Theology in the Raw - Experiencing Jesus in an Age of Distraction: John Eldredge

Episode Date: March 20, 2025

John Eldredge is a New York Times bestselling author, counselor, and teacher who has inspired millions to go deeper in their relationship with Jesus. He’s the author of several books including The Sacred Romance, Wild at Heart, and his recently released Experiencing Jesus. Really:Finding Refuge, Strength, and Wonder through Everyday Encounters with God. He is also president of Wild at Heart, a ministry devoted to helping people discover the heart of God, recover their own hearts in God's love, and learn to live in God's kingdom. www.wildatheart.org. Register for the Exiles and Babylon conference: theologyintheraw.com -- If you've enjoyed this content, please subscribe to my channel! Support Theology in the Raw through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/theologyintheraw Or you can support me directly through Venmo: @Preston-Sprinkle-1 Visit my personal website: https://www.prestonsprinkle.com For questions about faith, sexuality & gender: https://www.centerforfaith.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Exiles of Babylon Conference is right around the corner, April 3rd to 5th in Minneapolis, Minnesota. All the info is at theologyintherod.com. Attend live in person or you can virtually stream it from your living room. I hope to see you there. My guest today is John Eldridge, who is a New York Times bestselling author, counselor, and teacher who has inspired millions to go deeper into their relationship with Jesus. He's the author of several books. You've probably heard of him, deeper into their relationship with Jesus. He's the author of several books. You've probably heard of him. The Second Romance, Wild at Heart, and his recently released book, Experiencing Jesus, Really, Finding Refuge Strength and Wonder Through Everyday Encounters with God. He's also the president of Wild at Heart, a ministry devoted to helping people discover the heart of God

and recover their own hearts in God's love. Really enjoyed this conversation. First time ever talked to John. Obviously, he's a very well-known author and speaker, and I was just truly blessed by this conversation. He's super wise and humble, and we talked about all kinds of things related to both, you know, Wild at Heart and his most recent book. And what does it mean to be an ordinary mystic? We unpacked that term quite a bit in this conversation. So please welcome to the show for the first time, the one and only John Elmich. Long time no see. Actually, we've never met each other, John. It's an absolute pleasure to have you on the podcast, man. I'm excited to have this conversation.

You know, actually, I've been looking for an opportunity to meet you. So this is a joy for me as well. Well, I keep, I mean, I feel like I've met several mutual friends over the last, I want to say six months in particular. Like every time I talk to somebody, like, yeah, they're connected with you on some level

or whatever, and they listen to my podcast and stuff. So yeah, it's been in the making then. Well, our team really enjoys your work and your writing. You're just doing so much good out there. Thank you. I appreciate that. That's high praise coming from an author like you. I'm curious, I wanted your newest book, it looks fascinating, but I have to know, man, the story behind Wild at Heart. I've heard through the publishing grapevine, how that book even took off, but I would love to start,

what led you to write that book? What's the backstory behind Wild at Heart? Oh yeah, okay. Yeah, there's some good stories around that. Well, it was an intersection of three things that came together, you know, this was 25 years ago now. I was a young therapist working mostly with male clients. And whatever the issues were, it was, you know,

gambling addictions or pending divorce or, you know, suicidal ideation, different things. The core issues were always presenting themselves as the same. You know, issues of heartache, issues of identity, deep, profound father wounds, you know, the search for a masculine way in the world. So at the very same time, I'm raising three boys. So I'm trying to get that figured out. And I'm actually in therapy as well, because I was raised in an alcoholic home and I had not dealt with any of my own childhood trauma. So this is all around my mid 30s and it will late 30s. And it's just kind of intersecting with sitting with men

and their stories, working through my own, raising these boys and going, hey, there is an essence here that is true across the board. So I started speaking about it, started writing a little bit, speaking on it. And what was wild is, you know, Slovakia, South Africa, you know, Australia, like the themes, everybody's like,

Oh, yeah, yep, that's me. Like you're touching on something that felt very universal to the masculine journey and the healing of men's souls. So you decided to write the book? No, no, no. So this is one of the classic stories in publishing. So we had written Sacred Romance. My colleague Brent Curtis and I, who had a counseling practice here in town, and Sacred Romance had done pretty well.

That was the very first book that came out. Not about marriage. It's an invitation into just reframing the gospel as the great romance. Yeah. So my publisher, Brett, was killed in a climbing accident on a weekend where we were working with men. It was like a men's retreat kind of a thing. Publisher calls six months later and says, hey, you know, Sega Romance is doing well. We'd love for you to write again. Do you have any books? I'm like, yeah, I'm working with men. I'm speaking to men. And the publisher says, no, books for men don't sell. What else have you got? Okay. So that guy has never lived down that story because he almost turned down Wild at Heart. He made me write Journey of Desire first. He's

like, write that book on desire, and then you can write that thing on man and we'll publish it afterwards. And of course, it's become a phenomenon. It's a global phenomenon. I heard, is this true? This could have been in reference to second romance. I thought it was wild to heart that when it first came out,

it didn't take off right away. Like it was very much a grassroots book that one person read it, gave it to two more, they read it, gave it to two, and it was just kind of this slow burn and then it just blew up once the momentum- Well, this is it. Okay, guys, like this is going to really date things. This is before podcasts. Oh, yeah. You know, this is back in like radio interviews and I'm still a private therapist. Nobody knows who I am. I'm nobody.

