Can we learn to wander well? /// FOLLOW x UP with Michele Cushatt

Episode 003: What if formation is not about outcomes?

In this episode of the FOLLOW x UP podcast, Steve Carter and Eric Parks are joined by Michele Cushatt, author, teacher, and seminary student, for a conversation about formation, suffering, truth, and the long journey of becoming more like Jesus.

Together, Steve, Eric, and Michele explore the tension between growth and mystery, the inspired and acquired parts of formation, and why following Jesus cannot be reduced to outcomes or spiritual efficiency. They talk about suffering, lament, wilderness seasons, and how God often forms us in the places we would rather avoid.

The conversation also wrestles with cultural expectations around success, productivity, and certainty. Instead of possessing truth as something to control, Michele invites listeners to pursue truth as a way of knowing Jesus more deeply and allowing his truth to shape us from the inside out.

This episode is a reminder that formation is not quick, linear, or outcome-driven. It is a long, slow way of life rooted in knowing Jesus, staying present to tension, and allowing God to form us through solitude, community, suffering, Scripture, and honest conversation.

In this episode Steve, Eric, and Michele discuss:

•  Michele’s journey into seminary and local ministry 
•  The inexhaustibility of God’s word 
•  Why tension and mystery are part of spiritual maturity 
•  The inspired and acquired parts of formation 
•  Lament, suffering, and learning to stay present 
•  Wilderness seasons as places of preparation 
•  The difference between possessing truth and pursuing truth 
•  Why formation is not about outcomes, but about a person 
•  Solitude, community, and long-term rootedness 
•  Resisting cultural definitions of success 
•  Becoming more like Jesus over the long haul

Meet your hosts, Eric Parks and Steve Carter

Eric Parks

Eric is an Executive Pastor at Plum Creek Church in Castle Rock, Colorado, who cares deeply about helping people rehearse the way of Jesus in everyday life—and holds firm as a Denver Broncos fan, no matter how often Steve brings up the Bears.

Steve Carter

Steve is the Lead Pastor at Christ Church in Oak Brook, Illinois, offering a thoughtful and honest voice to the deeper work of formation and calling—and remains a devoted Chicago Bears fan, even with Eric representing Broncos country.

Explore all of Follow

We’re all following something—habits, expectations, ambition—but Jesus offers a different way. A way marked by love, presence, trust, and a life that actually leads somewhere good. Not perfectly, but increasingly, we begin to shape our lives around his.

We believe that if Jesus is right—about God, about life, about the soul—then is only makes sense to rearrange your life around what he says is true.

Follow isn’t a program to complete or a path to master, but a way of life centered on Jesus. A way of living that takes shape over time through a steady rearrangement of our lives—our priorities, our rhythms, and the things we trust most.

Links

Follow: https://www.followtheway.church/

Plum...

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

I do not want the efforts of my life to be shaped more by the culture that I'm in or the expectation that I've been given and by the words and the truth of Jesus.

SPEAKER_03 0:14

We have got to stop realizing that formation and this whole idea of following Jesus is not about outcomes, it's about a person. We have such an American obsession with outcomes, and we don't want to do anything that doesn't produce ROI that we can put in a spreadsheet. And formation is different, it's a way of life.

SPEAKER_01 0:44

The single most important oriented belief that if Jesus was right about God and life, the human soul, then it would make sense that we rearrange our lives around what he said is true. So that's what we're exploring. All that Jesus said was true and how to rearrange your lives around it.

SPEAKER_02 1:07

Okay, is it cou or q?

SPEAKER_03 1:11

Oh, it really depends on who you ask. I married into it. So um I say couchat.

SPEAKER_00 1:17

Couchat, okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:18

Couchat, like hatch, couchat, emphasis on hatch. It's French, but party.

SPEAKER_00 1:24

I mean, it really depends.

SPEAKER_03 1:26

If you ask my son, he says couchat, and Troy makes fun of him all the time. So since it's really Troy's name, we'll say Couchat.

SPEAKER_00 1:34

Okay, we well, uh Michelle Couchat.

SPEAKER_03 1:37

Couchat.

SPEAKER_00 1:38

Couchat.

SPEAKER_03 1:40

It's not like a pool cue.

SPEAKER_00 1:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:43

It's not a pool cue, it's couchat.

SPEAKER_00 1:45

Couchat. Couchette. You get the P O S-H-A-T-T. I was gonna say a Couchatois.

SPEAKER_03 1:53

It's very French. And Michelle is too. Michelle Couchat is very French. Michel.

SPEAKER_01 1:57

Well, I'm glad you're on the podcast today. Thanks for joining us.

SPEAKER_03 2:01

Michelle to be here.

SPEAKER_01 2:02

Author, teacher. Um, but troublemaker, journalists. Troublemaker, yes, yes. Um, just super super grateful. Tell us a little bit about um what you've been up to these days, because you're like in the middle or end.

