Unwasted Pain
Join us on a thought-provoking journey as we delve into the depths of human experience and explore the intricacies of unwasted pain. In our podcast, "Unwasted Pain," we tackle the universal yet often misunderstood topic of pain and provide insights, support, and guidance for those seeking to navigate the challenges it presents.
Unwasted Pain
Finding Purpose and Faith in the Aftermath of Loss
I invite you to journey with us through the complexities of pain, purpose, and faith. Picture this - you've just lost a role model, and you're grappling with grief and identity. This is a glimpse into my personal journey post the loss of my brother, as I share how turning to God during the grieving process became my beacon.
In this episode, we move from a man-centric theology to a God-centric one, exploring together the beauty of stepping out of our comfort zones and embracing a life of service.
Ready for a deep dive into Christian life and identity? We discuss the importance of moving from a performance-based faith to recognizing the unconditional love that God holds for us. We explore the profound transformation that comes from trusting and obeying God, serving as an invitation to relate, understand, and truly experience Him. By the end of this episode, you'll discover how faith, peace, and action must be combined to experience God in a meaningful way. So come, let's begin this journey together.
Hello and welcome back to Unwasted Pain. This is Karen Conley and Chris Conley. It is fun to be back in this setting as we come to you today. If you've been following along in the podcast, chris and I were talking about this earlier. That Unwasted Pain is a pretty, in some ways heavy title, but I think maybe more important might be the word. One of the reasons that you entitled this podcast Unwasted Pain was because, in a great way, you have had experiences that have been painful, but God has given you a path so that they were not wasted.
Speaker 2:Those were really great. As I said that, I was like yeah, it's really great that you've had a lot of pain.
Speaker 1:Good for you.
Speaker 2:Bless you.
Speaker 1:But to that point we're like this doesn't mean this will always be a heavy podcast. We have been blessed beyond measure and seen God's kindness and I think really Chris, and maybe as we get started even to speak to that this is an opportunity for us hopefully to bring some hope to people that are going through. We're all going to go through things.
Speaker 2:Let's just normalize the pain, but let's just decide to do something with the pain that actually has a productivity at the end, in the same way that we talk about normalized conflict, in that you can look at conflict actually in a positive way. You can say conflict is an opportunity to gain loyalty. Well, pain is inevitable. We live in a fallen, broken, sinful world. You're not going to be able to live this life good enough to avoid any pain. So let's normalize pain, but then let's begin to see how God is always in the process of healing that pain and really replacing that pain with peace and then with purpose. He'll bring a sense of purpose out of the pain. He redeems everything.
Speaker 1:Okay, and speaking of paradigm shifts, I know recently we were talking with our team and really kind of the concept unrelated came up that pain usually isn't the problem. It's kind of the megaphone to help us realize oh no, there is something that needs to be addressed. The pain helps, should give us an awareness like, okay, something's off here, something's not as it should be, so now, what am I going to do? And so, in that same way as we're talking today about really pain connected to our whole identity, that is such a normal trap for all of us to struggle with our identity, to maybe just set the stage.
Speaker 1:I know and again, sometimes I'm married to you, I know your story, we've seen God use parts of your story and sometimes it feels like, well, this is like the dramatic version of stories.
Speaker 1:And that is very true in the sense that for you and we gave a little bit of this context in some of the previous episodes of you know you're a 10-year-old little boy and you have parents that are doing the best they can, but it was not a healthy home and your brother, who was eight years older than you, bubba, was really more like a father figure to you and was your assistant basketball coach and your assistant football coach and really kind of took on that protective role that a father normally would.
Speaker 1:And then tragically, suddenly his senior year of high school, he is killed, and so that was really kind of the first place in which maybe identity started to play a role in your story, whether you knew it or not as a 10-year-old. But maybe for just sake, I do think it's important in the sense that we want this to apply to anybody, no matter where you are. It doesn't mean you had to just have a tragic loss in your family. That identity piece is pretty universal, but in some ways I think it does allow people to understand the empathy and the authority that you come to this topic with, because you've had to walk it out yourself. This is not just an intellectual exercise.
Speaker 2:Although there were a unique set of circumstances. Any loss of a family member is devastating. When you lose a loved one, I just don't think God designed it that way. He did design for us to experience death, all the loss that comes with death, and obviously that is the very reason why he sent his son to defeat sin and death forever so that we truly can have life. But in my set of circumstances, the loss of my brother you mentioned this a little bit more of a father figure, but it was also like a role model.
Speaker 2:In our family there was a lot of dysfunction and then we were kind of a blue-collar, hard-working family, a little bit of an underdog with a chip on our shoulder, so to speak. But what was so unique in this blue-collar family? The members of my family became very good at a white-collar sport golf. My dad became a club champion at Farmington Country Club that later became Germantown Country Club, and then my brother became a very good golfer. My brother was really becoming he was definitely the top or the top two golfers in the city one of the top golfers in the state, in the region, being recruited by big-name schools across the country. And so everything about me as a ten-year-old looking up to him as a 18-year-old looked up to him and wanted to be like him. But not only that. You again mentioned he took great interest in me and so he was my assistant basketball coach, football coach, baseball coach he would take me out to play golf.
Speaker 1:You had all the sports covered.
