Episode 305 - Alan Kraft, "The Intimate God, Part 2"

Welcome to another episode of Restoring the Soul with Michael John Cusick. Joining Michael is Alan Kraft, who will delve into the spiritually nourishing practice of scripture meditation and its power to let the Holy Spirit speak directly to our hearts.

In today's episode, titled "The Intimate God," Alan unravels his spiritual trifecta — stillness, prayer, and scripture — to cultivate a profound connection with the Father. We'll explore how scripture is a gateway to a relational experience with Jesus, offering insights into his nature and deepening our knowledge of His love.

We'll also discuss Alan's thought-provoking approach of slowly reading scripture and integrating prayer, inviting reflection, and an open dialogue with Jesus through the pages of the Bible. The concept of "practicing the presence of Jesus" emerges as a transformative method to bring Jesus into the entirety of our experiences, even the difficult emotions, as a path to growth and prayer.

We touch on the significance of stillness, as echoed in the Psalms and the book of Genesis, carving out space to gaze within and commune with our Creator, and how this practice informs a genuine personal reality.

Finally, we'll touch upon Sabbath, emphasizing it as a treasured time of self-care ordained by God, an invitation to rest in gratitude rather than an obligation.

HELPFUL RESOURCES:
Christ Community Church in Greeley, CO
The Intimate God: A Practical Guide to Experiencing the God Who Delights in You

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Transcript

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Hey, everybody. Welcome to restoring the soul. I am here again with my friend Alan Kraft, who is a pastor and author. This is part two of a conversation that we're having about his newest book, the intimate God, a practical guide to experiencing the God who delights in you. And I hope that you were able to listen to part one. I sure enjoyed myself. We laughed. I would like to say we laughed, we cried and everything in between, but we laughed and we really unpacked the big idea of the book. But now I'd like to walk through the book, and each of these five parts sounds great. So the book is a seven week experience with the five core practices. We asked the question in the last conversation, how does God feel about you? That it's epidemic for people to have knowledge about God, but their answer to the question, how does God feel about me? Is oftentimes he's disappointed, he's angry, he's frustrated, he's distant, he's harsh. Not this sense of he delights in me. And, and that's absolutely foundational, which is why that's week one. And we talk about how to engage the right side of our brain, the experiential side, using things like biblical imaging, where we're using our, we're envisioning something that scripture tells us that's engaging a completely part of our, of our being and what we envision, we experience. And so it's so much how our brains are made, and yet we often, as christians, don't really lean into that. And so I introduce that as a tool to help us begin to experience the father's love rather than just knowing about it. So, yeah, that's week one. You referenced in one of the footnotes, Greg Boyd's excellent book, seeing is believing, experiencing Jesus through imaginative prayer. And I was glad that you referenced that. That's kind of a little known book. It really is. But it's been really foundational to me. Well, and. Exactly. And Greg Boyd is, you know, what I appreciate about him is he's such a brainy guy. Oh, my gosh. And that's why that book, to me, is so powerful, because here there's a guy that's an engineering type guy, and he talks about how using his imagination helped him experience the father's love. And so, yeah, that was a really significant book. That whole concept, I think, is really important. And I just want to mention that and reiterate that this really is, it's throughout scripture. And so when you have David in psalm 27, he's talking about gazing on the beauty of the Lord. He's not talking about physical sights. He's talking about the word literally. It's referring to a prophetic, like a vision a prophet would have. He is seeing in his imagination the beauty of the Lord, and that's impacting him in the midst of very fear producing circumstances that he describes in the first three verses there. And so once you realize this is actually, this isn't anything weird, this is actually throughout scripture. You can't read psalm 23 without picturing the imagery that David is using. Green pastures, you know, Valley. And that's when I think if people can get beyond that initial, what's, what's using my imagination that sounds weird or whatever. No, no, no, it's not. It's actually using a God given part of our brain to experience scripture. This is all scriptural, right? We're envisioning scripture. And for me, that tool has been so significant in experiencing the father's love in that chapter. Lead people through an exercise of placing themselves in the luke 15 prodigal son story. I do that all the time in my prayer time. I'm placing myself in that story and I'm seeing the father run to me. That has been huge for me. Very transformative. I love it. I love it. I talked a lot in the last podcast. Hopefully it was conversational enough. But I'm going to ask you to do most of the talking. All right. And I'd like to have you start by going through the five practices. Will you first just rattle them off, what are the five? And then kind of walk through them one by one. And I reserve the right to fire questions in, but not a lot of commentary. No, that's great. No, the first one is stillness, and I can't wait to talk about that. That was huge for me. So stillness and then prayer and then scripture. Scripture, meditation. And