When God Seems Distant: From Dry Seasons to Spiritual Growth (with Kyle Strobel)

Host Geoff Holsclaw interviews Dr. Kyle Strobel (Institute for Spiritual Formation, Talbot School of Theology) about his book When God Seems Distant: Surprising Ways God Deepens Our Faith and Draws Us Near. 

Kyle explains “early consolation” as a common season where God gives pleasure and zeal that can mask unformed character, and how this can be followed by “the desert” where these early consolations are removed.  But these seasons are God’s gift to reveal the heart and grow love.

Follow Dr. Strobel on his Substack.

Dive deeper in our new book, Landscapes of the Soul: How the Science and Spirituality of Attachment Can Move You into Confident Faith, Courage, and Connection, and learn about our trainings and other resources at embodiedfaith.life.

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Transcript

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Why Faith Feels Dry

Geoff Holsclaw: Many Christians experience a zeal in their early days of following Jesus, but then it so often seems to fade into a season of dryness. Sometimes tempting us to assume one of two things, maybe that we have failed or that God is absent in some way. But what if these dry seasons are actually part of God's good plan?

To draw us deeper, uh, in our walk with him. That's what we are talking about today. This is the Attach To God podcast. I am Geoff Holsclaw, and this is, uh, produced by the Center for Embodied Faith. Uh, I think, uh, last year I had Dr. Kyle Strobel on just as baseball was starting. So we talked about the Cubs, but we're not gonna do about that.

We're not gonna do that this time. 

Meet Kyle Strobel

Geoff Holsclaw: But Kyle Strobel is here with us today. He is the director for the Institute for Spiritual Formation and it's uh, as and is also associate professor of Spiritual theology at Talbot School of Theology at Biola University. He writes and teaches in the area of spiritual formation, and most recently he has co-authored the book when God Seems Distant, surprising Ways, God deepens our Faith and Draws Us Near.

Thanks for being on with us again, Kyle.

Kyle Strobel: Hmm. Yeah, of course. Man. So good to be with you.

Geoff Holsclaw: Yeah. 

A Trilogy on Formation

Geoff Holsclaw: Well, so, uh, you were just telling me before we came on that this book, uh, when God Seems Distant, is actually the, the, the middle of like a trilogy of books. So just for, uh, and last time we had you on, we didn't really talk about your first book, so could you just kind of talk about, uh, that first book that came out that you co-author with John Coe and kind of where this one falls in and kind of where it's going.

And then we'll kind of dive a little deeper in the, the theme of when God Seems Distant.

Kyle Strobel: Yeah. Yeah, totally. So, yeah, so when John and I sat down and started thinking about writing and what we wanted to do, we had in mind, so at our Institute for Spiritual Formation, we have this sequence of spiritual theology classes that, that give the kind of, um, theoretical and practical backbone to what, what spiritual formation is and how it, how it kind of functions, like, how it does it actually work.

And I would say one of the key aspects for us is what, what is the lived reality of that? So experientially, like, what is spiritual mason like? And so we wanted to do a series of books that, that weren't kind of about spiritual formation, but were actually shepherding people into it. Um, there's a lot of books that talk about spiritual mason that don't necessarily shepherd people into spiritual mason.

And so we wanted to do, um, the latter. And so the first book we wrote was called, um, where Prayer, um, becomes Real. Wow. I, I, I've been so saying the new one, it took me a second. I was like, I was like, what is that book called? Um, where Prayer Becomes Real?

Geoff Holsclaw: That, that's like when you're like, so my first child, but, and then you're like, you're naming your kids. I know books are not the same as kids, but there's, they are kind of

Kyle Strobel: Yeah, they're similar. Yeah,

Geoff Holsclaw: birthdays? Yeah. Okay. We've all, we've all done it. We've all picked up our kids from, you know, childcare after church and we're like, I know that kid's mind, but okay,

Kyle Strobel: Yeah.

Geoff Holsclaw: the first one was

Kyle Strobel: where prayer becomes real, where prayer becomes real. Yeah. 

When Prayer Gets Real

Kyle Strobel: And so the idea there was we wanted to introduce spirit transformation through the lens of prayer, in part because our understanding of prayer is that it's the Christian life and miniature in many ways. And so all of your temptations, all of the kind of ways you, you have a breakdown of Christian character and sin and all these things that actually shows up in prayer in certain key ways.

And the things we need to unlearn about prayer, we actually need to unlearn those about the spiritual life in general. But we need to begin in prayer because prayer is gonna be the place where we actually learn how to draw near to God in the truth, um, about what is actually going on in our life we're actually gonna have to navigate.

Why don't I draw near and, you know, attachment. There's a lot of very interesting attachment realities here, as you know, right? Where. Um, as I often talk to my students about when you, when you draw near in prayer, you know, you, you are always presupposing that God has received you a certain kind of way, even though no one's talked to you about that.

