700: What Every Christian Can Learn from A.A. with John Ortberg

Welcome to The Holy Post. Last weekend was filled with terrible news, including a mass shooting in Australia, another at Brown University, and the murder of Rob Reiner and his wife. Today, Mike Erie joins me and Phil to discuss these events. and why rediscovering the biblical practice of lament is better than just thoughts and prayers. Then the Catholic Church has taken a nuanced and principled position on the deportation of immigrants. So why do evangelicals find that so difficult?

Then John Ortberg talks with me about his latest book, which applies the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous to Christian spiritual formation. It's called Steps, A Guide to Transforming Your Life When Willpower Isn't Enough. Also this week, the UK is building a giant Mobius strip for God. Are you still looking for Christmas gifts for your loved ones? This year, skip the socks and give them something they'll talk about for the whole year.

Holy post plus it's packed with bonus interviews, pundit segments, live streams, book clubs, exclusive shows, and more that you can't get anywhere else. Give a whole world of smarter, funnier, faith-filled content all without leaving your couch. Head over to holypost.com slash gift to get started. Here is episode 700.

Hi there. Welcome to The Holy Post. I'm Phil Vischer. I'm here with Skye Jitani. Hi, Skye. Hello, Phil. And we got Mike Erie back again. Hi, Mike. Hi, Phil. Hi, Skye. Hi. Hi. Caitlin is at home. Hi. at home with her parents, not her home, her parents' home. She's home for the holidays. She's not here. So will she be here next week? She'll probably be here next week, right? I have no idea. I don't know how to track that.

yeah woman we need to put a apple air tag on her right so we can track her and also so that we can make her beep at random occasions when she's speaking doing something in church we can make her beep that's what we should do that wouldn't be creepy or stalky or anything okay time for the theme song

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It was not a good weekend. We had two mass shootings and a murder.

Hanukkah shooting. But I thought it was Bondi Beach. I didn't know. Bondi Beach. Yeah. Like like bonsai. Only not. Yeah. Bondi Beach. Yeah. I've been there. Have you? Yeah. I figured. That would make sense. In Sydney, a Hanukkah gathering. A father and son opened fire at Bondi Beach. Hanukkah celebration killing at least 15 and wounding three dozen others. At Brown University, two students were killed and nine injured when a gunman opened fire in the school. What's going on? Why? Why?

I haven't followed things super closely, but it sounds like the attack in Australia was clearly coordinated and motivated by anti-Semitism. Yeah. I don't know anything about the Brown shooting. No, we don't know because they don't have a guy. They don't have a suspect. They don't have anything. Did they have a person of interest? Yeah, but they let him go.

they already let their person of interest this is as if we're recording this on monday we don't know any more than than this um what's kind of sad and tragic about all of this is the shooting at brown being in the united states is not particularly noteworthy because it happens with some frequency in this country the shooting in australia is definitely an outlier that doesn't happen as regularly in australia and

It's horrific. Yeah. Because you can't have a long gun in Australia without a license. A particular hunting license will allow you to get one. And now they're probably going to change the rules because that's how they respond to... tragedies they changed the rules the law about gun ownership when like 35 people were killed in tasmania in a mass shooting years ago back in the 90s i think yeah

yeah so i guess that's what happens when you haven't made it part of your constitution and national character the the other thing that's strange about all this is typically these mass shootings the ones at least make the press are lone gunmen, often young men, with a history of mental illness who have access to high-powered semi-automatic weapons. That's kind of the pattern. What appears to have happened in Australia is a coordinated attack by two people.

A father and son. A father and son. So it's more of a terrorist attack. It's more of a hate crime. It's been classified as a terrorist attack. Right. So it's a totally different. category of violence. It appears they were Muslim, so that will outrage people who don't like Muslims. But one of them was stopped by a Muslim, also was tackled and disarmed.

by a muslim man so it's hard to to find your narrative i just can we not get into the trap of uh i talked about this with matt sorens last week of corporate culpability to say that an entire class of people are responsible for the actions of one or two within that class yeah if the brown shooter we determined was white i think we need to get rid of white people yeah this is a ridiculousness now on the flip side we also need to not

bypass the fact that they seem to have been motivated by anti-Semitism, which is also a form of group identification and hatred. Right. Yeah. And Benjamin Netanyahu. has already said, well, this is what happens when you promote a Palestinian state as the head of prime minister of Australia has done. Yeah, I'm sure that's exactly what caused this. You can't be for Palestinians without being responsible for anti-Semitism. This is a mess. Mike.

Help. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I got nothing. Our church is doing something interesting. We're going through the Book of Lamentations for Advent. As one does. Exactly. I've never. I do it with my grandkids every year for Advent. And. It's been amazing for a number of reasons, one of which is it's given language and, what would I say, permission.

to sort of enter into the sorrow of some of these things. We've had our folks sort of write laments and we shared some of those. Like, it's just been super heavy. And things like this, weekends like this.

all of the gun stuff that you guys have been mentioning i totally agree i hated seeing people come out of the woodwork and say well see what banning them does in australia it still doesn't save you um but i also think that there's a part of kind of our brand of American Christianity that doesn't know how to grieve, how to lament, how to protest this stuff without demonizing or

making enemies or whatever it is. And so I actually felt reading all of this and then a couple of things that have happened since. Like there's something to do other than just post on social media or shake your head at the tragedy of it all. Which is what? Lament. Oh. I mean, there's this beautiful.

What did you think I was going to say? No, that was the order you were going in. I'm going to tell you what to do, and then I'm going to say, hey, there's something you should do. Lament. It's the thing I told you about before. Okay. Yes. Yeah, that thing. Okay. Thank you, Phil. I thought you were announcing it further. I got no analysis other than I just feel shallowly.

ill-equipped by my sweet inherited tradition to have something more to say than just be angry and be outraged mike how would you differentiate lament from Thoughts and prayers. Oh, so good. That's a great question, Sky. Lament assumes the covenant character of God, whereas sort of complaint... or thoughts and prayers, either questions it or doesn't assume it directly. Because if you don't believe that God is good and can do something, then why would you lament?

At all, right? Laments turn out to be acts of incredible faith and trust, even if they're dressed up in doubt and anguish and disequilibrium. And so at the core of lament is a plea for God to act very often. The lamenter will build a case based on God's character about why God should do something in this instance. And so it's just a unique form of corporate worship that I think we have ignored at our peril.

Yeah. What strikes me as, you know, because everyone's looking, how does this fit my narrative? How does this fit my narrative? Which narrative? And the only thing that's... really sticking with me is just the number of people that want to kill a number of people. There's so many people that want to kill so many people.

And I don't know if that's, I mean, as nations, yeah, we've seen that before. Oh, this nation wants to wipe out that nation. But just individuals in democratic societies that want to kill multiple. strangers as you know and what is that a sign of that kind of desperation like is it a sense of powerlessness that i can't I can't bring about what I want to bring about by voting. I can't bring it about by, you know, are we just lazy and I don't want to. What is it?

