It seems like struggles with pornography get most
the airtime these days since it is so
available in modern times. However,
drug abuse and substance addiction is growing at
shocking rates.
As a church leader, we need to be
prepared.
We have a library full of resources focused
on this topic.
The presentation I would recommend you start with
is Joseph Grenny's presentation about what we can
learn from captain Moroni to help our loved
ones overcome struggles with drugs and alcohol.
His story of how he loved his son
through his addiction is powerful and redemptive.
You can listen to this presentation in the
recovering saints library by going to leadingsaints.org/fourteen.
Put your information in there and that will
give you fourteen days at no cost. I
made it easier for you and put the
link in the show notes, or you can
go to leadingsaints.org/1four.
I would be rude if I didn't take
the time to explain to the newer listeners
what Leading Saints is. Here it goes. Leading
Saints is an organization that started as a
hobby blog in 02/2010
and then really caught some traction in 02/2014
when the podcast started. We talk about all
things leadership in the context of the Church
of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints. We
aren't owned by the church, but we have
a great relationship with them and always aim
to be faith promoting even though we talk
about the tough topics.
My name is Kurt Frankem. I'm generally the
voice you hear as the host of the
podcast. I've tried to get other hosts, but
people demand my smooth tone and I really
enjoy it. Check out leadingsaints.org
to really get into the weeds of what
Leading Saints is and learn all about our
mission to help Latter day Saints be better
prepared to lead.
Welcome back to the Leading Saints podcast, and
you're in for a treat again. I bring
in one of my favorite, Christian authors,
John Eldridge. This is actually my third interview
with John Eldridge. We'll, link to some of
those past interviews that they're really worth a
listen. John is such a pure soul, someone
I respect and appreciate so much, you know,
not necessarily in our faith tradition, but he
is, has a lot to offer it and
a lot of perspective. And, so this may
be kind of an interfaith discussion concept. He
has a new book out called Experience Jesus
Really. And then there are so many parallels
to our theology,
especially in the concept of how we worship
God and connect with him and in spiritual
realms or also known as the temple. So
I really just invite you to sit back,
enjoy this conversation, take it for what it
is and check out John Eldridge book. I
always tell people, if you haven't read wild
to heart, especially men out there, it's a
must read for some point in your life
earlier than later,
but a phenomenal
transformational life changing book there. And then has
so many other books and this is his
most recent Experience Jesus, Really. So I wanted
to help John get the word out, make
sure you're aware of it and jump in.
And again, there's so much that just jives
so well with our religious tradition and, I
think you'll appreciate it. So here is my
interview with John Eldridge, the author of experience,
Jesus, really.
All right, John. Well, you know, I I
remember the first time I got an interview,
I was sort of pinching myself thinking, wow,
this is a once in a lifetime
moment here, but, now this is the third
time and I just appreciate our conversation so
much. So thank you for being here. Yeah.
I've really enjoyed them, Kurt. Thanks for having
me back.
Yeah. And, you know, and I, I wanna
orient people that maybe they don't like, who's
this John Eldridge guy? And why should I
be listening to this or hitting play on
it? Maybe as people ask you, like, what's
your background or what brings you to this
place that, you have these type of conversations?
Yeah. Sure. That's very fair. So I've been
a therapist
for
about thirty five years.
A lot of experience
helping people
grow, helping people heal,
and
began writing.
I'm an author and
found a lot of joy in that. And
apparently,
people
enjoyed it as well because
I think I've published about 17 books now.
And you and I have talked about a
few of those. Yeah. I know Wild at
Heart has meant a lot to you. Mhmm.
So therapist, author,
and
we have an organization called Wild at Heart.
We do
spiritual retreats for men and women,
not only here in The US, but around
the world.
And, yeah, our work is helping people heal.
Yeah. That's awesome. And, yeah, like you said,
the Wild at Heart, book has impacted me
with as well as thousands and tens of
thousands of of men and, I guess, women
across the world as well. I'm curious because
it's been about twenty five years now since
you published that. Is that right? Good memory.
Yeah. I I knew it was around the
turn of the century. Right? Yeah. I think
we're at '24. I think we had the
Okay. Twenty fifth anniversary is next year. And
the wild part of that story, Kurt, is
that it's still going. Yeah. It's still going.
It's still helping men become good men
and helping women understand the men in their
lives, particularly
raising boys.
I've heard from so many moms
who have just said thank you for helping
me understand these little boys in my care.
Yeah. So and we continue to do wild
heart films and
retreats.
Yeah. Yeah. And I'm just curious, like,
you know, I remember back in the day
when, you know, Stephen Covey came out with
the seven habits of highly effective people. Then
years later, you know, he came out with
the the eighth habit. Like, he had discovered
one more habit. You know?
Well, the heart you talk about, the three
core desires of man's heart, you know, and
the, battle to fight and to venture to
live and a beauty to love. Do you
feel like I mean, over these years, is
there a fourth, John? Have you discovered more
than Oh, that's good. To those things, or
what do you think? Well, I we certainly
learned a lot. And, obviously, culture has changed,
Kirk. Yeah. Wow. Has culture changed.
So I did add some content
to the new book
for
men and families wrestling
simply with gender identity
because that's that's become a a source of
a lot of heartache, particularly for young people.
And when Wild at Heart came out twenty
four years ago,
that wasn't really on the table that this
is a new emergent thing. So the culture
has changed.
There's almost nothing in Wild at Heart on
men and technology.
Mhmm. But technology
has just
devoured me. I mean, they're obsessed with it,
spend tons of hours on it. So I
would say those two things are probably big.
And we've also learned a lot more about
healing the human soul and how that works.
So
these ideas these two ideas are in the
book, but let me say them out loud.
Every boy has two core needs, not just
one. They have two core needs.
