Do the disciplines heal the soul? Artwork

Voices from the Desert

In the early days of Christianity, men and women fled to the desert and became the wisest sages of their era. Voices from the Desert explores how the wisdom of Ancient Christianity applies to our modern world. Where do the streams of historic Christianity intersect with contemporary Christianity? And how do we come to know God deep in our heart? Join Joshua Hoffert and Murray Dueck for a deep dive into the mystics, union with God, patristic theology and what it all means in our modern world.

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Voices from the Desert

Do the disciplines heal the soul?

October 30, 2024 • Joshua Hoffert and Murray Dueck

Presently, there is a resurgence of interest in the "spiritual disciplines". What do these things do and why are we to do them? What are the scary thing the early fathers called "the passions"? What is the relation between the disciplines and the passions? Or is there one? Join Josh and Murray as they dive in to find out!

For more about Murray Dueck, visit: https://www.samuelsmantle.com/

For more about Joshua Hoffert, visit: https://www.windministries.ca/

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Joshua Hoffert
As a man, I can help him deal with the scared little boys. But only if I come to grips with the fact that I was his. Right. Yes. And so now it's starting to.

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Murray Dueck
Stop the current.

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Joshua Hoffert
And I'm hoping that the next generation.

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Murray Dueck
Right? That's right.

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Murray Dueck
Just dropping the current to slow. I've started to catch that thing before it happens.

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Murray Dueck
You.

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Joshua Hoffert
Welcome, everybody, to another.

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Murray Dueck
Episode of voices from Close Range. Skills and girls.

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0000.

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Murray Dueck
Oh, it's really bad.

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Murray Dueck
Yeah, that was the worst. Whatever. My my sheepdog. When the dremel this, like, little cutting tools. Are they just. Oh, no. Right. It makes it orange and it cuts down like a you know it does you know little.

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Murray Dueck
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. All right.

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Murray Dueck
And that, that sound drives him insane.

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Murray Dueck
But I so that.

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Murray Dueck
How I did is a little bit more like theirs like.

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Murray Dueck
Oh yeah.

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Murray Dueck
It just like there it paid. It's so funny.

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Joshua Hoffert
Taking on the, the characteristic of some of your tools.

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Murray Dueck
Now. That's right, that's right. So I totally.

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Murray Dueck
Got suckered into a non coyote desert house.

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Joshua Hoffert
And speaking of non coyote desert howls. You know it was I was driving the other day and one of the things we have distinctly out here are foxes right.

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Murray Dueck
Oh yeah. And I know you.

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Joshua Hoffert
You've said you were telling me about a big fox you guys have.

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Murray Dueck
Oh yeah.

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Joshua Hoffert
Kind of tries to hang around the farm there, right? The foxes out here are much smaller, I'm sure, than the ones that you have there. But it really does beg the question. What does the fox say? You know.

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Murray Dueck
I've been buddy, but.

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Murray Dueck
They're they have a crazy if anybody if you've ever heard it won't believe it. We, I think it's about January. I could be wrong. We go into this mating time and and they scream. They scream. It's gonna keep dying. Oh, man. We didn't know what it was. Everybody's freaking out. All the animals. And it's why I won't even try to do it, you know?

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Murray Dueck
No, no. Well.

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Joshua Hoffert
Of fox mating howl. What's what's of.

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Murray Dueck
Like, there. No. How would I do it? What?

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Murray Dueck
It's like that, and it's up behind your property.

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Joshua Hoffert
It sounded a little bit like that. What was it? A corn song that starts off well.

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Murray Dueck
You know.

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Murray Dueck
Oh, yeah. Well, if you type in. What does the Fox say on YouTube, I'm sure it'll it'll come.

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Murray Dueck
Up, but. No, but you know what would come up?

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Joshua Hoffert
I think it went over Murray's head all the listeners is that video that went around about ten, 5 or 10 years ago that was made by the guys in Iceland or something as a song. What does the fox say?

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Murray Dueck
Yeah.

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Murray Dueck
And isn't there a scream in that, though, or some weird sound? He does.

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Murray Dueck
Yeah, they do.

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Joshua Hoffert
Some weird sound. Yeah. That's right.

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Murray Dueck
I think that's because that's what it sounds like.

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Joshua Hoffert
Maybe that is everybody was like, what does.

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Murray Dueck
The Fox say? Yeah, that's.

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Murray Dueck
What he said. He sounds like he's going to kill somebody. Thought it was a cougar at birth. And I shot up there a banger. It's like a little firework over his head. And then he started to go down the plateau. Right. You could hear him scream because he's looking for a mate, right? That's what he's do. And he's yelling, wow.

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Joshua Hoffert
I mean, not in a way that's a very male thing to do, right?

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Murray Dueck
Well, yeah. What a sound.

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Murray Dueck
Oh, God. What do you think? If you went out.

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Murray Dueck
To raided that.

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Joshua Hoffert
If you went out to the clubbing scene, you'd probably be confronted with something not that dissimilar.

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Murray Dueck
So yeah. Very true.

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Murray Dueck
Yeah.

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Murray Dueck
Absolutely demonized.

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Murray Dueck
Yes.

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Joshua Hoffert
That's right. Some some yelling and screaming and like if.

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Murray Dueck
I typed it or if I go to YouTube right now, I'm just going to check it out and I type in.

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Murray Dueck
Right.

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Murray Dueck
Because I'm sure I've seen that.

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Joshua Hoffert
What does the fox say?

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Murray Dueck
There it is. It came up right away. Let's listen. So because it's like a 30 like a really short little thing, I want.

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Murray Dueck
Okay of air from the great and just get.

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Joshua Hoffert
It. I think he's bringing up an advertisement for us.

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Murray Dueck
I know I'm trying to find a 32nd a 32nd one here. Oh, there we go. That's probably.

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Murray Dueck
It.

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Murray Dueck
Oh, these guys dressed as foxes.

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Murray Dueck
Oh, that's the video.

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Joshua Hoffert
Yeah, that.

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Murray Dueck
Is it's a funny one, you know. So yeah, it's a.

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Joshua Hoffert
Funny one. But you know what? You found out what I found out about that band. That song is totally appropriate to play for your kids because it's quite funny. But there are other songs are not appropriate.

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Murray Dueck
Oh, really? Oh, boy.

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Murray Dueck
He learned that the hard.

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Murray Dueck
Way when you learn the hard way. That's right. You thought was was another was it.

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Joshua Hoffert
These guys have done. Oh, wait a second. Maybe we won't listen to that in the car on the way to school with an 11 year old, a nine year old and a six year old.

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Murray Dueck
Yeah, like. That.

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Joshua Hoffert
Reminds me of my my uncle who decided, hey, this movie has a it's got a, you know, this VHS way back in the day, you know, it's VHS has a picture of a doll on it. It must be a kid's movie. It's called Chucky.

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Murray Dueck
Oh, no.

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Joshua Hoffert
We bought it for my cousins.

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Murray Dueck
Oh, no.

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Joshua Hoffert
And put it on in the room and then.

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Murray Dueck
Left and let them watch the movie. That only traumatized them. Oh, no. Good. Reminds us of speaking about wounding today. That's right. Speaking.

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Joshua Hoffert
That's their segue, I guess, into our topic of the day.

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Murray Dueck
Oh, and,

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Joshua Hoffert
As Murray tries to pull a pull up a, clip of a fox.

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Murray Dueck
So, anybody. Here we go. Okay.

00;06;08;19 - 00;06;10;22
Murray Dueck
Yeah. Like that. You hear that or. No.

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Joshua Hoffert
No, I can't even hear. I can't hear it. Well.

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Murray Dueck
Wait, that.

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Joshua Hoffert
It's not coming through.

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Murray Dueck
Too bad.

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Joshua Hoffert
Oh. Too bad.

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Murray Dueck
Oh, well.

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Joshua Hoffert
You just had to imagine that everybody.

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Murray Dueck
Yeah, well, ever see what I did? But but. Yeah. Yeah. That's good.

00;06;27;21 - 00;06;44;04
Joshua Hoffert
Welcome, everybody to the podcast. And, we are your co-hosts. My name is Joshua Horford, and I'm with Murray Duke here. And Murray runs a ministry called. That's right. He runs a ministry called Samuel's Mantle. And I one run called run one called Win ministries. And our.

00;06;44;04 - 00;06;44;18
Murray Dueck
Our.

00;06;44;20 - 00;07;02;04
Joshua Hoffert
Our heart is to help people, engage a deeper life with God and all that entails in various different ways. And so one of the things we like doing on the voices from the Desert Podcast is talking about the intricacies of the heart and following God.

00;07;02;07 - 00;07;04;00
Murray Dueck
And we love stories.

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Joshua Hoffert
We love hearing people's stories.

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Murray Dueck
And,

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Joshua Hoffert
Going, what? What happens when you go into the desert and you come back with something to say? And so thanks, everybody, for joining us on the journey.

00;07;14;14 - 00;07;19;25
Murray Dueck
And today. Well, we've been we've been.

00;07;19;27 - 00;07;23;21
Joshua Hoffert
You know, talking through some concepts over the last few months.

00;07;23;27 - 00;07;24;29
Murray Dueck

00;07;25;02 - 00;07;30;25
Joshua Hoffert
And, you know, really I think there is a method to our madness, we were talking about.

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Murray Dueck
Or a.

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Joshua Hoffert
Prophetic ministry. Yeah. Or a madness to our method. It's a bit of both. You know, we went through the the, the, prophetic Manifesto, right? We did a bunch of us. So it's on that. And then that kind of led us to talking about the bridal paradigm and intimacy and scripture going, hey, well, this makes sense to start building off of there.

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Joshua Hoffert
And then we started talking about.

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Murray Dueck

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Joshua Hoffert
The, the contemplative way and rhythms of prayer, which then got us to.

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Murray Dueck

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Joshua Hoffert
Talking about the, the things that, you know, the, the aim of our salvation, where we're set, where what we're going, but we're moving towards. Right. And now we've kind of stumbled into talking about the passions as the the inner sickness that keeps us from reaching the potential of the image of God in the inner man. So we've been talking about the passions.

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Murray Dueck
For.

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Joshua Hoffert
And, and, you know, in various different ways for the last, I think the last episode we had, we had the last episode people would have listened to would have been our interview with Steve Schroeder, a good friend of ours. But before that, we talked about the the dream that Marie had that so that so perfectly indicated how the passions caused us to.

00;08;53;25 - 00;08;55;19
Murray Dueck
Approach our role.

