EP: 405 Hearing the Holy Spirit with Will Acuff

but it's still about the story.

No, I don't know. This story is my own space. Do you think all of them are there? Yes, exactly. This story is the story of the story,

which is simply different. A dialogue studio, a job or a music. It's strange. It doesn't really feel like a story. The story is read.

Save. With this story. That's a pretty broad category.

“And I had no clue until this kind of transition in my life”

that teach you all things. Literally means teaches you all things. The Holy Spirit is your custom learning partner in life. That is you learn to walk with the Lord and submit your life to the Lord. You can actually engage with the Spirit saying this is for you.

This other thing is not for you, right? And teaching you as I would think about it as you becoming who you are fully meant to be. Or another way of putting it would be like you as your garden self. The history of our earth is so different from what we can imagine. Enjoy the journey.

This Smithsonian, that if they found out about Lord Skeleton somewhere,

was to go get it. I'm going to assume at least my Lord. It's right because of one person's right at us to paradise. It all goes back to the fallen chair. And the problem with the modern day church,

they had a very truncated view of the supernatural. This backdrop, this is just pregnant with all kinds of meaning, associated with this Mount Herman of the Earth. And this guy, defects from the kingdom.

That's a big deal. We have Will Acuff in the house. Hopefully I said your name, right? You did, you nailed it. Thank you.

Co-founder of Corner to Corner non-profit base here in Nashville, Tennessee. Quips under estimated entrepreneurs. The tools they need to support and launch our own businesses. You wrote a book. I like this book.

No elevator to Everest. At least to cover. I haven't read it yet. I'll be honest. We just got it about five minutes.

Yes. If you had read it, then let's talk about your mentor. The mentor. But perver of mustaches. Yes.

Great mustaches. Didn't see any blur creatures on Everest, but we get into that. But you said this right here. It says shift to survive, to thrive through spirit-led self-awareness. You said the Holy Spirit, you've been on journey with the Holy Spirit your whole life.

Yeah. And we talked about all the blurry things here. That is blurry. That's a whole spirit. It's a whole spirit.

It's one of the hardest to understand. Absolutely.

“So what does your story, where does your story start?”

Well, take us away. Okay. We'll ask you the question. What do you thoughts on Bigfoot? Do you have any thoughts on Bigfoot?

I thought about it. I have thought about it. Okay. Here's where I land on Bigfoot. The world is a big and mysterious place.

And I'm very comfortable with the idea of Bigfoot being a part of that big and mysterious place. So I'm pro Bigfoot being a big person. Yeah. And I would also add that I respect his boundaries. Well, he's made it really clear that he doesn't want to hang out with me.

Yeah. So I don't need to go looking for him when he's made his intentions. You don't want to talk to a relationship with Bigfoot? No, no, no. We talked about this earlier, Nate.

As we are in a new year, at this point, the Bigfoot's and years resolutions are always the same as to not be found.

Yeah. And leave him alone. It's like that meme of him just ripping a heater by the lake. He's like, "Yeah, it's just leave me alone. I don't want to see you guys out here."

Yeah. Supergames get stupid prizes. Yeah. Everyone asks where Bigfoot is. You want to know how Bigfoot is.

He's clearly said how he's doing and you're not going to do. He's a big boundary guy. He's like, "Yes, right." Yeah. The healthy boundary is really good.

Everything I have done has been to make you known that I don't want to see you. You know what's funny? Well, if you get real nerdy about Bigfoot. This is he does break trees to create boundaries. He's like, "Don't come past.

This makes structures to like stake out his territory." But he sometimes he crosses his own boundaries. He likes to peek in people's windows. Yeah. That's what you're doing.

But see, maybe that's a bid for connection. If that's you, then he's like, "Come." Speaking of back to the future. He's creepy. Yeah, he's a paving dog.

Falling out of the tree right now. Yeah, I'm familiar. It's your first move. Your name Calvin? Yeah.

So, yeah. We're already off the California Dreddo. Yeah. Well, that's cool. I think that I like it.

It's an elevated view of Bigfoot. It's like beyond just like the data and arguing. Does it exist or not? No, I think Bigfoot's out there. But he's got feelings, too.

Yeah. And I respect him. All right. Yeah. So, what about your story?

“Where does your story start and how do we get into this?”

Yeah. I mean, anyone, anyone's story starts?

Yeah. That's just the tail of the book. You didn't climb really misleading. You didn't climb. I did not climb that.

I always wanted to until I started watching talks about it.

And I realized how people die on that mountain. I thought, in my younger days, I was like, "I'm going to do it." And then I climbed Mount Hood. This is my personal story. Twice.

Not once the twice. And I thought I was going to die doing that. And that's a small mountain. I'm a big man. And that's a small mountain.

And I am not interested. I want the elevator. Yeah. Reframed your perspective. Absolutely.

Yeah. We did bring a guy on the found Yeti Prince. Yeah. Graham, Graham Huylin. Yeah.

He went on. He found some Yeti Prince. He was just blown. He was out in the middle of nowhere. Like Himalayas and found Yeti Prince.

It was peace.

It was tracking or pacing his caravan or his group of Sherpas.

We're going to inspire you to climb them on that. Thanks. You're going to do it. It's a really do it. Yeah.

I think my wife would have to, I mean, double or triple my life insurance policy before she let me. Take some kind of truth like that. Yeah. If you're going to be stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid games won't stupid prizes. They're like, "I need to have a little company."

You want a hundred percent. Yeah. But I guess we start with the Holy Strait. Like, what do you think the Holy Spirit is? I think that's hotly debated.

How does that work in your life? Yeah.

“Because that's what you should talk about in your world.”

Yeah. I think I can't get into it without kind of giving a little background. So I'm a pastor's kid, right? Born and raised in the church. My dad was a church planter.

Like one of those entrepreneurial type pastors who starts new, new churches. And so our family moved from the south. Like we were very southern family. Grits for breakfast, sweet tea. You know, it's 24/7.

How are you so skinny? Yeah. I gave up this sweet tea and kept the grits. That's the trick. Uh, we moved to Massachusetts for my dad to go to seminary.

This is back in the early 80s. And so in 1985 he launched a church in the office of a gas station. Like the kind where you bring your own folding chair and your tambourine. That's right. You like those musically?

How do you know where he says dance and straight. Like stiff dances. It was my life, right? Oh. And later he would be like, hey, will it wasn't a gas station?

It was a car wash office. I was like, that doesn't make it better. You know, like, it's still kind of the same vibe. Uh, but by the mid 90s, it was like 1,000 or 2,000 people every Sunday. Epigastation.

Now we had our own building, right? It was a good question, soulful version. Yeah, can I get your soul clean? Conversion growth, right? Like crazy, crazy thing to see. It was beautiful.

But I think I grew up in a theology. No one actually said this, but they kind of live it. You know, I think it's a kid. You get most things through osmosis. Yeah.

It was just what you're around. And it was, you know, my Trinity was God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Bible.

And God the Holy Spirit was at best like some weird third cousin that you didn't really talk about

or know how to engage with. Yeah, right? And so like when you read those parts of the New Testament,

“you just kind of breeze past them and then get to, oh, but Paul really means here, right?”

And you'd be like, well, really, we just blasted past like Paul understands that his whole life has shifted. And now he lives in Union, mystical Union, with God the Father, God the Son, God the Spirit. And that union happens in and through the power of the living Holy Spirit. I had no framework for that. No grid.

No grid. But I was suddenly Baptist, no grid either. Yeah. Oh, I had a grid. And it was, it was a little blurry.

Because I was like, you had like seven Holy Spirit. I was like, well, no, I don't like that way. And I was like, it was like the, you know, the mid 90s or in high school. And they made the wave of the flags. All the flags in the church.

And then we had the, you know, the traveling passers that came through and we're like, I tried to date a flag waiver. She didn't like me. You know, you, she saw, she saw what it was. She did.

She felt it. Yeah, she didn't. You can't trust it back. I mean, we had like the, you know, the people that came through in the 90s when there was just a charismatic movement. People praying and slay in the spirit.

And I was like, to me, it kind of did the opposite. Being, being a little bit of rebellious high school kid. I was like, I don't come pray for me. I'm going to fall down. Yeah.

And then I didn't. And then I was like, this is all. Yeah, we came from different perspectives. What, what, um, denomination. So Southern Baptist was my dad.

Okay. Non-denominational and practice because like anything you did in New England was kind of by default. Non-denominational. Okay. Yeah.