And the first is, do you love me?
And do I have what it takes? So
there's belovedness,
am I beloved? And do I have what
it takes?
Do I have a strength,
a genuine courage, a genuine,
you know, just self that can make a
difference in the world. I'm not gonna be
overwhelmed by life. I'm actually gonna conquer life.
And those he looks primarily to dad for
the answers to those two questions. Now he
absolutely looks to mom too. Yeah. And
mother wounds can be some of the deepest
wounds that we need to heal from.
But those two needs, I don't know that
I made those as clear twenty four years
ago as I do when I teach now
because you can just see men looking for
love, looking for validation,
you know, pornography
and money and, you know, extreme sports and
all that stuff.
They're looking for it. They're looking for that
sense of I'm loved. I have what it
takes. So I think as we as parents,
if we can really breathe that into our
sons and our daughters when they're young,
man, we set them up to succeed.
Yeah. And I'm glad you brought that up
because I'm seeing this in the last few
years, sort of this movement, especially in, you
know, Christian circles of sometimes
we, we feel like, oh, I think it,
the problem with men is the church has
gone too soft on them and we just
actually need them really hard things and really
come at them with duty and, you know,
responsibility and let's get to work, man. Right?
And of course, in the right setting, and
some may need that, you know, that I
think that connects to like the battle to
fight, right? That we do need
that resistance. We need to come together in
a tribe and march towards a goal. But
sometimes we dismiss this, what I think is
like a foundational
concept of like, actually that little boy inside
of each of us needs
that validation from a God saying, no, you
are loved. Like you Yes. You are precious
to me. Right? And, and I don't know,
sometimes we skip over that too quickly because
it feels like that's too soft, you know?
Any thoughts that come to that? Yeah. You
know, this is interesting because we can talk
about it right brain, left brain also.
So we have had an overdeveloped
left brain approach
to men in particular. It's reason. It's, you
know, critical thinking. It's decision making skills. It's
discipline.
Right? But you literally have two hemispheres
to your brain. And the right hemisphere is
intuition.
It's music. And the interesting thing is the
right brain is connection.
It's relational.
It doesn't think in terms of, you know,
kind of rational propositions. It thinks in terms
of connection.
And so what we're just describing is men
need to be whole. Yeah. Women as well
need to be whole. You know? Yes to
the left brain, and that we'll get into
this, I'm sure, today. The left brain is
like Internet life.
Research, show me the facts, give me the
latest science, you know, looking stuff up. But
the right brain
is play
and joy and beauty and wonder.
And I just think it's beautiful that God
literally made us
with two halves
that are meant to be whole. You know,
we're meant to live from both. And teaching
men, you know, a lot of our work
is teaching men, yeah, to be more in
touch with their
history, their woundedness,
not to
invite them to weakness, but instead to heal
so that they can be stronger. Yeah. That's
really helpful. And I'm just curious, maybe put
you on the spot a little bit, but
right now I'm in charge of the men's
group in my, church. And, you know, in
our faith tradition, we have, you know, about
an hour more of a formal meeting. We
call it sacramenting where we participate in the
communion or sacrament. And then the next hour,
at least every other week is, you know,
the women go to their side of the
building, men go to our side of the
building and we try and engage in a
spiritual,
thoughtful
interaction there. And usually, you know, we're in
the scriptures or reading, you know, commentary or
things about scripture. And sometimes we don't know
how to approach that. So I'm just curious,
like, if you were to give a a
quick, like, training on, like, how can leaders
walk into a room full of Christian men
and engage with them on a weekly or
every other week basis?
Yeah. Because both are important. Right? Study is
important. Growing, learning, wisdom is important.
I think the simple practice of what we
call a check-in,
you could build that into your meeting and
say, hey. Before we get started in our
study or our conversation,
let's all do a check-in.
And first, you just have them check-in
themselves. Right? How are you? Just tune in.
Are you coming in anxious? Are you coming
in mad? Like, how are you? What is
the condition of your soul? You can build
that in really comfortably. Hey, guys. Let's just
do our check-in.
And then depending on the size of the
group, and you could even have a little
bit of conversation around that. You go, well,
how are you doing? How are you coming
in here? And you have a little bit
of dialogue around that
would be again, that activates the right side
of the brain and it engages the heart
and it helps you to be more more
fully human
in our discipleship
to Jesus.
So simple practice like that, a check-in would
be great. Yeah. I love that. That's really
helpful. And it takes my mind to this
instance. What I did one week is I
I did a spectrogram. We were in the
the gymnasium part of the church, so we
kinda had a place to spread out there.
And I did a spectrogram saying, hey. Alright,
guys. On on this side of the room,
you know, stand where on the scale where
you feel most resonates. So on on this
wall, you know, this far wall, that's like
life is terrible, never been worse, you know,
in the pits. The other side has never
been better. Right? And it was interesting to
see the bell curve, you know, form amongst
that group. There are probably 35 to 40
guys in the room
and identifying. I resonate so much with this
group as it's the I'm fine group. You
know? It's like, no. No. Check-in. Like, how
are you? Well Yeah. I don't know. I'm
fine. You know? And cause I think there's
a lot of, like, in my story, I
don't have a story of, you know, tragic
abandonment or abuse in my in my background.
And so you kinda get going in life
and you're doing the things, you got the
job, you're trying to show up for the
kids and
I think I'm fine. Right? Is there and
and sort of wanna be like, well, I
mean, if you're fine, like, why do you
need a healer? Why do you need a
redeemer? You know, like, where's the entrance point
into that wounding when they've kinda feel like
I'm fine? Like, what do you do with
the I'm fine guy? Yeah. Yeah. I would
I would have a big place on the
floor that says, I'm exhausted
on that spectrum
because most of the guys will go stand
there. Yeah. Yeah. And that's the entry point.