Sky? I don't know exactly how to answer that, Phil, but I think part of the problem, and this is certainly nothing new, is... I think partly because of social media and partly just because of our politics, both in the US and globally now, we have seen the electoral and economic benefits of reinforcing tribal identities. And the more you can get people to identify strongly with a particular group of people, they usually will define themselves against other groups of people.

And it's very difficult to have a harmonious, pluralistic society when you are pitting one group against another. And you then shouldn't be surprised at certain individuals within those groups. will take it upon themselves to act violently towards the group that you're telling them is evil or the source of all of their problems. And there are algorithmic and, like I said, economic interests that keep fueling this.

all around the world. And we have not figured out an economic model, and we certainly are not giving platform to the leaders and voices that are saying we ought not to primarily identify ourselves tribally, but- Right. As humans. Because it's counterproductive. Exactly. Yeah. Okay. We're sorry that we don't have a better answer. That's hard to figure out.

I'm not sure what to say. And then over the weekend, Rob Reiner and his wife were murdered, probably by their son, Nick, who struggled with drug addiction and homelessness. And we had Rob on the show in January of 2024, episode 602. You can go listen to it. I interviewed him. He's a sweetheart of a guy. I spent more than an hour with him on the phone. Really nice guy, radically left politics and was hated in some circles because of that. But he was a sweetheart of a guy. And this is really sad.

Before I went to bed last night, I was looking at the headlines and I just saw a picture of Rob Reiner with, what was he born, 1947? And it said 2025. And I was like, wow, Rob Reiner died. And I assumed it was. natural causes like he just you would assume that when you're 78 right went to bed and woke up this morning and read all the horrible details and what a terrible story yeah and i wonder how much we'll learn about

What went down? What happened? Yeah. Obviously, if his son was responsible for this, there's a long, terrible story there. Yeah. So, in honor of Rob. go back and listen to episode 602 he the reason that he was on our show is because he produced did not um direct but funded a film about Christian nationalism and Sky and I were both asked to be in it. So when the film came out and it came out briefly in theaters.

the publicist called up and said, hey, do you want to interview Rob about the film? And I was like, sure, I'll interview Rob. He's a fun guy. I remember as a kid watching him in All in the Family. um with my grandparents at their house and how silly he was and he represent even then he represented the leftist on the show he was the leftist i mean but if you take politics out of it for a second just yeah the the

The cultural contribution he made and the films that we all remember, like When Harry Met Sally, A Few Good Men. Spinal Tap. Spinal Tap. Princess Bride. Princess Bride. And it just goes. Yeah. What was the... Stand By Me. Stand By Me, Sleepless in Seattle. I don't know if that one was him. Was it not? Might have been him. Look it up. He was in it. I know he was in it. He had a small role in it. Mike, Sleepless in Seattle.

Get back to us. Maybe it wasn't him. I know he was in it because he has a scene with Tom Hanks in it. But it just goes on and on and on. And I know there's lots of people who probably really didn't like his politics, but... He just brought joy to so many lives. But why do we have to say that? Why do we even have to say that? He was fairly outspoken and he did a lot of media about politics and some people just turn him off for that reason.

And I think even the coverage, I mean, well, to be... Well, we were criticized for having him on, for giving a platform to someone who hates Christians because they're such... Yeah. And...

And Donald Trump certainly politicized his death with the Truth Social post that he put out there, which was just disturbing on so many levels. I'm not feeling... In fact, he was... such a sweet guy that when we wrapped up our interview he said this was fun we should do it again sometime and i honestly i honestly had the impression when we wrapped up the interview that if i was in la i could probably call him up and he'd say hey yeah let's hang out come over to the house

so yeah so i'm a little i'm a little gloomy today because yeah that's that's tragic yeah so so as evangelicals we sit and we can either you know pretend Like these things don't bug us or we can escape and distract ourselves. Or like to Sky's point, you know, thoughts and prayers is an excuse to be passive. Like the whole lament tradition is a very active. protest and crying out and corporate.

as a form of corporate worship. And so I don't know, I just feel that same heaviness, but I feel more equipped to sort of do something with it other than just be heavy. You know what I mean? Yeah. And so... I mean, how do you analyze what is so clearly becoming commonplace in terms of the coarseness of our culture, the meanness, the desire of individuals to...

you know, display violence against other individuals, everything you're saying. I just, I have no analysis other than yikes. It's just bad. Mike, I don't know if this equates with your experience when you were in seminary, but when I went to seminary in the late 90s, I remember having to read a book that was about how you organize and do church in the evangelical world. And one of the strong... admonitions in this book was that worship should only always be positive, celebratory, right?

And the whole argument was people are attracted to celebration, it's always positive on it, and there's no room. in the church and there should be they had no theology for lament or anything other than celebration and i feel like in some of american evangelicalism there's been a slight moving away from that single posture where now we allow both

celebration and anger, but not actual lament. That's so good. And when you look at the Psalms, there are more Psalms of lament than there are of celebration. So why do you think it is in this particular stream of the church in America? It's kind of a one note tune where it only can be celebratory. And what is the downside of that? Oh, man.

I couldn't agree with you more, Sky. It's like every service, every sermon needs to end in a pretty red bow. It needs to resolve with Jesus. And it wasn't until we did a, we were. I was at a church where Christmas was like the thing. We had this massive production we would do and this community, we'd open up our campus for the community and so on.

And we just had the idea to do a blue Christmas, you know, after the Elvis song, a blue Christmas service that was just filled to the brim with lamenters. I love that it has to be based on an Elvis song and not... a psalm in scripture like totally totally it's just so weird i know i know i know

And that kind of opened me. Because Elvis gave us the language to talk about disappointment. Yeah. He's not the king we should be focusing on this time of year. That's all I'm saying. Yes. He is the reason for the season, guys. And that experience opened me up to this whole tradition that was totally neglected in seminary and in practice.

And I think one of the reasons for that, at least for me, was masculinity was never, never Christian masculinity was always equated with a certain form of the victorious Christian life. Like a Christian husband can be disappointed in his wife. And you combine that with like a sexual prosperity gospel of, hey, just do it right before marriage and you'll do it right after. There was a kind of tacit understanding that suffering, sorrow, disappointment directed towards God was a lack of faith.

And even though there's so much in the Bible that negates that and actually gives us permission the other direction. And what it costs us, guys, I think it costs us. A shallow and superficial response to tragedy where we either slip right to Jesus cliches or, you know, you hear things at funerals like, oh, they're in a better place. Like there's just total bypassing.

of real people experiencing real emotion that's given. Like in Lamentations, God doesn't speak. For five poetic chapters, it's just the human venting. And you could read his silence. as, oh, he's absent, or you can read his silence as he's actually honoring human speech. Because he speaks everywhere else, but here he allows the full venting of human emotion. And I just think, I think Walter Brueggemann has a great line. He says, if this...