SPEAKER_03 2:19

You're getting close. I'm in the end. Yeah. I'm in the end. So the short of it is about three years ago, uh, I released my most recent book. And uh it was called A Face That Will, it's still called A Face That Will Not Fail. Um, but at that same time, I kind of felt God turning my heart away from a more social platform ministry to more of a local face-to-face ministry. Didn't make any sense from a publishing standpoint or you know, from a business plan standpoint, but I just really was feeling like God was like turning, like almost physically turning me away from this kind of big, more remote, detached public ministry to something that was legitimately more face-to-face. About the same time, um, I started uh a conversation with a good friend and mentor uh about the possibility of getting my master's. And so that is what I've been doing for the last two and a half years is getting my master's in um biblical and theological studies at Denver Seminary. I graduate in seven weeks and one day.

SPEAKER_02 3:27

Whoa, let's go. Let's go.

SPEAKER_03 3:30

I have loved every single moment of it. Yeah, every single moment. Well, I mean, it's hard, it's no joke, but um just has been one of the sweetest gifts in my life is to do this at this stage. And uh it feels very much like it's hand in hand with this moving of the spirit of me toward more discipleship, formation, face-to-face uh ministry.

SPEAKER_01 3:57

What's been the best part of this whole process for you? What have you loved the most?

SPEAKER_03 4:02

This is a fairly easy answer. I mean, there's so many good things, but the thing that immediately comes to mind, I've I've loved Jesus since as long as I can remember. My parents became Christians when I was about six months old. So I don't remember not having Jesus in the center of my life. I've been reading the Bible since I could read. I grew up sitting next to my dad. He would take notes on the sermon and I would write down everything he wrote because I figured it must be good, right? So picture my five-year-old self like taking notes. And yet, after 50 years of following Jesus and taking notes, I have learned buckets of new things I didn't know before. I'm like just demonstrating the inexhaustibility of God's word.

SPEAKER_01 4:46

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_03 4:47

Isn't that yeah like new mercies? Like you discover something new about him all the time. And I, you know, you would think after all these years that it would just be old hat and it's not.

SPEAKER_01 4:58

So you I mean, you could say like seven weeks, one day is a bit bittersweet, because it's like, yeah, right.

SPEAKER_03 5:06

Yeah, it is for sure. I will I mean I've been mourning that for the last several months. So I'll probably at some point down the road go back and get my doctorate.

SPEAKER_01 5:14

I just want to be able to call you doctor.

SPEAKER_03 5:17

You can anytime you want. It's just not legitimate, but you can. I would love it. I know. I wanted, I mean, just because I mean, really, what is it? There's really few things any better than just exploring the mystery of God's reality every day of our life.

SPEAKER_02 5:52

Michelle, as a as a writer and communicator, preacher, and you are studying, whether for a chapter or for a message, and you come in to some like new insight, and then now being in school the last and learning these new insights, uh, like what's kind of been your response to I never knew that, or nobody ever told, or that makes so much sense. Um, like for me, when I when I have this sense of, oh my gosh, like I never, I never made that connection with that text. Like I find myself like walking around because I'm just like so fired up. Exactly. Like God, I feel like I saw something I've never seen before. What's what's that look like for you?

SPEAKER_03 6:42

Uh there's a combination of just mind-blowing delight that there's like this new insight that, oh my goodness, I had no idea. Um, but also on the flip side of that, uh, a very sobering humility of how many years have I been doing ministry and I only had, you know, this much of the picture, just the tiniest, and there's so much more to know. And I think it's a it's a good, sobering reality to realize that even now, after all these years of study and following Jesus, that I have barely scratched the surface of the magnitude and mystery of God. And that's that's an important um uh that's an important, I don't know, reflective point or or something to keep in mind as we do this, that like we just we've barely even begun to un unopen this gift.

SPEAKER_02 7:38

So how do you how do you make sense of that when you know there's I think you use the word inexhaustible, you know, and just so much more to learn. And also one of the most pure and truest forms of spiritual formation is becoming uh more like Christ. How do you hold that intention with I don't know that much? And I'm trying to become like Christ and grow in that becoming as someone who has, you know, given their life to um helping people become that.

SPEAKER_03 8:21

Talk about that because I yeah, yeah, that's such a and it's a necessary tension, and the moment we try to resolve it, we've oversimplified something that wasn't to be simplified, right? So, I mean, part of our growth is learning to tolerate the tension. Uh, and I think that's part of maturity and adulthood in the spiritual life is learning that the tension is not our enemy. The mystery, the complication, the questions we can't answer, that's part of the process, and we actually don't want that to go away. Yeah, because growth happens at the place of discomfort, right? Um, and he write in his book After You Believe, which is a format formative book, um, but talking about what do we do, you know, what do we do with this reality? I I've accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior and I want to follow him. Well, what does that look like? And as he rustles through this whole idea of that tension between um the fact that it requires some kind of participation on our part, and at the same time, our participation will never be adequate. And so he talks about the um both the inspired and the acquired parts of formation. Inspired being Holy Spirit, like only the spirit can do the work that needs to be done. But the acquired is that there's still um uh a responsibility on our part, an obligation, a uh whatever you want to call it, of a responsiveness, that there are some um disciplines that we can only acquire through the exercise of them.

