Shifting Culture
Shifting Culture
Ep. 278 John Eldredge - Experience Jesus. Really.
John Eldredge joins us today. We're living in a moment where most people report either a lack of or no experience of Jesus in their daily lives. The war right now is for your attention. Every algorithm, every notification, every distraction is designed to keep you from the one thing your soul is actually craving: intimacy with Jesus. We've been grandchildren of the Enlightenment, disciples of the internet, consuming endless content about faith without actually experiencing the living, breathing presence of Christ. But what if - and this might sound wild - what if Jesus is actually waiting to meet you right now? Not in some distant, theological concept, but in the very moment you're listening to this. Your soul is wired for connection. You were created for intimacy with the Father, with Jesus, with the Holy Spirit. This isn't just for special saints or mystics - this is for you. Ordinary people can become ordinary mystics, experiencing God's presence in the most mundane moments of life. So buckle up. We're about to dive into a conversation that isn't just information - it's an invitation. An invitation to turn your heart, to create sacred space, and to encounter the living Jesus in a way that will absolutely transform everything. Are you ready?
John Eldredge is a New York Times bestselling author, counselor, and teacher who has inspired millions to go deeper in their relationship with Jesus. He is also president of Wild at Heart, a ministry devoted to helping people discover the heart of God, recover their own hearts in God's love, and learn to live in God's kingdom. John and his wife, Stasi, live in Colorado Springs, Colorado. To learn more, visit www.wildatheart.org.
John's Book:
John's Recommendations:
Experiencing the Depths of Jesus Christ
The Practice of the Presence of God
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As we come into the intimacy that every human soul is made for with Jesus, he's able to heal those things. He's able to address the lies that we come to believe. He's able to reorient us. And this is why the men and women who really changed the world, the people that started the orphanages and built the hospitals and went overseas and risked their lives, they're all people who knew Jesus pretty well.
Joshua Johnson:Foreign. Hello and welcome to the shifting culture podcast in which we have conversations about the culture we create and the impact we can make. We long to see the body of Christ look like Jesus. I'm your host. Joshua Johnson, today, John Eldridge joins us. We're living in a moment where most people report either a lack of or no experience of Jesus in their daily lives. The war right now is for your attention, every algorithm, every notification, every distraction, is designed to keep you from the one thing your soul is actually craving intimacy with Jesus. We've been grandchildren of the Enlightenment, disciples of the internet, consuming endless content about faith without actually experiencing the living, breathing presence of Christ. But what if, and this might sound wild, what if Jesus is actually waiting to meet you right now, not in some distant theological concept, but in the very moment you're listening to this. Your soul is wired for connection. You were created for intimacy with the Father, with Jesus, with the Holy Spirit. This isn't just for special saints or mystics. This is for you. Ordinary people can become ordinary mystics experiencing God's presence in the most mundane moments of life. So buckle up. We're about to dive into a conversation that isn't just information. It's an invitation, an invitation to turn your heart to create sacred space and to encounter the living Jesus in a way that will absolutely transform everything. Are you ready? Here is my conversation with John Eldridge, John, welcome to shifting culture. Excited to have you on. Thanks for joining me.
John Eldredge:Thanks, Joshua, yeah. As I was telling you offline, I love the work that you guys have been doing. You've had some really good thoughtful conversations.
Joshua Johnson:Well, thank you. We're trying to have good, thoughtful conversations. We're trying to help the body of Christ look more like Jesus, to embody Jesus to the world. And this conversation, we want to experience Jesus every day, and I think that's crucial and important. Why do you think we need to go from the head to the heart in this current day and age that we live in? Oh gosh.