Right?

Geoff Holsclaw: Hmm. Yep.

Kyle Strobel: And for some particularly seminary students, I find many of them, when they come to pray, God rolls his eyes. I say, okay, here we go. What do you want? And they now have to navigate like, well, what is actually governing those deep beliefs that are shaping their, their life with God? And so we're inviting the person into those dynamics, into being known and being loved and being known in prayer.

Early Consolation Explained

Kyle Strobel: And, and so the follow up book, um, when God Seems Distant, the new one. Um, this one is trying to give an account of what we call developmental spirituality, where we're attending to what is the process of maturation in Christ through the Spirit, and why does it seem to run so contrary to our expectations? And so some of the discussions we're getting in there is, um, consolation like, and particularly early consolation, which we would associate, um, developmentally with milk as Paul does. Um, you're on milk, but you should be on solid food, right? Where there's this season of the Christian life, particularly early in the Christian life where God floods us with consolation, usually experience, not always, but usually experiences, pleasure and God is weaning us off of the worldly things that are in our life and he is weaning us onto spiritual things, things of him, but he's doing so by making those spiritual things milk really by by.

Infusing us with pleasure. So suddenly a, a baby Christian, even though like maybe a month ago they were an atheist and never wanted to go to church. Now someone asks, do you want to go to church? And they're thinking, of course I do that, that's all I want to do. Like, and it's gonna be the greatest church service that has ever been made.

And, and, you know, everything's amazing. The worship was wonderful. The preaching was great. Right? And, and then

Geoff Holsclaw: People who just can't not read the Bible. They're just reading five chapters a

Kyle Strobel: Oh, totally.

Geoff Holsclaw: scripture and they're like, before it was the Old Testament was the worst. And now you're just like, did you know that? Ruth and Naomi? And they were like gathering and then this guy, and then there's this weird thing and you know.

Yeah.

Kyle Strobel: Totally, totally. And so, you know, these, these young believers, God, you know, so one of the questions we wanna ask is, well, what is God doing in that? Like, why is that a shared experience? What is the Lord doing it? And then what does that do to us developmentally? Yeah, because there's gonna be a lot of positive there, but there's also gonna be some kind of negative developmental realities that we need to unlearn as a part of that.

Just like with the Proverbs, right? You can leave the proverbs in such a way, learning in your youth about proverbial wisdom, feeling pretty good about yourself until you read the Book of Job and all the bad guys speak in Proverbs. Like that's a, that's a disorienting kind of dynamic that happens. 

From Milk to Desert

Kyle Strobel: And so what we, what we look at then is the way the Lord throughout scripture leads people in the desert.

Um, and as Deuteronomy eight, two tells us to, to show us what is in our hearts. And so consolation out of nowhere, seems to wane, and suddenly we're kind of going, okay, that sermon not only wasn't the greatest sermon I ever heard, I fell asleep or. And you, you know, most Christians don't realize when they're desert, it takes several months because by this time they're usually pretty active, pretty involved, pretty kind of driven in terms of spiritual things.

And so it often shows up in the kind of conversations you're having with your spouse on the way home after church. Oh, you know, that was frustrating. I hate it when they introduced a new worship song or, you know, like, now the preacher that wasn't, wasn't his best, was it? You know? And. And suddenly they find that they're being a little, you know, they're nitpicky maybe, or they're, or often what ends up happening for folks is that, um, former vices that they thought actually had been dealt with are resurfacing.

Geoff Holsclaw: Mm. Mm-hmm.

Kyle Strobel: And, and then we, um, looked into what the, the Protestant tradition would often call spiritual desertion, what the broader tradition calls the dark night of the soul. And so how God uses these kind of seasons in our lives. So we looked at kinda a developmental spirituality and really how. We actually fight against God's work in our life, mostly because of how God led us early and early consolation has caused us to misinterpret God's action in our life.

Right? So the second book is, it's engaging more of the concept of maturation and what does it mean to be transformed in and by love ultimately.

Geoff Holsclaw: Mm-hmm.

Kyle Strobel: then the final book, we're actually gonna do a deeper dive into that very question and really try to drill down on what, what actually is transformation. I mean, there's a lot of books on spiritual transformation.

Most are on spiritual disciplines. Virtually none actually get down to what actually is transformation and what does it entail. And so we really wanna attend kind of deeply to that because we worry that a lot of the ways this conversation has gone. Really leans, pian. Um, and so there's this, this kind of belief for those of you who don't, aren't, aren't up on pianism.

Um, which I imagine is nearly all

Geoff Holsclaw: year old problem

Kyle Strobel: is 

Geoff Holsclaw: church has wrestled against.

