299 | Escaping Sedation, Meeting Jesus in Your Pain, and Sharing Fresh Jesus Stories (John Eldredge)
Episode Description
John Eldredge recently returned from a sabbatical where he discovered deeper truths about God’s love and plans for us. Now, he’s imparting his wisdom about how to experience healing, joy, and adventure amid the challenges of life.
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John Eldredge is an author, counselor, teacher, and the president of Wild at Heart. He and his wife, Stasi, have three sons and are proud grandparents. John loves all things beauty, nature, adventure, and more.
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· The world is focused on distraction and sedation.
· Walk daily into the center of your pain, linger, and Jesus will meet you there.
· You need help receiving the love of God.
· Invite others into God’s love by telling fresh, current Jesus stories.
· The enemy whispers to the good man, “You’re not enough.”
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· SAVE THE DATE: October 19, 2023 at 7pm CT - Episode 300 Live Event: 30 Voices, 90 Takeaways
· 30 Days to Resilient in the One Minute Pause App
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Podcast Intro: [00:00:01] Being a great father takes a massive amount of courage. Instead of being an amazing leader and a decent dad, I want to be an amazing dad and a decent leader. The oldest dad in the world gave you this assignment, which means you must be ready for it. As a dad, I get on my knees and I fight for my kids. Let us be those dads who stop the generational pass down of trauma. I want encounters with God where He teaches me what to do with my kids. I know I'm going to be an awesome dad because I'm gonna give it my all.
John Eldredge: [00:00:39] You don't need to know anything and you don't have to be crushing it as a dad. Honestly, get some dudes together, in a safe place, like a campfire environment, and you just go, How's it going? Maybe let's talk about kids and play this week and just let them go. They will fill the rest of the evening, guys. Like you don't have, you don't have to be a therapist.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:00:59] Welcome back to DadAwesome. Today, Episode 299, we have John Eldredge back to join us for a second time. So grateful for this conversation and so grateful that it's on the eve of a celebration. So we are celebrating on, just a week from the date that this is released, so episode 300 is a celebration. On October 19th, we're doing a live event at 7 p.m. Central Time Zone on October 19th. Guys, we'd love for you to join us. Put in your calendars, check out dadawesome.org, there'll be information about how to join the live events. It'll be on, it'll be on YouTube, it'll be out on other locations. But, man, we'd love to have you join us to celebrate this milestone. Today's conversation, though, my goodness, you guys, you could listen to this one three times. John Eldredge brings us so much wisdom in these 35, 40 minutes. I'm so thankful for, I mean, he's released so many books. I'm actually now 23 years later, reading through Wild At Heart, and I've read three or four other of his books. In the show notes are going to be linked, they've made the Wild At Heart resources free. I mean, these video series are incredible. There's so much value to what you can just take and use and be resource to reach men on the topic of fatherhood and on so many other just topics within men's, like man, our hearts matter and you're going to hear it in the today's conversations. But please make sure to go to dadawesome.org/podcast to look into the show notes today because there's so much here. Guys, I'm thrilled to introduce to you my conversation. episode 299, with John Eldredge. Three and a half years ago, you joined me through the Zoom line for, I think it was episode 117, of DadAwesome. This was like weeks after the shutdown, so, April, early April 2020. So a bit of life has been lived since then.
John Eldredge: [00:03:01] Yeah. A lot of life sence then. For the world and for both of us.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:03:03] It's true. I was supposed to fly here for that conversation, but that all got shut down, so we were through Zoom.
John Eldredge: [00:03:09] Well, how many episodes are you on now?
Jeff Zaugg: [00:03:11] So likely this will launch, episode 299.
John Eldredge: [00:03:14] Wow, man. Congratulations.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:03:17] Yeah, we've done a few miles since then. I've added two daughters since then. No, just one, just one. So I have four daughters now, but my little one is only two and a half.
John Eldredge: [00:03:25] Beautiful.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:03:26] So, and you've added some grandkids, right?
John Eldredge: [00:03:27] Yeah. Yeah, we have. Oh, gosh. It's so precious. Little girls. Little boys. They were just over on on Labor Day. Barbecuing together, playing, really sweet.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:03:39] I imagine, forward sometimes, the from the dad life to the grandpa life. And I like, with joy I imagine that forward. I pray often for my girls, their husbands, their kids, their grandkids. They hear me pray this and their like, Dad, don't you, why can't you just live in today versus pray for the future? I am excited for that.