If this emotion, this anger, this sorrow, this disappointment isn't directed at God, it will be directed towards other people. And it will come out sideways if it's not given permission within the covenant understanding of who Jesus is and what he's done.

will come out and it will come out sideways. And I think that's where we get a lot of folks in Christian circles who suffer. And the first question they ask is, what did I do wrong? And then the second question they ask is, well, you know, then God's abandoned me. And there are other options out there about why we suffer. So all that is to say, it's a long answer, Sky, to a very, very good question. What I was struck by seeing these shootings and then hearing about the Reiners.

is the equipment that the Scripture and the community has for us to actually give expression to these things that transcends thoughts and prayers, cliches, and also just this passivity of, well, must be all god's will then and you know we just need to sort of sit and accept it i just think there's a there's a a better more compelling picture of what it is to resist evil out there than kind of what we've been handed sometimes totally

Okay, moving on. We talked last week about... That was fantastic. I'm pausing to affirm. Mike Urie. No, that was awesome. Good job. You get this. You have this tonal change in your voice. When it's time to move on. When you're transitioning. It's just very. Yeah. Thank you. Vegetable-y. Thank you. I've rehearsed it a lot. I had a transition consultant that worked with me. Perfect. For a while. Catholic Church is speaking out.

And we've talked about this quite a bit about the deportation regime and the treatment of immigrants in America. And Mike, you've talked about this a lot on your podcast and we've talked about this a lot on.

our podcast so why are you bringing it up again phil because catholic news agency answered a pretty i think a pretty fundamental question that because i hear this a lot when i post about the deportations is that so you don't want us to enforce the laws you don't think we should enforce the laws is that what you're saying phil and you know the answer is pretty clear that enforcing the law is not

bad if it treats people with dignity you know and respect so there's a concept in catholicism called intrinsic evil and when is something intrinsically evil and when is deportation policy. Evil, intrinsically evil. I don't know if there's more categories than that in Catholic thought. Catholic bishops in the United States have expressed unified disapproval of the, quote, indiscriminate mass deportation of people.

Care for immigrants is a clear command in scripture. Catholic teaching on the matter of mass deportations is somewhat nuanced with obligations on wealthy countries to welcome immigrants and responsibilities for immigrants to follow the laws of the nations receiving them. So if they're not following the law.

you know, we can... do mass deportations but when is a deportation policy intrinsically evil if something is intrinsically evil and i hadn't heard this clarified like this it means that it is immoral under any circumstance and for any reason regardless of one's motivation or the intended So there's no end that can justify that means, basically. That term is reserved for actions themselves that can never be morally justified. John Paul II.

explained an intrinsically evil act is one that by its very nature is incapable of being ordered to god interesting okay can we have an example An action that is incapable or an action that's capable. For example, you say it's evil to lock somebody up in a cage. It's evil. Okay, is there any circumstance where that can be ordered to God? Well, what if you're restraining evil?

and it's the state and you're putting someone in jail so you cannot say that locking someone that they're restraining someone is an intrinsic but what's an example of something that is intrinsically evil that can never be ordered according to the catholic church actions that are opposed to life itself, which include murder, genocide, abortion, euthanasia, or willful self-destruction. Also, among other things, actions that insults human dignity.

such as subhuman living conditions arbitrary imprisonment deportation arbitrary deportation slavery prostitution and the selling of women and children you can sell men but never women and children no i okay trafficking is what they're getting that there trafficking right um so even there the conclusion is even when there is justified deportation which there can be those who are being deported must be treated humanely

respecting human dignity which includes the natural rights to food human living conditions and access to religion so in all three of those areas we're seeing violations you know we're seeing things that that are done to immigrants that could be classified as intrinsically evil. For immigrants and refugees, the church, which church commission? The Pontifical Commission for Justice and Peace.

Says that the basic human rights of immigrants and refugees must be recognized and guaranteed if we aren't guaranteeing basic human rights. You know, and I know you had someone tell you, but if they're here and they broke the law, they shouldn't have any rights. I'm amazed at how often that argument has come up in my interactions with people. Yeah.

Yeah. The Catholic Church acknowledges that public powers must determine the number of refugees or immigrants which their country can accept. So for those who claim, well, the Catholic Church just wants open borders and, you know, and probably it's because they're getting George Soros. money under the table and world relief just wants open borders and they're probably getting george soros money under the table uh no catholic church says

The public powers must determine the number of refugees or immigrants which their country can accept. Another concern is a need to avoid a serious social imbalance that could be created when an overly heavy concentration of persons from one culture is perceived as direct. threatening the identity and customs of the local community that receives them. So an overwhelming number of immigrants or refugees that seriously creates a serious social imbalance. That's probably subjective.

I would imagine. When is it? Yeah. But, okay, the situation, though, in the United States is a little bit murkier. How so, Scott? Well, there's a number of factors here. One, you could argue the United States has not... sufficiently secured its southern border That's number one. Number two, despite decades of attempts and proposals as comprehensive immigration reform, we refuse to address it. Right. And when I say we, I mean Congress. We, I mean you and I. The government has not had the.

backbone or political fortitude to solve this problem that is a problem. Third, there are significant industries in the United States that rely heavily on immigrant and migrant labor, whether it's construction or agriculture or the hospitality industry. And there's sort of a wink wink. We're going to turn a blind eye to the fact that we are. We have loose border security and we need these people crossing the border in order to fund and man all of these industries that.

We then benefit from and now we're turning around and punishing those very people that we more or less Drew over the border attracted over the border allowed over the border and yeah and punishing them for doing what we incentivize them to do in the first place. Yeah. And to me, the biggest issue is the demonizing. Yes. That you you want to generate.

outrage and anger towards a class of people. So you look for anecdotes of misbehavior, of, you know, of outrageous behavior. Look, this one. Hey, we found some Somalians that are committing fraud.

with covid funds in minnesota well that means we shouldn't have any somalians right in the country garbage at all because they're yes quote garbage um so this was helpful to me to be able to say okay it is always wrong to dehumanize it is always wrong to demonize it is always wrong to force people to live in subhuman conditions

Send them to a prison in El Salvador that tortures them. Separate families. Separate children from their families as a punishment, not for the child's safety. Right. As a punishment. Right.

try to delay the reuniting of families with their children because you don't think there's been enough punishment yet those things are intrinsically evil and let's say so and i think the more that you clarify the more people have to stop saying well you just think you don't think there should be any laws at all like no we're not talking about laws i i've again i've had this conversation with so many people where i have

given a talk or spoken someplace about human dignity and then I get confronted with yeah yeah yeah but what about and then they list whatever immigration issue they want to talk about and I will respond with I'm not advocating for a certain immigration policy I'm open to all kinds of different solutions to this problem. I'm against any solution that doesn't value the dignity of the people involved in the system. And if you think more people should be deported.

