord, right?

Our circumstances, the people, the knuckleheads that we have to interact with, the awkward conversations. Yeah. We can't figure out if it's on our end or their end that it's so awkward. There's people in our lives, our children, our spouse, that we have to just be meek with, gentle with, but we don't often consider that we're also someone we have to put up with in the sense of...

Yeah. Does that make sense? I'm not putting it well. Oh, this is Julian of Norwich, right? We must be kind even unto ourselves. Yeah. Which is why surrendering the self-life is a rescue on a hundred fronts. I mean, it is a rescue because of where the world is now and we'll get into that,

but we live in the culture of the offended self. That's the zeitgeist in which that's just, we just suck that air in every day. It's the offended self. And so surrendering the self life gets you out of that. It's an eject button from the matrix of that. It's really, really very helpful. And I like the idea of surrender, Matt, because we are told to take up our cross and crucify

the flesh daily, but because there's so much hatred in the world, we're actually not allowed to turn hatred towards ourselves. We're not allowed that. And so I have to be careful even with the language of it because sometimes that can feel very, you know, almost violent. Whereas, you know, Julian and many others would say, no, no, no, no, kindness towards your poor beleaguered self, surrender it to Christ. That's the... Paul talks about this somewhere, doesn't he? Where he says if someone is immersed in sin, you should be gentle with them. Yes, isn't that lovely? Yeah. That's right. Presumably we have to be gentle with ourselves. Yeah, he even says in several of his epistles as he's writing to the

distant churches, Corinth in particular, and this one, you know, he says, I wanted to come to you, but I knew that my presence would be upsetting, so I'm just going to write you instead. That's just so kind. Yeah, that was something that struck me recently. I was reading through Matthew's gospel again, and whereas there were certain people who were astounded by him because he taught as one with authority, I didn't find myself astounded by that because of all my background knowledge of who Christ is. Maybe I should have been, but I'm not. But what did astound me was the kindness of Jesus. Even little things like he didn't want the crowds to go off because they might faint

along the way. He's concerned not just for their spiritual but for their physical well-being. Yes. And it seems to me that when we cease to immerse ourselves in the Word of God, it's like a thick layer of dust and grime settles and obfuscates, you know, upon our vision of ourselves and God and others. And then we come to believe all sorts of things about ourselves. All sorts of things about God. And then you read the scriptures and oh wow, it sort of blows that junk and grime off and you can see clearer. That's right. Yeah, that's really beautiful. And as we come back into His presence and we practice His presence, as Brother Lawrence urges us to do,

when you abide in the love of God, you actually are in a much better place to deal with your faults and shortcomings, because it's in the context of love, of forgiveness, and not severity. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

How come, what's the difference then between being gentle with ourselves for the sake of healing? Sometimes that can feel a bit soft, right? Now you gotta be serious about breaking free of sin and that's true. That statement is serious. You don't pussy foot around with sin. It'll make you miserable and send you to hell.

That's right. In certain circumstances. So why be gentle with yourself, and what would you say to somebody who sort of objects to that language? The human body is continually used in scripture as an analogy, present your bodies there for, you know, as living sacrifices, your spiritual service of worship. Good physical training is hard.

Severe physical training damages the body. In fact, the fascinating thing is, is that if you are in training for something, you know, a triathlon or, you know, a big climb or something they're going to do, recovery is more important to your physiology than training. If you don't recover, this is Sabbath, commanded Sabbath, right? If you don't recover, the body breaks down. And so I think that helps us, you know, good physical training requires things of you. Absolutely. You know, like the Exodus 90, you know, programs, things like that, right? You bet. Cold showers, let's go, you know. But it does tip into a severity that for those of us that struggle with a little bit of self-hatred

can almost feel gratifying, right? You begin to almost enjoy the punishment of the self. Yeah, you've tipped over from just rigor, right? And discipleship to Christ is rigorous, rigor, right? And discipleship to Christ is rigorous, but not severe, and certainly not violent, traumatizing. It's not meant to be traumatizing to the soul. That's a helpful distinction. Yeah, I was listening to some workout coach recently. And he was reviewing someone saying seven days a week, no days off. He's like, that's actually terrible advice. You will ruin your body. There it is. Bingo. I think that helps people. You go,

okay, yeah, I can't do that to my body. I feel the harm. And so you go, so what does good rigor in our discipleship to Christ? Yeah, you get up, you say your prayers, you read the scriptures. Yeah, it's time to get out of bed. It's also interesting because from our own human experience, we realize that whenever we've listened to correction or have corrected others and it's been helpful, it's almost always been in the context of love. So in other words, if I have a father or if you've had a father or a mother who's just bickered at you and yelled at you and told you to stop, did it work?

It may have, but for any good reason or just because you wanted the bickering to stop. But maybe we've also had an experience of someone coming alongside us and seeing us and being gentle with us and inviting us to be better. And we got on board with their vision of who we could be. Yes. And that's when we experienced growth. So even from like a pragmatic standpoint, being severe with

yourself seems to be a bad idea. Yes, that's really good. That's really good. I'm grateful that you brought up our personal stories because there are things in us that are booby-trapped to the rigors of the Christian life. So I grew up with profound mother deprivation. I have no memories of playing with my mother. She was a careerist, a very brilliant woman, graduate work and taught at the university level. She was fun to be around because she was brilliant and witty and that sort of thing. But I have no

memory of her reading a book to me. So I grew up with severe mother deprivation and therefore the spiritual disciplines of deprivation were not helpful for me at first, you know, fasting and that sort of thing, because it just felt like more deprivation to my soul, and I know God is not like that. And so I had to actually do some of the interior work of healing from childhood trauma so that then practices I just finished a 30-day fast from dark chocolate and it was so good for my soul. Is that your weakness? Oh gosh, I mean it had become my go-to. At the end of the day? Any emotional upset, agitation, difficult conversation, a project that didn't go well.

I just found myself just going to it for consolation. Yeah. Yeah. Solace. I'm just like, boy. How did you realize that you were doing that? Because I mean, we all go to things to medicate, but we're often unaware that we're doing it. Unless it becomes a serious issue, right?

Like we're drinking too much or something. Exactly, right. Or you're raging on the highway and things like that. Well, the Holy Spirit, I just knew. I just like, wow, this is really... I forget who said this, but he was talking about, the athlete trains his body, and he was using about, you know, the athlete trains his body and

he was using analogies like, you know, the attorney trains their discernment, but the follower of Christ trains their conscience, right? So, I think we become more and more sensitive to these things. We can pick them up, you know, we pick it up. So anyway, the idea being I had to do some healing in my soul from my personal child, you know, my upbringing, my story, so that the disciplines of abstinence didn't feel like further harm, but good, like this is, you know, God is inviting you to his comfort, John, turn to me for comfort instead of, you know, the dark chocolate, the glass of wine, buying stuff on Amazon. That's such an overlooked thing, isn't it? How much?

The quick dopamine hit you get. Yes. And you're like, what am I gonna do with all these boxes? Holy cow. What do people do with these boxes? Do they burn them? I should have invested in cardboard. Right? Yeah. Just the sheer number of Amazon packages that show up at our house. And I can, I know what's going on. I know that Stacey and I, some of it is necessary. But much of it is just solace. I feel a little better. But much of it is just solace. I feel a little better. Yeah Yeah, a quick hit. Yeah

I think maybe we could start talking about this technology and by technology. I mean the phone I suppose it's both the Remedy and cause of our agitation So you might be standing in line at the coffee shop and you just feel kind of awkward. And so you pull the phone out. And you feel a little bit better. But it's clearly causing more agitation than it's relieving. I think for many of us, the phone is our dark chocolate. It's just, we just keep to it.

We don't even know that we're doing it. Why am I doing this? Why am I checking my email for the 500th time? Why am I bouncing from app to app to app? Yes. Why am I not able to take a drive without listening to something? Yeah. Really good.

I like that. Because, you know, get off your screens. Everyone's talking about that. Yeah. Children spend four minutes a day outside. Four minutes, four hours on their phones, or on screens. Yeah, young children, teenagers at seven hours. So everybody's tuned into this

or basically, yeah, let's get so it's become white noise. Yeah, unfortunately, because it's a really important issue. Nicholas Carr's book, The Shallows. yeah, he almost won the Pulitzer for that. It has changed our brain structure. Internet life has literally changed your brain structure, eroded your attention span, your concentration, kind of sort of thing. So it's a very important topic of conversation. What I love that you just added to the table was,

yeah, but what's beneath it? What's being what? What's beneath it? Why are we just, you know, I can't just chat with the people in line, you know, for my delayed flight. I can't just look around, enjoy humanity or nature or wherever I happen to be.

I can't. I'm confessing. What is with this, the internal agitation? Well, the disciple of Jesus wants to have a look at that. Yeah. And what I find is, I'll often, and people who watch this show regularly are probably sick to death of me talking about this, but I'll give my phone and computer and watch,

and I will lock them away for the weekend. And my weekends are the best when I do that. Literally on Friday night. It's almost embarrassing, John. I have a safe and I'll lock everything in it and I'll give my daughter the key. And I'll say, if I ask for this before Monday, I want you to shame me.

You know, in a playful sense, I'm telling her this. Friends don't let friends, yeah. Yeah. And my wife's like, why don't you just put it in the top drawer? I'm like, oh, darling. Yeah. We would like to think we have control over these things,

but they're often our overlords. And there's just something so liberating. And for a while I was giving up the entire month of August offline entirely. And for the first day, it was just this panic. And then this sense of, it's almost like an appendage. It was almost like if I just locked my arm off, and then I kept accidentally trying to use it,

and then it was, oh, it's not there. That's what it's become. Oh, I need to say this thing on X. Clearly people need to hear this brilliant wisdom. No, they don't. And... Or if I don't keep appearing, I will fade from their attention.

Yeah, it's like, well, you're just like the PhD has to keep publishing to stay relevant. We gotta keep tweeting and YouTubeing to stay relevant or else I'll be forgotten. And that feels like death and I don't wanna die. That's my fear. Yeah. Right.

I'm also at the age to quote Andrew Claven in his latest novel, where I've got that first taste of, first whiff of death in my nostrils. Like I'm 42. And you know, when I was a younger man, it just felt like the runway was going on forever. Oh yeah.

And then you get to a certain age where you're like, oh, oh, I'm gonna die. And I knew that, but now I'm knowing that in a deeper way. Why did I say that in reference to... You were dying to self if I fade away from public attention. That's what it is. This idea of death and this idea that someone will think about you for the last time, at

least here below, you know? Yes. Just like many people can't name their great grandfather. How quickly we'll be forgotten. And yet how much stock we put in the opinion of our contemporaries for our own validation. This is a hundred percent what I do, and I know I do it because people's criticism and praise feels really bad and really good. Yeah, yeah, there you go. That's right. Yeah. But as we are, as we are more deeply rooted in Christ, right? Psalm 1, Jeremiah 17, but that tree

that is planted by the river, right, says, his leaves never wither, it's evergreen. You know, identity in Christ, consolation from Christ, because what we have to be merciful towards is the world is a punishing place. It's an absolutely punishing place. Do you know that when 9-11 happened here in the U.S., they did a study afterwards on PTSD, and they found that people who watched it live on television had the same level of PTSD as people who were on the streets in New York. And it has to do with the brain's inability to distinguish images.

Yeah, mirror neurons, right? And they also presumably interviewed those who didn't watch it on TV but heard about it and the result was different. Yeah. Yeah. And then we were on cell phones and what they do. So anxiety and depression rise in direct correlation to the amount of time you spend on social media. There's tons of research in on that. It's like, we know this to be true.

The world is a punishing place. I personally think that humanity is currently living in a collective state of trauma. Now it's a low-grade fever for most of us, thank God, you know, then you start getting into the anxiety disorders and the opioid addictions and the kind of, you know, the higher levels of medication that people need, in quotes, whatever that may be, too full blown. They're just stuck in trauma. And we're probably getting way ahead of ourselves here in our conversation.

But we're at a time where mental health services have never been higher, more widely available, more sophisticated, you know, the neuroscience and all that's helping us map on the human brain and neurofeedback, mental health services at the universities and even now, you know, down in elementary schools, greater number of professionals, and we're nowhere near touching the need. I think this is the church's greatest missional opportunity. I really do. I think the healing of human trauma in all its, let's consider it, you know, a spectrum. The soul is healed through union with Christ. The soul is healed through union with Christ. We have the answer.

If you come into a life that is the Psalm 1 and Jeremiah 17 tree, you know, not instantaneously, but over time, that addresses the agitation that gets us into all our comforting patterns, and it addresses your trauma. It really does. So that is very, very hopeful. I think it's the great missional opportunity of the church right now. Yeah. Wild at Heart is the name of your apostolate or ministry. Are you on social media? The team is.

I wouldn't know how to get on. I ask because I agree with you about social media being perhaps more detrimental than helpful. Yes. And yet I'm on it. Yeah. I ask because I agree with you about social media being perhaps more detrimental than helpful. Yes. And yet I'm on it. Yeah. And it's uncomfortable.

Yeah. Yeah. It's a legitimate tension. Yeah. Because if you don't play in that space, well then who's offering redemptive content in that space? We don't want to just turn that space completely over to the unredemptive and the harmful, right? And so we have, well, we've wrestled with this so much as the team, and it's really pretty funny because the senior leadership, you know, as our lives have

progressed more into a life that is organized around Jesus and the habits and the sacred rhythms that keep us, you know, like locking your phone away, that's just lovely. The habits and the sacred rhythms that keep us, you know like locking your phone away, that's just lovely, that the habits and the sacred rhythms that keep us rooted by that river, you know, roots down into the living water. As we've done that, we have become very aware that we are not a good test case for where the world is at. And none of us have social media accounts, personally. So we had to back up and go, wait a second, what is a responsible use of it? What's our presence there? Because we have something to say.

You have something to say. And you have such brilliant, lovely guest song. I was loving Carrie. Carrie Grass? Oh, come on. Like, so great. And then, you know, Christopher West and his beautiful heart. We have something to say.

Can we be in that space in a redemptive way? That's what we're wrestling with right now. And we're not quite sure. The tension's awkward, isn't it? With everything in life. Whether it has to do with making money or whatever, raising the children or being on social media. I wanna do away with all of it.

But that seems to be a bad idea. The problem is, is that we would abandon those who are currently trapped in it. What I mean by do away with it is to do away with the tension. Not so much, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, and just how much tension we're being called to live within.

I don't know. Yeah, because I mean, I guess there's two ways I guess I could solve that tension of social media, right? I could talk myself into the idea that it's harmless at best and helpful. I mean, harmless at worst and helpful at best. And I talk myself into that and look at the good I'm doing. It's great, there's no tension.

Or I delete all my social media accounts and sell everything in the studio and find another way to live Yeah to do away with the tension. Yes Yeah, but how much of life is learning to live in I mean that sounds so cliche but to live in tension. Hmm I'm not sure because okay, so we practiced the pause at the beginning, 1 Peter 5, 7, cast all your cares upon the Lord because he cares for you, right? Okay, we call it benevolent detachment, benevolent because I'm not doing it. Now, I have, dear,

dear Lord, I have done it in anger and I'm checking out and finger to the world. And, you know, no, no, no, it's benevolent in because it's something done in love detachment because you got to let it go. Your soul was literally never meant to operate in an environment like this, you know, the level of technology, the awareness of global heartache, all that. Your soul has to let it go. Why am I raising this? Because the idea... Let it go. What do you mean, let it go? Well, 1 Peter 5, 7, I think that there... Jesus doesn't seem like a particularly anxious person, but He is aware of all of the Right? And so I think there's a way. I do. I am a much more peaceful man at 64 than I was at 54 and way more than I was at 34.

I think there's a way. I do. I think there is a... I want to be a loving, caring presence, offering strength. Loved your stuff on Joseph as a model for fatherhood, by the way, and offering strength. Devonshah, maybe? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's great. I want to offer loving strength as a man, particularly. So from a masculine perspective, I am here to intervene, right? So when God puts His image, right, so Yamago-dei, male and female, He created them. So there is a unique presence of God through masculinity and a unique presence of God through femininity, okay? As a man, I think part of what the world wants to know, will God do anything? Will He intervene? Does He come through? Okay? Men are supposed to answer the question resoundingly,

yes. Yes. My children learn it. My wife enjoys it. My community experiences it. Right? Yes, my children learn it, my wife enjoys it, my community experiences it, right? Yes, we will intervene. I think that's essential masculinity. Sacrifice on behalf of others. Yes. Well, I want to be that man, but I want to also get to the end of the day where, like Jesus, I'm not spun up. I think there's a way.

100%. I really do. I mean, I'm well behind you, perhaps in the spiritual life and also in years, but I look back on my early years of marriage and just see how much I've calmed down in 18 years. Even the way I would like force my children to pray at night, and we'd pray the rosary and I'd get angry with them, and I'd kind of stop it. And I was so idealistic. This fear that if this doesn't go well, what does that say about me?

