375 | Experiential Christianity, Lingering with Jesus, and The War for Your Attention (John Eldredge)
Episode Description
When you set aside your programmed pragmatism and rediscover wonder, life with Jesus takes on a whole new depth. In this episode, John Eldredge shares how technology and the internet constantly fight for your attention and how you can push back by embracing ordinary, mystical moments to connect with God. You’ll also hear why prayer, lingering, and turning your heart toward God are essential for your Christian walk.
-
John Eldredge is an author, counselor, teacher, and the president of Wild at Heart. He and his wife, Stasi, have three sons and are proud grandparents. John loves all things beauty, nature, adventure, and more.
-
· The hyper-rational, left-brain approach to life isn’t good for your soul. You were designed to experience beauty, wonder, and connection with God.
· There’s a battle for your attention and affection, and the world is constantly trying to pull your union with God apart.
· Turning your heart toward God often comes before intellectual understanding.
· Learning to linger in God’s presence is essential for healing, connection, and repairing your soul in a world programmed for distraction.
-
· Send a Voice Message to DadAwesome
· Apply to join the next DadAwesome Accelerator Cohort: Email awesome@dadawesome.org
· Subscribe to DadAwesome Messages: Text the word “Dad” to (651) 370-8618
· Experience Jesus. Really. by John Eldredge
-
Podcast Intro: [00:00:01] Being a great father takes a massive amount of courage. Instead of being an amazing leader and a decent dad, I want to be an amazing dad and a descent leader. The oldest dad in the world gave you this assignment, which means you must be ready for it. As a dad, I get on my knees and I fight for my kids. Let us be those dads who stop the generational pass down of trauma. I want encounters with God where He teaches me what to do with my kids I know I'm going to be an awesome dad because I'm gonna give it my all.
John Eldredge: [00:00:39] You know, if you listen to all these angry podcasts, or you listen the outrageous, just outrageous news, just stuff that just makes you so furious, you're gonna get really worked up and you're going to be a fairly upset and angry man. And there's a lot of reason to be. I'm not saying there isn't, it's just that do you want to be that guy? And do you your kids to experience that guy? But here's the other cool part, so on the other side, you were talking about the positive, is you sit with another human being and look eye to eye and listen to one another, it literally heals the human brain. It is a healing experience to your physiology. That's amazing that God would wire both the body and soul to connection. Guess what fellas, you get to enjoy that with Jesus.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:01:32] Welcome back to DadAwesome. Guys, my name is Jeff Zaugg, and I am so thankful that you're listening today. We've got John Eldredge jumping back onto the podcast. He's joined us, this is his third time over the last four or five years, and we are thrilled to talk about his most recent book, Experience Jesus Really. And so many threads that tie directly into the dad life. So in a moment, I'll introduce that conversation. I want to quick invite you guys to two action steps. The first is leave me a voice message. We're inviting any dad, a part of our community, to leave a voice message, and that is the next step to set up a one-on-one call. So basically I have just had the joy of having phone calls, half hour phone calls with dads in our community to just talk about what are you experiencing? What are you learning? What challenges are you facing? And it's helping form and shape the ministry of DadAwesome. So I'm making time, once or twice a week, to set up a phone call. But to be a part of that, you need to leave me a voice message first. So that's linked in all the show notes. Leave DadAwesome a voice message, share a little bit about yourself, and I will reach out and try to schedule a couple of those every week. The second invitation is our DadAwesome Accelerator. We just yesterday graduated our third group of DadAwesome Accelerator guys. It's a six week journey. It's the most valuable thing that we've created yet at DadAwesome and we're launching our fourth cohort right after Easter. So it kicks off on Wednesday, April 23rd and it's only for six weeks. It'll wrap up by the end of May, by May 28th. You need to apply though, by April 11th. So that's coming up here in just a couple weeks. So please reach to us by sending an email to awesome@dadawesome.org. Reach out to us and you'll get all the information. We also created this short four minute kind of an overview testimonial video from some of the guys who have been through the experience. This is such a big deal for you guys to step in and join me for six weeks. And I want to invite you, just reach out with any of your questions. I'll send you that four minute video, I'll sent you the overview, the promises, what we're gonna walk you through. It's one hour per week over Zoom on Wednesdays. And then it's some homework every week. But this process has been proven to just be transformational for the guys who've gone through it. So I want invite you guys into the next DadAwesome Accelerator. Okay, John Eldredge, I am so thankful for this conversation. We're gonna dive right in and the pace of today's conversation, I just want to invite all of us to take a deep breath. It's fun. I mean, for me, I can jump in with so much passion and all of a sudden realize, even in this intro, that the pace I'm moving, I'm flying. John is so good at helping me get perspective, breathe deeply, and listen to what does the Holy Spirit have? So that's what I'm praying for each of you guys today. Episode 375, praying for you as you listen, this is my conversation with John Eldredge. John, this is fun. Today, I think it's the third time we've had a DadAwesome conversation together. So first, thank you for going round three.
