Tim Miller: Inner Healing Prayer – S4E3

On this episode, we talk with our good friend Timothy David Miller about inner healing prayer You're listening to the Dudes and Dads podcast, a show dedicated to helping Men Be Better Dudes and dads by building community through meaningful conversation. And storytelling. And now here are your hosts, Joel Dumont and Andy Lehman. Joel and your life all your lives to been away. Oh, boy. Golly. Way too long. Oh, yeah.

And we've got a lot of things have happened for those of you that have been sticking up on the social medias Andy, your family's been through and through some things. We have. We had the death of my grandpa and and we are we are so sad. About that. And we, uh, we hope that everyone is doing well or as best as can be expected. We, we are doing pretty good for for what it is. For what it is. And so you, as, as you all know, that real life, real life does happen.

And sometimes we have to adjust or adjust our recording schedule. So thanks for sticking with us as we've delayed we, Andy and I and our our spouses also. I'm not going to lie. We also did spend some time in sunny Florida. We did. And it was beautiful. It was delightful. It was delightful. And we did return, as always, to to much colder conditions. Snowing the night Joel. Good golly. That's okay.

That's all right. Well, you know, March I did on the other on the other podcast that I'm on, I had got a little argument started with my co-hosts. Oh, yeah. Because I said north central Indiana March is the worst month period. Worst month every year. Agree? Because it's unpredictable. We had 68 degree weather the other day. It's now freezing outside and snowing and everything smells like a wet dog outside. So and it goes from warm, warm, too cold, a warm to cold.

And it's just gross. It's lousy, lousy, lousy, lousy. So, hey, welcome to the show news and as podcast listeners. So good to have all of you along with us. And tonight, we have Timothy David Miller on where to talk about Inner Healing Prayer. We're going to really go we're going to go deep into the bowels, into the bowels, into the bowels of prayer. I've never heard that term used before. I not either, but I think I think I like it. Okay, that's good.

So but before we go any further, we want to we want to thank our sponsors. We have a concrete barber is the sponsor for this episode. Calgary Barber dot com You can see all of his great Instagram is great for him. He's got the all of the great styles. And I like really like the the time lapse that he does of the photos. Yeah. So it's it's only is it not only are you seeing the barber stuff go on. It's a real it's a it's a multimedia experience. It's there's a high entertainment value there.

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Well, Joel, we, uh, I met a guest are our guest today. Yup. Go ahead and bring him on. But I met our guest when we were in Florida. In sunny Florida. Yep. So we want to welcome Timothy David Miller to our show. Welcome to the show. Hi, Timothy. Thank you. Or to be here. So it's okay to call you Tim? I mean. Yeah, please call me Tim. All right. So the people kept calling me Timothy, and it was surreal experience. The only time in my entire life where I was called Timothy.

That's. That's amazing. I like I like calling you Timothy David Miller, because it. It makes you sound like you might be an assassin. Uh, I. I could do that. Yeah. Yeah, I. I'm sure. Absolutely. It's, you know, the thing is, that's the great thing no one would ever expect an Anabaptist to be an assassin. See, that's that's the good. That's the key. You're right there. Right. The key cover. Right. Uh, or or call your mom when your mom calls you that, cause you're in trouble.

Like, that's the full name comes out. So do that. Truthfully, I've never even been hunting, so. Okay. Okay. I would struggle with if my job was to slap somebody, I'd be like, uh, this is going to be rough. Yeah. What a guy make a great assassin. What is the what is the protocol here? For a good slap? So on the topic of slapping great segway, uh, uh, Tim, is the for those of you that that don't know Tim, and that could be many of you.

Tim is the lead pastor at Gateway Fellowship in Bridgeville, Delaware. Uh, are the lot of bridges in Bridgeville. Is it was it named after is it those are the multiple bridges that really? Yeah. What's that? There's not even one. Let's see. False advertising. All advertising. There's even one bridge. Fantastic. So, Tim, you've been over in Bridgeville, Delaware, over there since 2008. Wow. That's like, that's like a that's a spell. It's a long time. It's a it's a while.

I'm no mouth genius here, but that's going on 14 years, if I'm not mistaken. Andy, does my math add up? Isn't that right? And that math is not my strong suit, but I'm going to go ahead and say 14 years Tim, let me just put this out there. I've never done any job for 14 years. Not one not one single job. I've, I stayed at like stayed at an employer for 14 years. What's your secret? That's what I want to know. Tell us, tell us the secret of a 14 year tenure at one church.

Well, before I began, I was when I graduated seminary and was praying and looking at all the horrible job openings online and for pastors going into a deep depression. Yes, right. Reading descriptions of what people expected of their pastors, what they wanted in a pastor. And I just remember saying, oh, death would be superior to taking any of these jobs. And I'm I'm laughing because it's true. I mean, yeah.

So I think just for instance, in tell me if you're tracking with this, Tim, or if you just go to, uh, what the church was, it was the big website for doing search jobs dot net or something. Something church jobs, ministry jobs, that whatever, whatever it is, there's like a few main websites that people go to to find ministry jobs. And it's a swamp out there, folks. It's an absolute swamp.

And you're looking at these job descriptions and you're like, I don't know if Jesus Christ himself could fulfill this job description. That's right. Yeah. They want the education, work ethic, the salary, everything felt like. Okay, so I feel despair dot com would be like, what am I looking at? Despair dot com yeah. But so I got this word from the Lord during that season where he said, Tim, it's not about the Internet. It's all about the network. And I said, I have no idea what that means.