John Eldredge: [00:03:54] Yeah. Beautiful.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:03:55] It'll come when it comes. But I wanted to ask you as a as a lead in question, you challenged and encouraged all of us in a, it was either a podcast or blog post, four months ago, at the start of the summer, you said make sure that you are checking in with Jesus on your plans. Most importantly, ask what He has for your heart in this time, this more playful time of the year. I really appreciated that. That like, hey, don't just stumble into summer, sprint to the summer, but hey, check in, what is God have for you? I wanted to ask, what did God have for you this summer? How did you take your own advice and step into this summer?
John Eldredge: [00:04:32] Yeah, right. Yeah, we came around that advice the hard way because you think, okay, I got to, I got to, I got to fight for my marriage, got to fight for my kids, fight for my career. I think we're oriented to, I really have to be an advocate for the big things. But then we began to discover joy is so freacking opposed. It's just unbelievable. A birthday party, an anniversary, a family vacation that doesn't just roll in, like you have to fight for it. And so I was just trying to help people reorient to your, your recovery and restoration is just as important as everything else you're fighting for. So, yeah, I took a sabbatical. I mean, I took a big slice of that.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:05:20] Good.
John Eldredge: [00:05:22] Yeah, I did almost three months. I took June, July and August as much as I could. And when I say sabbatical, away from work. Because there's still family, there's still heartache, there's still crises, friends in genuine heartache, some some real family loss in the middle of what was a sabbatical. Yeah, so you can't paint a, you know, false expectations of that, I knew going in. But what I can do is I can get off email for work, get out of projects, meetings, plans, you know, and get away from my soul. And it was profound.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:05:59] Was there play scattered in there as well?
John Eldredge: [00:06:01] Oh, of course. Yeah. I love play.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:06:02] What are some examples the play?
John Eldredge: [00:06:04] I'm a big, big, big play guy. So I'm a 63 year old guy, who became a 22 year old when I got the specialized Levo Turbo. The Ebike.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:06:16] Oh, yes.
John Eldredge: [00:06:16] A version of their mountain bike.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:06:18] So now you can go four times the distance up in the hill country.
John Eldredge: [00:06:20] My gosh, I'm 22 again. Like it's just killer because I have the heart, right, but I've got a 63 year old body, so. Oh, my gosh. Mountain biking and fly fishing, rafting. But you know what was interesting, I thought there would be a lot more high level adventure. I like, I had this lodge, this fly fishing lodge, I was going to go to in Idaho and float, float the river. I was going to do all this stuff. And and Jesus kept saying, Not this summer, that's not what you need. So my play came way down to really simple stuff. We have a cabin in the mountains. There's no internet, no cell phone. Simple place, way off the track. Can't get it there in winter. That's like five months of the year, it's shut down. But you can walk in the woods. The national forest is right there. Take the dogs for a walk. Yeah, glass for wildlife. It was awesome.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:07:16] Is there any new discoveries? I love how you talk about treasure hunts and God has adventure and treasures for us. Any new treasures that you discovered that you think might be for the DadAwesome community? Anything you're like, oh, I feel like I learned this, that might apply to us dads.
John Eldredge: [00:07:32] Oh, my gosh. Well, okay, so, so many steps away for almost three months to get focused time on soul care, recovery, God. They're going to come back, I hope, with a lot, a lot of treasures. So I'm going to have to cherry pick.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:07:47] Let's do it. We might spend the whole conversation on the treasures.