And I have some football, man. Yeah. Fab cakes and football. Yeah. And where I grew up was like a Portuguese immigrant town at that point.

A blue collar, no collar. And everyone was Catholic except for me. And so I was just lumped into that, like, you're a Protestant, you know, it was kind of the vibe. Yeah. But I got a call in the ministry. My senior year high school came back to the south to see what big ministry looked like on a college campus.

“Um, and the plan was like, go, you know, finish four years of school at NC State and go right to seminary like my dad, right?”

Right. And just kind of go do the same. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Go, go, go, go.

Yeah. And we'll pack in Raleigh. Uh, but we, you know. Find Jacobi Percets. Indeed.

Yeah. Yeah. We had a house as mascots. I come in at a college. I instead fell in love with being in a rock and roll band.

Okay. Um, so a hardship. Yeah. So by day, I was a research analyst in health policy at Duke. So like super nerdy job.

And by night, I was in a touring band playing everywhere from like the Apollo and Harlem to the Dallas Hard Rock, you know, kind of weekend warrior vibe. Yeah. Um, had a lot of fun.

Uh, never made any real money.

Um, but like we played live with the Apollo and didn't get boot off, which was my claim to fame. That's a big deal. Oh, man. It's most nervous I've ever been. Yeah.

Like, because you can, what they don't tell you is they aim a mic at the crowd. And then they pipe the booze into your monitors. Um, so pretty nerve-wracking to see that as you step out.

“That's what it is in feedback loop, right?”

Yeah. 100%. Yeah. Yeah. There was a venue and I wasn't banned too.

There was a venue and the Caroline is at the basketball hoop in the second level. Can't remember what it's called. Not the cat's cradle. Maybe. Yeah.

I think that's what it was. Did you know a band in May they're from there? Mm-hm. Am I good? You knew May?

Yes. Yeah. I think it was a cat's cradle. We played there. Yeah.

It was great. Yeah. But over time. With a bunch of dudes you couldn't play. A bunch of musicians playing hoops.

My play hoops at third day, guys, once.

Were they any good? They would play wiffle ball there. Better wiffle ball. I mean, everybody's better at wiffle ball. Yes.

Well, dude. I remember playing wiffle ball between two tour buses on work tour and striking out all the... Dude, you could make a wiffle ball do a wicked thing. So sometimes, yes, it's easier. I started out with some of the legends to punk rock legends.

Just like all wiffle ball legends. Yeah. No, no. Like all these dudes in band, singer bands like, you know, strike it 'em out because that's all I did as a kid.

That's funny. Anyway. We're really good at staying on track here on blur. No, I love it. Yeah.

We did. No, you yesterday. This is true. Yeah. Thanks.

Shout out to Josh. Josh Doyle. I'm proud of Josh for no longer no man to hook that up. We're going to Israel with him.

“And we're, I'm like, hey, can we get back to Will story here?”

Give us, let's, let's get the Holy Spirit to get somebody on the show right now. Yeah. Yeah. Now, we spent a lot of time questioning narratives. I forgot where things come from.

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You'll save every year just for subscribing. Good ranchers dot com. American meat delivered. Yeah, so fast forward. You know, the ban thing was good for my ego bad for my soul.

Right? And you know those things that are hollowing you out. Yeah. And it was one of those. And around that time, I met this guy who was a professor at

University North Carolina expert in the AIDS pandemic. And he started having a small group of us meet at his house every Sunday after church. And we were talking some Bible stuff, some doctrine stuff, but also like, What do you do in the face of global poverty?

And he was teaching us all sorts of crazy things that have never been exposed to.

And then we went to Nairobi and we all separated. So like I was staying with this family on the edge of one of the worst slums in

And the things I saw were there for about six weeks completely destroyed my world view. And I had one of those moments where I was like, if this level of suffering is real, How dare I say, like, I'm a follower of Jesus. And I don't get into the mix, right, for those who are like at the margins. So I felt that, but then also the band in the ego thing was so good.

“So I was like, hey, God, let me try to ignore that, right?”

And I'd say my first real interaction with the Holy Spirit, like in this kind of season,

was like, you know, if a teenager hears that thumping noise in a car, they just turn up the radio and they don't get it fixed, right? And I was like, if I just keep driving with the radio loud enough, that thumping will resolve itself. I turned up the radio on the Holy Spirit, right?

Like the Holy Spirit was like, I have made you for something other than this. And I was like, ah, let me double down. And I think in life, we get the loving whisper of God first. And when we ignore the loving whisper, we later get the loving sledgehammer. And I got the loving sledgehammer and we can get into this a little more later.

But the short version is my honeymoon ended in the ER. And everything my wife and I thought we were going to build our life around was totally destroyed. And the aftermath of that, what I kept hearing from God was, I have called you to set your eyes on the marginalized and keep it there.

And so 18 years ago, my wife and I we moved into a low income neighborhood in order to get a theology of neighbor, right, and live it out. My wife who's way tougher than me, if you ever meet her, you'll know that pretty quickly. Like that checks out. She got a job in the men's prison. And she started helping guys transition back to jobs.

Right. Like she's driving the prison van herself kind of stuff. This was right. And they were coming home to our neighborhood where we were now living. It was their neighborhood. And so we started doing life with these guys.

And that was the beginning of me learning how to say yes to the spirit. Learning how to listen to the spirit. You know, that, I would describe that as like those were the baby step days. Well, can you talk, I mean, for a lot of folks out there that maybe don't have, like,

don't have or never were given a grid.

You talk about a little bit, but when you say you hear, you heard from always spirit.

“It's a spirit of the whole spirit saying this, how does that practically look like for you?”

Because I think this is not just a, like, a blurry creature thing. This is like a church thing. There are divisions and denominations with the encryption of them that just say this doesn't have it or or they say that happens all the time. And everything is or nothing is right. It's a zero thing game, right? But yeah.

But we talked pre-roll about this. We know that Jesus gives us his spirit. The day of Pentecost Spirit shows up and Pentecost is after that. We have the Holy Spirit as part of the Trinity. And you made an interesting observation about the way you grew up as far as, like,

well, that part we don't really talk about, right? Yeah, yeah. And, you know, I had a conversation with a body of mine as a reform pastor this morning about the ideas within, you know, creating this, this theology around which really be, and we've talked about this show becomes like a moral code.

It's just, you're just trying to be good. Just trying to do a lot of good stuff and play by the rules.

And it doesn't leave a lot of space for this third part of the Trinity,

which we know exists in the Old Testament and the New Testament. 100% to operate, right? It's a spirit-led self-awareness. Yeah. And a lot of it is self-awareness.

Yeah. The more that grows, the more you can actually listen to the Holy Spirit, I would say. Yeah. 100%. It has a practically outbreak for you.

Yeah. Well, so let me frame it, Biblically real quick. And then I'll jump into how I would think about it on a practical level. So like, Biblically, I would look at passages like John 14, right? This is Jesus upper room discourse.

He's about to go to the cross. This is the equivalent of, like, the last speech of football coach gives before the Super Bowl, right? It has that, like, this has extra weight because everything's about to go down, right? And in John 14, he says, look, I'm going to send you the spirit and it's going to do two things for you.

“It's going to help you remember everything that I said, right?”

So that's super encouraging because it's going to draw us back to the words in the life of Jesus, right? Awesome. And then it says, Jesus says, hey, and it's also the spirit will teach you all things, right? That's a pretty broad category, right? And I had no clue until this kind of transition in my life that teach you all things,

literally means teaches you all things. Like, the Holy Spirit is your custom learning partner in life, right? That is you learn to walk with the Lord and submit your life to the Lord.

This other thing is not for you, right?

And teaching you, as I would think about it, as you becoming who you were fully meant to be,

“or another way of putting it would be like you as your garden's self, right?”

Yeah. So practically, then you get into, well, jump into the further into, like, Pauline epistles, right? He talks about it's no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me, right? And he uses this language of like union with, right? But at the same time, culturally, I was raised with this notion of,

"Hey, the journey of faith is knowledge of God, and knowledge of self, just to the extent that you know you need Jesus." Right? And in some Christian cultures like know that you're a piece of, right? So that you know you need Jesus.

And that's it. Don't ever look at yourself again. That's naval gazing. Who can even know the heart is deceitful above all things, right? And you get that kind of thinking, right?