So thanks for the riddle. That's very unhelpful. And my uncle called me and said, Tim, if you have you had any any luck in this? Because that's what you really want if you're a theist, a lot of luck. If you had any luck in this job search, thing. And I said no, and everything looks horrible. And but the Lord did tell me it's not about the Internet, it's all about the network. And he said, Oh, that's wonderful. I said, It is.

And he said, Yeah, that means you're supposed to come interview with us. The conservative Mennonite Church that you grew up in. And I said, Huh? Why? And he said, Because of what the Lord said about the network and how it's like, you know, that wouldn't work. That would never work. Too many inconsistencies, incompatibilities with me and them. And He said, Well, just promise me you will So I did. And I've been I've been there ever since.

But one of the things that I asked God before I started, I noticed that I thought I saw a pattern in some of my heroes lives. And the pattern was that they to make an impact, they stayed in one place for a long time. So I said, God, this is a preference not not a demand, but I'd like to spend my entire career in one church. So far, I'm still here. Yeah. And they haven't fired me. Yeah, we've tried multiple times.

And it hasn't worked. No. Have we had plans it at least two, maybe three churches there accidentally. Yeah. And I love it. I love Gateway Fellowship. We love Gateway Fellowship. My wife and I treasure this little church. We're probably one of the slowest growing churches in America. And, you know, at the rate of -12 a year ish for 14 years but man, a fantastic batch of people.

Sometimes I feel like a regular sized person at, at our church and then I go other places and people act like I'm something special. And I go, oh, right. Yeah. At home I'm not that prophetic, but here people seem to think I am or at home I don't feel that deep. But here people seem to think I said some smart. Well, that was my that was, that was my experience. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think and this is it. I'm speaking also as a pastor, you know, and is and is married to one now,

whether he likes it or not. And and what happened. I don't understand that reference. Oh, I'm sorry. So. So and his wife Julie. Uh, but kind of fell into the. Well, I unless they fell into it. Let's just be clear. Let's should be clear. I quit my job here at Clinton Frame, and she moved into my office. I just wanted to quit. Kidding. That's no she did the interim job of just what Joel was doing.

And then the pastor of pastoral care, which is now called Congregation of Congregational Care, came open. And so she she got that job. So she is is the pastor. But so two years ago, she would have never dreamed of that. Yeah. Julie was Julie was on a different she was on a definitely on a ministry a kind of ministry track, but definitely not in the kind of the typical pastoral ministry track. But here she is today. And so Andy is a pastor spouse, and it's a there's a learning curve to that.

Yeah. Fair enough to say, hey, by the way, Julie is watching and she says that it's accurate that's accurate, that that is totally accurate. So. Oh, good. Which one is accurate? Yeah. Yeah, which one which I love that you're in love that your wife has life with us. That's fantastic. Um, no, I think, uh oh, I got no, you got my train of thought. Oh, right. This is where I was.

This is what I was going I was going to say, um, finding a way to be a normal person in a congregational setting as a pastor is like a sacred skill and a really unique gift. Um, I feel like where I'm at right now, one of the greatest gifts that I have received is that I have legitimate friends. And that's not to say that my previous congregation, but there has been some there is a kind of friendship that has emerged and I've I can say this.

I had a I had a I had a pastor, a lead pastor at another church once told me, like your congregation want to be friends with you or what they want I want do that. Right. You know, they need a pastor, not a friend. And I'm I've always lived I've lived in that tension of like, I don't know if that's a right I just it's broken down. Yeah. Right, right, right.

And it's it's like I don't there's because you're I think you're assuming some power dynamic and you're assuming and it's like, can't I just live out of my calling? They live out of theirs. We do this thing called Christian community together and and that's okay. And and I don't have to be like, I'm not so I'm not the sage on the stage. I'm not some I'm just like a coal laborer with you. Yeah. So, ah, thank you. Julia's clarifying. Yes, it's true that she fell into ministry. Fell into it.

Gosh, if she if that's if that's all I can say. Julie, if that's falling into ministry. Wow, what a great. That's a graceful fall. I'll just tell you, that's that's really beautiful. By the way, Andy, I got to say, this is this beaming new technology like you are integrating into our video components here is. Yeah. Wow. Well, all I can say is all I can say is thank you evidence and thank you. Yeah, but all this all this fancy this fancy new stuff. So okay, so you just. Yeah, go ahead.

Sorry in what you were just talking about. So I. I think it's really normal for a lot of pastors to claim that they. Here's an have you ever heard this phrase? It's lonely at the top? Oh, yes. Yep. I'm not lonely. And and I and I wonder if it's maybe part of the reason I'm not lonely is because I'm such a mess in front of my people. Golly. Yeah, yeah. So here's one example. I said, don't do more into that. Yeah, yeah. Here's a recent example.

My, my mentor, my overseer died of pancreatic cancer last year. Oh, maybe it was a year and a half, two years ago. Now, at times, just flies and he was so beloved by so many people that I was unintentionally minimizing my own suffering. Sure. We we went from talking on the phone three times a week at least. Yes. To not at all. Yeah, right. And my buddy Stanley one day says, How are you doing, Tim? I said, I'm okay. He goes, How are you doing with Richard? And I said, It's rough.