You see, such as woundedness,
although every person gets wounded in this world,
you know, we continue you know, your your
spouse may leave you. Your child,
my goodness, might be killed in an automobile
accident. You know, it's not just that it's
childhood things.
But if we just take most people's daily
experience, the world is just a draining place.
Yeah. And
you take Psalm 23,
you restore
my soul. The soul needs to be restored.
And so just to allow guys to go,
I'm okay, but I'm exhausted.
I'm spun up. I'm depleted.
I'm I'm running on fumes.
That's the entry point. Yeah. Just those and
I have to frame is, like, just the
tensions of life. Like, where do you feel
that tension? Because we all have it. Right?
Where it's like, man, I can't stand that
boss or, yeah, I'm fine, but we'd all
know that
you you hate going to work or, you
know, the Yeah. You don't know how to
connect with your kid or, you know, there's
always something Yeah. Yeah. Or you can't figure
out how you're gonna pay the bills.
Yeah. You know, financial tensions,
you know, one of the number one stressors
in a marriage.
And teenage kids and all that they get
exposed to in the world now, like, yeah,
just maybe giving guys a few more options
of I'm tense.
I'm exhausted. And and I would I would
say something in the category of
the future looks daunting.
Yeah. That's really that resonates really well with
men. Well, I appreciate it kinda
entertaining that just the those concepts of men's
work and faith because sometimes we lose so
many men when we don't intend to. It's
just
we don't know how to connect at times
or or create an experience that really draws
them in. But when you do, it's amazing
the transformation that can happen. And on that
note, like, tell me about, like, obviously, you've
been doing these Wildheart boot camps for years
now, this experience type of thing. Because, you
know, I've I've participated in some of these,
at least the basic, you know, Wildheart basic
type of experiences. And and to bring others
there, it's sort of like, why I mean,
I go to church. Like, why do I
need to come to this gathering of men
type of thing? How do you best approach
men and and with who are who are
not sure why they need to have this,
you know, three, four day experience
that you you offer. Yeah. And, again,
as you were describing them, the entry points
for men are so different.
And so you you need to kinda listen
for the entry points. And if he's just
feeling like he's
failing as a dad,
that's the entry point. It's it's like, I'm
missing my kids, man. I'm getting angry.
I'm really busy right now at work. You
go, okay. So, like, you need some encouragement
and
some guidance and some help as a dad.
That's an entry point. And a lot of
guys come to our work or read Wild
at Heart because of that entry point. I
just wanna be a better dad. I need
some help. For other guys, it's the full
blown addiction, man. I mean, come on. If
you can get a guy to be honest
with you, he's into porn. He's into fentanyl.
He's he's got something going on the side.
Let's just admit that. Right? And that can
be a phenomenal entry point. Come for your
sexuality. Come for your addiction. Come for freedom.
Come to break out of that that you're
hiding from everyone, but, you know, it's tearing
you up inside. See how there's different entry
points for guys?
Yeah. And then for a number of men,
they just get lost.
Like, what's my calling? What's my purpose in
life? What am I supposed to be doing?
I mean, I'm I'm earning a living and
maybe I'm you know, maybe some guys are
doing a great job with money, but, like
yeah. And then what? Like, what's my purpose?
That's a big entry point for men. Yeah.
And to say, yep. That's we wanna talk
to that. We wanna speak to purpose, meaning,
identity.
And all that stuff, as you know, goes
on at a at a well at heart
basic or or one of our live events.
Yeah. Yeah. That for me, you know, as
as president of the, you know, I'm fine
club, you know, going to that experience and
hearing the larger story,
you know, sort of orientation meeting. Yes. Right?
I've been like, oh, like, yeah. I'm fine,
but look at the larger story that that
I'm in, and there's actually more that God's
inviting me into that I'm kind of putting
off because, hey, you know, I'm fine. That'll
come later. Yeah. So it was really transformational
in that way. Yeah. Very good. Well, let's
pivot towards your your latest book, Experience Jesus
Really.
And this is part of a, I guess,
you would just call it a a trio,
a trilogy here as the last trilogy. Yeah.
Did you always anticipate it to be three
books, or did it kinda lead in one
or the other? No. No. And I didn't
really even realize it was a trilogy until
the third one came along.
When the pandemic happened, literally, the month of
the pandemic, we rolled out a book called
Get Your Life Back, and the timing obviously
could not have been better because everybody felt
like they lost their life. Yeah. And then
a couple years into that, so 2022,
'20 '20 '3, we rolled out a book
called Resilient
Mhmm. Because we were really trying to address,
you know, the thing I was saying, the
world is just a draining place. I don't
care who you are. I don't care how
amazing your life is. The world is a
very draining place.
Chaos, the politics,
you know, the constant changes,
the tensions.
And so came out with a book called
Resilient, helping people, you know, learn the ways
to come back to being a a truly
resilient person and not just getting through your
day. And then this last one
is the deep end of the pool. Like
and I'm really surprised, Kurt. When I wrote
this book, I'm like, well,
this might only appeal to a few you
know, a certain kind of person.
And, wow, we are getting
just phenomenal
responses to this all across the age groups
and the gender, you know, man male and
female.
And, yeah, it's it's resonating with people.
You may have been familiar with the Barna
study they did on faith.
They did a longitudinal
study
that all of us can point to someone
we know.
One and two
people of faith have walked away in the
last twenty years. Wow. They're just not interested
anymore. Yeah. And we can all tell that
story. It's like, oh, yeah. My brother-in-law or,
oh, yeah. You know, my 22 year old
daughter or you know? And
when I talk to those people,
when I listen to their stories, most of
it is disappointment
that they didn't really experience
God.