And what it leads to is this really warped sense of what the journey of faith is. It's knowledge of God only, right? That creates a brain on a stick kind of theological system vibe where we become like, you know, butterfly scientists, right? They capture the butterfly and they get, they pin it down.

It's dead, right? Versus what I'm talking about is like, "Oh, I'm content to see the thing fly." And what does it look like to be so attuned to the spirit?

“And so alive to the spirit that that's how I'm living my life,”

how I'm making my decisions, how I'm resting in the Lord everyday. And that kind of leads to the practical. And last thing I just say is like, I was taught that the cross was the end of the story, and I actually now think it's the beginning.

I think the real story is union with Christ that's unfolding. Yeah, so how do you discern? I think this is the one thing I think that we find in the community and in the space of people that are trying to live in this way is discerning between the Holy Spirit

and in your own voice, right? Yeah, because especially in the blurry creature space, there's this everyone preaches or stands on a soap box that they call discernment. And we've kind of gone down this trail a little bit,

but I know that the Holy Spirit gives us discernment. But my observation is a lot of people convolut that with either their own fears, their own voice, or particularly in our space, and people bump up against something that pushes on their paradigm.

Yeah, it's a major reaction to be like, "Well, my discernment went off, Holy Spirit would tell me this."

“And I think sometimes people don't always have,”

and this could be the same for me. I'm not just, I'm hoping to harp it on anyone, but how do you discern the spirit versus, you know? He's talking about self-awareness, your own fears, your own voice. But there's a lot of different spirits we've found.

And their name, the spirit of religion is one of them, which kind of comes in and wants to snuff out. So you have competing entities that want to tell you stuff. Totally. Which is, or yourself, you know?

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“I don't think you can get it this without getting into self-awareness, right?”

Like you pointed to. Yeah. And I'd also say, if scripture is true, and I believe it is, and it says the Holy Spirit is in us,

but yet my whole spiritual life I've been taught that know everything's out here, right?

I've never been taught to go inward,

and actually connect with the Spirit. Right? Does that make sense? Like the Spirit's right here, but I'm all I'm doing is out here. And so I think that one of the first things

that I started to learn and started to develop is like, what does it look like to get still enough, right? To actually start to know what I'm thinking and what I'm feeling. Because I can't take any thought captive if I'm not actually creating a space of stillness.

Oh, and that's just like a foreign concept. For all of this generation, from most of us, that are just like, I'll have a spare moment we put my phone and we scroll. 100%.

There's no downtime. No, constant activity, constant entertainment, right? And then what that means is you've got all these currents that are going on underneath, that are guiding you, but you have no idea what they are, right?

And so, you know, step one practically

“is you have to have a rhythm of listening.”

And that's so uncomfortable for a lot of people to actually sit still and not fill your dopamine receptors and not let your mind slow down to something so you have to do what you haven't done. What's on the two lists?

It's like, there's no Sabbath in a way, even in micro. No micro Sabbath. No, for getting it, for getting it whole Sunday. It seems like the Holy Spirit came, like, sort of a key

for church abuse. Like the Holy Spirit told me, so you have to follow me. It's the guy in the college saying, God told me that we're supposed to be a little bit of a day because of the military.

No, it can't be hyper suspicious about you getting a word for someone else, right? Like, I tend to be in the suspicious camp about that kind of stuff because it can lead to such manipulation. And it's like the ultimate card to throw, right?

What I'm talking about is you and the Holy Spirit, right? And so, you know, I'd say practically step one create rhythms of discernment. One really practical one that I do because I found myself in every other human I've ever met.

Nobody wakes up neutral, right? Like you wake up and you're running through, what do I got to do today? You're running through, oh, you know, oh my gosh, wait, that conversation I had in my wife

“right before bed, ugh, it's weighing heavy right now, right?”

Or what's going on with your kids, whatever? And in the past, I used to just push that down and just try to plow through my day, right? Not knowing that so much of the way I engaged with my day was guided by that undercurrent, right?

So the first thing I do, I've got a cup of coffee.

I've moved a coffee maker to my bedroom so I don't wake up the kids, right, to do this in my room. It's like a little single cupcake, you know, curry. It's not great coffee, but it'll get the job done. I make that cup, I go sit in this chair

and I get still, just a couple, you know, four deep breaths, right? And then I get curious about what I'm feeling the most, right? And I go, huh, why am I feeling that? And I get curious, and that posture of curiosity starts kind of a trailhead exercise, if you will, right?

Where I'm being willing to go deeper to learn more. What I find often is, oh, I'm feeling afraid, right? Oh, and I'm feeling afraid because I'm telling myself that if this thing doesn't happen, some disaster is going to happen in my life, right?

Oh, so I'm making that thing bigger than the power of God in my life. Yeah, huh. What would it look like for me to release that fear to the Lord, right? First Peter language, cast all your anxieties on God

as he cares for you, I love that verse, but then you're always like, okay, how?

Yeah, what does that look like? What does that look like? And you get the sense that they were telling each other that around the fire, right? But we don't get those little side notes.

No, we don't get the new ones to it. No, no, we don't get the tone of the text, right? Like, I love the Bible, but it's text. How much better is a voice note than a text message? That's not right.

Yeah, like we always just chuck my buddies, like sarcasm stuff through text, right? One hundred percent. That just seems mean. Yeah, our friendship is shattered, thank you.

Thank you. Yeah. So we, yeah, I think we wake up in first few minutes of the day, kind of decides the day in a lot of ways. There's really no other time to get quiet.

Yeah, because you can just get going. Yep. So I would say that's the first step in this create some discernment, right? Create some listening space.

The other thing I would say is this is a little bit controversial, but you know, in scripture, the person who's called the accuser is Satan.

The Holy Spirit, I think, speaks to us in a way that sounds like the father of the

prodigal son is always going right here with me is where you belong.

I love you. I love you. Welcome home. Right. And that it's his kindness that leads us to repentance.

Right. So in yourself awareness and worship, right? But in your self-awareness journey, you often come up with a self-critic. Right? So you talk about different spirits, right?

And I meet so many Christians who think the Holy Spirit is their inner critic. Mm. Yeah. Right. And I fundamentally do not think that is true.

“I think the Holy Spirit can convict us of our style of art.”

Oh, absolutely. Right. But it does it in a way that is calling forth to remind you of who you are and who's you are. It's calling you up. There's no shame.

No. There's no guilt. No, it's invitation. Yeah. It's hey, do you hear the party?

The music's warming up and it's your welcome home party. This is where you belong. Because I think a lot of us grew up depending on what kind of relationship we have with your parents, everything feels like shame. Everything feels like...

Oh, man. We take.

There's never, there was never a space.

I mean, you heard from your parents often. And it was like, "My I feel worse about myself." Mm. So. Yeah.

I thought now you've confirmed it for me. Yeah, which isn't, you know, I don't... That's never the work of Jesus. No. No.

He always says, "Go and send no more." Yes. Right. And get up. Yes.

I've come that you may have life and have it to the full. Yes. I have that verse tattoo. Yeah.

“I mean, it's funny because men too, I think, that, you know, there's that verse”

that's better to live on the corner of your room and deal with the nagging wife. And I think... And I think... Well, it's you bring that one up. That's not a go over well.

I mean, the point is, is like a man already has all that negative thought going on everywhere. Yep. At work and your profession, your friends. I mean, men are not good at encouraging each other. Yeah.

Men you come home. Oh, look at our... Yeah, look at your group text with your pals. Yeah. Yeah.

Men you come home and then you get that. Uh-huh. So then obviously, all that to say is that the Holy Spirit would sound a lot like that critique. Just and you're just another failure. Totally.

Aren't you? Yep. You know, women speak life into you as a man. Well, everything's negative and then she's like, you got what it takes. You're like, man.

Yeah. Put a ring on that. Yeah, 100%. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. It reminds me of a friend who says, you know, uh, thank God the Holy Spirit still speaks at 90% of the time. It sounds like my wife. Mm-hmm.

“Which I think is also a great indicator.”

But that's hard because I think that obviously, probably it's in relationship. This is all this familiar language and Holy Spirit's part of this. You have a bad family. Yep.

You can't hear it. Yeah. Correctly. Yeah. Well, I think part of this is in any good spirit-led self-awareness work.

And let me be clear. I'm not talking about self-awareness as it often comes up in popular culture these days, right? I've just taken care of number one. Yeah. Love me some mean.

Totally. I'm going to be true to my truth. Right. Right. Right.