But, you know, a lot of people knew more than me longer than me. So I'm all right. Yeah. Classic. Classic minimizing of their help. Totally. Yeah. And and Stanley says I'm angry with you. I said, What? He goes, How are you doing? I said, I'm okay. And he goes, I'm getting mad at you right now. I'm getting angry with you. Sit down on this. On sit down right here, right now. Sit down, sit down. I sit down and then over.

Carolyn Biggs comes over the lady who runs our clothing feminist giving away clothing to the poor and crying over people. And now it stands. My, my the leader of the prayer needs prayer meeting. And he's my blind buddy who I just asked me the story of how I took him to the ocean. Okay? They they made me talk about how I was how I was doing. It validated my pain to the point where I was crying, finally crying, really crying hard.

And and they went and got me communion and served me communion and laid hands on me and prayed over me. And the three of us had a moment because they they refused to let me hide in my grief. Oh, so good. Beautiful, so good as, like, I just don't have. I hardly have words for how I feel about these people. Yeah. You know, they pastor me. Yup. They inspire me. They rebuke me. They challenge me. Yeah. And I'm not and I'm not lonely. And it's not because I never feel lonely.

It's because they come they come after me when I try to go and be alone because they're unimpressed with you. That's true, right? And I'm not in a bit like that in a bad way. So it's a the Tim here's here's a thought that I that I okay.

So I'm walking AMC where where I serve the team that I oversee a kind of a when I say requirement, it's not a hard handed thing, but I want everyone to have a four to five person prayer shield that is outside of our congregation, that they're regularly men and women of prayer, deep abiding prayer that are going to be lifting them up in their in their ministry, in their personal lives.

The whole thing right and that there's a high degree of transparency and honesty with that, with that group as this prayer shield group. And then I also want them to have a spiritual mentor of some sort like someone they can have deep, meaningful Jesus conversations with. That, again, is outside of the congregation. So someone that does not have a dog in the hunt of their ministry job kind of thing. Right.

But then I also say the one helpful thing that people seem to get when I say it is for this spiritual mentor position, you need to find someone that is unimpressed with you. Um, specifically what I mean is this people will, so many people will lift you up in an unfair and, and not helpful ways. Yeah. They put you on a pedestal, right?

And being right, being in ministry and it will, it will feel okay at first, but then you realize it's toxic and it's dangerous and that it's people lifting you up that actually causes the loneliness. And and so what I want is a bunch of coal laborers where everyone is living into their gifting and and there isn't this, like, I don't know, the freaking smoke and light show kind of thing that's going on around it.

We're, we're elevating personalities because, by the way, you know, Tim, you and I and Andy, we've seen what has happened in the last few years with these high capacity people that are elevated that end up falling into pieces because they're they can't live on the pedestal that people are putting them in. 100%. 100%. So, Tim, I'm super grateful for all those wonderful people out in Delaware that you are hanging out with. And I and I hope I get to meet them. I really do.

That is a solid they're solid. That is awesome. I was talking to Wes Carroll for a long for a long the other day. Yep.

And he said that when he was leading a rather large church, there was this little 80 person Baptist church and they would, you know, they would do sort of bunch of churches would come together to do community events in this little 80 person church without OutServe, their 1500 person church and, and oh yes it may, I came home and reported to my wife I was like, oh that boosted me so much because some of us pastors of small churches really do suffer from the comparison

our comparison is just such a joy thief and useless as an individual, but also useless in terms of leadership. Right. Don't compare the size of your congregation to two other congregations and then not see the treasure that's in front of you or, you know, all these weird, unhelpful, not from God metrics of, you know, success.

Yeah. Okay. So back to the thing you said about fans where you didn't use the word fan, but critics and fans and critics want to I've always said, don't put me up on a pedestal because there's there's two reasons that somebody would want to put me on a pedestal, and I'm not interested in either. And the two reasons would be to either crown me king or crucify me. So no, thank you. Yes, right. Neither. Let them out, right? No, thanks. Hard pass.

Okay. So, okay, so Tim, I think we get a little bit of a taste for the kind of maybe the spirit of ministry that you are have found to be Life-Giving and helpful and something that you can stick around in them that you're not trying to flee from like a burning building. Which, which, which many of our colleagues, Tim, obviously are like. This whole great resignation and pastors leaving their ministries and not going back to ministry at all. I of think that is happening at a considerable rate.

It seems like more these days than ever before. Sure. And it's it's concerning. But I think some of the things that Tim's touching on are probably contributing to that. So but here's the other thing. So Tim, and for our listeners here, when we were down in Florida at Flourishing, which is our evangelical Anabaptist Network, Pastor Spouse Retreat, there were then just shy of like 150 folks on down there in beautiful Sarasota, Sarasota area.

Oh, golly, Well, I would say that you really introduced me especially into like the inner healing prayer ideas. So can you tell us a little bit about what that is and why is that so important to you? Yeah, Mike, how did I just want to like a first like how did you get connected with this? Because, like, I'm guessing you hit me. Well, anyway, maybe you hadn't experience with it. You know, something something happened. Something broke loose on you. I don't know.

I like the well, some haven't. Yeah, a really close friend of mine went to a sister church in our region and had a traumatic childhood experience that through listening prayer, the Lord substantially transformed the narrative that she had been living under as an abuse victim. And we're like some powerful Holy Spirit here, healing gospel healing. And she. She enlisted and went through the training and became a practitioner of that particular model of inner healing prayer.