Like, I went to church. I did the
deal. You know? I didn't really have much
of an experience there. And so this third
book is, yeah, really written around
the human soul is made
for intimacy
with God.
Jesus gives the metaphor, I am the vine,
you are the branches.
And
that the branches draw their life,
their nourishment,
their sustenance. You literally, like, get their immune
system
from the vine. And Internet life, and we
can kinda talk about this, would be important
today to talk about this.
You know, we've literally been
conditioned
away
from that vine branch union.
Mhmm. We've been conditioned against it, which is
really truly evil that people are being, like,
hardened to it or can calloused away from
it. You know, one, just the pace of
life
because
enjoying God, being in the presence of Jesus,
hearing his voice, you have to learn how
to linger.
Right? And if you're just going boom, boom,
boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom,
boom through your day,
and then the Internet,
you know, you're familiar with with what the
content of the book is. But Yeah. In
the early parts, I talk about we are
all disciples of the Internet. And by that,
I don't mean the content
because people look up all kinds of different
things. You say, no. I'm not I'm not
a disciple. You go, yeah. But you're a
disciple of the process.
Yeah. Every day, we all look stuff up.
Okay?
Everybody. It's like, oh, yeah. Who was the
fourteenth president of The United States? Or,
oh, yeah. What you know, what is what
is Putin doing today? Or, you know, just
whatever. Right? We look this up. What's the
proper temperature to bake a potato? I don't
know. Let's look it up. But here's the
thing.
You get an immediate answer.
I mean, boom. Talk about satisfaction.
Boom. Yeah. Not only do you get one,
you get, like, 3,000,000
answers
instantly.
And and this has conditioned the human soul
over time
to be impatient.
But learning to linger
in the beautiful,
wonderful presence of Jesus,
you gotta be able to do that.
Right? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So
modern life in all of its pressures, tensions,
pace, but particularly Internet
life, Internet discipleship,
has conditioned the human soul against the vine
and branch relationship,
the very thing that's gonna save your life.
Right? Yeah. That's where this third book comes
in. Yeah. It's really powerful. And it I
mean, your work and just being more mindful
of that dynamic is really helped me. I
remember and, you know, some days where like,
here's the thing. They get like, for me,
I don't have, like, people could follow me
around all day. There's no, like, hidden stigmatized
sin that I have. I mean, of course
I have sin. I'm imperfect, but, but I
mean, you're not gonna catch me doing anything
that's completely,
you know, that would be super embarrassing,
whatever it is. But nonetheless,
like, I noticed in, like, one day in
particular, just a really busy day, long day,
lots to do, focusing everywhere, traveling a little
bit. And I get home and all I
wanna do is lay on my bed, open
a social media app, and look at funny
memes that my brother sent me. Right? Yes.
And so but it sort of stopped me
like, woah. Like, I am turning to this
you know, there's nothing wrong with a funny
meme. There's nothing wrong with social media. I
mean, basically speaking. But when I'm turning to
it as an escape,
as a place to just numb out, like,
okay. Maybe there's a moment I can set
that down and turn to prayer and just
sit and recognize these feelings that I'm looking
for peace, you know, as as you put
it, I'm looking for Yes. The the garden,
right? Yeah. To return to, you know, the
Garden of Eden to
the the something that's gonna fill my soul,
like a relationship with God. And so Yes.
It's really helped me just to kind of
receive these knee jerk reactions that I have
Yes. You know, just dealing with life. Yeah.
That's good. That's good. Because we all do
that. Like, we can all relate to that.
Just let me scroll. Just let me veg.
Let me let me get on YouTube and
look up. You know, I wanna watch all
those little shorts and Yeah. And then depending
on what your flavor is. I wanna I
wanna watch
news. I wanna watch, you know, history of
World War two. I want you know? Yeah.
Well, that'll feed you, man. There's an unending
well there that you can just get distracted
and lost in this. But what you are
tuning into is,
I'm just agitated.
My soul is not at rest.
I'm looking for something to soothe that. Right?
And some people turn to memes, and some
people turn to alcohol, and some peep you
know, on and on you go. What
Jesus says is come unto me all you
who are weary and heavy laden, and I
will give you rest. He he wants to
be the solace,
the care that we need. And it's not
that we don't also enjoy these other things.
Get out in the yard,
play some hoops. You know? Yeah. It's not
Jesus isn't saying, all I want you to
do is have a spiritual life. Okay? He's
just saying, yeah. But you're not turning to
me at all. Yeah. I'm I am the
rare occasion
rather than your daily. Right? Yeah. And so
often, at least in my experience, and I've
seen others where it's like, well, I mean,
come on. I'm I do the church thing
every week and, yeah, our family gather for
a quick prayer in the morning or whatever,
but I really want I just, again, look
at the life of Jesus of, like, that
full dependency on the father. Right? The way
that he really oriented himself time and time
again to the father, you know, and, you
know, that's that's what I want. And so
but it's so dark. Like, well, this is
2025. This is different. Like, no, it's not
different. It doesn't have to be different. Yeah.
To really be in that full dependency with
God. Yeah. That's really good to go that
direction for a minute. Because I was chatting
with a guy the other day, and he
was telling me about how he came to
Christ. And he said,
for him, he said it actually didn't begin
with a conviction of sin.
He
was looking for life.
He was chasing
life hard and nothing was needing that emptiness
in his soul.
You know, the god shaped vacuum in the
human soul. He came in through what he
called desire.
Right? Like, the desire of the soul.
And we gotta keep that front and forward,
folks. Like, your soul is made
to feed on God. God is joy. God
is life. God is awesome.
Like,
we're not being Debbie Downer here. If you
need to say more prayers
Right.
That the apologetic
of desire is one of the most powerful
things in the universe is that we are
drawn to things that bring us joy.