John Eldredge: [00:04:52] Yeah, yeah. No, I remember the other two. In fact, last time we were able to be together. So that was really cool.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:04:57] I loved that when my family came through the Colorado Springs area, but the difference of today's conversation is about eight months ago, you don't know this, but I had the opportunity to be a part of my first boot camp to experience four days, three nights, the time to get in central Florida. I got to, I mean, really it's step one for the ministry Wild At Heart, but it took me because of travel in the RV and pace and a number of factors, but was able to say yes and experience those four, four days. I just wanted to say thank you for that offering, that's free and it's all over the world. So I just want to say, thank you.
John Eldredge: [00:05:30] Oh, beautiful. So glad you did.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:05:33] Yeah, and to my friends who led, I've already thanked them, and they'll be listening. But today, John, I thought it'd be fun as we dive into your new book, Experience Jesus Really. I thought, let's start with fort building, because yesterday I actually devastated my daughter's hearts with destroying one of their forts. This was an accident. I had a friend from church, we're doing some tree trimming in this new property that we moved into and I cut down, trimming palm trees here in northeast Florida and they had built a little fort under some of those palm branches that needed to be trimmed. And I was exhausted and they come walking in and just tears from my six-year-old because this is her fort and there's other, we still have the palm branches and I'm going to help them reconstruct. The goal is to rebuild, but fort building, coming cardboard boxes to palm branches to so many other materials. I think as a man, fort building still gets me a little bit excited. And as a kid, I know you talk about building forts in your new, latest book. Where does your heart go when I bring up the concept of building forts and disappointing my daughters and rebuilding? How does it stir you today?
John Eldredge: [00:06:47] Yeah, I want to go do it. I still love it. I'm 64 and I still love building forts. And I'll be hiking in some of the, you know, open space behind our house here in the woods, and I'll come upon, you know, piles of sticks and that kind of thing. And it just it just makes me smile going, okay, what little group of, you know, boys and girls put that little fort together. It's a, it is a fascinating thing, Jeff, that it's universal. Like it's all over the world. This isn't just an American thing or a middle-class thing. Like kids love building forts. I did when I was a boy.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:07:29] Why do you think we stop? Like, because it does feel like I take life pretty seriously with projects that I'm tackling. Like, what's moving hearts of adults to stop building ports?
John Eldredge: [00:07:41] Yeah, yeah. Well, we get caught up. Yeah, that's a big question, because it has to do with the loss of wonder and the default to the pragmatic. Like, fort building to an adult is a waste of time, right. We got, we got to get to the pragmatic stuff. But here's the fascinating thing, even still, you ask, you ask hunters, like, what's your favorite place to be, and they'll say something like a duck blind, you know, and they'll just talk about, they won't talk about the duck hunting, they'll talk about I love the quiet in the morning, and the calm on the water. And I love being kind of nestled into a little hidden spot. So it's still, it still sneaks in. And for me, it sneaks in backpacking. I love tents. I've always loved tents. And so for me, it's literally one of my favorite places in the world. If I wake up and find myself in a small backpacking tent, it's like one of my happiest moments.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:08:52] There is something about, I mean, shelter, and there's a whole chapter in the book about how we have fears, we have real and perceived like, oh no, what about this? What about that? Do I have this together? And we build, often, shelters that are not going to fortify us. We use wisdom of this world to build these shelters. I think that's also kid forts. Kid forts are not really going to handle the storms, the wind, the rain, often. But there's a true place for refuge. There's a place for a way that God's designed us to have shelter and shelter in a Kingdom reality. Can you take us into that theme a little bit and how it would apply to all of us dads?