So Wild at Heart just percolated along for a couple of years and then it just went hockey stick. Which is, it remains one of the bestselling books for men, which makes it a phenomenon. Like, this isn't about John Eldridge. God wanted to do something to bring healing into the lives of men and their families. And it's still going on. It's like I run into young men in the airport, dude, I just read your book. And they think it came out like this year. Yeah, it's really beautiful. You do have a second edition or just an updated edition? Just, yeah, yeah, yeah, we it came out like this year. Oh, it's so funny. Yeah, it's really beautiful. You do have a second edition or just an updated edition? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

We just came out with an updated edition like a year and a half ago. Okay. Did you make any changes? Was there anything in the original book that looking back now, you're like, I wish I would have said that differently or addressed this or not said this or anything? Well, gang, it was a different world, right? I mean, gender dysphoria had not really come into the scene, right? Let alone the massive debates around it and yeah, surgery and all that.

While at heart walked into the stage when men were recovering from the radical feminism of like the 70s and 80s and just going, okay, do I have permission? Right? It's a very, very different world now. Now the pendulum has almost over corrected in a direction of there's a lot of, pardon my language, but kind of hard ass Christian men's stuff, right? And it's, you know, hey, if you really need to know how to handle a nine millimeter and protect your family and, you know, it's, it's, and so there's, it's a different world now. Andrew Tate wasn't around back then. Right. Exactly. That's it, that is a fascinating observation.

I don't know. And I don't like to recommend movies or even mention movies I watch because they have different tastes, whatever. But aside from the R rated stuff in the movie, Fight Club came out at the very end of the nineties and captures, I mean, it really, in a brilliant way, in a brilliant way, actually, again,

I wish it was a cleaner version of the movie, because it's just a brilliant movie, but we're a generation of men raised by women, Brad Pitt's famous speech at the end, we have no war, he said, and the whole premise behind this underground fight club was this kind of like, I don't know, suppressed, I don't know, suppressed, I don't know, suppressed masculinity might be the best phrase, but I don't know,

it really captures the spirit of those of us who are, I was raised in, I mean, I was high school 94, graduated in 94, and so the 90s were kind of my era. They were my 60s, but it was a very different sort of 60s. So that, man, that act, so wow, that makes, because I have, in the work that I do, as you know, I deal with a lot of people with like minority experiences. So they, you know, might not, they color outside the lines. They don't resonate with, you know, the general

kind of tendencies that men or women might have. And yeah, yeah. So I just had the question, like, what about the exceptions, you know? or is there, do you feel like there's masculine spirit, I guess we need to define that in the heart of every male or do you feel like, yeah, I don't even know. Maybe I'll, you kind of know where I'm going with this. Oh, I like this question. I think it's an important one because the answer is yes. What people really are surprised by when they get into Wild at Heart, for example, is, oh, I don't have to like ride motorcycles. Like I don't have to like, you know, movies like Fight Club. There is an essence to the masculine soul that does share qualities across culture and actually across time and

history as well. And I would say things like courage on behalf of others. That men have this instinctive knowing I am here to come through. I'm supposed to come through, I need to come through as a dad, I need to come through on behalf of my neighborhood, I need to come, I need to come through, right? Like I'm given a strength, but it's on behalf of others. Like it's not a narcissistic strength. And therefore the core fear of men is failure. Like women don't fear failure like men do. They just don't.

Women fear loneliness, relational betrayal, far more relational issues. And again, you just take polls. I mean, you just ask people across broad spectrums of cultural experience. The fear of failure because men, the failure means, no, you didn't show up. You didn't show you fail. You didn't offer a genuine strength to the people that you love and you were supposed to come through for sight, things like that things like courage, initiative. And yeah, yes, I will totally put into this category, aggression, because guy, I mean, come on.

You hear a crash in the window in your apartment, and the dude rolls over and says, hey, honey, could you go check that out? I mean, she's going to despise him. Like, there's just the thing of, wait, what? You're going to stay in bed? Well, you know, first responders who ran up the stairs at the World Trade Center when everybody else

was running down. The Navy SEALs who literally covered those Somali aid workers with their bodies while the gunfire was going on before the helicopter could land. Like that, that, I will do this on your behalf and I will be aggressive, not in the sense of violence, but in the sense of yes, protection. Yes. Standing up for what's right in a community. Yeah.

Rescuing people from a burning building. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's funny as I have, so I have several friends, but this story would probably apply to several people I know, but one in particular, who's same sex attracted. He grew up without, I guess, a lot of the typical, I'd say stereotypical masculine desires or behaviors or whatever. But you know what? He tells me when he's in a room, because of his kind of minority experience, he immediately, to your point, immediately

looks to the person sitting alone in the corner, the person with a disability, the single mom who people are overlooking. So that still is in that category of looking out for the other. He wants to help another person in a way, even though he may not have all the check off all the other, you know, masculine boxes, he still has that core of, I want to help those in, that are being overlooked, those in need. Oh, I think that's just a beautiful expression of it.