What I'm talking about is spirit-led self-awareness.

Which I would say for Christians when you go inward, you never go alone.

Like if scripture is true, you have the Holy Spirit there who will guide you. Right. And so what it will feel like over time is more- Oh, man. Hey, God.

I didn't know I was living out of that story about my dad. My actual earthly father and how he treated me. And I was projecting that on you. Right. But thank you for making me aware of that and started to heal that wound.

And started to unwind that. But we don't heal those wounds and unwind those hurts and those stories. If we're like, man, I wake up. I hit go button on my day and I just go try to grind it out. Right.

We never have this pain. This is probably not what I've seen all day. Totally. We're just boom. So you started your day with that.

You started your day by getting quiet. Yep. Four breaths and just asking the Lord. I said, "What do you want to do?" I mean, a joke on Facebook a couple years ago.

It's like, self-awareness is your Amazon review. You know? Like, what would people would say about you? Yeah. And how much can you predict your Amazon review?

Yeah. Like, and I think that's where people get real, real bold and honest. It's like, this is the kind of person you really are. And it can hurt for a while. Yeah.

Speaking of being in a band. I remember being in a band was hard because like, either you got- Either you had self-awareness or your band broke up. Mmm. Because you just get to a place where you're just so much tension.

That's a sermon series right there. That is a Nashville sermon series. This morning, Luke, I popped the Omega 3s by Momentus to give my brain a little edge. And I've been taking it the last couple weeks.

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[music]

But hi, guys, my band said you can never but you're wrong.

And I was like, I can't. Nobody ever modeled that to me. So, obviously, I don't know how to do it. You're right. And then that was the beginning of like, okay,

that doesn't hurt to say that. Yeah, I don't know how to, but I'm wrong. Why? And then it was like a slowly learning like, hmm, and I'm very defensive.

I have this core around me and I'm very, I can't be wrong. I don't think that was modeled to me. But the Holy Spirit speaks to, you're saying to us like the prodigal son,

which is the father's like, hmm. Runs out to save his son from all the people that are ready to stone the guy, beat the guy, yell at the guy, he's like, no, no, no, no,

put a robe on him, bring him back in the house, love this guy. So, that's a different voice than, I don't know if anyone has that voice in their life and like this human, we don't really have somebody who believes in us like that.

No, and also doesn't lie to us, right? Because what that friend said to you, or that bandmate, hey, you don't,

you got to always be right, does it out, right?

You heard that and it connected with you as truth. Yeah. And you sat with it and it started to shape you. And so, in what I'm talking about, the Holy Spirit will start to reveal things to you

“that are truth about you that you connect with, right?”

And I think about this in the language of Jesus, where he's like, yeah, I am the light, right? Like, when I expose something, when darkness is brought into light, right, things change. And so, there's a part of this that is you starting to go,

oh, I thought this was the story. Oh, it's not this is the story, right? And I'm willing to do the work. Because if you do this, I promise, you do this 30 days, like 10 minutes in the morning.

You will start being a more full version of yourself and your spouse, those closest to you, will start to notice. Well, I remember that, too, like when Jesus calls disciples, he changes a couple of their names.

Because I'm going to change what you call yourself. Yeah. To something that is my calling to you. I don't know, maybe we'll go out there and change the names, but he does that to Peter.

Yep. I mean, he's like, this is who you are. Yeah. Where do we start to hear like a different voice or how do we know discern which voice is?

That's me. That's Holy Spirit.

“Yeah, because I can go off the rails quickly, right?”

And we talk about the manipulation. It does. I told me this, got said that. Absolutely. I discerned this.

And so this is my truth, which is really just a repackable. To a self-rest. That viral video he was talking about. It was like, he was on stage and church. He's like, "God told me to meet my wife today."

So if you're out there, come and come talk to me. It was just like, yeah. We've all, we all know that guy. Yeah. Total.

There's a guy in my college group. It's just, well, well, I'm telling all the girls that you thought were available. They got told I'm there going to get married. You can't, you can't, you can't tell me all these.

Yeah. Yeah. You're not getting married all. Yeah. You can have seven of them.

You should. You get it. Yeah. I'm trying to get it. Yeah.

“You know, I think what I'm trying to get at is this also has guardrails.”

Right? You have the written word of God. So if you're being told or you think you're being told something, that is contradictory

Right?

A alarm bell should be going off.

Right? You will also, I tend to find that the Holy Spirit is affirming like coaxing and building up things that were already a part of me. Right? And what I mean by that is, you know, you have meetings.

You have moments in your work life that you go off. That was what I was put on earth to do. Right? Where you're like, you kind of feel that full body yes moment. Right?

“I think those are actually affirmations of the Holy Spirit saying this body.”

This is how you were made. Do more of this. And they feel so deeply true to you that you have that moment. It's that I'm sure it's a fire. Right?

When I run I feel his pleasure. That's pleasure. Right? You know those moments. Right?

And that soundtrack. Yeah, and that soundtrack. And you can only do whatever you're doing in slow motion. Right? That soundtrack doesn't.

Right? But so it doesn't feel just cordoned with who God has made you to be. Right? Like it feels even if for somebody else they would go, that seems scary. Or why would you put yourself in danger?

Like I remember a guy, I told him I was leading a Bible study. This is years ago with a bunch of former gang members in Nashville. Right? And he was like, "Well, do you ever bring a gun to Bible study?" And it was the most natural question for him.

And I was like, "No, I find it's a mixed message. If I'm like, I'm here to tell you about God's love. But if it gets scary, I'll shoot you." Right? Like I'm going in unarmed.

Not in shooting gun preacher. Yeah. Like I'm going to go and be with you. Right? And for him that was scary, but for me it made me feel alive.

Right?

“And like knowing that that's how I was wired.”

Yeah. So I think you have scripture. You have who you are and who you're becoming. Right? And then you have your community.

This should not be you and isolation. Right? This should be you part of a body of Christ, part of a church, part of your family. Right? Like you should be doing this and dialogue with others.

So the rhythm, the rhythm is to get quiet. And you say we do it for 30 days is going to change. I promise you. You will be tasting and experiencing more of the joy of the Lord. If you do this 30 days, 10 minutes a day.

Does the Holy Spirit wait? I mean, does the Holy Spirit tell you to be quiet? Mm-hmm.

Myself awareness isn't always just, you know, the offensive loud thing.

Oh, we want to fill that noise sometimes too, right? That we are a lack of noise. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I've had though.

I mean, this gets, we're starting to get into the blurry, into the woo woo, right? Yeah. The moment where I'm out jogging and all of a sudden, very clearly, I will feel like it feels like a download, right? The Holy Spirit being like, "Hey, on that project."

Like I had one recently where Holy Spirit was like, "Hey, I want you to stop working with that person." Mm-hmm. I was like, "What?" And this is one where you can't go to like John 317 and be like,

"Oh, here's where it says about, do projects with you." Right? Like you're out in your own, right? And I hear people going, "How did that feel?" Like how did you hear that?

Man, it's hard to describe. It's like, it's less an auditory sensation, right? I don't mean like I'm hearing a booming voice. No tree around me lit on fire. You're burning bush.

But it felt like, from the tip of my forehead, all the way down to my toes, like in awareness of this truth. And when I said back, like a dialogue, you know, just kind of in dialogue. Inwardly, I was like, "Hey, Holy Spirit." Like, "Okay, I'll do that like this summer."

Like I needed this, I needed a couple more things to happen in this project. Yeah. And the Holy Spirit said back very clearly. It'd be better if you did it now. Mm-hmm.

Right? And I was like, "Oh, this is going to be so awkward." Like I can't call this person go, "Hey, I need to wrap up this project "because on my run today, the Holy Spirit told me to." Right?

Yeah. But I did it. And I needed the money. Yeah. Like this was a financial--

It was counter to see your safety. Right?

But again, there's always going to be people who go,

"Yeah, that sounds too boo-boo for me." Sounds too whatever.

“But I think, again, that John 14 language,”

I think this is the kind of stuff that include, is included in the words of Jesus. So like what you're a parent, you have a kid, and you realize there's certain stages when you can actually--

I mean, every kid-- There was a comedian that, like, every parent lies to their kid and he's like, talking about all this stuff, you know? And it was funny, but it's like,

there is a point when the information can't be handled based on the maturity. Self-awareness, totally. There's lots of people who can't hear from the Holy Spirit because they haven't gone through enough experiences

to be able to listen. Totally. Doesn't matter how loud it is, right? Yeah. So what is that?