John Eldredge: [00:09:40] Yeah, because I was watching, you know, it's just having been a therapist for a long time now, I just what is with the global mental health crisis? Because on the one hand, resources are they've never been more abundant. We've never had this many therapists, counselors, psychiatrists, psychologists, you know, professionals, clinics in schools, clinics on campuses, and the medicine and all that has just been brilliant. Why can't we touch the global anxiety issue, for example, one in every two young people suffering from anxiety, why is that? So anyway, it got me thinking a lot about shelter, refuge, that childlike longing to have a safe place to come into. And then I've been reading the refuge Psalms, like Psalm 27:46. Of course, the famous Psalm 91, he who dwells in the shelter of the most high will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. And I think that idea of rest, like let your anxiety come down, let the cortisol come down, let the fight or flight, you know, come down a little bit. I think this is a brilliant gospel moment to be able to show people, you know what, you can actually be safe in the love of God, you can actually feel safe in His care and in His protection. If we can get people, well, it's back to your thing, if we can get the wonder back, right. If you can get the cynical adult pragmatism to just put the gun down for a minute and just go, you know what, you can actually take refuge in the presence of God, you really can. And you will find it to be that lovely fort experience of, I feel good.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:11:49] I found myself in the last couple of weeks, because your book just launched a couple of weeks ago, every chance I get, I'm talking to friends and chatting with my wife, because she's reading as well. We're both listening to the audio book, which the pace was kind, yeah, it was kind, it's beautiful. And then you add a bunch of extra content, which is fun just to hear you riff on your own writing. But as I explained to them why this book and why, Lik,. why now? I feel like it's a moment to turn one way or the other, to keep turning the way that the world is headed of devastation, despair, just try to be okay, try to make it, to a different, a course correct that's entirely different. And even the tattoo on my arm, the whole theme is paradise to paradise and just understanding that we experience fractional paradise, but there's the full expression, but now we get to live in fractional. We don't have to just like touch it once in a while. We get to experience Kingdom of Heaven here. So that's, as a flyover, I immediately jumped to the fact that I'm using AI more often for projects, for work as my assistant that only costs $20 a month. I got the pro version of one of the platforms. But yet I'm wondering, am I going to the tree of knowledge of good and evil? Like, is this, should I be even using this new tool? And so there's tensions, real tensions, but the fact that I can get information immediately, right now, on every topic, how it's shaping me. That's probably the easiest way I've led into the conversation about your book with friends. Would you give, for all of us dads, just a flyover, why did you write this? And within that, would you talk about the original name and why that's still a strong theme, but why you chose not to use the original?
