Hello and welcome to restoring the soul, a podcast dedicated to helping you close the gap between what you believe and what you actually experience. I'm your producer Brian Beatty. Thank you for listening. Hello, Michael. It's great to be back with you on another episode of restoring the soul. Hey, Brian, eager for our talk today. Yeah, we actually we teed it up or teased it up in our last episode as you're going to be taking us through five disbeliefs. And that disbelief is not spelled di s belief but dy s. So we've got moralism, we're going to look at emotionalism, rationalism, belief ism. And then number five, activism. And so these are all connected to, as I just you know, stated in the opening of the podcast, based upon the focus of this podcast, the gap between what you believe and what you actually experience. So let's jump right into moralism. Michael, could you unpack that for us today? Thanks, Brent. Before I jump into those five types of disbelief, I just want to quickly tee it up again, our whole first conversation on disbelief last time, revolved around this gap. But the gap again, as you say, at the beginning of the podcast is the space this distance between what we believe and what we actually experience. There's this space, that something is missing. And without experience, we can't have intimacy, we can't have attachment, we can't have connection. Dallas Willard said that most Christians are stuck between key word here is between ceaseless striving on the one hand, and brokenness on the other. So you can think of the gap as I'm broken, I'm wounded, I'm wicked, I'm weak. I'm a victim of warfare. And my my wiring is broken those five W's that we talked about so often here. But in that brokenness, I'm trying to get, and I'm striving ceaselessly to get to this other place of this abundance that I longed to experience. And so I think about this gap. According to the laws of geometry, the laws of geometry tell us that the shortest distance, everybody knows where I'm going here, from eighth grade geometry, the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. But the laws of spirituality tell us that the shortest distance between two points is a winding, dusty road full of twists and turns and unexpected crossroads and obstacles. But the problem is that modern Christianity has applied the laws of geometry, to the laws of spirituality. And this is what I've done. And each of these five types of disbelief are a way of saying, Okay, we're going to do geometry, I'm going to get from A to B, I'm going to get from belief to experience. That's all this is. It's a way to not apply the laws of geometry, to the laws of spirituality and faith in our life. So with no further ado, shall we jump in? We shall and I want to ask you a quick question, if I could, because if I don't say it, now, I'm going to forget it. I wrote down in note that the long and winding road is generally connected to a ministry of suffering, that we in our in our modern evangelicalism, if you want to call it modern Christianity, has lost the appetite for suffering. And Henry now, and I believe he's written a lot about and there are certainly plenty and plenty of other authors or those theologians that have written about the beauty of suffering, and being able to connect our lives to Christ in that way. But that straight line that geometric line is, is beyond suffering. It's the ease of it all it is. It's very sad. And so would I be correct in saying, or connecting that path, that journey and relating to what suffering is to the to the depth of, of your spiritual life and your connection with Christ? Absolutely. And we need to have about 100 podcasts dedicated for this. You know, there is no spiritual growth, apart from suffering. And I don't mean per se suffering, like Ukrainians are suffering right now at the hand. of Russia, where their homes are being blasted and people are being tortured and their country is being invaded. Suffering can be choosing not to look at porn, when I want to, to find that relief and pressing into that pain there, you know, spirituality as Thomas Merton said, it's about what we do with the restlessness in our soul. And it's pain, or emptiness or grief, of some sort, or physical pain that so often leads us to a place of restlessness where we reach out to something, but yeah, pain, suffering. It is our instructor, CS Lewis said that pain is God's megaphone to get our attention, and not just quote, to turn to Him and gaze upon him and trust him, but to get our attention about what's happening in our inner world, because pain and suffering also raises all these questions about God's goodness. And where do I find soothing? Where can my soul rest? Where can my soul be known? And ultimately, where do I find safety? So it's in places where we are disoriented, where we are uncertain, tentative, and ultimately needy. So yes, yeah, good. Well, let's, let's dive into tomorrow's lesson. Let's, let's get to the disbeliefs. Yeah, so these disbeliefs like dysfunctional, believing each of them are ways to close this gap in ways that are unhelpful, counterproductive, and ultimately, do not require trust. It was Willard, where I first heard the term, the gospel of sin management. And I think the lowest level the easiest entry point for a Christian, whether they're a new Christian or longtime believer of what must you do, as a human being to experience the abundant life, this life to the full as Jesus talked about in John 1010? What must you do in order to have abounding joy, or as Philippians four says, the peace that passes all understanding. I remember as a young Christian, golly, being in my my bedroom and reading my Bible, and I would in the evenings, I would, I would pray, and I would read Christian books, and I was really all in. And I remember reading Philippians, four, six, and seven, which I later memorized, and it said, let your requests be made known to God and the peace of God, which passes