Where's the difference between the voice being heard and the experience to hear the voice? Yeah, I mean, I would start with,

does the living abiding Holy Spirit

have a role in my faith life right now? Hmm. Be honest with yourself. Hmm. Right?

Yeah. And for a lot of us, you're going to go, oh, man, no. Right? Yeah.

And then I would just start by reading the Bible. You know, on any software app these days, you can just search Holy Spirit and get all the verses with the posture of, "Hey, God, will you teach me about your Holy Spirit?"

“I would start there as like a beginning kind of process, right?”

And my hunch is, if you-- Or start a band. Yeah, start a band. Yeah.

We've learned in this episode as either a train wreck

or it's a train wreck. There's also a group therapy. It's a group, it's free therapy. Yeah. Wow, it's not free, but it's not free.

It costs you everything. Exactly. But, yeah, I mean, so it's sort of stepping outside of yourself. Because like, I was, I was just in the podcast today and he was saying, "Couples who survived

inject humor in their fights." It's almost like, let's step out. Let's look at ourselves as like a couple over here. We could take a couple of jokes. Look at how ridiculous this is. Yeah.

Versus just taking digs. So when you start taking digs at yourself and you can't even laugh with God about the absurdity of a situation. Yeah.

“I think you're talking to a burning bush and you just like step back and night.”

This is ridiculous. Yeah.

But I'm here, and I'm going to listen.

Yeah. There's a lot of block blocks into actually seeing ourselves. That's what I'm trying to get through. And for me, it was like very hard-headed, stubbornness

that ran up against my desire to play rock and roll was greater than my ego. So I was willing to dive to parts of my ego. So I continued doing this thing that was the heart passion of mine.

Yeah. It took years to get to that wall. Yeah. And some people, it's their deathbed. Totally.

It's that moment they go, I was wrong. Yeah. There's a lot of stuff and I'm sorry. What, how do we get to the deathbed long before? Oh, man.

Well, I mean, again, start with scripture, right? If you're listening to this and you're going, man, this guy is full of it. Like, okay, cool. Read your Bible. Yeah.

And ask yourself the question, what role does the Holy Spirit play in my life? And then in regarding of like, what we're getting at here is what I would think of as like more like spiral.

Kind of growth, right? Where you might be touching some of the same issues some of the same themes, right? But the repentant cycle is shorter. The trust and God is greater, right?

And some of the same things where you were like, oh, man, this is bump it up against my ego,

“but I'm willing to die to that in order to do this, right?”

Wasn't the last time you had that friction point, right? No. But your ability to deal with it gets better and better, right? So that's one thing I would say is like, we grow in our ability to engage with,

rest in trust in, et cetera. And the more you put faith in the Lord, right? In real world scenarios, the more your faith grows, right? Like, when my wife and I moved into the neighborhood, I still for a while had a really good job

in a like software company, right? I mean, talk about another moment I heard from the spirit. We were growing our nonprofit kind of as our side hustle, right? But it was getting too big for us to maintain out of our own family budget and our own time.

And the owner of that company took me aside one day and he was like, hey, I've got increased responsibility for you. I'd like to groom you for like next level leadership. And here's the salary that would come with that, right? For the last six months, I'd been wrestling with the Lord.

What should I do? Do I stay at this company? Do I go full time in the nonprofit? As soon as he said the number, right? Boom, instant clarity.

And it was again, one of those, I didn't hear anything, but it was just like the veil was removed, right? And I said, hey, I can't take that role. And in fact, I need to give you my notice. It's time for me to go full time in this nonprofit.

And then I came home and had to talk to my wife about it. We're going to just turn down all this money. Yeah, and she was like, okay, let's go, right? And since then, I've now had, like, my whole life only exists because of the generosity of the saints.

Both the donors who support the nonprofit, as well as, like, you know, both our kids are through domestic adoption at a Memphis. And my son, who's now 13, we've been with him since birth, he's got like five different disability diagnoses. Our everyday life with him is hyper-challenging.

And we made a choice to be downwardly mobile. And you know it costs a lot, raising a family with disabilities, right? And over and over and over again, when I've been totally stretched or my wife and I've been totally stretched, the Lord has provided.

Insurance wouldn't cover it. You must live in Nashville. Yeah, exactly.

“My car was, I literally had parts of my car that I zip tied together, right?”

Yeah. And it was on its last legs. You know, my son needed all this medical support that we couldn't afford because there's all that pocket. And within about three months, all of that had been taken care of.

Oh. Friends had donated all the money for the medical support. A guy who didn't even know me paid for the replacement of the roof, right? $12,000. Another guy had come to me and said, hey, what are you going to do about that car?

I was like, oh, you know, I'm going to buy a used car off my brother, which is, by the way, the thing you do if you're in ministry. If you like buy a used car for everyone, the families had this car. Totally. And you're also going to have to take a bank note to do it.

Right? Like it is both hand. And he's like, I don't want that to happen for you. Here's a check, right? Like all of it was sorted.

And my point in bringing that up is the more I've said, yes, to God and stepped out in faith, the more that the ground has felt firmer, even though I don't know the details. And the more my kind of interconnectivity with the spirit as strengthened.

How does that relate to when you talk about this in your book? But how does all this relate to joy, right?

I mean, we're told in our society that like what's most important is that we're happy.

Yeah. They pursue happiness. They pursue happiness, right? And we know that actually runs contrary. Bob doesn't talk about that.

That's about joy and joy being a different. Yeah.

“Different than circumstantial sort of rushes of dopamine, right?”

So how does that play into into this in conversation? Yeah. What deep gratitude is different? Yeah. Yeah, great, great question.

I mean, let's go to the fruit of the spirit, right? Love joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, self-control, right? Joy is right there, right? And what I'm describing is your context,

no longer defines how well you're doing. Mm-hmm. Right? Yeah. Your union with the most high is what defines how you're doing, right?

And to the greater extent that that is where you are grounding yourself and living out of, right? Again, it is no longer I live but Christ who lives in me. Paul still got his butt kicked, right? Like he talks, oh, we try to get into Asia.

And, you know, we're thwarted over and over again. Like we were despairing.

And yet he also writes about this incredible joy that he has, right?

And so I think what I'm getting at is to the extent that you are more and more living a life that is in union with the spirit. Your context will no longer be the thing that defines you, which is happiness, right?

That's the dopamine hit. That's the hedonic treadmill, right? I will be good if. Right? And there's all diminishing returns.

As long as you live realize that's just like it did last and last. 100%. Yeah. That's the, that's the, that's the billionaire. How much more money do you need and that go just a little more?

Right? And then you go to buy what? Do what? Do what? Yeah.

You will die naked in the loan. Yeah. The subtleties are hard in the church because I think Luke and I run into this is like the really nuanced ideas. Like we bring on people on the show that talk about casting spells on people.

And I've, you know, was researching a guy to bring on the show who's saying that if when you pray to God in a way that's like God do this, do this and do this. Mm-hmm. That is a form of witchcraft.

Mm-hmm. You're, you're trying to manipulate God to do what you want to do. But you think you're having this meaningful prayer encounter with God. Mm-hmm. Which I would say is a lack of self-awareness.

Mm-hmm. And then you tell that person, I'm praying for you to blah, blah, blah, blah. It's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We've run into it. I'm trying to divide the manipulation.

Yes. Yeah. It's very manipulative. And it's subtle. It's very southern.

Yeah. You have bless you. I know. Yeah. Bless your heart.

Bless your heart. And so it's like, that is a hard, a hard part. And I think that creates this, I don't want anything to do with it. So I'm going to be out here and I'm not going to, I'm just going to be on my own path with God and I don't want to be a part of any community.

Yeah. Because a lot of us have gotten involved in the community. God hurt. Totally. And so we move into these pockets of Christian faith and denominations

where there's no gray area. So you're talking about a lot of gray area. Yeah. Totally. And it's hard to live in that gray space of I don't know how I'm going to pay my bill next month.

Check files out of the out of the blue from some dude. Yeah. That's hard. Well, this reminds me of like a little bit of like what Charles Wendahl said, which

“is life is 10% of what happens to you in 90% of how you react to it, right?”

Yeah.

And if we're, I think if we're in a special world where we are in community with always spirit,

So our 90% changes, right?