And began to sort of one night, we were chatting on Facebook Messenger, and she just said, Hey, why don't you why don't you ask Jesus to give you a picture of what your pain looks like? And I asked the Lord to give me a picture of my pain. And I was wearing this heavy backpack, and I said, Wow, I'm wearing a heavy backpack. So she types back a little later. And, you know, the little by bubble, you can see somebody is typing and it pops up. Ask him what's in the backpack?

My car. Oh, it's full of bricks. I ask him what the bricks are and he says, they are church people's expectations oh, well, ask him what he wants you to do with those. So he says he wants me to take the backpack off and surrender it to him. Okay. Well, tell me when you've done that. Well, I tried in my imagination and I tried to take the backpack off. I couldn't take it off. Finally, I was like, Why can't I take this off, Lord?

And he said, Because you believe that if you don't live with a certain measure, of guilt for how you aren't meeting people's expectations, then that lack of guilt reveals that you don't really love them. Oh, And I was like, That's messed up. And he's like, Yo, I couldn't get the backpack off until I physically got out of my La-Z-Boy and pretended to take off the invisible backpack with my actual body and set it at the ground on the ground in front of me and then sat back down.

I text my friend, Okay. I got it out finally. So she texts back. Ask him what he wants to give you in exchange now that you've surrendered that burden to the Lord. And I said, All right, what? You want to give me an exchange? So I look and there's what I think is the same dang backpack. And I'm like, Oh, no, this is the task. No way, never again. So I finally realize it's not a joke, it's not a test. And I pick it up and it is. It feels empty. So I put it on and it's like, this is like, wow.

It's like I'm it. It's no burden at all. And she says, What's in it? My friend texts me what's in the backpack. So I open it up and look in there a sandwich, and I say, What's this, Lord? And he says, It's your lunch. And instantly I'm in the story of the loaves and fishes where the only responsibility I have is to listen to Jesus in his and his. What He's saying to me, what he's giving me to feast on from my for myself, from him and me is plenty to share with everyone around me.

And there will be, you know, the 12 baskets and food for the 5000. And so it was like a redefining of of love so that that little, little encounter is one of a number of those kind of prayer encounters in which I sort of sort of slowly began to pick up tools or that it's like, okay, you can that's the tool called picture the burden and invite Jesus in and give the burden to Jesus and what do you want me to do with this? And so you probably saw so I do that the exchange is what I guess.

Yeah, yeah. And I just so because we have a a wide, a wide range of listeners, some of which right now as they're listening are going, Hey, who invited this freak show on to the show? And I say that I'm joking, obviously, but my feelings were not hurt good and good. You were the harshest criticism you could ever give someone is that they're normal. Yeah, they yeah. They're the most the most damaging thing I could ever say to someone would be that.

No, and I mean, I'm joking to that extent, but also to say, see, here's the deal, Tim. And you know this like the way you're talking about your conversation with God, right? There, like that whole that whole exchange. Is it fair to say that that is really a foreign. I just I'm thinking of we Christians in the West in particular. I'm thinking of the folks that I've, you know, I've shared life with in congregations.

The kind of conversation that you're just talking about there, the nature the dynamics of it, all of that. The process seems massively foreign to what you know, to what I have encountered and have talked about and have seen and experienced even with myself within kind of Christian congregations in general. Is that is it fair people often times I have not received proper training in what prayer can be. Prayer.

Is it often we almost treat prayer like it's God's voicemail rather than a real live conversation with a real being. Who exists and who is present with us and and and honestly, who? Someone who doesn't by any of our posturing and isn't interested in us saying what we think he wants us to say is it's almost a foreign idea. Okay, so let me share this example. One day I was a very young believer.

I was headed out to go to a six month trip to India with Reach the short term missions program of our denomination. And Mom and dad were praying over me the night before we left and my dad didn't close his eyes when he prayed. He didn't use a preacher voice. He didn't get intense. He didn't try to he didn't there wasn't zeal in his voice. There was not intensity. He wasn't attempting to get guns and wind.

Father God, we Justin, we ask that you and I. Oh, we just don't know how are you going to do it, Lord? But he wasn't he wasn't you know, if you if you talk to the guy who who, you know, does the cattle auction. Yeah. Yeah. That's a persona he puts on for cattle auction bear long I'm him here and and there's a persona a lot of us put on when we pray. You know, there's a persona people put on when they when they go out in public. And I had I was a very young Christian.

I had already learned how to put on a persona with God and then my dad started praying. He didn't shut his eyes. He didn't change his voice. He didn't use any particularly spiritual sounding words it was so arresting and shocking to me that I stood there and just looked at him while he prayed with confusion on my face, because what he's doing does not count right now. It does not count as prayer. And I thought you I thought, hey, dad, I thought you cared about that.

This is different. Not just a conversation. Yeah, he's just talking like God's a regular person the same size as us in the circle. Who didn't need to be convinced of anything or impressed the the lack of legalism and the amount of grace. And Dad doesn't know that his prayer taught me anything. I don't think I've ever said this to him, but someone who really understands grace, who isn't doing any posturing with God it changes how you get up in the morning.

It changes how you behave when you realize you've sinned. It changes how you sing to the Lord. It changes how you talk to the Lord. It changes how you feel as you open the book to just read. Read the word conversational relationships not going to be possible if you think of yourself as a problem God's trying to fix, rather than someone who God really enjoys and loves and understands all those weaknesses that you have that really likes you.

I just and I don't know, I have a strange I don't know if this is a a strange spiritual anxiety around how would I say this if I have I think so many folks and I would include myself in this at various seasons so many folks are are locked up with with their it's like they're worried about doing it wrong prayer that is or whatever. They're worried about the doing of it.

