What we have been doing is not working. An interview with David Takle - Part 1

In this episode, Josh and Murr sit down to talk with David Takle, in part about his latest book and how we can recapture a Christ centered theology. In the West, we have exchanged a moral law framework as our theological center. In essence, we tend to operate as if God's objective was to make more law-abiding citizens. But that captures only a miniscule sliver of the heart of God. And it truly fails to capture the explosive nature of the gospel. Tune in as Josh and Murr dive in with David about the failing of modern theological perspectives and how we might find a better way forward (by looking back).

For more about David Takle and Kingdom Formation ministry, visit: https://kingdomformation.org/

To purchase books by David, including Copernicus 2.0, visit: https://humbleshack.net/david-takle/

To support Voices from the Desert, visit out Patreon: patreon.com/VoicesfromtheDesert

Transcript

00;00;17;23 - 00;00;28;26
David Takle
And then the most brilliant thing I had ever said came out of my mouth. I said, whatever it is that I'm doing, it's not working.

00;00;28;28 - 00;00;33;13
Murray Dueck
Yes, but nothing changes it. Staying the same becomes two people.

00;00;33;13 - 00;00;47;21
David Takle
I'm telling you, I suddenly became teachable in a way I had never been. It's beautiful. It's like, now, beyond no fats, there's, like, no landscape. I have no idea where we're going now. I have no idea where.

00;00;47;21 - 00;00;48;29
Murray Dueck
We're going now.

00;00;49;01 - 00;01;03;25
David Takle
I have no idea what we're doing now.

00;01;03;27 - 00;01;13;25
Joshua Hoffert
Welcome, everybody, to another episode of voices from the desert. There's. Oh, there's a two.

00;01;13;28 - 00;01;16;04
Murray Dueck
000.

00;01;16;06 - 00;01;17;16
Joshua Hoffert
The lonely coyote.

00;01;17;17 - 00;01;19;18
Murray Dueck
Hell, it's as good as it gets. David.

00;01;19;20 - 00;01;25;04
Joshua Hoffert
Yeah. My apologies. Yeah. That's right, that's right. One day we'll dub.

00;01;25;04 - 00;01;28;02
Murray Dueck
Over, symbolically speaking. Yeah, it does work.

00;01;28;04 - 00;02;01;23
Joshua Hoffert
Yeah. That's right. We're a pack. We're just a pack of coyotes hanging out in the wilderness. So, you know, the actually the newest news in my neck of the woods in my house is that pretty much from the moment, especially, my wife gets up to the moment we go to bed, there's a live stream on our TV of two bald eagles that just had three babies in Big Bear National Park or Big Bear Valley in a national park in California.

00;02;01;26 - 00;02;22;29
Joshua Hoffert
They've they've fixed a camera series of cameras around the nest. There's like 150ft up in the air. And people have been tracking these birds for years now as they come back and they have more and they repopulate and and so it's it's on upstairs right now. And so every now and then you hear a, eagle squawk.

00;02;23;01 - 00;02;41;11
Joshua Hoffert
And the dog, our dog is like, what is going on in this house? You know, that's all three babies have hatched to my wife and kids. And I watched them hatch. The the third one especially. We saw it hatch and coming out of its shell and everything. And so they've tracked the whole they the, the the I can't remember the names of them.

00;02;41;11 - 00;03;03;23
Joshua Hoffert
The both the birds have names. They're constantly feeding. One of them goes down and catches a fish out of the lake and brings it back. And so we're very much in a wilderness environment in the last couple of days. So the coyote howl seems quite appropriate for my house. It's a apropos for my house. Yes. Yeah. And, it's like it's I mean, this is like ridiculously popular.

00;03;03;23 - 00;03;13;17
Joshua Hoffert
There's Reddit threads and discussions about are the babies going to survive and all this stuff. It's apparently they're kind of celebrities. These two bald eagles, and they don't even know it's the best kind of celebrity.

00;03;13;25 - 00;03;16;17
Murray Dueck
So there you go. That's real humility.

00;03;16;19 - 00;03;27;21
Joshua Hoffert
Yeah. That's right. The lessons we can learn from nature about following Jesus. So, anyway, that's my house right now is bald eagle territory.

00;03;27;24 - 00;03;35;02
Murray Dueck
Now you need to have the video of the other nest. The ospreys, as eagles are going over there stealing all their food to feed their babies.

00;03;35;02 - 00;03;36;16
Joshua Hoffert
That's right, that's right.

00;03;36;16 - 00;03;37;25
Murray Dueck
Because that's what they're doing.

00;03;37;27 - 00;03;38;26
Joshua Hoffert
Yeah. That's right.

00;03;39;00 - 00;03;47;26
Murray Dueck
I have Ospreys and the Eagles. They wait till the osprey catches a fish and then they steal it from them all the time. And it's so very funny thing about the other side.

00;03;48;00 - 00;03;49;13
Joshua Hoffert
You know the bald eagle being the.

00;03;49;18 - 00;03;52;15
Murray Dueck
Candidate in America. We're talking what what's a zip up here.

00;03;52;22 - 00;03;53;28
Joshua Hoffert
That's right, that's right.

00;03;53;28 - 00;03;55;02
Murray Dueck
Well let's not talk about that.

00;03;55;09 - 00;03;59;13
Joshua Hoffert
Well we're bridging the divide right now. We're trying to end the trade war by talking about it.

00;03;59;13 - 00;04;00;05
Murray Dueck
So that's right.

00;04;00;10 - 00;04;00;25
Joshua Hoffert
Yeah.

00;04;00;27 - 00;04;10;11
Murray Dueck
There's a great video online of this Canadian goose being attacked by an eagle. And the Canadian goose one. I just want to say oh yeah. There you go. It's quite popular in Canada actually right now.

00;04;10;15 - 00;04;21;26
Joshua Hoffert
Okay. Well there you force it. It's, you know, this is my appropriate trucker hat. Yeah, like I'm that truckers wear the Canadian thing, but it's shaped like an American flag, so I'm trying to bring some to.

00;04;21;27 - 00;04;22;14
Murray Dueck
Bridge the gap.

00;04;22;20 - 00;04;31;15
Joshua Hoffert
Bridge the gap? That's right. As a as an American living in Canada. So, anyway, we're not a political podcast. We've got a great guest today, though.

00;04;31;17 - 00;04;32;12
Murray Dueck
Yes we do.

00;04;32;13 - 00;04;50;08
Joshua Hoffert
Yes we do. So for those of you that are looking at the video, you can see there's a guest there. For those of you there, listen to the audio. You may have heard him chuckle once or twice at Murray's, Murray's hilarity. So, Murray, what are we talking about? What are we talking about today?

00;04;50;08 - 00;04;59;26
Murray Dueck
Well, journey, you know, David tackles written this this incredible book and I'll let I'll let him talk about that. But it's, you know, as a podcast.

00;04;59;29 - 00;05;03;20
Joshua Hoffert
A bunch of impressive books, actually, and courses and everything. Yeah.

00;05;03;23 - 00;05;10;15
Murray Dueck
So, so we would really like you guys to, to, to to hang out with him, you know, just get to know him and.

00;05;10;17 - 00;05;11;25
Joshua Hoffert
And we want to hang out with them.

00;05;11;25 - 00;05;35;06
Murray Dueck
So yeah. And so we're, we're starting that and you know journey Jesus is the way early Christianity was called the way. And there's not a mistake about that was very intentional way of being a way of being formed a way of being shaped that that's it's becoming like Christ was an adventure of, of of of becoming like the Godhead.