fine you can make an argument for that the way in which that happens needs to respect their human dignity and rights that's all in my and and i'm surprised at how many christian sisters and brothers will say in response to me I disagree that these people have human rights. I'm like, well, then we are following a different Jesus because I don't know how you get that as a Christian, that you can violate people's basic human rights and dignity and not feel your conscious conscience.

conscience conscience consciousness pricked by that a prickled conscience yes mike you've been talking about this a fair amount on your podcast and i assume in your church what do you do you find people can grasp the distinction between following the law and treating people Not at all. Why? Why is this so hard? Okay, the nuance of that article was spectacular. I've never heard the Catholic Church give permission to the state for balancing of...

like a homogenous population with an immigrant population like that sort of nuance. I know that you need to think about it. You need to take it into consideration. Yeah, I was I was so I was like so impressed with that. But my experience is very similar disguise where you have people appealing to law or you have people appealing to mercy. And there's no between.

between the two. They've broken the law just by being here. They're illegal because they've come in. And one of the gifts like Javert or Valjean, that's it. Those are your two options. It really is. And the idea of restitution or, you know, when Matt Sorens talks about it's actually a misdemeanor.

So if we're going to start, you know, laws, if we're going to start like enforcing laws the way that people want to enforce laws, then, okay, well, there are lots of other things up for discussion then as well. But it's... To me, I don't know of a great way outside of sitting down over a cup of coffee and having a long conversation with...

Saying some nuanced view that says exactly what you both are saying. Well, no, we don't want open borders. And yes, some people need to be deported. And absolutely, we need a sane immigration policy. And we need to respect law enforcement. And we need to treat people. as human. And that mix, that combination of values just doesn't seem to compute well for a lot of folks. Yeah, because you've said things that are supported by both sides.

different things not not single things that are supported by both sides because there's no such thing anymore but you've said things that are that will make lefties happy and you've said things that'll make righties happy and that kind of breaks my brain Do you think what's going on here, this has been my working hypothesis, that some people have been told, sometimes their entire lives, but let's just say in the last 10 years, have been told that one political party-

is the Christian party. And one political leader is chosen and ordained and blessed by God as his chosen political leader. And so when they suddenly hear ideas that- contradict that or that cause you to question that they have to in their minds come up with a way to justify their identifying with and support of said party and

Therefore, they will dig in their heels and say, no matter what this party is advocating or doing, or no matter what this president is advocating doing, it must be what God wants. Therefore. anything you might say mike or i might say sky that's rooted in scripture we must either not be reporting properly or we're not seeing it correctly because there has to be a good viable justification for treating these people

Like trash. Or our guy wouldn't do it. Or our guy wouldn't do it. Exactly. Right. Yeah. Well, that's where Romans 13 gets plugged in. in the Christian nationalist conversation is these are leaders chosen by God to wield the sword. Except when those leaders have a D next to their name.

Yeah, which is interesting. Except when John MacArthur doesn't want to follow public health guidelines put down by the elected leaders that God has put. Then he's a hero. He's a hero because he stood up to the... just laws okay we need some good news we need some phil we need to end with some good news um

The UK, not the country, but people in the UK have broken ground on a massive monument to answered prayers. A massive monument, Mike Erie, to answered prayers. Richard Gamble. In the UK, 20 years ago, I had a vision from God to drag a nine-foot wooden cross for 77 miles during Holy Week. So that's cool. But after he did it, he had another vision, a bigger, bolder vision. Did he put a wheel on the back of that cross? Probably. Yeah, that's what people use. Oh, Jesus did that too.

you know simon that's why there's a home depot on the via de la rosa because that's where he got the wheel in 2004 came a bigger boulder vision build a wall oh boy Here we go again with the walls. Build a wall that tells a million stories of how God has answered prayer. Last week, this is maybe a month ago now.

He broke ground on that vision. 168 foot tall architectural landmark that is expected to be one of the largest Christian monuments in England, if not the world, planned to open to the public in 2028, the Eternal Wall of... answered prayer or the e-wop for short with a price tag of 59 million dollars will consist of a giant white mobius strip

stretching nearly the size of a football field, 168 feet tall, upon which a million small rectangular bricks will be overlaid, each with a digitally linked story of answered prayer, accessible on a mobile app.

We're going to bring Europe back to Jesus, Skye. Can I just say something? Yeah. I think this actually looks kind of cool. It does look pretty cool. I like it. They did a design competition. He didn't just want to do a cross because that wouldn't get anyone's attention. It's like, oh, look.

other cross seam crosses before blah blah blah so he had a design competition and that was one of the submissions to the design competition it's pretty cool it is pretty cool i mean i put aside how effective will this i don't know but i I wouldn't object if this were in my area. The Ewop will sit just off the M6 motorway on the outskirts of Birmingham. The monument will be visible from six miles away and Gamble hopes will peak.

the interest of thousands of drivers and passengers each day mike you're excited about this Now you want to do one in Nashville, except it'd be a big country music, it'd be a big cowboy hat. Big hat. yeah and the prayers are all the brim on the brim around and there'd be a bucky's next to it and a bucky's oh and a waffle house come on come on um you know thoughts mike well I mean, who can argue against public prayer? The one line that stood out.

is that it was only Christian answers to prayer. Yeah, right. If other gods are answering, we don't want to. We're not going to take the call. This is Jesus Mobius strip. I'm kind of curious why it's a Mobius strip.

And people don't know what a Mobius strip is. Because it's an infinite wall of prayer. No, it's how the infinity stones were returned. It has no beginning or end like God. There's all sorts of symbolism. Okay, but there's a finite number of prayers on the thing. Well, yeah, it's only so big. Right. Infinite. A million prayers. That feels like infinite.

Okay. Again, I'm saying- Seven times 70. It looks cool. If it was seven times 70 prayers, would you say, okay, that means infinite? I'm curious what the rationale is for the Mobius strip, other than it looks cool. Infinite, and it looks cool. Whatever. I don't know. You're not going for it? Yeah. What does it do? What does it accomplish? God can use anything. Yes, he can.

I'm just struck by our obsession with anything God-related, not always, but often, anything God-related has to be big and magnificent. Because God is big and magnificent. Are you going to bring God your little, your tiny... Totally. Totally. Your leftovers. Your grain of wheat that falls into the ground and dies. Exactly. Your penny in the offering. That's a metaphor. Your mustard seed. Is that what I'm bringing in? A mustard seed, Phil? Metaphors. This is a real joke.

giant Mobius strip. And if it falls to the ground, it will... I obviously don't know this guy who's behind it, but I do tend to, with Mike... I tend to be a little suspicious of large monuments that are sectarian, which seem To be sane, apart from their obvious, whether it's a Ten Commandments monument or this prayer monument, there's a subtext. Yeah. Which is, yeah, God owns this place. This is God's. And we're here as his representatives to kind of mark our territory. Yeah. And that.