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Joshua Hoffert
In the kingdom, and, approach it just from a completely opposite of what the kingdom is actually about. Right in in the dream, Jesus was the problem. The disciples aren't the problem.

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Murray Dueck
Yeah, yeah. And, yeah, yeah.

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Joshua Hoffert
It is a funny one. I've been talking about that one a little bit. And so, we, we actually had a question sent in from one of our listeners, and the question had had to do with the passions, and not so much them asking about the passions, but with a passion. And it was whether or not, that have have we said in the past that lust is closely linked with eating or with the stomach?

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Joshua Hoffert
And so Marie and I started talking about that, you know, I messaging back and forth and going, you know, we should really talk about methods and manners of addressing the passions, go sign and dive back into what they are. And, are are.

00;10;03;13 - 00;10;04;20
Murray Dueck
The.

00;10;04;22 - 00;10;29;27
Joshua Hoffert
Are the in a sense, in a way, are the disciplines, which is what fasting would be. We'd call it a spiritual discipline, a rhythm to the spiritual life, a practice, if you will. You know, what kind of language you want to use, is, is are the discipline designed to be the antidote to the things that we struggle with?

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Joshua Hoffert
So would we fast so that lust doesn't, overwhelm us, right? That's kind of the the nature of the question. Right. Or is lust connected with the stomach, or is the stomach the, the root of where lust comes from? And so we thought, well, you know, let's try and clarify some of these things.

00;10;48;11 - 00;10;49;13
Murray Dueck
And

00;10;49;16 - 00;11;03;04
Joshua Hoffert
And probably in trying to clarify them and talk through them, we might make it even more, confusing because what we're trying to do in describing how the human works.

00;11;03;07 - 00;11;03;17
Murray Dueck
And.

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Joshua Hoffert
How these things function.

00;11;06;12 - 00;11;07;10
Murray Dueck

00;11;07;13 - 00;11;39;15
Joshua Hoffert
I don't know that you can be super like, well, here A is A and B is B, so we're going to wrestle with the concepts and hope that you're wrestling right along with us. And if you have questions of course, always, you're always free to shoot us a message because we like talking with you guys. And, and I think, you know, one of the things, Marie, that you said when we were kind of going back and forth with what to talk about today, is, you know, once the passions are stirred up, how do you slow them down?

00;11;39;17 - 00;11;54;12
Joshua Hoffert
And that's a great question, right? Yeah. And so one, I guess the conversation is diving back in. Can we, can we talk another layer through what the passions are. And then because, because.

00;11;54;14 - 00;11;55;16
Murray Dueck

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Joshua Hoffert
You know.

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Murray Dueck
One.

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Joshua Hoffert
Observation.

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Murray Dueck

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Joshua Hoffert
Passions aren't we've already said this, so I don't want to belabor the point too much, but passions aren't, passionate displays in the sense of, you know, we don't we're supposed to not have passion when we worship God or anything like that. The passions are a particular concept that the early fathers drew on to help understand what the fight and struggle was, to get to know God and live your life in connection and attachment with God, the passions or the things that really obfuscate that or diminish that, or get in the way of that.

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Joshua Hoffert
So today we might call the passions things like, the desire for perfectionism, the need to control, the need for constant approval or, mistrust of ourselves and others, fear of stillness and silence, irritation, you know, a tendency to irritation and agitation.

00;12;51;00 - 00;12;51;06
Murray Dueck
A.

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Joshua Hoffert
Lack of self-control. These kind of things are what we would call the passions. And so the Desert Fathers in particular addressed these things and talked about ways to diminish their effect on the nature of the inner man. How do we actually address those things, and what are strategies for addressing those things? One of the things I love about the Desert Fathers, but what they minor on really is understanding their source.

00;13;16;29 - 00;13;39;08
Joshua Hoffert
Where did they come from? Not that they didn't talk about that. But but that's definitely a thing that we want to talk about is, okay, so these things everyone's going to go, oh yeah, right. I know that I have cravings and addictions. I know there's moments of, impurity, impure thoughts or dark thoughts, intrusive or impulsive thoughts that happen.

00;13;39;09 - 00;13;56;01
Joshua Hoffert
You know, this is we're going back to talking about Loki's moy and Loki's most, which, you know, you can see some of the previous episodes we talked about that, I know that perfectionism is a thing. A need for approval is a thing. I struggle with these things. Right. The well, for one, how do you struggle with them as a question?

00;13;56;01 - 00;14;15;16
Joshua Hoffert
And then two, where do they come from or where do they where do they arise out of? Are they just. Well, it's just the sinful nature. And so we need to put to death a sinful nature. And once we put it to death, enough, then we'll be okay. Is is because I think that's kind of the evangelical response, right?

00;14;15;16 - 00;14;24;14
Joshua Hoffert
It's just the sinful nature. Right? Well, we're starting to have better conversations around inner woundedness,

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Murray Dueck
Trauma.

00;14;28;14 - 00;14;51;08
Joshua Hoffert
You know, childhood wounding and how that impacts us as adults. And when we start looking at what the does, our fathers talk about the imperfections of the soul. We're starting to go. I wonder if there's a connection between things that have happened to us and these things that dominate us so much today, and take us from that place of living before God.

00;14;51;10 - 00;14;58;28
Joshua Hoffert
So that's kind of the, the, the big topic for the day. We may take multiple episodes to address this as well.

00;14;59;01 - 00;15;00;10
Murray Dueck

00;15;00;12 - 00;15;07;22
Joshua Hoffert
Because it's not a again, it's not an easy thing to try and unpack right here.

00;15;07;24 - 00;15;09;17
Murray Dueck
So go ahead.

00;15;09;19 - 00;15;25;18
Murray Dueck
Well, you know, as we're kind of doing a 30,000ft view here, everyone, and just maybe it would be good to read just a couple verses to, you know, get us back into because, again, we tend to think sinful nature. What is that? And we don't we don't think of. Well, that's just it's just there. You know, I, I've been forgiven.

00;15;25;18 - 00;15;32;26
Joshua Hoffert
It was given to us because of the fall. Right? It was it was imputed to us because of the fall. It was all Adam's fault. Eve's fault.

00;15;32;29 - 00;16;05;09
Murray Dueck
So the idea here, though, is that, again, you know, the Desert Fathers, that I'd be very interesting topic on on their own. They don't talk about original sin. They talk about ancestral sin. And and so that the weakness that has come into mankind causes each of us to choose to do exactly what Adam did. We all pick the Adam apple ourselves if we want to put it that way, which is so instead of going, well, Adam and Eve screwed us all up.

00;16;05;09 - 00;16;23;28
Murray Dueck
And Aquino know there is a weakness in mankind, a sickness. But we all choose because of the passions to, you know, to move away from the Lord. Because this is what I want, what I need. This is what happened to me. You know, we we make self the center. And when the self is a center, the passions are fed.

00;16;24;00 - 00;16;25;09
Murray Dueck
Right? Yeah. That's right.

00;16;25;13 - 00;16;45;04
Murray Dueck
And so that's mainly where the passions come from. It's it's not Christ on the throne of our hearts. It's us. And and when we discover that we are where we get offended and where we need to get our needs met, where, somebody is in our way, our position. I mean, a lot of it happens around that, right?

00;16;45;04 - 00;17;04;01
Murray Dueck
Selfishly filament self-aggrandizement, self all these words. Right. So but the idea is not just to observe it. You know, Scripture talks about we need to work out our salvation in fear and trembling. So so I was going to read a couple verses on that because we need to understand this is what Paul's talking about. And I'll just read you a couple.

00;17;04;01 - 00;17;24;22
Murray Dueck
So one out of, Philippians three where, Paul talks about, I want to know the, the, the fellowship of the suffering and the power of his resurrection. Right. But he goes on to say, not that I've already obtained all this or I've already been made perfect. So, I mean, you know, look at everything he's doing. He's saying I haven't obtained it.

00;17;24;24 - 00;17;47;28
Murray Dueck
Right. Healing the sick and raising the dead convert. I'm the I haven't attained it, but I press on to take a hold of what? Christ Jesus Christ took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself having taking hold of it. But one thing I do forgetting what is behind, straining towards what is ahead, I press on towards the goal, to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

00;17;48;00 - 00;17;52;03
Murray Dueck
You know all of us who are mature. We should, think about these things right?

00;17;52;05 - 00;17;56;27
Murray Dueck

00;17;56;29 - 00;18;15;22
Murray Dueck
And anyway, I'll just read you one more little one. I think it's first Corinthians 927. Do you not know that in a race, all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize? Everyone who competes in the games just goes into strict training. They do not do it to get a crowd.

00;18;15;23 - 00;18;34;03
Murray Dueck
They do it to get a crown that will not last. But we do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore, I do not run like a man running aimlessly. I do not fight like a man beating the air. No, I beat my body and make it my slave, so that after I have preached to others, I myself may not be disqualified for the prize.

00;18;34;11 - 00;18;34;21
Murray Dueck
Right?

00;18;34;21 - 00;18;40;03
Murray Dueck
So, you know, we talked about working out of salvation and fear and trembling and and these passions are what he's talking about.

00;18;40;07 - 00;18;41;01
Joshua Hoffert
That's right.

00;18;41;04 - 00;18;42;08
Murray Dueck
And and that.

00;18;42;12 - 00;18;47;00
Joshua Hoffert
He specifically mentions that in Romans seven. Right. Yeah. And we talked about that. So yeah.

00;18;47;05 - 00;19;08;20
Murray Dueck
So, so super good. So the idea is that, you know, we need to learn how to how to witness these things and not, you know, in, in Western culture, we so often we do oh, I had a bad day. These things happen to me. And and we sloughed them off, you know, and I, I remember a famous psychologist shares a story of meeting with a client, and I might have shared this before.

00;19;08;20 - 00;19;32;17
Murray Dueck
So my apologies. And the scene meeting with this pastor, and he tells the pastor, you know, just go on a three day retreat. Go, go. Just be silent. Just okay. So the the pastor goes on this retreat, he comes back and and the counselor says, so what did you do for what happened? Because, oh, I read books, I prepared sermons, I worked on my, you know, administrative details for the church because I didn't tell you to write sermons and read books.

00;19;32;17 - 00;19;41;20
Murray Dueck
I told you to be silent because, well, I would drive myself crazy. And the psychologist says, well, isn't that what isn't this what you're giving to your church every week?

00;19;41;20 - 00;19;43;16
Murray Dueck
Right? Right. Ed? Right.