We are drawn to things that bring us
life. You know, if if opening your motorcycle
wide open out on the highway,
you know, you're looking for joy. Right? Yeah.
Yeah. We're drawn to that.
That's how God made us. And so I'll
be honest. I would read, like, Psalms like
Psalm 63. And and David says, your love
is better than life. And I would I
would respect that. I would say, well, I
respect you. I believe you, David.
I don't personally know that myself,
but this is the scripture, and so I
respect it. Right? But you go, no. No.
No. No. No. He he's telling you that
because he wants you to experience it too.
It's the apologetic of desire.
Right? It's like bring your longings, bring your
search for love, bring your search for life
to God. Jesus wants to meet you in
your desire.
And then here's the awesome thing is that
you don't have to discipline yourself
to pray. You don't have to discipline yourself
to read the scriptures. Could or do all
the things that you do that help you
find God. You know, you take the dogs
for a walk. You go sit on your
back porch. You you know, all the things
you do. You're not gonna have to be
convinced to do this
because your soul has found
the source of life.
Yeah. And you're talking about this concept of
being an f a spiritual amphibian. I don't
know the Yes. Exact way you frame it,
but of, you know, being in the world,
but not of the world type of thing,
you know, that, yeah, we gotta we got
the job, we gotta do the things, the
soccer practice, whatever, but we can easily just
orient ourselves back to that spiritual realm where
we are from. Like, that's where our soul
Yes. It was created. Right? And That's right.
That's what our soul desires. So Yes. It
it is kind of that that dance at
times. Yes. And what what we're trying to
help people understand is it's both and. Yeah.
You were literally made to enjoy friends and
laughter and the news and whatever it is
you enjoy.
And you are also created to
feed on, be nourished by the presence of
Jesus in your life. Jesus says, I'm the
bread of life. What does that mean? So
I want to nourish you. I wanna be
a source of nourishment. It's both. K? And
what's fascinating about a true amphibian, you take
a frog, if you keep it only in
water,
it will die.
If you put it only on dry land,
it will die. It's gotta move back and
forth, back and forth. Right?
Yeah. And so I use the ideas of
being amphibians
that in God's great kingdom, there's part of
the kingdom we can see,
you know, and it's the morning, and it's
the sunrise, and it's your breakfast, and your
bike ride. Yep. All that's great. And it's
also the world that you can't see, the
unseen realm, which is partly the presence of
God with you. And he's here.
And learning to enjoy him and listen to
him and invite him into your day. Let
him guide you.
Let him into the family decision making. Where
are we gonna vacation this year? You know?
What are we gonna do together? What's fun
this weekend? Like, letting God into your life.
You're moving back and forth like a true
amphibian between the two realms.
And that is the way human beings flourish.
Yeah. And you've given several examples both in
your podcast and in this book that I've
really it's really helped me sort of stop
and and be more intentional in this way
of, like, you know, it's so easy for
us to be like, oh, yeah. We're taking
the kids to, you know, to North Carolina
this summer. Let's we gotta get on the
plane tickets, gotta do this and this. But
to be like, wait, wait, stop. Like, how
can we invite God into this process? And,
like, I don't know. Should we go to
should we even go to North Carolina? Right?
Like, I mean, we we haven't even considered.
It's like, well, of course, it's summertime. That's
what you do. Right? Like, no. No. Like,
what what if there's something more there? Right?
And so to just pause and say, why
don't we pray over this? Yep. And really
consider
why we're doing this and the purpose in
it. Right? And so, you've got so many
examples of just being more intentional of of
being that amphibian of being like, yeah, we're
we're sort of in the world. We're doing
the worldly things right now, but where's the
entry point for God to actually guide us
in this and Yeah. Make this a sanctifying
process? There you go. Yeah. That's really good.
And I most of my examples
are negative.
You know? Stuff we didn't invite him into,
and then it blew up. And Yeah. And
then you feel so disappointed because you're like,
like, come on. That that was summer vacation.
Like, that should have been refreshing, and it
was exhausting.
Yeah. I know. And it's like, yeah. You
didn't even ask.
You know? And I come back with God,
and I'm all disappointed. And he's like, look.
I love you, but you didn't even involve
me in any of that. You know? It's
like, oh, yeah. Sorry. And then on the
positive side, as we learn to do that,
the number of things he has
encouraged us to do
that ended up being so full of joy
that I would never have done. Like, it
didn't even cross my mind. He's like, hey.
Why don't you guys, for this Christmas, you
know, go see your uncle and and go,
you know, tubing. Go snow tubing. It's like,
oh, okay. And it ends up being this
big joyful family thing that happens Yeah. Because
we asked, because we invited him in. We
acted like amphibians.
Like, we acted like the spiritual beings we
are in a physical world. Yeah. That's powerful.
So So talk to me about this concept
of being a mystic. You know, this term,
you know, being a mystic or mysticism,
I guess, I haven't really used in my
faith tradition a lot. And it almost feel
like even being unfamiliar with it at the
beginning, I'm kinda like, that sounds almost like
a is wasn't that in Harry Potter? Like,
isn't that a wizard word or something? You
know, it almost seems a little bit separate.
Like, what what is a mystic exactly? Right?
And you do a great job of unpacking
this. So, I mean, what is the deal
with being a mystic? Yeah. Sometimes you have
to use words that startle
to help people out of the white noise.
So,
again, you don't know what you don't know.
You were born into an era, everybody,
where left brain approach to life was highly
esteemed. And then the Internet just baked this
into you. It's fact finding.
And the left brain thrives on show me
the facts.
You know? And so if you're trying to
convince somebody to do anything these days, you've
gotta quote the latest research.
Right? Like, hey. Did you hear, you know,
that that if you do more vitamin b
twelve, you actually have more endurance through the
day. You know? Yeah. Like, you've gotta quote
the reason. I mean, this is everybody's lingua
franca now. It's left brain,
give me the
facts, make it pragmatic.
