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This is Undaunted Life of Man's podcast. I'm your host Kyle Thompson. Let's get into it.
0:53
I got today. If you've got a return guess on the podcast, he is the one and only
0:57
John Eldridge. This is his fourth appearance on the show, which makes him the number one
1:01
most appeared person on this podcast ever. This guy is incredible. If you don't know who he is,
1:05
he is a Christian author, counselor and lecturer. He's a New York Times bestselling author
1:09
of a large number of books, workbooks and group studies. And he wrote the seminal work in men's
1:14
ministry history, which is wild at heart, which came out, I guess 20 something years ago now. But
1:18
he's also the author of a brand new book, which is out this week. If you're listening this on time,
1:21
it's called resilient, restoring your weary soul in these turbulent times. He also has books that
1:26
you guys probably heard of, like beautiful outlaw, waking the dead, fathered by God and a bunch of
1:30
other things. And again, like I told you, he's been on this podcast a bunch. He was on episodes
1:33
141, 193 and 272. And now on this one. But with this interview, it started with something kind
1:40
of rough. So we talked about the mass shooting in Evaldi, Texas, which again, as of the recording
1:44
of this podcast was only a couple of days ago. But by the time you hear this, it will have happened,
1:48
you know, weeks and weeks ago. And so the, you know, the new cycle will have turned over by then.
1:52
But it has a lot of, I needed some wisdom from John in those moments to kind of talk through that,
1:58
because we're getting a lot of political posturing right now from both sides of the aisle. But we're
2:02
not getting a whole lot of wisdom. We're not getting a whole lot of sober, sober minded
2:05
wisdom. And so I wanted to make sure we got that from John. But when we dig into the book, again,
2:08
you guys know this by now, we've talked about resilience so much on this podcast. We don't
2:12
talk about strength. We talk about resilience. Why is resilience so important? But it's the
2:16
time we're living in now coming off two years of the government basically telling us how much of
2:21
life that we could enjoy and do because of the C word, right? And you got to get the V word if you
2:26
want to, you know, live a good life and all those different things. And I understand that. But this,
2:30
this book is so important for the time we're living in now, because a lot of us have no idea
2:33
how to navigate what's currently happening. And we also have no idea about the storm that's coming.
2:40
We have no idea about what is going to happen to us as a people that we haven't even seen. Yeah,
2:46
you know, we talk about supply chains and it's like, oh, you can't just turn the spigot back on,
2:50
you know, there's going to be kind of this delayed issue with supply chains. The same thing happens
2:55
with the personality and the philosophies of a people group. And there are so many things
3:00
that we're going to have to be dealing with with our children, with ourselves, with the least of
3:06
these in our society, but also to the people that are running society that we can't even fathom
3:10
right now. But there is an aftershock coming. And so John's going to help us traverse that. So
3:15
guys, I'm not going to keep him from you any longer. So without further ado, let's get into it.
3:20
John Eldridge welcome back to undaunted life of man's podcast. Yeah, man. Good to see you, Kyle.
3:25
So the cool thing about this appearance, because I know you keep track of these types of things.
3:30
There are a few people that have been on my show three times. So there's Mike Rittland,
3:34
retired Navy SEAL and dog trainer. There's Holly McKay, war correspondent. And then there's John
3:39
Eldridge. But today, John marks your fourth appearance on undaunted life of man's podcast.
3:45
You have shot ahead of the pack. So let me be the first one to congratulate you, sir. You're
3:49
a big deal. Well, I'm giving you a case discount. I know like we haven't got to the full case of 12
3:56
yet. We're slowly working our way there. But we will get there eventually. Now I had to kind of
4:02
start on on somewhat of a positive note, because the very first thing I want to talk to you about
4:06
is it's horrific. And as I was preparing for this interview, I couldn't get this out of my head
4:14
in the preparation. And I think you know exactly what I'm going to say. So as of the recording of
4:18
this interview, two days ago, we saw one of the worst displays of evil that we've seen ever in
4:24
this country. And that was the mass murder that took place at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas.
4:29
So by the time this episode comes out, John, the new cycle will have turned over multiple times.
4:35
There's going to be 100 other things that people will be outraged about by then. But as of the
4:39
recording of this interview, a lone 18 year old gunman who showed a lot of signs of mental issues,
4:45
no father at home, like all these typical things, he went into an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas.
4:50
This was after he shot and tried to kill his grandmother. He ran through the gate, went in,
4:54
barricaded himself in a classroom, systematically murdered 19 elementary age students and two teachers
5:00
before he himself was killed by a good guy with a gun and off duty, I believe border patrol agent
5:06
at the time. And so some of it has to do with what we're going to be talking about today,
5:10
the book that we're going to be talking about, which I'm excited to talk about. But I can't,
5:13
I can't shake this, John. And I don't know that I should try to. But as we were talking about
5:18
off air, I have two sons now, I have, I have a two year old and a two month old. And my wife
5:22
is sitting there, you know, with all the stress we have going on our lives right now, she's like,
5:26
but at least our kids aren't murdered. And it's just like, I don't know how to deal with this,
5:30
like I'm just trying to keep my emotions in check, even asking you about it. So part of me just needs
5:34
John Eldridge, the counselor to counsel me in this moment. And also to the loads of people that
5:40
are listening to this episode, how do we, how do we deal with something like this? How do we
5:45
reckon with this kind of evil? Take a baseball bat to a trash can.
5:50
Yeah, I like, I like I'm literally actually mean that that's what I do. You have to have an outlet
5:59
for the rage on the evil. And we can't go deal with it directly right now. So you can't keep that
6:07
pent up in your, it's literally in your body. Now like you feel the tension in your body.
6:13
So yesterday I didn't have my, I literally have a baseball bat in the garage next to my trash can,
6:19
we have those big recycling plastic things. I beat that thing up so many times, because you've
6:25
got to have an outlet for it. And then you have to grieve, you have to grieve that you will store
6:34
trauma inside of you if you do not grieve it. And so there has to be you pause in your day.
6:41
And you just grieve it. You just say, God, this is so horrible. I grieve this. That's all it takes.
6:53
This is so horrible. I grieve this. I would do those two things.
6:58
I think for a lot of guys, you know, I talk about Jiu Jitsu a lot on this podcast. I talk about
7:03
powerlifting, rucking, all these different things that has to be your outlet, especially if you're
7:07
wired like me, like way too much emotion, way too much anger, very few ways of getting it out in a
7:12
positive way. But when you pick something very heavy up off the ground and then you slam it back
7:16
down and then you do it repeatedly, you have a heavy bag in your garage or a baseball bat in a
7:20
trash can, I think that's something that that it works towards. But there's a through point in
7:26
this story. And as by the time again, that this comes out, we'll know way, way, way more about
7:30
that. The killer will know way more about the the students, that area, you know, his background
7:34
and all that. But almost every single young man, because it's almost always a young man,
7:40
that does this type of evil. There is no father. There is no Christ centered environment anywhere
7:48
around this person. This person is, you know, castigated out of society. Maybe they're a little
7:54
weird. Maybe they maybe they do things a little differently. They go by the beat of their own
7:57
drummer. And then when you couple that with the influence of the evil one, which we'll get into a
8:03
lot more here with with the book, you get this unbelievable combination, this which is brew of
8:10
evil that comes out in this rageful way. And right now everyone's, you know, that's pretending
8:15
like they actually care about kids. They're wanting to talk about taking away gun rights
8:19
and taking away all these things. But no one's talking about mental illness, seemingly no one's
8:22
talking about the fatherlessness epidemic. These are things that you've been talking about literally
8:26
for decades. Don't you see that in some of these issues that come up?