00;05;35;06 - 00;05;57;03
Murray Dueck
And and, you know, David's been on this journey, and, and, you know, it's funny, it's it's kind of like he just, you know, meeting him a little bit here already and, and, it's almost like you can smell the wilderness of the journey in somebody's clothes in a way. And so, I'm I'm looking forward to hearing his journey of becoming like Christ.

00;05;57;05 - 00;06;08;14
Murray Dueck
Because, you know, the same Holy Spirit's working all on all of us. And I think we'll see in our own lives. This great adventure of Jesus Christ forming us. So I'm looking forward to this.

00;06;08;14 - 00;06;09;01
Joshua Hoffert
So, yeah.

00;06;09;02 - 00;06;10;14
Murray Dueck
Thank you for being with us.

00;06;10;15 - 00;06;34;06
Joshua Hoffert
Yeah. Thanks, David. David Ras is you got you and your wife started Kingdom Formation Ministries, right? Is that. Yeah. Is that correct? Yeah. And you, you work. You were, one of the presenters on. My dad was telling me this on the Connexis. The stuff that the, the not that's not life model works. That's the, deeper walk.

00;06;34;06 - 00;06;35;24
Joshua Hoffert
Guys. I think they put it together right.

00;06;35;25 - 00;06;37;23
David Takle
Oh, it's actually Shepherd's house originally. Oh.

00;06;37;24 - 00;07;09;20
Joshua Hoffert
Shepherd's house. Put it together. Okay. Right. So you've been I mean, you've been involved in this kind of niche that's become more and more prevalent, you know, with, with authors and guys like David Banner and, and, and Jim Wilder and it kind of all pulling on what, Dallas Willard was it was I was Willard and Richard Foster were kind of the guys that were the impetus for a research, a modern resurgence in the conversation around spiritual formation.

00;07;09;24 - 00;07;13;09
Joshua Hoffert
Actually, I was going through your blog the other day, and you had Lynn.

00;07;13;11 - 00;07;14;19
Murray Dueck
Hughes trolling you.

00;07;14;21 - 00;07;32;22
Joshua Hoffert
Trolling you. Yeah. You links to an article and I can't read who has written by. I recognize the name, but it was the the common misconceptions about the spiritual form, about spiritual formation, like dispelling the common myths. And you had linked over to that one and it was one of the action. Was it the wrote the article? I'll have to.

00;07;32;22 - 00;07;56;16
Joshua Hoffert
I'll bring it up. And remind myself. But it was really good because the, the kind of some of the critiques of the, spiritual formation, and really what we're talking about is rediscovering discipleship, that that was completely, almost, in a way, completely abandoned in favor of the intellectual pursuit of theology.

00;07;56;23 - 00;08;00;13
Murray Dueck
I mean, to the point we don't even really define that word right anymore. We hear.

00;08;00;13 - 00;08;00;27
Joshua Hoffert
Yeah.

00;08;01;02 - 00;08;01;11
David Takle
All right.

00;08;01;18 - 00;08;26;15
Joshua Hoffert
So people get all kind of up in arms around the conversation maybe, yeah, in some circles about spiritual formation. But we're going we're just talking about discipleship, guys. We're not we're not reinventing something that's not been around for 2000 years or years. Right. And and so, David, you've written, the first book that I, I read that you had written was probably about ten years ago.

00;08;26;18 - 00;09;00;07
Joshua Hoffert
The Truth About Lies, which was very good. Like, they just hit right in the moment that I needed to read that book. And, very formative years in my journey in that sense. And, and then you wrote a book called Forming a Work of Grace, which I love the title. Yeah. And your current book is Copernicus 2.0, which we've agreed is a great title, but maybe the masses might not understand, but so we can explain that title a little bit, because once you understand, it's like Murray, he wrote a book, and it he has the best title of any book that I've ever read.

00;09;00;07 - 00;09;25;01
Joshua Hoffert
And the problem with the book is the title, because once you read the title, you're like, well, I don't even know if I need to read the book anymore on the title. The title is if this were a dream, what would it mean? And you're like, okay, I, I get the idea. And, and so he had the most plain title and you've got a maybe the most, deep take title, you know, or, you know, you're, you got to understand Copernicus and everything to get it.

00;09;25;01 - 00;09;46;03
Joshua Hoffert
So we'll we'll get to that point. But why don't you just talk a little bit about what you guys do presently with Kingdom Formation Ministries and who you're connected with in the sense of who who do you enjoy doing, doing work and life with? I know you said you had one of the best Sundays preaching the other day that you've had in a long time.

00;09;46;03 - 00;09;51;01
Joshua Hoffert
So tell us a little bit about what present life looks like.

00;09;51;03 - 00;10;20;16
David Takle
Well, gosh, I've got my fingers in so many things I hardly know what to do on a given day. I try to do some writing, sometimes shorter articles. A while back, I wrote a, a paper on justification, just about a dozen pages of, taking on the common understanding of justification is all screwed up, and, it's been turned into a legal transaction.

00;10;20;18 - 00;10;40;00
David Takle
Yeah, which it really never was intended to be. So I like to write. I get I get this eggs, you know, something just bugs the daylights out of me, and I have to write it. So straighten out my own head, and, it ends up being an article. Sometimes. Or just short. I wrote something about Anselm a while back.

00;10;40;03 - 00;10;43;05
David Takle
How he. He turned a tournament on its head.

00;10;43;12 - 00;10;44;27
Murray Dueck
Yeah, he really screwed everybody.

00;10;44;27 - 00;11;09;19
David Takle
And I got 1100 A.D.. You know, up to that time, everybody thought atonement was about rescuing humanity. And he turned to, you know, appeasing God. And so it just completely ruined it. So I, you know, just whenever something bugs me, I sit down and write on it. But I also like to give presentations. It's been a while since I've done a seminar.

00;11;09;21 - 00;11;15;19
David Takle
I used to, do seminars on, what I called transformation by design.

00;11;15;22 - 00;11;16;07
Murray Dueck


00;11;16;10 - 00;11;44;05
David Takle
The god. God created a whole, gamut of resources for us to engage in. And there's about a dozen ways to participate in those resources. And there's a context that helps foster all of that process. So what's the what's God's design and transformation? So, you know, I just like to do different things. But every hour are the year I teach a forming class at our church.

00;11;44;08 - 00;12;02;05
David Takle
I'm getting old, so now I need to. I need to train someone else to do the facilitator. You know, and I, I've been at this a long time. But I, I enjoy reading, my my new my new favorite author is Jordan Peterson.

00;12;02;07 - 00;12;02;21
Joshua Hoffert
Okay.

00;12;02;26 - 00;12;09;07
David Takle
Right. Getting familiar with his perceptions of the man has got a a brain like almost no one else.

00;12;09;10 - 00;12;10;03
Joshua Hoffert
Yeah. He does.

00;12;10;06 - 00;12;40;05
David Takle
Pretty fascinating stuff. You don't even have to agree with him. But, man, the guy knows how to think, you know, I love reading. I don't know how many times I've read David Brenner's books. They're just just beautiful. Shawshank, insights and, Christian identity, and who God is and what he's doing. Frankly, I, I reread my own books from time to time.

00;12;40;07 - 00;12;40;18
David Takle
I don't know.

00;12;40;18 - 00;12;45;00
Murray Dueck
It's a great thing. When you get older, you forget stuff. It's all brand new. It. Yeah, yeah. Oh, Jesus.

00;12;45;02 - 00;12;52;11
David Takle
I can't I can't believe I read this. You know, but I think God helps me with my writing quite a bit. You know.