Yeah, that's awesome. Well, let's talk about your latest book. I'm going to read the, just the first couple lines here on the back cover because it captures so much of what I've been thinking through and haven't quite figured out. You say, in this present age, we are all becoming disciples of the internet. We are addicted to distraction. We idolize our instant access to a never-ending avalanche of information. We think we're finally holding the keys to a better life, but then you go into explain,

it's actually producing a lot more anxiety, depression, it's not producing joy, it's not, and to your main point, it's not typically, or maybe at all, bringing us closer to Jesus. So I wanna know now, like, what's the backstory on this? I mean, I don't know anybody who can dispute that. If they're honest, even if they're on the internet, you know, hours a day, they're on social media, they know this isn't good for them. Yeah. Yeah. So, in the mental health conversation, this is all a given now, right? Yeah, less

green time, you know, less news, you know, taking this less, less global news. What I'm trying to show is that in in the spiritual conversation of the soul's longing for God and the soul's longing for an experiential, like existential life with God. This has done more harm than it actually has done in the mental health sphere, because it has literally trained the soul against some of the basic sort of nourishment that brings a person into a wonderful life

with Jesus. What are some habits people can put into practice? I mean, I'm just thinking like, just turn off the internet, delete your social media accounts or like what? Are you calling for a wholesale, like, let's chop off your hand, pull out your eyes sort of thing, you know? Or is there a way we can still live in an internet? I mean, right now we're talking because of the internet, right? People are going to listen to this because of podcasts. And what's the, I hate the word balance, but what's the, what are the, how

about what are the discipleship practices we need to put into place so that we don't let the internet steal us away from Jesus? Yeah. I want to reflect on a couple of things it's done to us and then reflect on what the goal is. So, for example, we're all disciples of the internet, everybody. I don't know, you want to say, no, I'm not, I follow this health and wellness guy,

or I follow Jesus. It's not the content. I'm not talking about the content. Literally baked into your soul now is that you can have instant answers. So you're looking up things that really matter to you. Oh my gosh, I think my dog just ate poison. Click, click, click, click, click, what do I do?

We all do this all day long, and you get 3 million results in less than a second. And so there is an impatience that is baked into our souls now. And the reason that that's a problem, Preston, is that learning to linger with God, learning to just hang out in His presence and be okay with that is essential. You read the saints down, you know, ages past, lingering without the need for answers, right?

Cause what we're after is union and communion. So I think partly because we're products of the enlightenment, partly because of the internet, our Christian faith has been so left brain. It is content and reason and good theology and the critical evaluation of your practices. And, you know, yeah, are you living, you know, are you a person who's aware of the justice issues in your community and in your fellowship? It's all a lot of very critical reasoning. But we need to correct that if people are going to come into the experience

of God, not just the idea of God that they really crave. It's the stuff of the Psalms, really. I mean, you read the Psalms and it covers the full gamut of the human experience. I mean, use the phrase, ordinary mystic. I want to have you unpack that because when I read the Psalms, there seems to be, yeah, kind of almost like at times a mystical element there. But I know the word mystic can be tricky. I'm sure people hear that word in many different ways. And knowing what I know about you, I'm assuming, I'm going to assume, I'll let you verify if this is true or not, that you don't mind using something that's going to be a little provocative and get people to kind of think and question and draw them into the idea you're trying

to convey here. So yeah, what is an ordinary mystic? We need it. Yeah, I was going to tell the book Ordinary Mystics, but I didn't want people to dismiss it before we could have a conversation. Yeah. Your publisher probably convinced you away from that title. Yeah. Why don't we back away from that, John? We still need to sell a couple of copies. Well, yeah, give people an on-ramp. You read the Psalms. You read Psalm 63. David says, I have seen you. I have seen you in the sanctuary, God, I've beheld your beauty.

Your love is better than life. You nourish me, you satisfy me more than a phenomenal meal. Okay, he is reporting an actual experience of God. This is not just nice words, poetic language, you know, lyrics. No, he's just reporting to you. Something that is very deeply rooted in the Christian tradition, it was very deeply rooted in the Jewish mystic tradition. And then on down through the church, you know, John opens his first epistle by saying, let me tell you why we wrote the New Testament, why we are writing the New Testament. I didn't know it was going to be the New Testament then. Let me tell you why we're writing to you. It says we have experienced Jesus. We were there. We were kind of first boots on the ground. And now we want you to. The whole

reason we're telling you this, your good theology is to lead you into a rich life of experience with Christ, just like we have. And then you go on down through the Christian mystics. And what's fascinating about the mystics is they didn't call themselves mystics. Okay, I mean, we're talking Martin Luther, Thomas Aquinas, really famous theologians, and then more famous mystics like John of the Cross and Julian of Norwich and Teresa and stuff. All the way back to like

Anthony, you know, the founder of monasticism. These are people reporting Psalm 63 for themselves. They're like, oh, oh, yeah, no, I know God very well. We talk to one another. I experience, and this is the thing I'm particularly after, I experience his nourishment healing my soul. Because I think in this hour, all of the mental health issues globally are way outstripping the provision. I mean, we've never had more therapists, psychiatrists, psychologists, we've never had psych therapists, psychiatrists, psychologists.