00;19;43;19 - 00;20;06;13
Murray Dueck
Because we don't we spend so much time medicating ourselves, and avoiding silence because of what might come up. No. I've got to distract myself with TV. I've got to distract myself with a book. I need to maybe it would be better to see what's coming up and then learn instead of medicating it. Learn how to cure it.

00;20;06;15 - 00;20;20;18
Murray Dueck
Yes. And that's one of the points of stillness, is to see what's in you. Because again, the Bible does not say external things make you angry. It says external things reveal the anger that is in you.

00;20;20;21 - 00;20;21;24
Murray Dueck
That's right. Right. Yeah.

00;20;21;25 - 00;20;38;28
Murray Dueck
So we have to have, as we're talking about this understanding that like as Jesus said to the disciples when they were eating the heads of grain, do you not know it's not the external things that make you upset. It's the things that come out of the heart. Lust and greed and gossip. It's coming out of the heart.

00;20;39;00 - 00;21;02;19
Murray Dueck
And and how to cure that right is the dealing with the passions and and and that requires prayer. It requires stillness. It requires a heart of servanthood, requires humility. You know, all the opposite things. And taking a low seat at the table. Right. Learning to examine our hearts. And it's boy, it's not it's not an easy thing for any human being.

00;21;02;22 - 00;21;09;21
Murray Dueck
Even Paul the Apostle said, you know that I myself may be disqualified after preaching to others. I mean, he's concerned about this.

00;21;09;24 - 00;21;11;00
Joshua Hoffert
Right? And that's right.

00;21;11;02 - 00;21;30;05
Murray Dueck
And, and I you know, I liken it to the passions. I liken it to, and I mentioned to this child, Josh, just as we were going back and forth, to this analogy works really well for me. We, had taken a, a Bible camp, as a church. We rented this Bible camp one summer for a week.

00;21;30;08 - 00;21;53;04
Murray Dueck
And in this Bible camp, they had this old pool. It was only four feet deep all the way around. And so, like, what do you do with a four foot deep pool? You know, I mean, you can't dive into it. You can't. You know, there's a lot of things you can't do. But one thing, somebody came up with the suggestion and said, this would be fun to try was to get about 30 of us in this pool that's pretty full for that pool, and start walking in the same direction.

00;21;53;07 - 00;22;15;21
Murray Dueck
And as we're walking in this direction, that water starts to eventually move with you. And the faster you go, the faster that water goes. And finally it becomes like a whirlpool. And I just swept everybody off their feet right. And, you know, the passions are kind of like that, that if you go into them, they get stronger and they could carry you along.

00;22;15;24 - 00;22;22;27
Murray Dueck
And the idea is to calm that water of the heart, by cutting those passions off.

00;22;23;00 - 00;22;23;09
Murray Dueck
Right.

00;22;23;09 - 00;22;47;11
Murray Dueck
Slowing that system down. So our mind will and emotions, come to peace and come to rest, you know? And. Yeah. And how we do that again is is, you know, we'll end up talking more about that. But first, first to realize we're, we're empowering these things by our thought life, by our needs, by our by our addictions.

00;22;47;11 - 00;23;11;03
Murray Dueck
To the praise of man, by our addictions to, you know, for for me. Praise the Lord. I seem to have some success over the last week. I'm very happy about this, but but but doomscrolling on the on the phone. Right. That that's horrible. Like it. It's really been really hard for me, you know, and I, I because I want to know what's going on in the news.

00;23;11;03 - 00;23;29;25
Murray Dueck
I want to know what God's doing in the world. You know, there's a little holy thing there, but to put it down and stop, it's like, oh, has it been tough? My mind? Because I'll just look quickly. It's not a big deal. I'll just take a quick look. Right. And but you get the water going and you start to get that current going in a certain direction.

00;23;29;27 - 00;23;56;08
Murray Dueck
Then you try to stop it. It isn't so easy. Right. And and that's the same with inner criticism of others, of ourselves, of, of, of one of the big ones versus I.T. I think it's performance orientation. You know, we we walk into it to get her identity from what we do, like our, you know, it's like and we think it's not going to have an effect.

00;23;56;08 - 00;24;13;08
Murray Dueck
It's like, stairway to Heaven, you know, there's that that sentence in there, it's always bothered me. There's still time to change the road you're on, you know. Well, yeah, there is, but when you sowed it in a certain way a long time, you turn around and walk against that current. It's not so easy.

00;24;13;10 - 00;24;15;05
Murray Dueck
It's got it's right down.

00;24;15;07 - 00;24;44;17
Murray Dueck
You've got to start to redo it and, and a lot of it, you have to really start to look at core motivations. You know, that's what I'll I'll give you a couple examples of that. Everybody to, to to that I've just seen recently. And so one I, I was I have this guy and he's a good, wonderful older fellow and, and years passed.

00;24;44;19 - 00;25;08;21
Murray Dueck
He, of his own, you know, confession, I don't I don't like that word there, but I can't think of anything else. I was pretty vindictive with his family, you know? Not proud of it, but withholding money, being judgmental, being quite manipulative. And, you know, years go by, you know, 15 years go by. Probably. He's a changed man.

00;25;08;23 - 00;25;32;11
Murray Dueck
You know? He's a changed man. But you're looking at a family pattern. That was his dad, and that he walked into it all the way into his 50s, modeling it to his kids. And now he makes this choice to change. And, you know, he's done a good ten, 15 years. Well, his family, you know, it's time to retire or and move in.

00;25;32;11 - 00;26;02;09
Murray Dueck
And unfortunately, his kids have said to him, he gave him lots of money to buy a house, and they've said, suddenly you're not allowed to move in with us. We don't want you near us. We want you to just disappear from our lives because and, you know, he gave them all his retirement money, everything. And and the Lord said, you know, I want you to forgive them, and I want you to let it go.

00;26;02;12 - 00;26;29;05
Murray Dueck
And he has wonderfully been able to do it right. But there's a problem. He modeled to his family for 40 years to be vindictive and bitter, right? Mental, and see their walk in that water in a certain direction. Now he's choosing to go the opposite way and he's getting free. But now that freedom is going to have to come right down through his family, right?

00;26;29;05 - 00;26;53;29
Murray Dueck
That whole pattern, he's going to have to break and it will. And God's going to show up and do great things. But you see that that's going to take some time. That outworking of that belief system, that passion of of being angry and judgmental and gossip. And it's going to have to die. And now he's doing a wonderful, wonderful thing, but he's going to have to walk against it with the grace of God and God's helping us.

00;26;54;01 - 00;27;00;26
Murray Dueck
And it's a beautiful thing. But that whole family line is going to need to be rebuilt. And it will.

00;27;01;02 - 00;27;02;25
Murray Dueck
Right, right.

00;27;02;28 - 00;27;35;14
Murray Dueck
I'll, I'll give you another example of somebody I know who, this would be a good Mennonite issue. So, he, leader, gifted speaker, great team builder. Came out of a, a family where, the leaders, the boss. The dad's the boss. Sure. Which which I think is pretty typical for a whole bunch of us.

00;27;35;16 - 00;28;04;12
Murray Dueck
And because of that, wanting to be a super good Christian and really follow the Lord, he, learned not to speak. He learned to just shove it in and take it. Mainly because as a kid, that's what you had to do. But, then kind of growing up kind of around the church and a pretty conservative group, to be Krauts like, is to take it, you know, and it's partly true.

00;28;04;12 - 00;28;36;14
Murray Dueck
I mean, right, turn the other cheek and whatever. Right. But all of a sudden in the last, all a bunch of months on both sides of his family, he has been put into positions with his dad and his father in law of of of having said, think things said about him that were really horrible, really mean. And he found himself getting angrier and angrier and angrier to the point finally, he absolutely lost it.

00;28;36;16 - 00;28;46;16
Murray Dueck
You know, after about a month of being told things like, I wish my daughter would have married somebody else, things like that. Right. Pretty horrible. What does that do to your heart? Right?

00;28;46;17 - 00;28;46;27
Joshua Hoffert
Yeah.

00;28;46;27 - 00;29;11;12
Murray Dueck
For sure. And he just took it and took it and took it for about a month until he absolutely blew up. Right. And, you know, said a lot of things he wished he could take back. And, you know, him and his, his father in law worked it out. Brilliant. Good for him. And his father repented at good for him.

00;29;11;15 - 00;29;31;24
Murray Dueck
But what's the passion the Lord's working on there? Is it his anger? Is that it? I don't think so. I think the passion the Lord's working on is his ability from a childhood to not say what he needed to say in the way he needed to say it when he needed to say it. Because always being nice and not saying what you need to do, it's scary.

00;29;31;24 - 00;29;55;21
Murray Dueck
What if I get punished? What if I am wrong? What if I grieve the heart of Christ? So there's this passion of fear of talking, fear of, of confronting. And the Lord, I think, set that all up. For him to go. I need to find my voice. I need to stand up for my who I am. I need to stand it for my family because he that's healing of the soul.

00;29;55;24 - 00;30;23;22
Murray Dueck
There's a wound there, right? And and that wound that has been model to him his whole life. The water is flowing a certain direction. He finally has to turn around, go no more. I'm walking that way. Right. And then you hit all that pressure, right? So all these things in our hearts, that, that come up that the Lord is going to come with his power and free us, you know, divide our soul from our spirit if we want to use that language.

00;30;23;24 - 00;30;29;17
Murray Dueck
But, you know, this might be a good spot to read that quote from. About wounding.

00;30;29;20 - 00;30;32;01
Joshua Hoffert
Yeah. I was.

00;30;32;03 - 00;30;34;16
Murray Dueck
I'm, I'm kind of.

00;30;34;18 - 00;30;41;21
Joshua Hoffert
Flowing all around it and thinking about that one as you're talking, I want to read one short little quote.

00;30;41;24 - 00;30;42;25
Murray Dueck

00;30;42;27 - 00;31;09;08
Joshua Hoffert
From the sayings of the Desert Fathers, just to just to keep in context all that we're saying. Going, you know, you read what Paul was saying, right? Just saying. And I just want to, in context of the early church, thought this way, too, right. The Desert Fathers felt this way, too. So all the puff nukes. The disciple of Mercury is the city ruler used to say, I, I besought my father, saying, tell me is saying so.

00;31;09;08 - 00;31;18;17
Joshua Hoffert
But this goes to me curious, tell me saying. And Mercury is said, do no evil to anybody, and do not condemn anybody. You know. Good luck.

00;31;18;20 - 00;31;19;20
Murray Dueck

00;31;20;02 - 00;31;23;29
Joshua Hoffert
And then he said, keep these commandments and you are being saved.