And then and because they're so worried about that, then they don't or they don't even because like in a way and honestly in a way them like I would I heard you share down in Florida as we were at the conference and what the previous conversations that you and I have had there is a little bit of a while to see it. There's an experimental nature to what to your conversations with God like. Yeah. Is that yeah, maybe you've got better words forth than that. But I'm a mystic.

Yeah. Am I supposed to unpack that? I think so. I think I, I think to you, like, I mean, one thing that I noticed when we were in Florida is I think the way that you led the conversations on stage, the way that you, you were I don't want to say were the voice of God, but you were allowing the people that were going through the inner healing prayer to just you were kind of guiding them, if you will. And I think that you need to hear from me, right? You're not you or me.

You're just asking you're just asking the basic questions. Exactly the point of of yeah. I don't really like to call it inner healing prayer. Because to me, it's just Christianity or it's it's just. Yes, says, who is this? Yeah. That's the real Jesus. The biblical Jesus is actually here. He speaks, he saves, he heals. He's he, he, his spirit brings life. He actually works really well in broken situations.

Just like this one. Yeah. And if we'll attune our hearts and ask him these questions and invite him in, he'll speak. He'll do the stuff he did in the book because he hasn't changed and he hasn't gone away. Yeah. So Tim is succinctly I this is always the challenge as succinctly as you can give us because I want people to get a little context for the bigger picture that we're talking about, kind of because you did outline some specific steps kind of in the healing prayer process.

If you just lay those out for us kind of quickly and then just did because it was a process, there's a a journey that a person goes on through this and in the journey is not the same for every person. And sometimes there's a a start, a stop, a pause and then a continuation. But in general, one of the things that you're hoping to guide people through, what would how would you list how would you list those out? Well, let me see.

One, two, three, four, five, six In reality, it comes down to Jesus said that the truth will make us free right. And we need to know that the different there's a difference between the facts with which the devil is is really good at twisting the facts in order to deceive There's a difference between the facts which can be twisted to deceive and the truth which can even use made up stories called parables to set free right. So the truth is actually not just an idea, but Jesus said I am the truth.

So the truth is a person, the truth is the voice of Jesus. The truth is what Jesus is saying, or another way to put it would be what God believes. Right. So oftentimes where we start with people is life hurts us, life wounds us, we sin. And, and, and and then those experiences start to teach us things.

So through the wounds of life, lies enter and the demonic will have to often try to empower those lies that that our broken experience of the world So what ends up happening is things that are not true begin to feel true. And then as we feel those things are true, we live by those things that we feel are true but aren't. And that is what keeps us under strongholds, is how the New Testament describes it.

And so Paul talks about taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ and destroying strongholds using the tools of the spiritual weapons of the gospel. So that's what I'm doing here. I think maybe a more manly description of inner healing prayer would be spiritual warfare yeah. This is what we're this is spiritual war. This is taking ground.

This is just this is you know, there's a story in the Old Testament where there's this guy called shoot, what is what is his name, where he takes his stand in his field of lentils and like kills 300 men And like, I just picture him standing there. His name is Shem. Yeah. Shima Shima took his stand in a field of lentils, and I just picture him standing there saying this. They're my they're my stinking lentils. Yeah, this is my inheritance. This was I was promised this.

This is my children's food, right? This is God's given me this. And I'm not going to let Satan and I'm not going to let the evil one take my inheritance. From the Lord. Right. And so for us, it's like we've been given the promise to live an abundant life we've been promised. We're not slaves to sin we're not slaves to sin anymore. We're not. We can walk in freedom. We don't have to be ruled by anger. We don't have to be ruled by lust. We don't have to be ruled by greed. Right. Right.

In my mind, like the evil one wants to lock us up so that we don't live the abundant life of that's ours and Jesus. He wants to steal our inheritance. You know, he's really into identity theft. He wants to steal. He wants to steal our our ID out of our wallet. So we don't know who we are. Because if we don't know who we are, then we definitely don't know who's we are. And we have no clue why we're here or what to do.

I'm not even describing the inner healing process at this point, but basically the truth sets us free and lies make us slaves. So what I do is I try to walk people. I into the wound with Jesus to allow him to heal the wound, remove the arrow with the lie in it, repent of what they need to repent of experience, comfort where they need to comfort, forgive who they need to forgive, and then go circle back around. And usually we start with a lie, but we end with the truth.

And by the time you go through the process, people who think they don't hear God at all, I'm telling you, people who think they don't hear God, people who think, Oh, I'm a dud, I'm a waste of time. By the end, they're not only hearing God, they're feeling God, they're sensing God, and they're the and the and the enemies lies are unmasked. Well, that's one of the things I would say that we experienced when we were in Florida. And, you know, normally you do this in a small setting.

You may have one other person with you besides the person that you're walking through this with. But we were we were allowed to be kind of, you know, the audience where there was, you know, past the fourth wall and we were allowed to to see through this. And like, I notice that that in both cases it seemed like, yeah, by the end of this journey, people were experiencing and feeling and and just hearing from God where I don't think that they really expected when they got on stage.

Yeah. And could you tell how clueless and powerless I was the whole time? Yeah. What I experienced is you. You listening to God, though? Guess that's what I experienced. Yes. Greatly listening. I I'm not even joking when I say my method of doing this is throwing myself in harm's way and begging God to rescue everyone. 100%. Yeah. Hundred percent. But. But that's like. Well, that's shepherding no one. Yeah. We're in way over our head on that. Boy, oh, boy.

