Experience Jesus Deeply in a Distracted World : John Eldredge

Full-Text Transcript

How has instant access to an overabundance of information impacted the way we experience Jesus, and what can we do about it?

Jason Daye
In this episode, we welcome John Eldredge back to the show. John is a New York Times best-selling author, counselor, and president of Wild At Heart, a ministry dedicated to helping people discover the heart of God. His newest book is entitled Experience Jesus. Really. Together, John and I explore the contrast between how the world is shaping us and what Jesus is inviting us into. John also looks back on biblical history and the history of the church and helps us understand how we can experience Jesus at a deeper level. Are you ready? Let’s go.

Jason Daye
Hello, friends, and welcome to another episode of FrontStage BackStage. I’m super excited for today’s conversation. We are part of the Pastor Serve Network, and each and every week, I have the distinct privilege of sitting down with a trusted ministry leader, and we dive into a topic all in an effort to help you and ministry leaders just like you embrace healthy, sustainable rhythms so that you can really thrive in both life and leadership. As part of the Pastor Serve Network, not only do we have a conversation every week, but we create an entire toolkit that you can use for your own personal study and we encourage you to use this with the ministry leaders at your local church. You can find the toolkit for this episode and every episode at PastorServe.org/network. Now, in this toolkit, you’ll find a number of resources, including a Ministry Leaders Growth Guide. This growth guide pulls insights out of our conversation today and also provides some questions for deeper reflection. Again, we encourage you to use this in your own growth and also with the ministry leaders in your local church. You can find that at PastorServe.org/network. At Pastor Serve, we love walking alongside ministry leaders, and we would love to offer a complimentary coaching session with one of our trusted ministry coaches. If you want to learn more information about how you can receive one of those sessions, you can find that information at PastorServe.org/freesession, so be sure to check that out as well. Now if you’re joining us on YouTube, please give us a thumbs up and drop your name and the name of your ministry or the name of your church in the comments below. We love getting to know our audience better and we will be praying for you and for your ministry. Whether you’re joining us on YouTube or your favorite podcast platform, please be sure to subscribe and to follow us. You do not miss out on these great conversations. As I said, we have a great one for you today. At this time, I’d like to welcome John Eldredge to the show. Welcome, John.

John Eldredge
Hey Jason, good to see you.

Jason Daye
Good to see you, brother. It’s always good to sit down and have a conversation. I’ve gotta tell you, John, the last time we were together on the show, we talked about benevolent detachment. Incredible conversation. In fact, for those of you who didn’t see it, if you didn’t listen to it, we’ll have it in the toolkit for this episode. Be sure to check it out. But that conversation that we had, John, is one of our all-time, most watched, most downloaded, and most listened to conversations. Yeah. So, no pressure. No pressure. But it just really resonated with our audience, and I’m excited about the conversation we’re about to jump into.

John Eldredge
That’s great. Yeah, I just love what you guys are doing. Yeah, I mean ministering, particularly at the level of the local church, is like most difficult job on the planet, in my opinion. As a Christian therapist, I’ve walked alongside a lot of leaders and it’s a tough road. So thanks. Thanks for all you guys are doing to just minister to the folks who are ministering.

Jason Daye
I appreciate that, John. Appreciate it so much. In your new book, which is fantastic, by the way, Experience Jesus, Really. In this book, you begin to set the stage for the world we’re living in right now and what it kind of looks like. As you’re kind of talking through this and helping us really come to terms maybe with what we’re experiencing, you use a phrase. You share that we are disciples of the internet, and, John, that sounds a little deeper than, hey, we’re spending a little too much on screen time, or we’re scrolling a bit too much. Disciples of the internet. Can you unpack that for us?