00;12;52;11 - 00;12;53;12
Murray Dueck
I I'm sure he does.

00;12;53;12 - 00;13;20;05
David Takle
I have to I have to credit him with most of the ideas when I was, when I was writing Lamb of God, I would wake up in the morning with a new, with a new idea that hadn't dawned on me before, and I'd sit down and write about, so, you know, and I don't know, it's mostly trying to pay attention and see what's going on.

00;13;20;07 - 00;13;28;12
David Takle
And then my own personal journey, you know, I, I have to, you know, the enemy doesn't like what I'm doing, so,

00;13;28;14 - 00;13;29;10
Joshua Hoffert
Right.

00;13;29;12 - 00;13;47;29
David Takle
You know, I get I get bowled over from time to time, overwhelmed. After I wrote Copernicus, I was depressed for a year and a half. You know, it was my. It was like. Because. Because to write that book, I had to look into the dark depths of what's wrong with the church for 18 months straight.

00;13;48;05 - 00;13;48;21
Joshua Hoffert
Right?

00;13;48;24 - 00;14;17;01
David Takle
And I couldn't take it. It was horrifying to me how badly we have messed up the good news. And and, you know, when you try to explain to someone that how how far nobody believes you, you know, it's like the church couldn't be that far off. Well, I'm sorry, but the Western church has completely lost its way. And and, and, and and they're so resistant to coming back.

00;14;17;03 - 00;14;35;11
David Takle
I see I talk to people all the time. Pastors who've never heard the name Dallas Willard. Or if they have, isn't he kind of controversial or, you know, and, and and it's like this man dwarfs C.S. Lewis and what he's brought to the Christian world.

00;14;35;13 - 00;14;36;14
Joshua Hoffert
Yeah. That's true.

00;14;36;16 - 00;14;40;23
David Takle
And you haven't heard of his name? I mean, come on.

00;14;40;26 - 00;14;41;27
Joshua Hoffert
Yeah.

00;14;41;29 - 00;15;04;10
David Takle
So, yeah, we've got such a such a warfare on our hands. And so I struggle with that from time to time. I have to keep giving that job back to God. It's not. It's not my, But, but he, you know, he's called me to play a part, and I'm trying to do that. And and frankly, you know, I love the fact that there are so many people doing it now.

00;15;04;13 - 00;15;16;08
David Takle
There's authors all over the place that are writing this stuff. Teaching this stuff. It's very encouraging to see, the, the, the life of God popping up all over the world.

00;15;16;11 - 00;15;22;11
Murray Dueck
You're starting to see the, the crocuses. I like the first blooms is exactly right.

00;15;22;11 - 00;15;24;13
Joshua Hoffert
The groundswell has happened. Yeah.

00;15;24;19 - 00;15;27;13
David Takle
So I don't I don't feel alone anymore. You know.

00;15;27;15 - 00;15;28;15
Murray Dueck
That's a beautiful thing.

00;15;28;16 - 00;15;31;28
David Takle
That's, Yeah. There's a lot of people doing this work.

00;15;32;01 - 00;16;06;00
Joshua Hoffert
It it strikes me, I, I mentioned this to you the other day, David, that when Anne Marie and I are back around, you know, we spent on a number of years doing a lot of teaching on prophetic ministry and hearing the voice of God. And in doing that, you realize how, how lacking the, the resources we will have in terms of formation, like, how do I actually go and live every day in a practical way, in a way that that draws me closer and closer to the heart of God, that I might look a little bit more like him.

00;16;06;02 - 00;16;25;25
Joshua Hoffert
And and you go all week, you it's like you can go and you can do as many things about gifts and seminars and prophecy and tongues and healings and miracles and everything, but you're going but that's almost what's got us in the charismatic wing. What's got us whooped so much is we have so much little character that now we're going.

00;16;25;25 - 00;16;45;20
Joshua Hoffert
We look at, you know, big controversies that come out about pastors and leaders and go, well, you know, they messed up 18 months ago. Like that's not that big of a deal, right? They just had an affair. And it's like was like, what what what? We don't even have the value for any kind of set apart life at all.

00;16;45;23 - 00;17;11;09
Joshua Hoffert
And, and so I was so, you know, looking at the, the nexus point of, spiritual gifts, prophetic ministry, the kind of inner healing crowd and the formation crowd, like those things all should dovetail so beautifully together. And for so long they haven't. And they need to and you know, for but they don't. And but they're beginning to.

00;17;11;10 - 00;17;38;25
Joshua Hoffert
Right. People are starting to there's a lot of crossover that's happening now. Like, like one of the things that we tend to do now in, when we're doing prophetic training. Yeah, at least I try, I try and do is rather than getting people to sit down and just kind of by rote prophesy as an exercise it, we're going, well, let's, let's do an exercise that directs your affection to the father and reminds you about a time when he came to you.

00;17;38;27 - 00;18;00;25
Joshua Hoffert
And now let's share that. And by way of sharing that, that ends up being prophecy to the people that are hearing it. And you can see the lights kind of go off on people when they're going, actually, I'm just talking about my story and journey with God and sharing a memory. And now that's this person over here is crying because they heard that and you're going, that's a totally different ballgame when it comes to formative exercise, prophetic ministry and interviewing.

00;18;00;28 - 00;18;30;17
Joshua Hoffert
And so we're starting to see some of those nexus points crop up. And, and, and to your credit, and one of the things that I love about, some of the books I've read that you've done is that those have been part of the journey for me at discovering unique and different ways to bring that. And, so I just want to, for one, say thank you for the things that you've put out there and the length of time you've been doing it for, and that even when you went through 18 months of depression, that you're still here.

00;18;30;19 - 00;18;45;26
Joshua Hoffert
Right? And, that that's something that we can look at and go, yes, we thank you for being that person. But at the same time, understanding how, you know, it's almost like you're you're giving birth, right? And you've got some postpartum depression after.

00;18;45;26 - 00;18;46;07
David Takle
Yes.

00;18;46;11 - 00;18;47;25
Joshua Hoffert
Yeah. Yeah. For sure.

00;18;47;28 - 00;19;06;00
Murray Dueck
You know what I'll share. There's one crazy little thought that David turned over to, just maybe he put the ball on the tee. I first heard of this little, you know, sociological psychological experiment on, believe it or not, back in the day on, James Dobson was talking about it and on focused on the family, probably.

00;19;06;00 - 00;19;30;27
Murray Dueck
And, so and I guess what the cycle psychologist or sociologists did, they decided to pull this fence line out from around this elementary school just to see what the kids would do. Right. And the assumption was that their kids would go wander all around the neighborhood once the fence was gone. And instead, what happened is all the kids gathered into the center of the field in a big like a the huddle, big pile of ants, and nobody went within 20ft of the fence, you know?

00;19;30;27 - 00;19;50;24
Murray Dueck
And they realized, well, that fence just doesn't keep people in. That's not its only job is to keep everybody else out. And and that the church, you know, like you look at Peter in Acts ten, God's pulling down his fence. You know, it's like, hey, you know, you got to read, learn how to rethink here. And I think so much of our theology is like we define ourselves by our fence lines.

00;19;50;24 - 00;20;14;26
Murray Dueck
And when God touches edge, we freak out and say, heresy, you know, and and so much like when you look at the church, how it's screwed up, we've taken so much of the fence line that makes our denomination or our culture or our whatever and say, well, this, this is gospel truth. Instead of realizing, you know, we put a fence line between us and people as a god.