00;31;24;02 - 00;31;25;11
Murray Dueck

00;31;25;13 - 00;31;49;22
Joshua Hoffert
And that's the point I want to highlight is what Murray's talking about. And this is where when we've talked about this before, but it always bears repeating, is that when we look at salvation as a point in time and the result of a prayer that we've said, as opposed to a life that we're living, where now the the gentleman that, Murray just described, he's being saved.

00;31;49;24 - 00;32;17;12
Joshua Hoffert
And one of these moments of salvation was coming to grips with what's happened to him and how he's treated other people because of what's happened to him and how he's been treated. Right? He's being saved. What he's being saved from are the patterns and habits that have been handed down to him from generation to generation. You know, on one part, we've got the the result of the fall and the decay and creation and the complete and utter chaos that's been introduced.

00;32;17;14 - 00;32;39;05
Joshua Hoffert
Right? There's original sin, if we want to call it that. And then we've got the patterns and habits that have been that have been going on from the fall, that every generation is dealt with right now. We've got ancestral sin and, and so what the, what the fathers called those kind of things, the, the patterns and habits were the passions.

00;32;39;08 - 00;32;42;29
Joshua Hoffert
These are the, the systems of thought.

00;32;43;06 - 00;32;43;22
Murray Dueck
Or had we.

00;32;43;23 - 00;33;00;10
Joshua Hoffert
Not thought the systems of practice, that we've learned to implement where I can gratify myself and my cravings and then keep me living in my delusion. That's what the passions accomplish.

00;33;00;13 - 00;33;01;06
Murray Dueck
Yeah.

00;33;01;08 - 00;33;07;08
Joshua Hoffert
They gratify myself so that I can maintain my delusion.

00;33;07;10 - 00;33;08;14
Murray Dueck
Oh, let me.

00;33;08;16 - 00;33;12;14
Joshua Hoffert
Let me explain how. What I mean by that, too, is so.

00;33;12;19 - 00;33;14;20
Murray Dueck
I am,

00;33;14;23 - 00;33;17;05
Joshua Hoffert
My delusion is.

00;33;17;07 - 00;33;18;22
Murray Dueck

00;33;18;25 - 00;33;58;20
Joshua Hoffert
If I don't have control, my life will disintegrate. There's my delusion. Okay? And so my practice is I need to control and manipulate the people around me. That's the passion. So that I can maintain my delusion of control so that my life maintains its balance. And when I do that, I hurt the people around me. I misuse and abuse the people around me so that I can maintain my control so that that inner existential dread that my life might fall apart is actually placated.

00;33;58;20 - 00;34;14;20
Joshua Hoffert
So now I've gratified myself, and I've stayed in my I've kept myself in my delusion. But the problem happens when we wake up to that delusion and go, something's not working right. And we start and we and you can't wake up yourself. That's part of the problem of the passion.

00;34;14;23 - 00;34;16;09
Murray Dueck
And worship myself up.

00;34;16;09 - 00;34;43;07
Joshua Hoffert
Right. You can't go. Well, now here I am. I'm awakened. You can't do that. So you've got to you've learned a pattern of acting and behaving that help to placate this, this self-gratification and this delusion. And that's what we call a passion. So the passions, then when we start to come to grips with them, the passions actually introduce us to our wounds, because we start to see that control manipulative behavior.

00;34;43;07 - 00;34;50;22
Joshua Hoffert
And we can go, why do I do that? Oh, well, I do that because there's.

00;34;50;22 - 00;34;51;17
Murray Dueck
Something.

00;34;51;17 - 00;35;15;14
Joshua Hoffert
Driving me behind there that I have to come to grips with right. So when we comes to the, the way that we understand trauma, woundedness and healing today, a psychologist will tell you and I'm, you know, to take my word for it. A great book that describes this is a book called Waking the Tiger by Peter Levine.

00;35;15;14 - 00;35;41;22
Joshua Hoffert
He's not a Christian. He's a psychologist who's very well versed in trauma and trauma responses. He would say that trauma is not the actual wounding. Trauma is the effect of the wounding. It's the way that your body has, responded to the moment of trauma and the inability trauma is the inability of the body to discharge the trauma response.

00;35;41;24 - 00;36;05;01
Joshua Hoffert
So you have a wound as a, you know, as a young person as even as an adult, you have a wound. Now, you have a fight flight as a, as an animal, right? A human being, as an animal, as an animal. You have a fight, flight, freeze or a response. And so that response gets stuck in your memory because you don't have a way to discharge that response.

00;36;05;04 - 00;36;23;24
Joshua Hoffert
If you had a way to discharge that response, you'd be able to process the trauma. Now that takes loving community, that takes understanding, that takes good parental units that can help you process those things. But many people don't have that. So you've got a trauma that happens. Whether that's someone lashes out to you, they hit you. Verbal abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse.

00;36;23;24 - 00;36;35;23
Joshua Hoffert
These things happen. We learn patterns of behavior to respond to these things, and then we implement those patterns of behavior because we never learned not to have those patterns of behavior. And so now we have.

00;36;35;23 - 00;36;37;11
Murray Dueck
Trauma.

00;36;37;14 - 00;36;56;02
Joshua Hoffert
As a as an event that impacts our response. And we've not discharged that response. There's a great video out there that you can watch. It's a it's a and Paula and a animal. I think I've referenced this before a deer who is attacked by a dog, Carla. And Paula and Paula, not a shepherd.

00;36;56;05 - 00;36;56;16
Murray Dueck
Versus.

00;36;56;16 - 00;36;57;18
Murray Dueck
An American. Yeah.

00;36;57;21 - 00;37;01;01
Joshua Hoffert
And versus. Yeah. Canadian. Canadian.

00;37;01;01 - 00;37;02;12
Murray Dueck
Oh, yeah.

00;37;02;15 - 00;37;21;26
Joshua Hoffert
So the the the deer is attacked by a jaguar and, or a cheetah, maybe. And it is. Then some hyenas come and distract the jaguar or the deer is about to die. Right. It's given up. It's totally gone limp. It's gone into a freeze response, which the freeze response has.

00;37;21;28 - 00;37;22;17
Murray Dueck
Deadened.

00;37;22;17 - 00;37;43;25
Joshua Hoffert
And numbed its its pain receptors. That's what the freeze response does. So the if prepares the animal to die, right? It's the same thing that happens to a human when a human is confronted with, say, physical abuse. Right? Especially a young child. And they're struck by someone who's supposed to be a primary caregiver. You go into a freeze response, some people go into a freeze response.

00;37;43;25 - 00;38;01;04
Joshua Hoffert
It depends on the response. So you dead end the pain because you don't know what to do, because you're preparing yourself for more pain. So and then you don't know how to get out of the freeze response because a primary caregiver does it. And primary caregivers are supposed to help you get out of those kind of things, but they don't because they're ill equipped themselves.

00;38;01;04 - 00;38;26;04
Joshua Hoffert
This is the pattern of the this is that central ancestral sin, right? The pattern continues from one generation to the next. So the the deer, then as the deer gets up because the hyenas have distracted the jaguar in this video, the deer starts shaking violently. What it's doing is it's discharging all the adrenaline, it's discharging all the chemicals that rushed through its body to deaden its nerves.

00;38;26;06 - 00;38;46;29
Joshua Hoffert
And once it does that, it runs off to go join its pack again, because both of the the Jaguar and the he knows are distracted. Right. It has a naturally ingrained response to processing trauma. It goes so now it can go back into the wild, it can join its herd again, and it can none the worse for where it goes right back into the same patterns.

00;38;47;02 - 00;39;10;28
Joshua Hoffert
Right? It's not stuck in the trauma response. Humans gets stuck in the trauma response. Those are passions. They get stuck in the trauma response. So now because I was hurt. So I've got a desire to control or manipulate so that I keep myself from that hurt. So if I control and manipulate right, I can control my circumstances. That's my delusion so that I won't be hurt again.

00;39;11;00 - 00;39;32;14
Joshua Hoffert
So I gratify myself to keep my delusion going. The problem is it diminishes and diminishes and diminishes. There's a there's as someone gets older, there's a law of diminishing returns to the way that your system, of your system of control, if it's control, right? The way that your systems work. So you're it, it begins. My observation is that the.

00;39;32;17 - 00;39;34;05
Murray Dueck
The.

00;39;34;07 - 00;39;58;11
Joshua Hoffert
The ramifications happen quicker and quicker the older you get. And so whereas you might have been able to control people for 5 to 10 years and keep that gratification going. So you're in your delusion all of a sudden it's starting to last one year or two years or six months or one week because and and now you're confronted with all of your broken relationships are your all your failed ambitions, all these things.

00;39;58;11 - 00;40;25;04
Joshua Hoffert
And so you can't. So now you're stuck in your existential dread, and you either have to double down on your, your passion responses or you need the Lord. You need healing, right? You need something, so some people find coping mechanisms that are more helpful, right? Some people find coping mechanisms like cravings or addictions, whether that's drugs, alcohol, whether that's overeating, whatever it happens to be, it could be sex, it could be lost, it could be pleasure.

00;40;25;07 - 00;40;37;29
Joshua Hoffert
But these things are responses. They're trauma responses to inner wounds. So that's how your passion. So the Desert Fathers would say your passions introduce you to your inner wounds because so you so.

00;40;37;29 - 00;40;39;03
Murray Dueck
You can't.

00;40;39;06 - 00;41;03;00
Joshua Hoffert
Like there's a there's a quote from I think it's Pullman. I've got it here, Pullman said. John the dwarf prayed to God to take his passions away from them, that he saw he might become free from care. So when he went and told when John the dwarf went and told OB Pullman, he said, go and beseech God to stir up warfare so that you may regain the affliction and humility that you used to have.

00;41;03;00 - 00;41;30;17
Joshua Hoffert
For it is by warfare that the soul makes progress, because without the warfare you never come to grips with who you are. If you're not fighting, right? If you never if you're never fighting, it's just it's having its way with you. So the struggle is what proves redemption is ongoing. If there's no struggle, there's no redemption. So the struggle actually introduces us to ourselves because we see, oh, this desire for control and manipulation.

00;41;30;17 - 00;41;48;05
Joshua Hoffert
That's the passion. Where does it come from? Let me start to explore that, because God can illuminate it. Oh my goodness. You know, when I was this age, this happened to me. When I was this age, this happened to me suddenly I've got understanding. Now that I have understanding, I see the results of that. And that's the display in my life.

00;41;48;07 - 00;42;05;17
Joshua Hoffert
And so now when it happens, I start to catch it quicker and quicker because I have understanding. And so now we need resources for catching and stopping the flow. Right. For stopping the once we've got the thing stirred, how do we start this? How do we start to bring it to a stop?