John Eldredge:Well, the thing is, when you're born into an hour, when you're born into an era you don't know what you don't know, right? Because this is our normal. But we are all grandchildren of the Enlightenment, and we are now all disciples of the internet. And what's happened Joshua is is many people report either the lack of or no experience of Jesus in their daily lives. So you might have seen the Barna data that came out, where one in two followers of Christ have left the faith in the last 20 years. 50% in the development well, and a lot of that is those are going to be stories of heartbreak. They're going to be stories of disappointment with God. Yeah, I prayed nothing happened. And I think we've just had such a overdeveloped left brain approach to faith and to experience, and we just haven't mentored people into what the saints and the biblical authors and the mystics of ages past knew in terms of, like, a daily with Jesus, like a rich, intimate life. And again, you don't know what. You don't know if somebody didn't show you the way, and you're just taking in all the fabulous content,
Joshua Johnson:yeah, and that's the that's the hard thing, and that's the hard thing. And what, what you're doing, writing books and putting out podcasts and putting out information, it's the hard thing of what I'm doing, of having conversations with people, is, how do we get this into an experience with Jesus and not just hey, somebody listened to a nice, you know, podcast episode, and now we have more information about Jesus. What does that experience start to look like? That is not just more information, but it is a daily encounter with
John Eldredge:him. Yeah, yeah, people, the good news is this, people have a lot. Of parallels that they can draw upon. So they're planning a trip, and they're looking forward to a vacation. And yes, you know, a lot of people do their homework. Okay, so they do the left brain stuff, they look at maps, they look at reviews, but when you get there, you enter in right and it becomes something much more from the heart. There's joy, there's wonder, right? Okay, same thing, same thing with falling in love. I mean, you might notice the girl across the way. You might see the guy you know. You might ask your friends a little bit about, Hey, who's that? You know? Anybody know? I can but when you actually fall in love, you're not making a pro con list in your head, you know? So we all have this. We all have friendships, we have dinners, we enjoy, we have places we go because we're letting we're letting our right brain, but what we're primarily doing is we're letting our heart back into the conversation. And I just want to invite people to use those parallel experiences to go, you know what? Studying about God, really important. Good content, absolutely, talking to people you know, who know him, yep. But at some point, we migrate into the experience ourselves. We immerse ourselves in
Joshua Johnson:it. Some people think that, okay, that was, that was good for the the mystics, the people of old that had this special experience with God, and that they could share that with us. But you're calling us into a place where we're we're ordinary mystics. We're all these people that can experience God on a daily basis. It's not just for the special few that we have designated saints. So what is an ordinary mystic? And why are you calling people mystics? What does that mean for you?
John Eldredge:We better tackle that word, uh. First off, I love it that you said, this isn't just saints, you know, of ages past. Because everyone, every human being, is created for intimacy with their Heavenly Father, with the Lord Jesus and with the Holy Spirit. It's literally what we're made for. Adam and Eve walk in the garden in the cool of the day with God, you know that intimacy, okay? And when the scriptures invite us to know God, the Hebrew is yada, the Greek is genosco, these are deep knowing, like the knowing of friends, the knowing of lovers, okay? So the good news is everybody has this wiring in them. You're all created for this. Folks. This isn't like, oh, some special people get it. The rest of you are left out. You know, not at all. Everybody is wired for this. We need a little mentoring into it. Just as like somebody showed you how to ride a bike, somebody showed you how to play the piano, I chose the word ordinary mystics to startle people and intrigue them and invite them out of this, oh my gosh, this approach to life that we don't even know, what we don't know. You have been so discipled by the Internet everybody you first off, you think that the latest research is the best thing in the world, so we're always looking for their latest research, right? Your soul has been taught to hate mystery. Okay? The left brain hates mystery. It literally hunts it down and kills it. And your your soul has literally been been taught a pace of life, a distracted attention that just get in the way of knowing Jesus, of practicing him. So I'm pulling on the mystics of ages past and in gang. This is people you all know. This is Martin Luther. This is Thomas Aquinas. This is Augustine. These are famous theologians. Who were, you know, they had a big old left brain, but they would also tell you, oh, oh, yeah. I mean, I know God, like we talk to each other like, like, I've experienced His love, I've experienced his comfort. So I'm, I'm, I'm drawing on ages past to help people out of the current moment where content is everything in Christianity and and experience has has really not been taught
Joshua Johnson:and it hasn't been taught. And I think if we have been there for, you know, centuries and centuries, that experience with God was the was the key. One of the things that I've been been looking at is that when people have experienced God, there's an encounter of God with somebody. People start to know themselves truly. Abraham's name. Was changed to Abraham because he actually now knows what his purpose is, where he's going. Saul was changed to Paul with his encounter with Jesus. We have these, these name changes where I think that there's something going on that only an encounter with God can tell us who we are, and I think that that's part of what you say in here, is that we're all yearning for home. God is our home, right? And that if we actually then encounter God, we're encountering our true home and our true self. What is that role then, with encounter of discovering not only God and who he is, but who we are as humans.