00;20;14;28 - 00;20;23;13
Murray Dueck
And then we say, because I feel safe, I've intimacy, when in fact, no, you just have a fence line. Yeah. So, and.

00;20;23;13 - 00;20;23;28
David Takle
Then you add.

00;20;23;29 - 00;20;25;27
Murray Dueck
How did God pull your fence line down? You add.

00;20;25;27 - 00;20;34;20
David Takle
You add to that that those fences have been there for several centuries. Yeah. And it's hard to believe that they're not supposed to be there.

00;20;34;22 - 00;20;36;13
Murray Dueck
Yes, exactly.

00;20;36;20 - 00;20;37;01
Joshua Hoffert
Yeah.

00;20;37;06 - 00;20;39;24
Murray Dueck
Just because you touch it. Oh my goodness. Right.

00;20;39;24 - 00;20;44;13
Joshua Hoffert
That's right. Bad ideas stay around for a long time.

00;20;44;15 - 00;20;46;02
David Takle
Oh yeah.

00;20;46;04 - 00;20;55;22
Joshua Hoffert
Yeah. We do. I think sometimes we think, well, you know, it's been around for 500 years. It must be a good idea. It's been around for a thousand years. It must be a good idea. I know bad ideas tend to linger.

00;20;55;25 - 00;21;20;04
David Takle
We were talking about the journey. God. God has been showing up in my life over and over for so many times. We wouldn't be able to talk about them all today. I'm. I'm I'm actually 74 years old. I was saved at the age of six. So I've been a Christian for, what, 68 years? And and the journey has looked like this, you know?

00;21;20;07 - 00;21;20;17
Murray Dueck
Yes.

00;21;20;17 - 00;21;48;03
David Takle
And, and and although it also had a downward trend down to about the age 34 and then back up again, what, all these jagged lines and it's. You go it was it's been a very, a roller coaster ride. I, I was, I spent my teen years in a fundamentalist church. I ate, I swallowed everything I, I, I took, I took it all to heart.

00;21;48;05 - 00;22;03;21
David Takle
I created problems in my school because I wouldn't dance. I wouldn't, you know, do half the things that the kids wanted to do, right? But, you know, we couldn't play cards. We couldn't go to movies. I mean, you name it, it was. It was.

00;22;03;26 - 00;22;05;24
Murray Dueck
All. It sounds like you're a good midnight guy, like me.

00;22;05;24 - 00;22;25;04
David Takle
It was very, very limited. But, God stopped talking after the Bible was written so we couldn't hear him. The Age of Miracles was over, so that didn't happen. And and whatever. But talk about the kingdom. Of course, the kingdom was only a physical reality that would happen sometime in the future.

00;22;25;04 - 00;22;26;15
Murray Dueck
Yes, future.

00;22;26;17 - 00;23;01;13
David Takle
And so there was no sense of the reign of God in the present world. You just you had to read and study the Bible. You know, spiritual growth was equated with, with Bible knowledge. The more you know, the more spiritual you were. And, and so I could teach I could teach Bible classes, I could teach adult classes, but, you know, by the time I was 19, I had this strange realization that I couldn't talk about my personal problems in church.

00;23;01;15 - 00;23;01;29
Murray Dueck
Yes.

00;23;02;00 - 00;23;02;21
Joshua Hoffert
All right.

00;23;02;24 - 00;23;13;03
David Takle
Let's a and, you know, I'd be ostracized if I had really come clean with, you know, I was a teenager. I had problems.

00;23;13;06 - 00;23;14;26
Joshua Hoffert
Right.

00;23;14;29 - 00;23;33;11
David Takle
So I started, I started praying, God, I don't know what's wrong. I don't know where to find the answers, but what I need, I need you and, I mean, one of the first things God did was send me a mentor, for about, I was 19 years old. This guy shows up and I'm walking down the street.

00;23;33;12 - 00;23;55;15
David Takle
He pulls his car over and says, you need a ride, mister? Sure, I get it. And he says, you're a Christian, aren't you? And so I said, okay, who told you? Well, God, you know. And so he mentored me for seven months. Then I had wow. I was in the air Force at the time, so I got, I got re stationed somewhere else.

00;23;55;15 - 00;24;24;14
David Takle
So I lost my mentor, but, anyway, the stuff that he told me. Saul, Saul bothered me, you know, it was so contradictory to everything I had heard growing up. And yet the man's gentle spirit told me he knew what he was talking about. So at the age of 22, I started opening books again. Like. Like, digging into the theologian.

00;24;24;14 - 00;24;48;25
David Takle
But actually the dispensation theologians, you know, Dallas Theological Seminary that that we had, erred and odd at all. But in my original church, we thought these guys were the most smartest men on the planet. Well, reading these theologians brought my faith and dispensation of.

00;24;48;28 - 00;24;50;12
Murray Dueck


00;24;50;14 - 00;25;14;15
David Takle
Because I could see how they were twisting Scripture. Eventually it dawned on me. They're looking at the Bible through a set of lenses. Yeah, yeah. And and they cannot see what it shows anymore. All right. So so now I'm like a draft, right? Okay. Everything I was told and taught is at, you know, up for grabs.

00;25;14;16 - 00;25;17;03
Murray Dueck
Now there's your fence line being ripped up right there.

00;25;17;03 - 00;25;41;09
David Takle
Oh, God. There was no fence no more. And, so it was just a whole series of things that came and went and, I went to Bethel College and Saint Paul's for a while, and, I dropped out because I couldn't afford to stay and got a job in the computer industry. I, I had an aptitude for it.

00;25;41;09 - 00;26;13;19
David Takle
And so I was, I was a systems, Engineer for years. Well, At the same time, though, I felt like, you know, should. So I dropped out of Bethel College. God didn't need me anymore. And, you know, I'd lost my whatever job I was supposed to have, you know, it. Working for God.

00;26;13;22 - 00;26;39;26
David Takle
And then, I at the time, I was, you know, I came from a very dysfunctional family. We were, very disengaged. A lot of emotional, violence in the church, in, in the family. It was best I missed. My strategy was to be invisible as much as possible. Right. And, you know, it's a it's an interesting coping system, but but in the end, I.

00;26;40;03 - 00;27;05;02
David Takle
I didn't know who I was because you can't find out who you are if you're in a, in, isolation. And I didn't know how to make friends. I didn't know how to build social connections. I believed I was alone in the world, and, the that just went on and on. I married, at the age of 19, out of desperation.

00;27;05;05 - 00;27;30;23
David Takle
Like I was so emotionally, in so much pain. I thought maybe, a marriage would solve that. The person I married came from a worse background than mine. So my. And so, you know, two dysfunctional people just can't figure it out that you just you trying to reinvent the wheel, and you're trying to do things differently than your family did, but you're making a whole new set of mistakes.

00;27;30;25 - 00;27;34;07
Joshua Hoffert
You've trying to reinvent the wheel and you've never even seen a wheel in the first place.

00;27;34;08 - 00;27;58;05
David Takle
We have no idea where we're going. And of course, eventually we drifted apart. And, she decided she could no longer be a Christian. And so, that was like, I don't know, I ended up reading, it was it was actually Francis Schaefer that saved my life in those days. You know, the God who was there.

00;27;58;07 - 00;28;20;28
David Takle
There's a book he wrote, and, that one, that one grounded me again. So I didn't lose my faith. I did drop out of church for a while, and then the, you know, someone would come to the front door and say, are you Mr. Johnson? I know he lives next door. Well, as long as I'm here. Do you know Jesus?