It's on private ground. I understand, but it's so big. You can see it for six miles. Yeah. It's a way of saying, God, this is his place. Yeah. And I'm like, okay, I don't think he's insecure like we are. No, it's not to attract God's attention. No, but I think, dude, there's a reason. I was just in downtown Chicago on Saturday. Yeah, that's got big stuff. It's got lots of big stuff. And there happens to be one large building that has one person's name very prominently displayed.

I don't like that building. I think insecure people tend to have to declare their identity for all to see. And I don't think God is that insecure. That's my point. We tend to be insecure. But he wants to know. God is worried that people don't know how many prayers he's answered. So if you could do some kind of a roadside attraction just within spitting distance of the interstate.

They don't have interstates because they don't have states. Dude, Stonehenge can't have all the fun. I'm saying Christians have a long history of overcompensating for their insecurity. That's all I'm saying. Whoa. So does Phil. You've really let the air out of my bubble, my Mobius bubble. I think this is a super cool monument. I like the design, and I don't say that often about these things. And there's biblical precedent for building altars.

and piles of rocks and stones. So no aspersions. To remember what God has done. That's what this is. It's a giant Mobius strip of remembrance. But the medium is the message, Phil. What's the medium here? You know this. Large, impressive, seen from six miles away. That's how our God is. Yeah. Well, he is. It's true. But I guess we don't need to do that. All right. I'll rip up my plans. I was going to build one. We could have a large cucumber in Wheaton. Yeah, no, that would just look weird.

Hey, Mike, what's going on? What's the newest on the podcast? What can people look forward to in the next few weeks from the Voxology podcast? Oh, Lord. There are tens of people excited about the answer to that question. Absolutely. Well, Phil... You're doing your prayer study, right? We're going through Lord's Prayer. Yeah, going through Lord's Prayer. We are. And they'll come up with a million answers to the Lord's Prayer, and then you'll put them on a giant Mobius strip.

Well, I mean, that's the idea. I mean, I was bummed when I read that article because, I mean, we were going to use Noah's Ark as kind of the answer. Yeah, that's big. But that's that was taken as well. So I'm not sure. All right. Well, check out Voxology. He's doing a great series on the Lord's Prayer. Thanks for coming along. Who's guest? You know, I think it's John Ortberg. Yes, it is. Yeah. Oh, wow.

What do you know? Here we go. Okay. Hang out for the guest. Thanks for supporting us. Go to Holy Post Plus. Check out, well, go to holypost.com. Check out Holy Post Plus. See all the content that is being cranked out by a whole team of elves. for Christmas every day and night for you. And we'll see you next week. Bye.

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Game-changing cookware with zero risk. Eat your food, not your pan. Learn more at fromourplace.com slash holypost. You or someone you know has probably been part of a 12-step recovery program. They've saved and transformed the lives of millions of people, and they're deeply rooted in Christian ideas and practices. In fact, the original AA program grew directly out of a Christian fellowship in the UK called the Oxford Group.

Given its Christian origins and principles, and its remarkable effectiveness, why don't more churches apply the Twelve Steps as a model for discipleship and spiritual formation? That question is at the heart of John Ortberg's new book, Steps. a guide to transforming your life when willpower isn't enough. In it, Orberg walks through the 12 steps and shows how they apply to every follower of Jesus.

John Ortbrick has been a best-selling author and ministry leader for over 40 years. Right now, he leads the ministry Becoming New, which has an incredible library of resources. I watch his YouTube videos all the time. If you're not yet subscribed to Becoming New on YouTube, I highly recommend doing that.

Also, for our Holy Post Plus subscribers, I have a bonus interview with John Ortberg where he discusses the influence of Dallas Willard on his life and writing. You do not want to miss that. If you're not yet a Holy Post Plus subscriber, head over to HolyPost.com to look at the show. Learn how you can sign up or give a gift subscription to Holy Post Plus to someone this holiday season. Here is my conversation with John Ortberg. John Ortberg, welcome to the Holy Post.

Sky, it's good to be here. It's a rather intimidating title, but I'll do the best I can. The Holy Post? Exactly, yeah. It makes me feel like the content should be... you know relatively sacred so john do you have any idea what you've gotten yourself into here do you know what kind of stuff we do before these interview segments uh i i know about the uh importance of humor and uh laughter and that whole side of life and i'm very comfortable with it okay good because though we are called holy post

People should recognize the pun in that title and some of the humor. Thank my co-host, Phil, for a lot of that stuff. But yes, we enjoy ourselves here. Your new book is called Steps. a guide to transforming your life when willpower isn't enough. And for those who couldn't figure it out from the title, the book is organized around the 12 steps familiar to many in AA and other related recovery programs. Early in the book, you quote Dallas Willard.

Obviously, somebody who's been a massive influence on you, someone that influenced me quite a bit. I want to read his quote because it gets into the first thing I want to talk to you about. Dal said this. The all-time great ironies of human history that the founding insights and practices of the most successful recovery program ever known, insights and practices almost 100% borrowed from the bright spots in the Christian movement, if not outright gifts of God.

are not routinely practiced by churches what possible justification or explanation could there be for this fact so let's start here given the immense impact that the 12-step program has had on so many people's lives why don't more churches emulate these practices which are drawn from the christian tradition for their own work in ministry why don't we see that used more yeah um very often

When people who do the kind of stuff we do for a living, pastors and writers or so, go to an AA meeting and there's just this raw, honest, open, embracing, the worse your story, the warmer you're welcome, they will say, environment. We'll come away from it and ask, how come the church can't be more like an AA meeting? And actually, there's a whole book written by Stephen Hayes just with that title. How come it can't be more like an AA meeting? And I think the short answer is it can.

If those of us who go to church are willing to be more like alcoholics. And I actually think the biggest barrier is that first step in AA. admitted that we were powerless over, you know, whatever. That's the only time alcohol is mentioned in the 12 steps. But whatever my big problems are, greed, fear, ego, pride. sex, admitted my powerlessness, and that my life had become unmanageable. For many of us who go to church, especially in the West, in a

a place like the States, relatively affluent, relatively OK. We just don't feel that sense of desperate need. Yeah, you mentioned early in the book sort of a step zero before step one is admitting despite all appearances that we're not fine. Yeah. And at least a lot of the Christian communities and churches I've been a part of, that is absolutely not acceptable.

Yeah, it's OK to admit I wasn't fine. Right. In the past tense. And once I'm fine, I can get up on the platform and share that story. But to be in the present state of not being fine. is just not all right is that just human nature or is there something particular about the way we often construct our christian communities and churches that prevents that from being acceptable

Well, you know, for sure, I think for religious people generally, and Christians in particular, because what we aspire to is so wonderful. We confuse what we have achieved with what we aspire to.

So Henry and Owen used to say, the hardest thing in the world is to stop being the prodigal son without becoming the elder brother. And one of the gifts of addiction is... It creates a sense of daily desperation. And one of the guys that I was talking to after I had written the book has taught in 12-step groups for decades.