John Eldredge:Yeah, that's right. Well, you know, as Oswald Chambers says, the only person that can satisfy the aching abyss of the human heart is Jesus Christ. Because, like when we're in marriage counseling, I tell people, the best thing you can do for your marriage is have a really deep life in God. Because when you're getting your identity and you're getting love from an unending source, you don't put all that on your spouse, right, and you're talking about the identity piece like, oh my gosh, the world's gonna try and tell you who you are and who you aren't, grades you got in school, and whether or not you were good at sports and whether you were pretty like all that the world has given you a lot on your identity, and most of it not good, right? So as we come home, as we come into the intimacy that every human soul is made for. With Jesus, he's able to heal those things. He's able to address the lies that we come to believe. He's able to reorient us. And this is why the men and women who really changed the world, the people that started the orphanages and built the hospitals and went overseas and risked their lives, they're all people who knew Jesus pretty well, right? Because they were reoriented through that, through that rich, rich relationship, which is such it's just such a beautiful thing, and
Joshua Johnson:I think it changes everything. It changes who we are and our orientation to the world, because we actually know that the world is not our true home. I think because of our rationalistic enlightenment thinking, we have forgotten that there is this spiritual realm, there is a place in this world here and now that is different than what we can just observe with our eyes. And you know, touch and feel, this spiritual world is starting to really awaken, and we are starting to see some rumblings of like, Oh, we've missed something. What is this then, spiritual realm for us here on Earth, as we're in our everyday lives, how does that interact in the world? Like, what is the interactivity within the spiritual world? And, yeah, that's our everyday life. That's
John Eldredge:so good. Okay, so every human being is an amphibian. You are made for the world you see and enjoy tacos and the beach and coffee and friends and riding your bike. Okay? But you're also made for the unseen realm, okay? You you're made to experience the presence of God. You're you're made to receive love and nourishment from Jesus Christ. Okay, and this is, again, this is all in your wiring, everybody. So here are some parallel experiences that will help you. And then I'll get to your question. You don't really see oxygen, but it's keeping you alive every moment. I mean, you're literally swimming in it. Yeah, you're, you're a summery you are deep in oxygen, okay? You don't really see love in, you know, in the sense of the thing itself. You see acts of love, but love is the greatest thing in our life. Okay, okay. So you have Psalms like Psalm 91 the great refuge Psalms where the the writers are saying, Oh Lord, let me take refuge in You. Surround me with your favor like a shield. Okay, the reason is that they understood the unseen realm to have friendly guys and unfriendly guys. Okay, yeah, you live in a love story. Everybody. It's a love story, but it's set in a world at war and the, as you were saying, Joshua, that the spiritual realm is breaking out in First off, there are revivals for Christ going on all over the world. But. There are also revivals going on for other stuff, like liquor and witchcraft is one of the fastest growing religions in America. People are finding because the human soul craves this. You can't just live in that little rationalistic bubble, right? We crave mystery, we crave wonder. We crave interaction with the unseen. The thing is, is that the kingdom of darkness hates your guts, and they're going to try and do things to mess with your life. And so the ordinary mystic knows what it means to run into Psalm 91 it's like no way I'm into the shelter of the Most High I'm getting under the protection of my papa, God like surround me with your favor in your kingdom, Lord and in that you really actually do come into a safe place. That's why this is so important. We're not just kind of kicking around some cool ideas here. We're talking about human refuge,
Joshua Johnson:so good and so take me into to give us an example of a of a person, of people that did this and found refuge in the love of God in practical ways. Take us into Patrick and the Celts and how he encountered Jesus daily and then found refuge on a daily basis. Yeah, yeah,