00;28;21;01 - 00;28;28;26
David Takle
And this stuff went on, I mean, incessantly for six months. Well, I finally went back to church and it all quit, so.

00;28;28;26 - 00;28;30;01
Murray Dueck
Oh, isn't that interesting?

00;28;30;04 - 00;28;38;07
David Takle
So talk about balance of having, you know, God was not going to let me go. I mean, this guy, this is this is my journey. It was this kind of stuff all the time. Yeah.

00;28;38;08 - 00;28;43;01
Murray Dueck
Sometimes God seems bigger when he's chasing you.

00;28;43;03 - 00;28;47;06
David Takle
Well, you know, the the rearview mirror took the choir closer to that.

00;28;47;06 - 00;28;48;10
Joshua Hoffert
They appeared.

00;28;48;12 - 00;29;23;17
David Takle
But but things continued to decline. And in spite of the fact that I would still teach classes and everything else, I might. Theology, you know, I, I knew all of that stuff, but, at the age of, gosh, I was about 20, no, 34 1984, we finally got divorced and and 18 months later, I was on the floor of my trailer house at that time looking at the ceiling for two days.

00;29;23;20 - 00;29;50;09
David Takle
And it's like, how did I get here? How did I get here? I did everything right. I did all I followed all the rules. Yeah, I was a nice, clean Baptist boy. Why am I why is my life a throw away piece of junk? And. And then the most brilliant thing I had ever said came out of my mouth.

00;29;50;12 - 00;29;56;09
David Takle
I said, whatever it is that I'm doing, it's not working.

00;29;56;12 - 00;30;00;17
Murray Dueck
Yes. Nothing changes. Adele's staying, the same becomes stupid.

00;30;00;21 - 00;30;14;23
David Takle
Oh, I'm telling you, I suddenly became teachable in a way I had never been beautiful. It's like, wow, now, now there are no fads. There's like, no landscape. I have no idea where we're going now.

00;30;14;26 - 00;30;42;27
Joshua Hoffert
Hey, everybody. Joshua Hoffert here. Murray and I have officially launched our Patreon. You can head on over to Patreon.com slash voices from the desert to check it out. You can support Marie and I. You can support the podcast by signing up as a member there on Patreon. You'll gain access to the video podcast long before anybody else. Well, that's right, we're recording videos of these and releasing them on Patreon long before they'll be available on any other platform.

00;30;43;00 - 00;31;11;24
Joshua Hoffert
Also exclusive to our Patreon members, you will gain access to our free recording conversations. We've been talking about this for the last year and a half about recording our conversations leading up to the podcast, but we're finally doing it. So you'll get Marie and I our songs leading up to the recording, how we're planning things, the kind of things we're talking about all off the air conversations and and our conversations with our guests, all the all the things we've been talking about before we start recording.

00;31;11;24 - 00;31;37;06
Joshua Hoffert
But we're going to record those and just candidly work through that the same way. So you'll gain access to that, and we'll be hosting digital meetups so that we can you can get to know us and we can get to know you. We'd love to hear from you. We'd love to answer your questions, star along with you, and we'll be able to engage with you through our Patreon, your posts and comments and shares, and down the line we'll be sharing resources with you like pre-released book chapters and and book apps or excerpts that we're working on.

00;31;37;06 - 00;31;53;16
Joshua Hoffert
So we have all kinds of things planned for our Patreon, and you can sign up now if you go to Patreon.com, voices from the desert, support Murray, support myself and support the podcast, and we'd love to see you there. Now back to the podcast.

00;31;53;18 - 00;32;19;09
David Takle
Wow! But God gave me a picture and I didn't believe in visions or I didn't. Wasn't a vision, but I this image came into my mind of a light at the end of a tunnel and God said, there's hope. There's hope. Wow. Just, I ended up actually joining a secular recovery group. I think I said earlier in our comments that Minnesota was a recovery Mecca in those days.

00;32;19;16 - 00;32;54;05
David Takle
This is the mid mid 1980s. I joined a recovery group for people who had lost a relationship, whether to death or divorce. And I was in that for a number of years. I actually became a facilitator. They had a phenomenal facilitator training program. But I discovered things in that group. One was community. You know, a lot of people enjoying when they join a 12 step group, they find, oh, my gosh, this is what community is supposed to look like.

00;32;54;07 - 00;33;23;24
David Takle
And then we started asking, how come the church doesn't know this? Yeah. I'll come up finding stuff in this secular self-help group that the church doesn't know. And it's life giving. Something's not right here. And so, you know, again, add this to the pot. I'm still searching, wondering, started dealing with myself. Hey. Starting to deal with family.

00;33;23;24 - 00;33;45;18
David Takle
A family of origin issues. Started looking for a therapist. I was, I was desperate, I looked everywhere, I met my wife, my my current wife, Jan, at facilitator training. I felt like we grew up together after that. You know, we just. We were both on this journey of trying to find out what happened to our life.

00;33;45;20 - 00;34;16;00
David Takle
And, we we we got married. We started going to Leon Payne conferences. We found an amazing, church in, in Minneapolis. Dave Johnson was the pastor at the church of the Open Door. Probably the most grace filled preaching I I've ever heard in my life. The man was amazing. And we sat under him for five years.

00;34;16;02 - 00;34;40;19
David Takle
And it brought Jan and I together, spiritually. And, she'd come from a Lutheran background, which, was really hard to define what they believed, you know, yeah. In her background and, and, and of course, this Dave Johnson preached a message of grace. He and a friend of his actually wrote a book on legalism.

00;34;40;19 - 00;35;11;13
David Takle
And the scourge that it was to the church. In fact, that's how I found that's how I found Dave Johnson. I read the I read his book. So, gosh, fast forward a few years. Late, 1999, we were in, Leon Payne conference and she had a massive book table charged in, and I picked up a book and looked at the back cover and I said, this looks interesting.

00;35;11;15 - 00;35;26;01
David Takle
There was a divine conspiracy by Dallas Willard hot off the press. And, I took it home with me and it changed my life because I was looking for a new worldview. And that's what that book had to offer.

00;35;26;04 - 00;35;26;14
Joshua Hoffert
Yeah.

00;35;26;14 - 00;35;44;10
David Takle
For sure. You know, people complain that it's hard to read, but it's because they're trying to plug it into their own worldview. It's easy to read if you approach it with, I have no idea who I am or where I'm going, and, I need a I need someone who has a lantern to show me the way.

00;35;44;12 - 00;36;10;27
David Takle
And this man just changed my world. He gave me a kingdom worldview, gave me a vocabulary for it. And, suddenly I was on a journey that was leading to life. And then about a year later, we stumbled on to an inner healing ministry that understood what to do with the craziness that was in our heads. That's eventually turned into the truth about life's book.

00;36;10;29 - 00;36;33;14
David Takle
Okay, but that was that was a ministry that knew how to minister to the lies that you believed. And coming from a dysfunctional family. I believed a lot of them, including self-hate and and, you know, how I fit into the world and what matters, I had all these wounds, that I had baggage I was carrying around.

00;36;33;14 - 00;36;57;03
David Takle
This ministry spoke into all of those. Wonderful. Well, my Jan and I started praying with each other with this ministry model, and we started getting healing on a daily basis, almost from things that we had been fighting with in this self-help group for years. You know, we had terminology for what was wrong, but we didn't know how to fix any other.

00;36;57;05 - 00;36;58;10
Joshua Hoffert
Right, right.

00;36;58;10 - 00;37;24;10
David Takle
And so, recovery is is an extremely slow process if you're doing it without God. Well, this guy knew how to bring God into the message, into the mission. And, and so, within months, I was online looking for a seminary. It's like, if God can do this stuff, I want out of the computer industry.