And what's terrifying is I think I could have said those same things to you then. So what I'm saying to you now, I think I could have said then, that is to say I was interpreting things the correct way. In other words, I'm too spun up and here's why. Yes. But I don't know what happened, but I've seen this change where, I don't know, it's just... Oh, I'll tell you exactly what happened. And I look forward to more healing. You became more and more that tree rooted in Christ. Cause it doesn't happen to men with age necessarily does it? Oh no, no.

I mean, we all know men who are horrible. Blow their life up. Yeah. I mean, seriously having affairs at 75. Yeah. I know just had an affair at 75. I'm like, dude, like, when are you gonna let it go? I mean, there's a point in your life where,

no, age does not equal maturity. No question about it. But union with Christ over time has made you calmer. Yeah, I hope that's true. Isn't that hopeful? I think it is true. I just want to shout that to the world. Yeah, because it's not as if my awareness of the evils has declined. No, it's grown.

No, it's totally grown. Exactly. But there was this one priest, Father Jose Maria Escobar, Saint Jose Maria Escobar, he said, let your family night prayers be more like a warm hearth that brings the children in. Right? And so as I've adopted that approach, so I've got my 10 year old,

he's under a blanket playing with Lego. Awesome, do it buddy, I'm so glad you're here. Beautiful. That, but see younger me would have been upset with older me because I clearly wasn't being serious enough. There's that severity again. Severity because we think it will achieve control. Yeah. Okay, so men fear failure, more than they fear anything else. Even more than abandonment and betrayal. Okay, we fear failure,

betrayal. Okay, we fear failure because we are the image bearers of we will come through, right? And failure means you didn't. Okay, so we will opt to control to secure the outcomes, right? And that's where the severity gets in, the anger gets in, the rigidity, or whatever that may look like, you know, for us and for our family systems, like the control of it. And you go, that is literally godless. Yeah, you are using human effort you are using human effort and a lot of passion and anger to try and secure control. It is literally without faith. It's so true every time in my life that I've blown up at the kids or my wife or anybody else

has really been out of this fear that I'm being exposed. My impotence is being exposed. And so I react fury, I don't mean to overstate it. It's not like I go around shouting at my children and wife, but it's like those times in my life when I've been at my worst, it's definitely been, yeah, cause I'm just so afraid that I don't have what it takes.

And in a way, I don't know what you think about this, but yeah, like you do and you don't. Do you see what I mean? Like, yes, you have what it takes and in a way, I don't know what you think about this, but yeah, like you do and you don't. Do you see what I mean? Like, yes, you have what it takes. Because the good Jesus provides for all the ways you fail. And of course you don't. Have you met you? Why are you expecting anything more of you?

You're not the savior, you're not. But yeah, that's interesting. Whenever we get angry, I don't know about if it's different with women and how that plays out, but just how you put that there yes it is yes because women's major fear is abandonment you know this goes back even to how the curse works for the redemption of Adam and the redemption of Eve you know the thorns and thistles you know sweat of your brow that that is

striking at the heart of control it's striking right at the heart of, you're not going to be able to do this without me. It is intended to drive men back to God. Okay, well women's very different. There's no thorns and thistles mentioned there. It's relational Thorns and Thistles mentioned there, it's relational heartache because her worst fear is rejection, abandonment, relational betrayal. That's a woman's worst fear. And so they will control, but they will control not for behavior, but for to secure the relationship. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

And so the fear of exposure thing, I think it's really good to name that for men because it's the fig leaf, right? I was afraid because I was naked. So I hid. Yeah. Yep. And so afraid of exposure that we are not what we ought to be,

we will gravitate to those things where we feel strong, you know, so if you're great at sports or you know you'll be at the gym and you know you're running triathlons, you're doing your thing, you know, you're such a great you know stand-up paddleboard or whatever kind of thing, or it's at work, right, or you're brilliant, so you just try and use your brilliance to avoid exposure. Yeah, this happened to be recently, the car battery died.

And I immediately panicked, because I knew I had to get those clippy things and put them on the right black and red bits of the battery, but I had forgotten what order and exactly how to do that. I immediately felt panic. Yes. Because I'm the dad and I should know this. Yes.

And because I don't I became angry with myself. Yes. Which is wild actually. And then the next door neighbor fella came over and I just felt all the more panic because I was being exposed. Shame. Yeah, shame. Right. And even shame that it happened. It's like you're the idiot that doesn I was being exposed. Shame. Yeah. Shame. Right. And even shame that it happened.

It's like you're the idiot that doesn't keep his car. Did you leave a light on? Or did you leave the door open? Why would you do that? Yeah. Whereas, and to get back to our earlier point, like the further rooted we are in Christ, secure in our identity as his beloved son. Yes. The more it's like, yeah, no, you're right. I did leave the door open. Why is why should I be ashamed of this? I don't know how to do this. Yes.

This is not a statement on me. Right. Is is. Yeah. So there's a calmness in that chaos. Can you imagine? This is not a statement on me. Whatever it is, right? Here's the bounce check.

Here's the letter from the IRS. Oh, that's good. All the stuff that comes in, you go, whoa, hang on, this is not a statement on my masculinity. I just forgot to pay. I forgot to pay the bill. I'm late, I'm sorry. Yeah. Oh, that's good. I know. Sometimes

people get nervous. I sometimes get nervous with a sort of therapeutic language that we use in Christianity. Sometimes you'll hear somebody talk and you think this is certainly not true with you who I know is a therapist, but you're like, Jesus never came up. There's all this language going on about positive self-talk and rejecting lies and narcissism and setting boundaries and all this. And so sometimes you listen to Christians who are familiar with that language and it makes Christians nervous. They think, hang on, are we abandoning the ancient faith for something that we've just sort of plastered Jesus on top of? If you understand what I mean by that, could you articulate that

better than I do? Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, no, no. Yes, okay, so it is the church's province to care for and heal human souls. We are charged with that. For a whole variety of reasons entering into the modern era, including the increase in the levels of trauma, the ability for human souls to come into the provision of God for the care of their souls was sort of dropped off, and the therapeutic arose to take its place. But also you just had the total secularization of the care of souls. We, that, you know, churches either farmed it out, I mean, come on, that, you know, churches either farmed it out, I mean, come on, the local parish priest has got a lot to do. And now here's all these anxiety disorders

and eating disorders, and rightly so, they want to say, we need to get a professional, we need to get you to someone who's qualified to deal with this, but there is the subtle farming out of the care of souls. We'll get back to that in a moment. Um, and then you just have the secularization of the West and that sort of thing. So the therapeutic culture rises.

Um, and I share your concern. I don't like that language and I'm a therapist. Now I have a deep appreciation and respect, so I need to say this, because my son is a therapist, my oldest son is a therapist, and he was catching me that day using some language on my podcast. He says, Dad, it almost sounds like you're against, you know, professional help. No, no, no, no, no. I think all of the advances, whether, you know, the psychopharmaceuticals, the neurofeedback,

you know the trauma intensives, it's all a gift from God. We, you know, human need is massive. Let's help, okay? The problem is if it's not rooted in Christ, what you're doing, we're back to the exalted self. So the West exalts the self as the final arbiter of all things, including reality. And the fallen self with all of our disordered passions. Oh yes, exactly. How many horror stories do you hear about the therapist who maybe invites the person to commit adultery or to leave this balance? Oh yeah, yeah. So having abandoned God and his provision for the soul, the secular West has exalted the self, but the self can't cure itself. The self is fundamentally dependent, created dependent on God. I am the vine, you are the branch.

Separated from me, you will not only not bear fruit, you will wither and die. I love this about the world. God rigged the world so it won't work without Him. He rigged the human soul so that it won't work without him. We exalt the self, we now have the therapeutic culture, we have all the language and that sort of thing. I think you're right to... there's a little bit of a wince when I hear people, you know, over-therapizing everything, right? Because what I want to hear is, thank you for these tools, thank you even for the language, you're helping me, you know, I do have

a codependent relationship with my mom, thank you for naming that, it's very helpful to name that. Now, how do I bring that into Christ, and how do I bring Christ into that? Because the soul is healed through union with Jesus. That's the marvelous thing. And we have, yeah, we... And that's good, right? All truth is God's truth. There isn't a distinction between scientific truth and the truth of faith or the truths of therapy. So if it's true in therapy, this language of codependence, there's a way to understand that. Boundaries, all that. It makes complete sense within the Word of God. Yes, yes. Now, let's talk about, okay, so you are in an unhealthy relationship

partly due to your brokenness and partly due to your sin. Because this is how you're, okay, so Eve, controlling relationships so as not to be abandoned will come into those unhealthy relationships, okay? Well, part of that's just sin. Can we just put that out there on the table? Does everything have to be brokenness? Is that your point? Yeah, it's not. Yeah. It's not. There is always a mixture of self-protection and self-preservation in there, always. Well, Christ is fabulous at addressing these things, right? And what I've been

saying at some of the mental health conferences that I've been speaking at is, God has been healing human souls for thousands of years, God has been healing human souls for thousands of years, way before the current advances in, you know, neuroscience and that sort of thing. This is very, very hopeful because any, any, you know, I respect my peers in the mental health profession, nearly all of them will say, oh, we can't meet the need. We can't, because what do you say to the eight-year-old boy that's being trafficked to motel rooms in Chiang Mai, you know, every night, unless you get $5,000 and you can get to New York, you know, that you can't be healed? That is evil. And it is not gospel. The gospel of Jesus is, no, Jesus heals human souls. He can get to that boy. He can heal his soul. He is, he's doing it. I could tell you, I could tell you a hundred stories.

Tell me one. Oh my gosh. So this is where our practice, and when I say our, because now we have kind of a ministry and we do this, you know, in conferences and podcasts and study materials and that sort of thing. But this is where things really began to change was inviting the living Christ present with us, not as an idea, not as a metaphor, but as an actual living presence into the trauma, into the moment, into the memory, and dealing with the tangle of brokenness and sin, because repentance is needed, right? The breaking of agreements with lies is needed, you know? God never violates the human will, right?

Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If you open the door, I will come in. This is one of the secrets of healing, is that the door to the soul opens from the inside. Jesus rarely kicks it down. I know of no instance where he kicks it down. He knocks and he'll knock through your pain, he'll knock through your addiction, he'll knock through your wife walking out on you. He will do what it takes, right? He's like a medic on a battlefield. He will do what it takes.

But we still make the choice to open the door or not and give him access to those particular places in us that are both traumatized but also unsanctified. Right? And I think it's important we name both things because we're not just trying to help people get better. We're trying to help them towards holiness. better, we're trying to help them towards holiness, right? I just don't want the satisfied self running around out there. I want the self in union with Christ. Okay, so in our work, we do a good deal of this and inviting Christ into it. Yeah, so it just had a lovely woman who had lost her intimacy with Christ,

almost lost her faith because of it, and through some conversation and good conversations needed. I think that's helpful, right? And again, I hate leaning into the neuroscience, but it is the lingua franca of our day. If you don't lay it down, people don't believe you. To look someone in the eye and have them listen to you with compassion heals your brain structure. So this works, okay? Love one another works in the healing of human soul. Listening to her with compassion, going back into her story, finding the fundamental place of

rejection and harm, inviting Christ in, and she has a lovely encounter with Jesus. Just like Revelation 3 promises, if you open the door, I will come in and we will sup together. We will be intimate. I'll hang out with you. Yeah. She needs to break a few agreements that she made with, you know, I will never be loved. I am not lovable, okay, so that's,

there's some volition there, there's some will, break those agreements, and renounce the self comforting, right, the going to food and going to the, you know, these things, people, the attention of men, that does need to be repented of. You see this lovely blend between repentance and healing that go together, and then asking Christ in. She is a different person. She wrote us the most lovely note last week, and she just said, I can hardly express how I am free. I am well. I love Jesus again. He's talking to me. I'm hearing his voice again because it had been in her life

and she had lost it. Yeah, lots of that. Yeah, it's beautiful walking with the Lord in marriage because I said to my wife last night we were up because I just go back from Australia and so we were jet lagged. And I was just saying, I love that she's a mystery to me. This dear woman who God has given me, that there is just so much,

sort of like how maybe what the hobbits thought of Gandalf before the adventure. It's like there's so much more to you. There's so much more to this good woman and you and me, right? But it's been wild and beautiful to see how the Lord has brought healing into my life and her life and just these opening vistas. Like there's so much more. There's so much more. Sometimes I get exhausted by that, you know?

I just think, gosh, can we just have just static, can I just come home and just watch a sitcom and just, I don't want to deal with the heart. It's tiring. But I don't think I mean that. I would much rather be on this journey where the two of us are aware of our attachments, our sins, our agreements, experiencing sanctification. Yeah, that adventure is just so much more interesting than what the world offers. Now you're gonna need to unpack that for the men listening. Okay, which bit? Most men do not experience the mystery of their wife as enjoyable. Right?

Yeah. It, because it's daunting and it requires so much more of us, but you are discovering, no, no, no, but that's good. So I have this way of stating it that sounds aggressive and can be misunderstood, but I'm going to say it anyway. And then we can see what I mean. misunderstood, but I'm going to say it anyway and then we can see what I mean. It's like there are acres of my wife's heart that I don't yet have. Yes. And I will conquer them. Yes. That's what I'm, that's the thing that sounds aggressive.

Yes. Like I will conquer her. I want all of her. Yeah. So like when I met her, I this is a good that I want for myself. Yes. Yeah. A good that has been willed for her own sake. Yeah. Not a good because I desire her. Mutual good. Yeah, a mutual good. And a good because of what she is, not because I can have her. So if you misunderstand me, then it's gonna be weird.

But I want all of her and I want her whole heart. I want, yeah. So I guess I don't know why, I've never really felt that way about mystery being, and I don't know if that's because maybe my wife has a different type of personality or what men mean by that when they say, what is it that they just, they're daunted by?

Yep. Because it requires more of you. Yeah, right, right, okay, yeah, I get that. Yeah, you know what else has been daunting is realizing as she's come into, and I don't mean to talk about my beautiful wife while she's not here, but she wouldn't mind, realizing as she starts to like uncover things in herself

and grow in her relationship with Christ, realizing too that I'm not her savior and I'm not her man in that sense. Maybe that's been kind of interesting where I was like, oh, I can't do anything about this. And you correct me at any point if you think I'm misstating this, but I wanna be beside you, I wanna hear your heart,

I wanna love you, I wanna do a better job at coming through for you, because I know I haven't. And I know I'm so intimidated to do that. Yes. But to see things opening up within her, and I'm sure her the same with me, that's primarily dependent on her

and my relationship with Christ and not each other. Yes. What does that mean? What I just said, do you understand that? Yep. The greatest gift that you can ever give your spouse, husband or wife, male or female, is to have a growing intimacy with Jesus. Oh yeah. Why? Well, for a hundred reasons, but among them, only Jesus Christ can satisfy the aching abyss of the human heart.

Only Jesus Christ. And if we take that to another person, yeah, we'll crush them. We'll crush them. We'll crush the marriage. We'll be so disappointed. We'll both be confused. Yeah. Because we're trying hard and it's not filling you. David Wilcox has this great song, Break in the Cup. I'm dating myself a little bit now, but he's like, I try so hard to please you, it's never enough. And he goes into the song, he's like, because we all have a break in the cup, right? So the soul is a leaky vessel and it can only be continually renewed by Christ. So as you are, as we, I want to say as I, let me take it here, as I truly fall in love with God

and take my heart to Him. Stacy is like, oh, yeah, thank you. You're not putting that all on top of me. Thank you so much. I can pursue her, love her, enjoy one another, but not go there for those core needs of love and validation, right? Yeah, so the problem is most men take the report card Yeah, so the problem is most men take the report card and they hand it to their wives. And that's why they fear them. I mean, I've talked to fighter pilots. Seriously, we've done beautiful work with Navy SEALs and they are scared of their wives. And you're like, how many times have you been in combat?

Like you're kind of like a man's man. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And you are literally frightened by your wife. What are they aware that they're frightened? Yeah. Well, by the time they wind up with us, they're Yeah, I suppose this way. And what they come to see is they've taken the fundamental question of their identity. Do I have what it takes? And they've given it to their wife to answer. No woman can do that for a man.