And he considers the 12 steps a wisdom tradition. He says the biggest problem with wisdom traditions, most of them, and I would include most churches here, most, especially Western Christianity, is... that the people in them have a wimpy step one. And if you have a wimpy step one, you have a wimpy steps two through 12, or however many steps you have in your program. And I thought...

And it caused me to look at the New Testament differently, Sky, because all of a sudden it was really clear over and over again, particularly with Jesus. You see paired one person with a very robust sense of step one and somebody with a real wimpy step one. So prodigal son and the elder brother.

Elder brother's got a real wimpy step on, think I'm doing pretty good, servant of the father's house, prodigal son, when he came to himself just desperately. Or the Pharisee, thank God I'm not like all these other people. The tax collector wouldn't even look at heaven. Or the sinful woman who goes to the banquet thrown by Simon. Over and over again, you see very robust step one. I'm helpless.

I desperately need God. I'm a train wreck. And somebody with kind of a wimpy step one. And it's the real strong step one people that come running to Jesus. What's interesting about all those examples you just cited from the Gospels? is it isn't that one person was more desperate than the other. It's one was more willing to admit their desperation. The other was still deluded or living in the illusion that they had control.

And so that's exactly right. There's a really interesting book by Kent Dunning that he's a philosopher called Addiction and Virtue. And the last chapter talks about what can the church learn from AA. And as you may know, if you go to an AA meeting. You just start by saying, my name is John. I'm an alcoholic or whatever, kind of holic or whatever. And then everybody would say, hi, John. And there's this very warm sense of acceptance because other people know.

I got to be around someone like you or I'm going to die. I'm going to drink and die. And Kent writes, what 12-step communities have come to understand is that the... Acknowledgement and public confession of personal inadequacy is itself a spiritual achievement that needs to be ritualized and celebrated. and public confession of personal inadequacy. Personal inadequacy is not a spiritual achievement, but the recognition of it is a spiritual achievement.

And we never outgrow that. That's every day. Every day. There's another wonderful statement in the big book that says, we can never rest on our spiritual achievements. What we have at most is a daily reprieve. based on the maintenance of our spiritual hygiene. Okay, let me take it a step deeper. If many of our Christian communities and ministries don't celebrate that step. Yeah.

Well, there's a couple of different directions I can go here. There's a quote that comes to mind from Dallas where he said, the greatest threat to intimacy with God is ministry for God. What is it about the way we do ministry that makes this especially difficult for people who are in ministry vocations to live in a healthy? dependency on god yeah you know i think uh at the core of it i think is just

It's so hard to be involved in ministry and not to hide. And, you know, I get up to preach if I'm a preacher and I can quite carefully manage. What I say, I can try to learn to disclose so that it will sound like I'm being generally vulnerable, but always making sure I don't cross over that line where I might get into trouble.

And deep disclosure and deep vulnerability precisely begins at that moment where I feel the pain and fear of not wanting to go there. I want to tell somebody. Now, of course. I can't get up in front of a congregation and share at that level. But I need to be sharing with somebody at that level. And I think I think. Skye, in so many ways to me, addiction is like a perfect example of God saying my strength is made perfect in weakness.

And it's the very weakness, quote unquote, of addiction where people know from painful experience, unless I'm honestly doing the program, I will drink and die. And so I got to do, I cannot hide. Somebody wrote, sobriety is about 10% not drinking and 90% honesty. It's just very hard to do ministry without falling into the trap of making myself look better than I actually am. And then that perpetuates itself.

And then the system reinforces it and people think, oh, you know, you're so good, you're so wonderful, which always makes my wife throw up in her mouth a little bit anytime she hears it. And then it just, you know, then I become addicted to that. Right. There's an Upton Sinclair quote that I go back to often in ministry circles where he said, it's very difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on him not understanding it. That's wonderful.

And we are rewarded in ministry for not being honest, transparent, and vulnerable, even in appropriate settings. Because we are rewarded for looking like we have it all put together. And it's really hard to admit you don't have it all put together when your salary depends on you having it all put together, which gets me to another section of your book. You have a section, a subsection of a chapter called Learn to Embrace Ambiguity.

And you say that sometimes religious people confuse faith with certainty, which reminded me of a Paul Tillich quote where he said the opposite of faith is not doubt, it's certainty. How do you understand the difference between faith and certainty when I think so many people are actually drawn into faith and into Christian communities with a promise of we will give you the answers. We will take the ambiguity out of life and faith and family and all the other things that.

bedevil us here are the absolute answers to all of your life's questions and what you should do not to how do you separate that desire for certainty from what we should be seeking in our christian communities yeah

You know, part of the beauty of the 12 steps, and again, it's just because it's hammered out over the crucible of addiction, is the steps themselves are deeply connected with each other. They're very organic. And they're very tied to the program of what we would call discipleship. You know, AA got semi-secularized for a bunch of reasons, but it simply is another way of talking about discipleship. It emerged from Christian discipleship, this movement called the Oxford Group.

So when it comes to faith, the second step came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us, interestingly, not to sobriety, but to sanity. came to believe now what does it mean to come to believe operationally defined which is what you're getting it's not i've got answers to every question it's not that i believe with 100 certainty

It's not that I can explain everything. The idea is I keep coming to meetings. They will sometimes use that little phrase. First, I came. Just physically showed up. Then I came to. Then came to believe. And what that means is I go to a meeting and I see you. And I think this guy's just like me. He was a train wreck, too. And he's working the program.

And now he's sober. God's enabling him to do something. And this person, you're like me, but you're and this person, you're like me. And so I developed from that enough belief, enough faith to keep doing the program. And that's what's needed. And that's true for discipleship too. What's needed for discipleship is kind of Peter saying to Jesus when he says, you're going to leave me too, where would we go?

You know, which is not a real big compliment to Jesus. Yeah, right. There's just no good alternative out there. He has sufficient faith to keep showing up for another day with Jesus and to keep working the program. And that's precisely what is needed to enable God to keep working in my life and to keep seeking to follow Jesus so that the power of God can flow.

to deliver me from addiction, sins of various kind, or so on. But I think very often in the church, we don't have a good, clear operational definition of faith like that. It is sufficient conviction to enable me to continue in discipleship to Jesus. And so we confuse it with a feeling of certainty. And then we start to think, well, if I don't feel certain, then I have to generate by willpower a feeling of certainty. And it is never safe to try to...

shift the intellect by will and try to conjure up a feeling of certainty by willpower. The intellect does not work well that way. Commitment, I can. And that's part of coming to believe. And then there'll be weird teachings like, well, if you're not getting your prayers answered, it's because you're not certain enough. Right. So if you could just conjure up more certainty.

Or if you can't even conjure up, just speak it as though you did believe it. Say it louder and then you'll get what you want. So I think we get into all kinds of problems by misdefining what... we might think of as saving faith actually is. Yeah, I agree. And it feels to me like a lot of ministries and even church leaders, whether implicitly or explicitly communicate, that come to us.