Kyle Strobel: That's right. There's basically a deep belief that God kind of has given you what you need and just sets you off to grow. So the idea that that growth is primarily figuring out the right path and taking it, and unfortunately the spiritual discipline conversation, even if people are warning against that, they're not offering an alternative.

And so I think what ends up happening is what people here is, oh, I do these and I grow. Right? And unfortunately, we, we tend to sideline God in that whole thing. So that that'll hopefully kinda round out the trilogy.

Geoff Holsclaw: Hmm. Oh, well, I, when is that one gonna be done? Th those, these are the questions of transformation that I'm so curious about. And, uh, yeah, that's like, okay, that's a whole nother conversation. But, um, could you, well, you kind of brought up Constellation and desolation a little bit, but can you fill out those kind of terms, uh, a little bit that, um.

Or just the opposite one. Let's go into the desolation or the, the desertion or the being led into the wilderness. Um, can you just kind of fill that a, a little bit as a stage or

a part of the growing process?

Defining Consolation

Kyle Strobel: Yeah, so, so if you think of Constellation as the positive gift of God to kind of infuse into your person something like delight, um. We've always noticed this. Um, in the book I use Jonathan Edwards as an example 'cause he's an interesting example o of this actually. But he names delight and pleasure.

And so Constellation is where God has gifted you. Pleasure. And what's interesting about Constellation in particular, especially early Constellation, is it's not according to your character. That actually becomes the fantasy is that this is somehow attached to my character. So if I do the right things in the right ways, then I'll get more of this and it becomes a very input output kind of spirituality. Well, the way the kind of, um, broad kind of typology we're using, um, in many ways actually following the Exodus account is that after the constellation of the plagues and God's deliverance from Egypt, he led them in the desert. And the desert. The desert isn't necessarily bad, like God hasn't given you a gift.

He's just removed that gift of consolation. So often Christians talk about dryness. It feels flat, and in this season, they're beginning to see and be exposed to their character in deeper ways. So this is where you come to realize, oh, I'm still really angry, or, oh, that that lust that I thought was gone, that's still with me. Or man, I'm a, I'm a jealous person. I'm, I'm kind of envious. I'm kind of, so these things are there. They're not horrible. They're not, um, controlling your life probably, but they're there in early consolation. You didn't see them. Like, one of the ways I like to talk about early consolation is imagine you're in a boat and you're kind of stuck in a trash heap for whatever reason.

But then it floods and suddenly you're bobbing on top of the water and all you see are a beautiful, gorgeous spring day. And you see hills in the distance and trees and things, and none of that trash went anywhere, but you don't have to deal with it. And so you're captivated with greater beauties. In many ways, the early Christian life is like that. Um, now it turns out that some of that trust will go away, that, that in this season, by attaching to God, right, by, by, by embracing his love, being embraced by him, like those things, um, will become transformed. But God doesn't heal our character like he heals blindness in scripture. And so when the water line of constellation drops, drops, you come to discover what has been left unformed in your person. And again in Deuteronomy eight, two, God leads you in the desert to show you what is in your heart. And, and, and you know, one of the key passages here is Luke 7 47, um, which is the one who is forgiven. Little loves little. Um, which teaches us that actually the path to loving much is gonna be to know how much you've been forgiven and to actually receive forgiveness where you need it.

And so part of what the Lord's doing in the desert is the Lord's inviting us on a journey of seeing how desperate we need him, but then actually meeting him in the places of our desperation. 

Desolation and Dark Night

Kyle Strobel: But then, you know, desolation or Desertion or the Dark Knight, you know, there's all these terms that get used.

This is one of those things in, in the history of Christianity where we never landed on a term. Um, everyone kind of picked, you know, was picking and choosing different languages. Dark Knight is probably the term that's most often used, but this is a season where just like consolation, God's actually giving you a gift, but now the gift is an experience of his absence. And now the mirror to you will be to see how vice late in your virtues are, where now you're gonna see how much your devotional life and ministry are fueled by jealousy and selfish ambition. Now you're gonna have to grapple with how, how selfish. Your spirituality is, or how much you've actually been using your devotional life or your ministry or your service to bolster yourself even before God. And so the biblical example of this, I mean you could turn to several. Jesus is a, is a, is a good one. Um, I like to turn to Paul in, in, um, seven Corinthians 11 and 12, where. Paul is given a gift from God. Um, he actually has given two gifts. The first gift is the gift we all wish God would give us, which is Paul's caught up into the third heaven, and it's such a radical spiritual experience.

Several times he mentions he's not even sure if his body was with him or not, um, which, you know, you're doing it right if you're like, was I in the body or outta the body? I don't know. That's, this was amazing. And, and what's interesting though is those spiritual experiences don't have a tendency to heal your character.

Geoff Holsclaw: Mm-hmm.