When you take that away and hand it to your father especially, I think our Papa primarily wants to answer this, because this is the baptism of Christ. Our heavenly Father, not our earthly Father. Yeah, our heavenly Father. I like to call him Papa, right, because he's our Papa. This is the moment of the baptism of Jesus. The Father literally speaks out loud. It's one of the few times in Scripture He breaks protocol. You know, He speaks inside in the human heart all the time, folks, all the time. But externally, so everyone can hear, you know, you've got Sinai and you've got... there's just a few moments where this happens. Remember what He says? He says, I love you, okay, and in whom I'm well pleased,

right? I couldn't be more proud of you. Well, those are the two essential needs of every little boy. Those are the fundamental questions. Does my dad love me? And does he think I have what it takes does he validate me love and validation yeah if we can learn as men to turn that to our Heavenly Father take it off our wives it's gonna be a rescue for your marriage. Yeah, that's really good. How do we do that? So Henry now in this beautiful line answers before there are questions do damage to the soul. One of the things that the noun was so aware of is until you are in touch with the pain,

the need, the sin, the heartache, you know, the internal... You can say this all day, how many homilies have guys heard on this? Your heavenly father loves you, you're a beloved son. Yeah, yeah, whatever. Yeah, I get it. That's the response, isn't it? That's how we... Yeah, yeah. That stuff is now white noise. Well, then you hear story about people who've heard that in a way that impacted them, and you wonder when that will happen to you. And like, that sounds lovely. Well, you have to go back into how was that answer for you? Because you're already living with an answer.

Your dad or his absence, you know, and in his absence your uncle or grandfather or coach or priest, you know, pastor, rector, bishop, you know, somebody answered that for you when you were young, and you are shaped to this day, and your behavior is shaped by how that was answered. It's usually not good. It's something of, well, you're loved if. You behave, you're smart, you're athletic, you have the same career I do, that sort of thing.

And love is conditional, or love is just completely withheld. You know, it's just, you know, I grew up in an alcoholic home. It was just, it was just a disaster. You know, what I'm saying and what now I'm saying is, if we can become present to the heartache, get down into like, Whoa, there it is. Whoa. Okay, okay. Okay. Now. And, and, and then inviting that's good God to meet us there. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Because that's, that's the question, right? The pain is the question. Yep. And so before you're in touch with your pain, it's just theoretical. It is. Well, here's why. Because we call it the message of the arrows.

The fundamental messages of your life were delivered with pain, and because so they felt true. It's delivered with such force. Right? And there's just, you know, a million different stories for how this plays out for people. But you're not beautiful, you're not lovely, you'll never be chosen for women. You will be eventually abandoned, you will be betrayed, and you deserve it because you are not. Or for men, you don't have what it takes.

You're weak, you're dumb, you're an idiot. If people only knew who you really were, you know, they would be appalled. It's that because it's delivered with such force in childhood and because we don't have the tools as children, you know, or an interpreter. If you have an interpreter there, you know, you can help children navigate a lot of really painful things if there's an interpreter. This isn't about you, sweetheart. Okay. The fundamental messages of our identity are delivered with pain and therefore they feel

very very true. And it's, you know, branding. It's like that iron is hot, you know, and it sears there. Until you get down into that, everything else will just bounce off. It's just ping pong balls off the paddle. It just boink, boink, you know, it just bounces off because it doesn't have the ability to dislodge the fundamental strongholds. You know, these are the Ephesians 4 strongholds that Paul talks about. He takes this very, very seriously.

It's like if you let the sun go down on this stuff, you know, meaning you just never deal with it, right? That you are literally going to give your enemy a stronghold there and then the enemy will just use that, right? So the moment in which it feels to us that our life is unraveling could be the very moment where we can now bring that to Christ. You know the famous story about Carl Jung and oh gosh So people would come to him and and say I just got a promotion and he would say I'm so sorry We can get through this together

People would come to him and say my my life is just unraveled. And he would say, brilliant, let's open a bottle and celebrate, because now the good can begin. So this is back to I stand at the door and knock. God is constant, the great pursuer of our human souls. He is knocking. Oh, yeah. Sometimes through the good things, of course. I think He is a wooer. Who will you through the ocean? Who will you through music? Who will you through the things you love? Absolutely.

Yes. But because the primary lessons were learned in pain, it usually takes disruption to get down into it. For example, so I grew up in an alcoholic home. My father was a full blown alcoholic. My mother was a functional, what we used to call a social alcoholic. Yeah, so can maintain a career and that sort of thing,

but you come home at night and it's instantly alcohol. I did not deal with that into adulthood, into marriage. I did not know when I married my wife, that she had an eating disorder. And suddenly I am in the exact same scenario of living with someone in profound addiction. Right? I mean, the terror of it. When did you discover that that was the case? Oh, it wasn't long. It wasn't long into it. Yeah. And God was in it. Because he's like, John, if you leave this unaddressed in your soul,

it will destroy you. What is it that you're talking about? Cause people may have heard that. And when you said left unaddressed, they may have thought you meant if I don't address my wife. Oh, no, no, no, no, no. I mean the childhood trauma of growing up

in an alcoholic home. Which I just... So what message were you given that you received and believed and then I'm presuming this is the middle part where we talk about the pain that was knocking Christ was knocking through the pain. Yes. And then how did you move through that but what was that message that you received if it wasn't this is my beloved in whom I'm well pleased. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So if the two fundamental needs of every little boy, I adore you, right? This is my beloved son. I adore you.

And you have what it takes, right? By the way, he says this right before Jesus enters into his great mission to save the human race. Mount Table, yeah. Is that what you're referring to, the transfiguration? No, no, no, no, no, although I love that scene. No, I mean the three years leading up to the cross resurrection and ascension.

I see, before his public ministry. Well, yeah, he is now setting his face like Flint. After that baptism, he begins his public ministry. And I like, as one commentator pointed out, this is before he's performed a miracle. So before you've done anything, I'm pleased with you. Exactly, exactly.

Okay. So am I loved? No. You're not even worth staying around for. So fundamental abandonment wound, deep abandonment wound. And do I have what it takes? Well it was just silence. A huge question mark on my chest because you know didn't teach me how to handle money, didn't teach me how to date a girl, didn't teach me how to go to college, did know, just nothing, you know, and so the fundamental validation

of the masculine soul didn't take place either. So those massive heartache in there, plus then you just have all the trauma of. Did it take you a while to accept that that was the case? Because I think in my own life, and I'm sure this is true of other people, we're like very reluctant to say something like that about our parents, even if it's legitimate,

because either we're afraid that we're doing that victim thing, or we realize that we weren't perfect. You just said earlier, wasn't taught to use money. And I'm looking at my life and I'm like, I don't even know if I would have listened. Do you know what I mean? Like maybe my father tried and I didn't care.

Maybe I was, or maybe it just seems so cliche, like, oh, you're gonna blame your dad for all your problems. And so because of that, we, and then we also, there's all these different things, right? Another thing is other people had it worse. Oh yeah. So did you, at first, were you reluctant

to sort of acknowledge that you weren't The recipient of your father and mother's love and affection or was it easier? No, no, no 100% Yeah, we all run from our pain. We run in different ways, but we run from our pain Because it's painful you burn your stove and on the stove, you pull away. Very natural to do that. Actually, where it started for me was, but I couldn't escape my rage. I was an angry young man. And we started having our family and little boys. I had three boys now, beautiful, mature men.

But as little boys, literally the spilled milk stories, just dumb things and I could feel this rage coming up. I'm like, oh my gosh, I am going to hurt them, not physically, emotionally, in ways that I do not want to. What is this rage about? I literally didn't know. Yeah. No, I get it.

What my rage was about. Yeah, 100%. Well, it's kind of a direct connection, but I couldn't have told you. I think most people can't. I couldn't have told you, yeah. And I'm sitting in the movie, a river runs through it. So the one connection I had with my dad growing up was fishing.

He was a country boy who married a high society girl. I mean, it was just destined for, it did not go well. And I developed a lot of compassion. Both my parents are now with the Lord. Thank God. Because I was raised in an unbelieving home and we can talk about how they got there. But I did have my dad fishing.

And that's the belovedness, right? Like he wants to spend time with me and we have joy together and we go camping, we go fishing. And then when the alcoholism really took hold, all the fishing trips ended and kind of things. So I'm sitting in a movie. I became a fly fisherman. I love fly fishing. I love rivers. I love wilderness. I love nature. But I would often fish alone into my adult life. And two fascinating events took place that were, that led me to go back and deal with what was

undone with. The first is, I'm sitting in the movie, a river runs through it. And at the end of the movie, Norman, the lead character, is standing in the river as an old man, alone. And he says, now all the people that I loved but did not understand in my life are gone, but I still reach out to them. I am weeping in the theater. And now the credits are rolling. It's right at the end of the movie, and people are trying to get by me in the theater. And I am bawling, and I couldn't have told you why.

That's how much I had buried everything. And then I come back from one of my fishing outings by myself, and I'm pacing around the house, and I'm upset, and Stacey's kind of watching, and she's like, babe, you know, what's going on? And I'm like, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. And literally out of my mouth come the words, I'll never find him out there. I had no idea that all those years I was looking for my father on the river. And I'm like, whoa. So I went to counseling.

I'm like, something's going on. The rage is forcing me to address this because I don't want to harm those I love. And so I went to counseling and began to unpack all this. The time I first went to counseling is after I got angry and kicked a big dent in my trash can. Like that was why. Yeah. So it's almost like something has to happen that wakes you up enough to be like, no, this isn't normal. Yep. Because how much do we try to justify, you know, people will talk about an Irish temper or something like this to sort of make everything kind of okay. Or we blame everybody else around us. That's much easier. Yeah. Yeah. Everyone else's fault. Yeah, that's right. And then something has to happen to

sort of wake you up. Oh, gosh. OK, OK. Yes. But yeah, and it shows you just how insidious all the millions of ways we use to distract ourself are. Yes. Because if it's that pain that we need to tap into to then get the answer,

and it's those many things we turn to, like social media and dark chocolate and alcohol alcohol to sort of pacify the pain, just to keep it in a state, put it in a cage, just don't hurt me or anybody else. Let me just live a nice normal little life. Yes, yes. Yeah, maybe that's why, that's partly why maybe the importance of fasting is that it kind of deprives you

of your false idols. Because you got to find out what's under that. So this is going to sound dramatic, but it's true. So I know I've got an issue with dark chocolate around the first of the year. And I'm like, I need to fast. I need to fast from this it I clearly see it is my comforter and so I put it down and Holy Spirit what's underneath it and

I was shocked to discover despair I'm like, this is much bigger than I thought it was. I had no idea that's where I was buying dark chocolate. I just thought I had a little bit of an issue with sugar and caffeine, you know. It's like, whoa,, first off, can I pause and say, most people don't know that the intentions of God are the full restoration of your humanity. Your humanity matters to God. Your heart, your soul, your you, matters. And the redemption of Christ is recreation, right? I make all things new. And I think if people understood, especially in a highly-therapized world, I think if people understood that that's what the gospel is, Isaiah 61... John 10, 10. Yes, come on! Right?

That's it right there. That's everything we've just been talking about. Yes! There is an enemy, and he is coming to seek and to kill and destroy. He wants to destroy you, folks. I have come. Yes. Yes. I think this is why it's, we can, I don't mean to get us off topic, but this is why one of the insidious side effects of denying the demonic, I don't mean being obsessed with it, that's clearly problematic as well, to give the devil more than his due.

Yeah. But when we just fail to acknowledge that we are in a brutal spiritual war, then God has to be the one we lay the blame on for all these things, you know? But, okay. Yes, yes. Let's linger here for a moment because this is so important for people to understand. And again, if you're anywhere in the developed world, the unseen realm has been almost entirely stripped away from you. And so it's us and God. So either we're blowing it or He's withholding. It's like those are the only two options. He's not kind, He's not near, He's not coming through, He doesn't hear my prayers, or of course He doesn't, I'm not

worth seeing, you know, I'm not praying enough, I'm not doing enough. He loves me but he doesn't like me. If you remove the reality, folks, so Revelation 12, the incredible cosmic view of the birth of Christ, right? And the war in heaven, the war in heaven, the enemy tries to kill Mary, okay? At the end, it says, and the devil was enraged, and he went out to make war against the sons and daughters of God. He went out to make war against them. So, He went out to make war against them. So if you do not have that,

you will blame God for the things the enemy has done in your life and in your story. I wanna say a big thanks to the College of St. Joseph, the work of based in Steubenville, Ohio. You'll recognize many of their faculty and fellows from the show, people like Dr. Andrew Jones, Dr. Jacob Imam, Dr. Mark Barnes, Dr. Alex Plato. Listen to this, their program combines the rigor of an elite bachelor's degree with the practicality of training in the skilled trades and their tuition model is structured so that students graduate without

crippling debt. If you're a bright young man thinking about what college to go to, apply to a place where you not only learn the good, but gain the power to do it. Apply to the college of St. Joseph the Worker. If you're a parent, look into this college for your children. And if you're not in either category, just consider supporting the mission. Go to collegeofstjoseph.com slash mattfrad to learn more. That's college of St. Joseph dot com slash Matt Fradd to learn more. There will be a link below. Thanks. Human sin is enough to blow up the world.

So I'm not saying the devil causes all harm, but I guarantee you he jumped on it. He may not have brought the arrows, but he brought the messages. He immediately jumps in and puts his spin on things. He's the liar and the father of lies, right? Exactly. Yeah. This can transform a marriage. Okay, so Stace and I, fairly young marriage, we were maybe like six, seven years into it. And we had a phenomenal conversation one night and I'm sitting at the dinner table and I decided to go ahead and bring it up. And I just said, the little ones had gone off to play and I just said, sweetheart, I don't feel like I

can do anything to please you. So she, whoa, she sits down, heavy conversation, husbands being honest and vulnerable. She's like, whoa, she sits down, heavy conversation husbands being honest and vulnerable. She's like, Whoa, I'm like, hun, I just feel like nothing, nothing I can do will please you. I just feel accused by you. She's sweeping. She says, that's exactly how I feel toward about you. I feel like there's nothing I can do that would please you. And we just went, wait a second. There is a third player in the room. There is a third player in the marriage. There is an accuser that has gotten into this. This began our awakening to

this began our awakening to folks. You live in a highly populated universe in the unseen realm. You know, when scriptures use, you know, numbers like the number of angels, you know, thousands and thousands and ten thousands times ten thousand, what the biblical writers are saying is innumerable, right? I mean, Aquinas thought that the number of celestial beings were far outnumber material beings, okay? You live in a highly populated universe, folks, and have, not have, a third of these guys are terrorists. They're absolutely ancient malicious creatures out to destroy the human race. And you won't understand your story, the messages or your current conflicts

without understanding. Yes. And you are commanded to resist it. James 4, 7, 1 Peter 5, 8 and 9, resist him. Right. And he will flee from you. That's James 4, 7. 1 Peter 5, 8, and 9, resist him. We are commanded to take account of the unseen realm, to resist it, to fight back, right? Where is it in Scripture where it says, Right? Where is it in scripture where it says, um, as this isn't something strange that's happening to you?

That's what is that after first Peter five? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, as though something strange were happening to you. Yeah. So this is a common experience of every man and woman. And what's interesting though is living in this world with its neat streets and shops with electricity and a basically functioning economy. It's almost like we're gaslit. Because things seem terrible.

Literally. No, everything's fine. Literally gaslit. There's something wrong with you. Exactly. If we were in a post-apocalyptic landscape right now, it would be like, okay, this makes sense. Finally, it makes sense. Yes. So every other region of the world and all, you know, you

do a lot of missions, you know this, where the enlightenment did not throw a blanket over the unseen realm and just hid it. Every other, every other, you know, developing parts of the world, primitive cultures, you go in, you don't have to convince them about fel spirits. They are desperate to know what to do with them. How do we get this out of our house? How do we stop the nightmares? How do we stop the physical affliction or whatever's going on? They just want to know and that's why evangelism is so powerful in those countries because when you use the name of Jesus and the demons flee, is so powerful in those countries, because when you use the name of Jesus and the demons flee, those people are like, thank you.

What? Tell me about this man. There is someone to whom the demons, you know, this is Luke 10, Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name. Wow! This is Pascal's thing, by the way. This is fascinating. Pascal's proof for

the resurrection is that the demons obey the name of Jesus. He's like, if he was dead, they wouldn't be working. Yeah, they'd laugh. They'd pick somebody else's name, you know. The fact that he is the living reigning king right now to whom all authority in heaven and on earth has been given Pascal thought was a brilliant way of showing people look folks so you live in a love story everybody it is a love story but it is set on a battlefield in Afghanistan it is set in a savage, savage war. It's the World War II in South Pacific where it was just savagery and madness. That is the context.

Yeah. And unless, correct me if you think I'm wrong, unless we realize that our life won't make sense. No, no. You will blame yourself, you'll blame others. It's my boss, it's my spouse, it's God. And you go, whoa, whoa, whoa. And then, and how disappointing the perceived solutions are when you don't realize you're in a battle. Yes. Like the vacation. Yeah. I mean, the older I get, no vacation has been that good,

really, actually. Right. Or if it has, it's because I've received it well. Yes. And not as the fulfillment of my old, all of my desires. Yes. You know, you go to Paris, then what? Go to a coffee shop, you can do that here. What are you going to do? Look at the... I was just in Australia. It was wonderful, but it's... none of it is God. It's insufficient. Yeah, this coffee, I went to it looking for happiness this morning. It almost did it. Yeah. But it didn't. Yep.

