Shifting Culture
Shifting Culture
Ep. 309 Terry Crist Returns - Stop Running and Rest in the Refuge of God
Terry Crist returns to Shifting Culture to talk about the transformative power of rest, the necessity of Sabbath, and finding true refuge in God. Terry, an experienced pastor and insightful communicator, helps us rethink productivity, loneliness, bitterness, and forgiveness, inviting us into a deeper relationship with God's perfect love. In this episode, you'll discover how to shift your approach to rest, see productivity as a natural outflow of abiding in God, and break free from cycles of striving and bitterness. Join us for a meaningful conversation that will leave you with renewed peace, purpose, and perspective.
Terry Crist is the co-lead pastor of City of Grace in Phoenix alongside his wife, Judith. He has a Th.M. and a D.Min. and has a business certificate in nonprofit management from Harvard Business School. Terry is also passionate about community transformation and promotes adoption and foster care through his work in state government. An avid outdoorsman and gifted communicator, he has adventured and preached the gospel in 65 nations. Terry and Judith have three married sons and four grandchildren. They live in Arizona.
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Sabbath is not the reward for six days of hard work. Sabbath is the basis for six days of productive work. So if we can shift the mentality where we're not seeing you know this making me to lie down as God being dissatisfied, but it's the invitation into greater productivity, then it becomes something I want, not something that I resent. Hello and
Joshua Johnson:welcome to the shifting culture podcast in which we have conversations about the culture. 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 Terry Christ is back on the podcast. I am excited to have him here. He is a seasoned pastor and thoughtful communicator, and has spent years walking alongside people, observing the deep struggles beneath the surface of our busy lives, struggles like loneliness, bitterness, anger and the relentless pursuit of productivity that often leaves us exhausted. In this conversation, Terry helps us rethink our relationship with rest, inviting us to see Sabbath not as a reward for our hard work, but as the very foundation that enables productive, meaningful lives. We discuss the illusion of running towards ambitions or away from pain, and how true refuge is found only when we anchor ourselves deeply in God's perfect love. We also explore the epidemic of loneliness, the trap of bitterness and the transformative power of forgiveness. Terry offers a vision of life where productivity flows naturally from being deeply loved and securely rested in God. If you're feeling overwhelmed by the relentless pace of life, wrestling with bitterness or sensing a need for deeper spiritual rest. This episode will help you pause, reflect and move forward with renewed peace and purpose. So join us as we shift our perspective and discover the profound invitation of Jesus into rest, abundance and true refuge. Here is my conversation with Terry. Christ. Terry, welcome back to shifting culture. Excited to have you back on. Thanks for joining me again. Thank
Terry Crist:you, Joshua, it's great to be with you. I was thinking right before we jumped on today that you were my first interviewer when I released loving Samaritans, and this is my first interview for now you can stop running so you get all the raw, you get the unrefined, the unfinished and the stream of consciousness, but thanks for having me. You're welcome.
Joshua Johnson:You're welcome. This would be good. Well, the world does seem like an overwhelming place at the moment, and I think there's a lot of people that are dealing with a lot of things through through trauma and anxiety and guilt and bitterness, because what's going on in this world, and they're running to something or they're running from something, where have you found yourself in your past running to or running from something where you said maybe the refuge of God is probably the best place, but I'm going to try and take solace in something else before I run to God. Without
Terry Crist:a doubt, I've done both in my life. I have run toward things that were higher and more noble pursuits, at least in my own rationale, things like Kingdom impact and significance and a flourishing ministry and people care, and all of those things I do think are noble pursuits, but they're not intended to be the destination, nor are they the things that really provide satisfaction of soul. And then, on the other hand, I've run from things. I have run from pain and from grief and from parts of my own story that I didn't want to face, and what I've learned is that both kinds of running will wear you out, whether it's ambition or avoidance, if it's not anchored in God's perfect love, if it isn't centered in Jesus, the only one who can provide true and lasting refuge, then It is but an illusion of rest and refuge.
Joshua Johnson:So people who believe in Jesus and have Holy Spirit with them at all times and know that there is a constant presence of God in our life. Like God is not distant, he's not far, but there's a constant presence. Why do you think that we don't pay attention to that presence and try to seek solace in other things.
Terry Crist:Well, we live in a world of idols, idols of our own, making these false destinations, these refuges. And they're not just in the world around us. Clearly, they are there, the things that people pursue, believing that. Going to provide this sense of rest and satisfaction of soul, but we also have these things in the church. And just because you pray a prayer of surrender and invest faith in Jesus and go through the waters of baptism doesn't mean that your thinking has completely been renewed. In fact, that's the journey. It's the journey of formation. It's the journey of becoming like Jesus. And I think a lot of times, people have sort of traded one idol for another. So in the Christian life, to your point, we idolize busyness, we idolize productivity, we idolize doing. And all these things become cheap and hollow substitutes for what it means to be loved and what it means to abide and what it means to truly be at rest in Jesus, and that's what He invites us into, not exchanging one form of doing for another, not exchanging one ambition for another, but ceasing from our labors. I love this line that we hear in the gospels, and I think it resonates with so many of us, and particularly maybe with those in ministry, where Jesus says, Come to me those who are weary, and I will give you rest. Well, he's saying that to Israel, his disciples are certainly in the mix of that. So these are people who had pursued God and had known God, but somehow that pursuit had become the end and the goal, and not the sense of arrival and abiding in him. Pope
Joshua Johnson:Francis, just passed away. You know, he has a Jesuit background. One of the things that I really like about the Jesuits is they talk about being a contemplative in action, like there is a there is a rest, and being with, with Jesus, but actually, then being active in spiritual life, in ministry in the world. How does that play a part? As you said, busyness can be an idol, but then active ministry can actually be a good thing. Where does the contemplation or the rest and the refuge of God play into a part of being active in ministry and good things of this world?