Speaker 2:No doubt, and it's what we did. But in that when he passed, it was surreal, it was almost I'll never forget. For several weeks I would wake up in the morning and I would just be in this disbelief that that literally could not have happened and I literally would run outside to the driveway to see if his car was there. But what happened in this process is because my parents were going through their own grieving and because we weren't necessarily a family that knew who God was and knew how to turn to God. In our grieving each person kind of grieved individually and it was compartmentalized grieving and not necessarily healthy grieving. But in many regards and I don't fault my mom or dad at all for this they were devastated. But it was almost like in some regards I was also learning how to grieve in my own way and I'll never forget that.
Speaker 2:I and I don't really know what spurred this thought, but I moved out of my room into my brother's room and I think I've mentioned this before but it's such a significant moment in my life where I literally saw his trophy case every day and I didn't know this at the time, but all of those trophies kind of turned into a performance driven identity for me and again, I didn't fully understand this until I've received lots of counseling through the years.
Speaker 2:But it was a situation where I was becoming my brother's substitute and I was going to try to beat every record my brother ever had. And it was something that, even as my brother had a golf tournament named after him and it quickly became one of the top tournaments in the country, it was something where I wanted to win my brother's golf tournament right and I wanted to break all of his records and things of that nature. And I had enough success. Like my freshman year in high school, I won my brother's golf tournament for my age division. There were other elements of just of me having success in golf that those goals were within reach but, honestly, the closer I got to each of those goals, the more the pressure mounted.
Speaker 1:Let me just stop you right there because I think, as I'm listening to you tell the story in this context, I think there's a lot of different ways that people can relate to the story. Maybe not on the surface, but what I think about is the loss of your brother. That definitely moved you to be competitive and try to fulfill that. But at the same time there was also a sense from your dad of wanting kind of the way that he would live vicariously through your success and he did not have a lot of opportunities growing up. And so here he. Anything that you needed in the golf world he provided and he wanted to see you succeed. And so I think in that performance sports dad kind of stereotype that there's probably a lot of men that can relate to that.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Maybe just speak to it from that way and then, for those who weren't athletes, I have another idea. But just talk about that, whether it be from you as the athlete or you even later as a father, like what that performance piece looks like.
Speaker 2:Of course I think my dad was good intentioned, but I don't know that he understood the implied pressure and I mean I would go at it. I'll never forget one particular time that we're playing golf and because he was one of the most respected golfers and was the club champion, frequently like me and him would play two other players in the country club and they would gamble and put a lot of money on it. And I didn't realize this at this time. But it's put a lot of pressure on me as well to perform. And I remember after the ninth hole he got upset at me about something and I took my golf clubs off the golf cart and I just started walking home and I mean he is dog cussing me. I mean he is telling me, get back in that golf cart. And I mean just the stubbornness that developed and the strong will like I walked, I'm telling you, a mile and a half home. He drove the golf cart a mile and a half home, the whole way beside me, trying to get me back in that golf cart. I wouldn't get back in the golf cart.
Speaker 2:But the reason why I share that story is it paints a picture of the intensity and because of you know, everything that was kind of rolled up into this. It wasn't just my identity, it was my dad's identity. My dad was proud to be, you know, the father of Bubba Conley, then proud to be the father of Chris Conley, and he had his own golf name. And then, you know, now the my brother has a tournament named after him, and so that creates even more of kind of a, you know, just in the golfing community, you know, a sense of respect and a sense of, you know, identity, of importance, and so it was just something that there were a lot of little things that were never necessarily articulated.
Speaker 2:But here's what I felt that every time I would be successful it was like you're good, but you're not good enough. You're good at this level. I'd win a tournament, you know, in the 14 and under age division, but I should have won the tournament in the 15 to 18 year old age division. You know I'd win a tournament, you know, once I was 15, 16, 17, 18 for that age division, but I should have already been a college golfer. When I was a college golfer I should have already kind of, you know, gone pro early, that kind of thing. So it was, you're always, you're good. I acknowledge man, there's talent there, but it was also kind of in that context of the word potential, and potential is a tricky word because it creates a lot of pressure to live up to that potential.
Speaker 1:So, chris, as we are going to share just kind of really, what the turning point was in your life and I think, honestly, you and I each had a moment where it kind of crystallized.
Speaker 1:You know, yours was in the sports world, yours was in some ways articulated not intentionally, but there were verbal cues that you had, from your dad in particular of of there is pressure here like you better step up to the plate and are you good enough and are you going to do that?
Speaker 1:I translate that maybe more into the business world or more into academics and I think sometimes, as we've worked with people over the years, it's amazing to me how many people are performance driven and that there's just something that's what our culture really builds into, like, okay, wherever you're successful, this is who you are, like you're a good student, or you're a good athlete, or you're a good musician or whatever that is.