But you actually have another hemisphere to your
brain. You have a right brain. And the
right brain is joy and connection and relationship.
And the right brain literally looks at the
world differently. It uses
intuition
and music
and beauty.
And when you fall in love, for example,
it's not your left brain.
You're not like, well, I made a pro
and con list, Debbie, and
the pros outweigh the cons, and so I
think I like you. You know? It's not
how it goes. Right? So
the idea of
being a mystic, quote, unquote, is everybody is.
They just didn't know it. You know? Like,
if you believe in God, you're a mystic
because you can't see him.
Mhmm. Right? He's not on the table there
in front of you. It's different. It's a
different way of knowing.
It's a different way of relating.
It's a different way of being in the
world.
And a lot of what we have lost
in this hour of
overdeveloped
left brain, give me the facts, hardcore,
we've actually lost wonder.
We've lost
mystery. By the way, the left brain hates
mystery.
And it it literally
will take a hostile
posture to anything it can't understand.
K? But you look at little children, you
know, they're watching a caterpillar
build a chrysalis.
It's a 16 legged little furry thing.
It goes in this chrysalis. It comes out
this gorgeous
flying
creature
that knows its way to Mexico.
And they're just filled with wonder. Right? It's
like, oh, the world is a great place.
It's filled with magic and beauty and awe.
Right? But the critical left brain adult goes,
I wonder what the science is behind that.
I wonder how that actually you know? And
we lose the mystery and the wonder in
so much of life.
I'm just gonna ask people, do you enjoy
sunsets anymore?
Do you enjoy
snowfall?
Do you play
anymore? Like, do you just goof around?
Because pace of life,
overdeveloped left brain.
I'm urging people back to become ordinary
mystics. And I put the word ordinary in
because people have may have heard of some
of the, like, the famous saints or whatever.
And I'm not talking about this isn't for
special people. This is for ordinary
folks. You're meant to have a
childlike
joy and wonder in this world
and to experience God. I mean, you know,
my cards are on the table. Experience Jesus
period. Really period is on the cover of
the book.
Right? Because
this beautiful life with Jesus Christ is meant
to be deeply
experiential.
Not just, like, occasionally.
Oh, yeah. No. I remember that time.
It was really comforting. Or, oh, yeah. I
remember that time. Remember once, I really felt
like he did guide us. You know? That's
that's supposed to be your daily.
Yeah. And that's you know, I I catch
myself in this, and I see it in
our in our faith community as well. You
know, especially in a time where there's so
many YouTube channels of, you know, scriptural scholars
and ancient biblical researchers. Right? Like and we
I get stuck in this thing of like,
oh, worshiping God is when you like sit
down and you like dig into the Hebrew,
the Greek translation, and you're tying this together.
It's a very intellectual left brain experience. Yep.
When I have to remind myself, actually, you
know, today I just need to sit and
listen to a worship song and just be
with God. Like, I don't need to learn
anything or, you know, have any deep, you
know, academic, you know, understanding of some scriptural
knowledge. I just need to be more of
a relational being in the presence of God
rather than an intellectual being. Right?
Oh, that's so good, Kurt. That's so good.
Okay. Let's come in from that door. So
we are highly relational
beings.
Why else would they have chosen solitary confinement
as a form of torture? I mean, it's
brutal on the human soul, like, to be
deprived of contact.
K? Because we are made in the image
of a highly relational God. I mean, he
calls himself
father.
Right? A very relational term. Right? And then
you look at where what brings people joy?
You know, it's the birth of a child.
It's hanging out with friends. It's that awesome
Christmas morning where everybody was just laughing.
It's relational connection.
Right? Some of our deepest joys are relational
connection.
Okay. Well, you gotta bring that into your
life with God. So what yeah. What you
were saying is the left brain has a
wonderful place in our life, but it was
actually never meant to be the master.
It was meant to serve
the right brain and the heart,
which is about relationship
and joy and love.
Right? Your kids don't wanna know how much
you know.
Your kids wanna hang out with you.
Yeah. It really is a a helpful framing
of that of how to approach God differently,
you know, rather than this intellectual heaviness of
this. So Yeah. Yeah. That's great. So this
concept of of being a mystic, as you
you don't unpack it, I'm like, okay. Good.
I'm more and more comfortable with this term,
you know, and and what it is. Is
it do you find just in the general
traditional Christian
circles, like, do a lot of Christians kinda
have an issue with sort of this concept
of being a mystic and and Oh, yeah.
What does that look like? Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Because it sounds woo woo. Right? Yeah. Woo
woo. Yeah.
And because wait. Weren't the heretics? Weren't those
guys heretics? Or now but the problem is
now. So, folks, we gotta we also need
to know something about our moment.
So the Internet life, overdeveloped left brain, give
me the pragmatic,
is not a satisfying life. So because you're
a whole human being. You're not half a
human being. Here's what's going on, Kurt. There
is the spiritual
world
is bursting out all over the place. The
fastest growing or one of the fastest growing
religions in America is Wicca. Right? Yeah.
Yeah, man. People are looking for something spiritual.
They're hungry for it because they've been deprived
of it so many years.
And so people are going down and doing,
you know, Ayahuasca
ceremonies
and trying to tap into the divine or
whatever, you know. That's mysticism
also. It's just the dark side.
Gotcha. Right? And so, yeah, people are concerned
about that, and I wanna say,
well done. You should be. And so that's
why I root it in the tradition
of Christian and even Hebrew, like David's life.
You know, when David says things like,
you satisfy me more than the riches feast.
Well, he's describing a personal encounter with the
living God that was so wonderful.
It's like better than the best banquet he
could have gone to. K? So that's experiential.