Absolutely. Yeah. And it's not Paul Yanish, right? This is not like trying to minimize the hard. No.

Because there will be, there's moments with my son where I'm just like, oh, Lord. Like, my heart is breaking for what he's having to go through and endure. Yeah. And if I could, like, I have prayed for healing and haven't received it. Yeah.

Right? Yeah. I'm longing for him having this different experience. And the manipulative thing would be saying, you're just not praying. The right.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. As if like God is a cosmic ATM. And if I get the pin code right, then I win.

Yeah. Magician. Yeah. No. And what I'm talking about is like, I can have deep lament.

Hey, Lord, here's my heart. Yeah.

And I'm putting it all out before you.

And yet, I'm trusting in you and what you're going to, you know, bring to the table here. Yeah. And I think there's Jamie Winship. I don't know if you come across some of his stuff.

He has a great little prayer where it's, um, Hey, what do you want me to know about this?

“Like, what do you want me to know and learn about this?”

Mm-hmm. And then what do you want me to do about this? And then sitting in a heart posture of listening, um, before the Lord. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yeah. Because I'll be weak. Is that where you find joy? Yeah. I mean, I, this is hard to describe because we're getting into, you know,

really out there things, but my life has more sorrow in it than I could have ever anticipated. Mm-hmm. When I was a kid, you know, and I have more joy than I ever would have thought possible. Yeah. Every day.

Like, I can't, there are moments where I'm just like, I can't believe God has me doing this. Mm-hmm. Like, and it's the, you talk about being in a band, right? Yeah.

Um, up a guitar player. Yeah.

And when you perfectly tune a guitar and then, like, you play that chord.

Mm-hmm. And it's just like, oh, yeah. This is what this was made for. Yeah. Right?

That's the feeling that you're describing. Mm-hmm. Right? Yeah.

“Unless you're Bob Dylan, you don't care.”

Neither my voice nor this guitar is in tune. Yeah. Doesn't matter. How 'm a little pitchy. Yeah.

Right? But like, it is you being played in tune. Sure. Like, God, this is me alive to my purpose. Mm-hmm.

And you working in and through me. Mm-hmm. That's what Joyce found. Yeah. Yeah.

It is joy. Yeah. There's a moment where Indiana Jones just steps out and just goes, I don't know, the steps are going to come from. Mm-hmm.

And they do. So it's like, it's, it's, it's faith. But it's the Holy Spirit, self-awareness. You can throw a little sand out there to see it though. Yeah, it's awesome.

Sean Connery. Yeah. There's just... The dog's name, which Indiana. The dog's name.

Yeah. Everybody thinks they have a great Sean Connery, by the way. He's one of those voices. Like, I'll do the rock. Yeah.

I just shot off the movie the rock. Yeah. Exactly. Welcome to the rock. It's, it's...

“I think we talk a lot to people because, like, for instance,”

like, Luke and I deal with a lot of people who are struggling and suffering in the blurryverse, which means they have entities, messing with them, and so they'll go, those entities don't exist. I mean, you have the emails to go. Thank you for talking about this because I deal with this,

and nobody believes me. So it's like, imagine, like, a suffering in another dimension almost. Yeah. And we're like, that doesn't happen to me. Yeah.

I don't know. So it could be a steep voice song. But we could go there because I've, I've experienced that. Yeah, I was going to ask you. I want to hear some of these stories we talked about in the role.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, so to unpack the, the best honeymoon ever. Right. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, we're going to go to the next one. And then we're going to go to the next one. And then we're going to go to the next one. And then we're going to go to the next one.

And then we're going to go to the next one. And then we're going to go to the next one. And then we're going to go to the next one. And then we're going to go to the next one. And then we're going to go to the next one.

And then we're going to go to the next one. And then we're going to go to the next one. And then we're going to go to the next one. And then we're going to go to the next one. And then we're going to go to the next one.

And then we're going to go to the next one. And then we're going to go to the next one. And then we're going to go to the next one. And then we're going to go to the next one. And then we're going to go to the next one.

And then we're going to go to the next one. And then we're going to go to the next one. And then we're going to go to the next one. And then we're going to go to the next one. And then we're going to go to the next one.

And then we're going to go to the next one. And then we're going to go to the next one. And then we're going to go to the next one. And then we're going to go to the next one. And then we're going to go to the next one.

And then we're going to go to the next one. And then we're going to go to the next one. And then we're going to go to the next one. And then we're going to go to the next one. And then we're going to go to the next one.

And then we're going to go to the next one. And then we're going to go to the next one.

And then we're going to go to the next one.

“And then we're going to go to the next one.”

And then we're going to go to the next one. And then we're going to go to the next one. And then we're going to go to the next one. And I'm trying to read it to sleep and I can't. So I just stay up all night.

Right. Then we go on our honeymoon trip to New Orleans. This is a year to the day before Katrina. And for the first time in my life, I feel called to like pray about kind of spiritual realm stuff.

Right. It warms us dark. Right.

And I've never really prayed anything like that.

I'm praying it on the plane. We'll get there. I'm still keyed up. I don't sleep night too. Right.

That was like Sunday night. This keeps going. I try to get to sleep. Wouldn't my life would fall asleep. And I would stay awake.

And then eventually I start having full on like. My senses are deceiving me. Right. My hallucinations. hallucinations, et cetera.

Like I'm wandering. I took all of our money that people had given us. And I just walked around New Orleans and gave it away to homeless people. Like at night while my wife was asleep. Right.

So. And I'm making phone calls to people back home. And they're like, what is going on with will. Right. I mean, I think the technical term would be like some sort of psychosis.

Right. So then my wife is like, whoa, this is getting crazy. Like let's get home. So like she pulls an audible. We're going to fly home early.

Takes us to the airport. Try to get on a plane. And there's no flights. Right. And this is before like your smartphone where you could do that kind of thing.

Easy. It's like go to the airport. Take a counter. Yeah. Take a counter.

Two tickets on. Yeah. Can't do it.

“And at this point, I am so out of it that like the only thing I can think about the time.”

So like don't lose sight of your wife. Right. Like my cognitive. You haven't slept in three days. No, at that point it was.

I hadn't slept since Friday night and it's Thursday. It's almost a week. Yeah. I'm fully gone. Right.

We can't get on a plane. Thank God. Right. Because who knows what would happen. You know, kind of an air martial nightmare.

Maybe that's an area. So my wife's like all right. We're going to fly out tomorrow morning. She's terrified. Right.

Doesn't know what's going on. Because I haven't even told her I'm not sleeping. Right. She's like you're just behave. Yeah.

You're just like what happened. Like you've seen broken. Right. And then you go to a hotel near the airport. So we're in this hotel room.

And this is where like full on spiritual stuff that I'd never seen or encountered or experienced before ever started to happen.

Like my wife. You know, she would tell you my eyes were rolled up in the back of my head. Like I'm speaking in some language that she's just like what is happening. Literally, my body started to rise off the bed. And she's like trying to hold me down.

To the exercises. Right. Like straight up and down. Right. And I'm having it.

My experience of it was I'm having all these crazy hallucinations. Like right. Um, terrifying. Right. It was like I was watching my body.

Right. You had a body experience. Yeah. So this is happening on my honeymoon. Right.

Yeah. Like terrible, terrible. And I was looking back on it. Like the lack of sleep, the stress and and praying in ways that I was knocking on doors. I didn't know about.

Right. We're all like really dangerous things that I shouldn't have done. And like if I had known about melatonin, maybe we could have avoided all this. Right. I mean, that doesn't make you float off the bed.

No, no, no. I mean, the sleep. Right.

“Like because I think you and I talked about this.”

I think we aren't a body and a spirit. I think we're all like kind of one thing. Yeah. Right. And so there's interplay between all this.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, no, I mean, and that's usually when this stuff starts to happen in your mid 20s. You eat and talk about your whole life. And then all of a sudden, you know, your body doesn't get what it needs to to to to shut off.

Yep. I went through a bout of it when I was like 27. Insomnia is very frightening when you when you experience it and you go. And then you start like panicking. Yeah.

And then the panic more adrenaline, more adrenaline, more stressed. You can't sleep feeds itself. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

You're like laying there and you're like, "Please sleep. Please sleep. And you're sleeping." And you're anxiety about your lack of sleep. Yes.

Yeah. Spiral. Yeah. And I'll just go for your wife too. She's probably like, "What did I marry?