Right. And Tim, I'm reading this book right now that just came out this fall, this past fall. And see, it's the, the title of it is The Flourishing Pastor and the early chapters he's all about is basically all about saying, like you need you need is getting to the place of you need to be in. You need to be in harm's way. Like you need to be in harm's way in terms of relinquishing relinquishing safety and control. And if you do that, that's where longevity and healing is found in.

And I'm just as I'm listening to because I, I, I don't, I can't read everything like from a book. So Audible's been a big help to me, uh, recently. Are you the person who is telling me I have got to get audible? Well, here's the deal. I'm just going to say this when I finish grad school, and maybe you're not. I, I have, I've just, I've projected realities onto your terms and just could tell you what I think you're like, and then you're going to tell me. I don't know that I'm totally wrong.

I like, i. I look at you, I see you. I'm like, oh, there's a deep reader. There's a guy who's just in deep into the spiritual formation, the books and all the things. I don't know. For me, when I graduated from grad school, when I finished my last graduate class and had a wall full of walls full of books, I said, I'm gonna take some time off. I'm going to take some time off from this whole, this whole reading thing. And then I took a very long time off.

And I have felt like I in the last few years have just tried to crawl back into being a better a reader or whatever. Yeah. So I've been basically I've been trying to get back to reading. What I've realized is if I get a book and then get the like, this is not a super cost effective way, but if I get the book and then get audible, I can listen to some of it and then I can pick it up and read when I have a chance to.

But I have to have both to be able to get through a book because I will get I'll get stalled. I'll get stalled out, like because I'm always like, oh, I need like a really good, quiet place to read all the time. And look, that's not a reality in my life. And so right when morning reading, you're never going to get the quiet place that I am. I am a I'm a I'm a family's Uber driver, for crying out loud. So I'm in the car all the time. So I've just I'm just using using my resources

to pick books, but I'm trying to get back in. And I will say the reading the reading thing is, is actually good for you. Turns out so. Okay. So I have so many I have just so many other other questions. I think what we can say about the nature of this prayer is and because again, we're we are the dudes and Dad's podcast and we're always talking about guy stuff

and whatever and here's the deal. I, I think a lot of, I don't know, there when it comes to entering into and I know this is a terrible stereotype, but with guys that track. Yes, please go ahead. And just first. Yeah, sure you can. Yes, go go for it. I, I'm a very slow reader. Okay. I like I read very slowly. I reread the same books over and over and many of the books I read are odd. Yes. And I'm I'm not really interested in growing my library real big.

I, I would be I was just thinking the other week I should get rid of a bunch of these worthless books probably there's less than 20 books that I have that have that were worth reading. Dallas Willard is helpful.

A little book I brought I bought for a quarter by Brother Laurence and Frank Laubach on Living in a state of constant conversation with God, experiencing the presence of God all day has probably been the one of the most impactful things that I that I have read and reread and continue to endorse. But my point is, I'm not. I'm not I'm actually not only am I not a super reader but I really ascribe to the idea of the purpose of reading is is doing is is applying. Yep.

And so it, it is a tree of a knowledge of good and evil kind of an agenda to to, to, to try to constantly be gaining more and more knowledge. Yeah. There's a Eastern Orthodox concept of never, never study or read more hours in the day than you pray. Well, that's dangerous. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. It's a dangerous idea I ascribe to that. Yeah, I affirm that. No, that wasn't. Yeah, I, I'm with you that's that's a good challenge. I'm gonna have to think about that, which, I don't know.

I just have pastor friends, and they're like, this year I'm going to read 50 books, and I'm like, You're going to live one, one page at about what? Yeah. How many of those books are you going to live? Going to live out? You know, like when Jesus said to Dan Mueller, Stay in Philippians two, and then he stayed in Philippians two.

And then for, like he said, How long am I going to stay in Philippians to only reading Philippians to have this mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus said though he was in the form of God, did not consider equality, was God something to grasp, but took on the nature of a servant being found in human life. Mercy humbled himself to the point of death, even death in a cross that did so. God exalted him to the highest place. Right?

But have this mind in you have that mind and you have that attitude in you. How long am I going to stay in Philippians two Lord and he says, Till it's in you, till you're living in. And one day, one day Jesus said, Okay, you can move on do you know what that means? That means he was actually living Philippians two. Yeah. And until he was living it, Jesus didn't want him just filling more knowledge way beyond that, his level of, of, of actual spiritual growth. Yeah, right.

Because this extra gap in between the grace we're actually walking in and the word this gap right here. Now, this information is being used to judge self, God and others like that's, that's danger. There's danger there. Absolutely. Wow. So yeah, I think I'm, that, that's, that's worth the price of admission right there. Think on that one. Yeah. And, and I think that's, you know, we have we've, we've made for those of us who follow Jesus in the Western context, I do feel it's become this big.

But I'm all for education, don't get me wrong. But it's big cerebral exercise and it's like, yeah, information does not equal transformation I, I've experienced that in my own life, see it in the lives of others and I just go how about we just be obedient? How about we just start there and then. Yeah. And how do you be obedient to ideas like God is love? So like every day, this is how I, this is how I start my prayer day. I, I don't ask God for things in my prayer time.

In the morning. There's no lists. There's not, I'm not looking at the brokenness of the world. I'm not looking at the needs in my community. I'm not even looking at the needs in my, in myself or my family. The first lengthy portion of my prayer time is thanking Jesus that I deserve hell and I'm never going yeah, I was going to hell. Yeah, I deserved it. The penalty, the appropriate penalty for the behaviors that that I was enslaved to is death.