00;37;24;13 - 00;37;32;04
David Takle
We landed in, in 2001. We moved to Pasadena and I went to Fuller Seminary, 50 years old.

00;37;32;07 - 00;37;33;25
Murray Dueck
Wow.

00;37;33;28 - 00;38;14;21
David Takle
And that was an interesting experience in itself. You know, all the most of the most of the students were 25, you know, no life experience. No. Not some they just they were still shooting on films from teenage invincibility and, and so, like, trying to have conversations with these kids was a, that's another story. But, but I had to go to seminary to get a, a a a a partly just to expose myself to the larger, evangelical world and partly to learn how to think theologically better.

00;38;14;24 - 00;38;42;18
David Takle
And so the seminary training was mostly about how to think. And, and that's, that's been very instrumental in, in my ability to write. So I really credit them with that even more than the content that I learned. You know, I what I learned in Greek classes that I will never be a Greek scholar. So, I mean, there's all kinds of things, like, I can tell you stories about seminary, but, so, yeah, it's.

00;38;42;25 - 00;39;08;21
David Takle
And of course, once I read Divine Conspiracy, I devoured everything I could find that Dallas Willard had anything to do with. And while we were in Pasadena, we we got connected to Shepherd's house, and, and, Dallas Willard was on the board of reference for that organization, and, and Jane Willard, his wife, had actually worked at Shepherd's house in the 90s.

00;39;08;23 - 00;39;40;15
David Takle
Oh one that was a professional counseling center. But it reopened in 2002 as a pastoral care center. So you didn't need a license to work there. So Jane and I both, signed on, and we worked at, Shepherd's house, and I saw I ministered to man and and, she, she did her prayer ministry there and, that was quite, a quite an adventure in itself.

00;39;40;17 - 00;40;04;20
David Takle
But in the process, I ended up meeting Jane Willard, because she would show up from time to time. She introduced me to Dallas. And so it was like a wonderful. You know, I got to sit in on a couple of his lectures and, when he when he would teach at Anaheim Vineyard or someplace and, just I just there was no, it was no mystery how this man was able to write what he could.

00;40;04;21 - 00;40;27;22
David Takle
You didn't have to. You didn't have to be around him very long before you knew he. He knew the Lord. You know this? He just walked with him all the time and, and so, that was that was amazing. And then they, they, they decided to create a video series. And that gave me the opportunity to, to write the forming cause.

00;40;27;25 - 00;40;53;11
David Takle
Oh one and, I sat down with the Lord and in about 30 minutes he gave me the, the outline for the course. And, it took me six years to put it into and, where we could film it. We tried it about 15 times and kept changing it. You know, when I started, I had so much I wanted to say, I, I you burned up all the time teaching.

00;40;53;14 - 00;41;16;28
David Takle
But every time we taught it, you know, the feedback we got is good. You do more experiments, you know, more exercises, more whatever it is. Course. So. So the teaching kept shrinking and the exercise time kept growing and the discussion wonderful drawing. And the course became more life giving. And, so I learned a lot about, you know, you can only show you so much.

00;41;16;28 - 00;41;39;29
David Takle
And then you people, the only way you can enter into spiritual formation is to start doing it. Right. And so, so everything I couldn't, everything I couldn't put in the course. Then I put it in the book, Big Book. And that's where forming a work of Grace came from. But, that was that was a wonderful adventure in itself.

00;41;40;02 - 00;41;55;29
David Takle
But once we once we filmed the thing, then we escaped from California and came back to we we moved to North Carolina because after being in California for Pasadena for ten years, we couldn't go. We couldn't go back to Minnesota.

00;41;56;01 - 00;41;58;03
Murray Dueck
So, yes.

00;41;58;05 - 00;42;21;24
David Takle
So we moved to North Carolina. Actually, our daughter was here, or Jan's daughter was here at the time with her husband. But, and they moved they moved away shortly after because of his work. But we we figured out we belong here anyway, and it was through our connections here that we got connected with, Father Andrew, now, Bishop Andrew Miller.

00;42;21;26 - 00;42;24;27
Joshua Hoffert
We will have on the podcast we've got him scheduled for April. So.

00;42;24;27 - 00;42;25;16
David Takle
Wonderful.

00;42;25;16 - 00;42;27;01
Joshua Hoffert
Wonderful. Yeah.

00;42;27;04 - 00;42;52;22
David Takle
And so, Andy and I became great friends. We would, we'd go over to to Raleigh area and listen to us teaching all day, and then we'd we'd sit around and, in the evening and, and, shoot the breeze for hours and, had a great time. So, I mean, so, of course, heart sink ministry was what he taught.

00;42;52;22 - 00;43;23;29
David Takle
And and that was a, another a whole nother layer of inner healing, probably the deepest stuff we have ever encountered. You can you can, and just, you know, I don't want to explain his theology, but I think the single greatest contribution he made was the awareness that that, soul injuries divide us. We we we we fracture.

00;43;24;01 - 00;43;45;28
David Takle
Sin caused us fracturing, and the world causes fracturing. And part of what God wants to do is bring those pieces back together. You know, we talk about the head heart split a lot. And that's just one example. There's every, you know, every time, tragedy hits you know, part of us feels this way about it, and part of us feels that way about it.

00;43;45;28 - 00;44;08;16
David Takle
Yes, yes. We're torn. You know, we we believe two opposing things at the same time. All right? There's parts of us that hide out because we can't stand the thought of going there. Because the page too big. I mean, and it's learning how to pull all these pieces back together and, and, make us into a whole, whole people again.

00;44;08;16 - 00;44;36;11
David Takle
So that's kind of a bird's eye view of the journey. It never, you know, it's gotten to where, you know, Jan and I often look at each other and say, you never know when you get up in the morning what God's going to do, because we're surprised all the time, you know, there's, you know, one day somebody calls up and says, we'd like to translate one of your books to Spanish.

00;44;36;14 - 00;44;55;15
David Takle
Okay. What does that look like? You know, I mean, I didn't I didn't go looking for that. The, This this last week, I gave permission to somebody to translate the workbook into Lithuanian. I mean, oh, wow. Who would have thought? You know, I just.

00;44;55;15 - 00;44;57;12
Joshua Hoffert
Write.

00;44;57;15 - 00;45;06;02
David Takle
You. Right? So you just never know. I mean, God's at work, and, And I'm just trying to keep up these days.

00;45;06;04 - 00;45;07;16
Murray Dueck
Wow. Wonderful.

00;45;07;18 - 00;45;16;24
Joshua Hoffert
I love, I love that it took it took him 30 minutes to give you the outline and use six years to figure out what it was based on the arc.

00;45;16;27 - 00;45;19;13
David Takle
Yeah, that was absolutely.

00;45;19;15 - 00;45;20;14
Joshua Hoffert
Yeah.

00;45;20;16 - 00;45;21;17
David Takle
Yeah.

00;45;21;19 - 00;45;24;06
Joshua Hoffert
Yeah. That's wonderful.

00;45;24;08 - 00;45;26;16
David Takle


00;45;26;19 - 00;45;57;26
Joshua Hoffert
I'm I'm one of the things that, you wrote in the forming book that I thought just so accurately depicted the problem, was the the boat analogy. Yeah. And so maybe, maybe, and the boat analogy is basically that, much of Christian discipleship that revolves around the, I can remember the three you put, but you can enter any three in there stacking chairs, church attendance and reading your Bible.