Terry Crist:I think for me, the question would be, what are we operating from? The basis of, are we working from striving, or are we working from rest? So there is this, as you say, activity that is a part of the life of the believer. Whether you're a parent, there is this parental activity. If you're on mission in the marketplace, there is a business activity. We all have this activity, but the question is whether or not that we are working from this frenetic place, this frenzied place, or we're working from a place of rest, sense of knowing that we're loved and we're accepted, that we've been chosen by God and that we don't have to earn his approval, so the outcome is going to be very different. If I'm working to gain approval, if I'm working to be loved, then there's a desperation in that, and the desperation in that leads to a life of frustration. But if I'm working from the basis of I am loved, therefore I want to love others well I am led. Therefore I want to lead others well I work for the one who is interested in productivity. Jesus taught those parables calling us to productivity. Therefore, from that basis I want to be productive. So it really depends upon what the center of your life is and from what basis you were working. You referenced Pope Francis. I had the opportunity to visit with him in 2023 and in 2024 there in his papal quarters, small cohort of pastors and leaders. And a number of things struck me about that encounter Joshua, but nothing more than the fact that he was fully engaged in listening, and he had this, what he called the apostolate of the ear, the this commitment to deep listening, to being really present, whether he was talking with a world leader or an ordinary pastor like us or even a child, he had this way being in these moments. And I think you can only do that if you know that you are fully loved and fully accepted and you're at peace with who you are. Then from there, you can engage in a way that is productive. So the Christian life calls us to the right ordering of our priorities, and our priorities must be working from rest, working from love, working from acceptance, and from there, then doing the work of the Kingdom.
Joshua Johnson:As you've been walking with people in pastoral ministry, have you seen any shift or change of the pain points in people's life? What are the like? Main. Major pain points that people are going through now and maybe earlier in your ministry life, you didn't actually see it as much. What are the things that are popping now as pain points? I
Terry Crist:would answer that a couple of ways. First of all, I think the issues at the surface change, but the fundamental human needs remain the same. So the fundamental need for love, for acceptance, for affirmation, for significance, for purpose, those things are eternal. These are the holy longings that we have within ourselves, longings for transcendence and for a spiritual connection, for an existence outside of our own head in the world. So that then changes over time. How do we in an age of social media speak to those fundamental issues, and then, of course, throughout time, some of those issues, those those bigger, deeper issues, tend to maybe raise above the other. So loneliness would be one. Right now, we're in a global epidemic of loneliness, and it's not just simply, you know, with people who we might consider to be far from God, but people who are a part of our spiritual communities are passing each other and not really, genuinely connecting. So I think loneliness is something I would highlight as being a very significant issue. It's hard to provide a sense of connection that brings others out of loneliness into being loved and seen and heard if we haven't been there, themselves, ourselves. So I think you know, the first work that we always have to do is the personal work, the soul work, the sense of sitting at the feet of Jesus for ourselves as husbands and wives and leaders and business people and educators and athletes and entertainers and whatever we have to do this first work of being present to Jesus, being loved by Jesus, and then from that we can communicate with a robustness what that looks like, and invite others into that reality as well. I
Joshua Johnson:do think loneliness is a big element of our time. I mean, just this weekend that we're recording this thunderbolts, this new Marvel movie came out, and it was all about loneliness and depression and feeling isolated, and that the only thing that actually helped this villain that was making people go towards the void of depression and loneliness was a community of people around them. It was, it's a strange thing to say, hey, this, this crazy comic book movie, is going to actually speak to the ailment of our age, which is this loneliness epidemic, and they're trying to find answers to it. As somebody who knows that there is presence with Jesus, and he is closer than anybody could ever be to us? What do you think that we can start to do to help in this loneliness epidemic? You did say that, you know, we can't force any connection. We can't force that. But what are some of the things that we can do to help people move towards refuge?