SPEAKER_02 9:49

Yeah, right. How did you become comfortable with tension?

SPEAKER_03 9:52

Because I feel like Oh, you're you're implying that I am comfortable with tension.

SPEAKER_02 9:56

Well, but I mean, because I think I think some so many people, and I imagine many who are listening, at some point in their faith journey thought, oh, if I'm doing it right, it should be should get easier, should be easier and free of tension. But the and I I remember I was in a small group, I must have been like 22 years old, and it was a couples group, and my wife and I were dating at the time, we're in this group, and this woman who was the vice president of a Christian college in Grand Rapids said something, and I must have had the worst poker face. Uh, because she looked at me and she goes, What, Steve? And I'm like, Oh, I I guess I thought when you got to your place, you would have it all figured out. And she's like, No, it just gets more gray, and yet there's more trust. And I'm like, Yes, make that make sense.

SPEAKER_03 10:52

Yeah, make that make sense and make that more appealing. Right. Because I'm not a fan. I just finished another book that was biography of Eugene Peterson, and he talked about that at the end of his life, that you would think after 80 plus years of a faith journey, that faith would just be that much more automatic or simple or whatever. But in many ways, the more we explore the depths of our faith and the reality of God, the more questions that we can answer. Um, and he's like, it wasn't, you know, in his words, and I'm paraphrasing it, wasn't a threat to the reality of his faith, but it wasn't quite so slam dunk and simple and like you can put it in a nicely neat little box and set it over there. It just wasn't that way. That was actually really encouraging to me. Um, because the other side of my seminary journey is the more that I study and read and learn, it just more questions keep bubbling up, right? Uh and so part of learning to back to your question of how do you get comfortable with detention is uh one for me, I had to also understand that if I could unravel the realities of God, he would be far too small to solve everything that's wrong with me.

SPEAKER_04 12:08

Right?

SPEAKER_03 12:08

Like I need his mystery, I need him to be unsolvable, for him to be big enough to handle all that I'm bringing to him. Right. So on one hand, I so much want to figure it all out and have this kind of night, nice, neat little package, and yet by definition, he would cease being God. So that is actually not the solution I want. The other piece um with this whole idea of um that tension is learning to view it as and this is gonna sound cheesy, but basically to befriended. Uh it sounds really corny, but uh my journey has been one of unrelenting consecutive seasons of suffering that have never, never ended. And you can resist it and uh try to rebel against it, and it doesn't change the reality, it's there. So at some point, you have to choose to come alongside it and participate in the process. It's kind of like a woman giving birth. The more she fights the pain, it actually makes it worse. Like part of the process is as a woman, you actually partner with what's happening in order to produce a result. And so part of us and getting quote unquote comfortable with attention is to see it as producing something that we wouldn't be able to produce without it.

SPEAKER_02 13:28

How does that play out? You journal about it? Is it you you like you you you just hold space for that to recognize like, oh, my my impulsive will right now wants to deny it or dismiss it? Or yeah, what help us help us see that?

SPEAKER_03 13:43

So I can give you a couple examples off the top of my head. The first one is gonna be just the the real example of the fact that I live with physical pain and disability and a will for the rest of my life, right? There's nothing I can do about it. I can't therapize my way through that, I can't make it any different. There's nothing I can do about it. I can resist that, or I can start to view it from a different perspective, like taking an object and turning it a half turn and seeing it from a different side. And so, you know, practically for me, there are still days that I wake up and I'm just not a fan of this body that I'm left with for the rest of my life. I'm not, I'm young, I could live another 20, 30 years, and it really is like, do not recommend. I do not recommend doing that. At the same time, um, I can either sit there in that place of resistance against reality, or I can turn it a half turn and say, okay, um, how might this how might I view it differently in the context of a bigger kingdom than the kingdom of Michelle Keshat? Like if there's a bigger kingdom here and we believe that there is, that the kingdom of God has come, is coming, then how could this thing that I would love to be removed actually become a conduit of the kingdom that I love? And starting to reframe that. Now um that is as much practical as it is um theoretical. Like I have to actually sit there and go, okay, this is my reality. How you know, um what does this what does this open up to me that I wouldn't have a vision of without? And then start to reframe how I talk, but also how I think. Another example, um, I have a family member, I won't disclose for the sake of privacy, a family member that will likely have long-term mental illness and challenges for again. I pray every single day for healing, every single day. Pray for relief, pray for it to solve from a human standpoint without some divine, miraculous, massive divine intervention, this will be the story. So, how do I stay present to the tension of on this side of heaven, some things don't always resolve, right? How do I stay present to that and allow it to be something that doesn't hijack my life, but also be but at the same time becomes an element of formation in my life and the people around? I mean, these are the things people are dealing with, right? So this is what we all deal with. How do we do that? And again, I think it's a matter of uh if I believe the only thing that is in existence is my lifetime, my lifespan, and my kingdom, then this disrupts the whole plan. If I step back, turn it uh, yeah, 90 degrees or 180 degrees and look at it from a bigger kingdom, like seeing ourselves in God's story versus God in our story, then all of a sudden it looks just a little bit different.