John Eldredge: [00:13:42] Well, I'll start there. So I wanted to call the book Ordinary Mystics because we need to get pulled out of the hyper rational, cynical, pragmatic, and especially as dudes, the hyper left brain approach. Give me the latest science. Give me the facts. I'm going to Google it. Let me get to the bottom of this and I'll nail it. That's really good if you're trying to figure out how to seal like a water leak in your roof, but it's not good for the rest of your soul. Knowledge is control. Knowledge makes me feel safe because the thing is it just turns around and bites you because the next day somebody is there saying, oh, you shouldn't do that on your roof, man, that's a terrible product. And over and over and again, just every piece of information you thought was reliable, as a dad, somebody, some new expert comes along and goes, no, actually you shouldn't do that at bedtime, you know, you should do this. In order to get back into the refuge of God, in order experience His presence, which is the only way we're gonna be good dads, like, you need your tanks filled and you need to come down from your stress or you're just not gonna be a good dad. I mean, I can tell the difference, you know, when I'm walking in the door fried and when I'm in the good door in a good place, right. Okay. The thing is, is that we've all been so baked in this internet life, knowledge, information, that's your security. Whoops, sorry, that is not true anymore. And then you take the current global events and the amount of chaos being released in the world and, oh, are the tariffs going to drive, you know, my family's cost of living up, what's gonna happen with steel? You have to get out of that. And the idea of being ordinary mystics is the wonder that little kids enjoy with forts is an open heart and an imaginative approach to life that's totally right brain, right. And I just want to say, look, you're a whole person, you just can't live from your left brain. You've got to let the intuitive, the relational, the connection back in. Particularly in your life with God and, and so when we had to come up with a new title and there were, there were a couple reasons for that. One, another gal had released a book with a really similar title and she actually called her online community Wild Heart but she's fruit loops. I mean it's, it's new age woo woo, you know, and we're like yeah let's not get that confused for people, but also I just knew people would freak out, you know, it's like mystics, that's horrible, You know. I'm like hang on, hang on. So let's call it Experience Jesus Really, because of the hyper left brain approach, most guys would not report like rich regular experiences of God, like good content, good preaching, teaching, good discipleship materials, but not that deep experiential life that frankly, if your Christianity is not deeply experiential, it can't sustain you. You're a branch in need of a vine, you know?. You gotta be hooked up to a living source of life, not just an idea about it. And so, yeah, that was my huge heart for the book was we got to get people back into rich, regular contact with their Father, their Papa, with Jesus and all He can do for you with the Holy Spirit. Like this is meant to be normal.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:18:03] But if we think that we're just living, and use the phrase like neutral, like if we just think we're getting through and our faith is a fraction, but there's a lot of other slivers to that, then actually a knowledge base works. It works if there's not real warfare and if there is not a real choice between kingdom of darkness, Satan, Kingdom of Heaven, God's Kingdom. And like that was the, that was an aha, like maybe seven, eight chapters in of like, whoa, like if that's the case, then I would like take being with and experience Jesus to start every day very seriously, because I get to make a choice. You've encouraged forever daily prayer. And I recently heard you talk about the length of your daily prayer and how if without it, your day is, you're screwed. Would you help remind all of us why you encourage daily prayer?
John Eldredge: [00:19:06] Yeah, yeah, yeah guys, because the why is everything. The why is everything, because we fall into these routines. I like show up at church and be part of the men's group or whatever your routines are, you know, get to the pancake breakfast or whatever. We lost the why a while ago. And when Dallas Willard wrote his seminal book on the spiritual disciplines, he didn't write about the disciplines so much. He wrote about the why. Okay, cause the why is really important. Why do we do these things? So I'm going to swing all the way back around to the why. And the why is this, that your soul, there's two big whys. The first one is your soul is designed to live in union with God. So, that when you look at a vine and branch, you can just go out in your backyard and look at trees and their branches, you know. Bushes and their branches, they're so intertwined in their fibers. You can't really tell where one ends and the other begins. It's not like Lego.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:20:12] That's true.
John Eldredge: [00:20:14] It's intertwined life. Okay. That is the nature of union with Christ, that your soul is meant to live in union. And out of that union, you're going to get strength and joy and guidance and wisdom and all kinds of great stuff. And he's going to heal your soul. Okay. He can heal your trauma, reunion with Christ. Now, the other why is the world you live in is constantly destroying that union, constantly. The amount of media we take in as a norm, the pace of life, just what your work expects of you. And then there's soccer and music and you got to get carpool and that, that, that you know, and so the world and the kingdom of darkness are constantly trying to pull that union apart. And so things like daily prayer, the why is I need union, man. I need connection. I need the life of God in me. I need care because the world is constantly stressing me out. And where do I take that? Well, you can start taking it to, you know, too many beers. You can start taking it to too many donuts. You can take it to porn. You can it to all kinds of places. The soul needs that care. So for