00;42;05;19 - 00;42;06;28
Murray Dueck
Well, one.

00;42;06;28 - 00;42;29;24
Joshua Hoffert
Part of that is understanding where it comes from. Another one is actually having the tools and resources to stop it. I've got a personal story. I think I may have shared this on the podcast before, I can't remember, but, when I was growing up, I had a period of time where my family we lived with, my grandparents and my, my grandfather was he was actually my step grandfather.

00;42;29;24 - 00;42;49;05
Joshua Hoffert
And my grandma had been married a couple times, and he was quite an angry man. And he tended to yell at my brother and I a lot. I was probably ten, 11, 12, something like that. And he would belittle us constantly, for any mistake that we would make. And I remember this distinct we lived with him for a couple of years because.

00;42;49;05 - 00;43;15;26
Joshua Hoffert
And so I remember those very distinctly. And, a couple of months ago, I was really wrestling with, our youngest son, our six year old. He wouldn't do what he's asked to do. You know, he's we were this is just going to school in September. He wouldn't go to school. He was getting anxious and he wouldn't walk out the door and he'd cried, yell, and he'd try and do everything you can to manipulate us so that we wouldn't have to go.

00;43;15;26 - 00;43;39;12
Joshua Hoffert
And. And I'd get frustrated and I'd get angry and and and then I would say things that I regretted saying shortly afterwards, trying to get him to go out to the car and, and so then, you know, keeping in mind this grandpa thing. Right. I have this dream, and this is where dreams can be a very helpful source of dealing with the passions.

00;43;39;12 - 00;44;00;16
Joshua Hoffert
Right? So the passion for me was anger, right? Or is anger right? So I would get angry, and then I would use my anger to try and control and manipulate the situation because I felt powerless. And so the anger was the passion. Okay. A tendency towards irritation is what John, what the the, quote that I'll read in just a second.

00;44;00;16 - 00;44;01;24
Joshua Hoffert
He says.

00;44;01;26 - 00;44;02;21
Murray Dueck

00;44;02;23 - 00;44;20;04
Joshua Hoffert
And so I have this dream, and in the dream, my grandpa is in the dream, and he's belittling me, right? He's making fun of me for something I did. And so I get really mad. And in the dream, I start just telling him everything I've every evil thought I've ever had about him and how no one loves him, no one likes him.

00;44;20;04 - 00;44;21;28
Joshua Hoffert
No one showed up for his funeral.

00;44;22;00 - 00;44;22;12
Murray Dueck
Oh.

00;44;22;15 - 00;44;31;03
Joshua Hoffert
You know, and I'm just giving it to him, right. And he's getting smaller and smaller in the dream, and I'm getting bigger and bigger in the dream.

00;44;31;05 - 00;44;32;05
Murray Dueck
Right.

00;44;32;08 - 00;44;50;05
Joshua Hoffert
And by the time I'm done just totally belittling him and yelling at him and telling him all these horrible things, he sulks out of the, of the room. Right? And I feel so powerful. But in the midst of it, I've spilled all this, some kind of. I think it was hot chocolate or something like that.

00;44;50;05 - 00;44;50;23
Murray Dueck
All over.

00;44;50;23 - 00;44;51;28
Joshua Hoffert
My mother in law.

00;44;52;00 - 00;44;52;27
Murray Dueck
Oh, boy.

00;44;52;29 - 00;45;21;20
Joshua Hoffert
In the midst of it. Right. So in my belittling him, I've actually impacted others. And I realized when I woke up, oh my goodness, I got angry to control the situation so that I'd feel powerful. And it dawned on me that I'd done that with my son. Wow, right. I got angry to control the situation because I felt powerless and all of a sudden, when I was dealing with my son, I wasn't dealing with my son.

00;45;21;20 - 00;45;41;16
Joshua Hoffert
As a 43 year old, I was dealing with my son as a nine year old, my nine year old self who was hurt. Right. So the understanding happens right? And all of a sudden now and so then I can have a conversation with my kids, hey, you know, I'm recognizing that I tend to get angry when I can't control the situation.

00;45;41;16 - 00;45;45;19
Joshua Hoffert
I'm sorry about that. And I'm trying to get better. Can you guys pointed out to me and help me?

00;45;45;22 - 00;45;46;19
Murray Dueck
Wonderful.

00;45;46;21 - 00;46;04;07
Joshua Hoffert
So I have the conversation with my kids. So then, you know, fast forward to just about a week ago, and, we get to I'm going to drop my kids off for school and my nine year old son, he we get to school and he realizes he's forgotten his watch, and he's going to turn around. We got to go get my watch.

00;46;04;09 - 00;46;13;01
Joshua Hoffert
And I'm like, you're going to be late for school. We can't turn around and go get your watch. And he's getting increasingly agitated, right. And he's starting to get he started to cry. And I'm going it's just a.

00;46;13;01 - 00;46;13;14
Murray Dueck
Watch.

00;46;13;14 - 00;46;30;25
Joshua Hoffert
What's going on here? You know. And and in years past, if that happened, I may have gotten angry and told him, get out of the stupid car, you know, but we were at school. You got to go to school. You're going to be late, right? And gotten angrier and angrier. Right? And so the other two kids get out, they go to school, and my son's still there.

00;46;30;25 - 00;46;48;16
Joshua Hoffert
He's crying, he's emotional. He's. I've got my watch, got to go get it. And I was like, well, I can bring it later, you know? And and I'm just like, I'm just going to stay calm because I know my tendency is to get angry. That's my passion. This is my wound. I so I understand that. So I'm just going, okay, God help me.

00;46;48;16 - 00;47;03;21
Joshua Hoffert
And I can feel it. Right. Like it wants to come back, but I'm going. No no no no, I know where it's coming from. So I'm just going to. We'll nip that in the bud. Right. We're we're you know, the the desert Fathers say it starts in the heart. It moves to the face, it goes into words and then it turns into action.

00;47;03;21 - 00;47;21;17
Joshua Hoffert
Right. So I can feel it in the heart. I'm not going to let it get to my face. Right. So okay let's, let's just, let's calm down. Take a deep breath. It's going to be okay. Finally it comes out. My son says the kids have been making fun of me because my watch keeps beeping on the hour.

00;47;21;19 - 00;47;38;16
Joshua Hoffert
And when they notice that I'm not wearing my watch, they're going to make fun of me. And they're going to say, finally, you didn't bring it and they're going to poke fun at me. And I'm afraid of what they're going to say. That's what's going on here. Right? But if I would have just responded in my typical anger response to control the situation, right.

00;47;38;16 - 00;47;58;06
Joshua Hoffert
My son may have listened, but I wouldn't have got to his heart. Yeah, I would have really meant. And now I go, hey, you know what is okay? Because guess what? I you know, if those kids make fun of you, your dad still loves you and your mom still loves you, and you're going to be okay. And we're going to get through this together, okay?

00;47;58;06 - 00;47;59;19
Joshua Hoffert
You just tell them.

00;47;59;21 - 00;48;00;08
Murray Dueck
Hey.

00;48;00;10 - 00;48;09;02
Joshua Hoffert
I just chose not to wear my watch today. So by the time we got him into the school, he was okay. And then after school, like, no one even recognized that I didn't have the watch on, right?

00;48;09;03 - 00;48;10;12
Murray Dueck
Wow. Brilliant.

00;48;10;14 - 00;48;32;04
Joshua Hoffert
But. But I saw it, right? The just the just the direct connection between the the trauma that had happened to me, the response that I'd happen right. The wound, the trauma response, the way I'd never been able to process it because my parents didn't know, they didn't see it right. They didn't understand how to do it. They were struggling with their own things, and then how it manifested later in a passion of anger.

00;48;32;06 - 00;48;48;22
Joshua Hoffert
And now I know it's impacting my kids. And now I'm going, wow, I understand it. I can take the deep breath. I can center myself again. I can not let it overwhelm me. I actually just happened this morning. I had another interaction with my kids in school and dropping them off where I went, calm down, it's going to be okay.

00;48;48;22 - 00;49;00;19
Joshua Hoffert
And we we ended up dealing with it. So I'm finding, the understanding, in the fathers about these things. Now, Josh is being saved, right.

00;49;00;21 - 00;49;02;09
Murray Dueck
And I am. That's right. I'm going to.

00;49;02;09 - 00;49;04;20
Joshua Hoffert
Oh, there's another part of my.

00;49;04;20 - 00;49;06;06
Murray Dueck
Soul that's.

00;49;06;06 - 00;49;09;02
Joshua Hoffert
Coming into who it's created to.

00;49;09;02 - 00;49;10;01
Murray Dueck
Be.

00;49;10;03 - 00;49;24;29
Joshua Hoffert
And displaying the Father in Christ like love that the passions would have kept me in my delusion. Right? My anger that can control and manipulate so that I can have my gratification of listen to me because I'm a man and you should listen to me, right?

00;49;24;29 - 00;49;25;24
Murray Dueck
Yes.

00;49;25;26 - 00;49;30;25
Joshua Hoffert
Yeah, I'm a dad and you need to respect me, right? That's my delusion. That's my gratification.

00;49;30;25 - 00;49;31;19
Murray Dueck
Well said.

00;49;31;22 - 00;49;54;02
Joshua Hoffert
And I'm going. Oh, I'm. It's actually making it so I don't have to face reality that I'm actually a scared little nine year old boy who doesn't know how to do life. Right. That's the reality. And I'm going, oh, I'm trying to keep myself from seeing that, that there's a nine year old kid in me that doesn't want to do life because he doesn't know how to do it, because he's going to get in trouble and because someone's going to yell at me.

00;49;54;07 - 00;50;20;16
Joshua Hoffert
So now knowing my passion becomes a healing experience, not a crushing experience. So let me read this quote. And then, Marie, you can, offer some thoughts. The quotes from a book called In the Heart of the desert says this. Some of these passions might include the desire to gossip or be judgmental, the desire to control or manipulate, the desire for perfectionism, the need for constant approval, the distrust of others or mistrust of ourselves, the fear of stillness or of silence.

00;50;20;16 - 00;50;47;17
Joshua Hoffert
The tendency towards irritation or agitation. An attitude of impurity or or darkness. A lack of self-control and cravings or addictions of many kind. In brief, that which makes us feel high, where we do not have to face reality. That is where our passions often lurk. These are the passions we need to admit and address. Then knowing our passions becomes not a crushing, but a healing experience.