8:30
Yeah. Yeah. Full tell. You just go to any prison in the world. The majority of men there are
8:36
fatherless. I mean, the data is overwhelming. But let me, let me get, so guys are going,
8:41
what do we do? What do we do? Let me tell you a very cool story. So I went to a memorial service
8:46
of a friend last week who finally succumbed to cancer. But he was, he lived a full, full,
8:54
amazing life. And there were stories told at this service I had never heard. So get this.
9:00
12 year old boy loses his dad. This guy, this, my friend doesn't even know the family.
9:09
He calls the mother up and says, I'd like to be a friend to your son. Can I take him on some
9:17
hiking trips that we're doing? So he reached out to prevent fatherlessness.
9:24
So this boy, right entering the teenage years, 12 years old, loses his dad in a hiking accident.
9:31
And my friend reaches out to the mom and they were in young life. So there was, you know,
9:37
it's not to do like a background check, but like reaches out and says, look, your son's going to
9:42
need some male influence in his life. I just like to be his friend. I never knew that story.
9:48
That is an awesome story. Like we can do that, guys. We can do that. We can be part of the answer
9:57
by providing fathering, not just to our, our biological kids or our adopted or foster kids,
10:03
but, but check out that teenage boy in your neighborhood who doesn't look like he's doing well.
10:10
And like, take him to the lake, man. Take, take him out for ATVs. Like just, you know, say, hey,
10:18
you want to go off-roading this weekend. You want to go do something together? Like,
10:22
just bring him into the fold. Something. Right. And I mean, I talk about this way, like,
10:27
this is how I'm going to talk about with my boys is like, if everybody else is bullying the kid,
10:32
even if you're the funny one in the group, even if you're the one that can give the best singers,
10:36
you're going to be the kid that stands up for that kid. Even if you don't like him, even if you think
10:39
his clothes are weird, even if he smells funny, you're going to be the kid that befriends that kid,
10:44
because that could be the relationship that changes an entire multitude of lives. I've
10:50
even got a buddy named Aldo that he's, he doesn't have a, a wide background in baseball, but he's,
10:56
he's a little league coach right now. And, you know, the team's not doing great. I mean,
11:00
we're in an area where there's a lot of really good baseball coaches and good young baseball
11:03
players, but he's not overwhelmingly obsessed with, you know, balls and strikes and stolen bases and
11:10
batting average. He's very obsessed with these kids coming together and playing together and
11:16
learning how to play with one another. And he's doing that with like six, seven, eight-year-olds.
11:20
And this is a guy who's retired military. And so he's like, he knows the lessons that are going
11:24
to project these people into, you know, most of these kids aren't going to be major leakers,
11:28
right? But all of them, hopefully, are going to be adults someday. They're going to be
11:32
workers. They're going to be dads. They're, they're going to be husbands. And it's, it's having that
11:35
type of focus. And so again, there's no great way to transition out of that. But we do need to
11:41
transition into what we're going to be talking about today, which is your new book, which I think
11:45
addresses a lot of the things that we're going to be talking about, especially in this moment
11:48
that we're living in in 2022. And it's a book called Resilient Restoring Your Weary Soul in
11:53
These Turbulent Times. Thank you so much for sending this to me. I'm so glad that I got to check this
11:57
out. It's one of the books you're doing with Thomas Nelson. So for you specifically, why write
12:03
this book? And why write it now? Because if you listen to your third appearance on our show,
12:09
you could tell that this book was coming, even though you didn't make the announcement, right? But
12:14
why now? Yeah, because the world is in global denial. That's why human race has a phenomenal
12:23
capacity for denial. It's just amazing. So we just came through two years of global trauma,
12:30
the pandemic, the politics, the crazy, the working at home, the kids at home, all that madness. Okay,
12:36
that depleted our reserves. Everybody's reserves are pretty shot right now. And you see it on the
12:45
highway, you see it on social media, like people are not doing well. Okay, you got to have some point
12:51
in your life, gang, where you replenish those reserves. You can't just keep running on fumes.
12:56
And I noticed this in a lot of ways in my life. I used to have a little bit of margin for irritating
13:03
people. I got nothing. I got nothing now, right? Yeah. And like, I'll pick up my phone to text
13:11
someone. And I won't even remember who is going to text the mental fragmentation. And then as soon as
13:17
that, as soon as that story, you know, of Texas hits the news, I departed me just went, I don't want
13:23
to hear that. Now, of course, you know, Stacy and I have been praying, but we have really rung
13:31
ourselves out. And it's not just the pandemic and all that stuff, like the crazy of what we
13:36
consider to be a normal world. You talk about this in your podcast all the time. The world is blowing
13:42
up. That's a very draining place to live in. And if you're going to live in it well, you have to
13:49
develop resilience. You can't you can't develop resilience in denial, right? You got it. You got
13:58
to replenish your reserves, gay. Hey, fidelity. What's it cost to invest with the fidelity app?
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services LLC member NYSC SIPC. Yeah, I mean, that's a quote right from the intro of your book. But
14:33
right now we're in a sort of global denial about the actual cost of these hard years. It's whistling
14:39
past the graveyard. That's what we're doing right now. Like, this isn't a big deal. The lockdowns
14:43
were necessary, keeping your kids masked up like all this was necessary because of public health or
14:48
something. But I do find it interesting because obviously from the very beginning of this ministry,
14:53
but from the very beginning of undaunted life in 2017, believe it or not, we've been talking about
14:58
resilience and not strength. And so I know why I talk about resilience and not strength. But why
15:04
are you talking about because you could have just named this book strength, right? And people would
15:08
have gotten it. You would have been able to put an entire boat together around strength. Why is
15:12
resilience so much more appropriate in this moment? Well, because strength will last for a day,
15:19
but resilience rebounds. Right. That's why it resilience is an internal state of being,
15:29
whereby you are not thrown by the next thing. Because king, it's the next thing and the next
15:38
thing and the next thing. And like you said, the news cycle is just going to go on. Here's,
15:42
you want some crazy, no one even cares what's going on in Ukraine anymore. No, it's old news.
15:49
Right. And Afghanistan is super duper old news. Yeah, which is even more tragic. Yeah. Right. So
15:55
the thing is like, you know, it's going to be the next thing tomorrow, folks, and then it's going
16:00
to be the next thing after that. And that's going to be something in your kid's school or your family's
16:05
life. It's going to be the cancer. And if you intentionally develop resilience, you won't be thrown.
