this is important but here can become idolatrous because we make it an ultimate thing instead of just a tool yeah that’s what an idol is an idol is a good thing made an ultimate thing yeah and an idol is anything an idol is booze pornography or sermon prep you know and everything tyler that’s so it’s true though and like people who are not necessarily in ministry can’t fathom having good work or work of the kingdom become something that is actually toxic or harmful but it’s absolutely true it’s why you see burnout the way it is it starts virtuous and becomes toxic over time in our own heart yeah so i i just basically then yeah felt god saying to me so look this means too much to you you love the feeling of preaching good sermons even more than you love to rely on me and and to bear fruit that lasts and you love the affirmation of the father but you’ll settle for the praise of man and you know i i think that often wow to to really get in touch with our deep desires we have to first starve our lesser appetites it’s kind of like if i was to say to you like okay jonathan um listen man i’ve got this like grass-fed filet mignon that i can give you uh tomorrow but you have to fast until then
even a few people come with me afterwards and say oh that one point when you said this that was so great and me just feel like wow man what a fruitful day for the kingdom without actually giving people things something that will nourish them what will nourish people is if i become so empty that the spirit of god can flow through me like an empty vessel like i’m a pipe you know that’s just like heaven to earth and and god is flowing through it and so um so yeah one particular sunday just heard god say you’ve only got one page and don’t worry it’s actually not about the people i can feed the people it’s about you i can’t feed you what will satisfy you because you keep eating fast food so i’m asking you to starve that and and so there’s things like that
so i think that much of the american church to be completely honest like all of us have expressed beliefs and core beliefs right so so the expressed belief of the american church would be jesus is the head of the church and he builds his church the core belief of the american church would be um we need novel ideas new strategies and really innovative tools and that builds the church great teachers build the church great leaders build the church great ideas build the church and um and so i think to begin to discover minister by the power of the holy spirit was just essentially to make my express belief my core belief that the greatest thing i can do is become emptied out so that god can pour through me and that to incarnate a kind of life that is truly life becomes a more powerful tool for him than to spend all of my time coming up with new ideas and strategies that kind of thing
only people that make movies about that middle stage of marriage or people making like dark brooding indie films that don’t resolve you know um because but but the truth is that the middle years are when love is fought for and when it’s won and lost right everyone can experience that young fire and passion um but not everyone gets to experience love that’s fully grown in the end um those who fight for love in the years when they are raising kids and having a career and falling apart and making mistakes and all that stuff that’s that’s where love is won and lost and so most people know the early stage of relationship to jesus but they don’t know the pathway to deep rich communion with him they only know most people’s best stories came in their spiritual infancy when god met them and they were alive and so right and then and then they got knee deep in the water and it’s like an infinity pool that you can like frolick in down the deep end yeah but they got knee deep in the water and they just assume like i guess this is it yeah um and so i think that something like a daily prayer of them is a way to say like here’s a way to choose fidelity and not to choose it in a moment when you’re inspired by a sermon but to keep choosing it every day i’m going to keep going just to keep choosing it day in and day out as you keep um seeking jesus and and so that’s
he talks about a a wedding charge that dietrich bonhoeffer was famous for giving where he would say right now it’s your wedding day you’re young and in love and you think your love can sustain your marriage it can’t your marriage has to sustain your love yeah so take the commitments that you’re making today and live them day in and day out and that will keep your love alive not the other way around that’s great and so that’s that’s kind of what we’re talking about and even you know i think so many people have trouble accessing uh some of the ancient disciplines like you’re talking about silence because they think it’s supposed to produce something right if i’m silent with god then i guess he’s supposed to speak to me prophetically or i’m supposed to like have a revelation but the truth is is it’s sometimes that happens but most of the time it’s about friendship like you’re talking about it’s like the people that you know really well you can be silent with like you can go on a you can take a drive great and you don’t need to talk but you can talk at any point something comes up but then you can go 20-minute stretches with no one saying a word and no one feels awkward
i am expressive in the core of my being when it comes to worshiping god so i would just say i’m for all of it that’s great and i think that anyone that feels like um there’s a sophistication bias and the contemplative tradition or there’s privilege wrought within it or something i would just say i think that’s a fair critique and i think that critique comes unfortunately from the fact that we have made complicated things that aren’t complicated like it’s just like we were talking about before people you know we talk about being at ease in the presence of god and we call it contemplation and so it sounds really complicated
e i’d love to read the bible and i love to read other people’s writing on the bible so it’s easy for me to meet jesus that way that feels like a clear pathway but it also keeps me in the shallow end of the pool if that’s the only way i know how to meet jesus i’m minimizing him and i’m minimizing my experience of him and what i’ve discovered and what i hear you saying when you describe your personality type and everything is that it’s often the the spiritual practices that make you most uncomfortable at first that you treasure most in the end but it doesn’t happen quickly right like i one of my primary spiritual pathways today is fasting fasting has been a huge part of my life in the last five years and in the 28 years prior to that it was almost never a part of my life and i didn’t fast one time and think this is freaking awesome i gotta do this all the time you know it was more like yeah i tried to respond to god’s invitations and and learn to pray with my body learn to let my body my stomach growl and and know that that is a cry to god on behalf of the hungry um and somewhere over time that became one of the most treasured ways that i meet with with god and in a key practice in my life so i guess i would just say if you know your spiritual pathways that’s beautiful keep connecting with god that way and don’t assume that those are the only ways god meets you that’s great because god wants to meet you a thousand different ways and if you follow him over the course of your life then you’ll go through phases and they’re all gonna be good you’re gonna go through phases of high praise and phases of deep spiritual friendship and phases of scripture reading and discovering phases of contemplative prayer and phase is a fiery intercession and they’re all good they’re just like onion at like layer after layer of the onion of discovering who he is so i i guess i would just say i’m down with all of it