Terry Crist:I think first and foremost, we can live lives of invitation, lives that are open, lives that are hospitable, and that often means that we slow down just a beat, that we walk a little slower through our days. We're a little more observant of the lives of the people around us, whether that's in a grocery store, you know, picking cereal, a box of cereal, off the shelf next to someone, there. Just these moments of opportunity allow us to live these lives of hospitality and invitation. And I think that it's really important for all of us to do that. An extra moment at the end of the day with your kids can go a long way. An extra moment in the morning with a husband or wife, a spouse, before you go about your day, a pastor walking through the lobby of the church just a little slower. And I want to be really clear that I'm speaking as a learner. I'm speaking as a practitioner. I am still in process, and I live this sort of life, and by by nature, I'm sort of hardwired to just put my head down and just go about getting the job done. But sometimes the job isn't the job. Sometimes it's seeing people and acknowledging people and having conversations with people. There are a lot of people in the world today who don't open up quickly and easily. And the fact is, we have a couple of kids that way. I have three sons, and two of the three open up slowly. The oldest son comes out of the gate hot every single morning. So they're all men. Now they're grown up, but back when they were teenagers at home, I mean, from the moment his eyes opened. He was in this high verbal stream of consciousness without without pause, without beat. And then our other sons tend to wake up slower throughout the day and really come alive about the time that my day is over. And my wife was always better at this, just staying up a little longer, being present a little more. And I learned through watching her that people open up at their own pace. What I don't want to have happen Joshua is to miss the moment when they might open up. So we have to linger. We've got to stay there. And if if they open up a little quicker, great. If not, then let's not miss that opportunity and invite them into community. There are a lot of people in the world today that are lonely only because no one's reached out, no one's invited them, no one's come along and said, Hey, why don't you join me at my home group? Why don't you, you know, I'd love to have a coffee with you. You know, just those sorts of simple things that we take for granted, especially within the community of faith, are, in fact, very novel for many people in the world today who don't have exposure to that sort of invitation and hospitality and concern,
Joshua Johnson:one of the things that that loneliness can do is move us towards bitterness because we have been isolated and maybe even hurt. And one of your chapters, you talk running with scissors, you're talking about from bitterness to forgiveness. I think forgiveness is the secret sauce of our spiritual life, like it helps us remove the chains that are encapsulating us through whatever unforgiveness that we do have, and that bitterness holds us back to engaging with others in the world, to connecting with other people, to moving forward. Where did you see that in Scripture? What's a good example for us to move from bitterness to forgiveness, and what does that look like?
Terry Crist:Well, if I could just start with the idea that I believe there is a power in naming things. So grace comes on. What we face, what we name, what we kind of square up to, the more unsightly parts of our souls that really need to be brought into the light of God's presence. By naming those things, we can really begin to apply or make space for the grace of God to be present to them. So there's a long list of runners in the scripture, and I think it sort of sits in this thesis I have, that we're all running from something or to something. We're all coming from unmet needs, unhealed wounds, or we're in pursuit of a better life. So whether you're a sprinter or a marathoner, we're all running towards something in life. And for some people, they are driven by that sense of unforgiveness, that sense of bitterness. Bitterness never starts off as bitterness. It starts off as a wound, an offense, a hurt that is oftentimes justified, and when we add justification to the pain of being wounded, then it becomes something more. So, if I'm hurt and I can address that in a space of honesty, then I have a great, high opportunity, a likelihood of seeing it healed. But when I double down and begin to justify it, but they did, they met, they intended people always, and I begin to, you know, load it with that, then I end up in a situation where that something such as a wound, becomes unforgiveness, which then metastasizes into being bitter this and when bitterness is present, it springs up and defiles many, as Hebrew says, so we see this all through the Scripture. We see it with Cain in the very beginning. We see it with Absalom. We see opportunities, even in Peter's life, in the gospels, you know, he had an opportunity to turn to forgiveness or to turn to bitterness. So this is a common issue. The issue that we all face, the beauty of the gospel, is that there is provision for that. Jesus is committed to loving through us when we don't find love within ourselves, and he is committed to forgiving through us. When we don't find forgiveness within ourselves, and when we allow forgiveness to flow through us, then the residue of forgiveness begins to form and shape our soul. And over time, the sting of forgiveness is gone. Unforgiveness is gone. It's not that we forget what was done to us, but that sting, that bitter, bitter pain, is no longer present in our lives. You
Joshua Johnson:know, I always find it fascinating that we in America, where I am now looking at this through an individualistic lens, like, what is it about me? You know, when I lived in the Middle East. I looked at it through a communal lens, like so what is, what is the offense that that this tribe, this family of people, had, and why they have bitterness and unforgiveness, and so there's feuding across tribal groups and family groups and collective groups of people. I know, you've you've traveled the world, you've seen a lot of different cultures. How could this start to help moving from towards forgiveness in a more communal setting, and in a communal culture where there's groups of people that are fighting and angry at each other. Because there's an in group and there's an out group, there's there's bitterness and offense on one side, and so this whole group is angry at each other. I