Yeah. Yeah. Sex, power, money, vacations. Yeah, yeah. Okay. None of it's God. Well, here's the beautiful thing. Doesn't bloody work. Back to Isaiah 61. Your wholeheartedness is my goal, Jesus says. I'm out to restore your heart and soul, your humanity. He has sent me to heal the broken, right? And it's not poetry, it's not metaphor. Leb Shabbat is violent. Elsewhere it's statues that have fallen on the ground and shattered, it's literal broken, okay? He's like, I'm here to restore your humanity

and put the project back on track. I'm bringing you back to the New Eden, okay? As a restored man and woman. The next sentence, right? And to free those who are prisoners to darkness. So Jesus links, as Paul does in Ephesians 4, he links our brokenness with spiritual oppression. Because the enemy goes, yeah, that's where I'm gonna work. I'm gonna work where you're vulnerable, not where you're strong. I'm gonna come after your fears, your addictions, your heartaches, your unhealed trauma. I'm gonna come after all that. Ephesians 4, I mean, I'll work that

stuff until you make me stop. So after this experience with you and your bride, because we began by talking about the message that was received when you were young. You said that your wife had an eating disorder or something. All this sort of stuff came up. So what was the pain that you got in touch with to then receive some kind of answer? Okay. So we're now recognizing, wait a second, you're feeling accused. Oh, because part of what happened in the conversation at the dinner table was, I'm like, sweetheart, I don't feel that way towards you at all.

Interesting. She says, honey, I don't feel that way towards you at all. I'm like, but I'm feeling accused. Yeah. And you're feeling very accused. But I'm not, but I'm feeling accused. Yeah. And you're feeling very accused, but I'm not accusing you. It's on my heart. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. So we literally together said, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, we command the accuser to leave this room and to leave our marriage. So this is James 4, 7, 1 Peter 5. We resisted, okay?

And things began to change. And that's where we went, wait a second. I think we have not been using all the tools at our disposal here for Isaiah 61, for our recovery and discipleship and wellbeing and all of that transformed into the image of Christ. We've got to start dealing with the darkness stuff. That, wow, did that open up what has become now a global ministry for us, a lot of what we do, not exclusively,

but we help people understand you're in a love story, but it's set in a war, it's a very savage war. You must deal with these things. Level one, first step, begin to break the agreements that you have made with the fundamental lies of your life. You don't have what it takes or whatever that may be. You are worthy of abandonment, you are worthy of abuse, like whatever the core messages are, start there, start by breaking a...

You literally do it out loud. I am a daughter of God. He will never leave me or forsake me. I renounce the agreement I've made that I am fundamentally unlovable. Folks, I mean I'm telling you, oh it changes things. Yeah, I've experienced that too. Yes, your heart gets out. Yeah, yeah and I've even experienced it where it didn't come back. Yes. Not just, oh, I felt good in the moment saying that nice thing to myself.

That's right. Or something shifted. Yes. Now, sometimes they'll test your resolve and you'll need to continue to break it. Yes. You know, if it's something that's been historic and habitual, you know, they'll test your resolve. These guys are, you know, ancient of cunning, intelligence and malice.

Sometimes you have to continue to say, no, I send you to the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ. You go, be gone. But that develops us, see? That develops us. We grow. Matured us. Oh, it does. Ephesians, right? Yes.

Mature in Christ. Oh, it does. Ephesians, right? Yes. Yes, it does. It strengthens the inner man or woman, right? And it strengthens our union with Christ. Ephesians 2, 6, folks, you are raised with Christ and seated with Him at the right hand of the Father right now. You operate top down. You give authorities in your kingdom. You give authorities in your kingdom, you give orders in your kingdoms. So anything that's trying to get into your domain, you can't go do this for like New York City, okay? You'll get your hat handed to you.

Because the reigning spirits over regions and stuff are very high ranking as Daniel 10 shows us. But in your kingdom, anything that is under your authority, your home, your money, your finances, your kids, your health, right? You all have a little kingdom and you're meant to reign over that kingdom with the authority of Jesus. So your kids having nightmares, you're like, uh-uh, not in our house. No. By the authority given to us in Jesus Christ, we command the foul spirits that are assaulting our son or daughter to the judgment seat of the Lord Jesus Christ.

You may not operate here. No, no, no. This little huddle is under the authority of Jesus. Our car, a birthday you care about, a trip that matters to you, that's all under your jurisdiction in Christ. Start learning to exercise your authority because here's the lovely thing, it's not primarily about the warfare. Dallas Willard used to say, we are in training for reigning. We are in training for reigning. You will reign with Christ forever, right? That's Revelation and they will reign with Him forever. The Adam and Eve project was reigning, right? Here's the world, govern it well, right? Flourish, multiply, do all the wonderful things you're supposed to do. Find music, find architecture, explore

the world, do it all, okay? He puts that back on track in the new earth and he's like, carry on. Okay? So we will reign with him forever, Revelation says, clearly, it's who we are, it's what we're made to do. In the meantime, well, he's got to train you, you got to get ready for that. Okay? And spiritual warfare is one of the ways we begin to sort of stand up. You kind of, you know, stand up a little straight. You go, no, I'm done with this stuff. You can't mow my grass anymore. You can't keep stealing stuff from me. No. And, you know, it starts with breaking the agreements with the lies. I reject that. You know, you walk out of a meeting, you did such a bad job, and you, you bad job and you walk out and you just hear the same old thing, you're such an idiot, and it's

usually a little uglier than that, right? Like foul language, that kind of thing. These people don't like you and you go, uh-uh, uh-uh, uh-uh, no, no, right now, uh-uh, I reject that. No, no, no, you can't have my heart. You can't have this internal real estate, right? No! No, in the name of Christ Jesus our Lord. No. You rise up. Yeah, there's some dignity that begins to take place in both men and women. I was with a dear friend of mine, Sister Miriam James, who you would love, and she would love you, Sister Miriam James, who you would love, and she would love you. And we were praying together one day, and I just had this deep fear that I was some,

this is the best language I could come up with at the time, fractured at my core. Like something, I'm actually not repairable. This is, which to me sounded unique, and now I realize a lot of people have this sort of, this lie, you know, this idea that other people can be redeemed, other people can be made well. I can't. There's something different about me. So it was beautiful to be led through a time of prayer where I both renounced and

announced in the name of Jesus of Nazareth, I renounced the lie that I'm unlovable, and I announce in the name of Jesus the truth that." Is that important too, to both renounce and announce? It is, absolutely. Absolutely, yeah. Because, and again, you know, we're back to some of the neuroscience, but the neuropathways, you literally, I'm in a rut, you know, use that old expression. Well that literally happens in the neuropathways.

Your brain forms literal ruts. And so the habitual agreement with the lie, I'm unlovable, I'm irreparable, I'm just damaged goods. Like this isn't gonna change. This will never change. That's a horrible agreement. That would be one of them. That gets in you.

Well, you do have to reprogram. You do have to retrain the soul and then literally what happens is it retrains the body as you announce, proclaim, declare. So I have in my journal, and I was just using it again this morning, and it was a rescue. I have in the front of my journal a list of biblical truths that I know I particularly need. I know my vulnerabilities, I know where the enemy comes after me, you know. And I kind of modify it year to year. I don't know, there's eight or ten, doesn't need to be a lot. Core biblical truths of who I am to God, who he is to me, right? And I read them and I declare them out loud. That's very important. So it's both and.

Okay, could you, I don't mean to ask you to be more vulnerable than you may wish to be, but could you give us a couple of examples of what you read from your journal? I wish I'd have brought it. I'd show it to you. Yes, absolutely. So things like, greater is the Lord Jesus Christ in me than he who is in the world. So you just need to know right away, look folks, this isn't you gutting it out. It is the strength of Christ in you, okay? You will never leave me nor forsake me. Well, when you've got an abandonment story, you need that one often. That's really good. Yeah, yeah, things like that. I am loved, I am chosen, I am loved, I am chosen. That's just so, so, so core to these things.

And then a few scriptures that are currently speaking to me. so, so core to these things. And then a few scriptures that are currently speaking to me. I love the Psalms and the thing about by your right hand you will save your anointed by your right. So again, I'm looking to God for these victories in the war, but you will, you are faithful to me. You are absolutely faithful to me. He answers him from his holy temple with the saving power of his right hand. That stuff is really good. That's beautiful. I've been thinking lately that the question that many Christians wrestle with, Catholic, Protestant and another, you know, am I saved? Yes.

I've been thinking, I wonder what you think about this. I've been thinking lately that that can be a godless question because often what we're doing is, it's like Frodo going through Mount Moria and looking at himself saying, do I have what it takes to overcome these trolls and orcs? The answer is definitely not. Yes. But the faithful question is to look at Gandalf

and say, can I trust Gandalf? Yeah, the answer is oh, yes Yes, so similarly I think often when I say am I saved I'm looking at my own resources apart from Christ Am I virtuous enough for my repentance sufficient? Yeah, the answer is no. Yeah, but Can I trust him? Absolutely that the good work He begun He will bring to completion? Yes. Oh, yeah, most certainly. That's good. Yeah. Thank you that you'll make me a saint.

This is Thérèse of Lisieux. She died at 24, Carmelite nun. And she says, when I look at the saints and I compare them to myself, I'm like a grain of sand that's just trodden on underfoot compared to a gigantic mountain. That's the difference But her certainty and confidence That God would come through this of course in the love of Christ Her confidence yes love of indeed. She said I'll spend my eternity doing good works on earth It's what she said and you think oh goodness isn't that a bit audacious?

You're like well, it would be if she was looking at her own resources, but she's not. She's looking at the good Jesus who she knows she can trust. Which is, and I shared this with you last night, but on her deathbed, she said, oh, even if I had committed the most abominable sins imaginable, I would still have confidence. I know too well what to think of His mercy. All of that sin, if I turned to Him, would be like a drop of water flicked into a raging furnace. She says, no nothing can frighten me. This is her on her deathbed. So beautiful. What a lovely thing to say. Nothing can frighten me. I know too well what to think of his mercy. The love of Jesus. No one can snatch you out of his hand. Yeah that's really good. Yeah. And that confidence again,

not in me in him. That's really good. But that needs to be proclaimed, doesn't it? Because it does. We live at war with the world, the flesh and the enemy that are saying something differently. There's a like the world wants me to believe a different narrative about my life than the good father wants. Absolutely. My flesh wants me to believe a different narrative about my life than the good father wants me to believe. My flesh wants me to believe that, you know. Yeah, and the world is constantly bombarding you with competing narratives. Constantly. Yeah, that's absolutely good. I like that.

I want to come back to that internal sense of fundamentally fractured. Because internal sense of fundamentally fractured. Yeah. Because, um, as we explore more what trauma does to the soul and to the brain, can you briefly define trauma? We've mentioned this a lot and I don't know if I know what it is. Um, the effects of something bad happening? Yeah, yeah, yeah, but it's bigger than that. So there are wounds that come to us which are fairly easily healed. An unkind word. You didn't get invited to the birthday party when you were young. Yeah, you cried. It was sad, you know, you left your favorite stuffed animal at the airport

and you never saw it again. Yeah, there are wounds, legitimate wounds that come, mean things people say to you on the playground. Those are legitimate wounds, fairly easily healed, usually just through interpretation. Oh, sweetheart, you know, that's not you, honey. And the love of God. Okay, so there are wounds that are legitimate. I'm not minimizing, they're legitimate wounds

that we continue to take into adulthood. You get passed over for a promotion. It's not traumatizing, but it is painful. You go, ah, that was my career, that really hurts. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, we'll use phrases like I'm heartbroken over it. We don't, we don't mean I will never recover from this. Trauma are events, circumstances, chronic circumstances. So it's not just one debit. You know, I saw my parents killed in an automobile accident. That's traumatizing.

But chronic pain is traumatizing also. Irresolvable pain, chronic loneliness is traumatizing. Harm to the human soul that apart from significant intervention remains, is ongoing. Not only remains, but what, so here's what we have understand trauma to do. So this is part of the answer. It literally fragments. It fragments. So I would come back and say, and this is what they're finding out in the neuroscience, but this is Isaiah 61. Jesus knew, oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, They literally fragment the soul. Sift as wheat. It's brutal because what happens it literally fragments the brain. And this is why people who go through traumatic events will often not be able to remember

them because their brains like not talking to the hemispheres. That's what you mean. Not talking to each other. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah. So like Bessel van der Kolk and his famous book, The Body Keeps the Score on Trauma. Okay. This stuff is...

It was held greatly by that. Oh, it's stored in you folks and it is fragmenting. Now, here's the thing. Here's what they've also been observing for a while. And this is where this is, we're going to get into like the gorgeousness of the gospel is incredible. Okay. Next book title, by the way. The Gorgeousness of the gospel is incredible. Okay. Next book title, by the way, the gorgeousness of the gospel. Parts of you remain stuck at the age it occurred.

The betrayal, the abuse, the violence, the harm. And again, you know, the inner child and, you know, now Schwartz's thing on IFS and parts work and that sort of thing. So the therapeutic community has been observing this for quite a while now, but we're finally coming to some maturity in this in Christendom where we understand, wait a second, this is Isaiah 61, Jesus warned us all about this, Leb Shabar, actual fragmentation. You are six, 12, 14, and 21, and your current age. And this is gonna help people loads,

because they'll get in certain circumstances, the boss is angry, and suddenly you feel eight, and you're like, this is embarrassing. I I feel eight. I just want to run out of the room I just want to run I'm gonna run. I don't you go you are part of you is Eight stuck at eight there is a little you in there and you ask for stories. So this is where The ministry of healing prayer, integrative prayer, you know, this is St. John the Cross, like how lovingly you do move within my in-house being,

right? Like that inner presence of Christ, how tenderly, he says, how tenderly you move within my heart. says, how tenderly you move within my heart. The most beautiful work going on right now is helping people let Christ in to those young places, because they will take to Jesus very quickly. They don't like being stuck. They're usually in the bedroom where it took place or on the playground or watching the house burn or whatever the trauma. I had a dear, dear friend who literally did see his father die in front of him in an automobile accident. This is one of my closest friends who is a psychotherapist, by the way. And we're at a time we were fishing together one day and he kept he he over over the years I was just paying attention to the kind of

stories he would tell and he would tell a lot of stories about death and so finally one day I said to him I'll use a different name call him David said David do you notice that you have almost a relationship with death? And he's like, wow, no, no. I said, well, what's the significant death in your life? And he's like, I didn't know this about his story. He's like, well, when I was four,

I saw my father die before me in an automobile accident. Literally saw the blood and everything. I'm like, okay, okay, so that's trauma, that's fragmented, and part of you is four. Part of you is four. We're sitting on the bank of a lake, and I said, could we invite Christ to that place? Can we just open up the heart? This is the Revelation 3, if you open the door, He'll come in. Can we ask Jesus to come to that four-year-old? And in some guided integrative prayer, which is very, very simple, and by the way, I know we're gonna get to my new book, but people are going, how do I do this? Two chapters are

given to this in the new book. In this new book? Yes. We'll have a link below, Experience Jesus Really. Yeah. So this is the epicenter of the book because, as I said, I think trauma is the primary opportunity of the church and the gospel, because Jesus is really good at doing this. He's great at healing human souls. So we're sitting on the bank, and I said, Can we just invite Jesus to the four-year-old? Can we let Him in?" He's like, yes, absolutely. We're sitting there. And then you can start paying attention. Okay, so what are you feeling right now? I am feeling terrified. Now he's a mature man on a sunny day by a gorgeous lake. I'm like, okay, we got to it. You're in terror

right now. That's the four-year-old. Will the four-year-old let Jesus come? And I'll just ask him, I said, just, you know, four-year-old David, will you let Jesus come to you? Yes! The elements almost always say yes. Please! Jesus walks into the scene. And this is like all of the, this is so much more accessible, folks. So all of you who have loved reading the mystics, the Christian mystics, down through the ages and wondered about these visitations and these lovely things, folks, this is far more close to you than you know

and far more readily available. May Jesus come, yes. And he saw in his heart, he saw Christ approach the four-year-old, take him out of the scene of the accident in his embrace. Okay? And then what we typically do is we ask, and Jesus, would you now bring the young part into where you live in the center of our being? So Christ, you know, this Ephesians 3, Christ now dwells in your heart, right? He is the center of our being. He reintegrates.

He reintegrates the fragmentation. And those feelings of terror and his obsession with death are gone. Gone, gone. Gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, for years gone, because this is 20 years ago, the story I'm telling you right now. Gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, for years gone, because this is 20 years ago, the story I'm telling you right now.