00;50;47;19 - 00;51;05;01
Joshua Hoffert
And then he goes on to say, then we no longer excuse our bad behavior, but accept our self without delusions. And so we begin to see what's actually under the surface. The passions are what's on the surface, and many people end up living at that place, right? I could have been stuck there for even longer. I'm 40.

00;51;05;01 - 00;51;05;22
Murray Dueck
Oh yeah, stuck.

00;51;05;22 - 00;51;26;21
Joshua Hoffert
There for a long time. Right. And, but now I'm going. Oh, I'm seeing under the surface, actually, there's a scared little boy and and hey, there's a son, my nine year old. He's a scared little boy. Okay? As a man, I can help him deal with the scared little boy syndrome, but only if I come to grips with the fact that I was a scared little boy.

00;51;26;24 - 00;51;35;26
Joshua Hoffert
Right. And. And so now it's starting to stop the current. And I'm hoping that the next generation. Right.

00;51;35;26 - 00;51;37;29
Murray Dueck
The that's right nostril thing.

00;51;38;02 - 00;51;59;17
Joshua Hoffert
Oh, the current is slowed. I've started to catch that thing before it happens. And I can make amends for the first nine years with my son, the first six years with my other son, and the 11 years of my daughter. And not that it was always that way, but I'm just going, oh, I now my daughter Will pointed out to me, hey, dad, you know you're doing that thing again, right?

00;51;59;19 - 00;52;00;13
Murray Dueck
That's brilliant.

00;52;00;18 - 00;52;02;13
Murray Dueck
Yeah. So pointed out.

00;52;02;16 - 00;52;07;11
Murray Dueck
Right. I mean, she feels safe and heard and. Yes, in the midst of it. Right. That's. Well, I'll.

00;52;07;11 - 00;52;12;16
Joshua Hoffert
Ask her occasionally. Hey, how have I been doing? You know, I've been trying to do better. How have I how I've been doing? She's the.

00;52;12;16 - 00;52;13;07
Murray Dueck
Most. Well, that's.

00;52;13;14 - 00;52;22;12
Joshua Hoffert
Actually my nine year old be like, oh, your great dad. And my daughter looks like. Well, you know, you said this the other day and I. And I'll say, well, in my defense, you weren't listening.

00;52;22;19 - 00;52;24;22
Murray Dueck
So, that's great.

00;52;24;24 - 00;52;41;26
Joshua Hoffert
So would but yeah, it's been a great it's been a great way to talk through what I'm wrestling with and how the Lord is helping to, you know, I the dream was really the catalyst for all of it. And that was totally a God thing, right? I can't really that dream happen.

00;52;41;29 - 00;52;42;21
Murray Dueck
So, you know.

00;52;42;23 - 00;53;00;24
Murray Dueck
There's a great book, everybody, if you want to modernize all this. And we've probably mentioned it before and I went grabbed it emotionally healthy spirituality by oh yeah Peter zero. And if you want to hear this in some real kind of modern language and what to do about it, I'd really recommend, recommend this book and the workbook.

00;53;00;24 - 00;53;23;00
Murray Dueck
So he has and and he has looks like this. Here are the top ten symptoms of being emotionally unhealthy. So which really are the really are the, the passage. Right. Yeah. That's right. He lists this whole bunch of them that Christians do because it's without our culture and it's really quite amazing. And I'll, I'll just I'll just go with it.

00;53;23;05 - 00;53;37;17
Murray Dueck
Well, here they are. Right. Using God to run from God, ignoring anger, sadness and fear dying to the wrong things. Which which is quite interesting. Denying the impact of the past or the present, which is something you just talked about.

00;53;37;19 - 00;53;38;24
Murray Dueck
Right.

00;53;38;26 - 00;53;55;03
Murray Dueck
Anyway. And he. I'll just go using God to run from God. I, I like this goes, do God's work to satisfy me, not him. Do things in God's name. He never asked me to do. Pray about God, about doing my God, doing my will, not about me.

00;53;55;03 - 00;53;57;23
Murray Dueck
Threatening his life. Demonstrate.

00;53;57;23 - 00;54;11;12
Murray Dueck
Christian behavior so significant people think well of me, focus on certain theological points out of my concern for my fears and unresolved emotional issues, rather than that out of concern for God's truth. And on and on it goes, right? Oh, it's it's like.

00;54;11;12 - 00;54;13;20
Murray Dueck
Oh my goodness.

00;54;13;22 - 00;54;32;29
Murray Dueck
Hide behind God talk, deflecting the spotlight from my inner cracks and become defensive about my failures. And I, you know, it's good to kind of just look at that. And then and then he goes, how do we fix this? And, and and, you know, Josh is really pointing it out. We all have triggers, everybody, if you want to use that term.

00;54;32;29 - 00;55;03;10
Murray Dueck
And sure. And and things trigger us and and I personally I hate them and I love them because I think life is the you know, there's that term, right? You reap what you sow. God will not be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. And and there is kind of a spiritual law that he and the couple of things that I mentioned to before, that there are patterns that we what we sow comes back to us and, and things will trigger us.

00;55;03;12 - 00;55;18;14
Murray Dueck
And then we get a choice to, to think about how are we going to respond out of our past, out of our upbringing or or are we going to slow it down and take a look at it and just slow it down and go, wait a minute, I just got triggered. I am what am I feeling right now?

00;55;18;18 - 00;55;37;19
Murray Dueck
Right feeling anger, I'm feeling fear I'm feeling. And I after that talk with that person, they didn't talk to me. They didn't look at me. I feel some shame. Where is that coming from? Right? Right. Because other people don't have the right to dictate to us how we feel. God dictates to us how we should feel. And he loves the.

00;55;37;19 - 00;55;41;09
Joshua Hoffert
Father is called that watchfulness of heart. Yeah. The father is called the watcher. Yeah, yeah.

00;55;41;09 - 00;56;02;05
Murray Dueck
So so we're talking about a term watchfulness and sobriety. Don't let it end right and right. And for for a lot of us, I would really recommend everybody read, the books by Brennan Manning. On the For the Heart of God. And you really want to get down? What's the truth? What is it? What is the truth?

00;56;02;07 - 00;56;18;06
Murray Dueck
You know, and and one of the statements of, you know, if I would go back to my nice Orthodox psychology book, and I'll just read you this quote here, just about, oh, how do we heal these things? I mean, there's there's all kinds of fasting and praying and, and I think the Jesus prayer is the saying and.

00;56;18;09 - 00;56;22;03
Joshua Hoffert
A glimpse of Jesus by Brendan Manning actually is that's a good place to start. Yeah.

00;56;22;03 - 00;56;23;25
Murray Dueck
Yeah. Or the one.

00;56;23;27 - 00;56;26;08
Murray Dueck
Yeah. Or the relentless tenderness of Jesus.

00;56;26;08 - 00;56;28;28
Murray Dueck
Yeah. Those are three great ones to start with. Yeah.

00;56;29;00 - 00;56;48;21
Murray Dueck
And the reason I say that is the sense I'm so here I'm quoting out of orthodox psychotherapy, and he's going to quote Maximus here, the sense of the love of God. And our own love towards God, all the things which transforming pure the passions to mortify the possible part of the soul does not mean that we enclose it idle and motionless in ourselves.

00;56;48;24 - 00;57;09;06
Murray Dueck
But what we but that we turn it from connection with evil, like our anger or whatever is going on our fear to the love for God. But this change to love for God does not happen without a life of love. And yeah, and just listen to Joshua's story there, what he just did, right? He transformed that with the help of of of the Lord, showing him through a dream.

00;57;09;08 - 00;57;34;12
Murray Dueck
In any case, when one is ablaze with love for God, which is divine, which is a divine inspiration, one's whole, whole inner world is transformed. It is warmed by divine grace and sanctified. And here's a quote by Maximus when love of God dominates the news, it frees it from its bonds, persuading it to rise above not only the sensible, things, but even this transitory life.

00;57;34;14 - 00;57;53;21
Murray Dueck
So. So think about, the Desert Fathers. I can't remember who it says. Think of it like this. You're just got engaged. I probably mentioned this before, and, you know, your fiancee has said yes. And you are so blown away, just that you're so in love and you're walking through the stinkiest, dirtiest, ugliest part of down. You don't even care.

00;57;53;28 - 00;58;20;27
Murray Dueck
You're not even aware of it. You're so in love. And and the thing is that we want that love of God then to penetrate these areas where this dysfunction is the what that love of God to transition things and see. Here's the things about the passions that often what God has put in our soul. It's not it's functioning as evil, but it's really just sick.

00;58;21;00 - 00;58;22;03
Murray Dueck
It needs to be healed.

00;58;22;04 - 00;58;22;16
Joshua Hoffert
Yeah.

00;58;22;16 - 00;58;23;04
Murray Dueck
That's right.

00;58;23;04 - 00;58;42;22
Murray Dueck
So where where, where I want power. Maybe God is putting in confidence where there is lust. Lust? Maybe the Lord wants to put love in there where there's anger, like the the the desert father says we need anger is supposed to be angry at the enemy and supposed to be angry at lies.

00;58;42;22 - 00;58;43;29
Murray Dueck
Not. Yeah, that's right.

00;58;44;01 - 00;58;46;21
Murray Dueck
It's got it's got a proper place.

00;58;46;24 - 00;58;48;01
Murray Dueck
That's right.

00;58;48;03 - 00;59;07;25
Murray Dueck
Where we we gossip and see things. Maybe there's places that we're supposed to be talking to the right person at the right time. Right? We're supposed to have a voice, but but it's not. We're not supposed to use it behind people's backs. Right? Where there is anxiety and fear. Maybe there are things that we shouldn't do, like walk really close to cliff edges.

00;59;07;28 - 00;59;09;05
Murray Dueck
Right there are right?

00;59;09;08 - 00;59;10;15
Murray Dueck
Right.

00;59;10;18 - 00;59;38;26
Murray Dueck
So the idea is that the soul needs healing. It needs to be transformed. And there's areas of of brokenness. As you know, we've talked about that that need to be transformed. Like for me, one of the ones that I seem to to really to work on is that, you know, and partly it's my upbringing, you know, and I see it both from my mom and my dad and everybody.

00;59;38;26 - 00;59;56;13
Murray Dueck
I really believe in inner healing. I do lots of you hear healing and and, you know, Josh tends to and his wife has this wonderful thing she does called the heart healing. Right? Hearts. You talk about that later. You could call it doctor. Right. Gets up, gets a prayer. That's right. Heartsick. So, so very, very important to have that in your toolbox.