Terry Crist:think it always starts with a single individual. And I'll look in the mirror and say, it all starts with me. You know, someone has to be willing to lay down their weapons. Someone has to be willing to risk rejection, someone has to be willing to extend the olive branch of peace. It all starts with someone, and that may be someone in a family. Today, we can talk about it, you know, here at the meta level, we can talk about this, you know, as a global issue, and it's true, we're in an age of outrage. We're in an age where people are just, you know, on the verge of going off for any reason. And these are just the surface expressions of these deeper issues that we're talking about here today. But it's present in tribes, it's present in communities, and it's present in families. And at some point we have to set the tone. And this is what people of faith do. This is what followers of Jesus do, where we say, Okay, we're going to set the tone here for civility and for compassion and for conversation. And it really comes out of a revelation of who Jesus is and what Jesus did, and how he lived his life in the gospels, and how that his life didn't end in failure. But his model is the model for our lives today. And if you look at Jesus through the lens of, well, that didn't work, you know, then of course, you're going to use weapons to try and accomplish your own ends. But if you look at the life and set of Jesus and say it worked, it meant laying down his life, but it worked. So starting with me, what can I do to say I'm going to be the change that the world needs. I'm going to be the individual that starts this conversation, that extends the olive branch that lays down my weapons and starts listening, and that can feel very, very risky, because one of the things we also experience in today's world is this level of defensiveness. You know, it's not just outrage, but it's defensiveness. It is based in fear. And I found that, you know, when we talk about this idea of rest, sometimes it makes us feel unsafe. When we talk about this idea of peace and safety, it makes us feel unsafe. And so when it comes to running, we think, if we stop, then the monsters are going to catch up with us. If we don't fight, then the monsters are going to overtake us. So we live in this posture, and I'm inviting people to step out of that, to come home to Jesus, to to community, to faith, and there begin to be what is needed in the community around you. Fear
Joshua Johnson:is, is often the the place of, you know, defensiveness. So then you said that these, these issues, are not really the surface level issues. They're the questions people are asking underneath the surface. And I think defensiveness would would be in fear would be like saying, No, it actually is just the surface. There's nothing underneath what's going on. It's just, I need to solve whatever the surface is and everything will be okay. How do leaders, pastors, communicators, even business leaders, who have to deal with people all the time, how do people get beneath the surface to actually know what the issue really is, that it's not just the surface level, but there is something underneath. What are some tips that you have found to get under the surface,
Terry Crist:I think asking yourself really strategic questions. You know, why am I feeling this way? Why am I reacting this way? Might I be wrong in the situation? Might there be another viewpoint that is equally, if not more valid, really, really being willing to ask ourselves the kind of questions, rather than doubling down in our behavior. I know this is perhaps a bit simplified, simplistic and but at the risk of oversimplification, I think so much of what we see in the world today is the result of scarcity thinking. Me. So when I live from the mindset of scarcity, then that postures me. You know, completely different than if I lived from the mindset of abundance. And Walter Brueggemann helped me a lot on this, and I think he helped me for a couple of reasons. Number one, he's an Old Testament scholar. He is not a tele evangelist. So when he talks about abundance, it's not to get something from you, and it's not formulaic, it's formational. And so he has written extensively about this idea of scarcity thinking and I think in our own lives, whether it's financial leaders or parents or even spiritual leaders, when when we are afraid of not having enough when we are looking at life through the lens of scarcity. Then, of course, we're going to be defensive, and we're going to live in this posture that is antagonistic because we're fighting for what we we feel like we're missing. But on the other hand, if we realize that what we have is not only enough, it is more than enough, because what we have is a person. We have, the person who is the summation of life, who has the answers to life, who has all that life needs and and longs for. And so if I live connected to that source, then I don't have to be afraid of not having enough and not being enough. And if I can just come to to realize that it's going to change a lot in my life, I don't need to fear not having enough. Therefore I don't have to fight and compete for resources. I always have enough. And
Joshua Johnson:I think when, when I think of scarcity, I think it's opposite of connection being connected. We really need to have more of a connected type of worldview, that there is enough for all of us in this world that I think it would stop us from trying to run towards things and run away from things. And we could actually be firm and stand firm in our dependence on God and each other, and we could connect. Well, how did we miss this connected worldview? What happened? It started in the garden, and then what? What happened over time that we've lost this connection and this way of connecting with each other.
Terry Crist:I think first and foremost, this sense of abundance comes out of our relationship with God, and there in the garden, it was severed that life giving relationship we had with the author of life. So we immediately, as a species, move into the deficit. We immediately begin working from a place of scarcity, and we see that framed in Adam and Eve's original language there in the conversation between the serpent and Eve as he introduces this sense of you're missing something. God's keeping you from your full potential. You know he doesn't want you to measure up and live up. And then, of course, from there, we see separation working throughout the human condition. So Joshua sort of baked into us, sort of wired into us. We aren't born with an abundance mentality. We're born with this scarcity mentality. And I think apart from a life giving relationship with Jesus, we live it now. We may fill it from time to time with possessions and with accomplishments, but deep within the human condition, there are these holy longings. And these longings come from scarcity. These longings come from disconnection. So the disconnection issue is resolved first of all in our relationship with God vertically. But we also know from God that we need more than just to exist in friendship with God. We need to exist in friendship within the human community. And of course, we see that modeled in the triune godhead, this interconnectedness, this, this mutual submission, this this communal, you know, depiction, and it's really the model for how we're to live our lives in connected, being connected with God and with each other. Scarcity
Joshua Johnson:mindset, it goes into our relationship with time that we think that time is scarce and we don't have enough time, and so we're constantly running to keep up. You, you admittedly said that you were like Alexander Hamilton. You're non stop, that you're trying to keep up, right? And I think a lot of us are. I joke around that my, you know, my son's only seven, but we constantly joke that he's like Alexander Hamilton. He's non stop. But you write in your book that you finally come to this place of you think that you actually have enough time. What? What has shifted? How? What is our relationship with time and how does, how do we actually situace ourselves in our good way? Work with time?