We've never had psychopharmaceuticals and all this stuff. We're at a phenomenal moment of provision. It's nowhere near meeting the need. God has been healing human souls for thousands of years because the soul is healed through union with Jesus. And this was back to, well, what about our discipleship? What about our practices? What I think we haven't taught people or kind of showed them is the goal of whatever it is you do. You listen to worship songs, you read some verses, you go to church, you know, maybe you're a little bit more mystic, you practice some silence and some solitude, you know, you light some candles, say some prayers. The goal is union with Christ, an ontological, existential, you know, coming together vine and

branch experience, almost sexual in the sense of the Bible uses that as imagery of deep intimacy. That's what people haven't been told. It's been very left brain. It's been very practical, functional principles based, but the soul will only be healed through union with Christ. And it's the thing is like Psalm 63, Psalm 91, taking refuge in his heart, in the secret place. This is what we're made for. But most folks were never mentored into this. It's just not even part of their view. Are some people that are maybe not naturally as left brain, does this come easier to certain personalities and is it more difficult for others? Because the reason why I'm asking is I'm obnoxiously left brain like that.

I like ask my wife, you know, when we're having disputes, you know, I break down all the facts until finally our therapist had to tell me, you're not allowed to use the word facts anymore. And I was appalled. I was appalled. I was like, wait, we need facts. We can't do it. It's like, yeah, but the way you use that term, it's just, as you can see, utterly unhelpful for how you guys work through, you know, disputes and stuff. So yeah, so whenever I hear from ordinary mystics and stuff, I'm like, I agree with you because objectively, I read the Bible and I'm like, no, everything you're saying, you know, in a dry and weary land, so my flesh longs for you,

Psalm 63, you know, like it's there. And even like, yeah, you mentioned Martin Luther and Aquinas, these are tremendously left brain, I think, I mean, it wasn't at the expense of analytical reasoning. I mean, goodness. So, I'm like, I know this side of me needs a lot more work. It just takes a lot of work, right? It does not come naturally. Or my wife, she's the opposite. She can sit in God's presence all day. That's just, you know, but like breaking down a passage is like a chore. I'm like, Hey, I'll handle that. You handle the mystical side. We're good. We're one flesh. Right? Yeah. But here's the thing. What's your wife's name?

Chris. Christine. She goes by Chris. Yeah. When you fell in love with Chris, you did not make a pro and con list. Right? Because, and this is very encouraging for everyone because you're not primarily a brain people, you are primarily a heart. The heart is the deepest part of the human soul from the human personality. And the heart is why you love backpacking. The heart is why you love beauty. The heart is why you gravitate towards certain music or certain museums or certain, yeah, certain authors. This is good news for the left brainers because the heart still, what we're asking is that we,

we move the mind back into its proper place. It became dictator. The left brain literally hates mystery and it will hunt it down and kill it. Interesting. But the sages and the mystics of ages past and the biblical writers will tell you, no, no, no, no, the mystery of God

is part of the beauty of the whole thing. Right? Honestly, when you are trying to counsel people in grief, understanding is not what they're after. They're after comfort, solace, care, healing of their broken heart. Well, Jesus happens to be great at that. He's great at it. Yeah, helping people go, look, the mind is beautiful. The mind is incredible instrument. It was given

to you to protect the heart, not supplant it, not kick the heart out of the conversation, right? We've got to get the ordinary mystic is in every single human being because it's in every single child, right? Now, you give a child an ice cream bar, they don't flip it over and start reading the ingredients, right? Okay, how many calories? What's the carb to protein ratio? Is this fair trade? You know, they just go eat it. Like, there's an openness to life, there's an openness to love and an openness to joy that we can recover folks. This is not hard to get back. Back when I first became a Christian was right when John Piper was doing a lot of stuff on Christian hedonism. And I've bought into that, man. Not in a bad way, in a good

way. I think he was spot on. So, I was shaped by that. Is that kind of the sense, for those who remember those days, desiring God, Piper is one of his many? Is this similar to what, I mean, he's coming at it from a theologian, you know, you have a therapist background. Do you see a lot of commonality in what you're saying and what he says? Absolutely, because doesn't he use the story? I don't want to misquote him, but he shows up at the door with flowers.

Yeah, yeah. Right? And his wife says, oh, sweetheart, you remembered. And he says, ah, it is my duty. Yeah, Yeah. And you just killed it. You just killed it.