16:14
If you don't, you're running on fumes, man. I think I jotted it down here,
16:22
draining like the draining of something. So the way I talk about it is to look at the world's
16:27
strongest man every year. So or the Arnold classic or the Europe strongest man, those
16:32
are kind of the top three strongman competitions. The day after those, like I think Martine's
16:36
lead sees is trying to win all three of those this year, a former world strongest man, one of the
16:40
greatest strongman ever. The day after that competition, he's not the strongest man in the
16:45
world anymore. Because his body is drained. His body is broken down. But he's a resilient athlete.
16:51
If you give him two weeks of recovery and stretching out in water, guess what? He's going to come
16:56
back and be the strongest man in the world again. Okay, that's the word recovery.
17:01
Yep. So you read any athletic training stuff, guys, you read like read the top athletic trainers,
17:08
and they will tell you that the key to athletic performance is recovery. It's not the training.
17:16
It's the recovery. The recovery period is more important than the training,
17:22
because otherwise you're just tearing your body down, right? If you let your body recover,
17:28
you build resilience. Okay. No, people don't have recovery built into their lifestyle,
17:34
right? They just, they're just stuck on goal.
17:37
Well, I was going to say it's, it used to be diet and exercise. And now smart people are
17:44
diet, exercise, recovery. They're like, guys, like you're doing all the extra sets in the gym,
17:50
and that's great. I need you to get an extra hour of sleep, because that is, that's like HGH.
17:55
That's like natural human growth hormone. That's like a natural testosterone boost.
17:59
You're trying to get it from bottles and from pills and from the secret powder you bought from
18:03
Russia. It's like no brother. Like what you need is you need to sleep. You need to turn everything
18:07
off. But I mean, you talk about that so much in the book, John, we can't do those things.
18:12
But also our resilience can, I think you use the word evaporate that our resilience can evaporate
18:18
in a moment. Why are we so susceptible to even the buildup of our resilience to be able to just
18:24
disappear almost immediately? Well, it's like a compromised immune system. If you keep taking
18:30
your body through stress, you're going to compromise your immune system to the point that you're not
18:36
going to recover well. And that's what we've got in modern life. What people think,
18:42
what people think is a normal life. You get up, you check the news, you have a cup of coffee,
18:48
you blast to work, you listen to the talk radio. It's go, go, go, go. And then you just pass out
18:55
in bed at night. It's like falling off a cliff. I get to the end of my day and I fall off a cliff
19:01
and I wake up the next morning. That is madness. You cannot live like that. And so I just want to
19:09
sound the alarm call and just look, can we be honest people? You can't live like that and develop
19:15
resilience. John, it seems like the last several books that you've offered to the world have been
19:22
in that vein. Yeah. Whether you're talking about, you know, just basically how to get that breathing
19:27
room or how to kind of do do life with other men or how to be resilient. It's because of that.
19:33
But I think it couldn't be coming at a more appropriate time. So I want to read this quote to you and
19:37
kind of get to my question. Here's a quote from early in the book. The first stage of the coming
19:41
storm is this, we've all run out to find life and joy following years of stress, trauma and
19:46
deprivation, but it isn't working. It won't work. We return to our normal Monday through Friday
19:52
disappointed. Disappointment will become disillusionment, which makes us extremely vulnerable to our
19:58
enemy. So in our last time that we chatted, John, you mentioned this, right? And I think some people
20:03
were like, ah, no, you know, I'm just kind of doing me, man, but you mentioned people going out and
20:07
buying sports cars. I can't keep sports cars, you know, in stock, you know, people going out and
20:11
doing these vacations and every Airbnb is full and every, you know, trailhead is full of people
20:16
and people are doing this. Oh, Joe Rogan talked about hunting again. So I'm gonna go get my compound
20:20
bow and get my hunt on. And then we get these people that after all that excitement, after all that,
20:26
you know, tangible stuff that's getting them excited and getting them half erect and all that,
20:30
they're the same person. They come back and when all the lights are out and it's just them and
20:35
their brain, they're more disillusion than they've ever been. And then Satan's like perfect. The timing
20:42
is perfect. Yeah. Yeah. And then you get everybody tapping out. You get guys tapping out of their
20:48
marriages, guys tapping out a church, just tapping out, right? They're just like, I'm done. I got
20:54
nothing for you, man. Yeah. Big time. So New York Times ran an article on this. But I personally
21:02
just anecdotally, I know a lot of therapists. I do not know anyone in the mental health profession
21:09
that has an opening. Right. Well, folks, like that may not be you, that may not be where you are,
21:16
but that tells you where the world is. You go, this is a draining place to live. So what's your plan?
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21:56
They don't have a plan. And I have people that are in that space and they'll do me a favor.
22:02
If I need them to come over and talk me off the ledge or something like that, I know that.
22:06
But they're adding to their day. They're going to lose an hour with family or lose an hour of
22:10
sleep or something like that to do a solid for me. But if I was just a Joe client, like there's no
22:15
way they would really get into that. I think it has a lot to do, John, with how we're constructing
22:21
our days. And we're not allowing ourselves the mental breathing room to be able to cultivate
22:27
things like mental resilience, which I've been talking about for years, which I'm so glad that
22:30
you even in your book use the phrase cultivating mental resilience. So I want to read this quote to
22:35
you because I think it speaks right to it. If you spend 30 minutes a day consuming what is called
22:40
the news, this includes all social media, then you need to spend more than 30 minutes, maybe twice as
22:46
much in the scriptures or listening to biblical podcasts. Instead of using your downtime scrolling
22:51
through Facebook or Instagram, use it to read something that reminds you of the story of God,
22:56
a Psalm, a good sermon, even a simple quote. I think this is convicting for a lot of people in our
23:01
audience, certainly convicting for me because to do what I do to put out the podcast that I do and
23:07
the writing that I do, I have to consume or at least I think I have to consume so much stuff because
23:13
my audience is dependent on it. Every time I get a positive review or a positive email from
23:17
someone, they're like, thank you so much for spending the time digging into this because I don't have
23:21
that time. Thank you for helping me through that. But I got to tell you, turning my brain off at
23:25
the end of the day, John, it's almost impossible. And so I'm soaking myself in the social media news
23:31
feed or in the 24 hour news cycle and not as much in the Psalms or in a good sermon or something like
23:36
that. And it does take its toll and it's a hard thing to get past. Yeah, it is. It is. So turn
23:43
to nature and turn to music. Like music, there's fascinating studies on what music does for the
23:51
brain, beautiful music, not heavy metal, but something that's like you like. Find your style you like,
23:57
but when you listen to it, it calms you down, guys. Seriously, like played in your car,
24:04
played in your headphones when you're on the treadmill, like you turn to some things that bring
24:10
down the cortisol, that calm your brain down. Okay, nature is phenomenal for this. If you know,
24:18
if you run, take it outside, right? If you bike, get off the peloton and take it outside, get out in
24:26
the real world and let it have a healing effect on you. States and I just got back from Ireland,
24:32
we did a conference over there, but what was amazing to me was the effect of the beauty.
24:39
I didn't know I was starved. I didn't know that I was literally starving and then we get dropped
24:45
into this, you know, it's the Emerald Isle, right? It's like everywhere you go. It's just
24:49
green, green, green, it is gorgeous and everything's blooming and I was just nourished and I wasn't
24:58
even like hiking. We were just driving through the countryside and it was doing its thing. It was
25:03
nourishing my soul. So you, yeah, you got to have a plan, guys, you got to have a plan.