me, daily prayer is not a bummer, right. It's not like cold plunging where you go, oh, okay, I know this is good for me, but, oh, I'm gonna do it. And I do cold plunge and I do like it, but, but nobody stands in front of that icy water and says, yee-haw, you know, can't wait. But for me, for daily prayer, it's the fort, it's The Refuge, it's the return to the vine. It's like, okay, I do this to repair my union, and also because I know that predatory forces are out there just looking for some way to take me out. And it might, it might be anger, right. Just pissed at the world. It might be checking out my neighbor's wife, right. Now you're into what? You know, like, that's a disaster. But the enemy's looking, he's looking for some way to take us out. And if I'm not repairing my union. So I morning and evening for us, man, morning and evening. And it always begins with letting it all go, letting the world go, letting the news go, letting it go so that I can repair my union. And it's, it's transformative.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:23:10] Yes, and as a small step into daily prayer, even, I mean, your 30 days to resilience, where you guide two experiences a day would be an example of maybe before you jump to the 12 minute or 10 minute full Wild at Heart daily prayer that you've written, which is the one I prayed this morning, which almost daily I walk in and find my wife, I hear your voice and she's, she's praying along with you. So it's very, so common. It's been such a gift. It changes, like I feel physically, my entire body feels different after praying this union prayer and this warfare prayer and this putting on armor. Like there's so many layers, but I just had a parallel example that I think ties in, it's a dad reading the same children's book over and over with his kids. It's unpractical. They've heard the story. They know where it's going. And I mean, I guess it doesn't, this metaphor doesn't quite work when it comes to the warfare and the protection side, but it does on the connection and relationship because the book Pippi Longstockings that I've read so many times to my four daughters. We know the pictures, we know the words, but sitting with them and reading, there's a connection. And I think there's some of that that I feel, the connection to my Heavenly Father, that is, it's unpractical. And that's part of the whole book, a lot of it's not tangible, it not practical, it's not, but kids, if you go into childlike wonder, kids don't want a four-part challenge that all start with the same letter to go do like this, all practical, do they?
John Eldredge: [00:24:46] Yes, that's right. They want story and connection and wonder and adventure, which is exactly what life with God is like, man. It's a full-tilt adventure, full-tilt story, right. If we get the heart back into it, get the right brain, you know, give the right-brain permission, because there are different ways of knowing. The right brain does not think in terms of critical reasoning. It thinks in terms of relationship. You just go, wow, that's like the Trinity. I mean, the Trinity is at core a community, it's relationship, it's family. And we're made in the image of that. So we're looking for connection all the time. Like, why did the guys get totally lost in their sports team? And I'm gonna confess, but my Liverpool is finally going to win the Premier League title after years of Manchester City, you know, reign of terror. It looks pretty good this year.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:25:53] It does? Good. You're my only connection to those stats with football internationally. It's our chats. So you bring it in. I love that.
John Eldredge: [00:25:59] Yeah, well, it's looking pretty good. Why is that? Why do dudes have their team, you know, or their band or their podcast, right? We're made for connection, we're made for community. And to come into that kind of connection. And here's what we're talking about, guys, I mean, I'm talking about being comfortable with the presence of God. You recognize it, you're like, oh, there You are. Being comfortable with union like we're, we're friends, we're intimate. We are we're literally I'm drawing my life from you. And I hear, I hear the voice of God. This is this is very, very normal in the life of the Saints. And you lead me with your counsel. You restore my soul, Psalm 23, that's not just poetry. David is reporting stuff that happens to him in his connection with God, right. He reports a lot of stuff. And like in Psalm 63, he's like, I've seen you. I've seen God, you're incredibly beautiful. And then he says stuff like, you satisfy me. Now I used to read that and go, I believe you, David. I don't really know that myself. I believe you, it sounds amazing. And so I'm going to read the Psalms because they're very inspiring, but the Psalms were not a personal encounter for me. Like they were, it wasn't like, Oh yeah, I could report that too. Well, I can now. Like there is a life available to us where all the stuff you read in scripture, you go, Oh, yeah, no, that's. You too, you get included in that too. So when Jeff and I are talking about like prayer and communion and the presence of God, we're saying, oh yeah, Psalm 23, you restore my soul. Oh yeah, he'll do that for you, if you'll come out of that hyper left brain internet way of even handling your spiritual life. Back in the boxes, getting it done.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:28:17] And there's a pace that we've already, that you've already brought up, the pace factor here. But there's also, when I think of the word pause, I think you and your team because of just the idea, the word, pause, I think, of Wild at Heart and the pause app and just pausing. But I had a date scheduled with my wife, Michelle, last night, and we paused because of a lot of things we were both feeling. And we prayed about what should that date look like, and it changed radically. And we worked out together instead, and we were kind of around helping homeschool our daughters, took a break to do that, and then we moved back into a little date mode, sitting by the fire. It was just very different than we had planned that date. And it could have been very disappointing, but because we paused and prayed, and we felt led.