SPEAKER_01 17:04

What's that process, uh Carrington Gaines, good buddy of ours would say, make it plain, doc. Make it plain. So what like for you, what does what does that look like? Because what I hear you saying, and correct me if I'm wrong, this process of becoming, becoming, like becoming like Jesus, I don't know if it starts here, but perspective taking is a very big part. Is that regular perspective taking? What what does that process look like for you?

SPEAKER_03 17:38

Yeah, well, it begins with, quite honestly, often with a big old toddler-like hissy fit, right? We can call it lament or we can call it a hissy fit. I mean, like, truly, where it's just not fair. Yeah, and that's just facts. Like, this is not fair, this is not what I signed up for, this is not what I asked for, this is not what I want. I didn't do anything to deserve that, you know, all of the things that we do to actually grieve the reality of a uh of a situation that we can do nothing about. So it starts with lament, right? Um, for me, it has to start there. If I don't acknowledge the reality of the loss, then the loss keeps screaming really loud. So that is a really important part of the process. Then, you know, at some point I've got to turn the corner like lamentations and say, but this I call to mind and therefore I have hope. So, what is as true as this reality? Well, I know that what is as true is that God is real and he is good. I'm not happy with him at the moment. I don't understand this, but I still believe he's good and he's real. So that has to become a truth and I turn toward. And then basically walking out that pattern maybe a hundred times a day or a week or month or year, you do it over and over and over again, is we grieve the reality of our condition and then turn our eyes to the basic the hope of our salvation. Um, sometimes it looks like journaling. I have filled spiral notebooks with losses simply so I can name them. I mean, that's what the Psalms are. Um, it's talking with friends, it's staying connected in community. Um, sometimes it's processing it with a counselor. Like there's ultimately we do have to resource ourselves in practical ways, but it's the same kind of idea of us acknowledging what's broken, taking it to the only person that has any any power to do anything about it, and then walking that out in the context of a relationship and truth.

SPEAKER_02 19:39

My um my my wife won't make fun of me about this, but you know, if I typically see someone wearing uh some sports paraphernalia, I'll try, I'll just walk up to him in the airport and start talking to them. Or if I see a rabbi, and so uh I just like those are the two. Those are the two.

SPEAKER_03 19:56

Even better if it's a rabbi that's wearing a Yankee.

SPEAKER_02 19:58

Yeah, he's like so I I'm in Jerusalem, I see this rabbi, and I was like, hey rabbi, and I just knew from his garb what he was wearing. And he's like, Yeah, I said, Um, I have a question. He goes, Okay. Um I said, uh in the in the Hebrew scriptures, there are these environments like Egypt. Um the Hebrew people got what they didn't deserve. And then they got the 40 years where they wander in the desert, and then you have the promised land. In the course of like a person's life, how much time do you think they spend in each of the three locations? And he I'll never forget, he just looks at me and goes, You Americans are so funny. You think everything is up and to the right, not us. We think 10 to 15 percent of your life will be in Egypt, and 10 to 15 percent of your life will be in the promised land, and the remaining 70 to 80 percent is learning to wander well in the desert. And I think that piece of what you're describing is I don't know if we have that spiritual musculature to know how to wander. We want to bypass or bright side, so we don't want to lament, and I love how you said it just will start, it will keep screaming louder and louder until I give it an honor that truth. But I know for me, there's so many times, and I think sometimes it's because the church is often all joy, all hope, all high energy, and the only time that I feel like we're able to have a moment of confession is on Good Friday. And so the the balance of like knowing how to sit and be trained to handle my grief or the lament, I feel like was uh not demonstrated in in my church circles or was ashamed in my home. And so so learning to recognize gosh, the tension of the desert is and turning that and actually going, could there be another kingdom? Could there be something I can learn from this? Um without bright siding, was still holding the lament.

SPEAKER_03 22:00

Or fixing or explaining. And it's so interesting you mentioned the wilderness. The wilderness, you know, so often we were taught that it was a punishment. It was actually a honeymoon period before the promised land. Like there, it was actually a necessary. They had been in captivity for 400 years. They had they had no ability to even be able to occupy a promised land. They needed those years in order to develop the musculature for the promised land. So what if a lot of our our lifespan on this earth is the wilderness simply to prepare us for what's to come?