all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Well, I suffered from tremendous anxiety and shame that was part of my yet to be diagnosed trauma. And I kept reading and focusing on that and meditating on it and learning about what meditation was to pour over and over the words and to chew on them, in my mind, in my heart, and my soul. And all I kept coming back to was, how come I don't have this peace, that passes understanding. And for the first, oh, 1011 12 years of my faith, I concluded, well, obviously, there's something wrong with me. I'm not doing the right things. And so because I had significant quote, sin in my life, because of my sexual addiction, and my pornography, addiction, even back then, before the Internet, what I concluded was, I don't have joy in my life, because I'm not following the rules. Now, there is an argument to be made, that joy comes from aligning ourselves with God. So as I align myself with God in His I turn toward life giving sources as opposed to idols, as opposed to addictions and things like that. That is a turn toward that which is life, that I will have joy, that I will have peace. But what I was saying, in my mind back to my clipboard that I mentioned, if I read my Bible, and it had to be an entire chapter, it couldn't be a verse. It couldn't be part of the chapter where the little modern, you know, new international headline said, rules for holy living or something like that, or Jesus walks on water. It had to be the whole chapter. And that was the law. And I had to follow that law. It had to be that I had to pray for a certain amount of time. And I couldn't just say God helped me on my exam or give me courage to ask this girl out. It was I had to do the entire adoration, confession, thanksgiving supplication, X across this acrostic I was constantly guilty, that I wasn't sharing my faith with kids in high school. At what point and I, I really think this is actually kind of cool in retrospect. But there was a time when I disdain this. But my young life leader said, Get your high school yearbook and go through it, and pray through all the names. And I did that. And I don't say this with a sense of pride, like patting myself on the back, but I just go, that's pretty cool that a high school kid would do that. And I think that says something about my heart. But the tragic part is that I thought somehow, then God would bless me for that. And that blessing meant, oh, I'm going to experience his love. Because all I believe there are all I knew was guilt and shame. But I could quote John 316, and so many other verses, For God so loved the world that He gave us one really son. But God doesn't love Michael, very much. And he certainly doesn't like him. And so I set out to define the rules. And that was to not have any impure thoughts, to not have any impure actions, to perform for God by going through this list of spiritual disciplines, which were not for the purpose, in my understanding at the time of shaping my heart, and creating space for God is now unsaid. But these were the things that if I did them every day, God would smile, like a teacher who was pleased because I handed in my homework every time. The problem with this is that, and I couldn't see this till much later is that it made my faith very external. And it created as Willard suggests, in this paradigm, he sets up between brokenness and ceaseless striving is it just creates a sense of pressure and exhaustion. And ultimately, then what happens is your soul becomes weary and tired and worn out. Because it's, there's just this, I believe, a complete disconnect between you and Holy Spirit. Yeah, the Holy Spirit was not even part of the equation for me back then. I had some teaching that said, yes, the Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity, but don't expect very much, because, you know, miracles don't happen and healings don't happen. And really, Brian, for me, I would have preached Grace, Grace, Grace, Grace, Grace, but I would have said that my growth, and God's affection for me is really dependent upon my works and what I do. Michael say more about how moralism impacts our soul? Oh, that's a great question. Because you know, the podcast is restoring the soul. Right? So what is it that we get back? What is it that is restored? When the focus is on performance, when the focus is on my external, measuring up? First of all, as I alluded to earlier, I'm going to become exhausted, I'm going to become weary. And that's the first place where joy leaks out. You know, we had this person come to our house several years ago in Colorado, and they they sealed up our house. And they did all of this kind of climate control. And then they blow this giant fan. And they measure what percentage of air leakage is there. So how efficient your heating and cooling is, and arch was really bad. So we had to pendant put in all this weather stripping, and stuff. And if when we become Christians, God's Spirit is in us, than the fruit of the Spirit is actually already there. It's like fruit that is seeds that then begins to grow. And it's not a matter of we have to go get the fruit of the Spirit. It's something that flows out of us. So joy is inside of every Christian. And I would argue that it's inside of every human being at least the capacity for it, but it leaks out and it leaks out through the cracks. And one of the places where it leaks out is through this crack of ceaseless striving and performance. And then we try to work up joy by other kinds of religious activities, which are these other forms of disbelief. So, number one, it makes the soul very, very wary. I'll never forget talking to Eugene Peterson back in 95, one of the greatest moments in my life when I got to spend three hours with Tina's late wife, Jan. And he said these words that they seemed like such curious words to describe the spiritual life. But Eugene said, Michael, people today in this was in 1995, before social media and iPhones. He