John Eldredge
Yeah, I think this is particularly interesting and important for people who are in the work of discipling, right? Okay, so you are a disciple of the system that tutors you on living, right? Where you go on a daily basis for wisdom, counsel, and guidance on living. So, as much as we would like to say, No, I’m a disciple of Christ, if you own one of these, if you have a smartphone, a laptop, and if you are plugged in, all of us in the last 20 years now have become disciples of the internet. What’s important is, I don’t mean the particular channels you subscribe to, the YouTube that you watch, or the people that you listen to. I mean the process. The process of having access to the entire body of human knowledge in less than one second has shaped us. It’s shaped us more than we know. I think the thing is, we’ll get into this conversation. I think the thing that’ll be particularly interesting for ministry leaders is that it has subtly eroded our capacity to believe. And here’s why. This happens to me all the time. I want to know like, how much B-12 should I be taking? All these things. Am I doing the right exercises for my lower back? I’ve got a lower back injury. I’m trying to take care of myself. So I get on, and I Google. Come on, we all do this, right? I look up the best lower back strengthening exercises. I get on, I’m like, okay, found an expert, really interesting guy, physical trainer kind of thing. So I start doing this thing. Well, two weeks later, you get on, and now you’ve got a new expert saying, Oh, you’re doing that stuff? That’s actually hurting your back, right? Anybody who’s done the weight loss thing knows this nightmare, right? You got, okay, this is the program. Then somebody comes along and goes, actually, that’s training your body to retain weight. So it’s this constant overturning, like a savage overturning of yesterday’s facts, right? Okay, after a while, when you’re in that world and you’re being discipled by it, you just get really skeptical, and you get really suspicious of truth claims, and I think it has undermined the average Christian’s ability, any person, but even sincere believers. I think it’s undermined their ability, really, my pastor just said that. I need to go Google that and make sure that’s true. It has baked into us suspicion. Yeah, that’s brutal on Christian discipleship.

Jason Daye
Yeah, no doubt. And that skepticism and that suspicion, as you use another phrase in the book, you talk about when we’re kind of living in this world, we’ve been discipled by the Internet. We have just this natural inclination to turn there for information, for data, for what’s fresh every day. That this way of living actually wears us out because there’s no life in it.

John Eldredge
Yeah, exactly. So, bringing two things together now. So we have an over-developed left-brain approach to Christian faith now because we’ve all been baked in this system and just thoroughly discipled in this system of the latest research or the latest science. Honestly, if you want to give an effective sermon these days, you have to quote the latest research. It’s the lingua franca, you know? Okay, so let’s contrast that with, I am the vine, you are the branches. There is a nourishment and a sustenance that’s meant to come to us through our daily experience of Jesus. There is a union. It’s an actual experiential, ontological union of the human soul with God and with his life. When He says, I’m the bread of life, he’s like, really, I can nourish you. I can. Okay, the internet process erodes your union with God. The brain research is coming in now and do you see how I have to quote resources? I mean, here it is, right? People are going, really, that sounds kind of extreme, John, you know? So, I have to quote the research. So you got, like, Nicholas Carr’s book, The Shallows, which is one of the big books, it almost won the Pulitzer on how the Internet has literally changed the structure of our brains, eroded our attention spans, and it’s made us very suspect of any form of mystery, right? We’re very, very, very left brain now. But that separates you from the experiential nature of life in Christ. Which is our nourishment, our rescue, our strength, our hope, and our joy. It’s pulling it apart. I want to say this right now, it’s not because, everybody, you did something wrong. Like, shame on you. Look, we all didn’t know what we were getting into when we came into this internet way of living. Google everything. Research everything. The latest science. We didn’t know what it would do to us, but it has really damaged our ability to experience God, and therefore, what I was saying in the book was, there’s no life in it, right? So, you get to the bottom of the facts. Are you any closer to Jesus?

Jason Daye
Yeah, it’s interesting because it’s the old premise that anything that can be a tool can also cause us harm, right? So, the internet as a tool for information, but we’re at this point where it’s information overload, and not only information overload, all these different messages coming at us, but it’s the speed. I would love for you to share a little bit about this idea of the constant speed that we’re now accustomed to, versus what you were just talking about, this idea of abiding in Christ. The Christian life. The development of the Christian life.