Gone, gone, because the fragment caused by trauma has been reintegrated by Jesus. The soul is healed through union with Christ. This is gospel, because this is available regardless of whether you have ten thousand dollars and two years to work with a psychotherapist which I bless I bless that word yeah but this is available to every human being anywhere on the planet at any time christ comes yeah you can see I'm a little passionate about this oh and I feel as passionate as you do. It's beautiful. I think it was Chesterton who said something like,

let your faith be more of a love affair and less of a syllogism. I don't know if he said syllogism, but to me, I'm constantly worried that we keep doing that, that we keep thinking of Christianity like a philosophical worldview. Yes. That if you just accept the premises,

your life will flourish because you'll live in a chord with reality. And all that's true. But as Pope Benedict XVI said, like Christianity is a person. It's the encounter with love. Yeah. Absolutely. But I do fear sometimes that we sort of go, well, you know, pornography is bad because Christianity says so, so I've got to stop that. And I'll say my prayers to try to get that under control. We just sort of manage our life with certain truths of Christianity. But sometimes it feels like a Christless Christianity. It's like the teachings of the

church, which again are true, but to separate them from the great lover of our souls. And I sometimes think that the reason I struggle with this at times is because I'm trying to understand it, which is totally not necessary, actually. Do you know, like my son doesn't need to understand how snow works to play in it. And so we, I don't know, sometimes maybe it it's because I tend to be more kind of analytical, philosophically minded. You know, I'll pray at times and you start wondering, you're like, golly, I can't even pay attention to my four children at once. How is God really present to me now?

How does that work? I sort of have to remind myself, like, well, just accept it. Like, just accept the truth that Christianity teaches, that He is present to you. And the difference between you and God is actually infinite. So you don't have to figure it out. You can just sort of give yourself over to it. Have you struggled with that? Or do you understand what I mean?

That's beautiful. Oh, man, keep going. Pascal had that dramatic encounter, you know, his praying sister Giselle probably prayed him into the kingdom, and Pascal late in life has the dramatic encounter with Christ. The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Yes, fire, fire, fire, intimacy, like, yeah, yeah, he's a, you know, kind of thing. Later he would say, so this is what faith is, God perceived by the heart. God perceived by the heart. The mind is a beautiful instrument. It's absolutely beautiful, but it was designed

to protect the heart, not supplant it. And in the last, you know, sort of post-enlightenment era, and in the last, you know, post-enlightenment era, and now we as disciples of the internet, I want to say, yes, what you are saying is true. We have an overdeveloped left brain approach to our life with Christ and frankly everything else. We think the latest research, the new science, Google it, you know, that'll get us there. Right. But that's actually not, it's just not even how you enjoy your friends. You don't dissect your friends to enjoy them. You just enjoy them. You hang out. That's not how you enjoy the ocean. And it's probably a less real description than a poetic one. It is. I'm thinking more about how the Lord of the Rings

is truer than let's say the most accurate account of the founding of America or something like that, or a book on mathematics. Yes. Yes. It's like, yeah, it's less true. Yes. What the Lord of, like fiction is, I think good fiction is more true. And by the way, the Lord of the Rings is a really helpful, let that be your understanding of the Christian story. That's the world you live in. Nazgul, orcs, all that hatred, violence, massive war, huge consequences, yep, that's reality. Yeah.

I'm thinking of so to all who live to see such times, but it is not for them to ask. All that is required is to decide what to do with the time that's given us. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. Well, Justin's thing, he says, mystery keeps men sane. Yeah. The common man has always been a mystic because the common man has always allowed for mystery. He said, one foot on earth and the other in heaven. And yet we have such a materialist view of things

that when we talk about the heart, some of us just went, well, that's stupid. Like, that's just that thing that beats. It's not even a thinking thing. What are you talking about? Yes. Yes. Yes. So just use your little Bible app, folks, and just put heart in. Start with the Bible. Yeah, start with the Psalms. And see, the heart is absolutely central in the scripture. Turn to me with all your heart. Oh, that you would render your hearts, right? Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. I mean, on and on it goes that Christ may dwell in your heart, creating me a clean heart, oh God. And then the big one, the big one, He says, a new heart I will give you. A new heart I will give you. I will put my laws in your heart. See, to obey God from the inside instead of from

the outside, external pressure, Old Testament, internal desire, New Testament, right? We live from a transformed heart. I follow Christ because I want to, not because I'm afraid of Him, right? Because I love Him and I know Him intimately, right? That's the good stuff. A new heart I will give you. And then Isaiah 61, and I need to heal your heart. You need to let me in there. I need to restore your heart from all that has both wounded and fragmented you and those Ephesians four strongholds that have gotten in. Yeah.

I want to ask you about your book, at Heart because I was asking you yesterday, I don't know if you know this or not, but that's got to be one of the top selling books for men in the history of humanity, isn't it? Whatever. Well, I stopped looking at numbers long ago because as a young author, oh, it's just a roller coaster. My publisher would send the reports, right, the monthly sales reports. And it's just, it was a rollercoaster of,

I'm loved, I'm not loved. Hey, I'm successful. I'm not, you know, people care about, you know, the whole validation thing. I get it. So I don't read those reports. Yes. When you wrote it,

how many years were you into your marriage? Roughly. I asked, because I guess, well, first of all, let's say something nice about the book, not just nice about the book, but helpful about the book for those who are watching are like, what is this? So I was given the book shortly after some evangelistic work I was doing in Canada, someone gave me your book on a CD. And I listened to it. And it's one of the few books that I just kept going back to and it was just so helpful. And I know so many men have found it helpful.

I want to just, fellas, if you're looking for a good book, Wild at Heart is the name of the book. You should consider picking that up. Of course, that's the name of your podcast as well now, but why am I asking about it? I guess I wanna know your thoughts on the book, but I'm also interested to know like how much you've, you think you've grown since the writing of the book.

Is there bits in it that you wish you could rewrite that you don't stand by now? Yeah, I know you've been open and vulnerable maybe about a time earlier on in your marriage where you're like, this might fall apart. So I guess I'm just kind of wondering on your journey when it is you wrote that and what you think of it now. I was 41. So I had some maturity.

I had some maturity and I had been through that counseling through growing up in an alcoholic home, so I'd done a lot of good work. Then I went to grad school to become a therapist myself, and I was working with a lot of men, raising boys, and continuing to want to grow myself as a man. it was the convergence of those things that came together. I began to talk on it, you know, speak at retreats and that sort of thing on the masculine soul and most importantly the healing of the masculine soul. You and I have some concerns about some of the masculine movements in the world right now. And some of this hurrah, if you'll allow me, kind of the, there is a very popular movement right now that I would

call hard ass Christianity. It's machismo and kind of thing. And the wild at heart guy, I'm raising a flag to go, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. What does that look like? What is the hard ass Christianity? Where anger is good, it doesn't need to be checked by Christ. Righteousness is good, judgment of others, stick it to them, you know. Yeah. We too quickly justify our anger and our, even name calling of others. Christ got angry. It's like, yeah, that was different, maybe. You're a passionate man, filled with your own. Yeah, let's just say his sanctification was a little bit more progressed than yours.

This is very, very interesting. So when I wrote Wild at Heart, the crisis in masculinity was permission to be male, okay, because of the feminist movement and many of the things that Carrie talked about in her shows. At that point, which is 2000, so it was the end of the 90s, we had to give men permission to be men and not women. Say, no, no, no, you're made in the image of God, male and female. This is good. It's filled with dignity and honor. And you have permission to be male and to approach your life as a man and to live from your your masculine soul.

Now it's tipped over to a kind of, how would we describe it, all that, I mean everything we were just talking about, you know, looking at your feelings and dealing with inner wounds. You don't need to do any of that stuff. You need to be tough. You know, what you need to do is, you know, learn to handle a pistol, right? Go to your local, you know, gun club and learn to handle a nine millimeter.

You need to be the protector of your family. You know, you need to handle, take self-defense, you know, get into a jujitsu class, which I think that's actually good for boys to get into body development and yeah, yeah, yeah, that kind of thing. But this is tipped over into, it does not balance the warrior with the poet. It does not balance Jesus clearing the temple. Jesus made a whip. It was a premeditated act. It took him time to make a weapon, folks. He's not only gentle Jesus meek and mild, okay? He can be extremely fierce when he needs to. Exodus 15.3, the Lord is a warrior.

And so we were giving people the permission to recover the warrior heart because you're going to need that to fight for your kids, your marriage, your health, your PhD, your ministry, your calling. You'll need the warrior heart. But not at the expense of the poet, the mystic, the lover. The lover, right? The tenderness, yes, the balancing side so that it's not just this hurrah, angry. And then now what it's gotten is quickly gotten blended with politics. I mean, you know this, like the far right in Europe is attracting loads of young men, right?

Radical Islam attracted loads of young men, right? Radical Islam attracted loads of young men. Yeah, this is the pendulum swing when you shame men. Yeah, yeah. When you basically say, you talk about toxic masculinity a great deal and tell them they're wrong to have desires, and power, and strength. Yes, yes.

Like, well. Yeah, yeah, masculinity per se is wrong as a category. Okay, yes, there's going to be a reaction to that, but what we want to say is the recovery of the warrior heart is essential to masculinity. It will take courage and grit to love and hang in a difficult marriage, hang in a difficult job, you know, hang in a difficult parish where people aren't even coming, you know. It takes grit, yes, and the tenderness, the love, right? You have to balance the warrior with the poet. And also to say that politics is important,

but the primary work of Christ in the world is not political. I forget who it was who said, when you lose metaphysics, you're just left with politics. So politics, very important Great. Yeah, people are commentating on it. Glad people are whatever. Yep. And yet it's not the primary thing. Yeah. Hope is being transferred there right now. Hope is being transferred there because hope

or or inordinate anxiety like on both sides. Right? Like we're either hopeful or terrified. But in a way, like on both sides, right? We're either hopeful or terrified. But in a way, I remember, I'll be honest, I remember when Trump was elected, I was thrilled. I mean, I voted for him. I'm happy he's president. Much happier than the alternative, obviously. Maybe not obviously, but that's how I feel.

But I remember being like, ooh, oh, I'm a little too excited. I remember being afraid at how excited I was. I think I was right to be like, oh, I'm a little too excited. I remember being afraid at how excited I was. I think I was right to be like, oh, what's going on here? I had the exact same experience. There was a little bit, because again, when you've had your back again, if all you are is a moral conservative, you just said maybe economics and other things,

if you just care about the moral issues of human sexuality, and the sanctity of life, we have had our back against the wall for quite a while. And so now to quote, be in power. And this is part of this, you know, forgive me, but I want to call it hard-ass masculine movement. There's now this stick it to them, fry them, you know, like throw them in jail. And there's just a little bit of, it's like the scripture says, when your enemy stumbles, do not rejoice, lest the Lord see and remove his hand from them. Like there's just a little bit of, whoa, whoa, whoa, hang on here. Is it the kind of irrational passions that's the problem? Because justice isn't a problem, right?

If there are people who are deserving to be put in prison or whatever. That's not what you're critiquing. No, it's the kind of frenzy is that by frenzy, I guess I do mean a sort of irrational or something else. When you have to discipline your child, you should not enjoy it. Right? Yeah.

Like this is when abuse turns to abuse. When spanking is something you enjoy or whatever the discipline may, you know, grounding or removing their toys in the privileges, taking away their phone for a week or whatever the discipline may, you know, grounding or removing their toys in the privileges, taking away their phone for, you know, a week or whatever. If there's a kind of enjoyment in that, it's like that is the flesh. That is unrighteous administration of justice. But the other thing I'm concerned about is the transfer of hope. Yeah.

And this is where Christ has really caught me because I think that many of the policies that the current administration, the Trump administration is doing are good. I think it's good. I think the removal of federal funding for juvenile trans operations, I think that funding should be removed. I don't think the taxpayer dollars should go to that. All kinds of things, right? Okay.

But the transference of hope, that sense of, oh, good, now things are going to be good. I'm like, you understand how long this is going to last? Four years. Folks, like- Is it the level of hope? Is it the intensity of hope? Because clearly, it seems like, well, yeah, it's a very,

I mean, to rejoice, yes, thank God. Oh, how great. It seems like we're back on track. I was just in Australia and even the Australians, like, oh, we're so glad Trump got in. It feels thank God. Oh, how great. Yeah, seems like we're back on track. Yes, I was just in Australia. And even the Australians like I was so glad Trump got in. It feels like around the world people are saying things like that. Yes. So I just want people to hear you correctly. You're not saying there's never any reason to be gratified and hopeful because

of political change. But what is it sounds like what you're saying is like this, the full weight of our hope gets transferred to this. Yes. Instead of where it ought to be. Yeah, exactly. With God. Yes, yes. Okay, so let me explain a little more why, because I think this will help.

So, I live in a lovely ecumenical fellowship of what I would call sort of ordinary mystics around the world. Catholic and Protestant brothers and sisters who I'm close with who have sort of one ear to the Lord often, you know, what is he saying, what's he doing, and several years ago he began to warn his people about chaos coming into the world. Chaos is coming into the world. And you need to pray about this. And you need to pray that the chaos is restrained. The kingdom of darkness is releasing chaos in the world.

You know, and then you just take something like the COVID-19 pandemic. It was just absolute chaos. You know, closing schools, opening schools, closing schools. You can travel, no It was just absolute chaos, you know, closing schools, opening schools, closing schools, you can travel, no you can't travel, you know, how many small businesses collapsed during that? How many churches and parishes split over it, right? People left and they're not back, right? They found it convenient to stay at home and watch something online or, you know, and they're no longer involved in in the local community their Christian

fellowship right lots of chaos the chaos has only increased in the world right so you've got the collapse of Germany's government the collapse of France's the collapse of Austria's that you know a a lot of things in the last eight months, chaos in the world, hurricanes, Helene and Milton, the Valencia floods in Spain. Wars in Ukraine. Exactly. Middle East. Congo, all that's going on.

There is an enormous, and then the global markets, and there is an enormous amount of instability and disorientation in the world as a result of chaos. Some of the chaos is physical, a great deal of it is the war we've been talking about, the unseen realm. The enemy loves to release chaos. There is a kind of order that actually releases more chaos into the world in the end. And we have to be very, very careful about that. There is a kind of order that releases more chaos. What does that mean?

Look at the first three or four weeks of the Trump administration when all those executive orders were going on right and it's just boom this boom that boom this you know we're gonna buy Gaza we'll take it over and make a resort out of it we're gonna you know it's just really it looks really nilly and good things are happening but also an enormous amount of chaos right you know you lay off you know this many number of people in the federal workforce and that sort of thing those are still people that have to go find jobs yeah those are still families that need to pay grocery bills you know so there's a kind of hoorah right good you know let's clean house you go hold

hold on you don't want to introduce more chaos. Sometimes in order to get more order, you need to introduce chaos. Sometimes, like chemotherapy, things like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I'm out that the Christian, first off, the Christian hope is ultimately in the return of Jesus Christ. Yeah. Bodily to this world. Yeah. Right? To set things right and to make all things new. Yeah, it's become my fear too that, that yeah, we just, we're in an opportunity, we have a great opportunity right now to proclaim Christ, to invite people to repentance, to fall in love with Jesus Christ.

Yes. But we also, yeah, there's also a fear that Christ will be hijacked as a sort of label under sort of, just a sort of right-wing American conservatism. Yes. Where just Christ is like the thing we say to show our allegiance to a political movement. And again, I'm not saying the political movement's wrong or that there aren't... No, no, no, no, no, no. But it becomes solely that. I had a career in Washington at one point. a political movement. And again, I'm not saying the political movement's wrong or that they're wrong. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, excitement level. I also realized that I asked myself this question once and it scared me because the answer was this. Would I be happier if I saw Joe Biden being denied communion

or to see him accept Christ? You know, and I hope it's the latter. I think it is. But there was a moment where I had to pause. Yes. I'd rather just seem ashamed. Actually. Yes. There's a sense in which that's what I want to see. Yeah, exactly. That's a similar thing to what you're saying. Very, very. Because the primary work of Jesus in the world is now and always has been salvation and discipleship.