We will take the ambiguity and uncertainty out of your life. And therefore, we project onto our church leaders, well, I might have doubts and insecurities and uncertainties, but he doesn't. And I'm following him. So that then puts more pressure on the leader. to show no level of doubt or uncertainty or struggle of any kind which perpetuates the dysfunction of there's there's a line i love in an author george mcdonald uh who is a

Very important writer for C.S. Lewis, lots of other folks. One of his books, there's this character, Thomas Wingfold, who's a pastor, but he wakes up one day and realizes, I don't know what I believe. I don't know if there's God. I don't know about Jesus. And so he begins. A journey of seeking to follow Jesus, actually doing what Jesus said to do. Towards the end of the book, he's working with a dying man. And the man who's dying says, I wish after I die.

I could come back and let you know it's all true. God is there. Heaven is there. The afterlife is real. I wish I could come back so that you wouldn't have any more doubts. It is so fascinating. Wingfold's response is no. Even if you could do that, I wouldn't want to know one minute before God decides it is good for me to know. I would rather have the good of not knowing.

Now, I had never considered before that there was such a thing as a good of not knowing. And then I remember once one of my kids was applying to college. anxious about will i get into the college i really want to go or not and i remember saying to her if i could wave a wand and take away the uncertainty so you knew i wouldn't do it because if you can live with poise

And love and joy, in the midst of not knowing, you will grow way more than if you knew right now. Oh, that's the good of not knowing. Because I'm me, I don't want to not know. I want to be spared the anxiety of not knowing. But every parent recognizes that not knowing, ambiguity. is a key asset in the process of character formation.

And we can assume God probably knows that as well. Yeah. We've talked about this, not you and I, but I've talked about this on the show before for the last number of years, I've been part of an improv theater. And I've learned so much about faith from, I know it sounds like an onion. It's a little bit like now one with his trapeze. I've learned those kinds of lessons from, from improv and.

Obviously with improv, there's no script. And because there's no script, you have no idea what's going to unfold or what's going to happen, but it forces you to listen a lot better, to be more self-aware, to... really engage with your partners on the stage in a significant way. And because you don't know where it's going, it's that much more fun. And there's a risk involved, but the joy that comes out of it is amazing. I'm not obviously against scripted.

theater either but it feels to me like an awful lot of us in the church desperately want a script we want to be told exactly what to do and how to do it and all the proper procedures for every every part of our life and it sucks the joy out of it and just fills you with more anxiety when you invariably can't follow the script perfectly but that's a whole nother conversation um okay step three we're not going to go through all 12 of these we don't have time but step three talks about

turning our will and our lives over to God as we understand him. And you bring up, this is page 63, how a lot of Christians who get into recovery groups assume they don't have to work that hard on this part because they already know and understand who God is. And then eventually someone points out to them, your belief in God as you understand him did not keep you from falling into addictions.

Maybe you need to meet with a God you don't understand. In all of your years in ministry and church leadership and mentoring other people, in your experience, what is it that christians even lifelong christians church going christians what is it that they typically don't understand about god that they assume they do yeah and uh i think that is so deep sky and

Part of the challenge is it goes way deeper than what I affirm. If you've gone to church for long enough, we all know what to affirm about God. But that's quite different than the mental map that I have.

about reality that I always live at the mercy of. And I'll come back to a statement that Dallas would say about God. He would often... quote the opening words to first john is that which was from the beginning which we have seen which we have heard which we have touched which we have seen with our own eyes uh so this kind of long wind up

You know, that was Jesus. And this is his message. And then Dallas is saying, now, what do you think? How do you think that next line got filled in? And they would go on to quote what John said. God is light. And in him is no darkness at all. And then Dallas would often say something like, so never believe anything bad about God. Never believe anything bad about God. And I think what I struggle with and most of us struggle with, again, at a level way deeper than the creeds that we know.

Or the doctrine that we might affirm is, God really loves somebody like me. Because I know my own failures and my own inadequacies. My own insincerities and how hard it is for me to know the truth about me, even when I'm trying. God really loved me. And that... God is light, and in him there is no darkness, none at all. I think that's probably for most of us.

the deepest one that we deal with. I do think we all tend to have our own variations of it. For my wife, it'll be, is God waiting to hurt her? For me, it will be, man, what if I die? There ends up being nothing, but there was atoms and molecules and there's nothing else out there. For another friend of mine, he wonders, like, he's got a deist where he got everything started, but he's just out there watching. So I think we have different flavors of it.

I think the deepest is to believe that God is a lovable, radiant, happy, friendly, good person isn't it interesting that the first lie that adam and eve believe in the garden is a question of god's goodness yes did he really say And I mean, we can read that text from 1 John and we can affirm the truth of it, but there's a million miles from that and actually internally experiencing it.

Yeah, and I can tell that I don't have it yet to the extent that I don't yet abandon myself without reserve to God. Because I don't yet trust that he really does have my best interests at heart. So I feel like I need to take that back. I've got to watch out for myself. I've got to make sure. And I think you're exactly right. I think that's what was going on in Genesis 3. And it still goes on. And that's why that trusting in that goodness without reserve is kind of the ballgame.

okay then let me that's a bridge to a conundrum that comes up later in your book when you're talking about surrendering to this god who is light and in whom there is no darkness at all and on page 72 you say in surrender we give up control but we do not give up agency explain the difference between giving up control and giving up agency yeah so uh control is when um i am

trying to carry the world on my shoulders remember that story atlas where he's got like a world on his shoulders so then i want to be in control of outcomes uh particularly i want to control other people There's a book that sold a gazillion copies. I forget the name of the woman that wrote it, but it's just called Let Them. Oh, yeah. It's been floating around my house.

That's great for parents. And in many ways, that's exactly what that is about, is realizing the burden of control. And I was thinking, actually, I can imagine in Genesis 3, like there's the serpent and there's... Eve and an angel coming to God with lots of things and saying, God, you've got to do something. Build a fence around the tree. Get rid of the serpent. Show up. Refute his arguments. Otherwise, they're going to do something wrong. God says, let them. He's kind of the first let them.

You know, he's got great confidence in his own ability to redeem and bring back good. So to let go of control means I stop living as though. I can run the world and circumstances and traffic. And I live freely with outcomes in God's hand. But then agency is to recognize I still have a will. And to choose to do what is good. To engage in a conversation together with you. To say, I can listen right now to Skye and I can learn something from him.

and choose to be with him, and seek to bless him when I see his face there. Those are all things that I'm able to do with agency. But underneath all of that is... To seek to do that with a surrendered will. And Dallas would sometimes say, you know, the will is made to surrender to God.