Yeah. That's right brain. Okay? That's mystical
in that sense. Right? But he's deeply grounded
in the scriptures. He's not winging off. He's
like, no. No. The one living God,
you, Lord. And so
we don't wanna take this off the rails
and say, all mysticism
is good.
No.
In the same way that we wouldn't say
all sexual expression is good. Yeah. Right? The
world does really terrible things with sexuality,
but we don't throw sexuality
out the window.
We redeem it. We make it holy. We
bring it back into the marriage covenant. Right?
Well, we do the same thing with the
experiential. So if you don't like the word
mystic, just use the word experiential.
Yeah. That we are meant to have a
very experiential
life with God,
not just know things about him, but know
him. K? So in the Old Testament, the
word
is yada.
The Hebrew word is yada for knowing. And
in the New Testament, the word is ginosko.
That's the Greek word. They are both deeply
experiential.
Deeply, deeply experiential
kinds of knowing. It's not that, you know,
the Internet, give me the facts, left brain.
It's a deeply
experiential
type of knowing. In fact, Ginosko
started getting used even for human intimate physical
relations.
And that shows you it's like, oh, woah.
Like, that's very experiential.
That's very intimate.
Yes.
That sort of experiential
intimacy
is what we're designed for with God. And
I've gotta use a word like ordinary mystic
to yank people out of the Internet life
and back into,
frankly, what was normal for agents.
And that I think is really effective in
doing that. And I appreciate just the you
know, you're talking about the some Christians singing
a very woo woo. I think in forgive
me for drawing this parallel, but is you
know, for our faith tradition as Latter day
Saints, you know, a lot of we get
a bad rap from a lot of Christians
because of these temples we build across the
globe. And, you know, the the list of
tropes of what the temple is and what
we do in there, in reality, all we're
saying is we are a mystic people, and
we build buildings
that represent Jesus, and we enter into his
realm
and have an experience
with him. And I encourage you we actually
the church, our church announced one going in
Colorado Springs. And, when they have the open
house, I encourage you to to walk through
that building and see the mysticism
Yes. Thank you. That we are trying to
reach for, that we are trying to reach
a different realm. And so Exactly.
We need to actually physically construct, like, God's
living room so we can go actually sit
in it. And that's the beauty of it
is that the vast majority of that experience
doesn't deal with a lot of talking. It's
a lot of sitting. It's a lot of
pondering. It's a lot of just connecting with
the divine. So as I was reading your
book, I'm like, oh, you know, this was
it was so validating to my faith experience
of
I need to get get there, get to
that realm as as often as possible. So
Yeah. There you go. It seemed woo woo,
but in the right framing and understanding, it's
like, oh, actually, you're just a amphibian
godly person. You know? That's right. That's right.
Yep. And then helping people live left brain
and right brain. Helping people live whole lives.
The scriptures say that the whole world is
filled with the glory of god.
Mhmm. So, like, when you're at the beach
and you're looking at the ocean and you
are in awe,
you just love it. There's just something in
your soul. I just love being here right.
That's right. Because God
is present in his creation. Not because creation
is God, but because God
loves creation too.
And he loves to meet you there in
things. You know, so you're watching the snow
out the window and you're just in awe
at the beauty of the world.
That is a kind of, quote, mystical communion.
Right? You're just allowing the transcendent
into your life again
and not being so pragmatic.
Yeah. That's good. And I and I appreciate
the how you reframe that of, like, of
it being experiential, where oftentimes we think, oh,
I need to go have scripture study. Like,
I'm supposed to do that. I'm supposed to
read the the scriptures, but instead of saying,
I'm actually gonna go have a godly experience.
Yep. And what does that look like today?
You know? And and asking God for maybe
that's how I'm gonna take my my dog
for a walk and and take a moment
by the pond down the street and and
just breathe into his essence or whatever it
is. Right? And just be present with him
or That's right. Yeah. Maybe I'm gonna spend
some time with some Psalms or, you know,
whatever it is. Yeah. Or I like your
thing of, I'm just gonna put on a
worship song. Yeah. And I'm just gonna sit
with it and just commune. Just let his
love be here and tell him yeah. I
just sit there and I go, Jesus, I
love you. Yeah. I just love you. I
love you, Lord Jesus. I love you. Because
it's the it's like the sea an enemy.
All the tension, all the pressure, all the
stress. The sea anemone closes
up. That's your soul. But as you sit
with Jesus and just say, I love you,
turn a worship song on. Yeah. And I'll
give a little tip here too. Put it
on a loop. Repeat the same song several
times. Mhmm. Because your soul actually quiets down.
And then you become more aware of his
presence, and then you're gonna hear him saying,
I love you too. Yeah. And this is
a perfect place. If you don't mind, I
I wanna plug your Paws app, which I've
used,
if not daily, a a lot where it's
just you can pick the amount of time
you need to sit. It could be like,
okay. I'm about to just, you know, transition
a point in my life. I'm done with
my work day. I'm going back to, you
know, my family. Let's take five minutes. And
it's a simple you hit the the option
and your voice is on there or you
can turn your voice off. You just want
the music. But I've appreciated just having a
like, I'm committing a specific time frame. Like,
okay, we're doing ten minutes. Like, I need
a good ten minutes and maybe I'll do
that twice over, right,
of just sitting and and contemplating and and
connecting with God. It it really is a
great free resource. Yeah. So it's called the
one minute pause or just pause.
It's free in the App Store,
iPhone and Android.
And you can start with a sixty second
pause. You can just start with one minute,
and it's just learning to get quiet
and let go of things.
That's really lovely. Just kinda letting go of
it, all that you're carrying. And then there's
a three minute, and as Kurt was saying,
there's a five and a ten. And then
there's,
modules in there you can do. There's one
that's thirty days to resilience.