Speaker 1:And then all of a sudden, it's not just I'm loved and the father loves me, and regardless of what I do or regardless of what grade I get or what score I shoot or how much I'm paid or whatever metric you want to on it, that somehow we translate our value to whatever that metric is that we're supposed to be really good at. And so for you there was kind of this defining moment that really, I think, was that identity checkpoint for you that really changed everything. Maybe just to bring us to that point in the story, what helped you to even realize like wait, I'm living my life as if golf was my God. I'm living my life as if everything depends on whether I make this three foot putt or this five foot putt or I make the cut. Talk about that shift, and for somebody out there right now that's like wow, maybe I'm living my life just based on that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I did not have identity apart from Chris Conley the golfer or Chris Conley the basketball player. It was always my identity was through my performance. And so as I got into college and I played golf for the University of Memphis, I was doing well in progressing. But as I got into my junior year, the pressure was becoming so great that I was not progressing in the ways that I wanted to and I would actually regress because I would allow the pressure just to honestly cause my golf game to collapse and just couldn't perform under the pressure. And so there was this one night I'm walking through the athletic dorm and a friend of mine just kind of yells out hey, conley, come here a minute. And I walked over and I didn't know this at the time, but there was a group of 10, 12, 15 people having an FCA meeting, the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, and they introduced me to a few people and I began to kind of pick up on this and I had never been to an FCA meeting and at that point in my life I was mostly a Christmas or Easter Christian, not even a Christmas and Easter Christian. I mean, we spent Sundays at the golf course and it was something where I was trying my best to find my polite exit out of this meeting but they kind of closed the circle around in me and I just couldn't quite find the exit and I ended up sitting through the meeting and that particular night they were nominating officers for it and I walked out of FCA the very first time I've ever been to a meeting Vice President of FCA at the University of Memphis, and I remember thinking what in the world has just happened here?
Speaker 2:And I went down to my dorm and was kind of reflecting upon this and I thought, oh, I can't do this, I don't want to do this, I don't want to be a hypocrite. And I literally ran back upstairs to find the leader of FCA and to say, hey, you picked the wrong guy and he was already gone. So I went back down to the dorm room and I never forget having this thought I'm not living my life the way I want to live, and I'm scared of doing this because I don't want to be a hypocrite, but I'm more scared of not doing it because I need to get my life right. And so I just kind of decided in that moment that, hey, this is what I need to do. I need to be true to who God has really made me to be, even though I didn't fully understand that at the moment.
Speaker 2:And my first assignment that was a life-changing assignment that began to change my identity forever was my assignment was to lead the group through Henry Blackabee's experiencing God workbook knowing and doing the will of God, or experiencing the will of God and so that book just flipped my paradigm on everything and in the world of identity before I would kind of say God was in the category of hey, come be my caddy, help me win golf tournaments. You know, help me do what I want to do better. And he really flipped it and it became you know, kind of, instead of the, the JFK quote of you know, ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country. It really began to put God front and center, not me front and center in it, and I began to ask how could I see myself as God's son, how could I see myself where Christ is my identity, and how do I begin to build my life around him, to know him and to serve him?
Speaker 1:and in doing so, everything changed so this is not a commercial, but it is a commercial that experience and got you even have a copy of it right there it might be.
Speaker 2:It might be 30 years old at least Um, but it probably sold over 30 million copies.
Speaker 1:Yeah, if you have not done the experience in God workbook and you're at a place that you're thinking you know, maybe there's some something that I just I'm missing. Maybe there's something to this Christian walk that either you you you're just checking it out or, like you've been a Christian for a long time, that is probably not, probably there, aside from the study that I wrote that, as the author, I'm teaching at multiple times, that is really the only study and I've done a lot of great studies that I have done Seven, eight times over the last 25 years. It is truly anointed and I know that that was, it was pivotal for us and I wanted to just take a few minutes and just give people a taste of some of the truths and how Transformational they can be, so that that that hopefully it will wet their appetite to go and and explore it themselves.
Speaker 2:Let me say this as we get into those truths to speak to. Why this is so important is because I Didn't fully understand this at the moment. But what God was doing is he was killing the idol of golf in my life. That golf really was my God and and so when I was having to die to golf I was. It was the death of an identity and then kind of a double whammy, because it was also the basis of my relationship with my dad. He didn't fully understand that either, and so it also created great separation in my relationship with my dad, and so it was for that identity to die. It was essential for me to have a new identity and for that new identity to To really understand the security, the safety, the stability of a relationship versus performance. It was the first time in my life that I was understanding unconditional love.
Speaker 1:I Remember in the documentary we had an amazing videographer that worked on that project and Maybe one of the most impactful images in the documentary if you haven't checked it out, love works is the documentary that really details the amazing work of God in healing Chris's relationship with his dad. But there's a place in there where there's a picture of your, your dad, kneeling down to read a Putte and to read the greens and getting ready to put and you're behind him and, as they're telling the part of the story where you Really lay down your golf career and have to tell your dad this, that that he just kind of fades you out of that picture and I think that really is probably the best image of really what you're describing and, for anybody, that that you have found your approval through some type of performance with somebody that you respect, whether it be a coach or a parent or a teacher or some, somebody that's kind of cheered you on in this endeavor that has become your identity.
Speaker 2:And I never wanted that separation with my dad. He just didn't have the ability to really understand why I would quit golf and why, for me, I didn't want to quit golf either. But golf was such an idol they couldn't coexist and that I really had to kind of oftentimes what I call a replacement principle.
Speaker 1:You know, I had to replace the way that I served golf with truly serving God so, chris, as we think about the seven principles that are really Captured in the experience in God workbook, the first one is that God is always at work around you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, FCA meeting.
Speaker 2:Like I mean you know you can't make this stuff up like I had nothing to do with that, I didn't initiate it.
Speaker 2:I literally, to this day, can remember the person saying hey, connolly, come here for a minute.