00;59;56;15 - 01;00;27;13
Murray Dueck
But but to realize there's aspects of your nature that God wants healed. Because when you're healed, you understand his character, who he really is, that you don't need to protect yourself because he's going to do it. And then there's aspects of yourself that that are under bondage that become like Christ. And oh, what a joy. And so, so for one like, like for me and my dad's side of the family, I'll give you a couple examples.

01;00;27;15 - 01;00;46;03
Murray Dueck
God bless my dad. Good. Midnight family. Right. Work equals love. So that took a lot of and you know, a lot of work, lots of inner healing stuff. And, and like Western culture, you know, we are what we do. I don't go tell it if I, if I met you for the first time, I wouldn't say, oh, my name's Marie.

01;00;46;03 - 01;01;01;02
Murray Dueck
I like to walk on the beach, whistle silly songs and, I would say, oh, I'm a minister. First thing I would do is tell you what I do for a living. Marie. That's right. The very right, Reverend Murray. You know, as sorry. It's funny, actually, as.

01;01;01;02 - 01;01;02;15
Joshua Hoffert
Opposed to the wrong reverend.

01;01;02;21 - 01;01;27;18
Murray Dueck
That's right, that's right. So. But it's it's taken a long time to realize at first that pattern of doing and building it feels so good to be right and to build ministry and to have people follow you and and listen to what you have to say. And then after a while, you begin to realize. I think more about that than I do about Jesus.

01;01;27;20 - 01;01;28;09
Murray Dueck
Right?

01;01;28;11 - 01;01;33;04
Murray Dueck
Right. And this is like session one. And I remember my dad came back.

01;01;33;04 - 01;01;37;15
Joshua Hoffert
Yeah. Go back to episode one. Marie talked about the whole journey of coming to prison.

01;01;37;15 - 01;01;38;14
Murray Dueck
Yeah, right.

01;01;38;16 - 01;01;52;16
Murray Dueck
And it's important to see people's journey, everybody, how the Lord triggers things when we're ready for us to get healed there and transform. But the Lord's not going to leave us broken like this. He's going to heal us. He's going to put us back together. That's what he does.

01;01;52;19 - 01;01;55;18
Joshua Hoffert
It takes a long time to become human, right? As we said earlier.

01;01;55;19 - 01;02;16;03
Murray Dueck
Yeah. And and you know, he's getting us ready for that, that, that, that the whole this whole bridal relationship again, it's a, it's a metaphor. I think the guys don't like it, but it's the it's the most intimate metaphor you can come up with that we're being prepared for something that's that's incredible. And and it would be nice to go back to that thought you just said becoming human.

01;02;16;06 - 01;02;43;21
Murray Dueck
This whole idea of becoming human and and, you know, I remember father Mike saying, you know, with, with the crazy guys who float and glow and all that stuff. He goes, oh, they're not that's not supernatural. That's just them being a normal human being, right? Us right, who are clothed in anger and darkness and fear and worry that we got with you when I when a human being is free of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and the passions, this stuff just happens.

01;02;43;23 - 01;02;44;00
Murray Dueck
Right?

01;02;44;01 - 01;02;45;09
Joshua Hoffert
There's Scott Peck.

01;02;45;09 - 01;02;46;28
Murray Dueck
So people.

01;02;47;01 - 01;03;04;07
Joshua Hoffert
Scott Peck says, and the people of the lie, yeah. I think as Scott Peck says in The People, the lie was good. It's Gregory Peck, but he's the author, I think writer anyway, Scott Peck, he said, rather than being surprised that evil exists, we should be. We should be surprised that good exists.

01;03;04;10 - 01;03;06;05
Murray Dueck
Yeah, that's a good way to say it. You know.

01;03;06;05 - 01;03;08;13
Joshua Hoffert
It's easy to be evil.

01;03;08;16 - 01;03;09;05
Murray Dueck
We should be bad.

01;03;09;05 - 01;03;11;10
Joshua Hoffert
Eyes that people actually do good.

01;03;11;13 - 01;03;26;04
Murray Dueck
I remember my dad came over and he was going to hang out for a while, and my son Jesse was sick and he had some anxiety issues. And I said, dad, you can only be here like 4 or 5 days. You can't, you know, you just because he has to stay in the same house Jesse did. Right? So it's like, okay, not a problem, right?

01;03;26;04 - 01;03;50;29
Murray Dueck
Not a problem. And and so that day he comes over to my house for supper, you know, we're hanging out and, you know, he's walked around the farm here and looked at a whole bunch of things, you know, and I guess his inner Mennonite just kicks in, and he goes, you know what we're going to do? Because he owned the construction company, did all this stuff, you know, he's there and he goes, you know, we're going to do we're going to build that fence, and then we're going to bring up cement, and we're going to put these poles in, and we're going to rent out like a pneumatic hammer.

01;03;51;04 - 01;04;05;16
Murray Dueck
And then we're going to go build this whole barn here and put the foundation in, and I'm going to stay until it's done. All right. Let's go. And then he gets up and walks out a you know, I just told I just told him, dad, you could only stay. And I looked at J. What? Welcome to my childhood.

01;04;05;19 - 01;04;09;15
Murray Dueck
There it is right there. Right.

01;04;09;17 - 01;04;26;13
Murray Dueck
So why I feel I don't have a voice. I don't feel heard. I don't feel, And, you know, I learned a couple things from my dad there, and, you know, we work out pretty good now. He has a good chuckle about it now that he's older. Right. But it's still kind of there. But, you know, I have those patterns of identity from what I do.

01;04;26;13 - 01;04;28;10
Murray Dueck
There it is. Yeah.

01;04;28;13 - 01;04;58;26
Murray Dueck
But also feeling not heard. There it is too. Right. Yeah. And and I've had to really watch when those triggers go off and, and I know, like for me and my mom's side of the family, she had a lot of fear. Lots and lots of fear. Not many friends and, and I think mainly she was very, very spiritually sensitive, but didn't know what that was, you know, so I've had to really struggle with a couple things as a minister.

01;04;58;26 - 01;05;20;04
Murray Dueck
One, Really getting my identity from Christ, not from what I do, which I think is pretty typical in our culture, but but to a lot of fear issues. Fear of confronting, you know, when you're a pastor, your authority comes from, your relationship with the Lord. It's not like you're a boss and you can fire people.

01;05;20;07 - 01;05;25;17
Murray Dueck
You know, I fire you from my church. You know you, but you don't really have that as an option.

01;05;25;17 - 01;05;25;27
Murray Dueck
Said no.

01;05;25;28 - 01;05;29;15
Joshua Hoffert
Said the worst pastors ever. Right.

01;05;29;17 - 01;05;30;14
Murray Dueck
Yeah.

01;05;30;16 - 01;06;02;12
Murray Dueck
So. And I, I didn't realize it at first. I had some pretty interesting coping mechanisms of, of avoidance of, of making light of situations of of freezing people out of and because I didn't want conflict, because I'd have that fear. And then as a, as a minister, especially if you're an associate pastor, it's worse because it anyway, it can be pretty tough, right?

01;06;02;12 - 01;06;07;16
Murray Dueck
I think they say that in the 90s already. They said the average youth path youth pastor last seven months.

01;06;07;18 - 01;06;10;27
Murray Dueck
Yeah, it's true, you know, pretty tough.

01;06;11;00 - 01;06;28;19
Murray Dueck
So the thing that I had to learn and I'm only learning it now at 58 turning 59, is that saying what I need to say when I need to say it, and having confidence not going for the fear that was modeled to me.

01;06;28;21 - 01;06;30;17
Murray Dueck
Not, right.

01;06;30;19 - 01;07;00;18
Murray Dueck
So coming to going, oh man, I'm going to have to be fighting all the time now. There's a spiritual gift there. I discern how people are doing, and that I have to be able to go, you know what? We're not hanging out anymore. We're not, you know, and that's not the go to first thing you say. You you try to work it through, but and realize that's a safe response without water has been flowing so strong in that one direction so long that when I get triggered, at first it was like, well, this is just normal life, right?

01;07;00;18 - 01;07;26;03
Murray Dueck
I mean, this is what you do. You avoid, you freeze out you, and then you begin to realize, wow, I'm having this emotional tension again, this fear again. And I'm feeding it by avoidance and feeding it by and but and you know what? God doesn't touch you. These things, everybody right away, he waits until you're strong enough, healed enough that if he starts to touch it.

01;07;26;03 - 01;07;34;14
Murray Dueck
Because if he does, your issues are going to come up right? And you wait until you know him enough that under pressure you'll run to him and not from him.

01;07;34;20 - 01;07;35;10
Joshua Hoffert
That's right.

01;07;35;13 - 01;07;43;04
Murray Dueck
Because he wants to heal. He wants to heal your soul. And he's coming as a father, not as a judge. And when we start to see.

01;07;43;05 - 01;07;44;02
Murray Dueck
Your great point.

01;07;44;03 - 01;08;03;28
Murray Dueck
When we start to see our triggers, because these patterns, like I said, are so automatic, we often don't even realize we're doing it right. But there comes a point like, oh, why is that happening again? Or we make a statement like this. This is when, you know, surgeries coming your way. You say this statement, I can't live like this anymore.

01;08;04;01 - 01;08;04;20
Murray Dueck
Oh, right.

01;08;04;20 - 01;08;06;00
Murray Dueck
Right. Yeah. That's right.

01;08;06;07 - 01;08;25;09
Murray Dueck
Usually when you make that statement because often triggers in ways of living have protected you. Like if we just look at the thing. That's right. I've said avoidance freezing out not that those are you know, they keep you safe right. In that particular setting. Right? Right. It has to come to the point where those things become your enemy, not your friend.

01;08;25;11 - 01;08;25;21
Murray Dueck
Yeah.

01;08;25;24 - 01;08;44;25
Murray Dueck
That's right. And and the Lord has ways, when we're maturing to set it up that we don't run to those things anymore. We want away from them. And I can give you a really simple one. So growing up with a lot of fear, when I first became a youth pastor, they asked me to set up the Christmas banquet.

01;08;44;27 - 01;09;07;29
Murray Dueck
So I was taught in my family system don't buy my mom, don't trust anybody. Everyone's out to get you. Look out for number one. You know, there's reasons for that. So they wanted needed the Christmas banquet, which meant, all the food prep, the program, the set up of the building, the set up, you know, so the decoration plus plus the bags.

01;09;08;01 - 01;09;28;11
Murray Dueck
And I'm like, I'm not going to ask anybody to help because look out for number one, everyone's out to get you right. And it was so ingrained in me. But it was impossible, like with that amount of stuff and I suddenly I was faced with the trigger said to me off. And now I'm looking at the belief system that that I feel I need.