then I talk about. One of them is, the fourth one is practicing the presence of Jesus and. Then Sabbath and in there listening to Jesus. I don't think you said that. Well, what, listening to Jesus kind of fuels the rest of them. So there wasn't a practice around listening to Jesus. I put that chapter in because I realized we're talking about stillness and prayer, and a part of that is hearing his voice. And so I put a chapter a week in there just talking about how do we hear his voice? Okay, so I miscounted basically. No, there were five. There were five practices, and then two of the chapters were kind of supplemental. One is the experiencing the father's love chapter one. And then that chapter three is a supplemental one. How do we hear the voice of Jesus? Got it. So talk about stillness. Yeah, I love talking about this one because for a long time, I heard about stillness and silence and practicing these things and the importance of that. But I found the practice itself kind of frustrating. I would, okay, get everything quiet, but I couldn't slow down my thoughts. It just was not necessarily a very life giving thing. And so what I discovered in my own journey is this value of asking this particular question that comes, it's the first question we see in the Bible, and it's when God comes to Adam, who is just messed up, and he says, where are you, Adam and Eve? Where are you? And that transformed my experience of stillness because what I do is I start stillness with some spiritual breathing. I talk about that in the book. So I'm just calming. I'm quieting my heart. But then the first question I'm asking is, where am I right now? And I use an analogy around the table. What parts of me are around the table? There's a part of me that's really excited to be with you right now. There's a part of me that's anxious about something happening tomorrow. There's a part of me that's sad about a person who has a cancer diagnosis or whatever. There are all these parts of me. And so what I love doing in stillness is beginning by letting the Lord ask me, where are you, Alan? And so I acknowledge these parts of me that are around the table, and maybe one of them needs a little more attention. And so what does it look like to move towards this anger part of me that got angry at someone yesterday? What does it look like to move towards that with compassion? And so for me, that experience of stillness beginning by before I'm even trying to tune into God, I'm just trying to tune into me. I'm trying to slow down and tune into the parts of me that are going on inside of me. And so then stillness becomes this beautiful opportunity to welcome Jesus into these places, into these parts that maybe I'm ashamed of. I don't want anger at the table. I don't want this at the table. But I'm welcoming all of them to the table in stillness. Can you give me a practical example of what stillness looks like for you? You talked a little bit about the breathing, but you also talked in the last podcast about variety and that some people need to walk to find stillness because they'll jump out of their skin if they're trying to sit and not move exactly. And so that's where I talk about my own experience. I can sit still, and it's okay for me. I enjoy that. So I go to a little corner in my office. The computer's not there. I turn a particular light on, maybe light a candle. But I'm creating this environment. I think that's really important for people to create an environment for stillness, to create time space for it, and then an environment. So for me, it's a safe environment. And so then I will begin practicing just some spiritual breathing, which is attaching a prayer to a breath, quieting my heart. I'm then tuning in to where am I? And I'm welcoming Jesus into that for other people. Yeah, that part, they would be frustrated with stillness and trying to sit still. And so that's where I encourage people. Yes. What does it look like for you? Is it taking a walk? If you need to be moving, try it in different places, taking a walk or whatever. But we don't want to lose the heart of stillness, which is quieting, being able to quiet our own minds and our hearts so that we can tune in to our own self in order to then welcome Jesus into that place. You talked about Psalm 27 for David's gazing. And it's interesting in there two times he says to seek him in his temple and to dwell in his house, to gaze in his temple and in his house. Well, what's the temple in the house? It's you and me. It's our body. So the stillness is the practice of within ourselves being able to gaze because we've been aware of what's there. And I love how I've never heard the idea of stillness. Go back to Genesis three, that the invitation with the where are you? Adam is actually, hey, show up, be present. And maybe it was, let's go for a walk together, but check in with yourself. Well, it's fascinating to me, Michael, that the second question in scripture is God asking Cain, why are you angry? See, I mean, that to me, stillness provides this beautiful opportunity to actually explore our hearts. It's not where are you angry? Where are you? It's this invitation to tune into where we really are, not where we think we're supposed to be. Yeah. Because God can only deal with our reality, not our illusion. Exactly. Alan, go ahead and talk about the next practice after stillness. Yeah. So what? In the book after stillness, I do have that chapter just on listening, helping people. That whole concept of listening to God is new for a lot of people, and so I want to try to normalize that and so that's what chapter three or week three is about. And then the second practice is week four, which is the practice of prayer. And what I talk about there is how a lot of times in our prayer lives we know we're supposed to pray. We tend to get into ruts. So my