Kyle Strobel: And so because of that experience, God gives him a different gift, which is a messenger of Satan to harass him. What Paul calls the thorn of the flesh. And this is where the risen and ascended Lord tells Paul. Um, no, I'm not gonna take this from you. Um, it's actually yours as a gift because it'll keep you from becoming proud because of the prior gift, right?

The prior gift actually tempted. Paul, this is what's interesting. You see the same thing happen in consolation. Certain of God's good gifts actually lead us toward temptation in certain ways, and so God undermines that temptation by kind of exposing us to the truth of our life. And for Paul, what he exposes him to was his weakness.

And so he says, you know, you're gonna have to learn that my power is found in your weakness. And then Paul, of course says, all the more I will boast that of my weaknesses. And he kinda enters into that. But the, the thorn of the flesh dynamic is a lot of what's going on. What, what Early Protestants called spiritual desertion, which they would say was God's um.

It's actually God kind of pressing ever closer to you while giving you an experience of his absence. And in many ways, particularly Puritans would use the Song of Songs here. And would use some of those, those passages in the song where the lover's gone and you can't find him,

Geoff Holsclaw: Mm.

Kyle Strobel: then they would remind you, this is actually for you to kinda give yourself to him all the more.

And so this is an opportunity to see again, to see now the vice laid in reality of your life, so that you grasp ahold of Christ by

Geoff Holsclaw: Yeah. Oh, that's so great. 

Desert as Mirror

Geoff Holsclaw: So I was hearing the themes that like the desert is the mirror. And I was thinking back too, and I know this is, you know, part of it, like even the ancient kind of early monastics and aesthetics would go, you know, they talk about how, oh, we're gonna go literally into the wilderness, into the desert, you know, we're leaving the cities.

Um, but they all start saying, you know, but then I brought the city with me. Like, I thought changing my life, changing the location would get me out of that temptation. It would free me from, uh, the bondage of sin and I'm gonna go and take faith seriously, and then I'd be free. And they're, and then early they, they're like, I actually, now I see that it's just, it is me.

Like it's not the world, it's not circumstances, it's not a raw deal or just, you know, a tough break. Like it's. It's me and I, I brought that whole city that, all those temptations, uh, with me into the, and then that, then there needs to be that kind of grappling with, um, those things. Um.

Kyle Strobel: Hmm.

Geoff Holsclaw: I really thank you for sharing kind of the early constellation.

I think a lot of people kind of kind of get that and as you're speaking of Paul, I was thinking of, 'cause you get this a lot in charismatic circles, so I'm in a vineyard church and you get that idea that like, well when the spirit shows up, it'll, uh, the spirit will fix everything.

Kyle Strobel: Yeah.

Geoff Holsclaw: all my sadness will go away or all my, um.

Um, all my anger will go away. All my character issues will go away. Uh, and then sometimes maybe in much more like idea driven, it's kind of like if we just hold onto the truth, that'll fix all the character issues. And it's like, well, uh, the powerful, uh, manifestation of the spirit is wonderful and we should seek that and receive that whenever we get it and commitments to the truth, uh, and scripture.

And we should hold onto those things too. But those don't necessarily transform us. I guess we're getting into the realm of your third book, but, um. You know, so what is it then that starts prompting that transformation? Then why is that, that the, the desolation, then how does that start rooting out those things that we start seeing or.

Kyle Strobel: Yeah. Well, ultimately,

Geoff Holsclaw: talk, maybe I could throw it the other way. You talk about unlearning things. 

Unlearning Magic Formation

Geoff Holsclaw: Maybe we should go there first is you, you have several chapters in your book about unlearning, um, kind of how we avoid, uh, God, can you kind of unpack this, unlearning and how we actually use spiritual things to avoid God in certain kind of sneaky

Kyle Strobel: Yeah. Yeah. Well, the, this is, yeah, this is part of the series. Like we're in each of the books. We have a section on unlearning because. One of the things we, we realize is that unlearning is, is a part developmentally the Christian life. It surprises us, but it shouldn't, um, because everyone who's lived the Christian life can name seasons of unlearning for a good reason.

And I think, again, that's part of how maturation of persons just works. But to your point, I mean, you see this not only in charismatic service. I think everyone. IMB by some sense of what I would call kind of magic formation. That if I just kind of do this equation right, then poof, am I gonna be transformed? And a lot of that, and I would say a lot of goodness that comes out of that, stems from consolation actually. Because in early consolation, it just does seem like my anger has been healed. It does seem like my addictions have all gone away. It does seem like I'm not jealous anymore. And the reason it does, so this is why we have to get into the kind of dynamics of this.

The reason it feels that way is 'cause the spirit has lifted you like up off of your flesh and is now offered you pleasure. But it's not like living by pleasure isn't living as an adult. This is, this is still not a deep character reality. And so the person who was kind of getting high. As an atheist.