She's not the guy." But this goes from like needing a sleeping pill to full on need an exercise. Yeah. Yeah. Crazy, crazy, crazy.

What? What again?

Never talked about this publicly.

What does she think? I mean, she's terrified. She's no idea. So she's calling family members like that. She's speaking in language.

No idea. I've never been able to. She's never again.

Your eyes are rolled in your backyard.

Yeah. And we don't have smartphones. Right at the time. There's no anything. Probably think I did.

One of my, yeah. One of my family members that she would been talking to. He called the cops. Because he was so scared. He didn't know what was happening.

“All of a sudden, boom, cops bust in the door, right?”

And the next thing I remember, there's a police officer holding the top of my head and shining a flashlight in my eyeballs. And be like, what the kind of drugs are you on? He's swearing at me, right? And my wife's like, he's not on drugs. Right?

She's screaming at him. And there's officers flooding this little tiny hotel airport room, right? And my wife, she is a fighter, right? Like, so she's like bowing up, like trying to get in between me. And the cops grabbed me.

And they start dragging me out of the hotel room. And at this point, I'm like, what is even happening? Where am I? Right?

And I kind of came back to my body, right?

In this moment. They go and they strap me down in the ambulance outside. And I start begging because my heart was pounding so hard. I think I was having a panic attack. Yeah.

On top of all this. And I'm asking the ambulance driver to please shock my chest. Because I was like, I'm having a heart attack. Because a panic attack feels that way. Yeah.

And he won't like shock my chest. So I'm like, he wants me to die. Right? And they drive me to the ER. We get to the ER.

And my wife doesn't know what she's signing the paperwork, et cetera. And they end up committing me. And so if you think New Orleans is a crazy city. Yeah.

“And then you add a layer of like what's the ER like in New Orleans?”

Yeah. And then add another layer. What's the psych ward like? Oh my. Right?

So I and the psych ward. There were two parts of it. There was like the people who were like working their way out. And then the people who were like me. No way.

Yeah. And craziest experience of my life. I end up in the psych ward for multiple days. What happens in there?

I mean, the first thing they did was they drug me to the gills.

Right? Like drooling style. Um, do you sleep on one? Yeah. Yeah.

It knocks me out. I'm still hallucinating. Um, and so like I believe like this is one of the things I don't tell you about mental health stuff in like psychosis. Your brain is so good at making connection points.

So you weave a hugely elaborate story where everything makes sense. Right? Yeah. And so I'm like kind of weaving this narrative internally. It makes sense of everything I'm experiencing.

Yeah. Like one of a guy's name. One of the nurses names was Timothy. And so I had this whole biblical story wrapped around. I was like, oh, that's Timothyus would be his name in the Bible.

You know? Yeah. And I'm like making connections that aren't there. Um, all that kind of stuff. You just fill up using a translate.

Yeah. All of that, right? Um, but this goes on for three days. In which point my mom arrives, right? A hallucinations, too.

Yeah. And again, it's, it's hard to describe. But like all of your senses are deceiving you. But your brain is trying to make connections. Yeah.

Yeah. Like it makes sense. It's like a beautiful mind, you know? It's like schizophrenia early early stages. Yeah.

And then it gets to a point where you're like. Something's really, really real. Something's really off. Um. And so my mom and Tiffany, my wife,

they were able to convince the doctors, hey, you know, if we kind of keep this drug regimen up, will you release him and let's drive him home? Um, so that's what ended up happening, driving back from New Orleans to North Carolina,

where we were at the time. And then misdiagnosed. Like they thought, you know, I had a serious mental condition. So they drugged me to the gills for like the next two years, right?

At which point I had a new doctor, who's like this story doesn't add up. There was more to this. Going on.

“And he's like the only way we will know if this is, you know, real.”

Um, and this is going to be something you deal with for your life, like forever. Um, as if we wien you off of your medicine and see what happens, right? And I remember these conversations with Tiffany.

She was like, oh, my gosh. Like that was my nightmare. It could happen again, etc. But he, you know, led me through weaning off this medication. And dude, it was lies in anti-cycotic.

Yeah, it was an atypical anti-cycotic. Yep. Which flatline you, like. We're just blah, but now. Yeah, they take you off your highs and they fill in your lows.

And it's the equivalent of like living in an emotional gray scape. Right? And I remember he wien me off of those meds. And I came back to myself.

Like it was incredible. And in the course of that, that was like a two-year period.

That was when I first started.

And you talk about somebody who'd be naturally skeptical of like hearing voices, right? Like anybody who's listening to right now is like,

“that guy shouldn't be listening to the Holy Spirit, right?”

He's going to get committed again. I mean, I think 20% of people, I remember reading statistics don't experience a mental health situation or a rest of us do. So you're not in the majority if you don't ever have a mental health.

This one's a little wild though, yeah. But this is like, yeah. What do you think about the, just like a spiritual threat in there of, I mean, some people have mental health issues

and they take some NSSRI and they come back. Yep, right? Yep. But this is like floating off the bed and things like it's not. When you look back on it, what do you think?

I mean, where's your faith in relation to what's going on? And then, because that's a hard thing for, we've had several people say that they confronted their spouse

or whatever, like, "Hey, you were manifesting."

And they're like, "No, I wasn't, you know what?" No, you were. And speaking of language, same thing, same kind of story, but they don't, there's like this thought and Christian church, well, if I'm saved,

and I don't deal with any of these things. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And all that. So, what do you think? Yeah, I've thought a lot about this.

“I think one is, when you are physically compromised,”

right, you're more vulnerable. Yeah, yeah. Just in general. And I mean that at large. You're more likely to get a cold.

Yeah. Right? And again, I'm coming from a world view that I believe that this stuff is real. Oh, yeah. Right? Like the powers and the principalities and spiritual things

and the unseen. And so, I think one is, like, I can't tell you how diligent I am about sleep. Right? Like, I'm on my game. You know?

It's a little sleep report from my watch every morning, you know? Yeah. The other thing I think about is, like, for a Christian, I don't know if I'd be comfortable saying that a Christian could get possessed, right? Yeah.

I would say something more like, a Christian might be able to get driven, right? Like, meaning like, I was exposed in a way where there was something happening internally to me. Like, I was not lost. I was not fully taken over in some capacity or something, right?

Yeah. But I was vulnerable to the point where something else was in there. Yeah. Right? Well, people described just having a near-death experience.

And then they had a body easy. Like, though, pop out of their body after they had a near-death experience. So how does they had this? Their body was pushed to the brink. Your body was pushed to the brink.

Yeah. And then it's like, almost supernat-- they we call it supernatural, but we don't-- We should use that word because it doesn't--

It does not helpful ultimately in these conversations.

But when your body's pushed to the brink, things feel like, whoa. Yeah. Not dealing in three dimensions. Yeah.

“I was like, do you think it was just that, like, you hit this perfect storm of stress?”

And then the tipping point was you took on something that was much bigger that you wanted to do too. I genuinely picked a fight. Yeah. And I did it alone. That's the other thing I would say.

Just the arrogance of youth was there. Right? Right? Yeah. What are you praying that's causing this, you think?

Oh, man. I am literally praying about spiritual forces and kind of-- I'm praying for the city. I'm praying about this stuff. I'm praying in a bragadotious way, right?

Or just so you got the spotlight then just turned. And it was like, oh, this guy. Yeah. Again, the best language I have is like, I think I knocked on a door. I wasn't meant to knock on.

And, you know, fast forward, I don't do anything in any of this stuff alone. Right? Like, in the nonprofit space, I don't go do something by myself. Like, I have a great team and we're preyed up and we're united. You know?

And so I think that's the other, like, I changed my sleep patterns. When you let me just go, because we kind of kind of cut it off. But like, when you get wind off off of the anti-psychotics, you just flip the switch back to me and well. Like, you're just--

Oh, yeah. It's back. Yeah. Yeah. And the docs like, hey, you don't need this.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And that has continued. Right?

That was-- Oh, four. Oh, four was the event. Oh, six was the-- Your wife is the same.

I mean, I mean-- Oh, dude. Honey, move it. And then you just-- you turned it into the girlfriend of the extra system. I mean, yeah.

Like, I didn't vomit. So I had that going for me. Yeah. I think that's why she stayed. Yeah.

X is a good conversation because, like, the lines get blurry between mental health, demonic attack, schizophrenia, like chemicals in the brain, people taking drugs and inducing spiritual experiences.