Terry Crist:Yeah, well, I want to be very clear that I've written this book as a learner, as a practitioner. I am not a therapist. I'm a pastor. I love people, I live with people, I serve people, and it's really my highest goal in life. I have friends, in fact, even family members who've laughed about the fact that I am the most unlikely candidate to be writing a book about rest, but I think so much of our lives and the deepest wells in our lives, and the most genuine help that we offer to others often comes out of our own need, out of our own deficit and awareness of that need and how we're processing that need. So you're right. For me, after decades of ministry and leadership and running hard, I began to realize that if I didn't care for my own Soul, that no one else would. And I began to realize that fundamentally, I was tired to the bone, and I'm not the only one. I think people everywhere are profoundly tired. We talk about rest like it's a luxury, but in reality, it is a necessity, and it's a biblical command. So I wanted to create something that gave people permission to stop running, that invited them to rest, not because they've arrived, but because that God's love is sufficient. And to your question, in my own life, I think that in my running, whether and I've run from a lot of things, so I've run, you know, toward kingdom, impact and toward significance and toward approval, hoping that if I were a more effective leader, I would feel secure and and then I've run away from things. I've run from pain and from grief and from parts of my own story that I didn't want to face. And I've discovered that whether we're running from ambition or avoidance, the answer is really anchored in God's perfect love. So I'm in process. I'm getting to the point you've described. I'm more at peace. I'm more at rest. But then again, it's a daily thing, right? So just like we take up our cross daily to follow Jesus, we also enter into His rest daily. So I don't want to give the impression to anyone that man, Terry mastered it, wrote the book, and now he's the expert. I'm I'm not, I'm not an expert, but I'm processing this, and the key to it is abiding in the love of God. The more present I am to the love of God, the more at content, more content. My spirit is more at rest. My heart is and more restful I am.
Joshua Johnson:So there's this dichotomy for me, that God is outside of time. God is love, and we're resting the love of God, but we are. We're inside of time. We have, we have limits in our human life and our ability, and we need rest, but we, we do want to. We're made in the image of God. It's, it feels like this tension to me. Of All right, God is so far outside of time that there's rest in Him, but then we are in time. How do we? How do we deal with this time issue when it comes to our relationship with God and resting in that, yeah,
Terry Crist:that there's a great tension in that, and I appreciate you highlighting that because the psalmist teaches us to number our days. So there is a weighing and evaluating that we need to do as it relates to productivity, as it relates to the fruitfulness of our lives. God wants us to be fruitful. He wants our lives to bear abundant fruit so that others can eat from it and be nourished. He wants our days to Jesus gave us these parables, right, these stewardship parables, where he leaves on us the impression that we need to multiply and the night is coming when no man can work. So all of that is wrapped up in what you've described there. I think what I'm trying to get to is the difference between working from rest, working from acceptance, working from a place of being at peace with God, versus trying to earn those things. So there is the activity of the Christian life, where that we are discipling and we're serving and we're building and we're partnering with Jesus and remaking the world. Wow, what a huge idea that is, that we would be privileged to have friendship with God, in partnership with God in the shaping of the world based upon the resurrection of Jesus and him being seated as King and Lord of all. That's mind blowing, and that feels like a lot. So I can attempt to accomplish that through striving and through drivenness and through all of the toxicity that comes with, you know, becoming a slave to m. Empire working for Pharaoh unceasing rest, or, on the other hand, I can enter into the rest of God and partner with him and do those things from a seated place. So that's what I'm trying to get to in all of this. Is, what are we coming from? What basis are we serving and leading and making and recreating from and if we're doing that from rest, then we're much more effective in what we're doing. God is much more glorified, and our work itself is much more complete. It reminds
Joshua Johnson:me of Psalm 23 at the beginning, it says that God makes me lie down in green pastures. So he makes me stop for my running. He's like, I'm going to actually sit you down. You're going to do this. It's not just a it should be a choice. It is a choice that I have. But God's heart and desire is rest, even in the midst of our enemies, even in the midst of the valley of the shadow of death, he wants rest. It's beautiful, but he's he's trying to get us to this place. I love Psalm 23 I
Terry Crist:did too. I live in that, and during times of anxiety and frustration and tension, I go right back to that, and I love the fact that you know, God does bring us into situations. You know, maybe for some of your listeners and viewers, it may be that they've come to the realization of their need for deep soul rest over time. But for others, it may be that God has allowed conditions in their life to interrupt their striving and they're running. And when he does that, as painful as that is, that's really a gift. You know, when a shepherd says to the sheep, you need to rest. You know, if we'd been taught that we have to work to earn God's approval, then rest can feel like punishment. It can feel like displeasure, but when we understand that rest is the invitation to abide in God, to be deeply connected to Jesus, so that we're more productive, right? So that that's what it is. Sabbath is not the reward for six days of hard work. Sabbath is the basis for six days of productive work. So if we can shift the mentality where we're not seeing, you know, this making me to lie down as God being dissatisfied, but it's the invitation into greater productivity, then it becomes something I want, not something that I resent. In today's
Joshua Johnson:culture, you there's a lot of polarization, but there's a lot of anger on all sides. People are angry at each other. You know, as you walk through your your chapter around anger, you walk through the story of Moses, and I think that's a great picture of what it looks like to say, Okay, I might have a calling here now, and God wants me to do something, but I don't know how to channel it. I'm channeling it out of anger, right? He he goes, the first thing he does is he murders somebody like it, out of anger of hey, now I'm trying to be with my people that I haven't been with before. I've been in this court of Egypt, and I'm trying to be with it the Jewish people now, and there's injustice. So I have anger. We see a lot of injustice. We see a lot of things in our culture that are really difficult. How do we not run towards anger in the middle of all of it? Or how do we reframe anger into righteous anger that actually helps and doesn't hurt.