Well now they're just getting high at worship concerts and they're just getting high at at church services and getting high at prayer meetings. The goal ultimately is not to need to get high all the time like we we're supposed to be, to use one of the older words that we would often use. We need to be weaned, but

Painkillers and Weaning

Geoff Holsclaw: Can I interject? I wanna try another word picture because you're talking about getting high at, and I was literally then thinking of like the church as hospital. And in one sense, um, if you're severely injured in some fashion, you do get. Painkillers that numb and masks the pain so that you can get through, whether it's a critical surgery or a certain repair, but then there's a, an elongated time of coming off that medication so that you can rehab, so that you can actually be fully healthy.

Um, so I don't

Kyle Strobel: That's a great image. Yeah. That's not necessarily as as much of a positive, although it might work

Geoff Holsclaw: No,

Kyle Strobel: a lot of people. Actually. I actually like the image. 'cause I think what ends up happening for so many folks is they get addicted to that. Pain medication. 'cause they, they realize there's, there's this desire to numb and to not have to feel their life the way it is.

And I think that's the exact feeling that stems from the desert is after that constellation, you're used to not having to, to experience some of the just junk of your life. And you think God just took it away, where now you're back in it. 

Moralism Versus Passion

Kyle Strobel: And that, that's what often raises the issue of like. Did I do something wrong?

Did God leave me? Did. And so some of the like things we turn to, um, that we really focus on, and I would say there's several, we could name here the two big ones. On the one hand, the kind of classic moralistic one is a real problem that once people hit the desert, the temptation is to just try to be good. The other one that I see probably predominant now, whereas historically I think moralism was the, the dominant kind of strategy of the flesh. Um, and that's what moralism is. Ultimately, it's a strategy of the flesh to try to manage God. Um, now I see people trying to wield passion. And I think what we have learned in early consolation is that the Christian life should feel a certain sort of way, and passion gives us that feeling.

Geoff Holsclaw: Hmm.

Passions Affections Emotions

Kyle Strobel: The problem is that passion isn't, passion is not bad. It's not bad to be passionate. But you should never try to be passionate and you should never serve your passions. Passions, biblically and in the kind of Christian tradition have always been seen as part of our embodiment that actually works kind of against our integration as persons. Whereas our affections are the way our loves move out of our heart and integrate our whole person towards the good, the true and the beautiful. And affections will often awaken passions. And so sometimes our affections are so agitated. Sorry, that's not the right word. That's the old language. But, um, they meant that like how we

Geoff Holsclaw: using, you're using slightly older language already, which I like, 'cause I think we should reclaim. You're using the words passion and affection. What you haven't used is the word emotion, which most people are more familiar with. Could you kind of link together a little bit like how those, um. you're using passions and affections rather than emotions, uh, or how they all fit together really quick,

Kyle Strobel: totally. No, that's,

Geoff Holsclaw: if you could do that really quick, I probably, what I probably did in Kyle's brain, I just, I just hyperlinked into like a three hour lecture that he has like in his program. So, and I just said really quickly,

Kyle Strobel: No, that's a great question though. And in many ways that is the, the right question, I think right now in our moment. 

Why Emotion Language Fails

Kyle Strobel: So really, really, really quick emotion is relatively new language. Um. I use that in an academic sense, which means about the 18th century, um, the 18th century, the term emotion started coming in.

And if Thomas Dixon is right in his book from passion to emotion, and I think he is right, is that the language of emotion was strategically anti-Christian. It was a desire to de Christianize psychology and to get rid of our designed natures. And so the language of emotion has never been highly specified, and in fact, no one knows what it they are.

I had a grant through Templeton to study emotions with psychologists. Every psychologist we talked to had an entirely different theory of emotions. None of them can agree on it. Um, they let

Geoff Holsclaw: you're saying that. I say this all the time. I say if you, if you wade into the literature on emotion, nobody agrees and nobody has a common

Kyle Strobel: It is a

Geoff Holsclaw: and it's all over the place. And we feel like everybody knows what an emotion is and you're like, no,

Kyle Strobel: That's right.

Geoff Holsclaw: you probably just talked, you know?

'cause everybody has their kind of favorite way to explain emotions. It's like, that's great and that kind of makes sense of a rough and ready experience that we all have. And I was like, but it's all over the place. So I totally agree and I love Dixon's work.

Kyle Strobel: Yeah. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Yeah. Dixon's work has been really helpful. And, and you know, the nice thing about, you know, our background, Geoff, you and I are coming of this with a certain sort of theological background and so we're asking questions that psychologists don't ans ask ever, right?

Like we asked, the psychologist told us what emotions were and a starting point was they are an embodied, and then he goes on to a definition and we said, oh, interesting. Do angels have them? And he looked at us like we are nuts. 'cause that's just not a question a psychologist is gonna ask, but of course the theologian, you're going, well, if they're embodied, God doesn't have a body.