prayer life, it becomes kind of narrow. I'm going to pray about my needs or I'm going to pray for my family or whatever. And so I introduce people to this, to this practice of praying through the Lord's prayer, which is something that has transformed my own prayer life. Had a pastor friend, he's deceased now, but a dear friend, too, and just a wonderful brother in Christ who was a man of prayer. And I was with him one day and I said, hey, how do you tell me about your prayer life? Helpful for you. What's really transformed you more than anything else? And he said, without hesitation, he said, it's when I started praying through the Lord's prayer. And that's not talking about reciting it, just memorizing and reciting it over and over and over. Right. It's breaking the prayer into six essential parts. So I've got to interrupt and say, this was the gold within the gold of the book. And I've told you this before we turn on the microphones, you must write a book about this. This will be transformational for me because I actually am a person that prays the Lord's prayer through reciting it. And I grew up as a catholic kid, so our father be that. I can say it very fast. I can say part of it in Latin. I could probably make up fake languages and say it. But this is transformational. So will you run through this quickly, the different aspects of it that are right there in the prayer? Yeah. So when I'm, I start with stillness, right, the week two, and then in my own practice. And then when I'm entering into prayer, I move right from stillness, which is the, it's the perfect way the transition is into presence. All these start with a p. So presence is our Father in heaven. And so we're starting. He's delighting in me. He's my father. So we're starting our prayer by tuning into the presence of the Lord. Hallowed be your name. That's praise. So we're taking a few moments and expressing praise to him, gratitude to him for all that he's done. Once we're done with that, we move into purpose, which is your kingdom come, your will be done. And so we're thinking, where does Jesus reign his lordship need to happen in my family in a situation in our world, wherever. And so we're aligning our hearts and we're partnering with God. The cool thing about that if we stop there, those are the first three we're halfway through all of them are God focused. They're all focused. They're directed towards him. Then the second part of the Lord's prayer, the second major category is focused on us. And so that gets to provision. Give us today our daily bread. So where do I need him to show up? What needs needs do be I to have. So we do eventually get to the personal part but we don't start with it in the Lord's prayer. So it's a cool pattern starting focus on the Lord and then it's provision. Then the next one is, the fifth one is pardon, forgive me for my sins as I forgive those who have sinned against me. So it's this beautiful opportunity, Lord, what do I need to confess to you? And then is there anyone I'm harboring bitterness towards? And then the last one is protection which is lead me not into temptation but deliver me from the evil one. And I think what I love about the Lord's prayer using it this way is that it's bringing in all these elements that we wouldn't typically do if we're just praying on our own. We'll pray for my family, I'll pray for my needs. But am I actually going to ask is there anyone I need to forgive? Probably not unless Jesus put it in there. And so if I'm praying this every day or I'm praying this when I spend time with the Lord, I'm praying through this prayer. I'm bringing that question up frequently because I think the Lord wants me to. The prayer is really an invitation and here's this theme again of the different levels. It's an invitation to engage with God, to engage with ourselves and to engage with others and to attend to all three of those relationships which are always interwoven. That's so good because you're right. The second part is not just about me. It is about how are my relationships doing and where am I harboring bitterness towards someone. Right? Yeah. And that forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us also addresses the wounds in our heart. That there's people that are sinning against us, trespassing, wounding, being unkind, betraying us, abandoning us, cheating, etcetera. And we need to reckon with that. So I think what I saw in this is that for the first time, I saw how specifically the Lord's prayer addresses our humanity in God, the way that we're immersed in him. I think what I'd like to do is have you come back and do a whole podcast on the Lord's prayer. That would be awesome. Will you move on with the next practice? Yeah. So the next practice is scripture meditation, engaging in scripture, and this is one again, I think we know we're supposed to read the Bible, but I think a lot of times there's a disconnect that a lot of Christ followers feel in terms of, it's a, I'm supposed to do this, but it's not really very life giving. And so I just talk about how to engage in scripture in a way that allows the Holy Spirit, spirit to speak to us from the scripture. And it's through this thing in psalm one, this word about meditating, the power of meditating. It's this idea of marinating a steak. If you're going to cook it, you can put seasoning on, right? When you're grilling it, that's one way. Or you can let it marinate overnight. When you do that, it's amazing, right? It's permeated the meat. And so we just talk in that chapter about some practical ways to engage in scripture in a way that listening attentive to what the spirit might be wanting to say to us in a passage, and in doing that, it kind of comes alive in our hearts. So scripture is something to be read, but you're also talking about it much more in terms of experiencing