25:11
Yeah, because most guys are just kind of amoebying their way through daily life and they're just
25:15
doing what they can to get past the next hour. And by the way, guys, if you've never been to Ireland,
25:19
you don't understand what the word green means. You just don't get it. Everything there is super
25:23
duper green. And that's, you know, having been there, it was such an amazing thing. I can't wait to go
25:27
back. But and this, this might kind of have something to do with what we started off the show with.
25:33
But there's a tremendous amount. There's a lacking of resilience all over society. But I think it's
25:39
incredibly pervasive, especially with our young people. So I thought this was a very
25:42
appropriate chunk. So indulge me as I read through this a little bit as well from your book.
25:46
The director of a program designed to prepare freshmen for the college years told me recently,
25:51
18 is the new 12. 18 is the new 12. Our students are emotionally underdeveloped. They're much
25:59
less resilient than any we've ever encountered. And I'm not entirely sure why. And then you you'd
26:03
go into there are many reasons, of course, human beings are beautifully complicated. But honestly,
26:08
when you grow up in a world where everything is done with a few clicks on your phone, it doesn't
26:12
exactly develop resilience. Anyone living in the developed world has experienced a level of ease
26:16
unimaginable to previous generations. This is the overnight delivery age. Let me be quick to say,
26:21
I have fully enjoyed all the conveniences of our modern moment. But I'm also aware that they've
26:26
made me soft. The web we have caught that we have been caught in was years in the making,
26:31
a brilliant interlacing of the comfort culture and the babble of technology at our fingertips.
26:36
By way of contrast, the World War II generation emerged from the Great Depression with a sense of
26:41
reality, grit and resilience. Maybe my second favorite world word in the English language
26:46
after resilience is grit. And there's none of it. But when as soon as I heard that quote,
26:51
18 is the new 12, reading through Jonathan Heights, the coddling of the American mind and talking to
26:58
teachers and professors, that makes perfect sense. These kids are emotionally 12 years old. And
27:04
that makes me scared for the next generation of our country, not just, you know, what we're
27:10
talking about in terms of a book, John. No kidding. No kidding, man. Yeah. I'm going actually to the
27:19
guys listening to this right now because you have to start with you. And you go, guys, do you cut
27:27
your own grass? Like, is your whole world automated? Is everything just a click away? You actually
27:36
need to change that. So when we're done, when we're done with this podcast, we had a big storm here
27:43
over the weekend and I got a ton of branches down in my yard. Now I could hire the local, you know,
27:49
kid that comes through and does yard work. But I'm going to go do it myself. Why? Because
27:56
everything easy is not good. It's not good. I got to go out there and [inaudible] a little bit and
28:06
sweat and clean up my yard. Right. Yeah. Right. So again, you know, it's like, what's your plan?
28:12
Your plan is to get some of the comfort out of your life. I know that sounds crazy. But honestly,
28:18
you just can't have everything cushy, everything nice. Right. So what, you know, again, if you don't
28:26
work out, work out, if you work out inside, take it outside. If you don't cut your own grass, cut
28:30
your grass, man. Like if you don't change your oil, change your oil, like just do things that are
28:35
inconvenient. Because it will, it will build that. I absolutely agree with you. And we live in this
28:43
moment where we don't have to shoot an animal for our food. We don't have to do that. We can go to,
28:51
you know, you know, something covered in cellophane or plastic or something like that and somebody
28:55
else killed the animal and we didn't have to deal with any of the ickiness. But there's something,
29:00
though, there's a great book called the comfort crisis where Michael Easter was talking about
29:05
this concept of a misogie. And so it's like, you go through this event where there's a 50/50 chance
29:11
of you being able to complete it. And so back in the day, that was called life. There's a 50/50
29:16
chance me and my buddies, some of which are my family are going to be able to take down that
29:20
mammoth and feed our tribe for the week, right? But now it's something that we have to train for
29:25
and we get to put on the calendar and then we get what we get to talk about on Instagram and we get
29:30
to do a Facebook Live and invite everybody into this really hard thing that we're going to do.
29:34
But that doesn't mean we shouldn't do it. Just because we have to plan, just because we have to
29:39
train for it doesn't mean we shouldn't do it because you will always go back into your brain
29:42
into those times where there was this devastation that you brought on yourself that you made it through.
29:48
Because it sets you up for times like what you went through in the summer of 2021.
29:54
There were some devastations for you emotionally that you apparently did not bring upon yourself
30:01
just by virtue of the life you led and the people you were around, things didn't work out the way
30:05
you would have planned for. And so that was a very vulnerable and transparent part of the book,
30:10
John, that you were right in the thick of all the changing world and the COVID culture we were
30:15
living in. You were going through it. You were going through the wringer. You didn't give a
30:18
lot of details. You don't have to give details here. But kind of take us through that because
30:22
you became disillusioned. You felt betrayed. You felt abandoned. And you were in this very,
30:26
very vulnerable state where Satan could have been like, again, the timing is perfect,
30:31
John's all mine, but you didn't let it happen that way. So take us through that.
30:34
Yeah. Okay. So leading researcher on burnout says the burnout takes place primarily through a
30:41
thousand disappointments. If you do not deal with your disappointments, they catch up to you and
30:47
they bite you in the butt. And I just, I just hit overload. It was just one too many heartaches,
30:54
one too many people failing me. And I was ready to tap out. I don't mean take my own life. But I
31:00
mean from faith, I mean, maybe from my marriage, I just am like, I'm done. And I'm so sick of this
31:08
stuff. And here's the thing, guys, like you live in a world at war. You have an enemy. He hates your
31:15
guts. And he puts certain things in the air in different cultures and at different times. If
31:22
you've ever been into Buenos Aires, holy cow man, there is no more sexual city than I've ever been
31:27
in. It's just you walk into that city and it's sexual, it's seduction. You go into Johannesburg,
31:34
it's violence. Johannesburg is a scary place, man, especially after dark. Okay. So, so he puts
31:42
things into the air. And what he's got in the air right now is despair, discouragement,
31:50
hopelessness, that kind of stuff, right? I came under it. I took a full hit of that stuff. And
31:56
and it wasn't, what did I do? I texted my friends. I said, Mayday, I need prayer. I am not in a good
32:06
place. And then I know, I know, because we taught on this a bunch, the category of agreements,
32:13
you've got to be really careful with the agreements that you make in those moments. Like, I'll never
32:18
get out of this. She doesn't love me. You know, the world will never change. Those are agreements.
32:24
And if you make them, you just start spiraling down. So I had to stop in that moment. I'm literally
32:31
sitting, the moment we're describing, I'm sitting in my truck in the parking lot of the local park,
32:37
because that's where I pulled over in the moment of despair. And like, okay, okay, okay, hang on,
32:44
I'm going to text my friends. And I'm going to break these agreements, break the agreement
32:50
that my life sucks. I break the agreement that these people are not, you know, and then on and
32:55
on, it goes, right? So what are the agreements you are making that are just adding to your nose dive?