Like duty kills, passion revives. Yes. Yeah. The awakened, the awakened heart. Absolutely. Like, I've actually, I'm pretty sure I stole that illustration. You know, as a young seminary student, you just are grabbing onto like illustrations and stuff. And yeah, he goes on to say, you know, if I say I was driving home from work and I couldn't

not buy you flowers, it was everything in me wanted to do this. And he says, she's not going to say, you selfish little, how you just doing this, but it bring you joy. Like when it's when I'm operating out of my own joy, then that is like deeply honoring towards the other. Yes. Okay, so here's the connection to the mystic thing is that as we experience what it is like to know Jesus personally, as we experience the vine branch, even early stages of it, his comfort, his guidance, his assurance of us, you start to crave it. And then you start sounding like the psalmist when they say, Oh, a day, a day in your presence is better

than 1000 outside of it. Like I wouldn't trade this for anything. They start talking like that because they're reporting back out of a genuine intimacy with Jesus that he longs for and that is available to every human being. For somebody listening that is like, gosh, this sounds fantastic. I haven't experienced that in years or maybe every now and then or not at all. Maybe they're like, I would love that. Where do I start? Are there some concrete?

This is my left brain. Yeah, it's okay. Give me the list. What do I do? Okay. But I mean, there's, yeah, what are some tangible practices that somebody can engage in that would start to cultivate this kind of desire? Yeah, I'm going to give people the simplest possible thing they can do. So right before the pandemic rolled out, which was so kind of God, we released an app called

the One Minute Pause. It's free. It's on iPhone, Android. And what this does is it guides you in the simple practice of learning to pause, create a sacred moment. There's beautiful music, there's guided prayer. It's very, very simple. And you can do that. Everybody can do that. Like everybody can do that.

You can pause. We ask people to do it twice a day in the app. So you can choose like 10 and 2 or 6 a.m. and 8 p.m. or whatever. You go, okay, I'm going to pause. And what you do is you literally offload. We call it benevolent detachment. You just go, God, I just give you everything. Like the day, the chaos, the heartbreak, the email I shouldn't have sent, just everything. I just offload it. And in this moment, all I'm looking for is a sense of your presence. I'm not looking for answers. I'm not trying to fix my brokenness. So I would say, yeah, folks, I like, I really enjoy the Jesuit app, praise you go. It's also a very simple,

it's a very, very simple practice based on the Ignatian practices. You could do that, everybody, that's easy to do. But here's what I'm recommending is create a sacred space once a day. Start with five minutes. Don't bring your phone unless you need it for music and then put it on airplane mode.

Yeah. Yeah. And learn to sit without distraction. Now, this is literally going to take the reprogramming of your soul because we are, you know, oh, the Shallows, who wrote that book? He almost wanted to pull it sir Nicholas Carr, his book on the shop. The internet has literally rewired your brain to the impatience I was talking about earlier. You have a very short attention span. Thanks to your technology. Okay, that's okay. That's okay. We're gonna start with five minutes. We're going to create a sacred space, put on some beautiful music and just say, Jesus, I really need you. Not ideas about you

and not necessarily feelings. I just need your presence. Would you be with me? Your soul is going to take to this like a duck to water. I mean, you're going to love it. And pretty soon, five minutes becomes 10. And then you've got this sacred communion thing going on because what you're what you're after is union and communion. Your soul is created for union with God and to commune with him. And as you kind of get in the groove of this, it's super simple, folks. You're going to find yourself doing it in your car, on your commute. You're going

to find yourself doing it in the airports while you wait for your flight, while you're sitting in carpool line. Like, the soul wants this union and communion. So is it, so five minutes, you say even like no Bible, you're not reading, you're just- No, no, no content. It's just solitude. It's presence. Okay. You are being present to God and asking Him to be present to you.

I'm curious, are there- Folks, those of you who are not watching this, I'm looking at Preston's face. This is a beautiful moment. And the left brain is going, wait, there's no content. What do you mean there's no content? Content is how I get there. Five minutes, I could read like four pages and or even memorize or do or accomplish or... No, I get it. I'm enough self-aware of the dangers of my left-brainism. I mean, there's good that can come out of it, but I... There is. It's funny. Five minutes, I would imagine for somebody who's never done that, that would

feel very long at first. Five minutes. It does. It feels very awkward. You're going to think about 16 other things other than Jesus, you know, you're going to go get the socks out of the dryer and, oh my gosh, I forgot to call my mom back. But learning to just linger retrains your soul to experience God who's with you all the time. Is there any trick to not? Because I mean, yeah, the second information is not around me, my brain just starts darting around, right? It's just, is there any practical way to stop that? Or is it just, you just stop it? Yes. No, no, no. You've got to be gentle with this because you're retraining your soul.

I recommend a couple things. So, I'll just sit there and say, I love you. I love you, God. I love you, Lord. Thank you for the beauty of this morning. Thank you for the rain on the window. Thank you for this cup of coffee. I love you. You're giving your left brain a little bit something to do so it doesn't sabotage the

process. I think beautiful music really helps. Now I will use sometimes soft worship music, not rock and roll, or I'll use soft instrumental. That also helps the left brain calm down and chill out. And then Teresa Villa has this lovely practice called the prayer of recollection. She says, we have to remind ourselves what it's like to be in His presence. So she says, go get a good memory. Go get a good memory. That day of backpacking when the water was so beautiful, that kind of thing. Go get that. The day at the symphony,