John Eldredge:his story is classic, ordinary mysticism, okay. He was actually captured as a boy, as a teenage boy, and as a slave by Irish slavers, taken to Ireland forced labor. He was tending sheep out in the field. But Ireland, at that point in time, there's no cities, there's no roads, there's only small villages and warring clans, and it's an ancient Celtic culture. Human sacrifice is normal, curses, witchcraft, pagan idolatry, normal. Okay, so here's what happens to Patrick. He's out in the field. He's praying because he came from a Christian family. Their thing maybe in Wales was where he might have lived. They got him on the west coast of the British Isles, looking down. So he starts praying. And one day he's out in the field and he hears a voice in his heart, not externally. Here's a voice, and the voice says, your ship is ready. It's time to go home. Patrick starts walking across Ireland to the East Coast. Nobody stops him. Here's a slave walking along. Okay? He gets to the coast, and there is a ship that is about to pull out, a merchant ship, I think they're hauling some pigs and stuff, and he goes up and says, Hey, and they're like, Sure, you can come on board. So he literally gets rescued out of slavery. He ends up going for his education. He goes to seminary, and then he gets a calling to come back to that pagan world. So Patrick goes back into a world that is savage and dark. But because he is a man who is deeply rooted in a genuine life in God, it's not like the occasional inspirational message. He knows God. He talks to God. He lives in God. Patrick is able to bring Christianity back into that culture, and like one of his famous prayers, is still called the deer's cry, or the prayer of concealment, because he would pray that he would be hidden from people who wanted to kill him as he was moving through these villages and stuff, God protected his life. It sounds like David, actually, right? It also sounds like Harriet Tubman in the American Civil War and the Underground Railroad. I mean, she is praying to God every day for guidance. Turn left, turn right. No, wait, wait. Now go and she's guiding hundreds of slaves to freedom. Because she is an ordinary mystic. Those
Joshua Johnson:are beautiful stories. And we're like, okay, that's Harriet Tubman. That's Patrick. But is it John? Is it Joshua? Can we we do this? And I know, I, I know that I can experience God's presence in my life all the time. The problem is we, we know that the Holy Spirit is with us always like it is, like we have the experience right here. If we want the presence, it's here. We always forget it. My spiritual director had me do something and just say something that really helped me. He said this moment, I choose to feel and experience my connection with you, God. That was it. Until I have to, I turn my attention to God, I choose to feel an experience. It shifts everything in a moment, because he's I'm already connected you. The problem is we think that we have to do something to get this connection. It's there. It's the attention that we need to pay to the connection that's already present. How is this like? How do we do that? I
John Eldredge:like that. That's really good. So folks, the war is for your attention. War is for your attention. And all of AI and all the metrics and the analytics and stuff they know you really well, and your entire experience online is designed to arrest and keep your attention. So yeah, you are going to have to just gently turn your attention away from all those juicy little distractions. Okay, and you turn your attention and this, this is so fun Joshua, because this is where it starts to sound, woo, woo, but it is so deeply biblical. So Paul prays in Ephesians three, that we would be strengthened by his presence within us, that Jesus would be at home in our hearts. So folks, Joshua is saying he's right here with you. It gets even wilder than that. He lives inside of you. He is inside your inmost being. And so as you just gently turn your attention and go, I love you. I love you. God, I love you. Jesus, that's it, like you get back into connection and communion with Him, because he's right there or seven. He lives inside your very being.
Joshua Johnson:That's so good. I love how you put it. Is the turning of your heart, yeah, yeah. And it's the prodigal son story. It's, you know, Mary, after Jesus's death, Jesus encounters her as the gardener, she thinks, but then it's Jesus, and she turns those, those instances of turning your heart is key. What? What does a heart turn look like? More than just I think, sometimes I think I'm just putting my mind on something. How do we turn our heart?