It's a lovely morning and evening practice, and
we're about to release in April a new
module
Oh, cool. Around
deeper experience of God,
more right brain
relational connectedness.
Yeah. That's powerful. I love it. As we
wrap up here, maybe talk to me just,
you know, speaking as a therapist as well.
Because this is oftentimes I feel like we
compartmentalize
these worlds a little bit. Like, yeah. You
know, you're having a hard time. Yeah. Maybe
go talk with your your bishop, your pastor,
whatever, and, you know, read some scriptures together.
And if but, oh, well, you know, you're
talking about anxiety, depression. Oh, well, let's bring
the in the professionals and do the therapy
thing. When you're in the
we wanna, like, merge these worlds because there's
you know, it's the right left brain thing
happening there too. Right? Where there is some
good science and research and understanding what we
need to approach. So speaking as a therapist,
how could you help church leaders better understand,
like, how do we bring those two worlds
together, the spiritual but also the therapy?
Yes.
Well,
so the,
famous therapist, Irving Yalom,
Jewish guy,
his kind of main point is after working,
like, sixty years in the field, he says
it's the relationship that heals.
Mhmm. It's the relationship. Now we have the
neuroscience, and you can look at, like, Dan
Siegel's YouTube videos on this on the neuroscience
of it. But to sit across from another
human being and look them in the eye
and have them listen to you with compassion
heals the human brain. Mhmm. It actually heals
the brain. And so when we're offering
compassionate relational connection,
we're not rushing to fix people. That's really
important. People don't like
feeling like your project.
You're a disaster. I'm here to fix you.
Yeah. You are a son or a daughter
of the living God. I'm here to love
you and to sit with you. Anybody can
offer that. And there is a time and
a place for professionals.
No question.
But the beautiful thing is, like, again, this
is bringing in the experiential
life with God. This divine and branch. Let's
come back where we started. It's divine and
branch.
The soul is healed
through union
with Jesus Christ.
And that union
brings down your anxiety.
That union brings down your anger.
That union addresses
childhood wounds.
That you get that get union with Christ
into your sexuality.
I guarantee you, you're gonna get over your
addictions. Okay? Yeah. So that's the beautiful blending
of these two worlds.
Yeah. That's fantastic. And is is there any
because sometimes as we're referring
people out to get professional therapy, I mean,
is there anything to be aware of to
make sure you kinda you have some of
this it's,
can help in this, you know, in that
spiritual realm? Or I don't know. I would
ask your therapist what their spirituality
is. Mhmm. Now there are many, many, many,
many, many
excellent secular therapists, and I'm not dismissing them.
They can do great work. They are doing
great work. But you want someone who understands
your spiritual life.
Yeah. Right? So that that's an important I
mean, I'd say go get a Christian therapist
somewhere, please.
It makes a difference. Somebody that's gonna understand
what you're where you're coming from. Yeah. Really
helpful.
John, this has been great. I just always
appreciate our conversations and your writings and Yeah.
Thank you. Even going back, let's see. I've
I've read, this past year
Beautiful Outlaw. Right? Oh, yes.
That was a a good one. So I'm
slowly kinda going back, making sure I didn't
miss any of your books there, but there
there's a lot there, and I encourage people
to to jump in. Any any place that
you would send people if they're intrigued by
this conversation, wanna read the book, wanna get
into the resources that you offer? Yep. Well,
Experience Jesus, really, is the new book that's
out. You can get it on his Amazon.
If you wanna listen to our podcasts,
Wild at Heart podcast, you can get it
where you get your podcasts.
There's some beautiful free resources on our website.
There's some beautiful films that you can watch
for free on our website
for men, for women, for the healing of
the masculine and feminine soul. That's wild@heart.org.
Yeah. And thanks for your generosity, Kurt. You've
been so generous with your time over the
years and so affirming,
and I'm really humbled by that. Thank you
so much. Well, I appreciate, you know, sometimes
our people get dismissed in in Christian communities,
so I appreciate you being willing to have
conversations and sharing your perspectives and things. So
it means a lot too. Thank you. Can
we just end maybe would you just pray
for for us and our people and Yeah.
And, we'll end there? Yeah. Because what I
wanna pray is the prayer
for the listener. And the prayer is,
Jesus,
I think I do need a deeper experience
of you. I think I need a deeper
life
with you. And so I'm asking you
to come to me and to open my
heart and my right brain.
Help me be more wholehearted
in left brain, right brain, heart and soul,
mind and strength.
I want to experience
more of your love
and your presence with me.
And so
we ask this,
Lord Jesus,
in your name.
Amen.
Hey. You made it to the end of
the episode.
Wasn't that so good? You know, I tend
to pinch myself that this is what I
get to do. I get to sit down
with some remarkable people across the world, experts,
everyday leaders, PhDs, therapists, whatever it be, and
have such an impactful conversation. I hope you'll
share it. Drop it into text message and
email and share it to someone who maybe
came to mind during this episode. And if
you go to the show notes and scroll
to the bottom, there's actually a list of
some of our most popular episodes. So don't
stop with this episode. I mean, you're not
done with the dishes or mowing the lawn
or working out, so you might as well
keep it going at the bottom of those
show notes and, make sure you you listen
to each one, maybe a couple times on
a few of them. Quick reminder, go watch
Joseph Grenny's presentation on helping loved ones overcome
addiction by going to leadingsaints.org/fourteen.
It came as a result of the position
of leadership which was imposed upon us
by the God of heaven who brought
forth a restoration of the gospel of Jesus
Christ.
When the declaration
was made concerning the only and only true
and living church upon the face of the
earth,
we were immediately put in a position of
loneliness,
the loneliness of leadership
from which we cannot shrink nor run away,
and to which we must face up with
boldness and courage
and ability.