Speaker 2:And then I can, even did not knowing that was going to be a significant meeting in my life, but God was always at work around me and one of the ways I see that in hindsight, even though I didn't fully understand who God was, he was also always at work, protected me. I was very good at getting one foot firmly into trouble, about to take a leap, with the second foot completely into trouble, and he would protect me. He would not let me take that second step to get both feet into trouble. And so in hindsight, when I look back, I Can see so many ways and also, additionally, like, though there were tensions with my dad, god would provide Additional people that were father figures, and I remember a gentleman named, you know, buck Buchanan, and and there was a man named Frank Brown, and there were others that just God would cause them to see my potential, see who I was, but see some of the shortcomings or some of the tensions, and they would just come alongside and Be that type of father figure.
Speaker 1:And I think you know, for somebody it's I don't know. When we talk about identity, it's one of those things that you can be like oh yeah, maybe I, maybe I do like depend on my success or whatever the thing is, my looks or my job or my, you know, economic status or whatever, maybe those things I lean on and I have more confidence in than God, and we can kind of acknowledge it. But I think the thing that I love about that principle is he's just waiting for us to just say wait a minute. That's I want to. This is apparent. I just want a perspective shift here and he's already at work around you. He's already orchestrating things. He has a. He wants to take that pressure off.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he's never inactive, you know he's never passive, you know he is always pursuing us and he's always kind of in a John the Baptist kind of way. He's always going before us in making straight the pathway. He's trying to remove the obstacles and remove the things that could get in our way in order for some divine appointments to happen, you know, in order for us to in some ways, you know, even Stumble into the activity of God, into an encounter with God. And he provides these divine appointments where we didn't necessarily know it in that moment, but our lives Intersected with someone for divine purpose.
Speaker 1:Chris, you kind of alluded to the really the second principle, and that is that God pursues a Continuing love relationship with it, with you. That is real and personal. So I, at this point, you are a Christian, you know, you've said the prayer, you believe there's a God. You've, you've, you know, humbled yourself and acknowledged that there's a savior. What was different in that moment, when you think about somebody who's finding their identity, they in something else, they can be a Christian. Sure, what to you was impactful about that?
Speaker 2:at that point in time, though, I would say, I Literally was given the gift of faith, and it was, you know, truly a mustard seed of faith, and, and that it was something that I I did believe, and I and I saw God initiate a work in my life.
Speaker 2:But I quickly resumed my way of life versus his way of life, and In that, most of and I think this is especially true in the South most of my orientation was do this, don't do this, do this, don't do that, and so it was more of, again, almost a performance based form of Christianity, and it was more Intellectual. It's like the way that you grow Spiritually is you just kind of learn the word of God and you do what the word of God says, and so I didn't really have that understanding how to fully go from the head to the heart, and I was really being introduced to who God was Relationally, and and I think the experience in God work book does a phenomenal job of that and and Regardless of how mature or immature you are in your spiritual journey, it just reinforces these foundational principles, but it always brings you back to the essence of the relationship.
Speaker 1:So, chris, I'm thinking about this in in the context of of somebody who's you know driving to work or on the road listening to a podcast on the treadmill and and that's great that God wants a relationship. That's, that's personal and real. Maybe they're not feeling that right now and maybe there's a whole lot more security in the success that they've had or Even the striving to achieve it. There's something in the performance doesn't mean you're successful at it, it just means that you're. You actually feel like that's the end goal, like that my goal is I could have peace If I did perform up to this level, if I, if I did win a golf tournament, if I like. And it's just this, this mirage of things. So what would you say to that person that maybe it you know that real and personal part, like, yeah, that's great to know. What would you say? To say, okay, what, what if you actually took a risk? And and Doesn't mean you step away from what you're doing, but there is a heart allegiance that shifts.
Speaker 2:I would say Any and everything that you've ever Envisioned about the best human relationship imaginable, whether that is, you know, a future spouse, whether that is, you know, a great parent child relationship. Whatever those qualities are, they are found in God, the Father, and that's actually the way that he loves us and it's the type of relationship he wants with us. But it's real in the sense, and I feel like you and I Experience this a little bit differently now that you know, our son and daughter are 24 and 23 years of age. They're independent, they're young adults, but yet you, you there, you never quit caring, you never care less. You, you, there's nothing about your love that decreases, it only increases and it remains Unconditional. Sure, there's times that someone can disappoint one another or frustrate one another, but you just keep coming back and loving.
Speaker 2:And I would just say, if you're at a place where your relationship with God has never kind of entered into that level of Relational, experiential verses, routine verses, religion verses, intellectual, I Would say, testing I Would say, god, I want all of you. Would you reveal all of you to me? God, I want to be in that type of relationship and just, instead of making him Kind of so high and mighty that he's unknowable. You know, the most beautiful thing in the world is when God Wanted us to know him better, he sent his son in the flesh. The incarnation of Jesus made him one of us so that we could relate to him, understand him and truly know him well, chris, I think Growing up I became.
Speaker 1:I grew up going to church. I believed in God. I had even become a Christian in college. That really it's been in the last 10, 15 years that I've caught myself like when I spend time with the Lord, a lot of times I come at it with oh God, what am I doing wrong? Oh God, I want to be right with you and show me what I've done wrong and help me be like. I'm not measuring up and there's a, there's a shift there to be like Father. Just tell me what you think of me like and and receiving. Oh no, I love you as my daughter, karen, and I see the best in you. I see all that I've put into you.