And I was headed there. And he said no. And he came on a rescue mission. So I just say thank you, God, that I was he meant way yep. I was headed to hell forever. And I'm not going I'm going to heaven forever. Thank you that you love me. Thank you that you pursued me. Thank you that I'm going to be with you forever. Thank you, God, that you took the cross for me. That you took the crown of thorns for Tim that you were beating for Tim. And I just stay in. Thank you. Thank you for thank you that.

Thank you that. Thank you that thank you that starting with the eternal things. And then that can grow into and god, i ask for this and god I ask for that. But mean that. Yeah. Then I read a chapter outloud of something and and then I sit down and I picture Jesus with me and then I do listening prayer and that's my pattern. And I try not to interact with with humans until noon.

That's but I have the luxury of doing that because I'm in charge of how I arrange my stage or a lot of people's jobs would not allow that um, you know, that's why, that's why people are like, I get up at four in the morning and I'm like, Wow, that's dangerous. Me and Jesus were actually asleep so we're talking to him because he's in bed with me sleeping. No, that's right. How safe to get up before the Lord, bro. Yeah, that's that's the dangerous doctrines. Bone of the Lord.

There I was in bed with me. Yes. Oh, man. Well, there's this conversation's being good, Joel. And I don't. I don't want to keep Tim too long because I don't want his voice to be. So you got to grab him to get. You got to preach on Sunday. That's the rumor, actually. Part of the reason my voice is so jacked up is I just came out of a band practice, and I was singing really high. Hmm. I didn't.

I, I mean, I can see you a little, little bon jovi to the, uh, to the worship that I was trying to teach Danny. They Danny's the gal. I was trying to teach Danny the the harmony parts. And I'm singing now. I can't hear. Yeah. Oh, we didn't cover any of your questions, and I didn't even get to ask you guys my questions. Like, I was going to ask y'all what's your favorite food? Oh, nice He can do the pop quiz on us. That's actually okay. We're going to do that. Okay.

We're going to finish the episode where you get to ask a question. All right, now it's time for dudes and dads. Pop quiz. All right, all right. All right. So you're going to go ahead and ask us these questions today. Yeah, whatever you want to ask. All right. Favorite foods All right. I will go first. I will go with shrimp and Skittles. I mean, all those weird bits, human Skittles. Okay, here's the thing. I just turned a corner here. Recently.

Gosh, Annie, you and I. What is this got to bring, like, shrimp and grits? Yeah, I had some shrimp and grits today that was dynamite. And I'm like, I think I really love this food, and I. Because I'm not a Southerner. I didn't know about it. It's like the new a new kingdom, a new element of the kingdom of God is opened up before me. So I'm going to go right now. This moment, shrimp and grits. I think you guys need to move to Georgia or Alabama. Yes, I have.

Shrimp and grits is a thing that you are about. Yes, absolutely. So I'm allergic to shrimp and I'm allergic to the lime Skittles. Oh, you know, you can have it, Andy. Oh, man. Thanks. See? Favorite TV show, Georgia, you answer that one first TV show and this can be anything of all time. Whatever. All time. Um, how about series? Is that make you feel okay? I'll tell you. I'll tell my favorite players. Okay. We went two seasons. I wish to goodness it would go a third.

There's been a lot of talk about it is the Netflix series Mindhunter. And it is the early it's a it's a kind of a slightly fictionalized version of when the FBI began there. I'm writing it down Mindhunter. When the FBI began their study into serial killers and began a process for profiling serial killers. And I know I know it sounds super dark. It's it's not. Yeah, it's not it's not as dark as it it's all of the psychology that's really interesting to me anyway. All right.

So for me, I'm going to go with The Amazing Race. That's one of our family's favorites. We love watching the range between Mindhunter. Yeah. Isn't really I like it. What if you could combine those two if they. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's horrible. Okay. Favorite band. Wait, hold on, Joel. Your wife says this or is with the shows with people dying. Oh, thank you, Jacki. Oh, man. This shows the people dying I love this new technology. We get our wives. Our wives get to make it come. Okay.

Favorite band oh, oh, oh, oh, yeah. That band that's so hard for me. There's so many. It's not hard for me. It's oh, man, it's hard for me. I don't. Go ahead. So hold on. So I asked the male man, what's the greatest band of all time? And because. Because everybody asks the mailman enough for you, and he just wants to die. You just. Right, right. No, no, I. So I try to ask him real questions. And I'll even get other people to give me questions for the mailman. And I have a list on my phone.

So if I see him coming, I'm like, hey. Well, here's a question of the day. Greatest sports team of all time. He's like, 1920. What is it? 1927. Yankees or whatever. I don't know what he said. He said Aerosmith was the greatest band of all time. Anyway. Now, how about you all answer my question, Joel? Okay, I don't know about my favorite, but I'll just answer the question initially. My favorite band is the is the Chicago based band Wilco.

That's my Wilco. Wilco. Jeff Tweedy is a he's like a it's like a personal I feel like I know him, and yet I don't there's something something about him to something about him. All right. So I'm it is not the same is greatest. It no, because I don't I don't know. But like I like I'm also like a huge in so many ways for the musicality level. Also like a huge Led Zeppelin fan but like, I isn't like that's an easy one to go to, like whatever the epic ness or whatever. And then but I just don't know.