SPEAKER_02 22:35

So good. Because it's one thing to leave Egypt, as some say, and it's another thing for Egypt to leave you. Because all of what was in the, you know, as my therapist says, uh, the issues are in the tissues, you know. It's just like, uh, like it we hold those with the if the body keeps score, we hold all those memories, and then how that begins to shape and form our understanding of God. And God's like, I'm not Pharaoh. Your worth is not in how many breaks you make. You need to be able to trust me. Um, and that just took time. And I think where for many of us, we haven't learned how to bring that lament or those, those real issues to say, I'm gonna trust you.

SPEAKER_03 23:18

Um even to um to to be in a place where we can truly receive the love of God and operate as the beloved. Like Egypt has so robbed us of our ability to see ourselves as the beloved, um, that I think at times God has allowed the this extended season of difficulty in my life simply because I am I am struggling to truly, truly embody and embrace myself as God's beloved. Now hear me, I know God is love, I know he loves us generally, but I'm talking about loving us individually, specifically, like to actually be in that place of believing so consumingly that I am God's beloved. And there are times that I wonder if this is what he wants for me more than anything else. I want my life to be easier, and he's like, I want you to understand how much I love you. That's like that is so important. And so, if that's the case, if our wildernesses are not just wildernesses but also honeymoons, what if God is trying to, even during this, woo me to himself as his bride, so that way I will be fully ready to enter into this communion?

SPEAKER_02 24:36

My mind is like yeah, jumping all over the place with thoughts, but I got me thinking too is of all the names God could have given his his people. Um, yeah, you have a firstborn daily. I have a firstborn Emerson. Like we named our children for a reason, and God names the people, Israel, to struggle with God and self and overcome. And and then we're like, I struggle, like wait a minute, wait a minute. He's like, I told you that from the jump. That's the name I gave. This was going to be a struggle.

SPEAKER_03 25:14

No, guess who my firstborn is? Jacob, renamed Israel.

SPEAKER_02 25:18

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 25:19

Exactly. Well, think of even when we use the word formation, whether it's you know, refining gold or the formation of a diamond, it all comes from pressure, intensity, struggle, heat, all of that. And we know this, like we know the metaphors, but we so struggle to understand the same as true for ourselves, right? Um, it's all throughout the Bible that formation happens in places of struggle. Period. Hard stop.

SPEAKER_01 26:07

So, as pastors, you both are pastors. You see what's going on in culture, and you mentioned two things that I go, you just mentioned two very important concepts that are almost antithetical to current culture. First, you've taken a deep dive into understanding who God is, the way of Jesus, long form content studied over time, right? That is not what we do. We get all of our information in bite-sized chunks, and you'll hear Christians say, I know the truth. And as you and I and we study, the more we begin to go, we know nothing. We don't know anything. Of course, there's foundational components, so there is this cultural component that uh we we wrestle against, as well as a cultural expectation that we wrestle against, and that is um, okay, I'm going to suffer so that I mean you see them on these same platforms. Uh, you know, I I was making no money and I have a IQ of 145, and then I went through the wilderness so that I could get to the top of the mountain, and now I have a billion dollars. Right.

SPEAKER_03 27:29

And so and God blessed me.

SPEAKER_01 27:32

And he blessed me. Right. Two things, two things that you go, uh what I hear us talking about is like these are elements of becoming, because I have said and believe the gap between what happens and your expectation of what's going to happen, the larger that gap, the more pain and and more despair, and more despair that you have because you're like, wait a minute, wait a minute. I thought I was supposed to walk through the wilderness so that I could get to 60 years in the promised land, so I can get here and like be on top of the mountain. How do we as pastors, when we're talking about becoming, shape this language? What have you experienced as part of even your own understanding of how important um uh walking through wilderness, uh, long uh devotion to his word is to becoming. And how do we wrestle against this reality that when you and I say it, we immediately recognize, oh, yes, that's the way it is. That isn't how everybody thinks about it.

SPEAKER_03 28:35

It's not how everybody thinks about it, and it's not how we want it to be.

SPEAKER_01 28:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 28:39

I mean, we just don't. We don't want it to be that protracted.

SPEAKER_01 28:42

I mean, it's just that is not the American dream.