John Eldredge
Okay, so here’s a fun way to do this. So let’s say you are talking to Abraham, David, Peter, or John. You’re having a conversation with them and you’re explaining what your life is like. You go, Well, yeah, we’re actually living in a time in history where you can get an answer to anything you want. You get 3 million results in less than one second. Listen to it from their perspective. They would be horrified at that. They would be like, Whoa, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil is back like, Oh my gosh. They would see it as a poison to the human soul because learning to wait upon the Lord, learning to linger, sit at his feet, and meditate in the biblical sense, on the scriptures. Beautiful Psalm 1 describes these trees that are rooted by the streams of water and are never weary and never wither. It is because they are lingering with God. Well, you got to keep people entertained. You got to keep it moving. If it’s not quick, fast, and engaging. They would look at that and go, how do you disciple people? At the sheer speed of it and the volume of content, right? I think they would also go, Wait a second, you have the entire base of human knowledge available to you? They would go, that’s a trap. That’s a trap. Like, run away! Because it moves confidence from that abiding in Christ. Our confidence now is in accessing the latest information.

Jason Daye
Yeah, fascinating as we walk through this. Now you bring up this concept, this idea, of the ordinary mystic, which I absolutely love. My soul just resonates with this. Talk to us about, who is the ordinary mystic.

John Eldredge
Okay, so I was going to title the book Ordinary Mystics. But then I just knew, if I don’t explain that, the good Bible-believing people are going to freak out, right? There is a tradition down through the history of the church, Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox, of men and women who really knew how to do what we’re talking about. They knew how to abide. They knew how to linger in the presence of God. They knew how to draw their nourishment from him. Later they were called mystics, right? They didn’t name themselves that. But at one time that was a phrase that was a term of respect. It meant very deep life in God. This guy, this woman, they really know Jesus. Now it means crackpot or heretic. But I’m going to use the phrase to sort of shock people out of this highly developed left-brain way of approaching life because, again, you gotta understand the way the left brain works. So here we go again with the science. If you don’t use it, people don’t believe you. So the left brain is your analysis, right? It’s critical reasoning and it’s a lovely gift from God, and it’s helped many of us raise children, build churches, or set budgets. But you have to understand something about the left brain. The left brain is hostile to anything it cannot solve, and it will attack it with a kind of vengeance. So we got to get to the bottom of that. Okay, the right brain, the intuitive, poetic, artistic, creative side is like No, no, these mystics, hang on, they really knew something about how to linger in the presence of God, about how prayer could be two-way. It’s not just offering, asking, and loving. But it’s also receiving, guidance, counsel, instruction, and conversation with God. They have a lot to teach us. So I’m bringing the idea of ordinary mystics back in to say, folks, you are built for this. You are made for, yes, left-brain reasoning, but also right-brain, and I would say heart-centered intimacy with God. So you have Psalm 63 when David says things like, your love, he’s talking about being in the sanctuary worshiping. He says things like, your love is better than life. I read that for years, and I’m like, I don’t know that. I mean, I believe you, but that’s not my experience. Then he goes on a few passages later, in Psalm 63 he says, You satisfy me more than the richest feast. He is describing an experience of the presence of God, the love of God, the counsel of God, even conviction, right? So what I’m inviting folks to consider is that Christianity was always meant to be highly experiential, deeply mystical, but not in the sense of “woo woo”, in the sense of here we have an infinite God, almighty, omniscient, omnipotent, who is actually communing with my soul and somehow through that, imparting life to me, and joy. Actually, in Psalm 23, He heals your soul. Like he can actually heal your soul through this experiential life that the left brain’s like, I’m not so sure about that.

Jason Daye
Absolutely love it, John. So when we consider this, the ordinary mystic, how does the life of an ordinary mystic contrast against how the vast majority of us are living today?