Speaker 1:That makes that a real and personal. That a lot of times, if your performance driven and you're Outside of your spiritual life and again when we say that, I even hate that because it's not it's not like we're a pie Split into little quadrants and here's my spiritual life and here's my business life and here's my family life it is. It is us. We are spiritual beings. Having a human experience is kind of one of the phrases that we use a lot, but I think Maybe just as a checkpoint, if I think, a lot of times, people who who are either Successful or have grown up in a performance based setting, they translate that into their faith, and so that may even be just a starting point. Like he's real and he's personal, he's the best Version of love you can imagine at Jesus baptism.
Speaker 2:He has not entered into his three and a half years of ministry yet. The heavens open up and God, the Father, declares this is my beloved son and whom I'm well pleased. And he just makes this statement of that you belong to me and I Love you and I am proud of you, I am pleased with you, and it wasn't performance based, it was relationship based. And so in that way I just think, because it's such a foreign concept from a human perspective, it needs a little bit of reinforcement. But once you experience that love, then there's the security where your identity doesn't have to be like, okay, I put on the mask of performing, and then sometimes, when we aren't performing up to par, then we put on the mask of pretending and he just says take the mask off. I want to know you, not the mask.
Speaker 1:And I already do and I love you. You know you're like so many times we put the mask on as if, like surely God won't know and he's like I see everything behind the mask and I love you anyway right so, chris, I don't know the order that we should discuss this, but the next principle in here is God invites you to become involved with him in his work.
Speaker 1:So that's the principle and I guess maybe I'm gonna ask you from your own journey and as a point of illustration for this you're talking about, and we're kind of talking about the death of your identity, and what does somebody do if they realize wait a minute, maybe part of the disconnect between me and God is that I've been in this performance-based place. So would you say that it was the, the death of the identity first, and you know I'm literal, so I'm sorry, this is a very literal question. It's probably a very figurative answer, but would you say, in your journey and as you think about helping other people having unwaisted pain, is, is it, is it acknowledging that death and grieving that then gives you the ability to see the invitation that he has for you to be enjoined in his work, or is it maybe the fact that you start seeing him in a different light and he invites you in and that helps you to let go of your identity?
Speaker 2:Is there a cart before the horse? I think death once death occurs. Sometimes death can be slow, it can take time to get to the place of death, but once death occurs it's you're dead.
Speaker 2:The identity piece. Yeah, yeah, I mean it's over, you've died. But then also, birth is. It happens in a moment. And so, like, the new identity happens in a moment and there's no splitting of the identity. And so I am a son, but as a son, I'm also a servant who honors my father, and I think it's Mark 10, verse 45, says the son of man did not come to be served, but to serve and give his life as a ransom.
Speaker 2:For many, I think the biggest mistake in the world that the vast majority make is that they will come to trust Christ and then they start sitting instead of serving and they start thinking that they've got to somehow another, become more mature or more advanced or more intellectual, more of something other than no, just be a son. It's just gonna love people. And if you'll start loving people and you'll start serving people, you'll grow into your identity much quicker than trying to take a classroom approach to your identity. Your identity is son slash servant. It's born into you. It is who you are. If you know who you are now, you know what to do. Don't allow what to do to try to create who you are. You're not serving your way into being a servant.
Speaker 2:You are a servant, therefore you serve, and so, like this one, I think, was instrumental, that God changed my life while I was serving, and I can't begin to tell you how many times people allow the moment to pass them by. They had a moment to step in and they waited. They had a moment to engage and they waited, and the moment passed them by. I love the placement. This is the third of seven principles. I love the placement right here because he is right off the bat inviting you in, because the greatest joy that there is is serving him.
Speaker 1:Okay, so we're not gonna make it to all seven. I'm just saying because we're just there's too much stuff that I wanna ask you right here, so we'll have to come back on the seven.
Speaker 2:We'll see I may wanna push through and just at least get lucky.
Speaker 1:I'll let you decide. We have all editorial rights here. But what you just said I think is huge and I would say maybe someone with my personality that's just an aha moment that you just said like, oh, that is so true that I think a lot of people, whether it's salvation or whether it's this identity piece and again I think it's somewhat, I don't know, maybe in biblical times it wasn't even any clear and life is just complicated and just God is just full of grace. But I feel like more people it are American context If they do come to Christ, they come to Christ that they really that identity shift doesn't entirely take place and obviously there's the sanctification process in the whole nine yards.
Speaker 1:But I think what you just said to me like if I am listening to you, I'm like that's the takeaway to me is the moment that you see, wait a minute, I'm placing my value on some external measure, not on who I am as a child of God. That like in that moment it's not, let's take six years to figure this thing out, it's not, let me just kind of one step in and one step out, I'm gonna keep this and I'm gonna keep this and just see if God, I think it is that decisiveness. Speak to a minute for a minute, both about what's that look like for somebody and you're a, and the second part of this is you're a pastor, so everybody's, I know, so everybody's gonna be like well, and so then you got called to the ministry right and so you're supposed to go, like, sell your soul in your house and go to the mission field, like.
Speaker 1:So maybe I'm just stacking questions, which is horrible to do, but I'm gonna do it anyway. So question number one is what does that look like in terms of just?