Terry Crist:I love the story of Moses, and I think the older I get, the more I relate to Moses. And obviously, in my 20s, man, it was all about Joshua. We were the Joshua generation. And, you know, it's all about Joshua and that 60 now I'm really starting to connect more with Moses. One of the things I see in this idea of running there is that the years and the miles don't naturally make us softer. They only make us harder. We only become softer. And by softer, I don't mean weaker, but Meeker and more pliable and teachable by doing the work that we need to do, the work in God's presence, the work in the word, the work of interacting in community, maybe even the work of therapy and of counseling. But we we need to do the deep soul work, because that's what interrupts the cycles. When I was reading the story of Moses, I began to see his story as a picture of cognitive loops that we can get stuck in, where we just run in these circles, and it's the hamster on the wheel just running and running and running, and we need something to get us off that wheel. So from Moses, he ends up, as you've you've described, you know, out of Pharaoh's chord, he's on the backside of the desert. But he's still Moses. He's still fundamentally trapped in these cognitive loops and in the struggle and in this disposition toward anger. He has an encounter with God and comes to know God as the one who is gracious and kind and long suffering. And I love. When God reveals Himself, He says, I am who I am. But let me tell you who I am. I am gracious, and I'm kind. And God starts with that sort of language, which must have been shocking to Moses, and so from there, Moses then begins to to allow that to work within his life. And he still has this tension he loves God's people. Then he's hacked off on Monday morning after church services didn't go well. He, he, you know, all of these things are a part of his life, but the idea of anger in Moses's life is a cautionary one, because I think anger is a sign of what we feel unjust about, or what we feel is unjust in the world. But I think we also can deceive ourselves into believing that our anger is righteous and is justified. God's anger is righteous and justified, and I don't know that my anger is always righteous and justified, even when I see injustice around me in the world. So I've got to be very, very careful, and I've got to ask myself the question, okay, I see what's happening in the world, and I move toward the need, but is anger the solution toward this? Or because that we live in an age of outrage, and because it's so easy just to yell and shout and then feel that we've done something, what if I take back that feeling of outrage and anger, let God feel that, because it's legitimate from him, but for me, can I move into a posture of kindness and mercy and generosity and being long suffering and being helpful and compassionate? And I think that's really what I want to call people to, because it's just so easy to be angry and justify it and then think it's all righteous, and God alone is righteous. And for us, we're to embody his kindness and his generosity and his compassion. So
Joshua Johnson:if we start to align our desires or our heart to God's heart, and he's he has some righteous anger. He knows that what is happening in this world is unjust, and we are moved to do something about it in this world, because we're trying to actually have the heart of God in our lives. What's then our responsibility as we move towards injustice, and then God's responsibility what's what's ours to own and what's God's to own in that, maybe
Terry Crist:the better way of me putting this is that ours is to act. Ours is to move toward the hurting and the suffering and the marginalized and the disenfranchised and those who have been abused ours is definitely to act but, but not to to act with a sense of trying to bring recompense, trying to bring judgment, and that's really what I'm moving toward. We can move towards solutions, and we should. We should be engaged in the areas of society, but to be a solution oriented people. And I think maybe, maybe there's some reaction in in me, against the keyboard warriors and the people that just scream, you know, and the outrage that continues to build to build to build, to build. And, you know, we need somebody to interrupt the cognitive loop. We need somebody to say that there is a measured approach act we must but let's do it through the the intention of bringing about resolution in the human condition, bringing the wisdom of heaven to bear, bringing, you know, it's hard to be an advocate if you're blinded by your own anger. And those are some of the terms that we use about anger, right? So I don't know that we have a lot of metaphors that that speak of anger in a way that's healthy. You know, we're outraged and we're blinded by anger. I'm inviting people to step away from that and to take the things that we're troubled by and to allow that to fuel us toward engagement in a way that is kind and compassionate. I
Joshua Johnson:hope so. I think we could engage kindly, compassionately in the world, each other, defuse some of this outrage, this anger, that we can actually be embodied presence of Jesus, instead of just shouting into the ether and the void, or shouting towards other people. You know, sometimes when I do, am connected with God, and I'm praying, and I'm starting to get his heart. I think that when I pray, that God is going to send me somewhere, like I'm going to. Get his heart. So I'm going to actually have to do something in this world. Think about the story of Jonah, where God sends him to a place where I don't like these people. I don't want to do this. I am very reluctant, but I'm going to go anyways. I'm going to but I'm not going to be happy about it. How do we in those situations? How do we get to the other side of that, where we're in this like joyful delight with God, even if he's asking us to do hard and difficult things, and he will.