01;09;28;11 - 01;09;50;10
Murray Dueck
Don't trust anyone. Don't let anyone in. Do it all yourself. Right, right, right. And suddenly it's become my worst enemy. Like it's killing me. And and luckily, people came forward and volunteered and it, you know. Right. It was. And I realized, wow, that's a lie. That wasn't even true. Right. But the Lord had to push that button. But I had to be ready to walk life in a different direction.

01;09;50;12 - 01;10;15;16
Murray Dueck
And and often again, the Lord leaves it until we know him well enough. And but you know, we start by, man, I remember I'll give you one more example if that's okay. We had this girl and God rock. I'll never forget it. And her name was Jen. God bless her. First time I met her, she came and, you know, young adult and we prayed for.

01;10;15;16 - 01;10;35;15
Murray Dueck
And I had this prophetic word about her dad, you know, and, you know, I didn't realize why it was important, but she laughed and goes, oh, you mean Sally? I go, what do you mean? He goes, well, my dad had a sex change. I just laughed, I thought it was a funniest thing. Right? Well, I think we all know that underneath that laughter is probably a whole freaking pile of pain, right?

01;10;35;20 - 01;10;35;27
Murray Dueck
Yeah.

01;10;35;27 - 01;10;49;04
Murray Dueck
That's right. And for about a year, she just laughed it off, you know? And God didn't touch it. God gave her the gift of prophecy, and she could hear and pray for people in the spirit of the Lord will come upon her. But he she brought up that topic. It would be a joke, right?

01;10;49;10 - 01;10;49;20
Murray Dueck
Right.

01;10;49;28 - 01;11;04;08
Murray Dueck
For a full year and after a year, one day she was crying. After this meeting, I'm like, Jen, what's going on? And she goes, oh, I've never known a father. I've never known security, I've never known. Took a full year. And then the Lord came and touched it and started to bring healing.

01;11;04;08 - 01;11;05;00
Murray Dueck
Right, right.

01;11;05;02 - 01;11;25;04
Murray Dueck
He just left it for a year. And I remember at the time why doesn't got a deal with it. She did not know the father well enough. You know, think about what that totally it took. And you know what? We're all like that and and this is why everybody a lot of people do drugs. They've got so much pain, they medicate it.

01;11;25;06 - 01;11;36;10
Murray Dueck
Right. And, and and we medicated too by gossiping. That's medication by by being angry by a, you know, overindulging in food or entertainment. We medicate.

01;11;36;11 - 01;11;36;22
Murray Dueck
Totally.

01;11;36;22 - 01;11;52;24
Murray Dueck
But what are we medicating? And we're so out of touch with our triggers, we're going to, like a passion. We're going to something to medicate something without even realize we're doing it. And that's right. You know, the Lord has, as my father in law says, a Ways and Means Committee.

01;11;52;27 - 01;11;54;07
Murray Dueck

01;11;54;09 - 01;11;56;11
Murray Dueck
And when it's time, they'll come by.

01;11;56;17 - 01;11;57;25
Murray Dueck
That's right.

01;11;57;28 - 01;12;01;17
Joshua Hoffert
I'm I'm just just thinking full circle with all that you've said, too.

01;12;01;19 - 01;12;03;09
Murray Dueck
So I'll just say one last thing there.

01;12;03;09 - 01;12;03;25
Murray Dueck
Oh, yeah.

01;12;03;28 - 01;12;22;05
Murray Dueck
Sorry. This is a caffeinated rant. Yeah. Just so everybody, it's how do you the first step of healing these things as one to know the love of the father for you? Absolutely right. Because if you think he's going to judge you for these things that he's coming, remember we talked all about it, about being healing. The church is a hospital.

01;12;22;07 - 01;12;37;24
Murray Dueck
Yeah. This is why that's an important theology. Because God wants to heal you. He's not going to beat you up. As Jesus said, as he said, you know, why do you hang out with with drunkards and tax collectors? And Jesus is a doctor doesn't come for the for the healthy. He comes for the sick. That's what he's saying.

01;12;37;24 - 01;12;42;20
Murray Dueck
Your paradigm is wrong. I'm not here as a judge. I'm here as a physician of the soul.

01;12;42;20 - 01;12;43;13
Joshua Hoffert
That's right.

01;12;43;16 - 01;13;01;24
Murray Dueck
And one we need to know. The Lord is going to put us back together to. Why? Because he loves us as a really wonderful father. He wants you to be free. He wants you to become fully human. The human he created you to be. As good old Bishop Aaron says, right. The glory of God is man fully alive.

01;13;02;01 - 01;13;33;10
Murray Dueck
You are free of all this stuff. You don't need those triggers. You don't need to keep yourself safe. Father will do it, you know. But to no father to like that, he that quarter of Maximus there to know the love of God. And I really recommend you know those books by Brennan Manning. So and the reason why, as he started a life as a Catholic priest for what, 30 years, then became an evangelical, got married, then became a raging alcoholic, living in the streets of New Orleans in a gutter, then pulled into recovery house and met God, his father.

01;13;33;13 - 01;13;36;07
Murray Dueck
When he talks about father, he you know, he knows what he's talking about.

01;13;36;14 - 01;13;36;28
Murray Dueck
He does.

01;13;37;02 - 01;14;01;03
Murray Dueck
Yeah, that's the starting of your healing right there. And then after that, being aware as you're with the Lord, what triggers you? What what's happening in your soul when you're around people, when you don't succeed, when you don't. Yeah. It it's easy to find these things, you know, God offends the mind to reveal the heart. And eventually he wants to reveal a heart so he can heal us.

01;14;01;05 - 01;14;20;19
Murray Dueck
Yeah, but that's right. And and then it goes to another stage where the Lord starts to confront these things that what used to give us life, let's say we got life out of, what people thought about us. Suddenly favor lifts and nobody asks us to do anything anymore. Nobody wants us. And we're like, oh, what's happening to me?

01;14;20;22 - 01;14;26;28
Murray Dueck
Right? Something's coming up in the heart, So. And that means healings coming, freedoms coming.

01;14;27;01 - 01;14;28;08
Murray Dueck
Yeah. But that's right.

01;14;28;10 - 01;14;42;11
Murray Dueck
So, you know, to learn patterns, learn what's coming. But but again, stillness is important. Then on top of that, doing the Jesus prayer is important. Understanding your pattern, your triggers becomes important.

01;14;42;14 - 01;14;42;18
Murray Dueck
I.

01;14;42;18 - 01;14;53;25
Joshua Hoffert
Think, you know, I think we will we'll we'll have a follow up episode because I want to talk about Macarius and Theo, Pemdas. But, you know, there's just not time and that's fine.

01;14;53;27 - 01;14;55;05
Murray Dueck
That's why we.

01;14;55;05 - 01;15;06;17
Joshua Hoffert
The one of the things that I want to say, bringing everything full circle is, you know, the question originally of are the the desert fathers and mothers connect the link eating and the stomach with lust.

01;15;06;19 - 01;15;12;13
Murray Dueck
Yeah. We didn't we we kind of look at 3000ft view and we just we it we did make it in an hour and a half.

01;15;12;19 - 01;15;37;26
Joshua Hoffert
But we can say we can say this in regards to our are the passions connected with a body part? Absolutely, absolutely. Because when, when Murray you described the, you know, your system of thought and God rocks and, or as a youth pastor and having to set up this whole network of things that, you know, you go you pull on a system of thinking that totally fails you, right?

01;15;38;03 - 01;15;58;16
Joshua Hoffert
Well, what happens? Anxiety happens, fear happens, depression happens, anger happens. And every single one of those is a is not. So where we think things are either physiological or psychosomatic, but they're not one or the other. Right. Because anxiety I feel right here. Right? I feel it in my stomach. Right. And it twists and it turns and it knots me up.

01;15;58;18 - 01;16;04;09
Joshua Hoffert
So is lust connected with the stomach while every passion's connected with the body, because you can't.

01;16;04;09 - 01;16;05;13
Murray Dueck
Have a.

01;16;05;13 - 01;16;31;16
Joshua Hoffert
Feeling and an emotion without a bodily response, because you have biochemical, mechanical, psychosomatic, and physiological responses to every single thing. So all of these things, when I get angry, I feel it flush into my face. Right? And I, I start to lose control of myself. And I, I have a certain kind of dementia about myself. Then right now, this is a physiological psychosomatic response.

01;16;31;16 - 01;16;34;13
Joshua Hoffert
It's both. It's both and it's not either or.

01;16;34;13 - 01;16;34;24
Murray Dueck
Yeah.

01;16;35;01 - 01;16;35;11
Joshua Hoffert
Right.

01;16;35;11 - 01;16;39;09
Murray Dueck
So is and the the desert Fathers don't divide the body, soul and spirit.

01;16;39;09 - 01;16;39;20
Murray Dueck
They don't.

01;16;39;20 - 01;16;42;27
Murray Dueck
They want neat little patterns. They're all interconnected.

01;16;42;27 - 01;16;44;05
Joshua Hoffert
Interconnected.

01;16;44;07 - 01;16;50;16
Murray Dueck
And if you take any one away you're no longer a human being. So they all is be redeemed together.

01;16;50;16 - 01;17;10;21
Joshua Hoffert
It's right. It is connected, but it's not categorized in such a neat little easy thing. Right? So yes, you're the way your body responds to things, in the way your heart responds to things, your emotion. We think it's we just separate those things so easily today and they're just not so easily separated. So yeah, that's what I want to say is we're kind of full circle.

01;17;10;21 - 01;17;17;01
Joshua Hoffert
Then at that point. Right. And and so I think with that, we'll draw this episode to a close. Murr.

01;17;17;04 - 01;17;20;12
Murray Dueck
Yeah. And we'll talk more specifics next week. We can, we will.

01;17;20;12 - 01;17;28;11
Joshua Hoffert
Yeah. Because we we laid it out. I think I'm very happy with how we laid that out. So thank you guys for asking the questions that get us thinking and get us talking.

01;17;28;13 - 01;17;29;01
Murray Dueck
Yeah, it's.

01;17;29;02 - 01;17;40;19
Joshua Hoffert
Really how you're wrestling with the concepts. You're wrestling with the concepts the same way we are. And so that's super helpful. So, as always, it's a delight to spend time with my friends and it's a delight to spend time.

01;17;40;19 - 01;17;56;22
Murray Dueck
With you guys. And, to next week, I guess. Hey, everybody.

01;17;56;25 - 01;17;57;07
Murray Dueck
You.

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Murray Dueck

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