John Eldredge:Yeah, well, you can do a couple different things. Teresa of Avila has this lovely practice called the Prayer of Recollection. And she says, I want you to remember a moment where you felt the love of God, or maybe a prayer was answered, or you just felt goodness, like someone was kind to you. She says, Bring that back that's in your heart, bring that back and just sit with that for a moment and remind your soul, Oh yeah, that's what you're like. You're kind, or you were really encouraging that day, or, Wow, you really gave us a wonderful trip. We went back to see our grandparents. Thank you, God, we pull upon these gifts of recollection to bring us into the present moment, to go, oh, and you are right here with me now also, your same goodness, your same love. So that's one way. That's one way you do it. I, I, you know, folks, here's the thing you're not going to be able to experience this if you don't get out of the matrix. You do have to have a little sacred space. And it could be your front porch with a cup of coffee. It could be your headphones on with some beautiful worship music. It might be on your morning commute and you're in your car, and instead of listening to the news, like you turn it off, and you create some sacred space. You are going to need to do that. But the thing is, as you begin to just enjoy there you are and and David says things like, your love is better than life. You nourish me more than a feast is you begin to taste that for yourself. You're not going to need anybody to prod you to do those moments of your sacred space. And for some people, it's their 6am because they can get quiet in the house. And for other people, it's bedtime, because that works for them, but you get that little bit of sacred space, and that's your communion time with Jesus and experiencing him. It's gonna go from two minutes to five, from five minutes to 10. Suddenly, you look up at the clock. This happens to Stace and me all the time. She'll look him and she'll go 45 minutes. What like? That just flew by because it's so rich and it's so lovely. But you do have to do this. You do, you do have to create a little bit of sacred space, folks.
Joshua Johnson:So as we turn our heart and we create some sacred space, we're there. We're experiencing Jesus. Part of the things is. Is that as we walk around with our relationships in the world, we have a lot of unhealthy, disordered relationships. Part of the places that you say Jesus encounters us is what you call the young places, places early on in our in our lives, where some trauma, something this happens, and Jesus wants to encounter that little boy or that little girl there in that so that we actually can start to look more like Jesus in the world and become more of our true selves. What does it look like then, as Jesus encountering us in young places,
John Eldredge:yeah, yeah. So he will ask your permission. He will ask for access. So that famous passage, Revelation three, I stand at the door and knock. I think most people in a Christian context heard that, like in evangelism, if you all just open your hearts, you know, but it's a letter written to the church, and Jesus is writing to Christians, and he's saying, I'm standing at the door knocking, let me in. And then he gives this lovely phrase. He says, We will share a meal together. In other words, I'm going to linger with you. We're going to be close. So here's what happens. Is that as we practice that little bit of sacred space, and as we turn our hearts towards him, he's going to want to address your pain, okay, because he's love and he's here, he's here to heal your soul, okay, he's going to want to address your pain. And so suddenly you are thinking of a painful memory, or suddenly your anxiety is really acute. He's He's knocking suddenly, you feel seven years old inside. And you know that place because that you feel that every time your boss gets mad at you, you feel that every time you have to make a presentation, you feel that yuck. You You know Jesus says, Can we go there together? Will you let me in beautiful secret of the soul? Is that Jesus waits for permission and and so what we have to do is we have to say, okay, okay, yes. It might be your anger, it might be your fear, but you choose to open it to Christ, who lives in you, but needs access to this part of you that needs care, and particularly in trauma. And you know, all the neurosciences catching up to this, but Jesus described in a in Isaiah, 61 trauma fragments it, you know, hard things. And when you're little, it doesn't have to be much. It can be in a, you know, you wet your pants on the playground, and you can write laughed, or it'll break your heart. And Jesus says, Let's go there. I want you follow me now, and let me into the seven year old. And the brain science is showing, oh, yeah, no, there's actually an arrested part of you, Arrested Development. Part of you is stuck in that memory. You're stuck in the trauma loop. Here's the cool thing, Joshua, is that Jesus will walk in because Jesus lives outside of time. He knows your whole story. He can access your story. This isn't hard for him at all. Suddenly you're like, oh my gosh, I'm back in my grandparents attic when I was so scared, you know. But the difference now is that Jesus is there, and he's able to love the young places, hold them and actually bring them out of the scary into his protection, and oh, my goodness, I've experienced this. I've done it with 1000 people as a therapist by now, to have Christ come into a place in your soul that has not been well, and bring His presence and His love and His wellness. There you're literally changed. It's not like you understand it now you're different, like you're better,
Joshua Johnson:yeah? And that crazy. It's so beautiful. And it's encounters with Jesus that that shift and change everything. Yeah, it is so beautiful that he's the one that's coming and doing that for us, and he's going to meet us in those places and our wounds and our pain and our trauma. Oh, I love Jesus. I really do. He's quite amazing. You know, one of the things I really I was like, I was really struck as I was reading your book, I the link between Psalm 91 and Luke 10, and then also in the wilderness when Satan tempts Jesus and Psalm 91 that whole link between those three areas in Scripture had me like. This is really fascinating for us to operate into an everyday encounter with Jesus, especially when we know that there's a spiritual world and spiritual realm that we are warring against, not against flesh and blood, which we think we are, because we're in a polarized age that we don't like each other, and we're fighting against each other in flesh and flesh and blood. But it is about the rulers, the powers, the principalities. Is what Paul says in Ephesians. What is that link between those three? Psalm 91 the temptation in the deserts and then Luke 10, yeah.