Terry Crist:I was raised to believe that, you know, the center of God's will was the safest place to be. I discovered it's actually the most dangerous place to be. Jesus was at the center of God's will, and he got him crucified. So back to the idea that I didn't coin the term, but the myth of righteous anger is a term that's been used. You know, Jonah feels that. Jonah feels justified. You know, first of all, he's the reluctant prophet. You know, he runs away from God. I mean, he goes to painstaking lengths to get away from the call of God, and leaves and heads in the opposite direction of where he should be going. And yet, God intervenes, and the story then continues with him reluctantly accepting the call of God. And so he ends up in Nineveh, this great city that God sends him to pronounce judgment upon. And the remarkable thing was that he didn't arrive in Nineveh with a turn or burn message. It was a burn baby, burn message. There was no invitation to repentance or surrender or turning, because God was intent on destruction, and Jonah is acting as his mouthpiece. And then, of course, God's heart is moved. God sees the contrition and the humility and the repentance of the people, and when he does. Jonah is outraged because he's holding the line. He's the one who is angry on God's behalf, and now God seems to be acting unjust. So Wow. What a moment there that I can perceive God's justice to be one thing only to discover that God, in His mercy, is acting one way. And then I flip it and perceived God to be unjust. So the beauty of all this is that Jesus loved Jonah. He references Jonah on more than one occasion, and he gets it. He gets how we can exist in these situations where we run from Him. We're trapped by the myth of righteous anger. We don't understand His mercy and the depth of his kindness in Christ, Jesus and so all this means that we are humans in process. What do we do with it? Well, I think that we live lives in such a way that are yielded, that say, Not my will, but Your will be done. We live like Jesus, surrendered to the point of the cross, allowing God to love through us, allowing God's grace to flow through us. And when we live that way, that becomes the kind of way that that creates conditions for God to work in the lives of people who are around us. I love. Jonah, there's so much in that. And of course, the outcome, the repentance of the people, the mercy of God on display, and then the book abruptly ends. We don't know what happens with Jonah. It just it just ends. It's like in the middle of Act Four, the story is over. But I think Jesus comes along as the better Jonah. So Jonah is not really our model. Jesus is, and he shows us what it means to love people unconditionally. Yeah,
Joshua Johnson:he's the better Jonah. He is the new Moses. Like we see all of this, that it's the Jesus is the culmination of it, and he's the one that we actually need to follow and then embody in the world. So what does it then look like to run to Jesus? What does it look like to go to him instead of running away from things or running towards things that are not the refuge of God? What does it look like to run to Jesus?
Terry Crist:I think it's a process, but a process that begins when we become aware of our need to find rest within him. I think the world is filled with false refuges, temporary refuges, the refuge of power and prestige in the sense of having arrived in what we have learned and acquired. But I think the deeper refuge is in Jesus. In fact, I know the deeper refuge is in him. And we come to that sometimes progressively. So I was just thinking about the idea this morning that if, when I talk about finding rest in Jesus, if we could just sort of as a metaphor, imagine the most tranquil place on the planet, the place that we see on Instagram reels. And long to be so maybe it's Tahiti. I've never been to Tahiti, but I've never seen a bad picture of Tahiti. I mean the beautiful, clear waters. So imagine that. First of all, we meet a Tahitian. Well, meeting a beautiful Tahitian doesn't mean we've arrived in Tahiti and but let's say we go one step beyond that. Let's say we book a ticket. Well, that doesn't mean we're there. Let's say we fly to the capital city. Well, we're getting closer now. We've arrived on the island, but that isn't still the destination. Let's say that we check into the hotel, but we're stuck in the lobby. We're still closer, but not there. And then finally, we end up on the beach, or in those you know, beautiful bungalows on stilts, putting our feet up, we've gotten there. I think that's the journey of this life of surrendering to Jesus. More and more I love in Matthew 2011 28 where he says, Come to me, but he knows we don't get there with the simple decision. We don't get there by simply praying the sinners prayer. We arrive there daily. Daily we come to greater rest, data. Daily we come to to deeper security. Daily we learn to abide in him. So the whole journey of the Christian life is one of formation. It is one of yielding. It is one of surrendering. We will surrender 10,000 times 10,000 we will wave the white flag over and over again, and every time we wave the white flag, we are finding deeper rest for our souls. So that means praying things like not My will yours be done? Search me and know me. Try my ways and see if there be any wicked thing within me. Make me lie down in green pastures. It is this journey of being formed under the hand of God for His glory and for His purpose. But it has to begin somewhere, right? So it begins with the idea that I'm tired, I'm burned out, I'm worn out, or I'm really, really close to this. And there's only one safe place in the universe, and the place is a person who says, Come to me. Well,
Joshua Johnson:I love the come to me all who are weary and heavy laden. So he's talking about his yoke is easy, His burden is light. So his yoke is something where you're going to be pulled along towards something with Jesus. He's going to take you on this journey. So when I think of of rest, and I think of formation, sometimes in my head, I think of two separate things, but they're really not right. They're they're the same. They can be the same. So I think of formation of of like apprenticeship, of what Jesus was doing with his disciples. They're walking on the journey, on the road, and during that time, they're become, they're starting to become more like Jesus, as as they're on this road and journey. So then, how does rest and formation and apprenticeship then look like, like? What is that, that whole Interplay for us to be formed more like Jesus?