it. Yeah. And I would say too, michael, that I talk about those three as being sort of my trifecta, my spiritual trifecta. Three practices go together for me. So whenever I have time with the Lord, I start with stillness, I move into prayer, and then I let scripture speak to me. So you can do that in 15 minutes. It could take an hour. The time length is not. But to me, those three, they fit together so well, and they really become this powerful trifecta for our walk with God, kind of this powerful foundation. You wrote something that I highlighted, and whenever I see something that I typically memorize, a quote that gets stuck in my head. You said our engagement with scripture is intended to be a relational experience. Yeah. And then you go on to say, if reading scripture is not feeling a deeper love for Jesus, we're missing the point. But I'm intrigued by that, that scripture is meant to be relational. And for me, so long in my life, it was just informational. So talk about just more of how it's meant to be relational. Yeah. I think when you look at. I love that story in Luke 24 where the two disciples, they're all confused and frustrated and distressed. The tomb is empty. They don't know what's going on. Jesus was crucified. He starts walking along with them and they don't know who he is. And so he's having this conversation and they're freaking out, and he's like. And it says, he explained to them from Moses and the prophets. He's using scripture to explain to them who he is. And at the end, he breaks the bread, he disappears. Right. And they say, were not our hearts burning within us as he opened the scriptures to us? That to me is a picture of what can happen when we let Jesus use his word to show us who he is. So the point of all scripture becomes Jesus. How does is help me know more about him or my need for him. So when that, I feel like that story kind of unlocks it and it's where the pharisees missed it. Jesus said, you search the scriptures. You know the scriptures, and in them they point to me. But you're not turning to me, you know, paraphrase from John five. That's such a powerful rebuke. Right? They knew the Bible backwards and forwards, and they missed the point. And so I just want to invite people into an experience of the word that's not just about checking a box. I read these three chapters or whatever. Today I'm done. And it's much more of a slowing down, being willing to slow down in the passage and let Jesus open our hearts to him. Talk a little bit about that, Alan, because you actually have a section where you say, read slowly and prayerfully. And you gave the example of how, even if you are using your one year Bible, that it's not about getting through the certain number of chapters, sometimes you'll just slow down and not do that. What does it mean to read prayerfully? Yeah. For me, it's the attentiveness to the Lord. So I'm reading the other day, I was reading Mark, chapter one, and I'm reading this connection, and I'm seeing this connection between Jesus being baptized by John and the Holy Spirit comes upon him. And the next thing that happens is he enters the wilderness and is tempted. I had never seen that before, but it spoke to me personally that I want the Lord to delight in me. This is my son and all that. But sometimes it's that identity that I need when I'm battling temptation. So I've been thinking about that all week long. I've been praying about that all week long. But it's a passage I'd read dozens of times and not seen that. So I'm not saying every time, every time we read, that's going to happen. But those kinds of things can happen more and more when we're slow down doing and we ask what I talk about, is it shimmering? So we're reading slowly and if something's like it just sort of stops us, like, huh, that's interesting. Stop there. Stop there and ask Jesus. Read it again and ask Jesus. Are you saying something to me here? And so that's the slowly and prayerfully part of that that I found helpful. The next practice, I particularly was drawn because I've read a lot about it and I think it's the hardest to do because it integrates all the others and it requires, as you talk about, awareness. So unpack the next. Yeah, that's practicing the presence of Jesus. And what I love about this practice is that it kind of takes the other three on the road, so to speak. It becomes this experience that we can have no matter what we're experiencing in a day where we're tuning our awareness to the presence of Jesus, he's with us. So the key issue there's that I talk about Genesis 28, where Jacob is sleeping, he has this dream, and he wakes up and he says, surely the Lord was in this place and I wasn't aware of it. How many of us live that way? The Lord is here. It's not about him showing up. It's about us doing something that makes us aware of his presence. And so this whole chapter, this whole week, it's about, I mean, the book, it's about how do we do that? What does that look like? And so we talk about some things, like simple prayer. We talk about conversational prayer and we talk about one I think I mentioned earlier of our emotions, our negative emotions become this beautiful place to practice the presence of Jesus. And because we have emotions multiple times a day. So all of a sudden I'm ticked off. I come out of a meet, I staff me, I'm mad at someone. Like, this is an opportunity. What am I mad about? Why am I angry? What's going on? See, that's so radical. And you even talk further about then inviting the Lord into that and not to make it go away, like, that's a yucky thing. And he wants me to not be angry, but to bring his presence in it, to bring light to tell us. What that's about, how we can grow. How we can heal. But that's such a radical idea that it's reflexive. If I'm feeling a yucky emotion or a big emotion, to want to ignore