33:00
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turn sick edition supply. You've talked a lot about agreements,
33:35
really, everyone in your organization has spent a lot of time on that. And it brings up the
33:39
necessity of having what we call a foxhole. And that's men in your life that are constantly pushing
33:44
you daily to cultivate spiritual, mental and physical resilience. And it's the difference
33:49
between a six AM friend and a three or a six PM friend and a three AM friend. A lot of guys
33:54
today have six PM friends that you can call them and they'll help you move refrigerator or help you
33:58
with a tax question or something like that. But after six PM, they're not really available to you.
34:02
But then the three AM guy, that's the guy that not only when you call him at three AM does he answer,
34:06
but you can hear him getting his pants on, putting his gun into the appendix position. And he's
34:10
grabbing a shovel because he's assuming we're burying a body where we're dealing with some crap
34:14
because it's three AM and my buddy's calling me. You got to have those guys in your life. And guys,
34:17
we've talked about that a lot on previous podcasts. We won't go into that here.
34:21
I think the most, I guess, frightening thing that came up for me in reading this book, John,
34:27
is the reality and the truth that we haven't seen anything yet. And so you had this quote in
34:33
there from Laura Van Der Neut Lipsky, who's the founder and director of trauma stewardship
34:37
Institute. Here's her quote. Or here's the quote that you attributed. Lipsky has spent
34:42
decades helping people navigate the consequences of natural disasters, mass shootings, and other
34:47
crises, wrote Pulitzer Prize winner Ed Young. As hard as the initial trauma is, she said,
34:53
it's the aftermath that destroys people, right? So it's like, it's like you have the earthquake,
34:58
then you have the aftershock, right? And so there is a coming storm that I think we should all be
35:04
concerned about. But John, what's actually coming? Because you know, you kind of danced around it
35:10
with that quote, but like, what's coming? What do we need to bat down the hatchets and prepare for?
35:16
Well, so a couple things are coming. I think we haven't paid the psychological bill
35:22
for the last two years. So I think you're going to see a lot of burnout, despair,
35:29
the tapping out that we talked about just on just on a just on a neighborhood level,
35:35
just people not doing great. Okay, and then people not doing great leads people to do really dumb
35:42
stuff. They start drinking too much, they have an affair, you know, they go blow their money in Vegas.
35:48
So some of that, some of that. But here's the thing, I think what's also coming. I think more
35:58
shaking is in the cards for us. The pandemic was a shaking. I think more is coming. And that's why
36:05
resilience is so important. You build resilience now because you don't know what next week is going
36:12
to be like. Is it the economy next time around? You know, now they're talking about this monkey,
36:19
flu virus thing, whatever, you know, yeah, I think the thing, I guess the thing I'm most concerned
36:30
about, Kyle is it Paul in 2 Thessalonians says before the great day when the Lord returns, he says
36:39
before all that, there's going to be a massive turning away from faith. People of faith are going
36:48
to bail. And I'm getting these texts and emails every week, mature people saying, yeah, I don't know,
36:58
got that, you know, God's just not, he's not close right now. I don't know. I'm not that interested.
37:04
It's really heartbreaking. Some of these people are friends of mine. And so I think that's part of
37:10
what's coming. Why did you use the word shaking? Well, why did I use the word shaking? I'll be honest
37:19
with you because when I was praying about the pandemic, that's what God called it. He said it
37:25
was a shaking because what the pandemic revealed was our divided allegiances. And everybody, come on,
37:34
you got exposed where you go for comfort and where you go for security. Yeah, everybody like,
37:40
where did you go? You were masturbating more. You were binging on alcohol. You were totally
37:47
checked out on Netflix. Where'd you go? Right? Where'd you go for comfort? Where'd you go for
37:53
security? It was a shaking. Okay. That's a very interesting word choice. That's why I guess I
38:00
keyed in on it because yeah, you know, during the pandemic, like I went physical because that's
38:04
where I find comfort is in athleticism and powerlifting and jujitsu and the things that you can control
38:09
with that. But I want to make a point and then come back to that. You know, that's with physical
38:13
resilience is you don't know when your body's going to need that physical resilience. When you
38:16
talk to trauma surgeons or something like that, when you have these people that have these very
38:20
virile and gritty bodies and they go through like a car accident or something like that,
38:25
their body's able to adapt to the recovery process even faster. You know, whenever I had surgery and
38:30
you know, I basically had to build myself back up with pullups and deadlift and all that. It was
38:34
the years, the decades of training prior to that that made that process a lot easier than somebody
38:40
who basically never spent any time in the gym. But I want to talk about shaking and I'm glad you
38:44
brought this up because there's a movement. I wasn't planning on talking to you about this.
38:47
The deconstruction movement within evangelicalism, it's popular. It's a it's become a popular hashtag
38:55
ex-vangelical. So you have these people that in my estimation are obsessed with pleasing the moral
39:03
better supposedly of society who all happen to be secular humanists and say, you know what,
39:08
I looked into the Bible and I learned a little bit of Greek and I don't agree with what my
39:13
church taught me growing up. I've been damaged somehow. I've victimized and also I am a victimizer.
39:19
I've deconstructed my faith and won't you know, I didn't find anything worth hanging on to.
39:24
All these deconstructionists somehow don't ever build something back up that's stronger than it
39:29
was before. And I've had some conversations with some people here recently that'll be coming out
39:33
where we talked specifically about deconstruction and a lot of people in the church are making that
39:39
like their thing. It was like posting the black square on Instagram two years ago. Oh, I'm deconstructing
39:44
right now. So I can't really talk about that any further because I'm still trying to figure me out.
39:48
I feel like Satan is all over the deconstruction movement. Obviously, am I nuts? No, no, because
39:55
they're not reconstructing. Exactly. That's the problem is is that this is very, very close. I have
40:02
very close people to me doing this right now. And the problem is it's the zeitgeist. It's it's the
40:09
Kool-Aid. It's in the air, folks. It's what we are breathing. This is the toxic stuff of unbelief
40:16
and despair and discouragement. But here's the case. So this is why we keep going back to the mental
40:22
health thing. When I talk to those people, there is always a disappointment beneath it all.
40:31
This isn't intellectual. Come on. In the end of the day, people don't live by that. It is it is
40:38
some sort of loss, setback, heartache. And here's the thing. Everybody has an ace. Everybody has an
40:48
ace that they hold out against God and they say, I'll believe you're good when I get married.
40:57
I believe you're good when you heal my mom of cancer. Everybody has this ace, right? And when
41:04
that doesn't happen, this is where they start the deconstructing stuff, right? But it doesn't start
41:12
intellectually. It starts with some sort of heartache. It starts with some sort of
41:17
discouragement and it's like, God, you didn't come through. I didn't get that job. I didn't
41:24
get promoted. I, you know, what on and on and on and on and on. The discouragement is real.