said people today are spiritually thin and impoverished. And he was referring to the kind of thinness of somebody who's not getting enough to eat and the kind of impoverishment that wasn't economic, but spiritual. Were We are bankrupt. And I think that this kind of striving, this kind of focus on a rigid morality, on behavior, on keeping the commandments, that if that's the goal, then we've missed the forest for the trees. And I think that what happened in my life, when I was a teenage addict, addicted to pornography, and masturbation and people pleasing, and probably addicted to trying to get God's love. It made me very spiritually impoverished and thin. And the harder I tried to, quote, be a good Christian, and get God's favor and affection, the more addicted I became, because I was expending more and more spiritual energy, but not having anything put inside of me. And so I had to turn toward broken systems, and I had to more desperately pursue anything that would feed my soul. So really, another answer to your question is that this kind of disbelief, dy s belief, it sets us up for addiction, and compulsion. And I think one of the most common ways that we are compulsively addicted is just by being busy. If I keep moving, I won't have to face the emptiness inside. If I keep moving, I won't have to feel the pain inside. And specifically, as long as I continue to try to be a good Christian. Now, before we wrap up today's episode Night, I can see that you are kind of ready to ask a question and feel free to do that as we transition out. I just want to say that morality is a really good thing. Without morality, we we have chaos. Without morality, we have people being wounded, and abused, and exploited and violated and perpetrated against, without morality, society comes crashing down. So there has to be a moral structure upon which society is founded, and upon which we live. That is about truth and goodness and beauty and right and wrong. And we may have arguments over that. But ultimately, this idea that God is impressed with my keeping the commandments, he's impressed with certain behaviors. You know, I, I heard somebody say recently to me, you know, well, I've, I've never really been a drinker. And I've never really done drugs. But you know, they fill in the blank, that I've never done this or this, but I do this. And they're kind of comparing themselves. And in this conversation, it was very clear that they were saying, I'm okay, because I've done this, but not that. And moralism is is a way of maintaining control. It's a way of having a false sense of security that as long as I'm performing, that God and I are good, and it flies in the face of the gospel. And so there's a different way of living and being that we're invited to that I will eventually unpack, people will have to listen to all these podcasts to get to the end of that, but this is just preliminary thoughts on on moralism. Yeah, I really appreciate, Michael, this conversation. And, and I think it either needs to be said, by me or by us, the pursuit of the memorization of Scripture is not wrong or bad. The evangelism that happens in your neighborhood is not wrong. The reading of Scripture and things that you I think there there is a, the intention of the heart really is good. But as you put it, in order to try to please God, or in order to receive the affection of God, is this is why you do that. So as we look to wrap up today, if if you could have this is a good question, what could I do? What could our listeners do to help? Just turn me in that right direction? What kind of practical tool could I do to help remind me of where and what to do? And so that moralism doesn't creep in. But yet my relationship with the Lord can really remain healthy and flourishing. It's a great question and I think my answer goes to the, to the simple statement from my friends at true faced Bill Thrall, John Lynch, Bruce McNichol, Robby Engel who is my friend in Atlanta, who's now the CEO of true faced. And I've heard John give this talk before and if he'll, I've heard Bill and Bruce say it recently had the treat of having breakfast with Bruce McNichol in Scottsdale, Arizona in March. And the question is Is this? Are you trusting God, or pleasing God. And pleasing God is something that if we try to please Him, we will be frustrated, because God is already pleased with us. That's like me saying, Julianne, I'm going to try to please you as a husband, and buy you flowers on Mother's Day, and Valentine's Day, and give you a tennis bracelet at Christmas. And make sure that your gas level in your car never goes below half, I'll always be attentive. Now, these are all potentially wonderful things to do, right? But if I say, she will be pleased with me, and I'm a good husband, and in fact, she'll love me because I do these things. I'm entirely missing her the point I'm giving her my doing, and not my being. I'm giving her my actions and not my heart. And she wants my heart. And what I longed for is for her to respond to my heart, trusting God is very different from pleasing God. What am I trusting God for? I'm trusting that he's good to such a degree, that he actually likes me, that he's my daddy, that Jesus when He taught the disciples to pray when they said, Jesus, teach us he started out with, well, here's the relationship. You've got a dad, an ABA, a daddy, a Papa, who he's crazy about you, he likes you. Your sin is not between you and him. It's right there in front of both of you and he's standing beside you with his arm around you, trusting that God's got you that God's okay with you just as you are and that he's working to draw you deeper and farther in and to free you more and more. So the question today, this week, this month, in this season in my life, am I trying to please God? Or am I trusting God? That's the question. So thank you for listening to another episode of restoring the soul. 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