SPEAKER_03 28:45

It is not the American dream. Um, it's not, it doesn't feel rewarding. To begin, I think we've also got to reorient ourselves to um uh God's pattern throughout history. I mean, you don't have to go further than like look at Isaiah 6, where you know, Isaiah has that big, huge encounter where he sees God and he says, I'm a man of unclean lips. And he's like, you know, and then he says, Here am I, send me, like I'm going to follow you, God. And I and then God proceeds in that following verses and chapters to tell Isaiah that his ministry will be utterly fruitless, like it will not be successful. Look at Jeremiah. I mean, Jeremiah's ministry was utterly fruitless. Look at Ezekiel. I mean, we could go on and on and on. Um, and they were faithful and they served in full-time ministry and they did exactly what God said, and yet um they did not get the outcomes that they were hoping for. And so part of this, as we talk with people, and as even as we talk to ourselves, because yes, I do believe we have to preach to ourselves, we are going to have to reorient ourselves away from outcomes and toward a person. Like we have got to stop realizing that formation and this whole idea of following Jesus is not about outcomes, it's about a person. Um, we have such an American obsession with outcomes, and we don't want to do anything that doesn't produce ROI that we can put in a spreadsheet. And formation is different, it's a way of life, right? It's not a process, it's really a way of life. So I think that piece is really important, but it's also that simply following Jesus for the long haul, simply to know him is enough is enough. And in the knowing of him, as we pursue him with heart, soul, mind, and strength, you know, Deuteronomy, as we uh make him everything, the spirit starts doing the work of forming and shaping, right? We do the following, and that following involves some uh participation, but following him and knowing him is enough.

SPEAKER_02 31:01

That's so good. The piece that I'll go back to something she said earlier that I think that we are in a cultural moment right now, is around truth. And yeah, there are so many times where um, and Soon Chao Ra um, theologian scholar at Fuller Seminary talks about this, but he talks about how um for for many of us we are trying to possess truth. So if I possess truth, I'm over the truth. Um, I I now am the controller of that truth, and and and this is a really dangerous place to be because that can lead to profound indoctrination, it can lead to um you know narratives being created. It just it there's so much just behind this, and I think this is what's getting pumped out for sure. And and it's like, do you believe this? Do you not believe this? Do you believe this? You've just got to possess the right truth. But in that, as like what GK Chestern said, uh, you know, God created us in in his image, and we returned the favor or favor and created him in our image. Um that's that's the danger of uh truth possessed. But Sunchad Ross is the more beautiful place is that that truth pursued. Am I pursuing the person of Jesus? Am I pursuing the life in the kingdom? Am I, you know, even in the word question, is the word quest. It is a quest to know, it is a quest to discover, it is a quest to um learn, it is it requires a humility, uh, a sense of I don't possess this, I don't know this, but I want to know more of that person. Like I like I want to know more um what brings life to my kids, or more about um what my wife is walking through. Like there's there's a pursuit there, and I think we just have to be really, really honest. Am I possessing this truth to to to own it and control it and I'd be louder with it, or am I pursuing this truth to know this person?

SPEAKER_01 33:21

I've been thinking about it this way, Carter. Um, what do I want to do with this truth? Like if you think about oftentimes the possession of truth, I've been thinking, what am I trying to do with this pro truth? Am I trying to prove something? Am I trying to control something? Because that's oftentimes the way in which we will grab it and say, now I'm gonna, I'm gonna prove something with this truth. I'm gonna, and what I've been trying to shape sort of shape my own mind is um, what is this truth doing to me? Not what am I trying to do with it, with it, what is it doing to me? What is it shaping in me? What is it changing in me? What is it softening in me? Uh, what is it growing in me? And I think for me, I think it's what you talked about, Michelle. The more I sit with allowing the truth to do something to me versus me use it as a weapon or as a tool or even as a means of soothing myself of my own discomfort.

SPEAKER_03 34:27

There you go. Right?

SPEAKER_01 34:28

Right.

SPEAKER_03 34:29

At times I want the truth and I want it to be simple so I can make myself feel better and less in conflict or in tension over it.

SPEAKER_04 34:37

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_03 34:38

But what if that's actually shortchanging the possibility of truth?

SPEAKER_01 34:44

I just think that most of what we wrestle with is um a culture that wants it to be quick and simple and to sit with it and to let the truth just invade your tissue, all of you. Like, um, and I don't mean that as a point to the culture because I'm in the culture, yeah. All of us is what I want too, right? I want simple answers. And it and it's quicker, more comfortable and quicker. If it's more comfortable and quicker, a lesser truth.

SPEAKER_03 35:19

It's why there's such a market for um posters. Posters. I was thinking like the supplement market and everything else. We would rather we would rather have a lesser truth and a faster quote unquote solution, even if it's not a full solution, than to wrestle with the longer, more complex, more difficult reality.

SPEAKER_01 35:40

Yeah. Well, that's the journey of becoming, though, right?

SPEAKER_03 35:43

It is.

SPEAKER_01 35:44

Like um embracing, I think a lot of work that Steve you worked on and people that we admire. I think that's the value of even going back to the first century model of what becoming looked like because there was not a quick version to um becoming, there was not an expedited version. There was a realistic expectation of a lifelong journey where truth began to reveal things in you, that it wasn't something uh that again, I'm not using truth. And I think that's the question as followers, we have to think about like, what are you doing with this? This truth? Is it illuminating the the darkest parts of your life and your heart, or has it just become like words on a wall?