00;45;57;26 - 00;46;18;01
Joshua Hoffert
You know, that's if you do these things, you will be saved. And but but you the analogy was that it's like we've been given one or to row the boat and been told, put a lot of effort into that. Yeah. And if you put enough effort into it, you'll eventually get somewhere. And most of the people are going around in circles with that.

00;46;18;03 - 00;46;36;02
Joshua Hoffert
And can you speak a little bit more to that? Like that? I love I just love how that captures where we see quote unquote discipleship programs are understanding of spiritual growth and progress. Yes. We were putting a lot of effort in with little results.

00;46;36;02 - 00;46;36;21
David Takle
Yeah.

00;46;36;23 - 00;46;51;04
Joshua Hoffert
Absolutely. And I know Willard talked about the indirect effect of disciplines, right. That that what you do over here actually has a major impact over here. It's not designed to have impact over here. Yeah. And, and so maybe you could speak into that a little bit.

00;46;51;06 - 00;47;01;02
David Takle
Yeah. You know, and we'll need to touch on what's wrong with the gospel as well, because, yes, the the God.

00;47;01;06 - 00;47;02;06
Joshua Hoffert
That underpins everything.

00;47;02;06 - 00;47;09;13
David Takle
The fact that we the fact that most of the church doesn't know what the gospel is, is the reason why we have this problem.

00;47;09;15 - 00;47;10;02
Joshua Hoffert
Right.

00;47;10;03 - 00;47;32;24
David Takle
And that is that, the gospel is all about how to go to heaven when you die. And then, and so people believe they can be a Christian forever without ever being a disciple. In fact, there's no connection between salvation and freedom from evil or, or becoming, you know, sanctification. So true that it's just been crazy.

00;47;32;24 - 00;47;33;17
Joshua Hoffert
To just say it.

00;47;33;22 - 00;47;34;02
David Takle
Yes.

00;47;34;04 - 00;47;40;07
Joshua Hoffert
It's also crazy to say it out loud. There's no connection between salvation and freedom from evil.

00;47;40;07 - 00;47;51;01
David Takle
That's true. Yeah, yeah. Jesus came to destroy the works of the enemy and and to set us free. That's the whole point. This is the new exodus. And so,

00;47;51;03 - 00;47;52;15
Murray Dueck
Wow, what a great statement.

00;47;52;19 - 00;48;19;11
David Takle
That's from Angie, right? So this is like, you have to so if you have salvation with no connection, you know, and and God doesn't talk to you, what are you going to do for discipleship? You read the Bible, you try to figure out what lessons they, can be learned from it, and you try to apply it to your life.

00;48;19;14 - 00;48;24;16
David Takle
This is this is turning the Bible into a self-help book.

00;48;24;18 - 00;48;25;23
Joshua Hoffert
Yes. Right.

00;48;25;25 - 00;48;48;23
David Takle
I mean, nobody would say that out loud, but that's what's happening. And so so you just keep trying hard to crank out what it looks like the New Testament wants you to do. In fact, you read the Bible as a how to book or a to do book. And and instead of a vision for what life in the kingdom might look like.

00;48;48;25 - 00;48;49;18
Joshua Hoffert
All right. Right.

00;48;49;18 - 00;49;11;17
David Takle
So big difference. Yeah. And so so you keep trying to apply these lessons. It finally dawned on me one day. I'm sorry. It's actually while I was writing the The Farming course, it dawned on me, you know, if you look at these stories in the Bible that we're supposed to learn from each other, how did this how did the disciple learn?

00;49;11;19 - 00;49;37;01
David Takle
Well, they learn by talking to Jesus, and he helped them with their problem they were having. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Who's going to be greatest in the kingdom? They couldn't figure this out. And Jesus helped them with that. Well, the lesson I need to learn from that is not how to be humble. It's how to learn from Jesus. Okay, what if we could learn the way they.

00;49;37;01 - 00;49;39;07
Murray Dueck
Learn how to them?

00;49;39;09 - 00;49;41;13
David Takle
Now there's an idea.

00;49;41;16 - 00;49;42;25
Joshua Hoffert
Yeah.

00;49;42;27 - 00;50;04;28
David Takle
So I mean, but but we never make that gap. We never make that break because nobody knows how to talk to God anymore. He quit talking. Yeah, you know so. And you can't trust what's going on in your head. You know, I was taught growing up there's only three ways to know the word of God. You read the Bible, see if you can find some evidence there.

00;50;05;01 - 00;50;10;01
David Takle
But of course, depending on the context, you can get two different answers.

00;50;10;03 - 00;50;13;25
Joshua Hoffert
Yeah, yeah. All right. Go smash the baby's heads against the rocks.

00;50;13;25 - 00;50;26;27
David Takle
Yeah, that's that's a good. That doesn't help. You know, I'm having a parenting problem, right? Where am I going to fight? There's not much about parenting in the Bible, quite frankly. And so. Right. You know.

00;50;27;00 - 00;50;29;23
Joshua Hoffert
There's a lot of there's a lot of how the parents got it wrong.

00;50;29;24 - 00;50;46;08
David Takle
It doesn't say, like, ADHD. What do I do with my, you know, so, all right. Second, second source is, is your friends. Well, they're having the same problem with the Bible I'm having. So how reliable are they?

00;50;46;10 - 00;50;46;27
Murray Dueck
Yes.

00;50;46;27 - 00;51;12;26
David Takle
And then the third option is circumstance. Well, trying to read circumstances is like reading tea leaves. You know, it's like, is this something I'm supposed to overcome or something I'm supposed to walk away from circumstances? Don't tell me anything. So. So these three guiding principles for how to know the will of God were almost useless. But never did it show up that well.

00;51;12;26 - 00;51;29;05
David Takle
Maybe we should talk to God about this. Well, you can't trust your feelings. You know, James Dobson taught us that you can't trust your emotions. And, and, you know, they come last in the caboose or whatever, you know.

00;51;29;07 - 00;51;31;02
Murray Dueck
Oh that's right. Yeah.

00;51;31;04 - 00;51;56;11
David Takle
Bill. But actually, that's a misunderstanding of what he taught. But that's another story. Anyway, so if you can't trust your emotions and you don't know what you're hearing is from God or from the enemy, and there's no mentors to help you with that, you're back to rowing the boat. Okay? Just try hard to do what the Bible says you're supposed to be doing.

00;51;56;14 - 00;52;18;16
David Takle
So you keep rolling and growing and rolling. And when you don't get very far. And our analogy was, what if you could? What if you could hoist a sail and catch the wind of the spirit? Now sailing I didn't you ever tried sailing? And sailing is hard work, right? It's not like it's not. It's not. I'm. We're not talking about, you know, easy life.

00;52;18;16 - 00;52;44;29
David Takle
We're talking about a different kind of work, which is aligning with the Spirit of God so that he can do something. We can't do. I can't change my character by an act of the will. Doesn't work that way. Yeah, spirit of God can do it if I learn how to align, if I learn how to participate. And in fact, participation is a key word.

00;52;45;01 - 00;53;02;26
David Takle
Right, that that most of the church doesn't know what to do. Or if you're doing all the work of rowing, you're not participating with anybody. You're not, you're not. That's not participating with God. And if you if you say, well, then I'll let God do it, I'm just going to pray a prayer and expect to wake up different tomorrow morning.

00;53;02;28 - 00;53;04;29
David Takle
That's not participate in either.

00;53;05;01 - 00;53;05;12
Joshua Hoffert
Right?

00;53;05;19 - 00;53;06;02
Murray Dueck
Yeah. Right.