41:31
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slash now. I absolutely agree with that. And I was just shouting this down as you were saying,
42:10
it's the weakness of the foundations of their salvation to begin with. And so I've been listening
42:16
to a lot of people that are kind of, you know, reformed Calvinist, these types of people. And,
42:19
you know, when you listen to someone like John MacArthur, a giant of the faith, say something like,
42:23
you think all you have to do is just pray a prayer and that you're a Christian. It's not,
42:28
you know, prayer plus works get you to heaven. But it's like, we're not seeing any fruit. And,
42:32
you know, I have this dissonance with stuff like that. But you see these people that pray to prayer
42:37
at church camp when they're a teenager. And then as a 25 year old, they didn't get the job. And
42:42
all of a sudden they're thinking that God doesn't exist anymore. You know, someone close to them
42:46
died suddenly. And then all of a sudden their entire worldview falls apart. And that's where I feel
42:51
like these people that have a deep theological understanding of their faith. That's how they
42:56
create spiritual resilience, because when these things happen, Oh, I sprained my ankle, you know,
43:01
everybody pray for me. It's like, no, like that. Like, I feel like it's a much, much deeper thing.
43:07
It's it's a of all the negative things that deconstruction has caused. I think the positive
43:12
thing is shown people like, look, if you are not like reinforcing your faith with truth,
43:17
if you're not spending time marinated in the scriptures, you're going to get snatched up by
43:22
Satan at some point, right? Yep. Yeah, this is Jeremiah 17. He describes two types of people.
43:29
There's the tumbleweeds, and then there's the people who are trees planted by the river who
43:37
flourish in any season. I think he also says in times of drought, they flourish. So that's resilience.
43:44
Well, they're planted in God, and they're planted in his word. See, here's, this is so simple.
43:51
Hey, here's the basic mistake people make. How do I fit a little bit of God in my life, right? I've
44:02
got a really busy life. I got a lot of demands. I'll squeeze in a Saturday night service or
44:08
I'll listen to a podcast or like, how do I fit a little bit of spirituality into my life?
44:14
And I just got to tell you, that's not going to work. That won't work. It's literally
44:20
bass-acquards. I mean, you have to do the opposite. You start with a life that is grounded in God.
44:31
And from there, you build outwards. It's not, how do I cram a quick prayer on the way to work?
44:39
It doesn't work. It doesn't. Now, he's super kind and he'll often come through for you anyways.
44:45
But yeah, we just have to get real that we have not built reality into our spiritual lives.
44:53
You live in a world at war. You have foul beings that hate your guts, hate your family's guts.
45:00
Live like that. Get serious, folks. Yeah, that section of the book was actually very huge for me.
45:08
I guess this is a good time to point out like we're literally just scratching the surface
45:12
on this book, gentlemen. So that's why I always put the books in the show notes because we're
45:15
basically going over the 30,000 foot view. We're in. I'm just dropping down here or there.
45:20
But that is a mistake that a lot of people make because I even think of my own internal dialogue
45:24
over the last several months, you know, now that we have two children. And so I'm like basically
45:27
taking complete care of the two year old so my wife can care for the newborn. And now it's like,
45:32
oh my gosh, that little bit of time that I thought I had is now even farther away. Like,
45:36
people are like spending three hours watching, you know, Stanley Cup playoff games right now.
45:39
I'm like, how do you have three hours to sit around and only watch the television? This is insane to
45:43
me. But it's like, I'm trying to think like, when can I squeeze in a little bit more Jesus?
45:48
When can I squeeze in a little bit more of a podcast or a little bit more apologetic study
45:52
or something like that? And you're right, it's Bassacwards. It's something that
45:56
really, really is hard for us to wrap our minds around. Now, to the adept reader of your book
46:01
and listener of my show, there's going to be something that I got to ask you about because
46:05
they're going to think I gave you a pass if I didn't ask about it. So earlier this year,
46:08
very, very long story short, adding a guy on this podcast named Crispin Mayfield. He wrote
46:11
a book called attached to God. It's an entire book about attachment theory. But this guy is
46:15
very left leaning, you know, church in Portland, LGBTQ affirming the whole nine yards. But at one
46:21
point in that book, he says that God told him one day, I'm your mother now. And I asked him about
46:26
that on the podcast. And it's like, well, you know, when the disciples asked like, hey, how do we
46:31
pray? It said, you know, started with, you know, our father, Lord in heaven. And you know, he's
46:34
constantly referred to his father. But you spend basically an entire chapter talking about mother
46:39
love, right? And if you don't read the chapter very in depth, or if you're not paying a lot of
46:45
attention, you might come away thinking, Oh my gosh, John Eldridge, John Eldridge is devolving
46:51
into Crispin Mayfield, this very kind of left leaning almost woke ideology when it comes to
46:56
the gender of God or these types of things. So give us a little bit of a background again,
47:00
you're not going to get into the whole philosophy of mother love and all that. But give us an idea
47:04
of what you were communicating. Because I think even in the same chapter of the book, you talked
47:08
about our God, our loving father, you're using the male pronouns, but get a little bit more into
47:14
that just so my guys don't lose their minds. Okay, so two things. First off, let me assure you.
47:19
Hebrews one, in the former days, God spoke through the prophets. In these last days,
47:26
he has spoken to us through his son. The son is the exact representation of his being and the
47:34
radiance of his nature. So Jesus is masculine. Okay, he is male. All right, so but here's the deal.
47:46
What I'm trying to do, I'm trying to prevent the train wreck of the comfort culture, the global
47:54
trauma. And here's what we've found is that if people do not have the assurance of abundance,
48:03
if they have a poverty mentality, if they have a deprivation mentality, they're just suckers
48:09
for this moment. They're just dry, tender men. And where do you develop that? Well,
48:15
this is basic, basic psychology. You develop through healthy emotional attachment as a child.
48:22
If you did not have healthy emotional attachment as a child, you will find it very difficult to
48:28
believe that you are not on your own in this world. I got to make it happen. I got to come through,
48:36
right? It's all up to me. Okay, and if you believe that and then something like the next
48:42
shaking comes along, the economy falls apart, global war breaks out, you're going to melt.
48:49
You got nothing. You got no resilience. You're not going to do well. You just have to be realistic
48:55
about the nature of the human soul. You need the assurance that you are loved and that you will
49:03
be cared for. That's exactly what the Lord's Prayer is about, right? Give us this day
49:09
our daily bread. You will meet my needs. You will meet my needs. I trust that. Most guys don't trust
49:16
that. That's why they're scrambling like ducks, man. The feet under the water, they're just going
49:22
mad trying to make it happen, right? Because the fear is that if I don't scramble, life will fall
49:30
apart. I got to tell you, that's a horrible worldview. And whenever you're talking about mother love
49:38
in that chapter, what it did for me is it caused me to go back to the first time I read Wild at
49:43
Heart, which was close to 20 years ago. And you were talking about the father wound and I wasn't
49:51
connecting. I wasn't connecting with anything in that chapter because I didn't have one of those.
49:54
And then I inserted the word mother for father. It's like, okay, I get it. I get the entire concept
50:00
now because mine is more so of a mother wound of a kind of the eat-a-pull mother as Jordan
50:06
Peterson talks about so much, this overbearing mother and all that type of stuff in the wounds
50:11
that creates and how you view women moving forward. And now is not the time to put me on your couch
50:16
and have you kind of dig into my brain as far as that goes. But I do think that that helps for
50:20
people that are maybe having a hard time swallowing that chapter. Guys, you'll obviously get it whenever
50:24
you read the book. Yeah, let me just say this. So the mother wound is deeper than the father wound.