John Eldredge: [00:07:49] Well, Good. But, so what did I learn? That the world is distraction and sedation. So this was really fascinating, I'm a big British soccer fan, so I follow the Premier League and Liverpool and all that. And when I came back, so I was off technology, I mean, I had my cell phone, but there's no service. So I go down once a day, to the county road, three mile drive to get check in with Stace, get messages, but no work email, no work slack, none of that stuff. So I was offline, I was off TV. I came back and I tried to sit down and watch a game that I had recorded and it was fascinating, my soul just went, Nah. That's, I don't want screens right now. So, when you get away from the world you find out how much it is distraction and sedation Just keep you spun, keep you distracted and then sedate you, right. So without that, without that you encounter a lot. So I found myself about four days into the sabbatical, I'm just walking in the woods every day, just walking. And, woah, I was suddenly aware of profound levels of depletion and going, How did I get here? And profound, just parts of me just so unfinished, like like almost unconverted places. And I found myself praying, this, I said Jesus, I need the rest of my salvation. And by that I mean, if we take, if we take the promise as it comes to us, you know, most people just don't know like what gospel means, what Jesus is offering as the restoration of your humanity. That your humanity as a man, as a woman, matters to him deeply, profoundly. And the recreation of your humanity from all things from the fall to the trauma, to your story, to all of it. That is magnificent. And you get a taste of that and it's just like, Whoa, I need more, I want more. So that that ended up being a lot of what the sabbatical was about and, and He would surface things, and say, let's go after that. And because I had the quiet and no cell phone, I had the time that I could give my my attention to the things that He was raising. And yeah, it's just so beautiful. So, okay, I'm going to give you the secret sauce right up front.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:10:37] Let's go. Let's go.
John Eldredge: [00:10:38] He would bring something up. It could be grief, unattended grief. It could be dreams for the future. It could be heartache and disappointment. It could be childhood trauma. Not every day, not constantly, very kindly, but He would bring things up. And I go, Whoa, My soul feels very unfinished there, not restored. Like a house under renovation, right. And I would say, What do You want me to do with this? And He would say, Walk into the center of it. Which is not what we normally do, we normally run. Run from the pain, you know, run from the confusions or the embarrassing stuff, the rage, the resentment, you know, walk right into it. And, and I will meet you there. And so I would say, gang, like, God did not create a world where if you've got $5,000 and you can get to a trauma intensive, you get you get healed and everybody else is sorry, right. You got the short end of the stick. Like He just didn't create a world like that, you know. And you think about all those people in countries where they can't get to a therapist, they can get to a healing prayer ministry. They're, they're not left out. Because the simple thing is, as your soul presents stuff, your fear, your rage, your lust, whatever it is Jesus says, walk into the center of it and invite Me there. And I will meet you there and restore your soul. So that was, it was, it was a lot of that in the midst of play.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:12:21] So I'm hearing this journey and feeling this side of myself, some other dads listening don't have this multi-week or multi-month moments they can step aside, but want to hear the voice of our Heavenly Father, want to walk fully into it and experience healing.
John Eldredge: [00:12:37] Yes.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:12:38] How would you, I mean, even just start with encouraging me. I set aside one day a month, as I just look back 30 days, look forward 30 days. A prayer day. It's tomorrow. So, I can speak right into my situation tomorrow. But it's only it's one day, not, you know, multiple months. How would you encourage, like, really entering that process of like, I want more of that?
John Eldredge: [00:12:59] Well, first off, God is raising this constantly because your unfinished places are showing up all the time. You just yelled at your kids. You just got totally pissed at your wife or you're afraid at work and you won't speak up. I mean, this stuff is presenting.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:13:17] I can see it. I know it is.
John Eldredge: [00:13:19] Yeah. Come on. It presents every day. So I would say it's in the daily, it really is. Now like weekly, monthly practices, absolutely. But the action's in the daily. And, and what you do, so what would I do if I were you? Take your, take your drive time back. If you have a commute bus, train, car, take that back. Noise canceling headphones is one of the greatest technological innovations. Even the AirPods Pro now have a noise canceling feature to them. So get some headspace. And I, gang, I'm talking 7 minutes. Okay. Like you can do this everybody. Like it, honestly, 7 minutes and you just pay attention. You go, Wow, okay, Jesus, there was a lot of rage today. I have no idea, I'm just going to walk right there and ask You to meet me here, meet me in my rage. Meet me right here. Like, honestly, gang, He's great at this. He is the healer of the soul. And then in that place, just linger, again, we're talking, now it's 6 minutes because you gave one minute to prayer. So linger, right. 6 minutes and see what He brings up. And suddenly you realize, Oh, I'm actually not angry, I'm sad. What's underneath the rage feels like abandonment. You're mad because you feel abandoned or you feel ignored or something triggers you and you go, Oh, okay, Jesus, come into this. Come into this. Because again, the secret sauce is, Leanne Payne just has a very, very simple line, she says the soul is healed through union with God. And so if we will open up these places, in our humanity, when they present, you don't have to wait till Sunday, you don't have to wait till you get some time away. I do it in my car. I do it when I wake up in the morning. See what I'm saying? It's very live. It's very, it's very in the moment. And in minutes you can get all kinds of stuff done.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:15:27] And to get real practical with a short, like, bite size, hey, this might be helpful, the 30 Days To Resilience, that you created.