that birthday you loved when you were eight. She says, go get that and bring it into the moment and remember what goodness feels like, because it was the goodness of God that made that a great moment. And she's like, you're reminding your soul, oh yes, this is goodness, or maybe this is love. That's right, I felt so loved on my wedding day, it was incredible, and oh, it was amazing. And then you're making the soul connection of that was you, God. That was your love. That's your goodness. And so she uses little tricks like that to help the soul be present to the love of God. And that would prevent your mind from just, if it's just, if you're trying to not just

turn off your brain, it's naturally going to want to go somewhere. So, if you're doing something that is still activating your mind, I love the just talking back to God in really simple ways. Because yeah, if I could imagine myself doing that, if I'm doing that, then I'm not, it prevents me from thinking about all the tasks after. Exactly. Yes. Yeah. And Gang, it is so okay to also let your heart say, God, help me. I'm so lonely and linger with the loneliness. So, or, or God, I am so sorry. I shouldn't have yelled at the kids this morning. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

That's good too. Simple words, simple communication. That's just helping your soul sit in the presence of Jesus. Okay, so what's next? So let's consider this kind of 101, you know, even the one-minute pause, the five-minute sitting in God's presence. If you can get those down, what would be the next step? If you can get those down, what would be the next step? Nice. Okay. So, this is the mindblower that I'll often ask people when I'm giving them spiritual direction, where is Jesus when you're praying? And most people say, well, I imagine Him, you know, He's enthroned in the heavens, right? He's at the right hand of the Father.

It's, you know, He's the exalted one. Or they even like, I'm trying to picture the worship of the saints or something. Or they'll say, Oh, I try and imagine him here with me, Christ with me. Here's the mindblower. The communion that you're after is within Ephesians three, Christ now dwells in your heart. Anybody who says Jesus, I'm in, I want you, I want this, I need you, I need salvation in you, I need your love, I need your healing. He comes to live within you. And the practice of the saints and the sages and the mystics down through the ages, they would talk about like the contemplative prayer, right? Or the prayer of dissent, where you are actually praying, you're tuning into Christ in your inmost being. Because you're beginning to learn how to shut out

the external world and the distraction. And I call it dropping in. You are dropping in to, you're not making this up. This isn't woo-woo, folks. And this isn't the Christ that is you, you know? No, no, no, no, no, you're not Christ and your heart's not Christ, but he now lives there. He resides within you. Paul says this is the whole secret of the Gospels. The end of Colossians 1. He says, do you want me to summarize the mystery of the ages to you guys? It's like it is Christ inside of you. And so this is where it gets really beautiful, Preston, is that you've learned to calm down

and you've learned to be present. And now you're learning to be present to Christ within you and communing with him there. And what's gonna happen is the conversation is gonna really open up. He's going to ask you things. He's going to say, why are you so anxious today? Or he will often ask, OK, so that anger this morning, will you let me in there?

He will ask for access to more of your soul. Hey, that compulsion. Can we go there together? Can we work? Let me in that because the soul is healed through union with Christ. So it drops in and it turns inward. It's an inward communion. My prayers are not arrows now that I'm lobbing up to heaven hoping that somebody catches something, you know, I'm

tuning in and communing with him and the conversation, the things that he'll show you, is really, really quite, well, it's supernatural, right? This is the unseen realm. I have a left-brain question. Don't judge me. When Christ speaks, assuming it's not an audible that I can capture on my iPhone and play back, how do you distinguish between the voice of Christ and just your own self saying stuff to yourself, you know? Or is that even the wrong question? I don't know. No, no, no.

That's a very, very important question. For two reasons. One, he'll say things to you that you would never say to yourself. He'll say things like, I really love you. And you don't, you just, most of us just don't go around saying that to ourselves. It's usually very critical stuff. Man, you suck at that. You what did, why were you thinking?

What were you? You know, Jesus doesn't use that tone of voice. And so when you hear things like I love you, I'm proud of you, you're like, Oh, that that is not me. When he asks you questions that feel very penetrating, not condemning, right. But when he asks you questions like, Hey, what was the anger about? Right? You go, Oh, I am so in the presence of God because I just feel naked, you know, but not ashamed. OK. So it's things like that.

Also when it particularly comes to matters of guidance, you know, can I buy the motorcycle? If you hear yes, you probably want to test that. Because sure, yeah, your internal chatter fills in all kinds of things. Yeah, is it time to quit my job? Can I finally quit my job? Yeah. With that kind of stuff, you seek confirmation. But the old saints again, would use this lovely thing. They called it consolation desolation. And so you test it, you go, okay, so if

Jesus told me to go in and apologize to my wife, I'm going to test that out in my soul. Does that move me towards love? Or does that move me towards hatred and isolation? Oh, that, okay, that's towards love. That sure sounds like Jesus. Or if he tells you to do something like, yeah, this is the month to quit your job, you kind of move in the soul towards, oh my gosh, that would be such relief to, oh my gosh, I'm panicking! Oh no, oh no! You know, you go, well, consolation desolation. If you're in the presence of Christ, it will be consolation. Always. I like that, because some people rely on this internal voice for those real concrete decisions and they end up sometimes always responding in a way that they naturally want to go, you

know? Yeah, I really feel led to buy this motorcycle. I really feel led to quit my job even though when I talked to the person last week, they're like, I hate this job. I want to quit, you know? And maybe it still was, maybe God was confirming what they already were feeling. But yeah, to me, that just gets a little bit like, I love cross-checking some of those decisions with healthy, mature Christians in your community.