50:30
How so? Because it comes first. This is just child development, folks. You don't nurse at your
50:39
father's breast. You're like, you know, you're taking care of the two-year-old. Why? Well,
50:44
because the newborn's with mom. Getting his needs met. Okay, so the mother wound is deeper than the
50:52
father wound. And I think that's going to blow a lot of guys' minds. But I think it's going to bring
50:56
them a lot of clarity in their life, including with their sexual issues, right? Because if women
51:02
and femininity and all that gets screwed up early, man, it'll really, you know, then you chase that
51:08
love through your girlfriends. And then it's through, you know, the women that you purchase on the
51:13
street and on and on it goes, right? Yeah, well, a couple of things. Number one, you're a bigot.
51:18
It's called chess feeding now. All right. And men can do it. I've been reliably informed about this.
51:23
And secondly, to kind of bring it back to the seriousness of it. And this is just me kind of
51:28
being a little bit vulnerable with you in the audience as well. Like for me, my negative relationship
51:32
that I have with my mother affects how I've viewed women. A lot of times I just want women to shut up.
51:37
I'm like, I don't want to hear you. Why are you talking? Like, I don't want to hear you right now.
51:42
I want you to be seen and not heard. Now, those are things that I would never really say out loud.
51:46
But in my head, I'm just like, Oh, I just you're just talking. Oh, you're using your emotions.
51:51
You're using tears to manipulate the situation. What's wrong with you? And like, think about how
51:55
toxic that can be for your relationship with any woman, whether that be a girlfriend or a wife
52:01
or a daughter or a, you know, somebody at work that maybe your boss is female, something like that.
52:07
It can cause so many issues. So that's interesting that you would say it's deeper than the father
52:11
wound that probably there's your idea for your next book, even though I think you probably got
52:14
your next three or four mapped out just talking about the mother wound. But I do want to talk
52:18
about something that you talked about in chapter seven. So you bring up a lot of examples of
52:23
movements or philosophies that wanted the kingdom without the king. So you talked about the Russian
52:28
revolution and the Bolsheviks, the Great Leap Forward in China, Hitler's Germany, John Libbon,
52:33
John Lennon's atrocity, which is imagine maybe the worst song ever written. But it's basically
52:38
these, these entities that when you challenge their Eden agenda, which is how you, where did I
52:43
believe Eden agenda, they freak out. So I'm going to read this quick quote here. The governments of
52:48
this world are growing dangerously oppressive. We can no longer, no longer agree as a society on
52:53
what is good and evil. There's no consensus now on what human beings were made to be,
52:58
how we should live. So the fight for quote unquote justice at this point has collapsed into heavy
53:03
handed policies for every human being to live any way they want to, no matter how far from what
53:08
God created us to be. If you attempt to stand against these movements, you will be crucified
53:13
with a sort of self righteous vengeance that far surpasses any religious persecution.
53:18
In a nutshell, John, that paragraph describes the world that we've been living in even pre
53:25
COVID, right? Here we have these people that are worshiping at the altar of leftism or
53:32
populism or rightism or wokeism or LGBTQism or BLMism. That's what we are worshipful beings.
53:41
And so we will worship at the altar of something. And we're just so happening,
53:45
happening to throw ourselves behind these entities that are very postmodern. We don't have a delineating
53:51
point of what is good and what is evil. If your truth is your truth and my truth is my truth,
53:55
then there's no such thing as good or evil because we might disagree. I feel like that was a very
53:59
poignant point that you were making, but kind of, you know, help the audience understand why that
54:04
goes back to your thesis of the resilience that we need to create in society today.
54:08
Well, first off, you will have more of an opportunity to talk to those people if you
54:16
understand that what they are trying to do is recover Eden, right? The longing for justice
54:22
is a good longing. That's not a bad thing. The longing for compassion and understanding. That's
54:29
a good thing. That's not a bad thing. But the problem is you cannot rebuild the world without
54:35
its king. You can't. You cannot fix this world without Jesus Christ. And you should run
54:45
from any movement that is trying to, okay, only, only the living God who made the world.
54:54
And you can do this on the human soul level. Only the living God who made an individual soul
54:58
can bring about the restoration that's needed. And why is this important for resilience?
55:05
Because there is in all of us a longing. Can't things just be good again?
55:13
Right? This look bad. I get it. Me too, right? Can't things just be good people?
55:19
Okay. My thing is, can't you just live right? That's what actually comes out of my mouth.
55:24
Can't you just live right people? Okay. I have to be careful that that does not erode my resilience.
55:32
I've got to remind myself, look, John, the kingdom of God is coming. The world is going to be set
55:40
right. There is a day of justice coming. Are you kidding me? You read the prophets. You read
55:48
the Psalms. Everybody else had their hopes set on this. But the comfort culture moved our hopes
55:54
off of the kingdom of God and on to some sort of quick fix now. It's not going to happen.
56:02
And it's when your worldview gives no room for cosmic justice, you have to create justice.
56:09
I think Thomas Sol wrote an entire book about cosmic justice. And again,
56:13
if you have no Judeo-Christian ethic, if you have no grounding in a biblical worldview,
56:17
then you have to hit the streets for racial justice or something. You have to hit the streets
56:23
for reproductive justice or something. Like you just make it up and you will dedicate
56:29
your entire life to it and you'll get a tattooed on your forearm. And that's what you're going to
56:33
be living for. But it's really this overwhelming amount of being driven by emotion. And so in the
56:38
book, you give some very practical advice about how to recover and become resilient. And we want
56:43
to make sure that you guys go and buy the books. So we're not going to get into all that here.
56:46
And you give some action steps as to kind of how we can recover in resilience. But there's a very,
56:50
very short quote that I think will help with this point. We honor our emotions by acknowledging them.
56:55
We bridle our emotions by keeping them subject to truth. Now, again, I've been reliably informed
57:02
that there's no such thing as truth. There's only your truth in my truth and your lived experience
57:06
in my lived experience. Now, emotions are not a bad thing. That's where some of these guys'
57:11
movements swing way too far to the other side. It's, you know, bottle up all that, you know,
57:15
take that German Irish aggression and just push it down and maybe pour some whiskey on top of it,
57:19
which is not good at all. But it's about the bridling of our emotions because right now,
57:24
you have some idiot like Steve Kerr going out there because he's an expert on public policy and
57:29
gun movements going out there and banging the table during the NBA playoff saying we've got to do
57:34
something about gun violence. And yet he gives nothing specific in mind. He just says, we got to
57:39
do something. And everyone's like, oh, he's a hero and he's great. Why? Because he was emotional.