John Eldredge
Yeah, that would be a four-hour conversation. Let me try and summarize a couple of things. So first off, they’re not afraid of mystery. Again, you read the biographies and the writing of the saints down through the ages past. They saw mystery as a wonderful thing. God, we worship you. You’re mysterious. You’re holy. How do you explain the Trinity? They didn’t think that they had to dissect everything in order to experience it. How does prayer work? I don’t know. I just pray, right? How does inner healing work? I don’t know, but God does it. They didn’t need to dissect. The ordinary mystic understands that you don’t have to evaluate everything in order to benefit from it. We don’t really know how vitamin D gets through our skin into our bones, but we’re grateful for it. Okay, so let’s take the passage, Unless you become as little children, you’re going to have a really hard time entering the kingdom of God. Little children are little mystics. Like, if you give a child an ice cream bar, they just go, thank you, and they run over and they unwrap it. They just enjoy it. You give an adult the thing you know exactly what they do. They flip it over. Look at the ingredients. What’s the carbs-to-protein ratio? That kind of thing. The child heart is what Jesus is inviting us back to, and it is the lack of suspicion and cynicism, or I’ll believe it when you prove it to me. Therefore, the child heart is able to believe and trust all these wonderful things that God has said, right? I’m the fountain of life. Okay, thank you. I received that. It just opens the heart and soul back up into a way of doing our spiritual life that is so much richer than this constant critical analysis.

Jason Daye
Yeah, John, help me understand this. What is different about living as an ordinary mystic that isn’t just more spiritual practices, more prayer, more scripture, you know what I mean? More fasting. What’s distinctive about this way of living?

John Eldredge
Okay, so many of your listeners and viewers will be aware of a famous book called Practicing the Presence of God. It was written by Brother Lawrence. He was a very simple Carmelite Friar. Worked in the kitchen in Paris in his friary. He was actually wounded in war and then became a friar. What he was inviting people into he says, As you work, as you have lunch, as you rest, as you pray, God is always here. Let’s learn to practice his presence. So it’s not additional programs but it is the heart’s ability to tune into the presence of God with us at all times. Then I would say and in every need. I’ll be sitting in meetings. I run a ministry. We have a staff of 20 people, so lots going on. I’ll be in meetings where I’m like, I don’t know, I don’t know, and I’ll just quietly pray, Papa, what is your counsel to us right now? Like, I want to know your thoughts on this. So part of it’s that because it’s not programming, it is enjoying and practicing the presence of God. Here’s another really big idea, I would say it also involves the new reality. I was just listening to Colossians 1 on my audio Bible this morning, and Paul summarizes the entire Gospel. He says, The Mystery of all ages is this, that Christ now dwells inside of you, and he says, that’s your hope. It’s Christ in you because the law was to reform human beings from the outside. But the New Covenant and the New Testament are that we’re going to reform human beings from the inside. A new heart I will give you. A new spirit I will put within you. I will write my laws on your heart. Okay, so here’s the idea that the child-like mystics knew down through the ages, is that as you practice the presence of God, you’re actually tuning into Jesus Christ, who now dwells in your inmost being. That’s Ephesians 3. I mean, this is our only hope, man. You’re going to overcome your anger. You’re going to overcome your critical words. You’re going to overcome your lust. It is only by the assistance of Jesus Christ living in us. Well, this will change your prayer life because now we’re not praying primarily to the Lord of the heavens, though he is Lord of the heavens, or even Christ by our side, we’re learning to tune into, Jesus, you are living inside of me. I want to dial in and learn to commune with you there, receive your love, and listen to your counsel. This is the difference. It’s not programming, right? I practice this on airplane flights. I practice this on my morning commute. I mean, this is available anytime, anywhere, and it is absolutely lovely.

Jason Daye
Yeah, that’s beautiful. So as we consider this a bit more, this invitation into this lifestyle. As a ministry leader, again, understanding that this isn’t something that’s programmed, right? But how do we invite people into this, right?