John Eldredge: [00:29:04] There it is.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:29:04] Completely different.
John Eldredge: [00:29:07] And the thing is, like, that's not super mystical, and that's why I call it ordinary mystics. We're not talking wild fantasies and visions and yeah, crazy stuff. We're talking about you are a deeply spiritual being. Every dad is. You are made to live in a world that is saturated with spirituality, with the expectation that the angels will protect your kids today as you ask them to, right. Hebrews 1, are not all angels ministering servants sent to serve those who will inherit salvation? They're here to help, okay. Well, the ordinary mystic goes, angels of God, would you please guard the school bus today? You know, just like you're living in a much more what I wanna call storied world. You're living a much enchanted or re-enchanted world, which is, if you start reading the Bible, you're like, Oh, that was their world view. They lived in a highly enchanted world in the sense of expecting the miraculous, expecting the presence of God. And in the ordinary part is, yeah, help us with our date night. Help us with our family vacation plans.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:30:27] Yes. And it was so actually, I mean, I walked through nine options for our day. Like I actually vocalized to Michelle, these were nine options of what we can do. And then we prayed. And she actually thought multiple times I chose wrong. Cause I let her choose like, how is God leading you right now? What's He whispering to you? And even mid workout, she's like, I think I made the wrong choice. And I was like, let's press in. Let's just finish this work. So yeah, and it truly was the right, it was a gift. The connection was God multiplied the time of our conversation more than, yeah. So I'd love to jump to turning and the story of Mary and Jesus at the tomb and this idea that we can choose before we feel like it or even toward like there's often a turning that happens before we design like it's a powerful, powerful story. If you could set it up, that'd be amazing.
John Eldredge: [00:31:21] I love it. I love it. Let me give context for it because, because the beauty of this story needs to sit in the context of our moment. So guys, if you haven't noticed the war is for your attention. The war is for your attention and with the help of AI, they know you really well, man. And so I'm on online Bible programs trying to look up a word or something and then, you know, here's the kuyu hunting gear that I've been dreaming about. The war is for your attention and the war is for your affection. So the reason that people get nervous when they lose their cell phones, right, is that it makes us feel better that, oh, I can get anything I need at any time. Okay, I could look anything up, I can map something, I get the news, I got the weather, and I can also find where my kids are, right. Okay, so the war is for your attention and your affection. And then you have these beautiful stories. So Mary Magdalene, who I'm learning more and more about and coming to, wow, really appreciate her. She is actually called in the history of the church, the apostle to the apostles. Because she is the first one to encounter the risen Christ. And He tells her, go tell the others. Well, that's what an apostle is, you're sent a message. Okay, it's incredible. Well, you go, first off, Jesus, dude, You can't do this. You can't bring a single woman into your inner circle. And you can't have these meetings with her that, if the new sources get this, man, they're going to destroy your reputation, no Rabbi would do this. Okay, so you have that and then you have He's pretty close to Peter and John right. They get, you know, mount of transfiguration and these incredible moments but it's easter morning, who's at the tomb? It's Mary Magdalene, she's the first one there. And she's so wrecked with grief. You know, when you are in grief, anybody who's lost, you know, parent, a child, a miscarriage, like it's just devastating. And she is just utterly devastated. And she thinks he's the gardener. Like her eyes are just swollen from crying and she's, and then he just says her name. He just says, Mary. And she turns, and that, and she recognizes Him. And that turning of the heart, it is one of the most beautiful human moments. It's our attention and our affection that we turn in many ways before our intellect follows. Like, she's not going, wait a second you're supposed to be dead. And you know biologically how does this work? And you know she's there's none of the left brains going on here, okay. Her heart is engaged first, it's the turning of the heart, I turn my heart towards you. I turn my affection towards You and of course she ends up you know being the very first one to encounter the incredible news of Easter and all of it. The hope of the new creation, I mean, everything. That turning of the heart is this simple life of practicing the presence of God, right. It's not first an intellectual exercise, though we can be helped by our left brain. You can study the scriptures, you can memorize them. But it is first, it is an inward turning of the heart to Jesus, I need Your presence. I need Your help today. Jesus, come into this. Help me as I walk into this meeting. Help me with this phone call. I don't know what to do. That simple turning of the heart is the most beautiful thing in the world because it begins to restore the relationship.