Angels don't have bodies. Do they have emotions? And so the, the, the more ancient way of approaching this are affections and passions. Affections are, are the, and, and even the language of emotion. Remember, emotions started off as unspecified motions. They were motions of your person. Sometimes those motions are the fluids to use the old language.

Um, we always like to make fun of the, because it sounds crazy, like your fluids are overactive and stuff, but we just say chemical and it makes it sound sophisticated. But chemicals are just fluids. So they were doing the same thing. But there's certain kind of emotions that can either be embodied primarily and, and start, or I should say, start in your body and work into your psychology or start into your psychology and work into your body in certain ways.

Um, think for instance about how drinking alcohol is an embodied reality, that, that, that has effects in your psychology and how stress in your psychology has manifestations in your body. Right? There's two directions that these things work. 

Reading Your Affections

Kyle Strobel: Well, the way we talked about our, our emotional life to use that term is there's affections you have and affections.

If you wanna know what your affections are, you don't primarily search your feelings. Affections can show up in your feelings, but that's not how, how you determine what they are. You determine your affections are by looking at your life because your, your life is a manifestation of what you think the beautiful is, and that is driven according to your affections.

So if you want to know what your affections are, think about your fantasy life. What do you, if you pause in at a light in traffic, what are you fantasizing about? How do you spend your money? What do you invest in? Right? Those will all show you what your affections actually are.

Geoff Holsclaw: Mm-hmm.

Kyle Strobel: Your passions are often felt, particularly when they're awakened.

And so, uh, you know, your passions begin in your body. You, you know, if you're in traffic and someone cuts you off, you'll often feel it, even, maybe even before you process it, right? You're experiencing a reaction. You're feeling how your blood is recirculating, you're, you're experiencing your adrenaline and things.

Um. Your passions are wonderful when they align with your affections. When you begin to serve your passions, your body begins to drive you in an unintegrated manner, and this is what causes you to feel like you have two totally different wills. So at 1130 tonight, if you think, you know what, I'm gonna get up at five and work out.

That is probably stemming from a kind of affection you have about, about, um, your life and the world around you and things. Well, you wake up at 4 45 or something, your body is gonna start telling you very quickly it's character. And it's gonna have a certain, probably a passionate response one way or another.

It might be a, a highly what, what we'd call a dispassionate response. Highly like uninterested, apathetic response. But your body will often then react to you and your affections. And so the problem with the current language of emotions is we tend to equate emotions with just present feeling

Geoff Holsclaw: Mm-hmm.

Kyle Strobel: they tend to be.

Not obviously connected with our loves. And so emotions like passions have a tendency to be tossed by the waves. And so if you think of a passage like Romans six 12, um, let not sin reign in your mortal body to make you obey its passions. Like sin in particular has a, has a kind of capacity to take up resonance in your bodies and then your passions are given.

Their character by that sin often demanding you to serve them, it's going to be an affectionate life that is going to put off those things and put on Christ to present yourself to Christ. And so what's important about that is. 

Desert Exposes Passion

Kyle Strobel: You are gonna be in the desert, or you're gonna be in desertion. What's gonna become very clear to you very quickly is how much your spiritual life has been driven by passion. going to because it's going to fall flat. And this is gonna be one of the primary problems with passion. Passions burn hot and they burn quick, but they don't have a capacity to light a life on fire. Um, let me give you an example of this. We both like sports, right? So, um, think of your, your favorite, um, basketball team.

Let's say they're good this year. So I don't know, maybe you're, you're, maybe you've been a Pistons fan for like eternity.

Geoff Holsclaw: Oh yeah, see, I live in mi. I live in Michigan, so you'd think I'd be a Pistons fan, which they're doing great this year. But actually I was in Chicago for so long. I became a Bulls fan, and they've been

Kyle Strobel: okay. They have been bad for a very long time, but a pistons have been worse. Like, let's say if you're a piston fan for a long time, you've had a lot of dark decades, right?

Geoff Holsclaw: That's true

too. 

Kyle Strobel: you'll, you'll, you'll be watching your team. They're really good, and you're thinking, oh, tonight is an easy win. This team is terrible.

They're playing, and their, their star is hurt. So this other team's bad. They have one star, and the star's hurt, and your team loses.

Geoff Holsclaw: Mm-hmm.

Kyle Strobel: Well, that is a bunch of guys who have wielded passion in their character, and so when they come up against a difficulty and they're unable to ignite their passion. Because they know this team's bad.

They know they should blow this team out. Suddenly their passion can't get waking up.

Geoff Holsclaw: Mm. Right, right.

Kyle Strobel: It just falls flat and they don't have the character ingrained in their, even a professional athlete, they don't have the character in their body to perform the way they need to. This is one of the problems with passions. And so if you're fueling the Christian life on your passion, you go in the desert passion falls flat. One of the things that's gonna be very clear to you is what is your character?