I don't know if I can. That's a hard one. That's a really hard it is a hard question, Andy. All right. So I'm going to it's so hard for me to even answer because I like music from all genres. I'm just gonna say The Smashing Pumpkins. Oh, is that. That's a good one. You the man. Oh, come on. The Siamese Dream Owl. That's a good one. 19 it's 1994. Yes, I'm on a I'm on like a Greyhound bus. I love all the things about this story. My friend hands me his Sony Walkman it has a cassette in it.

He says, Listen to this. I put it on and I hear teaching. Ten inch down, it's down, energy down an adjunct energy d'énergie down energy Jupiter ring tinting to Garnet down into cherub rock, the first track of Siamese dream. I'm going have to go listen to it now. We're going to have to all this is sat there like Dodo does not like this crashing pumpkins according to his wife. Yeah, well, listen, everyone is entitled to be as wrong. Idiot. Right, right. America. That's what makes America.

Yeah, sure. The the best part of America is I get to be a religious kook and you get to be a wacko. Yep, that's true. The Earth is flat. Five G is has given me an increased pancreatic pain level lately when it rains. And we we are actually still friends All right, one more give us one more question, and then we'll end this episode. If you could live anywhere in the world doing any career you wanted, where would you live and what would your career be? All right.

I'm going to say I will probably live somewhere warm so maybe Hawaii. Like, if money wasn't an option, I would say Hawaii. And I really like podcasting, so I think I would actually do podcasting. Your if I could live Yeah, Andy, I'm going to say if I could live in San Diego and I have a job where I get to talk to people just to talk to people for my job. That's podcasting or whatever it is. Um, I think I would like I think I would like that.

I think I may have crossed over the line now where it's like, you know what? I'm okay with a single climate and I'm living in that. I'm, you know, I've And quite honestly, I don't know, you live in Delaware. I think you've got it worse than us at some point. So I don't know how you do what you do, but what do you mean? Like, it is okay. I just envision, like, East Coast people, like, like, of that way. Like, you like getting some really gnarly weather. Am I wrong or are you mild?

Delaware is mild year round, really. And as many days at the beach as I can in the summer, winters are mild falls. Beautiful. Spring is beautiful. I would like to live closer to the beach, and I think it would be it. What would I want to do as a job? I think I like what I'm doing to be honest. Yeah, I like what I'm doing now. Yeah. I, uh, more what I'm doing now. I would be better at this. Yeah, I want to be there. At what I'm. Yeah. Yeah.

Closer to the beach and better and better at what I'm doing. I go way better version of me or Lord help us and surf. I would love to surf. Can you surf in Delaware? Can you? Is that a thing now? Now the waves aren't. I mean, people's people are like, oh, yeah, my Dennis was like, you know, I you can go down to Towers Beach and surf because I used to be a lifeguard back when I was a kid. And that's where we we could the waves were still there.

They replenish the beaches because of all the expensive houses. So the federal government provides money to replenish the beaches. You what I mean by retention, that's always eroding and they're dredging things up and then that screws up the way the waves break. So it ruins the surfing waves and so he told me about tower. So towers is where we go and and that's so we go down to towers. We don't surf because the waves just kind of pop up, destroy you in the face and dissipate. Yes.

And it is intense like it is. It's it's that's why I go I go there to fight the waves and just rip. But when adults go to the beach, and they sit in their chair. Yeah. And they watch the kids play. Yeah, I'm like, you wanna sit in the sun on the ground for hours? You are weird. Why are you not digging holes, building things, getting more crabs? Yes. Stepping stones and swimming What's wrong with you? Yeah. In the water. Yeah, I'm. I'm actually with you. Uh, Tim, can I can I just say

from the very bottom of my heart, I love you so much, and I'm so grateful for you. Thank you for joining us. Thanks for being on the phone and having a very fun conversation. Um, we we seldom go over the hour, mark, and we are over. We are over because it was entertaining, at least for me. And I think this is the first time we've ever had a guest do a pop quiz on us, I think. I believe. Right? Yes. We're cutting edge here. Yes, we love it. The banks flipped the script on this.

They have more questions but we'll do it a different time. All right. Perfect. I love it. I love it. Like like I mean, there's the question that everyone's been wondering is what is wrong with, you know, no, no, no. Thank you so much, guys. And Joel, I appreciate the affectionate, open hearted way that you have received me into your life. Oh, quickly. Bless you, Andy. I haven't had as much of an experience of you yet. You'll get one. I'm sure you seem like a good dude at the end.

There is no higher compliment as we like to say here, than being called a good dude. Yeah, absolutely. I just think that I'd buy a car from that guy and that, and that's the second highest compliment you can give it that we're good. And I got a good level. Tim, man, say hi to say hi to Carrie. Who is your wife? Just to be clear, it was Carrie. And the kiddos for us were things for the time that you gave us.

And and as always, guys, you can head over to Dudes and Dads podcast dot com hum for all of our show. No show notes. All the goodies will put Tim stuff up there. We'll make him embarrassingly easy to find. He's got some good video content, by the way. We've even discussed that my wife says I'm the best and he is the best dude. A little biased. A little biased.

But also you can reach us over DOS Dad's podcast at gmail.com if you've got some just some pithy comments you'd like to share with us, some recommendations for future shows or a strong rebuke in the name of Jesus, whatever whatever you want to give, we appreciate you all. We look forward to use catching you around on the flip side next time. Yeah. So Grace and Peace