Speaker 2:People wanna do this. They wanna stick their toes in the water and see if it's cold or not, and then they wanna kind of get into the kitty, into the pool and kind of gradually acclimate to the temperature of the water. And you see, it's so painful in there, tiptoeing in and it gets up above. You know their waistline they're oh, you know, just jump in and you will get acclimated to the water. Stop tiptoeing around this thing. The best way is you know even the word to be baptized means to be immersed. Get fully immersed into it. When you get fully immersed into it, then there's no splitting of the hairs of your identity. There's no splitting of the hairs of what we're supposed to do or not do.
Speaker 2:Who we are determines what we do. Being comes before doing. But there are two sides of one coin. They're almost simultaneous. That once I embrace and fully understand the wow and the wonder and the magnitude of Wow, as a son or daughter of God I have been given purpose and now I get to go live into that purpose. Now I get to go serve that purpose. Now I get to go make a difference. Serving is not a burden, serving is not an obligation, serving is a privilege.
Speaker 1:Okay, but give me a real life example. I think about some of the other people Natalie and Jack and people that were there and do an FCA with you and with me and I was kind of vicariously dating you at the time, not exactly knowing what God was doing. It was kind of like what was something's going on with him?
Speaker 2:I thought, yeah, you weren't being the academic over at Rhodes College, though all of us over at Memphis, we were just having a lot more fun, a little bit more loose.
Speaker 1:Okay, so just take the average 40-year-old man that is found, whether he knew it or not, maybe, has just kind of embraced this performance-based mentality, and he's hearing this for the first time. What do you think? He's going to walk into the same job. He's going to walk into the same family room. He's going to walk into the same church next week. What is different? Even though he's, he's different.
Speaker 2:Okay, the job isn't different, the family isn't different, but he now represents Jesus. He walks into the room and brings Jesus with him. He walks into the room and he's light, and light begins to chase out the darkness. He walks into the room and he's love. So he can take any secular job and give it purpose, because light just walked into the room and you don't have to be over, you don't have to cross lines of what's appropriate or inappropriate about how to share your faith. If you just serve people well, if you just live a life where you bless people, if you just live a life where you live out what it means to truly love people, people are going to be curious, people are going to draw close to you. People are going to want to know why you are the way you are.
Speaker 1:So carrying that same illustration for a man or woman and apply God invites you to become involved with him in his work. What does that look like? Not, I mean. If you are called to the ministry, praise God, that's great. But if they're not, what would be some?
Speaker 2:It means you have a new level of sensitivity. It means you notice things you didn't notice before. You care about things you didn't really care about. Well, that's their problem, not necessarily my problem. It means that you pray about the people that you work with and you ask God to give you open doors to love them, to serve them, to bless them. It just simply means that you're believing there is now a purpose for everyone that's in your circle of influence. Find out where God's already at work. Okay, you know, that's kind of step one. He's already at work in their lives. You don't have to initiate it, he's already working before you got there. Now, the fact that God's done this work in you, that's even a greater indication of the work he wants to do in them, because now he's bringing a collision, a divine collision, a divine appointment of those circumstances together. And it's where God's going to use you in very practical ways to make a difference, to serve, to bless, to encourage.
Speaker 1:So, chris, the step four, I mean read it to you just so that I don't butcher it. God speaks by the Holy Spirit through the Bible, prayers, circumstances and the church to reveal himself, his purposes and his ways. Now, this particular fourth truth of experiencing God has application to somebody who's on this journey, and we're talking about the death of an identity and how to be somebody that allows there to be unwaisted pain in your life. A lot of times, the reason people encounter the Lord is because the place that they've put their identity fails. A marriage fails and your identity was as a husband or a wife. Your child becomes a prodigal and you've failed as a mother or a father is what we tell ourselves. Or you get fired from your job or whatever the thing is.
Speaker 1:It's like, whatever you've put your ladder up, that building crumbles and all of a sudden you're sitting there and like, wait, my identity was being successful and now I'm down in the wilderness. Do I have purpose? Or I'm no longer. My children moved out and graduated and I'm no longer the mom that everybody needs. Now what I do. So there's these moments where people are forced to evaluate their identity and to go wait a minute. That's not working. For me, this truth speaks in some ways to that crisis of belief, and that's another step but in helping people. So maybe speak to this truth in the context of identity and then maybe in the broader way that we have seen, it be just a pillar of our walk, our ministry, our family.
Speaker 2:Well, in our context, mostly not necessarily for me growing up in church, for you growing up in a little bit more of a Presbyterian church, it was more God, the Father, god the Son, god, the Holy Bible, and we would leave out the Holy Spirit. And here he mentions the Holy Spirit. And so, in the world of identity, by placing my faith in Jesus, I'm forgiven of my sin, I'm born again, I become a child of God, I become a son or a daughter of the King, I have a new identity, but I've been given the person of the Holy Spirit, and the Spirit of God comes to dwell within me. And so now there's this companionship, there's this ongoing sensitivity to what God is doing and how the Spirit of God speaks to me. And that was something that, previous to the experience in God study, what orientation I had would just strictly be the Bible, but the way the Spirit of God would begin to speak through other people, the way that you know the Spirit of God would speak through prayer, the way the Spirit of God would speak through circumstances, all of that began to increase my confidence and understanding of who God is, but also who I am and how I follow him and how I can have confidence that this is God and I can step into obedience to follow him, to obey him, to trust and obey.