John Eldredge
Okay, this is a really important question, Jason, and most of my interviewers don’t ask this question, so thank you. Okay, so many of your followers will be aware of the Barna data that tracked the exodus of Christians from the faith in the last 22 years. It was a longitudinal study, and they did things like regular church attendance and regular Bible reading. They were looking for some serious commitment to faith, right? One in every two. 50% of those folks have left the faith in the last 20 years. As I’ve engaged with many of those people, and some of them are friends of mine, some of them are family, what you will always hear at the epicenter of that was some sort of disappointment with the lack of communion, of the connection, and of the intimacy. Yeah, it’s never felt like God was near. I just never experienced this love and that kind of thing. You go, right, right, right, right, because we were not discipled into it. So I think we do need to teach people how to do this, but you can’t do that until you do it yourself. You can’t weigh what you don’t have. So for me, I didn’t start writing about this until decades into my life of doing it, reading the saints, listening to their prayers, and obviously, there’s the basics, yeah, get off your screens. Get some sacred time in your day. 20 minutes. It doesn’t take a lot. Put your phone down and learn to access the presence of God. We can shepherd people into this and I think it’s actually one of the great tasks of the church in this hour, to stem that falling away. I mean, it looks like the great falling away of 2 Thessalonians 2. You’re like, holy smokes, that’s a lot of people. In the developed world, I would say, because the truth is exploding in developing countries, largely. Okay, take the Muslim conversions for a moment. The conversions that are going on in Islam. Folks are aware of this. If you haven’t read the book A Wind in the House of Islam, I mean, the stories in there will increase your faith and your love of Jesus. Jesus is literally walking into the lives of Muslim people who have no access to the gospel. You know, they’re in those highly locked down places. He’s walking into their dreams. He’s walking into visions, and they’re like, who are you? He’s like, I am Jesus, follow me. Okay, so 1000s of Muslims, that’s an experience, right? It’s not primarily propositional. Paul did not become a follower of Jesus because of propositional debate. He encountered the risen Christ on the Damascus Road. Okay, so learning first to experience it ourselves, and then learning how to shepherd people into it, I think, is the great need in the days ahead to strengthen faith and to help people access. So, one more example. So mental health services have never been more available, right? We’ve got more therapists, psychologists, and psychiatrists than ever. Campus services, community services, and social workers. The advances in neurofeedback, the advances in pharmacology, and the drugs that do help depression, anxiety, and PTSD never higher. We are nowhere near meeting the need. Everyone in the mental health profession will tell you, we’re not even close. It’s a tsunami of human need right now, the global mental health crisis. Well, this is the opportunity for the gospel because the soul is healed through union with Jesus Christ. It literally is. The trauma is healed. Memories are healed. Anxiety and depression go way down as people learn union with Jesus Christ. So we have an opportunity. I think we have a missional opportunity right now to help human souls into this very, very simple practicing the presence, communing with Christ, and receiving experiential love and comfort. What an opportunity sits before us right now to usher people into this.

Jason Daye
I love that, John. I so appreciate your perspective, and this is just who you are, of seeing the hope in the midst of the chaos, right? The hope in the midst of the critical time that we find ourselves in, which I appreciate you elevating that because sometimes we can get so oh my goodness, like the tsunami of mental health issues, all the information overload, and all these things, right? We can get so inundated by that that we forget that this is the opportunity and I love that. So thank you for drawing that out. John, as we’re kind of winding down our conversation, a couple of things that I’d ask of you. One is, of course, I really encourage everyone to get Experience Jesus, Really. I mean, if this is of any interest to you, if you have any interest in going deeper with God in the midst of the world in which we live, I encourage you guys to grab it. Great resource. But, John, what are some books or some resources from some of those who would be considered mystics over the years, that you would recommend that our viewers or listeners check out? I would love to hear some of your recommendations.

John Eldredge
Oh, fun. Because I wish I could turn the camera right now, there’s a pile of books. My office is not very organized. I mean, you kind of get a sense. And I would just start picking out books. I would say the Imitation of Christ by Thomas a Kempis. It was actually, at one time, the second most published book in the world, next to the Bible. Thomas a Kempis loves Jesus. Now there’s a little bit of religion in there, but he’s a good guy. I would recommend Practicing the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence. There’s a lovely abbreviated version called Closer Than a Brother. That’s a modernized version of that. Those are two good books. Yeah, wow, and also to read on the lives of the saints, like Athanasius’ book on the life of Saint Anthony. It’s a short biography. Saint Anthony was the founder of the monastic movement. He was one of the first Desert Fathers. This guy is a saint, man, and he is throwing down in prayer. you read Anthony’s life, and you go, wow, I want that. So sometimes biography is helpful. I like there’s a French mystic, a woman, Jeanne Guyon, her writings on prayer and about communion with Christ within you are just lovely. So those would be some.