And where does it happening? Is it happening in reality? Is it happening somewhere else? Is it happening in the mind? Yeah.

I mean, these conversations go on and on in our space. Whereas you-- you can have your sort of doctor explanation.

“Even when-- we've had a lot of people talk about their children, right?”

There's-- there was one story in particular where he gets to point where he takes his son to adopt a kid from Haiti and takes to the doctor. The doctor said, this is outside of-- Mm. You need an exercise.

You need somebody to come in and deal with this problem. And he's like, a doctor is telling me. Someone that doesn't say that sort of thing. We have a rational explanation for everything. So where do you think those lines kind of intersect of how to make sense of all those kinds of

lanes kind of coming in the middle there? Yeah.

I mean, the first thing I'd say is like, are you willing to accept that this world is full of mystery?

Yeah. Right. I don't try to solve anymore, right? For something like this. Yeah.

And in general, I think it's trying to hold a heart posture of like, Lord, what do you want me to know about this? What do you want me to do about this? Yeah. And how can I be faithful to you?

Mm-hmm. Right. That means I'm taking myself off the hook from making it tidy, right? A situation like there's no sticking the landing on this. Our honeymoon sucked.

Mm. And the sorrow and the brokenness of those next two years where Tiffany over and over again was waiting for me to go down that path again. Do you know what I mean? It was awful.

awful anxiety, right? Yeah. Will's just not going to be well. Totally. It's going to happen.

And it has taken us, I mean, we've been married for over 21 years now. Mm-hmm. And the effects of some of that, right? The shrapnel, right? We're still doing some healing work.

Right. We're still doing some healing work. We're still doing some healing work. Yeah. We're still doing some healing work.

We're still doing some healing work. We're still doing some healing work. We're still doing some healing work. We're still doing some healing work. We're still doing some healing work.

We're still doing some healing work. We're still doing some healing work. We're still doing some healing work. We're still doing some healing work. We're still doing some healing work.

We're still doing some healing work. We're still doing some healing work. We're still doing some healing work. We're still doing some healing work. We're still doing some healing work.

We're still doing some healing work. We're still doing some healing work. We're still doing some healing work. We've been listening. Everybody wants to jump in there and say a chance.

They forget that David was called to this. Like this is what 100%. And God told you, this is God saying to you, you go do this. Not like, hey, I'm just going to take on whatever's in front of me. Because I can.

“I think that's the people who struggle with it.”

It's a church divided about that. Like, well, we have the Holy Spirit in us. We have the authority, absolutely. But it doesn't mean that we go Rambo on things that God's not saying. Go there and do that.

Yeah. Couldn't shoot our difference. 100%. Yeah. I don't know if we needed to stay 40 years in the desert.

No. On his watch. But on our watch, we did. Yeah. Same with, there's a great theory that I recently came across.

And I think has a lot of merit to it. Which is maybe the people of God didn't need to be embodied for 400 years. That Joseph, right? In that story, when he gets aware of the famine coming. Yeah.

It creates an economic structure that makes the Pharaoh more powerful.

Putting him in a position to enslave more. We're even told like the people are trading their kids for food, right? And this guy's theory was, hey, actually, I don't think they had to be there for 400 years. If Joseph had come up with a different economic system. That blessed people rather than concentrated power in the Pharaoh.

Maybe that was one generation in your gone. Yeah. Interesting. There's so many layers in that story. That's not the story.

That's a family story for sure. Yeah. You love those family stories. Well, I think that's all it is. I think this is all a big family story.

Absolutely. And so I would say speaking to families, all right. So Abraham probably called to do one of the greatest faith acts in the history of humanity. He's waiting his whole life for this kid to kid comes and then God's like, all right. Abraham doesn't do that as a young man.

He doesn't do that in his 20s. Yeah. But he does it as an old man.

“So what happens in Abraham's life in terms of self-awareness?”

And then until he's like, okay, God, all right. Sounds crazy. But I'll do it. Yeah. I think that's self-awareness, right?

Yeah. Yeah.

That's him learning the lesson of dependence on God in a million different ways over and over and over again.

And not getting it right frequently. But in the friction of that learning how to go back to that place of trust. Yeah. We kind of asked N.T. write a similar thing. Like, how would we've written this book, you know, 30 years ago.

All right. And there's something about life and that we don't value experiences. God saying it's going to take 20 years for you to understand what's about to happen.

No, this was in the desert. No patriot. Yeah. No patience. I want to be just starting a podcast, right?

Something like this, like we're six years in. We knew we had a row of the friends. It's going to six year or five year journey. To get to the point where you're and you start and you go. And if someone hands you a successful podcast tomorrow,

you're going to destroy it. Yeah, totally. Because like, oh, we got what it takes. We're going to do this sort of thing. And there's no humility, small steps.

Growth, same thing being in a band. Yep.

You know, you get, you get your first show.

Three people come. Yeah. Yeah. And then one day you get 500 people to show up. And you're like, man, there's a long journey from here to there.

Yeah. Yeah.

“And I think there's nothing different than the human experience of.”

Time learning where we're slow creatures to get in. Yeah. But there is no shortcut. There's no elevator to Everest. You said it.

You said it. Yeah. Yeah. But like, but I think the difference I would make is. I think in culture, we say, I'll be good when I hit that milestone.

Yeah. And I think the journey of faith is learning how to be in the joy and in the presence of the Lord, every step of the way. Yeah. Right. Because then it's like, man, the whole journey is good.

Right. You think about Everest. Yeah. You don't, the view is still really good halfway up the mountain. Yeah.

It's in joy of the journey. Yeah. Yeah. That's cool running. Yeah.

You just introduced our kids to cool running. Right. Best pops letting us be hammered. Dude, I'm the best push car driver and all that.

Feels like it always comes back.

Yeah. To the band thing, we used to joke that, you know, when you go on the voice, nobody on the voice knows how to back up a trailer. You know? Like, nobody paid their dues. Nobody knows what it's.

Yeah. You can't enjoy the view at the top. Yeah. If you never like halfway up the mountain, you took a view of like, oh man, look how far we've gone. Yeah.

You sort of have this invisible miles like once I get here, then I'm good. Then I'm good. And then we forget the whole journey. The hope, the hope point was every single moment. So you're saying every day.

Every day. Wake up. And back full circle. Yeah. And the book is stories of our family's journey with the.

Honestly, the hard work and the suffering that comes in a family affected by disability. Like it's told through that lens. But then it has every chapter has practical steps like try this this week. And really invitational like try it on. See if it works.

Adjusted if it doesn't for you. But all towards learning to listen to the Holy Spirit and tune your heart to that. I love it. Working people find the book. Yeah.

I mean, it's on all the places. Amazon will joy. On Instagram.

“If you want to, you know, catch up with daily little notes.”

We want to follow the journey. Yeah, exactly. Cool. I mean, this is the, this is the life long conversation. This is the conversation that we all have every day.

You know, where we feel like big kids in this world. Yeah. You're making little lessons and little. And then you get to an age in your 40s. It seems where it all kind of falls apart.

You know, like, I don't really know anything. Okay, God. Like, had it all figured out my 20s and 30s. Yeah. And I told you, God, what it was like.

Yeah. It was the teacher. It was not funny how that works. Yeah. And then you fall apart.

And God starts to rebuild you. Yeah. Thanks. Yeah. Thanks for having me, guys.

New friends. Thanks for helping. We've got to go to the bullpen. We're like, hey, we need to find funny, funny thing. Real quick.

I was in Arkansas yesterday. Meet in a new friend. This name is Jeff.

“And we're talking about like, what do you like to do when you're driving?”

Because in Arkansas, this guy's work. He's driving all over the state. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, what's your favorite podcast? And he goes, oh, man, blurry creatures. No.

Right. And he goes, hey, and my, my son and my daughter-in-law are members. And like, we are full in, right? And then it was three hours later that I get the call from Josh about it. Shut up, Jeff.

Let's go. Yeah. So we got a special gift for you to wrap this all up. Make a full circle, Luke. Oh, boy.

Oh, a special gift. I mean, even imagine what we're, oh, man. Little ball. It's an original.

Actually, we've never given more of those away.

They're a good one away. First, first. Yeah. It's not a tradition, but now. Yeah.

We got to get this an autograph. We're about here. Yeah, 100%. It's just awesome pictures on it. Yeah.

Thank you guys for having me. Yeah. Thanks, well. Thank you. [MUSIC PLAYING]

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