00;53;06;07 - 00;53;36;24
David Takle
So, you know, what does it look like to engage and work with the Holy Spirit to find out? You know what I mean? If you look at what a disciple was in the first century, they literally walked in the footsteps of their rabbi. They asked him about everything that happened, wanted to know how he saw it, what he thought about life, and and then tried to live like he did.

00;53;36;26 - 00;53;52;18
David Takle
It's a very interactive process, right? That's what a disciple is. Someone who follows someone to find out who they are, how they live, and then try to be like that, that, that, that never came up on the radar.

00;53;52;21 - 00;53;53;22
Joshua Hoffert
Right.

00;53;53;24 - 00;54;01;08
David Takle
So wow. Yeah, it's a completely different approach. The rowing and sailing are two different worlds.

00;54;01;10 - 00;54;02;18
Joshua Hoffert
All right.

00;54;02;20 - 00;54;19;02
Murray Dueck
You know, it's funny, I have a friend of mine who teaches, people how to hear God's voice, and he gets invited to a lot of conservative churches that are kind of like half the church wants to do this. Half dozen, you know? So the half that doesn't say to him, well, how can you believe God speaks? And he has this really great way of formulating this.

00;54;19;02 - 00;54;36;20
Murray Dueck
He goes, well, do you believe in conviction? Go. Yes. So do you believe God can convict you of a certain sin done in a certain place? Yes. Like they have to say yes to that. Right. And, And do you believe God could, tell you who to talk to and repent? Yes. Because. Well, isn't that God speaking?

00;54;36;23 - 00;54;53;16
Murray Dueck
They go. Well, I never thought of it that way. Go. And then. And then the kicker. Right. So we we all believe God speaks, right? Conviction. But then we tell them, we tell everybody he's ABBA father, but he can only talk to us when we're bad back. Does that make sense to you? Yeah.

00;54;53;19 - 00;54;54;13
David Takle
Yeah.

00;54;54;15 - 00;54;55;29
Murray Dueck
And he's got up right there.

00;54;56;02 - 00;55;05;20
David Takle
Okay. Well, yeah. Yeah. And I think I think you've got to there's something there that a lot of people have heard from God, but they just never recognized it as that.

00;55;05;22 - 00;55;06;06
Joshua Hoffert
Right?

00;55;06;07 - 00;55;09;15
Murray Dueck
They just thought, oh, yeah, they're taught that. Nope. They thought it was conscience.

00;55;09;22 - 00;55;27;03
David Takle
You know. But we also people also often get inspired to do something wonderful, like I, you know, I really feel led to do something. Well, you know, for this person over here, the number dawns on them that maybe that was God prompting the Lord.

00;55;27;10 - 00;55;30;04
Joshua Hoffert
Yeah, right.

00;55;30;06 - 00;55;30;17
David Takle
Right.

00;55;30;18 - 00;55;32;22
Joshua Hoffert
And pastor. Right.

00;55;32;28 - 00;55;43;22
David Takle
Pat, my, the pastor that told me, God, quit talking at the end of the first century, always. He had no problem saying, I feel led to do such and such.

00;55;43;23 - 00;55;47;15
Murray Dueck
Exactly right.

00;55;47;17 - 00;55;47;26
Joshua Hoffert
Come on.

00;55;47;27 - 00;55;50;10
David Takle
Right. You can't have it both ways. Right?

00;55;50;13 - 00;56;28;00
Joshua Hoffert
Yeah, yeah. One of the things that Marie and I have have, been just on that note, thoroughly convinced, after, you know, even. Yeah, just a cursory look at early church history goes this whole cessation as position is so bunk that that somehow everything stopped at some point. It's like, what's the point that it stopped at? Because you can look at every single century from the time of Jesus to now and find someone talking about the supernatural manifestation of God's voice and speaking whatever it is, it never stops, right?

00;56;28;02 - 00;56;45;14
Joshua Hoffert
Yeah. And, and we've, you know, in a way, you know, one of my, one of my friends who who trains people to hear the voice of God, he he says, you know, the really what we're doing is we're teaching you how all the ways that you've learned to tune his voice out. That's really what really teaching you.

00;56;45;14 - 00;57;04;06
Joshua Hoffert
Because once you remove all of that, you know, it just becomes natural because he's always speaking to you. And David said his thoughts are more numerous towards me than the sands on the seashore, you know, so it's not like he's he's not like he's ever absent a thought towards you. Yeah. That's a lot of thoughts to one person.

00;57;04;09 - 00;57;20;09
Joshua Hoffert
And and David practically engages with that. Right. He's show me if there's any way of pain within me. And teach me your ways, O Lord, that I might know you. You know you've got all these things where he's, like, engaging with that in a very practical way. I remember a, a number of years ago, a dream I had.

00;57;20;09 - 00;57;44;22
Joshua Hoffert
And this is one of the reasons why your boat analogy was so meaningful to me. I had this dream where I was standing and looking at a sailboat, and I was with the owner of the sailboat, and, and we were kind of talking about the sailboat, and I knew that in the past I had taken the sailboat out without him realizing it, you know, or or absent his presence on the boat, something like that.

00;57;44;24 - 00;58;06;25
Joshua Hoffert
And, but when I took the boat out, I only ever used the outboard motor and puttered around in the in the harbor. And I was realizing as he was showing me the boat that I had never learned how to set the sail and catch the wind. All I'd ever done was put that. But that little puttered motor and just puttered around a little bit into the water.

00;58;07;02 - 00;58;24;13
Joshua Hoffert
But this thing had so much more potential than just putting the the motor down in there. And I was a bit embarrassed, actually, in the dream because I was going, I've used this thing so many times in the past, but I've never actually used it for what it was intended to do. And, I mean, I woke up from that dream.

00;58;24;13 - 00;58;43;20
Joshua Hoffert
I had no idea what it meant, you know, when I woke up from it and I was spending some time in prayer and it just dawned on me all of a sudden that that was a picture of my spiritual life, that I was active and go, go, go until I got totally depleted and exhausted. Right? Once the once the motor runs out, or once the gas runs out, you can't go any further.

00;58;43;20 - 00;59;05;10
Joshua Hoffert
And that I'd never really learned how to be moved by the Holy Spirit and how to just live in connection with it and participation, as you said. So when I read your analogy, I was like, oh, yeah, I get that 100% like that's that, that that particular, imagery is so, evoked of when it comes to how, how we just don't know.

00;59;05;10 - 00;59;32;10
Joshua Hoffert
And, you know, in one sense, as you said, it's like we don't it's just like growing up, like when you're growing up, when you have a a parent who's active and invested in your life, both your parents, you start to learn how to live. But when you don't have that, it's very difficult to learn how to live. And you often have to learn much later because you have other people that come alongside or you fail so much that eventually you have to piece together some kind of semblance of what it means to live.

00;59;32;12 - 00;59;47;11
Joshua Hoffert
And and part of the problem was, as we were talking, I think, before we actually started recording, about trying to find spiritual mothers and fathers, you know, it's wonderful that you had this man who, just showed up and said, come into my car. Yeah, that's like, you know, we tell.

00;59;47;14 - 00;59;48;05
Murray Dueck
You right away.

00;59;48;09 - 00;59;49;07
Joshua Hoffert
Don't do that. Yeah.

00;59;49;07 - 00;59;53;05
David Takle
I frontier that was in the 70s, you know that. Yeah. So I mean you can still.

00;59;53;05 - 00;59;56;17
Joshua Hoffert
Yeah. You can still check that. Yeah. Oh, God. Good stuff. Yeah.