Geoff Holsclaw: Mm-hmm.

Red Bull Spirituality Trap

Kyle Strobel: The greatest temptation in this moment is to look for ways to pump your will full of passion. And this is what most people assume their job is.

And so you'll have some folks who blame their church, right? Maybe it's this place's fault, like we, they used to be able to really get me going. They can't do it. But that church down the street though, they seem to have the special, the secret sauce. This is a kind of spirituality by Red Bull kind of approach to things, right?

Like, I, it'll give you wings, right? Like, I need to get, get going. And so now you're looking for ways to infuse passion into your person. That that is a kind of infantile spirituality. That is you're being weaned off of milk and you're saying, I need the bottle and I need it now. Historically, that was literally wasn't our temptation.

I think historically our temptation was to think, okay, now I guess I'm an adult now I'm just gonna grit my teeth and I'm going to kind of fuel a life of goodness. By just getting it done. This is a kind of self-willed spirituality. And so those are the two. I mean, there's, we can nuance them a bit, but those are the two biggest temptations I see.

And most others are just kind of different channels of how those work. Um. But I see today the passion one, I think is probably a greater temptation than it ever has been in the history of Christianity because you and I can leave our church because we have cars and drive to a different one. We can podcast a different preacher.

We can, like we have so many tools and we have a cultural expectation that things should just work. We should be able to kind of just consume the, the right. So almost on a medicinal level, like to go back to your, your image of medicine, I should just be able to take a pill that solves this and that. I'm just gonna call that the spirit.

And that's, that's how I know the spirit works, is when these things solve the problem I have, and what I would say is biblically and historically Christians have said the spirit actually works in a, in a weirder way.

Geoff Holsclaw: Mm-hmm.

Kyle Strobel: And the spirit is gonna actually take you into your heart, and the spirit is gonna actually lead you into places where, you know, just like we do with children, I, I know this isn't what you wanted.

I, I know this is harder, but adulting isn't gonna feel the same way as youth. It's not gonna be that it's gonna be something different. It's, it's actually gonna lead into deeper things, but that's gonna require a transformation of your character.

Geoff Holsclaw: Well, to kind of start heading to the conclusion and, and to be practical, like what would you say to those people for whom like, praise and the experience and the stoking up of that passion has become dry, or for those people for whom like being good and the effort. You know, starting to feel pointless, like, why do I go through all this stuff?

What do you feel like is, is really important for them to learn or to press into in those seasons where things are starting to get dry? Instead of pointing at the pastors or the churches and saying it's their fault? Like what, what could they do to start leaning into what God has for them in this dry season?

Kyle Strobel: Yeah, that's a great question. 

Draw Near In Truth

Kyle Strobel: You know, I, I would say, you know, the answer's actually quite simple. Um, the answer to the Christian Life's always draw near to God. Um, present your body as a living sacrifice for the renewal of your mind. Offer yourself to him. But remember, the only way you can actually present yourself to God is to do so in the truth, which means you're going to have to stand before the mirror of the word, as James calls it, or as the author of Hebrews and Hebrews four called the double-edged sword of the word that awakens the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And you're gonna have to pay attention to what, what are those thoughts and intentions? What is the mirror of the word? Expose you to, um, are you disappointed perhaps even in God? Are you angry? Are you overcome with sadness? Are you, um, jealous? Are you constantly kind of filled with anxiety, like whatever it is, your job's not primarily to fix that.

Your job is to take, kind of embody that truth as you offer your life to the Lord and know him in those very places. And so it's one of the things you're going to have to learn in the desert and the desolation is Jesus's prayer. That you're gonna have to ask him, Lord, I don't wanna be here. I, it's perfectly fine to tell the Lord, Lord, I don't want this.

I'm not interested in this. I got, I want that concept like he knows you want it. There's no point of, of pretending you're fine with it, but you're also gonna have to learn what does it mean to pray? Um, not my will, but yours be done in these places, and to trust that the Lord is with you in those places and actually has something for you there.

And I would suggest that if you do that, one of the things that'll happen is you'll actually one day look back at a season that you maybe are in and going, ah, this feels like death. This feels like abandonment. This feels like you're actually gonna look back at this moment one day and say, Lord, thank you so much for that season. That's really hard to see in the moment, but you need other Christians who've walked through it to say, actually, that was such a profound gift because it was only through that a path I never would've chosen that I came to actually know the Lord in my sadness or in my grief or in my fears or things like that.

Geoff Holsclaw: Hmm. 

Later Consolation And Second Blessing

Geoff Holsclaw: That kind of brought to, you're talking a lot about how the desert, as well as scripture is kind of this mirror, and so a lot of what we're learning is we're learning about ourselves in the deep kind of places that still have maybe. Still been withheld from the Lord or been unaffected as of present by grace.