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:35:54] I don't recall who, but it was a neuroscientist that you referenced around story. And I think this is the quote, this is one of those when I was out walking and then pause and open my Evernote app and I'm typing fast with my audiobook. Here's the quote, when we listen to someone else's story, we quite literally become like them. So the positive, there's a shadow side to this and a positive, I think. The shadow side is if we're listening to all these news sources or all this negativity or all this like we actually like we're hearing these stories all day long. We become like, oh man, the burdens, we're not designed, we can't handle it. But the positive side, the way I pull from this is that, man, if I can sit around a campfire and hear another dad's story, even a small, we call it a seven-minute slice. Would you just for seven minutes tell us about some of the peaks and valleys? The treasure of those stories. We love, we love just, and of course, the deeper, give me, the give me the hour and a half version. I had an experience a couple weeks ago, got to hear some long, long form. I want to hear your story. How do you, like that quote and the idea of what neuroscience has discovered around story, how would that impact, I mean, the conversation we're having today, but just all dads, what would you add to that or subtract if you think differently than what I just shared?
John Eldredge: [00:37:18] Yeah, no, no. If you, if you begin to realize how much you're being shaped by the stories that you're listening to, you'll go, Oh, wow. One, I'm going to limit my news intake to like five minutes a day, and I'm just going to get in, find out what's going on and then get out, get out, because it's shaping you. And one of the ways I've noticed that it shaped me, if you listen to all these angry podcasts, so you listen the outrageous, just outrageous news, just stuff that just makes you so furious, you're gonna get really worked up and you're going to be a fairly upset and angry man. And there's a lot of reason to be. I'm not saying there isn't, it's just that, do you wanna be that guy? And do you want your kids to experience that guy? So you have to limit that, but here's the other cool part. So on the other side, you were talking about the positive. Ann Siegel is this other neuroscientist guy and he's got these online videos and listen to the lingua franca we have to use in order to convince your listeners that what we're saying is true. We have to justify everything by YouTube and videos and the latest research. Okay, so guys, guys listening to this, do you see how this is just baked into everyone's experience now? It's, it's just madness. But some of it's super helpful. And here's what he discovered, is you sit with another human being and look eye to eye and listen to one another, it literally heals the human brain. It is a healing experience to your physiology to listen with compassion and to be listened to with compassion. That's just basic human connection, right. You're at coffee or you're standing outside church on Sunday morning and it's just a, hey man, how are you? It doesn't take long to begin to get that connection going and now we're back into the mystic life. It's like that's amazing that God would wire both the body and soul to connection, right. Why is solitary confinement a punishment? Torture. And so back to the mystic life, well guess what fellas, you get to enjoy that with Jesus. Like full on, full-tilt, intimate, eye to eye, face to face connection.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:40:05] John, there's so many other directions I could to kind of steer to kind of gain more insights from the book. I'm praying that most of our DadAwesome community will go listen or read and take a deep dive. I've been praying they will. I'm grateful for you writing this book. Lingering is kind of where I want to land this conversation today. The encouragement that you have encouraged me and those who are to linger with God, before God. And then after explaining what it is, if you could just even pray, it doesn't have to be a rapid, maybe even a lingering prayer for a few moments over all of us, with us. That'd be an incredible way to kind of end this conversation.