John Eldredge:Yeah. Again, folks, I want to assure you you live in a love story, but it is set in a world at war, and the more that you will just let that be true, the more that a lot of your life experience is going to come into focus, like all those thoughts that go through your head when you blow it, you know, you're such an idiot, nobody loves you. You're not going to get invited back. That's not you folks, a lot of it is not you. And so when Peter writes, for example, your enemy, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion. He says, your brothers and sisters around the world are all going through this. So he says, this is a very common experience to have your enemy, the kingdom of darkness, trying to say things lie to you, mess up your vacation, break up your marriage, get your kids off the rails. That's normal, okay, the beautiful thing is the provision of God. So so many ones, great refuge Psalm, but it's dynamic. You start with the refuge. Okay, 1000 will fall at your side. 10,000 at your right hand, it will not get you, okay. But then it goes on to say, you will trample the lion and the Cobra. You will crush the lion and the serpent. So we have a role to play in shutting down these spiritual attacks against us. So they, the Jewish listeners, would have gone, oh yeah, Lions cover snakes, carving those foul spirits. Now, when Jesus is teaching the disciples in Luke 10, the disciple, he gives them authority to cast out demons. They come back. They're like, whoa. You know it works. And Jesus says, I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy. Nothing will harm you. They know he's quoting Psalm 91 Okay, yeah, yeah, the great refuge Psalm. It's like you will do this. You do it so important that we learn to do it and then get to the temptation, the wilderness in the moment. So, for example, you wake up in the middle of night and there's this fear in the room. You're just like, you know, you go in the name of my Lord Jesus Christ, I send these foul beings to Jesus for judgment, and the fear leads, folks. Yeah, the fear leads now early on, you know it might work to say, oh, Lord Jesus, please take this away. And sometimes he will, but he's growing you up and he's saying, no, no, you do it when that lie hits you for the 10,000,000,000th time, nobody really likes you, right? You stop and you go, you know what? I reject this. I reject this lie in the name of Jesus and this foul being that keeps doing this. I send you to the judgment of Christ. That lie doesn't happen again because you're learning to resist it. And what's amazing is Psalm 91 is the psalm that G that Satan quotes against Jesus in the wilderness. You're like, wait what archeologists are now finding Psalm 91 on the door posts of early Christian houses and on pendants that they would wear like they knew this is really helpful against spiritual warfare, they would quote it out loud. So I think what was going on is Jesus is out there in the wilderness, fasting, praying, and he's quoting Psalm 91 you are my refuge. Father, you are my fortress. Father, 1000 will fall at my side, but it won't come near me. And the enemy comes in to tempt him, right? Takes him up to the ball. Says, Hey, throw yourself off, you know, because your angels can. He literally throws it back in his face, all 91 in his face. I think he was tempting Jesus to try and make a move before the cross, right that the cross disarm the enemy, and this is where we get our victory. We get our victory through the cross. I think Satan was trying to stop the cross from happening by saying, hey, I'll give you the world. Just worship me, and you don't have to go through all that other stuff. Jesus ever. Single time renounces him. He doesn't say, Oh, Papa, make this go away, right? He doesn't say, this isn't true. This isn't true. This isn't true. He confronts his he's no, that's not what Scripture No. Scripture says, Do not tempt the Lord your God, right? So we mature into the refuge of God, we begin to experience more of his presence as we shut down, yeah, the spiritual attacks on our family, or maybe it's our sleep at night, or something's trying to get into a church you're trying to plant. You know, take it seriously.