Evangelism and discipleship, right? Primarily, it's human souls. And there is a great work of Christ going on in the world, all over the world. You know, the number of Muslims coming to faith in Christ, the number of people in the occult who are coming to faith in Christ, the famous atheists, right? They're coming to Christ and therefore getting people's attention of, you know, you've got Biden, I mean, Joe Rogan interviewing, you know, some of these guys like Russell Brand going, wait, what? Yeah. And they're getting a chance to put the gospel out there. So God is moving powerfully in the world. Are we more excited about that? Interested in it? Reading about it? Is that our feed? Or about the latest, you know, good, many of them orders of Trump and his administration? You just contest your level of enthusiasm. You know, I want to push back, not even because I disagree with you, because I'm trying to figure out what I think. Yeah. If there is an executive order that goes about by establishing some sanity

such that now more people are more likely to recognize what is false and to then convert to like an executive order that, as to use the example we used earlier about, we shouldn't be butchering children actually. It seems to, am I more excited about that than the conversion of my neighbor? I guess there could be an appropriate sense

in which I'm excited about both because a country that butchers its children is gonna do untold damage, not just to bodies, but to souls. Same thing with if we allow each other to kill our children in the womb. Something like if there's Roe versus Wade is overturned,

am I more excited about that or the conversion of my neighbor? I don't know, maybe Roe versus Wade being overturned and maybe that's not inappropriate. I get the general thing you're getting at and I agree with it, but I'm just to push back a little. Yeah, no, this is an important conversation to have because this is our moment and these things are forefront. Maybe the categories of relief and hope. I am relieved that our government is doing

many of the sort of cleaning house things, getting corruption out, arresting, spending, you know, and denying some of the mad, mad policies, you know, immoral policies. I'm relieved, I'm relieved. But my hope isn't in it. Yeah, your ultimate hope? Or any hope?

Well, no, no, just- What about for your grandchildren? Like, I feel more hopeful right now for my children. Good. What do you mean? Oh, well. Like, because I feel more hopeful in that it feels like the brakes have been thrown on,

and there's been this wakening up to the insanity. I know. And it feels like we're turning towards a better place. And so I do feel my children have to live in this country. I want my children to be patriotic. I think patriotism is a virtue. Yep. Yep.

Okay. Let's try this again. Pendulums do not stop in the middle. They don't. And the pendulum is swinging hard now towards the right because of the extremism. Yeah, and the woke and your face and all that. I mean just the abortion face and all that. I mean, just the abortion atrocity in the U.S. alone is enough, first off, for a righteous God to say, I'm done with this. You know, I mean, judgment comes on nations, right? I don't want judgment falling on my nation.

You know, my grandchildren and the world my children and grandchildren were in herit. So I hear that. I go, yes, please God, please continue to shut that down. OK? Those are policies. That, those are policies. That's good. Okay.

If we do this in such a way that all it does is really provoke our enemies, right? That it really, I mean, it's that in your eye thing. It's insult to injury. Not only are we gonna do this, we're gonna do this in a way that's so flaunting and in your face and finger to you. You understand what you're doing.

You are mobilizing a wrath to come back against you. That's not good governance. So is what you're saying then that, well, what is then the posture or the attitude we ought to take towards our neighbors and friends? With charity towards all, with malice towards none, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right. It's Lincoln's second inaugural address

based on the teachings of Christ, right? A house divided against itself cannot stand. Like folks, all that the woke agenda people, they're still your neighbors. Their kids are still going to school with your kids. We all got to find a way to live together. All right? And if we operate in such a way that's like, finally. And so not only am I going to do this policy, but I'm going to have it in your face. Right? Ooh, there is do all things in love.

Ooh, the policies are necessary. The policies are a. The policies are a relief. They are. But if we push hard in a... Yeah, we're not trying to educate our neighbors as to why we shouldn't kill the unborn. We give them the middle finger, as it were, to show them that we're winning.

There's a big difference there. There is. Yeah, we actually have a, like you said, our neighbors, we actually have a neighbor, neighbors, who came over to our house during the election and she was wearing a Kamala shirt. And she said something to my son, like, yeah, your mom is obviously voting for Kamala.

And my wife said, if our son wasn't there, she wouldn't have corrected her, but she kind of had to. She's like, well, actually, no. Right. And she was shocked. Yes. But it was a loving interaction. Yes.

Where my wife didn't seek to shame her or anything like that. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Extremism on any side, right or left, will not heal nations. It won't heal nations. It's a good, that's a good, that's a good line. Yeah.

I remember Peterson asking the question before this current election, like, how do we know when the left goes too far? So it's probably important that we know how to answer that ourselves if we consider ourselves in more of a conservative vein. How do you know? Is there a way? Yes. Or no? Maybe there's not a way. That seems unlikely. So where is the too far? Yeah. Yeah. And how will we correct it? In what spirit do we do these things? Yeah. Yeah. These people honor me with their lips but their hearts are far from me. God is always concerned about the motives of our hearts. We need to make sure that the motives of our hearts are right as we go about our public life, right? Whether it be, you know, joining the homeowners

association and we're gonna, you know and we're gonna clean up this neighborhood and you go, okay, okay, good, good, but let's keep our motives right here. It's not vengeance. Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord. We gotta be really careful about vengeance, motives, stick it to you, especially, and they connect the dots now, especially, and they connect the dots now, young men are looking for leadership. They're looking for father figures.

Great deal of the masculine crisis that we're currently in is a result of fatherlessness in the world, right? We need loving, strong leadership that young men can adhere to and go, yes, this is righteous, this is good, this is, you know, take a stand. That also shows them that love and justice can go together. Yeah. I think sometimes you can kind of get a sense of our cultural moment by seeing the entertainment we're imbibing. And it seems like there's an inordinate number

of movies lately, like John Wick. I don't know if you're familiar with this, but this idea that you've just got this one guy who goes, and he just kills everybody. Yep. There's a lot of these, you know, Denzel Washington had a series of them, and the fella who played the lawyer in Breaking Bad has a few of them. There's a lot of these. What

is that saying about us right now that we're just so angry we're gonna kill everybody? Anger and powerlessness. Anger, and we want to say, we get it, we hear you, that's legitimate, how would Christ correct that? And the problem is, in the past, that, you know, gentle Jesus, meek and mild, we have not given men a Jesus they could follow, right? So he's got children around him and the lamb on his shoulders, right? You go, no, no, no, no, no, this is the King of kings and the Lord of l Lords. This is the God of angel armies who descended into hell and took the keys of hell and death away from the most terrifying creature in the universe. This is a man. Jesus is fully male. He is fierce when fierce is required. That's good. We're not saying no. is required. That's good. We're not saying no. We're just saying, let this be balanced by male leadership that let young men know, oh, and humility matters and forgiveness matters. Yeah,

and there's really great simple tests for this. And I think the Biden one that you named was good. Could I pray for him? It took me a while. Yeah, would I rather see him kind of ashamed or maybe publicly going to confession? Like, what would I be more excited about? Exactly, right. Yeah, those are important matters because God looks at the heart.

He does. And we also need to be careful that in our administration of justice, we do not increase the chaos in the world. We really do. Unnecessarily unnecessarily. Yeah, willy nilly, you know, almost for the joy of it. Yeah. Because it just feels so good. Yeah. Yeah.

What is one thing that you have learnt from being married for so long? I've been married 18 years and it's funny you go into marriage with all these ideas of what it will be like and it's easy to be an ideologue about faith, about marriage, about the country, about anything. But once you're in there, your poverty and her poverty together, anything. But once you're in there, your poverty and her poverty together,

what's some advice maybe that you could give me and other men who are watching, who want to be good husbands, even if they're afraid they can't? Yeah. Make sure she has friends. Every time we move to a new city, that was my first priority. Because a woman needs a larger relational network than you do. It's their glory, right?

She's God's relational masterpiece. And women need a larger snowshoe of relational support than you do. And if she doesn't have it, she's going to bring all that to you. You cannot be her best friend, her girlfriend, her counselor, her father. You know, you can't. You can't. You can be her husband. And so, I would say please please support like every time Stacey has ever asked me can I do a girls weekend away can I go to a movie with a friend tonight hey I'm not making dinner that's okay with you you know get some

takeout I'm gonna go do something with friend I have never said no I'm not an idiot she I want her full. I want her cup full. Are you kidding? I want my wife to flourish. I want her to have friends. So I would say that's really key and I don't know that a lot of guys are thinking about that. Supporting her relational world with your yes and your encouragement and you need a couple pals. You need a couple pals. And you ask like how do I be a better husband? Don't do it alone. Don't do it alone guys. It's just brutal. Who are you gonna go process all this with? I blew up last night. What do I do with that? I don't know pal. I blew up too. Let's just pray. You know you just you need some pals to

husband and father. Don't, don't, don't do that alone. Yeah, that's, I'm glad to hear you say that because I know that we emphasized a great deal about the importance of brotherhood 10, 20, 30 years ago in Christian circles because we realized that men were isolated, were being taken out, and happy for it. But I just find that I just really need one fella, one or two. Like I really, and you might say, someone might say to me, yeah, well that's because you don't realize

just how desperate need you are. I'm like, maybe, sure, okay, I'm open to that possibility, but I don't think so. Yep, yeah, yeah. And guys, your best friend may not be in your city. And that's okay. You, it may be your Thursday phone call with your friend in London.

It may, it may be your Sunday afternoon Zoom with your closest friend who you used to live near, but he moved away for work and that's okay. Hang on to those. Hang on to those. Like that is your lifeline. Yeah, I wouldn't do it alone. I think the other thing I want to say, there is a great untold story that's going on in the world right now. Part of it is the evangelism

and conversion story, you know, just loads and loads of people coming to faith in Christ around the world, which is just fantastic. One of the other great untold stories, so you've got all the data on men, you know, the whatever the bad data is, addiction, opioid overdose, suicide, depression, all the numbers are at an all-time high. Okay, so we know that. Violent crimes, you know, all that. The great untold story that we get to see because of our unique kind of position in the men's movement in the world and having just a lot of pals out there who kind of report back in, you know, there is a movement of God among

men. Right? Look at your podcasts. Look at all the guys listening to you. Right? And listening to guys like Christopher West, things like Exodus 90, Exodus 90. Come on. That's fantastic stuff. That sort of thing is going on ecumenically all around the world. There are these, you know, Father-Son retreats and things going on, you know. Men, I would say this, the Spirit of God is moving among men, and there is a genuine move of God where men are turning back toward home, family, I care about being a good husband, I want to be a good father, help me, you know, so they're reading books on it, they're going to conferences on it, that sort of thing. There's, you know, while at heart it's like a phenomenon. I sort of stumbled over how to talk about

it earlier, but I would say it's a phenomenon. It's a move of God. It's not the brilliance of John Eldridge. You know, all these languages all over the world now. Really? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, now. Wow. People coming to me up, you know, in airports and stuff and saying, I just read your book. You're like, just? That's all I've been thinking about for 20 years. It's like I've written a lot of books since then, you know, yeah, God is moving. God is moving. And, and there is a, it's the great untold story of men who are taking their personal transformation seriously. They are becoming more wholehearted.

They're taking their sexual purity more seriously. They are getting out all the pornography recovery programs. Come on, buddy. Like, way to go. Yes. Yeah, doesn't it seem like there's just this general sense that it's probably not very manly to look at porn? It felt like back in the 80s and 90s,

there was this giant zeitgeist lie that this is what men do. Whereas now I think we're all like, is it though? Because it seems kind of shameful. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. That is happening. That's exciting. And the reports are wonderful

because you have this whole generation now of children that are growing up with a loving present dad. Wow. Well, that heals the world, folks. I mean, you heal a man, you heal a family, a household. You heal a household, you heal a parish, you heal a man, you heal a family, a household. You heal a household, you heal a parish. You heal a parish, you heal a community.

I mean, this is kind of wild, right? Because you would, I think you're right. I'm seeing that as well. But you would think at a day and age like this where we have unfettered 24-7 access to every piece of deplorable content imaginable, that we should be maybe where we were in the 80s. It felt like, I don't know, maybe I'm

misremembering, but I agree with you. There just seems like this desire of men to be good dads, good husbands, and who are actually doing that. Whereas it felt like maybe we have this temptation to romanticize the past, but I don't know. In the 80s and 90s, it seemed like there was a lot of men abandoning their families, and there is today as well. Yes. Yes. So it's like, what's happening? It would seem like we have more reason for men to be abandoning their families today, not more reason for them to desire to be better. Maybe I'm wrong. No, no, no, it didn't work. What didn't work? The indulgence, the

exalted self, the narcissistic life, it didn't work? The indulgence. The exalted self. The narcissistic life. It didn't work. They didn't like getting divorced. It's not happy. Turns out. They don't like living alone. Having to get a second, you know, getting an apartment and living alone because you're separated right now.

That's not a good life, right? Addiction. Addiction is not satisfying. Yeah. Right, that it's the big lie. But how come men today realize that when maybe men 20 years ago weren't? The work of God.

Okay. The work of God, the work of the Holy Spirit. I mean, that may have been too simplistic a statement, but do you see something in that, that it feels like like I am seeing that? And maybe it's just the circles I'm hanging out in. Yes, yes, yes. Oh absolutely, absolutely. Yeah, it's a phenomenon and it takes one to know one, okay? So Stacey and I both came to Christ in the last great revival in the West, which was the Charismatic Renewal in the Catholic Church and the Jesus movement, you know, in the Protestant Church, but largely like on the streets sort of thing.

So that was me. What year? I was, oh, we both came to Christ, 70s. Yeah, exactly. So the Jesus Revolution film, you know, we were in LA, like, uh, did that bring back a lot of memories? Oh my gosh, it was our story. It was like, Stacey, raised Catholic, uh, was in her, uh, youth group and the Holy Spirit shows up and, and all these kids fall in love with Jesus and like want the real thing and God blessed the

tradition they had been given and now they're owning it. They're like, yes, I'm in, you know, sign me up. That, we are the lucky heirs of that. We drank from that beautiful, beautiful fountain. We drank from that beautiful, beautiful fountain. And so I can pick it up, right? Like I was part of that and I can pick it up in the world. I can sense it. Holy Spirit's confirming it. Like we're in another great wave. Okay.

We are. We are. And this is what I mean about the politics V. Like are you more thrilled at that? Yeah. Are you most stoked at that? At the work of Trump or the work of Christ? Yeah. Yes, and just all the cool things

that Jesus is doing in the world, come on. Like. Yeah, yeah. It's just, yeah, it's a matter of thrill. Like, what kind of gets you jazzed? I see. Yeah, you know. I'm relieved.

I'm grateful for good administration, 100 percent. I am not negating that. But I'm thrilled about this, right? And also the discipleship thing. So this is another fascinating thing. This is why I can build a case for the move of God in the world. the number of people looking for serious discipleship. What you are coming out of the culture of the exalted self, that's a miracle, that's a phenomenon. And so, in the Orthodox Church, for example, I think people are aware of this, there's no pews. You stand, and the services are sometimes three hours long, and you stand for it. And they're making a statement, okay, of, you know, discipleship to Christ requires rigor, okay? The fastest growing number of new converts are young men. And you're like, that is so counterintuitive. What the what the? But look at all the young guys

doing the cold shower thing with Exodus 90. Look at like the men are asking for, please show me a serious way to walk with Christ. Which again accounts for the rise of Jordan Peterson. As someone who's written on masculinity and talks to men often, what's your take on Peterson and the sorts of things he said about men and why are people gravitating towards it? The world is desperate for fathers. The world is desperate for fathers and mothers, by the way, and I think this is the other thing that's going on in the spirit. What I see is God is raising up men and women, most of them serious disciples of His, to be spiritual

fathers and mothers to the next generation. There is this just this lovely, I mean you guys speaking around Australia and those stories that you told, people are hungry for that, okay? Peterson is filling part of that gap and he's smart and you know he's able to sustain a pretty he's got like a superhuman ability to sustain a very rigorous schedule and if you want to be a public persona you have to sustain a Superhuman way of life with just writing and podcasting but also still researching and being up on things, right? He's got that unique gift set.

He also seems to, um, invite men to be who they could be if they would stop making excuses. So there's a sort of rigor to his teaching that you would think maybe would have turned men off, but it was quite the contrary. Yes. We crave fathering. We crave, right? It's not indulgence. It's show me the way. Yeah, yeah.

And it's been wild too. I think it's no secret that Peterson has been for many a gateway drug back into Christianity. Yes. They may have been deconverted by Dawkins and the atheists. And then they start listening to Peterson. Yes.

And he was sort of safe enough because he wasn't admitting or talking about Christianity as if he believed everything about it. Yeah. Yeah. Even Joe Rogan, right. Has taken this stage by stage journey from, you know, talking about Christianity is idiotic on this, you know, yeah, to, to now, well, the cultural questions, right? Like, oh, I see the value of it for society and that sort of thing, I'm praying for his salvation. He bow hunts with a couple guys

who are really hardcore Christians. Really? Yeah. So I really hope that those guys get him. Because when you're in the woods, you're spending time together, that's a really great opportunity for conversation like that. But I'm yeah, so there it is. I think these are all signs that God is moving in the world. It's pretty cool that people still come up to you and say they just read your book wild at heart.

It shows that the Lord must have helped you to write on more general, eternal themes. People don't tend to read it and think, oh, this seems like it was written 20 years ago or whenever. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And we did just update it. We did. Because, because you did. Okay. Yeah. Some of the cultural allusions, some of the film references and stuff, it was dated. It's wild, isn't it? When you meet men and they're like, Braveheart, I don't know what that is. Like, what are you talking about? Yeah. OK.