Terry Crist:Yeah, I love how you put that. I need to take some notes to remember that. And I think you're absolutely right. I think it's all one in the same. It's being with him. It's being present to Him, being yielded to him, surrendered to Him, allowing his will and way to be done in and through us. And I don't think we can separate out any of these things. It is just simply the life that we've been called into. And I think we need to know that it's always going to be a journey. I was talking once to a young friend who had spent a lot of time with Eugene Peterson at the end of his life in ministry. And of course, I love the way that Eugene puts this verse in the message, are you tired? Are you worn out? Are you burned out on religion? You know, come to me and I'll teach you how to get away. I'll teach you how to recover your life. I mean, just the language of that, to me, is both haunting and compelling. It's haunting because it exposes the fact that we haven't done that, that we've worked for Pharaoh, that we've been a slave to Egypt, that we've tried to earn approval. And it then is compelling, because it invites me into what my soul really, really longs for, and that is abiding in Jesus. So in the conversation with my young friend who had spent a lot of time with Eugene, I said, so I just sort of had the picture that he was free from striving, that he got to that place, whatever that place is, a friend laughed and said, No, no. He was just mindful of his need for a rival, and he lived his life. So I think in being formed, being shaped, being becoming an apprentice, this is not something that we master. Or it's what masters us. And we live long and full and flourishing lives, and we come to the end of our journey at, you know, 70 or 80 or, Oh, I hope, 120 you know, on that last day, we're still being formed in his image. We're still learning to know Him and trust Him and abide in Him, and that we have all of eternity in the perfect rest to be fully who we are and fully known as we are. So I don't want us to see it as a destination. You know, Jesus is the destination. It's not when I get there, when I retire, when I get these kids raised, when I earn this or learn this. It is just being on this journey, but not a journey of running, a journey of yielding, a journey of arriving more and more each and every day. Do you
Joshua Johnson:think that that rest is harder for American Christians than other Christians around the world? Do you think that we I think this is what I'm thinking, we love our position as a powerful empire, and we feel like we have the power. And if I stop working and striving and I actually enter into rest, I feel like we're going to lose our position, and somebody else is going to catch up and overtake us as more powerful. That's just in my head of like, oh, that may be something that this is a particular pain point for American Christians compared to the rest of the world. And what do you think it's becoming
Terry Crist:a universal condition? And so you certainly have traveled the nations, and you've lived abroad, and you've mentored, ministered and built friendships with Muslims. So I understand you know how things have changed and are changing in the world. And as you were talking, the thought I immediately had was true. Everything you're describing is absolutely true. And Tiktok was created in China. So there is, you know, the change in the world today. I was in Pakistan about, oh, 18 months, 24 months ago, and I was up at the base of k6 and k7 was on an excursion. Was all by myself. Didn't have anyone with me, and I was surrounded by Pakistanis in small, little village called Conde village. And the amazing thing was that at the end of our day, when we would come back from our excursion, we were all staying in the home of one of these beautiful Pakistani people. And in the evenings, they would get on their phones, and they would scroll through social media, and they would show me reels, which, as an aside, I just sort of despise. And so the memes, and so I'm learning, I'm seeing memes that I'm able to block out in America because I'm controlling the environment that I'm in, but they're in in Pakistan, to be, you know, social, to my my hosts, you know, I'm learning all this stuff, and so it's a universal condition. Now, some of these things, clearly, are the the product that we've exported to the world, but we're all trapped in this right now. We all kind of have accepted the idea that we're insufficient, we're inadequate, and that there's a better life to be and it comes back to these holy longings, a better life to live. These holy longings. I think that Jesus is the universal answer to the universal human condition, and we're all reaching this inflection point which hopefully brings us to the place where we see him as the solution.
Joshua Johnson:Amen. So Terry, what is your hope for your readers of now you can stop running. What do you hope that they would give? Well,
Terry Crist:I'm going to hold up the book because apparently that's the kind of thing we're supposed to do down because I'm not that guy. But yeah, I'll
Joshua Johnson:hold up the book too. So just invitation.
Terry Crist:It's an invitation, if you need an excuse to get off the treadmill, if you need an excuse to get off the hamster wheel, if you need someone to say you have permission, I have invited the reader to run alongside biblical characters all the through the Scripture. My story is woven throughout this because I've I see myself and every one of these runners running from or toward something, but I want them to run alongside these biblical figures who have so much to teach us, and I want the reader to become a part of this running club who realizes that the arrival that we long for is in a person, not a destination. So my hope is that readers will pick it up, run with great heroes of our faith, see the solutions that they're longing for, but more importantly, find a place of peace and abiding in Jesus.
Joshua Johnson:That's good couple of recommendations from. Anything you've been reading or watching lately you could recommend,
Terry Crist:Oh, wow. I don't know if you can see this bookshelf over me, right here, with lots of books on there, from NT Wright to my friend Derwin Gray, lit up with love. I saw you did an interview with AJ Swoboda, who is much younger than me, but a professor, and the the interview on a teachable spirit, which I've got right here on my book on my desk, and Manny rangos new book on what is it called crushing chaos. You know, I'm I'm reading every single day, learning and becoming, because life is a journey, but not a journey based on striving, a journey based upon being well,
Joshua Johnson:you could go and get now you can stop running anywhere books are sold. And so I would highly recommend going to get it. It's a fantastic book. And yeah, if you haven't listened to our interview with Terry on loving Samaritans as well, and you haven't gotten that book, you should get both of them because loving Samaritans is fantastic read. I loved it as well. So you could do that. But is there anywhere else you'd like to point people to? How could they connect with you? Or anything else you want to point people to? They
Terry Crist:can go to terrycris.com they could go to YouTube and city of grace, where I'm privileged to serve and teach the Bible weekly. And they'll have an opportunity there to continue to connect in deeper ways. Perfect,
Joshua Johnson:well. Terry, thank you for this conversation. Thank you for helping us go deeper into the rest and refuge of God and that we could stop running from all of our ailments and our things that we have, all these longings that we do have, that we're trying to figure out so desperately how to achieve something that only Jesus can give us, that only the solution, the God of the universe, can actually be that solution. So thank you for this. It was a fantastic conversation. I loved it.
Unknown:God bless you, brother, thank you. You.