Joshua Johnson:And I think we haven't taken it seriously for for a long time. And you know, one of the things that you, you've you talk about, is we need more spiritual fathers and mothers to help mature disciples, to get them into a place where they can experience Jesus daily. And so what is that role, then, of spiritual fathers and mothers. And what is that? What is that role? And how is that different than somebody that says, hey, I'm discipling somebody and the knowledge of the faith or something? What is a a fathering in the spiritual sense?
John Eldredge:Yeah, that's really good. Well, um, I don't need to point out your gray, your gray hair and the gray in your goatee, but you have, you have reached that stage in your life where, over the years, you have developed an intimacy with God that you're not just giving people principles, right? You are inviting them into a life gang. There is a life that's available. And I think again, this is to back us all the way back up. You don't know what you don't know. This isn't your fault, folks, that you haven't been taught ordinary mysticism, like just simple life with God. It's not your fault. Okay? You were born into this particular post, post modern post, post Christian moment. You know, it's just, it's what it is. And we're all absolutely in love with the Internet. Okay? You want to sit with people who know God out people who just have good theology or good church programs, or big shiny things, or, you know, funny stories, we need mentoring into the Christian life. It's just like riding a bike or playing a piano. Somebody had to show you how to do it, and so you want to come sit at the feet, and it might be books, folks. You might start reading some of the sayings. You might read John of the Cross or trees of a villa to put yourself in the situation of spiritual mothers and fathers who are going to address the care of the soul, right? Because they're really concerned about the well being of your soul and your union with Christ. Union's the goal, everybody. Union's the goal vine branch, because then out of the Union comes your service, your generosity, your kindness to strangers, that all flows out of your intimacy and your union with Christ. Well, spiritual mothers and fathers know that, so they're not primarily trying to get you to sign up for the next program. They're they're caring for your union with Christ. They're caring for the condition of your soul.
Joshua Johnson:My wife and I spent years in the Middle East working with Syrian refugees and so Muslim background, people, it felt a little easier to help people encounter the living God, because they know that there's this the spiritual realm here our role, and what we saw our role as is we were facilitators of encounters of Jesus, like that's all we wanted to do is help people encounter Jesus, the intellectual ascent and trying to argue people in the faith never worked. But when they encounter Jesus, they're like, yes, I want to follow Jesus. It's not a difficult thing, folks. How does that work when we actually have to do one step further in the West. We actually have to go, hey, there is this thing God actually is here and wants to encounter you. How do you think facilitating encounters of Jesus works in the West? And how can we help people encounter Jesus?
John Eldredge:Well, the good news is you're living in a moment where the Spirit of God is moving, which is going to make this a lot easier. Okay, so Stacey and I both came to Christ out of the last great revival in the West, which was the Jesus movement. It was the Charismatic Renewal in the Catholic Church. And. It was the Jesus movement in the Protestant Church, the Spirit of God was moving, and it didn't take much to lead somebody to Christ, because God was working. Same thing's happening in the in the Islamic world right now. So here's what I would say, two things, how do you do that? I don't think, I don't think you come in to convince them. I think you tell them stories where you go. I was in such a hard place, and I prayed, and this happened, you what happened? Suddenly we got groceries, or somebody paid our rent, and you intrigue people with stories of your life, with God. Okay, the other thing we need to do, and this is this is now bringing kind of full conversation, full perspective. So the spiritual war against the human heart is very real. Satan hates your intimacy with Christ. He doesn't want anybody to come to Christ. So Paul in Second Corinthians three and four, says that the enemy puts veils or blindfolds or blinders on people's ability to see the face of God in Jesus. Okay, I if you're praying for a colleague, if you're praying for a neighbor or a lost you know, a wayward child, pray that those blinders would be removed before you try and say anything, because if they, if they've got those spiritual blinders on that the enemy put there, it's gonna be really hard for them to experience Jesus. So we pray God, Holy Spirit. Would you burn up the veils and the blinders that are keeping this dear soul from seeing Jesus even believing that God exists. Would you burn this up so that as I interact with them, they have an unveiled heart?