Yeah, so I went back through just a year and a half ago and cleaned it up, updated it, and two years ago. And what I was relieved to find out was that I wasn't embarrassed by what I wrote. There wasn't the cringe, there wasn't the, oh, good heavens, we need to change that. The core message remains true. And again, because it's the warrior poet, because it blends the, yes, the rigors of the warrior life and the courage and yep, and the lover and the healing that we need as men. I want to tell you about Hello, which is the number one downloaded prayer app in the world.

It's outstanding. Hello.com slash Matt Fradd. Sign up over there right now and you will get the first three months for free. That's like a lot of time. You can decide whether it's useful to you or not, whether it's helpful. If you don't like it, you can always quit. Hello.com slash Matt Fradd. I use it, my family uses it. It's fantastic.

There are over 10,000 audio guided prayers, meditations and music, including my lo-fi. Hello has been downloaded over 15 million times in 150 different countries. It helps you pray, helps you meditate, helps you sleep better, it helps you build a daily routine and a habit of prayer. There's honestly so much excellent stuff on this app that it's difficult to get through it all. Just go check it out. Hello.com. The link is in the description below. It even has an entire section for kids. So if you're a parent, you could play little Bible stories for them at night. It'll help them pray.

Fantastic. Hello.com.slash.matfrad. How do we develop our relationship with Christ spiritually? Because I think a lot of people have been on the sidelines and they start to look at, you know, William A. Craig, he's like Ed Faser. They're showing these arguments for God's existence. How do we develop our relationship with Christ? Yeah, yeah, a young apologist was on the Joe Rogan show for three hours. Yeah, yeah, Wes Huff, I think.

Yeah, yeah, laid out the case for Christ and for faith in Christ. Okay, this is very, very important, because I think it's connected to what I want to call the great falling away. So, you know, we are coming out of a phase of many, many people walking away from faith. Protestant Catholic Orthodox crossed the boards. The Barna data and others, you know, show this. There was a huge exodus from faith in the developed world in the last 20 years, 25 years. We're now in the move of God and we're seeing, you know, famous atheists and the other things we talked about earlier coming forward for Christ. Here's the thing.

If we do not disciple people into rich encounters with Jesus, and I'll go on to risk with the saints, with Mary, if people do not have an experiential faith, the rational will not sustain it. It just doesn't. Because when Jesus says things like, I am the vine, you are the branch, the ontology of human existence is you are designed for union with Christ, union and intertwining of being with the being of God. That is nourishment and sustenance, that is sanctification and strength towards holiness, that it just does all these fabulous things inside of you, right? Paul says, I want to tell you the mystery of the gospel. It is Jesus inside of you, Christ in you, the hope of glory. So what I'm concerned is this, and the

invitation is this, and this is the other thing that's going on in the move of God in the world. We have not done a great job in discipling men and women into a life that they would describe as union with Christ. Not just faith, faith is good, not just reasons to believe, those are very important, those will see you through some hard times. Dry periods, you know. But the soul is meant to be saturated with the love of God, the presence of God. This is how inner healing takes place. Okay? So I was going to call the book Ordinary Mystics. Why didn't you? Because I like that name better. For two reasons. One, because I knew most people would freak out. Right. Yeah, because Eastern mysticism, and whoa, what are we coming in? And because the other thing that's going on, Matt, and I want to return to why in just a moment, the other thing that's going on

in the world that concerns me is Christianity isn't the only religion that's breaking forth in the world, right? I mean, the fastest growing religion in America is witchcraft. Wiccan, it's mild, but it's bad stuff, you know, sort of thing. The spiritual world is breaking out. The exorcist files, right? And the spiritual world is breaking out right now. We need to be concerned about that, that people are not just fascinated with, you know, woo-woo and hot yoga and ayahuasca and, you know, these different rituals and things. It's like, nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn But what they're looking for is an actual, it's spirituality of actual experience. Okay, so John begins his first epistle, and I love John the Beloved. I love John the Beloved.

He says, he literally, the opening sentences are, says, literally the opening sentences are, what we have seen, what we have heard, what we have touched with our own hands, we are making known to you so that you can enjoy this, too. You get to know Jesus like we did because he's alive folks and still very much himself and very much at work in the world. Ordinary Mystics because, oh I didn't call it that because there was actually a woman that just came out with a book called Ordinary Mysticism and she's a full-blown heretic. Okay yeah and she literally she literally, this is how creepy it is, she named her online community Wild Heart. Oh man. And I just thought, whoa, I don't want to confuse people. I am actually very, very conservative,

theologically, morally. I don't want woo-woo. I want the genuine holiness of intimacy with Christ, but if you go back and read Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, Julian of Norwich, all the way back to St. Anthony, and Athanasius' book on Anthony, these people had a living, daily, conversational intimacy with Jesus. Yeah.

Folks. That's I love I love I love Teresa's. Yeah, Your Majesty. Yeah. You only need to read Teresa. Teresa is so brass tacks. Yes. Down to earth. Yes. You read it. What a biography that woman was just. Yeah. Yeah, people are Yes. You read it, what a biography. That woman was just, yeah, I think, yeah, people are often, I mean, John of the Cross can be difficult, but, and Theresa can be as well, but she's just so down to earth. Yeah. And she knew God. Oh my gosh. It wasn't just theoretical knowledge. Have you heard that story about the time she, I don't know if this

is apocryphal or not, but she was in a cart and the wheel broke off and she fell on the mud and apparently said, if this is how you treat your friends, it's no wonder you don't have many. You have so few. You have so few. Yeah, but see, only an intimate friend of Jesus knows that he laughed at that. He's not offended. Okay, so how do we, as part of the discipleship movement, as part of the rigor that we've been talking about, let's make sure we keep warrior poet. Let's make sure we keep poet. Let's make sure we keep heart. Let's make sure. So the invitation towards becoming ordinary mystics is a deep, lovely, simple that matures, so simple that grows,

intimacy with Jesus. It is the normal Christian life. This was all, all, all, and see the mystics didn't call themselves mystics. It was historians who did. They didn't say, hey, everybody, I'm a mystic. I'm really special. I got this really, you know, they would say, no, I, I, I'm just a lover of God and you can be too, you know? Yeah. Yeah. It was the invitation in how do we cultivate union? Because back to the trauma mission field, the soul is healed through union with Christ. And so therefore, what I want to suggest, and this is so lovely, all of our spiritual practices from the sacraments, everything that we do, our worship and whatever our your dailies are, you know, your silence and solitude and fasting, all. We need to restore the why, and the why is union, because these things bring your soul back into union with Christ. And so if that's not happening,

you take a break from the things that have become unhelpful and you gravitate towards some things, you know, maybe you don't have a time of private worship right now, or maybe you find a couple of songs that work really well for you, and you've got your Spotify short list, and you go, oh no, these are my go-to, and with these songs, when I'm there, I'm there. You go, use that. Do that. Because the goal of all the spiritual disciplines is to heal and restore the soul's union with Christ on a daily basis. And people are going to hear this and some people are going to object saying, well you're just talking about sort of an emotionalism, right? I'm sure you get that objection that it's not about emotions, John.

It's not about that at all. And you're just telling people that union of Christ is to have some emotional warm and fuzzy. Is that what you're saying or not? And what's the difference? Your emotions- It's funny we say that and not realizing that like emotions are actually part of you.

Why? When did we start demonizing them? Read the Psalms. How emotional is David? Super. Yeah, you're reading his journal, you know? But I would say this, I would say, no, I'm not advocating an emotionalism, I'm advocating intimacy. And intimacy sometimes produces, lovely emotions, intimacy sometimes produces lovely emotions. Intimacy sometimes produces conviction. Intimacy sometimes just simply gives you guidance. You need to know if it's time to pull your kid from the school where the bullying is going on. The thing about, you know, Brother Lawrence, the Carmelite, he would say,

there is no life in this world like a conversational intimacy with Christ. Those only know it who practice and experience it. So Christianity is experiential, but that's not the same thing as emotional, right? So learning to hear the voice of God. Let's just starting there, learning to hear the voice of God. My sheep hear my voice. Today, you know, Hebrews, today if you hear his voice, do not harden your heart. It is all over the scriptures. Isaiah, you waken me morning by morning, waken my ear like one being taught. Learning to hear the voice of God is for everyone. It's not just for the unique, you know, the special saints. They would be the first to tell you that. Well, I want to, I think I want to agree with you,

but I want to just like push a little first. It seems clear that certain people are blessed with a more supernatural experience of God than others, right? I mean, in my own tradition, you have people like Padre Pio who experienced the stigmata, you have people who have visions of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Christ. And I think if someone were to say to them, we should be able to experience that too. The answer might be, well, not necessarily. So there are people who seem to experience different layers of supernatural experience, yeah? Layers. Okay. We mature into these things. But I don't know if that's true. Can't it be the case that certain people mature Like let's let's just take for the sake of argument like Mother Teresa, right? Did she ever experience like visions of Christ? I don't know actually, but let's suppose she didn't it wouldn't mean she was less mature. No than other saints. No, no, no, no

So first off, let's remove what I would call ordinary mysticism from extraordinary. Okay, yeah. That'll help. That helps. Okay? The stigmata, things like that. Extraordinary. Ordinary.

That the love of God is not a theory to you, but something that inhabits your inmost being. You know it to be true. You know Him. This is Yada and Genosko. Yada and Genosko, right? What is that? Oh, this is the Hebrew and Greek on knowing God. No, those are intimate words, right? When Jesus says, this is eternal life, this is life unending, to know Him. Okay, that, Gnosko, in other uses is almost human intimacy. It's almost sexual. Christopher would love this stuff. Yeah, he would.

Okay. Okay, what I'm trying to say is, if a father, a human father, never spoke to his child on this earth, lived with them, paid the bills, made sure there was food on the table, never had any emotional intimacy with them, we would call that abuse. Okay? Because we are highly relational creatures, highly relational creatures made in the image of a highly relational God, a triune God, right? I mean, Meister Eckhart's thing, we're born out of the laughter of the Trinity, right? That soul's craving, and we talked about this in marriage, you can't put that on another human being. We are meant to cultivate an intimacy with Christ

that on an ordinary level, not extraordinary, not wild visions and all sorts of crazy things happening in your house. No, no. Hearing his voice. Experiencing his love. Sense of his presence with you, in you, learning as we grow and we grow in it. Okay. Over time, we do mature into these things and then you start getting, you know, the writings of some of the, I

love Jean Goyon, Madame Goyon, French mystic, you know, oh, no idea. Union with God, experiencing the depths of Jesus Christ, 1800s, no, no, no, earlier than that, during jail for her faith. One of the things she says in the introduction of union with God, she says, from the first day of your conversion, you delight to know that your Savior now lives within you in the depths of your heart. And as you pray to Him, you must commune with Him there.

Okay, so this will really help people. In your prayer life, if God is way up in the heavens and you're just trying to launch a few arrows, like that's gonna be very defeating over time. If you understand that Christ now dwells in the... He's closer than your skin, His ear is at your lips. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, well folks, come on. It's not going to be difficult to access Him

and experience Him comforting you, loving you, catching you before you're about to say that cruel thing to your colleagues, or you know, all that, right? John, John, hey God, don't rejoice over that, you know. That richness of communion, learning to commune with Christ who dwells within us. It is a very, very simple practice that has been a rich part of the Christian tradition. Yeah.

Got lost in the age of rationalism, the exalted left brain, but is coming back around now. Yeah. Yeah. I often think in prayer, you know, when you hear people say, Come Lord Jesus, come be present to me, which is all beautiful, and I think we should all say it, but it seems to me what we're really saying is like, Come, Mat-Frad, be present to the one who's already present to you. Exactly. I'm trying to wake me up, not him up.

Exactly, exactly. Or what we're asking is, tune me in. Yeah. Tune me in. Like a dial on a radio. It's true. It's true. That's why the pause that we practiced in the beginning. Yeah You do have to choose this You do have to choose it That there is a there is a moment in your day. It doesn't need to be lengthy

Again, we're not talking about the severity. We're talking about a gentleness where you say all screens are down, all noise is off. I might put on some quiet worship if that helps me. I might light a candle if that helps me. But I am tuning in to the presence of Jesus who already dwells right here. He's right here within your inmost being. Yeah. And as you begin to practice this and you practice tuning in, you realize, oh my goodness,

you're right here. You're right here. And you can assuage me, you can solace, And you can assuage me, you can solace, comfort, also guide, correct, sanctify, like you're right here. This simple, this is ordinary mysticism, right? It's just practicing the presence of God within us, turning into Christ within. I'm saying you are the Christ within. I'm not saying that. Jesus alone, His Savior and Lord, but He has taken up residence within you. We haven't been mentored into this, and that I think it's taking place. It's one of the other movements you see going on, the Contemplative Prayer Movement, the Silent Retreats, the Ignatian practices, right? People are interested in this again. Lovely. Great. Because the world assaults your union with Christ on a daily basis through the barrage of media stimulus violation.

Look over here. Look over here. Well, and plus when you do look, it's violating a lot of times. It's violence or hatred. Oh my gosh. Right? Okay, that literally begins to erode your union with Christ. This is something that has to be protected and cultivated and nourished. It's the epicenter of human existence. It's why you're created. Right? God walked with Adam and Eve in the garden in the cool of the day. That intimacy is normal for highly relational beings. You're highly relational. He's highly relational. It's a great fit. It's beautiful. Like just like a vine and branch. Mm-hmm I had a

Carmelite monk on the show father Paris. I saw that it's a man who spends hours in prayer every day and at the end I maybe during the episode I forget I told him about your pause app. So for those at home, it's called pause Yeah pause where you one minute pause so good. It. It's so good. It's so good. I just, and correct me if I'm getting this wrong, but your one piece of advice you gave at one point is just before your next activity, you know? So suppose you wake up and make the coffee and you get ready for work. Yes.

And maybe you go to the car, just one minute, just sit and your majesty, I love you, I praise you, I want you. In the Paws app there's lovely music, there's guided prayer, and it's two things. It's releasing all things, because you've got to get out of the chaos, you've got to get out of the madness, and it is restore our union, heal my union with you, so that then He can be all the things he said. When he says things like, I'm the bread of life, he's saying, I am here to nourish you. And it's just that activity of before your next activity, what if you took one minute and you did that what seven times a day, five times a day? And it's interesting how frightened

we are of that one minute. And as soon as you recognize that you seven times a day five times a day and it's interesting how frightened we are of that one minute and as soon as you recognize that you're frightened to sit for 60 seconds that should be a wake-up call. Yeah. I'm not running from. And as you practice it you will find it so lovely people will not have to tell you to do it. Yeah. This is also the inner communion. As you love and commune with Christ in the depths of your heart. People aren't going to have to say, did you do that this week? Yeah. You're going to be like, get me back. Well, what's so great about it is it's actually so simple. You're not like, oh, we got to do is spend two hours of silence in the morning. No, like, no, no, just try one minute. Yep. Maybe two hours. But yes, let's start with a minute. Exactly. Like, no, no, just try one minute. Yep. Maybe two hours, but let's start with a minute.

Exactly. Yeah, yeah, it's really beautiful. Tell me about the prayer of descent. So so many of the saints write about this. I was quoting Living Flame of Love earlier. How tenderly you move within my heart and you swell my heart with love. They're describing the experience of turning inward,

so you have to turn out of the chaos. And by the way, folks, can we just alert everybody, the war is for your attention. The war is for your attention. The brilliance of AI and technology and metrics and algorithms is they know your buying patterns, they know your habits, and they're gonna put in front of you the very little lovely thing that you go, oh, I've been looking at that jacket. Oh, you know, okay, the war is for your attention in the world and therefore you fight that war

and go, you can't have my attention. I will not let you take that captive. You turn inward. The prayer of descent is learning to tune that out as best you can folks. You're not gonna be an expert at this in a moment, but it's like learning to ride a bike, play tennis, the piano. You get good at it over time. You turn inward, Jesus, I love you. You just start with that. Jesus, I love you. I love you.

I adore you. And I'm giving you my attention to commune with you who dwell within me. I call it the prayer of descent because you're dropping in to your inner life, right? Deep calls unto deep. And as you learn to do this, the first thing you'll experience is just his consolation.

He'll just be there and say, I love you too. We're good. We're good. We're okay. We're good. Lovely, gentle assurance like that. And as you cultivate it, as a practice, you'll learn that you're able to linger there, right? Because again, the assault's on your attention and the assault is to keep you

constantly flitting. Just this, that, this, that, this, that, this, that, this, that, that, that, that, that, that, right? You go, well, for right now, five minutes. I'm just learning to arrest my attention, to give it to Christ within me, and to linger. And as you linger. So let me give you a couple examples of how delicious this can be. So Revelation 3, we talked about this and the healing of trauma and arrested development, fractured places. Jesus says, if you'll open the door of your soul, I'll come in and we'll eat together, okay? We'll sup together, okay? Many times when I am communing with Christ in my heart, I will see him extend to me something to eat, like a fruit. And he'll say, this is joy. And I'll take of it.