it, to push it under the rug or to get away from it, and you're saying, no, that's a moment to learn how to pray. Right. It goes back to Genesis four. Why are you angry? This is like the first counseling session. God is asking Cain to explore his heart. So there's value in even our negative emotions. But for a long time, in my own christian life, yours probably as well, those things were negative. They were to be ashamed of. I need to ignore those parts of me. What I'm saying here, and I think what scripture teaches is those are the places we can experience Jesus, and they're tangible places we experience throughout a normal day. We have multiple opportunities to practice his presence by simply exploring our emotions rather than ignoring them. Yeah. Somebody said a while back that whatever is unfavorable within us, that's where God is. And that's just a great thought. Yeah. There's something to that about. And I think this was a paradigm shift for me, too. Is being compassion moving with compassion toward these parts of us. That's a pretty radical thing. And they are parts. Right. Right. We've talked a fair amount about internal family systems. Ifs in the conversation that we had about a month ago to connect over this time. And it really is fascinating how the scriptures also address that. Psalm 86, when David says, lord, show me your truth and give me an undivided heart, that there's these different parts of who we are. So these are not just like, ooh, I was in a bad mood. It might be low blood sugar, but it also is probably a part of us from some point in our story, that needs attending to. Yeah. And then when we. When we do attend to it and we. We become aware of it and we welcome Jesus into that place, we become. We become more whole. Right. We become more whole, wholehearted person. Because we're not ignoring. I'm not trying to stuff my anger. I'm actually exploring it, and I'm welcoming Jesus into that. And suddenly I feel like I'm a more whole, integrated person with Christ at the center of all of that. I love that last practice. Unpack that one. Sabbath. The practice of Sabbath. Yeah. Okay. We all know what Sabbath is. Let's just move on. That's the problem. Right? We all know what it is. Not really. So we go, it's not that important, but you actually make a case for it. Yeah, I really think Sabbath. Well, from scripture, it's a gift that we so rarely open. Many of us so rarely open, we're so busy. And God says, one day out of seven, I want you to have this gift. I want you to experience this gift where there are no ought tos, there are no shoulds. You're doing things that pour life into your soul. He's saying, I want you to do this every week. And that's what's so ironic about this one, is that we all, including me, we all struggle to actually practice this. But it's a holy thing. He says it's holy. He blessed it. And so there's blessing in it. And there's something about Sabbath that pours into our soul in a unique way. We need it, especially in our culture today. We desperately need this because we're so distracted, we're so busy all the time. And for those of us who grew up in any kind of a religious context, for me, Sabbath still has the overtones of this is a requirement which you must do. And I grew up in a catholic tradition that was a very stringent. And so, you know, you have to go to mass on the Sabbath, and you can't eat for a certain amount before you go to mass because you're going to have the Eucharist on your tongue. And we weren't the kind of people that couldn't go outside and play on Sunday. But Sabbath was this requirement, and it was this rule, as opposed to, as you said, a gift. That's actually for me. Yeah. And I think that there are so many streams of this. You can't play cards, you can't go to movies. Whatever the stream it is, it's the pharisaical thing we always do with a command, right? We turn it into a legalistic burden when it actually is a gift. And so definitely want us to not go there with this idea of practicing Sabbath. There should be no ought. It's a want to. It's what pours into my. My soul. Who do I want to hang out with? What relationship would be life giving, those kinds of things, those kinds of questions, to me, shift the focus of the Sabbath. And it's not just to worship God and be in church all day. God invented self care, right? So everybody talks about self care. Gwyneth Paltrow, our culture, post pandemic. There's a self care industry that has exploded, but God invented that. And Sabbath is really, here's a day for you. Exactly. To be renewed, revived, revitalized. And yet we fill it up with busyness. I know. And that's the thing that I think there are two parts of it. One is the, there is a God part to it, but it's because we're slowing down. We're tuning into our soul. We're doing things we enjoy. There's a gratitude that comes out of Sabbath. I'm just, I'm slowing a thank you, God, for this gift. So it has spiritual implications, gives us space to reflect on God. But at the same time, it's something we do have to, we have to be intentional about, right? We have to carve out space for that. And it's really challenging to do that, even though it is a gift from the Lord to us. Well, Alan, we are out of time for this conversation and episode, but I definitely want to have you back. That'd be great. Continue to talk about some of these themes. Your newest book is the intimate a practical guide to experiencing the God who delights in you. You can learn more about Alan and his ministry at Alan Kraft.com. That's a l dash Dash r Dash a f t.com dot. Also, your church's website, it's Christ community. In Greeley, Colorado, so cccgreelee.org dot. And the book, you can find it on Amazon as well. It's an audio form, Kindle, and print form, so whenever fine books are sold online. Thank you so much, Michael, for having me on.