57:43
Because they think his level of emotion equals his level of rightness or righteousness,
57:50
which it clearly does not. We need to have a sober discussion and understanding of any
57:55
important topic, not an emotional one. But right now, we don't do that, John. We worship at the
58:01
altar of emotions. And it's like, oh, you seem really, really mad about this. I guess I should
58:05
listen to you. Hey, we have 10,000 employees here. And there's, you know, a dozen of them with,
58:09
you know, face tattoos and purple hair that think that we shouldn't do this as a company. I guess
58:13
we're supposed to listen to you because you're so fired up. Why do we succumb to that? Is it just
58:18
because we're so polite? We're so nice. We don't want anyone to be mad. We want everybody to be
58:22
chills. That why we're doing this. I'm struck by two things. It's really hard to be a good man
58:30
in an hour like this, isn't it? Yeah. Because that's what you and I are wrestling with right now.
58:38
Because love is critical. But love is not weak. And that's what we are groping our way towards
58:52
is what does love look like when it's not just soft? What does love look like when it's masculine?
59:02
What does love look like when it's tough? What does love look like when it takes a stand? And then
59:07
the second thing I was struck by is I was listening to you. Jesus did it right. He did it right.
59:15
And it says of him, he was full of grace and truth. You got to have both. You can't just be a truth
59:24
guy, right? Because then you're going to get really hard and you're going to get really [inaudible].
59:29
But you can't just be a grace guy because you've got to be grounded in something like truth.
59:37
So I'm just naming what we are all grappling with is this is a very difficult hour to be a good man.
59:45
Because it's not simple. It requires wisdom and strength. It requires love and understanding.
59:55
Do we need racial reconciliation in a lot of places? We sure do. Yes, we do.
1:00:04
Does that mean that we hate people who have been in power? No, that doesn't fix anything.
1:00:15
Right? And so I'm just naming it's really difficult to walk in this, but he did it.
1:00:20
He did it. So it must be possible. And we have to ask ourselves, what is love?
1:00:26
What does love require of me? Because there are a lot of people that if they were to actually
1:00:32
read the New Testament for themselves, they would and this kind of goes back to your book,
1:00:35
beautiful outlaw, they'd be like, ah, that didn't sound very loving. Jesus was kind of aggressive
1:00:40
there. Like it's going to bother them that Jesus was so hateful towards sin and yet so loving
1:00:48
towards the center. It doesn't make sense because in my personality, I'm drawn obviously more towards
1:00:53
truth than I am towards grace. But again, we get this idea that Jesus was 50% truth and 50%
1:00:58
grace. It's like, no, he was 100% both. He was fully lamb and fully lion all at the same time.
1:01:05
And yet we can't fathom that because we're too dumb because our brains can't possibly fathom how
1:01:09
we can be both of those things. But that's why I tell people all the time, people that are especially
1:01:13
more so on the great side. When you bring in truth, you're showing somebody love in a way that Jesus
1:01:18
would show love because he never said to somebody, he never ignored their sin, but he gave them a way
1:01:24
to where they could absolve themselves of that sin. And how great is that? So it's like whenever
1:01:29
you're the, you know, disciplinarian dad or something like that, but you give no pathway to grace,
1:01:33
you give no pathway to reconciliation. Man, you're damaging that kid. But also, if you just let
1:01:38
the kid run towards traffic and light things on fire randomly, it's like, I want to be his buddy.
1:01:43
That's not really good either. But John, as we're, as we're wrapping to a close here,
1:01:47
you know, normally I try to end my interviews with something piffy and fun. And maybe I do the,
1:01:51
what would you say to someone that said, but you're like, you're the veteran of this podcast at this
1:01:55
point. You've done a million podcasts, you've done this podcast seemingly a million times.
1:01:59
So I don't want to set you up with any particular question. I'm going to set you up with a word.
1:02:03
And that word is wisdom. As we part on our fourth appearance for you here on this show,
1:02:08
what is your parting shot for wisdom for our audience for what they should be thinking through
1:02:12
in this time in history? You have to develop a conversational relationship with God because
1:02:21
you cannot figure out everything on your own. See, the thing about the grace and truth thing is
1:02:27
it depends on the moment. It's not that it's one or other. It depends on the moment. It depends on
1:02:32
the situation, right? What's needed in this situation? Is it discipline? Is it mercy?
1:02:38
Is it a hard moment? Is it a timeout, you know, or is it ice cream? It depends. It depends on the
1:02:45
moment. You can't figure life out on your own friendship with the living God is available to you.
1:02:52
Learn to hear his voice. Ask his opinion of things that you are about to do.
1:03:02
I mean, right down to the level of the conversation you want to have with your wife tonight.
1:03:05
God has rescued me so many times for blowing things up when he's like, "Not tonight."
1:03:11
And I'm like, "No, no, no. You don't understand. Tonight's perfect." And he's like, "They'll even
1:03:15
bring it up." I'm like, "Don't even bring it up." He's like, "Literally, do not say a word."
1:03:21
And it ends up being this massive rescue. So, guys, this isn't about being geniuses in a post-modern
1:03:29
meltdown. Nobody's got that. You can be friends with God.
1:03:34
That's a great word to end on, guys. Marinate in that thought having a conversational relationship
1:03:40
with Christ. And with God, it's just an incredible thing to think through and put that as a good
1:03:45
filter for the devotionals that you're doing, for the theological study that you're doing,
1:03:49
the apologetic study as well. Because there is a way where you can basically mentally masturbate.
1:03:54
You can get a whole bunch of great facts in your brain. But if you don't have a relationship with
1:03:58
the father, the application of those facts is going to be a little bit stunted. So,
1:04:03
John Elders, that's all for me. Is there anything else you want to get off your chest?
1:04:05
Right on, buddy. Thank you. Really good to see you again.
1:04:09
John Elders, thank you for coming back on a Dr. Life of Man's podcast.
1:04:12
There you go, guys. I hope you enjoy John Eldridge's fourth appearance on the show. But before we
1:04:16
let you go, we are going to do a quick resilience boost. Add on Dr. Life, our mission is equipping
1:04:20
men to push back darkness with content that forges spiritual, mental, and physical resilience. So,
1:04:24
I've got two links for you today. I've got a link to the WADA Heart website, which is where
1:04:27
you can get all things. John Eldridge and all things WADA Heart. But also, I've got an Amazon
1:04:31
link to the new book, Resilient, Restoring Your Weary Soul in These Turbulent Times.
1:04:35
All right, guys. Thanks so much for listening to the show. We do appreciate it. Wherever you're
1:04:37
listening to this, please subscribe, rate, and leave us a positive five-star review. If you want
1:04:41
to come speak live at your event or on your podcast, you should be an email to info@undontadotlife.
1:04:46
That's an info@undontadotlife. You can follow us on Instagram and like us on Facebook and
1:04:50
check out our website for everything else, including how to donate to keep more content like this
1:04:53
coming your way. Just go to www.undontadotlife and as always, we want to thank the band August
1:04:58
Burns Red for allowing us to use their music for our content. The music on this podcast is our song
1:05:02
"Cutting the Ties," which is off their 10th anniversary re-recording of their album Leveler.
1:05:06
The links are in the description. I'm your host, Kyle Thompson. Remember, keep pushing back darkness,
1:05:12
keep forging spiritual, mental, and physical resilience, keep seeking the Lion of Judah.
1:05:42
[Music]