Speaker 2:And so I would say the way that it impacted my identity was it gave me a sense of security and a sense of trust that you know, trust is a relational word. You know you're not just trusting truth, you're trusting the person who is the truth and, in the Holy Spirit, you're trusting the one who is illuminating the word of God. You're trusting the one who is highlighting the word of God. You're trusting the one who's bringing conviction into your life. You know that there's one who's. You know he's the helper, he's the comforter, you know he's the counselor, he's the one that is enabling me to actually live this life and that if it weren't for the Holy Spirit, I'd go right back to performance mentality. And so the Holy Spirit is the one that is guiding me but also empowering me to actually live the life of Christ.
Speaker 1:So we'll come back, because that principle, I think, probably is a whole another podcast of just some other applications of it. But as we think about number five, god's invitation for you to work with him always leads you to a crisis of belief. That requires faith and action.
Speaker 1:This is my favorite, one of all of them, yeah and so, and I can definitely see how that is true and we kind of almost alluded to it a little bit ago, but like it's it's there is a point in time where you have to make a decision. There is a point in time where you have to say wait, if the Lord has brought it to your attention that you are finding your identity somewhere else, or you know you're in a situation like you were, where you know your brother has died or your golf game is crumbling and again God is at work around you. There's a bigger picture and, and maybe the biggest principle of experiencing God takes you from a man-centered theology like life is all about me and you know you were the center and God was your caddy to. No, no, god's in the center and I'm here to serve him. So speak to that crisis of belief, that faith, peace and how that is important in this journey of identity.
Speaker 2:The crisis of belief is that now you're renewing your mind. You're no longer being conformed to this world, but you're renewing your mind, you're being transformed by the renewing of your mind, and so, as the word of God begins to you know, train you how to think in alignment with God, in agreement with God, then the crisis of belief is okay. Now that's what I asked me to actually do something different. Am I going to just believe and agree in? One of the most dangerous things that the majority of Christians do is we just are content with agreement instead of action, and we have to move from agreement to action to actually doing something.
Speaker 2:The crisis of belief is, though I can't fully see it. I see in part, I don't see in whole. You know that that that faith is there's, there's evidence there, but it's not completely visible. I've got to trust the one who's leading me, and so, in that way, am I going to do what Peter did and say Jesus, if that's you on the water, tell me to come to you. Am I willing to step out of the boat? And all of us have our own version of the boat? The boat represents, you know, kind of our place of safety, our place of security, are we willing to step out of the boat? And you know, it's actually possible, through faith, to walk on water. It's actually possible, through faith, to move a mountain. Whatever appears impossible becomes possible because your faith has just acted faith and action, and in doing so, your. What happens is our faith intersects with God's faithfulness. And when our faith intersects with God's faithfulness, then extraordinary things happen, supernatural things happen.
Speaker 1:I'm just sitting here thinking that, honestly, the difference between wasted pain and unwaisted pain is the crisis of belief yeah it's, it's, it's that decision to say I'm going to be a victim.
Speaker 1:I'm going to just look at my pain. I am. I am stuck where I am. I'm going to continue trying to pursue a finish line and a mirage of success measured by the world that always moves. I'm going to depend on other people to make me happy. I'm going to, I'm going to. I'm waiting on somebody else to get healthy and fixed so that I can be, or it's saying, okay, I align in the sand, I am not. I'm going to choose, by God's grace, to not let this way this pain be wasted, this wound be wasted, and I'm going to make a decision that requires some action for to partner with him right, so that it becomes something that is a part of your testimony that is used for good, as opposed to the place that you get stuck the enemy's a liar.
Speaker 2:He loves to tell lies about God and lies about us. When you are hurt, when you're in a place of pain, most people tend to run from God instead of running to God, and then they blame God for the pain in the, in the worst form of that, in church world, as people call it. Church hurt listen. People are imperfect. Therefore the church is imperfect. You're never gonna find a perfect church. Hurts gonna exist everywhere.
Speaker 2:But God gives us the tools to forgive one another. God gives us the tools to reconcile. God gives us the tools to restore. Run to God, run to the church it's just simply another word for family Run to God's family.
Speaker 2:There are times in our families that there's disconnect between siblings or disconnected different times, but what we've gotta do is always run back to the family, and so that crisis of belief is. No matter how much something hurts, god's not the problem. God is the one that wants to solve the problem. He's the one that wants to heal you. The enemy blames God. Okay, I mean, that goes. That lie goes all the way back to the guard of Eden. That you know, oh, you know. The serpent deceived me, or you know whatever it might be. But here I would just say, in your crisis of belief, it's only a crisis on our side of the equation that as soon as we take that step and we take a step toward him and we see his provision, it was never a crisis on his side of the equation. He was completely confident in supplying everything needed.
Speaker 1:It makes me think of Hinds feet on high places and a few quotes for that. I'm gonna have to bring that for next time.
Speaker 1:There's some powerful truths to just be able to elevate from ground level to God's view and understand. That really, I think, helps at that crisis of belief. So, Chris, as we move on okay, you know we're not getting any easier here, but honestly, these are steps to freedom, these are steps to pain becoming unwaisted. Number six you must make major adjustments in your life to join God in what he is doing. So elaborate a little on that. Again, we're talking about how do we shift our identity? How do we, you know if we've made the mistake that it's not counter-cultural, it is so cultural to find our identity elsewhere. What's that major adjustment? Again look like.