But a lot of traditions will, will talk about like, um, and they name it different things like a, a second conversion, a second blessing, a second filling of the spirit. There's kind of this like two stage, and it's not a salvation kind of blessing, it's that sanctification blessing. So would you kind of fit this a little bit in there?

Because I, what I was hearing was something like, you know, when we're first saved, you know, people have like. They come to God with a deliver me from this and it's like this circumstance in their life. But what I'm hearing a little bit from what you just said is there's this other kind of, after the desert, almost a, when you have that mirror right in front of you, it's almost a deliver me from me kind of moment that you're handing yourself over to God.

Like it's not just, you know, having been broke or having had a mental health, you know, crisis or some, you know. Kind of external thing, you know, that you cry out to the Lord for help with. You're kind of like crying out for help with me. Is that

Kyle Strobel: Yeah, that's right. Totally. That, and that's what I think later consolation is like later. Constellation doesn't feel like early consolation because of what you've been through. Like now you can just rejoice and it has a depth. Dimension to it. It isn't as filled with passion now, but it is deeply affectionate.

And it's funny you brought that up 'cause I actually just finished a study on Wesley and Wesley's, um, um, Christian perfection stuff. And I actually came to the conclusion that he's just talking about second consolation, like, or la not second later consolation. Um, and I think, and I would say in Wesleyan.

As well as in, um, circles that use kind of baptism of the spirit language, both of those that were seeking for biblical categories to name a phenomenology of their person. So they, they have an experience and they're trying to look for categories to name it. And you know, modern Pentecostals have often recently argued that actually, you know, batches of spirit was the wrong biblical.

Language to turn to better language would've been infused contemplation from someone like Theresa Avila. That's what, um, Simon Chan has argued recently and others, and I would argue, I, I, I think something like, that's right actually that the, the language of perfection and language of baptism, those are the wrong categories to name the experience.

The experience was, was the spirit filling you with consolation? And that's not necessarily better. It is what we long for. It isn't better than desolation or it isn't better than the desert. It's just a different part of the spirit's work to mature us and to, and to lead us into embracing the things of him in a, in a more deeper way, which is kind of what I think Wesley was doing with that.

Geoff Holsclaw: Yeah. For sure. Alright, so we've, we've gone all over the place. These are such great questions. Now this is another question, um, about, um, Wesleyan Sanctification and Eastern Theosis and all this, right? But if you were, if, let's, let's just land the plane like this. We've gone a little long. If you were like, ran into your friend.

At the grocery store, picking up some ice cream, you know, giving into one of those passions for a late night snack, and they're like, you wrote a new book. What is it about, what would you say in that that, you know, in, in the five sentences and what would be the word of encouragement that we can kind of leave, uh, with people?

Kyle Strobel: Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you for that. Yeah. 

Book Pitch And Final Encouragement

Kyle Strobel: I would just say when God Seems Distant is a book that leads you into the ma maturation of the Lord that sends you to him in every season of the soul, and helps you understand why the Christian life often feels so disorienting. That's the, the elevator pitch version of it.

And so, you know, what I would simply leave with was, is that call, uh, is, is really an invitation. What does it mean to embrace the Lord in whatever season you find yourself in and not believe that you first have to fix your circumstances in order to find the Lord, but to trust that it was in your sin, that he died for you and he's not allergic to it now, and that the Lord is with you precisely in the, the truth of your life. And, and I would say finally is just don't buy in the lie that the Lord really wants to be with your Christian avatar, but not you.

Geoff Holsclaw: Mm-hmm.

Kyle Strobel: The Lord wants you, not who you should be, but who you actually are. And, and there is a call and an invitation to, into love in the, in that very place.

Geoff Holsclaw: Hmm. Yeah. And we haven't talked about it as much, but the la one of the last chapters is being transformed by love, and we'll just save that for the next podcast when you write your next book. 

Where To Find Kyle

Geoff Holsclaw: Well, thank you so much for being with us. Uh, we have been talking with Dr. Kyle Strobel. He co-authored a book with, uh, Dr.

John Coe, uh, titled Win. God Seems Distant. Thank you so much for, uh, being on, and you could find. Where can people find you? You have Substack. You have, uh, different places that people can connect with you.

Kyle Strobel: Yeah, Substack is the, the, probably the best place. That's just kyle strobel.substack.com. I do a post on spirit information every Monday, um, starting to do some more podcasting stuff through that outlet as well. So yeah, there's, there's quite a lot on there.

Geoff Holsclaw: Excellent. Great. Well that'll be in the show notes. Thank you so much for taking a little bit of time, uh, today and being with us.

Kyle Strobel: Thanks, brother. Good to be with you, man.