SPEAKER_02 37:15

Some of you said there made me think about the monastic movement. Um I think for a lot they believed it was not possible in the the hustle of Jerusalem or the culture. Yep, and to have that moment to go be dwellers in the deserted place, uh and to have those practices where they wouldn't find themselves drifting into um maybe more possessed-oriented truth. And and doesn't mean like you being isolated doesn't mean you might not be the one like I'm on the mountain, I've got all the information. But I I think it it does bring up the question how how do we become with everything that is coming at us today?

SPEAKER_01 38:13

I mean, that's the question, right? What how did you say it? We put put our feet on the bottom of the pool.

SPEAKER_02 38:18

Yeah, yeah. How do you touch the bottom of the pool? How do we do it for a number of people? Okay, they're they are checking out in their own monastic way, and some of it makes total sense, and there's no shade on that. Others are like, I it's just not possible, so I'm not gonna even try. But to lean into that tension, um and Michelle, you've just been someone, I don't know, probably I've known you maybe 10 years. Uh yeah, to to kind of from the the outside of like from your writings, from just um your life, from what you've embodied. Even just to say, like, I felt this sense of not being on the road and pumping out more books, but I'm gonna go back to school and I'm gonna be more localized as and part of a community. And I that that's uh leaning into the but going upstream from how culture could uh see it would be way more profitable this way, it'd be more impactful this way, it would help more people this way, all of these like holy ambition, but you somehow decided to do it different without fully checking out.

SPEAKER_03 39:40

Without fully, and I think there is a tension there. It's so interesting about the whole monasticism thing. You know, eventually it would swing back the other way where people would come back, and I think part of that reality is because uh St. Benedict talks about the paradox of both isolation and community, and you need them both, right? That you need the tension between being able to withdraw in solitude with God and um re-engage and connect in community for the whole formation picture.

SPEAKER_02 40:10

In your contemplation with the Lord and in the presence of God will always push you outside yourself. But when you see the pains and the troubles and the problems of our day, it should always push you back to how long, oh Lord.

SPEAKER_03 40:27

Both are necessary, both are necessary, and I would say both are necessary, like ongoing, like every day, moments of solitude and then engagement. Or, you know, you may withdraw for a week or two weeks, but we re-engaged. I would even say my public ministry was probably more detached than my removing myself from it. There is a really comfortable detachment at being just a social media figure or somebody that flies in and speaks and then goes back home. It is a lot more vulnerable and risky to be engaged in a local congregation and let people know you and do life with them. So, in many ways, this kind of reconnection to local ministry for me is a way for me to actively and intentionally engage in community and not just be in solitude and isolation, which is part of my own necessary formation.

SPEAKER_02 41:15

Yeah, wow. But it's wild because you're Michelle Kojad. Like, you know, like and and again, you can get into that that the place of like, oh, I just land and I speak, and everyone always sees the bright side of me. And I my predecessor said, uh, Steve, you always want to stay long enough so people see the warts and the parts of you that are still in process, they see your failures, and they see you doing the work and they still love you for it. And that's also some of the parts that most people are afraid of most, right? Because it's necessary.

SPEAKER_03 41:53

I really do think there is a stunting that goes on when we don't allow ourselves to be in long-term engaged community where they really get to see the good and ugly of you. But boy, it's so hard. And so that goes back to this whole thing. How? How? Well, that means we keep showing up in community, yeah, and we keep showing up to ourselves in our own individual relationship with God. I mean, both are necessary.

SPEAKER_01 42:20

Yeah, this is a cheesy analogy, but that's what I'm here for. Um, all of it is like a crock pot, like becoming, becoming. This is a long, slow obedience. It's a long, slow reset of expectations. Like none of what I'm doing is to get me anywhere. I'm not trying to become a thing, a speaker, uh a well-liked pastor. I'm not trying to get to up and to the right. A shift in my mentality, that's been big part of the becoming journey that allows then for me to say, oh no, no, it's about knowing Jesus. It's this journey. I don't I'm fasting outcomes. I'm gonna fast outcomes and be like, and that's not easy.

SPEAKER_03 43:11

Um, because especially when you're dealing with people who you'd really like to get their acts together, yeah. Well, that's so can we fast outcomes and just do life with them, even if they stay the same forever? Yes, like do that, but that's what pastorine is about.

SPEAKER_02 43:27

Well, and and maybe taking it even more personal for me, I feel attention. I mean, um, because what had been shown to me was yes, um bigger is better. And so I think that there's sometimes I even feel like, and I've now been able to discern it's not the the shepherd's voice um as much as it is my own um cognitive dissonance or the enemy. That's just saying you're not doing enough. You should be writing more. You should be this, this, and this.

SPEAKER_03 44:06

Like how we define is this really successful? Am I doing enough?