But I love what you said. I don't think I've ever heard anybody say that, that if you hear something that isn't what you would not naturally tell yourself, if it's almost like shocking. Like people that really, like my wife hears from God, way clearer than I do, I feel like. And yeah, when she relay stuff, it is that. I would not have said this to myself. Like this was, it just felt like it was another voice, not in an emotional feeling necessarily, but it just was like, it was j, not in an emotional feeling necessarily, but just like, it was jarring a little bit, you know?

Pete Yes. Yes. And then, so John 10, my sheep hear my voice. Hebrews 4, today if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts. Isaiah, you open my ear every morning like one listening to your voice, learning to hear the voice of God. Dallas Willard thought it was so important. He wrote his first book on it. And you're like, you're one of the most brilliant minds of the 20th century. You could have written on so many more important topics, but Dallas felt it was critical to intimacy

and to discipleship and deeply biblical. So just like anything else, like learning to ride a bike, learning to cast a fly rod like learning to ride a bike, learning to cast a fly rod, learning to play pickleball, you know, it's a little clunky at first. Sure. Yeah. This communion that I'm describing, it's sure. That's okay, folks. That's okay. So is everything else you learned that you enjoy now. Hang in there. And you get you get through the clunkiness into something that is so richly nourishing. You're like, oh my gosh, how could I live without this? Well, any real relationship,

which is what we're after, right? It's gonna have, like it's a journey. It's never gonna be perfect. It's gonna have its ups and downs and misinterpretations and everything. So I'm curious, this might, I don't wanna turn the corner too quickly here, but yeah, Dallas Willard, Christian mysticism, the things you're talking about, spiritual

formation, you know, these have been not always well received with evangelicalists. There's been pushback. I get this question periodically, like, hey, what do you think about meditation and spiritual formation? Because I'm being warned about the dangers of this stuff at my church, you know, especially from more conservative branches of evangelical circles. What are some of the, I guess, are there any dangers of Christian mysticism? Of course there are. Areas where it can get really wonky or how would you respond to some of the, I'm sure you've gotten criticism over the years, any public figure has, what are some of the pushbacks and how do you respond to that? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, of course. Because for example, if people only solely

rely on the internal voice that they're hearing and they're not testing it, Paul prays for us all in Ephesians 1, and he says, I pray that God would give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation. We need both, especially if revelation, like a divine inspiration, a word from God, an impression, a vision, especially if it contravenes wisdom. Like then you really need to test it.

You're like, whoa, whoa, quit my job. Like no way, I just got promoted This is I'm finally providing for my family. What? Right, if it doesn't seem wise This is where you take it to the elders you take it to your community. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely and it and of course So we were talking about first John and the invitation into an experiential life because it's just crazy pressed and then we have to make this case. The Christian life,

Christianity, Christian faith was always meant to be profoundly experiential, profoundly. You read the entire biblical record, whether it's Gideon or Deborah, you know, it's Mary Magdalene at the empty tomb. Come on, folks. These are all people who experience God, you know, and you don't just close the book and go, yeah, well, that was then, and you don't get to experience him anymore. But here's some really great principles for your life. Well, you don't need Jesus for that, right? You can go get good principles from Warren Buffett. I mean, okay, the dangers is what we're talking into. So later in first John, he says, you do need to test the spirits because there are many counterfeit Christ's

in the world. So getting into the unseen realm a little bit more, there are loads of demons who can imitate Jesus. Just look at the cults. I mean, how do you explain, you know, Jehovah's Witnesses and all the other weird things going on out there? People go, no, no, no, this is Jesus. And you're like, time out. Can we just go to the scriptures for a minute?

You know, Satan is not Jesus' brother. Okay, so yeah, John urges us to test the experiences of Jesus. I think that's very important. I would agree with the conservative concerns that would go, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, how does this not get wooed? The answer is scripture. Jesus will never tell you anything that contravenes Scripture or that gives you like an out. You know, you're my special one, so you can go ahead and have that affair. Yeah, yeah.

He's just, he's never going to say that, folks. Yeah. Yeah, my simple response is always like, I mean, if it is in Scripture or resonates with Scripture, then it's probably a good practice. If it I mean, if it is in Scripture or resonates with Scripture, then it's probably a good practice. If it doesn't, if you're doing some kind of practice, you know, you're in hot yoga with your teacher, with whatever, like, you know, there might be some things that could be in the category of meditation that aren't really resonating with the biblical narrative. But like you said, I mean, there's

a lot of these kind of practices that are, you know, again, either explicitly described or they're sort of like an implicit or even like, you know, we see Jesus taking moments of solitude with God for prayer. Now, you know, are those prescriptive, descriptive? And I think it's kind of yes, you know. I think narratives are designed to shape us in more holistic ways. But then, yeah, you have the whole psalter and other passages that speak directly to this. So, yeah, I've never, I don't know. But then there are certain branches of the church, so they're just always going to be scared and criticize anything that's not familiar. So So I mean, I don't know.