Speaker 2:Well, it's the word major. Most of us want to remain behind the. You know we wanna remain in control, we wanna be the driver of the car. You know it's not Jesus take the wheel. You know we want to have the wheel 100% in our control and we wanna, we're willing to make minor adjustments.
Speaker 2:But again, when your identity makes a major adjustment, a death to life adjustment, you know, take off the old, put on the new adjustment, understand who you are as a son slash servant, daughter slash servant, then the major adjustment is not overwhelming, it's not intimidating. It's a major in judgment adjustment that invites you into victory. It invites you into your divine purpose. It invites you into making the difference you've always longed to make. And you're not gonna make a great difference with minor adjustments. You make a great difference with major adjustments. And guess what? We weren't so great before that we only needed a minor adjustment. It is a major adjustment to like.
Speaker 2:Think of it this way Most of us say I wanna know what God's will is for my life versus I wanna know what God's will is. See, when we say God's will for my life, we're making it about us. When we say I wanna know what God's will is I'm adjusting my life to his will, and so everything about this book is that God's will is the priority. All of us make the major adjustment to be on his road, to pursue his purpose.
Speaker 1:Well, and that's like you said. That is the major adjustment. You're no longer the center. Life doesn't revolve around you, it revolves around him, but in a backwards way we are gripping onto control that is killing us and causing us all of the insecurities. And I mean he's saying you're joining him in what he's doing, You're not having to perform your way, You're actually just joining him. And there's actually a freedom that comes in that major adjustment.
Speaker 2:I like to say it this way, like if we could ever get the picture instead of us having to swim upstream against the current to do what God wants to do, god's goes. No, just get in my river, go downstream, just go with me where I'm going and you'll go downhill down current versus uphill against the current.
Speaker 1:All right, we did make it what's it Number seven. I know, I doubted, I doubted. Sorry about that, all right. Number seven is you come to know God by experience, as you obey him, and he accomplishes his work through you. So this is the beautiful part Elaborate on this one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this is by experience, by knowing and doing the will of God, you don't come to know. Classrooms are important, bible studies are important, whatever version that, all of that has its place. But even when we used to use the term Sunday school in some ways, that was like this subtle assumption that information equals transformation, application equals transformation. The more we obey God, the more we experience God, and it is through that obedience that God then oftentimes reveals more of himself, which causes us to knowing more, which causes us to loving more, which causes us to obeying more, which causes him to reveal more of himself. And then we knowing more, then we loving more, then we obeying more, and in that it becomes like this glorious cycle of something you never wanna stop doing, because every step of faith, every step of trust and obedience causes you to experience God at work in you, god at work through you, and there's actually nothing more enjoyable than being used by God.
Speaker 2:It's enjoyable to receive a Christmas gift. It's so much more enjoyable to give your children a Christmas gift. And so God has invited us to be ambassadors of Christ with him. He's invited us into the ministry of reconciliation. He's given us the greatest news in the world. He's given us the greatest love in the world, and now he's given us the ability to be used by him to radically change people's lives.
Speaker 1:Chris, maybe to end today, there's a statement that you had in your notes that frequently, endings are beginnings. So maybe, as a wrap up for this particular podcast, speak to that person out there that maybe, though, we've walked through this and maybe they sense like there's an uneasiness and unrest, there's a pain that they haven't resolved, there's a. Whatever the case may be, it doesn't have to be cataclysmic, it can just be a just like am I in the right place? Am I on the right road? And I keep going back to we only live this life once. Like you don't get a do over. So like, if you need to make a course correction, make a course correction and don't live in the fear of what if, but live in the possibility of what could be. So maybe, just to kind of wrap us up for today, that statement frequently endings are beginnings. How did you see a new beginning for you once you finally realized oh, wait, a minute, I've had my identity in something other than being a son or a daughter of God?
Speaker 2:My crisis of belief in that moment was am I gonna trust God knows better for my life, knows more for my life than I do? Am I gonna trust that God's plan for my life is better than my plan? And as I began to be faithful with a little, God would continue the process of giving me more responsibility. And I'll never forget that it was Memorial Day weekend, I think 28 years ago, that I was invited for the very first time to preach at a church and at this point in time I had been wrestling with that decision like is God calling me to do this? Because there was nothing like that in my background. I would have been, if there was a category, I'd been voted the least likely to be called to the ministry.
Speaker 2:And I remember I went and taught that Sunday and really honestly, all I taught was experiencing God, principles that I didn't really know anything else and God moved in such a way that I knew that. I knew that. I knew that this is what he was inviting me to do, to be involved in his work in this way. And I had already accepted a job to kind of enter the golf profession to try to be a teaching pro representative while I would pursue my playing career and one day try to get a playing card for the PGA Tour, and the next day I went and resigned before I ever started the job, and the next week I started seminary. And so I would say there comes a point where don't prolong the ending, because then you're delaying the beginning. Just let the end come and fully embrace the beginning, and the beginning is so much better than you could have ever asked, thought or imagined, and you'll forget about the ending because the beginning is so great.
Speaker 1:Well, I hope that this episode has been incredibly helpful. I hope it maybe has inspired you to think about the life that God has designed for you to have, that you don't have to find your identity in something that's gonna disappoint you, but that he has great, great plans for you. So I hope, if this has been helpful, wherever you're watching or listening to this podcast, subscribe, share it like it and help us get the word out, pass this along to somebody else that would benefit from it, and we can't wait to see you next time.