And this is in, I'm not saying it's imagination, because this is the living Christ who actually dwells within. The unseen realm is more real than the seen realm, folks. This is Narnia. The inside is bigger than the outside. I'll take it. And I will have a physical experience of joy. Like suddenly my whole body will just go, whoa, whoa,

because His presence is real. The presence of God is a very powerful thing, folks. And He'll give you a little bit of His presence. He'll share His joy with you. He'll share His wisdom with you. He'll share his wisdom with you. And suddenly you go, oh my gosh, I shouldn't put my parents in that particular facility. You just made it clear this is the one.

Thank you. You're giving me wisdom. The sustenance of the human experience comes from Christ within. This is the powerhouse. This is the internal nuclear power center. Don't live without it. Cultivate it.

And the prayer of descent is learning to do that. Inward attention, linger, Jesus, what are you saying? Five minutes. Beautiful. And then 10, and then 20, and then you're not gonna need to be convinced to do this Okay Yeah, yeah, beautiful. Thank you. Okay, you've got questions

I have some questions from our local supporters and I haven't read them yet. So Like the wildness of that I'm vouch for any I like the wildness of that. This is very me Let's just jump in and see what happened. All right, let's see if I can't vouch for any of that. I like the wildness of that. This is very me. Let's just jump in and see what happens. All right, let's see if I can find him now. Here we go. Shane asks, how do we as men get past the struggle to devote all our free time to our families, particularly young families, when we also understand that we need the wild adventure

and solitude with our Heavenly Father, adventure too often feels selfish. Yeah, yes, that's right. So this is one of life's little secrets that's very counterintuitive. The way you treat your own heart is the way you will end up treating everyone else's. You can't ignore this. If you are essentially kind of rough on your heart, you will

eventually be rough on the hearts around you. If you are narcissistic, okay same thing. The reason that we, and you children, so guys, let's make this realistic. Can you get up three mornings a week and go for a bike ride? Can you get 20 minutes in, jump on your road bike, and just, you know, you can do that. You can do that. You know, can you take an evening a month and be at your local men's fellowship?

You can do that. Here's why because when you return you're a better human being. You're better to love the people in that house. So this isn't indulgent. Self-care can be narcissistic when it's like no no no I'm going skiing this weekend babe you take care of the kids you know it can be very that's not we're talking about. You can do very, very simple things every day and every week. There's a special place you like to go get tacos.

There's, you know, and then the bigger adventure things I think are important, I really do. The reason is when you return, you're a better husband and a better dad. That's why you do it. Love it. Anonymous asks, my brother grew up with two elder sisters in a family that is emotionally insensitive

with jokes and criticism. So he was regularly beaten down verbally and made loser by his dad in front of his mom and sisters and not being able to defend himself as the youngest one. I believe he has OCD as a result now. How do I help him regain his confidence? He's rather distant with everyone in the family now. What? First off, what a great question. Right? This is this is that's masculinity. How do

I intervene on behalf of someone else? That that's. That's masculinity. Gently, over time, because if you don't hang out right now, or he's a little averse to that, it may just be coffee. Can we catch coffee? How you doing? How's work? But what you're doing is you're moving towards his soul and then you bring it up. Then you bring it up. You say, you know, hey Nate, you and I are both aware of what it was like to grow up in our home. I'm just curious these days, like, how do you see yourself?

Do you like yourself? And you're gonna start hearing what we call the agreements. They're gonna start coming out of his, you know, no, no, uh-uh, no, I just don't think of this, you know, no, no, no, no, I, I just don't think I have, you know, I don't, I think I'm very smart. I don't think I have much to say. Like they were right. They're right. I am an idiot. Like you'll start hearing it and you'll go, you know, it's a very powerful thing. I've learned this, you know, heard this podcast that we learned to break those agreements because they let our hearts come up for air it's

like the beach ball gets back up to the surface you know why don't we try that why don't we try that together let's break a few of those agreements together because I have mine and you have yours and let's break those together and see what happens is there a particular number episode that you know that one because I mean if people would love to go and listen to some Of these podcasts on agreements and things you've done Mmm, maybe maybe I don't but let's get it in the show notes. Maybe Blaine can text or email it to me Yeah, yeah, we'll get it up there. Yeah, it's important Josh says how can we effectively show others the benefit of living out wild

at heart and invite them into this worldview within Christianity? It is a totally different outlook on life. So how do we invite other men into something so different than how they live? Hmm. Well, first off, your life is going to be attractive. Right? Your life is going to be attractive. Your life is going to be, if it's not attractive, something's not right. But I would say go through the material together. We've got a great six part series. The videos are like 12 minutes.

It's just easy, it's accessible, it's free, it's on our website, it's right there on the homepage on the website. Because it introduces the concepts of agreements and father wounds and the warrior heart on behalf of your wife, the warrior heart on behalf of your kids. It just gets the conversation going.

It doesn't fix everything, right? I would say start a men's group. have the guys over, watch the videos, get the conversation going, see what happens. Yeah. Okay. Ivan says, what are the best ways to overcome laziness in everyday life, but especially in prayer? I think this one, this is one of the big spiritual attacks happening in our time. So if it's only laziness, it's gonna be really hard to overcome that. If you realize what Matt and I were talking about in terms of the war around you, you go, no, no, no, your prayer life is No, your prayer life is opposed. You are dealing with forces that do not want you to pray.

Okay, that'll kind of wake you up. You go, oh, I don't want to be taken out by these jokers. These guys are out to sabotage my life and my life with God. Like, no, no, no, I'm gonna fight for this. You see, then it's not laziness. You're not, you are, this is the warrior heart. You are in a battle for the well-being of your soul, your intimacy with Christ, and therefore your world, your career, your marriage, right? You see, this is, ah, this is so good. This is, this is the beautiful fight. If we see it as that, it calls something out of us as men, and we like being called out.

I think, too, establishing a simple prayer rule for ourselves. Yes. And when you think of a prayer rule, Yes, thank you. first take into account, I like how Peterson puts it, he says, what's something you could do that you would do that would make your life better? What I love about that, because it's a variation

of Chesterton's, if something's worth doing is worth doing badly, is that it puts emphasis on the, but what would you do? In other words, you've met you, you're terribly inconsistent. You can't with all sorts of ways that you could be better, you don't do them. So let's be real simple, you know? What works for you? You can't with all sorts of ways that you can be better. You can't do with them. Yes.

So let's be real simple, you know? And so like, you might put a crucifix by your bed and you might wake up in the morning and roll out onto your knees and kiss it. Yep. You might do that. You could do that. Yep. That's something you could, you probably even would do that.

Yep. So I think, you know, simple prayers throughout the day like that, recognize that maybe you are an infant in the spiritual life, and if you were to assign yourself all sorts of devotions and prayer, you might not do it. So just be real simple and just let that be the sort of spine upon which the rest of your spiritual life is built. Thank you. That way you can be like, yeah, I did the thing I said I would do, and that's good. Thank you. That's wise and it's kind. It may just be the name of Jesus on your pillows.

I mean, I'm my day. I begin my day. I'm already desperate. OK, so I'm on my pillow and I just go, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. Try that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's good. Beth Carol says, What are your thoughts on mutual submission? Beautiful. Husband, love your wife as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. I believe in male leadership in the home and in the church, but that does not mean the

tyranny of men. That does not mean an oppressive dictatorship of men, both of our wives are very wise women. She's never led me astray. Oh my gosh. Whenever I've turned to her, what do we do here? Come on, they're very attuned. If you want to know what's going on in the extended family, hey, how's the extended family going on?

Ask the wife, not the husband. He doesn't know she'll tell you everything Oh, well, Beth hates Beth hates mom right now. She went, you know, right? She's dialed in you need her radar. You need her eyes. You need her ears. You need her heart, right? So the mutual submission is there's no dictatorship here is Babe, what do you think about this? I want to lead well, but I'm inviting you in, right? To decision-making processes, how we spend money, what the kids need, honey, what do the kids need?

What am I clueless of? What am I missing? I think part of this is, again, we might be seeing a pendulum swing right now because we live in a society where apparently we don't know what men and women are. Apparently we don't know that. We don't know what marriage is.

Who the heck knows? It could be anything. We don't know what sex is. Sex could be any orgasmic act. So I mean, okay, these are confusing times. It's a pretty low bar. Yeah, right? And so we wanna know, we really wanna know right now.

And so I think there's a little bit of awkwardness we're seeing out there as people try to claim who they were supposed to be. So I like this as a, I think this is a good idea. It's like, all right, so either we can today listen to the red pill manosphere or the feminists, we could let them tell us what to do. Or we could kind of go back before a lot of this confusion and go, what did they say? What did the saints say? And when you see Chris System's commentary on Ephesians five, it's so beautiful.

He says that a woman should not seek to be the head of the household, nor should she stubbornly contradict her husband. And he's like, this is enough. And then he talks about, he's got this great line to men. He's like, he's talking to a man. He says, you say to me, but she disrespects me. He's like, okay, so do your duty, love her.

Never, he says, never refer to your wife by her name alone, but always with a term of endearment. Like Christ gave himself up to her. He didn't tyrannize the church. He laid himself down for her. And here's another thing. I really want to get your take on this. I've shared this before, but it seems to me that if you look at these three activities in human life, I think you can see that there

is a desire that the woman ought to have for her husband to lead and a desire that the husband lead, right? Yes. The embrace, just a hug, proposal of marriage and the sexual act. When a man misses his girlfriend, he may think of embracing her, holding her, but you don't often hear of men saying, I just wish I was being held by her right now. I mean, he might, and I'm not saying that's not okay. I just think there's a desire to give the embrace. And there is a desire to be the one to propose. It seems to me, and it's fine if you've done it,

I'm not saying it's, but the man is meant to be the giver of the gift, which is why it's unnatural for the woman to propose marriage. Same thing with the sexual act. He has to actually rise to the occasion and spend himself for his bride. You know, like, and so I just, I just don't, if a woman says, no, I want to lead this household,

I think something's gone wrong. And if a husband says, I don't want to be the one to lead, it's like, oh, something's gone wrong. Yep. Yep. Some thoughts. That's good. One or two more?

Sure. Do you think, says Philip, proper masculinity and upbringing requires connecting with nature and wildlife? Camping trekking bushcrafting hunting before you say anything. I hate camping so much. I never ever ever want to do it go There is a difference between bushcraft Mm-hmm and the healing power of nature Okay, so in a world of technology, folks, you just have no idea how far you are from home, okay? I mean, if you want your children

to develop a healthy immune system, they actually have to play in the dirt. They don't get it any other way. There are probiotics in the dirt that you can only get there. In fact, one of them, envase, is actually being used now for mental health and for depression. Nature heals the soul. Do you know why, why do we bring flowers? Why do we bring flowers?

I thought they were just pretty. Well, okay, you're right. Yeah, because beauty heals Okay, so I'm sorry. I'm sorry. You lost your mom. I don't know what to say. Yeah, here's beauty. Yeah I'm I you know or congratulations You got here's beautiful. Yeah. Yes. See I love this We know how to do this It would be weird if I were in the hospital and you brought me a photo of flowers. Exactly.

It would be weirder if you just brought me a vase of mud. Exactly. Because you are from the garden. And so when you go on vacation, you go to beautiful places, folks. It's there. It's there. And it heals. And people have different desires and different things. Wild at heart is not about being a lumberjack. Right. Right? Or becoming a commando. and people have different desires and different things. Wild at heart is not about being a lumberjack, right? Or becoming a commando. It may, it may, but that's not what it is.

Nature heals. Nature heals. When kids spend four minutes in nature and four hours on their screen every day, that is a kind of starvation that is cruel to the human soul. Okay, so flip it Flip it more time in nature than on screens. Yeah, right because there's an abundance in nature That's the other thing that's so fun. You go outside you go. What are we gonna do all kinds of things? Let's build this

Let's do that. Let's climb this. Let's you know, let's ride bikes. Let's go to the park like right where inside it's like video games let's ride bikes, let's go to the park, right? Where inside it's like video games. It's like such little options, right? We go outside, it's the abundance of God's world. I would say I'm going to hold fast to, yes, you need to be outside. And then as men, so all the way back to the fear of failure and the car battery story, yeah. Men will avoid all circumstances that might expose them. Definitely. Okay, well nature exposes. It does. It does. It so does. That's why nature has always been essential for the formation. You can't control it. Exactly. You can control your little habitat. You know how the DVD works. Exactly.

Bingo. So nature is good for masculine formation. And you don't have to go out there and kill stuff. But you do need to get out in it. Yes? Swim, bike, ride, walk, run. Yep. Final question for you, and I'll take the final question.

I want to know how you regulate your phone and computer use. What's that battle been like? And are you at a place where you think that you now know how to moderate it in a way that's helpful to your humanity? No, no, no, no, no. I'm utterly attached to my phone. I have an affair.

I'm having an affair with my phone. Thank you for your honesty. Yeah, totally. It comforts me. It gives me a sense of control. I'm agitated when I don't have it with me. You know, it's horrible. Therefore I do some simple things. So let's go back to do the thing you can do. I don't take my phone into my bedroom at night. okay? Phones are for the kitchen, they're not for the bedroom, okay? Bedroom is for sleeping and sex. Okay, folks? I mean, come on. And it's in the kitchen, face down, I do that deliberately, so I plug it into

charge face down. Because when I come out in the morning I don't look at it. The first act of my day is not to look at my phone. If you do that you're gone folks. You're in the matrix. There's the mayday text. There's the you know alert from your bank that your card was compromised. That you know you're gone. Yeah. Okay. Ph phones down, come out. For me, it's tea, make a cup of tea, say my prayers. Okay, you can do that everybody. Don't take the phone to bed

and don't look at it first thing in the morning. That's doable. Right, I like it. I really do wanna encourage people to consider doing, and I wanna do it more often as well, a sort of digital Sabbath. I like that a lot. Yeah, yeah, or a weekend.

I like that a lot. Because what you find is, all right, here's an analogy. I remember going back to my small town in South Australia and there was a police raid happening across the street, which never happens in my sleepy town. It was wild of this particular house. And it was going on for hours.

And we learned about it in the morning, of course, we're up against the door and we're watching what happens. And then we might go get some breakfast, but we're up against the door and we're looking to see what happens. And nothing really happened, but it feels like that's kind of what the phone is.

It's like this continual distraction, this thing that I keep turning back to that occupies my thoughts. And that actually leads to a rather restless day. Like if I had have just ignored the police raid or if it hadn't have happened, something else may have eventuated, but it wasn't able to.

So what I find is when I put the phone away for the weekend on Friday night, my head is buzzing. I wanna tweet, I wanna see, I want to tweet I want to see I want to email I want to control I'm afraid I'll forget next week if I don't but then what happens is it's sort of like those rotating fans imagine putting one on full blast and ripping the cord out it slowly calms and my mind does that it slowly calms. It does yeah you come back to your own soul. I read I didn't think your own soul. I read.

I didn't think I could read anymore, I read. And it's like when you're a child and your days felt slower. That's actually what happens. It's so worth it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Thank you for coming on my show. It's been very beautiful to meet you. Oh, I've loved this immensely. You are a revolution taking place. And here's why. Because the brilliant intellect is actually coming into a kind of truce with your huge heart. You have a huge heart, Matt, and you have a huge heart for people. You have a huge heart for Christ and for the world, for evangelism, for discipleship, and your dominant left brain is coming into a kind of peace treaty with your huge heart.

Okay. I celebrate that. Thank you. I'll accept that and I'll try to figure out what that means. I hope it's true. It's beautiful. Yeah. Thank you.

Um, it's kind of you. Thanks. Where do people learn more about wild at heart and John Eldridge and the stuff y'all are doing? wild at heart.org.com.com the stuff y'all are doing wild at heart org Not calm dot com zone by a florist company in England We've tried getting it. We tried it. We tried buying it. It's dot org and And your app is excellent people should check out your app. Do you really pray this daily prayer every day?

Yes, do you do it in the morning? Yes. Yes. There's a morning prayer and a bedtime prayer. Are you just good at being consistent? Over. I mean, madam 64. Let's set reasonable expectations. I really want to tell people to check that out. Okay. So it's a wild at heart app. So I'm there right now. Go to your prayers and then you have daily prayer, John daily prayer, Stacey. Yeah, because so you can hear the audio. You could do it on your commute. You could do it on your morning run. Such a beautiful prayer. I want to encourage everyone to check this out. Thank you. And then if you're having a hard time sleeping, there's a bedtime prayer. Is there?

Yeah. How long does it go for? It's really lovely. It's not long. It's shorter than the morning prayers. Praise God. Yeah. Beautiful. It's not long. It's shorter than the morning prayers. Praise God, eh? Yeah. Beautiful. All right. Thanks. This was fantastic. Thank you for having me on. You're welcome. Love what you're doing.

Thanks.