SPEAKER_02 44:10

And I and and I read this book by Daniel Grothry called uh the power of place, and and just how we've um seen calling more connected to uh maybe a a title or a gifting rather than to a place. And he said that um, you know, a lot of the the leaders in third, fifth, eighth, tenth centuries, um, they took a vow of stability and they moved to a city, they bought a burial plot, and they they lived there, and their names became Francis of Assisi or you know, Teresa of Calcutta, you know, all of these names that were connected because they were gonna stay and be this disciple that was gonna break themselves open, pour themselves out for that place, and really in the crock pot kind of mentality that Eugene Peterson, that long obedience in the same direction for this group of people because that's who God called me to be. And that that is what I'm trying to lean into. Um, I love Chicagoland, I love where I'm at. I'm in this amazing church, I'm not traveling as much, and yet I have this little Yeah, niggling in the back, in the back of me that's just going like, are you sewering what God's given you? Right, and and all of that stuff that got in when it was younger, and I'm like, I'm like trying to detox of that, and it I want it to be true. I want it, I want it to be true that I believe the crock pot and I'm pursuing, and yet I gotta pay for college. You know, like I gotta like I gotta there's all these other pieces that come in that all of a sudden you're like, and then and then all of a sudden it it becomes uh not the person I'm pursuing. It's it's something that is out of comparison to what I'm seeing, and that's and and I I don't like admitting that about myself, but even as you admit it and wrestle with it, that's for me, right? Right?

SPEAKER_03 46:27

Yeah, so like I feel like Eric and I are watching formation happening as you wrestle that out and tease it out, yeah, because it's a legitimate struggle. I mean, I so get it. I so get it. Yeah, and yet like we don't have to answer all the questions or solve all the problems, but we have to be willing to wrestle with it, and that's where the formation starts to happen is God um deprograms us from the things that haven't served us well in his kingdom kind of idea, and and what he wants to be able to do with us.

SPEAKER_01 47:30

That's the it's a constant reorientation, right? It's like a constant, it's like when you're wandering with a compass. Um, as you walk, you're constantly like shifting and moving to be sure. Am I headed true north? It's funny that you mention um Mother Teresa, have you been to to her place? Have you been, Michelle? So we went uh a couple years ago and talk about uh long obedience in the same direction. Um you know it's right next to the Kali temple, it's one of the holiest Hindu temples, and um, that's why she set it up there. I mean, it shares a wall with that temple, and um the chaos of the space is what's so palpable because even now we went in the middle of the day, and uh there are faithful Hindus lined up around the corner, right, to get close to this uh temple. And Mother Teresa chose this space in literally almost utter obscurity, right? Um, and we walked into the place, I saw her desk where she studied, which was super moving to me. Um, and there were uh rows and rows of men and women who were dying and that were being cared for. Um and uh I went up to her temple, she had or to her, she had a prayer room. Should they allow you to go in there? And um, again, that was exceedingly moving to think like, here's this woman who consistently said, Let your truth illuminate my action, uh, may it wash over me, may I uh see my life as uh let this relationship flow through me into a a group of people where when you think about outcomes in the world we've grown up in, not great outcomes, um, so we were we were about to leave, and I met a young uh a young nun. I she couldn't have been 30, maybe, that was serving there. And um, it's heavy. There's it's it's a house of death. It's a house of death, right? House of dying. And so she invited me up into this little space, a little rickety table, and um we started talking. And I said, How did you get here? And and I thought it was so fascinating when you think about like uh some of what we've been taught in terms of outcomes and where you want to end up and what it's supposed to look like. And what caught my attention was she said, I have no idea how the Lord would have picked me to get to be here in the middle of death and dying and hard, hard work every day, and you you could see it radiate out of her like she's like, Oh, the Lord chose me to be here, and it so like moved me because um I do not want the efforts of my life to be shaped more by the culture that I'm in or the expectation that I've been given than by the words and the truth of Jesus, and um I think you know, we can't uh I have also said this. I'm like, I'm no more responsible for what uh where I was born than someone who was born there. Um, but I do have a responsibility to let his truth illuminate my actions and to point me in a direction that truly reflects the truth of Jesus and what his expectations are, and within the context of Castle Rock, Colorado, what does that mean? What am I chasing? So um I just it's uh this is becoming becoming is a long, slow get into a crock pot and get ready to cook.

SPEAKER_03 51:39

Yeah, we work it out individually and we work it out in relationship, and it's both.

SPEAKER_01 51:43

It's both, both. Well, listen, Michelle. Um, thanks for coming. Thanks for like hanging with us at the at the table, like kicking it with us at the table. Um, it's so good.

SPEAKER_03 51:56

It is so good. I mean, this is you know, like I said before, these are the conversations that actually are part of our forming, like they're necessary, and it doesn't have to have a podcast at the other end of it, like just sitting around the table and having these conversations is what does it love that? And every time we do that with other people, it's part of what God uses to form us.

SPEAKER_01 52:15

Well, amen to that. Thanks again for being here. So that's gonna do it for today. If something landed for you in this conversation, don't just let it sit. Take it with you. Carry it into your week. Talk about it with somebody, let it do something in you. And if you want to go deeper, click on the link in the show notes. We'll be back soon with more. So until then, keep following up.