Let me put, let me come at it from a completely different angle for a moment. If intimacy with Christ and your father and the Holy Spirit, if this is the epicenter of human experience, right? Jesus in John, when he says, this is eternal life that you would know God. And it's that gnosko, it's that deep, deep experiential knowing. If this is what we're made for, right, if this is the absolute center of human experience, out of which flows forgiving others, you know, turning the other cheek, being generous with your money, living a holy life, okay? Then this would be the thing that would be most assaulted by the kingdom of darkness.

This is the thing that they would cast the most doubt on, that they would try and turn people away from, and frankly wound people away from. Because disappointing experiences with God has turned a lot of people off to him. Well, folks, I just want to go look, you live in a love story, but it's set in a world at war. The kingdom of darkness hates your intimacy with God.

Are you kidding me? Because out of there is going to come your witness for Christ, right? And your parenting and everything, your generosity. Okay. your parenting and everything, your generosity. Okay, they're going to do everything they can to sabotage. And, you know, making it impossible to linger in His presence is one example or breaking your heart and blaming it on God is another. And what better way to discourage Christians from diving deeper into the presence of God than to convince other fellow Christians

that this is a dangerous thing. It's one thing if like the first church of Satan was like, we oppose Christian mysticism. It's like, well, that's not going to do anything. But when you have well-respected Christian leaders maybe opposing something that is actually a healthy thing, that's going to be more effective. Yes, yes, yes. All right, I'm going to try this one more time. Okay, so Satan tried to stop the revolution that Jesus ushered in through his life, death, resurrection, and ascension by killing him.

Right? And Paul says, if the rulers of this world had known, they would never have slain the Prince of glory because it totally backfired. It purchased the ransom of the human race and it won authority back to Christ and all that. Now all authority and heaven and honor, all that. Okay. So then he goes, all right, I'm still going to stop this thing. So he tries to kill all the early apostles, kill the movement, persecute them, crush them, right? It doesn't work. So here's what he comes up with. He's like, I can't stop this thing. So what I'm going to do is create a brilliant counterfeit called religion. And I will be able to warehouse millions of people in religions and religious experiences that

have just enough God talk, just enough morality, just enough transcendence for people to think, well, I guess this is it. I mean, I'm not personally experiencing anything of Isaiah 61. It's not healing my broken heart. It's not selling me free. But okay, so he this is the counterfeit guys, of course, he's going to use religion, even, quote, Christian religion. The real simple test is does it do

what it's supposed to do to human beings? Does it heal their humanity and bring them back into a rich relationship with God their father and with the Lord Jesus. If it's not doing that, you want to ask why. That's good. Speaking of which, one more question. What do you want people to walk away with when they read your book? What would you love to see closed, read the last page, close the book, and they say, okay, I want to put this into practice. What would that look like?

Before they even close the book, my dearest hope is that they will begin to experience the presence of Jesus with them and in them in ways that are nourishing their soul, that they're fighting. When he says, I'm the bread of life, right? When he says, I'm gonna nourish you, it's gonna happen. And the thing is, Preston, where do people go? Like spiritual fathers and mothers were supposed to teach us this, but we got side railed by the age of reason

and the age of the internet and the overdeveloped left brain and the hatred of, you know, anything that feels woo woo or mystery, you know, kind of thing. What I hope they get is an experience of a spiritual father guiding them along the way into a rich, beautiful life with God. It's a good goal. It's a really good goal. John, this has been a pleasure to talk with you, man. Again, the book is Experience Jesus Full Stop, really another full stop. Love the title. Never seen that before. Finding refuge, strength, and wonder through everyday encounters with God. Excited to dig into this, and I encourage people to go check it out.

John, thanks so much for your time on The Old Jericho. It was an honor to be here with you. Thanks for making room for me. Hey friends, Rachel Grohl here from the Hearing Jesus podcast. Do you ever wonder if you're truly hearing from God? Are you tired of trying to figure it all out on your own? The Hearing Jesus Podcast is here to help you live out your faith every single day, and together we will break down these walls by digging deeply into God's Word in a way that you can really understand it. If this sounds like the kind of journey you want to go on, please join us on the Hearing Jesus podcast on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Hey, so I'm launching a new

season on the podcast, The Doctor and the Nurse. World renowned brain coach, Dr. Daniel Amon, joins me as a co-host as we dive deep into the mind and the brain of everything high performance. I've been fascinated for years as I've worked with top athletes, high powered CEOs, Hollywood actors and all high performers in all types of different fields of how they break through pressure, ignite drive, how they overcome distractions, how they put fear on the bench, how they tap into flow state and just dominate all these different areas of high performance. So on this season my good friend Dr. Daniel Lehmann will break down what is actually going on in the brain in these different areas and I will give actionable tools to be able to

use and apply in your life. So buckle up the doctor and the nurse on the David Nurse Show coming at you.