Jason Daye
Love it. Thank you. Thank you for that. We’re going to drop those into the toolkit so you guys will have those to reference as well.

John Eldredge
Start with her book Experiencing the Depths of Jesus Christ. She’s got a lot of writing. Start with that one. Yeah, I love

Jason Daye
Yeah, I love that. I love that one, personally. Excellent, brother. As we’re winding down, we’d love to give you some time. You’ve got the ears and eyes of pastors, ministry leaders, men, and women, leading on the front line of ministry. What words of encouragement would you like to leave with them, brother?

John Eldredge
I think we’re all aware that God is moving very powerfully in the world right now. I mean, the church in Africa is multiplying every single day, the Islamic conversions that are going on, and the campus revivals in the US. So we have two things going on right now in the world. There is increasing secularization, unbelief, and the falling away that Barna was dating. But there’s this other thing going on. Here’s what I would say, God, in my experience, we still, on a therapist level, work with a lot of people and we’re seeing it in human lives. God is making himself available. Just like Jesus walking into the lives of those Muslims around the world, he is making more of himself available, I think, to beleaguer humanity and to the beleaguered church. We’re worn out, man, we are exhausted. Many of us are traumatized from the amount of human care we’ve had to deal with. So here’s my encouragement to you. I think if you create a little bit of space, God is going to meet you in profound ways, simply to nourish you, and strengthen you. The old saints would call it consolation. Oh, my goodness, my observation is, in this move of God in the world, and I think it’s going to really break out more in the West, you’ve got these famous atheists coming to Christ, right? Oh, it’s awesome. My assurance to you is God wants to make more of himself available to you as you labor for Christ. Take advantage of it.

Jason Daye
I love it. It’s a great word, brother, great word. Thank you so much, John, for hanging out with us and making the time. Always love our conversations. Your newest book is Experience Jesus, Really. We’ll have links to that in the toolkit for this episode, which you can find at PastorServe.org/network, along with a ton of other great resources. Brother, it is a blessing. It is a blessing to have you on. So thank you.

John Eldredge
Again, well done, guys at Pastor Serve. Just all you’re doing, are you kidding me? If you minister to them, then we can save the world.

Jason Daye
Amen. Yes, brother, amen. Thank you so much. God bless you, John.

John Eldredge
You too.

Jason Daye
Now, before you go, I want to remind you of an incredible free resource that our team puts together every single week to help you and your team dig more deeply and maximize the conversation that we just had. This is the weekly toolkit that we provide. And we understand that it’s one thing to listen or watch an episode, but it’s something entirely different to actually take what you’ve heard, what you’ve watched, what you’ve seen, and apply it to your life and to your ministry. You see, FrontStage BackStage is more than just a podcast or YouTube show about ministry leadership, we are a complete resource to help train you and your entire ministry team as you seek to grow and develop in life in ministry. Every single week, we provide a weekly toolkit which has all types of tools in it to help you do just that. Now you can find this at PastorServe.org/network. That’s PastorServe.org/network. And there you will find all of our shows, all of our episodes and all of our weekly toolkits. Now inside the toolkit are several tools including video links and audio links for you to share with your team. There are resource links to different resources and tools that were mentioned in the conversation, and several other tools, but the greatest thing is the ministry leaders growth guide. Our team pulls key insights and concepts from every conversation with our amazing guests. And then we also create engaging questions for you and your team to consider and process, providing space for you to reflect on how that episode’s topic relates to your unique context, at your local church, in your ministry and in your life. Now you can use these questions in your regular staff meetings to guide your conversation as you invest in the growth of your ministry leaders. You can find the weekly toolkit at PastorServe.org/network We encourage you to check out that free resource. Until next time, I’m Jason Daye encouraging you to love well, live well, and lead well. God bless.