What comes to mind, tell me if you think this is an appropriate connection. 1 Corinthians 3, Paul's talking about his ministry of coming and sowing the seed of the gospel. Apollos comes and waters the seed, but he says... but it's god who causes the growth is is that a similar idea where paul has a calling he has agency has responsibility to plant this seed but he's surrendering the outcome saying it's ultimately up to god what comes of it i'm doing my part in obedience

But I've surrendered the outcomes. Yeah. And again, especially in certain forms of evangelical Christianity, I think we often get confused about agency. Or we think that the exercise of agency is opposed to faith or grace or living in the kingdom. And so to recognize, no, agency is a deep part of what does it mean to be made in the image of God.

the human beings exercise dominion so now that's agency and that's a real good thing that's a precious thing about a person um uh it's related to will we all have will but our wills get depleted real fast. There's a guy, Ray Baumeister, who's kind of the leading social psychologist that studies willpower. And he says it takes will to resist temptation, to be creative.

to persist in the face of problems. And it's real important that we have it, but it gets exhausted very quickly. There's one thing that the will can do that doesn't deplete it. Baumeiser doesn't write about this, but... The big book does and Dallas does, and that's to surrender to God. And so that prayer, your will be done.

Now, that's actually something I do with my will. It's not just a thought. It's not just a belief. It is an exercise of the will. But you can do it all day long. I can do it right now. And it does not wear my will out. And it's so fascinating. Dallas will talk about that in the big book. Bill W. writes about that prayer, thy will be done. And he says, now, if you try to stop drinking by willpower, you're going to die. It'll kill you every time.

However, very often as we go through the day, we're agitated, we're upset, we're confused. We pause and humbly pray, thy will be done. You can do that. all that you want to, that is the proper use of the will. In Pauline language, it sounds like the difference between sowing in the flesh and sowing in the spirit. Yes, yes. Huh. Yep.

Okay, at least one more before we wrap up this part of the interview anyway. Later on in the book, you're talking about... spiritual formation and practices i've seen a lot of interest in some of my community and circles i run in of people who feel like maybe they've spent their whole life in the church

And they've got their head full of theology and biblical knowledge, but it hasn't resulted in real transformation. And so they're drawn into formation kind of content, Dallas's stuff, Richard Foster stuff, John Mark Homer, who wrote the foreword of your book and his recent. Excellent, helpful things on the disciplines. And yet you quote Scott Kaufman. Yeah, Scott Kaufman's research, who noted that. Very often, more engagement with spiritual practices leads to greater spiritual narcissism.

And one of the things I've struggled with in this area is I've seen some of my peers get really enamored with, oh, I'm going to do these practices now, these disciplines that I didn't know about, that I've learned about. And they almost come at them with magical thinking. That if I just do these things, it will transform my life. It'll transform my character. And one of the nagging things that's in the back of my mind is...

The men who practiced many of these spiritual disciplines way better than I ever have or will are the same men who crucified Jesus. So how do we engage these practices that are for our benefit well, but not... fall into that trap of spiritual narcissism or believing the practices themselves have some kind of magical power that we shouldn't be ascribing to them yeah um you know

spiritual practices or disciplines, whatever you want to call them. My wife, for example, teaches a lot about spiritual life. She hates the word discipline, hates the concept. discipline because it sounds so rigid and militaristic and those kinds of things will appeal to certain kind of people, not appeal to certain kind of people. What's really important is to understand they're a means to an end.

Sometimes people will think the spiritual person is the one who does a lot of spiritual disciplines. And neglect to say, no, no, no, no, no. Spiritual person... or spiritually transformed person it's just somebody who's able to do what needs to be done the way it needs to be done when it needs to be done able to be patient able to be loving able to be joyful and what we talk about is disciplines or practices

are purely a means toward the end of becoming that kind of person. So if you wrestle with gossip, then practicing silence might be a real good way to learn. I have to talk all the time to control stuff and let it get into your body. Part of the problem for people who don't recognize the value of practices is they tend not to understand what it means to be an embodied person. Explain what you mean.

I took our kids when they were little to a camp where there was a ropes course. We'd go up on the ropes course. Before you go up there, they would teach us about halters and carabiners and pressure and how much weight they could sustain.

And I believed everything they said. When I went on the ropes course, it turns out my my palms didn't believe because they got real sweaty and my armpits didn't believe because they got real sweaty. Now, there were kids that worked up on the ropes course all summer long. And they came to believe with their whole bodies.

what they initially just affirm with their mind. There's a certain approach to Christianity that says, we just have to explain the concept of the gospel to people a lot. And if we just tell them enough, the bad news is you're a worse sinner than you thought. The good news is... in. God loves you more than you can imagine. We just have to explain that enough and then that will permeate and transform. It's like, no, it's just like I needed to learn about carabiners and halters.

But that does not transform my body. Information alone, even revealed biblical information alone, does not transform the body. There is an engagement in experience that's required to do that. But one of the dangers, just as you were saying, with things like spiritual practices, that's the Pharisee in Jesus's story who goes to the...

synagogue. Thank God I'm not like this guy because I fast twice a week. I'm an overachiever. I tithe on everything. Those are good practices, but they were doing damage to him. because they were filling him with self-conscious pride and arrogance and lovelessness. They were doing more harm than good. So things like spiritual practices can be helpful.

But I always have to remember, I don't gauge my spiritual life by that. Somebody asks you, Sky, how's your spiritual life going? Which is a great way to kill a conversation next time you're at a party. A really bad way to respond is to think about, how's my devotional life going? Right. So Dallas used to say, if somebody asked him that question, like, am I growing more or less irritable these days? Yeah.

Am I growing more or less easily discouraged these days? Because then I'll be able to maybe discern, does the peace of Christ dwell in me richly? So recognizing... that any attempt to pursue spiritual disciplines or practice always carries a danger. And the ultimate gauge is never...

Now I'm mastering this discipline. It's, am I becoming a genuinely loving, joyful person? Yeah, I think that goes back to what we were talking about earlier of truly internalizing the realization that God is light in whom there's no darkness. And so often we engage these practices thinking, well, this will make God happy.

This will make him smile now that I'm doing X, Y, or Z with some regularity. And it's like, oh, what a perverse vision we must have of God to think he needs or wants or benefits in some way from. the fact that I'm doing these practices. I think we get that so completely backwards. John, we're going to continue our conversation for Holy Post Plus on some other things, but...

Before you go, I just want to remind everybody your new book is called Steps, A Guide to Transforming Your Life When Willpower Isn't Enough. You mentioned how the 12 steps, some people have identified it as a wisdom tradition.

and this book is just saturated with it i'm so i actually have told my kids like you guys got to read this book read this book and they've read some of your other works in the past but um this is going to be on my shelf next to a lot of dallas's books too because it just puts so much in of his thinking and philosophy and the wisdom of scriptures into the practical framework of these 12 steps and thank you for pouring your

heart and mind into this work for all of us to benefit from. Really appreciate it. Thank you, Sky. I'll be eager to hear some of your improv. No, you really shouldn't be.

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