Joshua Johnson:Yeah, I think that that unveiling is absolutely key, and it's key for us to realize that we're not what the kingdom of God really is, and that our home is, our home is in the kingdom, yeah, and this is not of this world. And, yeah, you know, usually we think our home is in this world. You know, I was sitting with with somebody yesterday. I met her briefly, I don't know about 10 years ago, but she said for years she was angry with God. She didn't want anything to do with God. And what led her into a place of knowing Jesus finally, was being around people that love Jesus, that had an intimate relationship with Jesus. Yeah, it has had nothing to do with with a knowledge or, if you know this argument or that argument, it was over time, day after day, seeing people that had an intimate relationship with Jesus go, I can't deny that love. Like, I can't deny that love and Jesus started to to woo her, and it was beautiful to see that. It was just fun to be with her yesterday, to hear that story of this group, that we were a part of, that she was there. Nobody knew that she wasn't a believer, that she was angry, but it was just being around us year after year that said, I need Jesus, and I want that same intimate relationship with him. So if you can, can help your your readers, if people pick up your book experience Jesus, really, which is the title of the book, if people pick that up, what is your hope for them? How could you help them have these encounters? What do you hope that the readers would get from your book spiritual
John Eldredge:fathering someone someone to show them the way to walk them through, how to untangle from what this age has done to you, and to show you the path into those simple daily encounters with Jesus that then it's like the wardrobe door in nania, folks, I'm going to walk you up to the wardrobe door, I'm going to open it up. I'll walk with you through it, but then you're not going to need me, because you're going to have your own encounters with Jesus that nourish you and guide you forward.
Joshua Johnson:Your book is fantastic. I read a lot of books for this podcast, and there are a lot of times where I go that was a really good idea. And there are a lot of great ideas. And your book actually just my heart started to burn and come alive and saying, I want even more encounters with Jesus. I want, I want Jesus. And that's that's just a beautiful thing that you can do for for us who read your work is this book makes. Want to experience and encounter Jesus daily. And that is, that is really the goal. That's where you were. We want to get people to and so, well done. You've done it. It's fantastic. So I really encourage everybody to go out and get the book. How can people get your book? Where would you like? Is there any place you'd like to point people to to get the
John Eldredge:book. No, wherever you get your books, folks? Yeah, thanks, Amazon or Barnes or christianbook.com Yeah, wherever you get your books. Anywhere else you'd like to point people to if you'd like to connect. Actually, there's a beautiful, free film series on experiencing Jesus on the home page, on our website, a number of free resources there, wild@heart.org
Joshua Johnson:great. So go to wild@heart.org Go get this book experience. Jesus, really, it's fantastic, and it's good. John, I have two very quick questions here at the end that I like to ask. One, if you go back to your 21 year old self, what advice would you give?
John Eldredge:I would have told him, You need a father. You need a father. Because out of my woundedness, I grew up in an alcoholic home. I was trying to do life on my own. My core commitment was, I don't need anybody. And I think I would have just gently said, yeah, you actually do? You need a father?
Joshua Johnson:Yeah, that's really good. Anything you've been reading lately or watching lately you could recommend.
John Eldredge:Well, it's not going to surprise everybody that I'm reading the mystics and so I like the French woman, Jean Guyon, she has a couple lovely books. Well, she has a number of great books, but experiencing the depths of Jesus Christ, or brother, Lawrence, the famous Carmelite friar who wrote the book, the practice of the presence of God. Yeah, it's just a lovely guy in his daily life with Jesus. So yeah, I'm enjoying those. That's
Joshua Johnson:fantastic. Well, John, thank you for this conversation. It was incredible to go into the depths of what it looks like to experience Jesus daily. To have an example of someone like Patrick and Celts saying, This is what happened. This is what he did. This is why he needed a daily encounter with Jesus, and that we can move from being discipled by the Internet and then our age of knowledge and attention, into a space where we can encounter Jesus on a daily basis, so that every day we can experience Him, we could know him, and that it actually involves all of our life, and not Just a small section of our life, but in our daily rhythms, our daily life and our daily relationships, it impacts all of it, because we are people with a soul that is yearning for home, and we know that our home is found in Jesus. So thank you, John, it was fantastic.
John Eldredge:Joshua, thank you. Thanks for the great conversation. Thanks you.