John Eldredge: [00:40:53] Yeah, I'd love to. And I want to, I want to explain to your guys like I am in the same mess, fellas. So I had five minutes before Jeff and I got on to record this at a five minute. You know, I'm sitting in my desk and and you know what I wanted to do? I wanted to get on news, you know, like what's going on with Ukraine? What's taking place with the Mexico border? It's just unbelievable, man. I have five minutes, but instead there was a little gentle nudge that said, no, no, don't use it for that, use it for connection. Come back to your union and just use a simple moment. And so lingering feels a little clunky at first, okay. Because you've literally been programmed to constant distraction. You've just literally been programed for it. But all of the saints of age has passed. You read all the greats. You read John of the Cross, or Julian of Norwich, Jean Guion, you know, these Brother Lawrence. You read these great, great people, most of them were very ordinary people, by the way. They would say, learning to linger in the presence of God is wonderful. It's healing and it's actually essential. It's the way you're gonna connect and repair. So what we do with lingering is you're not trying to fix anything. This isn't fix it prayer. You know, I gotta pray for my son's test today. I gotta, I got to pray for my roof that's leaking, which is true at my house, my roof is leaking. Nope, I'm not gonna fix anything right now. What I need to do is just be still and try and tune in. We're using lingering to try and turn in. And then here's the big new idea, you're tuning into the presence of God within you. Okay, because for every man who's opened his heart to Jesus, Jesus now lives inside him. And so we're not lobbing prayers up to heaven. We're not trying to imagine God in our living room. He is literally right there inside of you, fellas. And so what we're gonna do is we're just gonna linger for a moment. And the first thing you run into is, oh, I gotta let everything go. If I'm going to be present for 30 seconds, I just give everyone and everything to you right now, God. I give to you my desire to turn the podcast off at this point because I need to get on with my day. No, I'll just release all that. And Holy Spirit, I ask Your help. Would You help me tune in to the simple presence of Jesus with me and within me? And now the turning of the heart. I just begin to turn my heart towards you, Jesus. And I say, I love You. I love. Just linger, turn your attention, and Jesus, I'm asking that You give to every man a sense of Your presence, a sense of Your love, that Holy Spirit, You would remove the veils that get over our hearts and keep us from enjoying the presence of God. Remove those veils now from every man. Teach me to linger, Lord. Teach me to enjoy our union and our communion with one another. Teach me.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:45:07] Thank you so much for joining us for this week's conversation, episode 375 with John Eldredge. All the conversation notes, the transcript, the key takeaways, the link to his book. By the way, listening to the audible version of Experience Jesus Really, both my wife and I have already been through the book, it is so helpful, so powerful. The pace and the pauses that he's created with music and just with the pause moments, I just so strongly recommend. Also, I mentioned in the podcast today, the Wild at Heart boot camp experience, I'll link that in the show notes. The opportunities all over the country, all over the world to be a part of that. And the pause app that they created, the 30 Days to Resilience. There's a lot of resources that I'm thrilled to just be sending our DadAwesome community over to Wild at Heart, so that's all going to be linked in the show notes at dadawesome.org/podcast and then just look for episode 375. Hey, I'm praying for you guys as you process through what you heard today, as you're taking the next step into whatever lies ahead of you in the dad life. God is very close and He has good plans in store for you. So I'm praying for you, believing that God is going to bring you encouragement, hope, and to clarify what your next step is from this conversation. Have a great week, guys.
-
· 10:35 - " Psalm 91, he who dwells in the shelter of the most high will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. And I think that idea of rest, let your anxiety come down, let the cortisol come down, let the fight or flightcome down a little bit. I think this is a brilliant gospel moment to be able to show people, you know what, you can actually be safe in the love of God, you can actually feel safe in His care and in His protection. If we can get people, back to your thing, if we can get the wonder back. If you can get the cynical adult pragmatism to just put the gun down for a minute and just go, you know what, you can actually take refuge in the presence of God. You will find it to be that lovely fort experience of, I feel good."
· 38:54 - "You sit with another human being and look eye to eye and listen to one another, it literally heals the human brain. It is a healing experience to your physiology to listen with compassion and to be listened to with compassion. That's just basic human connection."
Connect with DadAwesome
Learn about our Fathers for the Fatherless events in 2023:https://f4f.bike/
Follow@dadawesome on Instagram
Make a Donation to DadAwesome (tax-deductible)
Join the DadAwesome Prayer Team
Receive weekly encouragement by texting "dad" to 651-370-8618