John Eldredge: [00:15:35] Yeah.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:15:36] Cause three years ago we talked about the Pause App. This is right within the Pause App and we, my wife and I've done it twice now, we've gone through and those are about 7 minutes long, so about what you're saying. Twice a day. A morning and evening. And what I so much appreciate is that it's, it's not you doing a teaching, it's like a dance between Scripture, truth from God's Word, into some guided encouragement from you.
John Eldredge: [00:15:59] Yep. Yep.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:16:00] So grateful. That'll for sure be linked out. Anything you want to add on the 30 Days To Resilience?
John Eldredge: [00:16:04] Well, gang, if you haven't tried it, I mean, it's just killer. And so it's on the Pause App, which is free, and it's the first feature now, and it's just morning and evening click, click, click. And then once you go through, you've opened all those things, you can go back to it. But it's exactly what I just described. It's 7 minutes of space, where you just, you just find God and He finds you.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:16:31] Yeah. I'm so grateful. Your, your wife, Stasi, share just a little bit, she didn't share any specifics, but on Facebook, about a moment, a phone call or text that happened during some family time in the Tetons. And the way she just described you guys getting away for a drive made me think when I get hit with bad, sad, heartbreaking news or even something just bubbles up within me that I'm like, I don't like that. I don't often, like go to God with like my full emotions. And I don't know if she said you guys were yelling or just crying out to God in the car ride, but it made me think, man, I want to learn more about how to bring my full heart and all of my heartbreak to my Heavenly Father. Would you please share a little bit about that process?
John Eldredge: [00:17:16] Guys, because it's mostly guys listening. Guys, get a baseball bat and a trash can. Now I am dead serious, okay. This is, this has been, this is huge for me. Okay. What? Why? What do I mean? This stuff is so bottled up inside us, we often don't even know how to put words to it. And, you know, Van Der Kolk's, famous book, The Body Keeps the Score, you store all your trauma in your body, okay. The rage is there, the heartache's there, the pain is there. So you got to do something physical to help you even access the emotion, okay. So all I know is I'm upset, okay. That is, that is all the definition I have to it. I'm just upset, you know. Well, go out in the garage, I close the garage door so my neighbors don't freak out and I just go ham on those big city recycling bins with a baseball bat, and then it comes out and it's like, Oh, this was about what just happened to one of my children. Or this was just about okay, this, you know. And so what happened in that moment, let's go back to that Teton moment, because it's such a good description of, Chesterton described the Christian life as furious opposites. It's furious opposites. There's beauty, goodness, joy, laughter, play, adventure. There's so much adventure with God. And there is heartache, trauma, loss, evil in the world. It's both. And if you can accept that, you can navigate it. But if you only insist on the happy, the hard's going to really take you out. So here we are, we're on a family vacation. We're in the Tetons this summer. And it is joyful. Oh, my gosh. You talk about the stage of grandparenting. So I've got a whitewater raft that we mostly use for fly fishing. They take the fly fishing frame off of it, and it can fit about nine people in it. The little ones feel super safe. And so we can get on the river and just have a ball. And so their fun thing was pushing their daddies and poppy, I'm Poppy into the river, okay.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:19:26] Just off the raft.
John Eldredge: [00:19:27] Yeah pushing us off the raft. Okay, so there's joy, joy, joy, joy. Get back that evening, get a phone call. Heartache. Miscarriage, loss, tragedy, absolute tragedy it was just horrible. What do we do with that? We can't just fake it now and just go, No, we're going to all go out to dinner. So we passed on dinner. And we said, we just got to go. We get in the car because I knew, you know, we couldn't stay in our little hotel room because we're going to yell. We're going to yell. And Stace and I get in the car and we just drive off to a place where nobody's around and we cried and yelled and I pounded the steering wheel. You got to have space for that. Because it's all there anyway. You can't pretend it's not. Well, a lot of people do, I guess, pretend it's not and then you pay for it later. But that was what we did. And here's the crazy thing, I want to tell a really beautiful story. So the next morning I get up and one of the things I love about being in the Tetons is the wildlife. There's moose, bear, elk. It's just, ah, it's killer. But if you're the first one up and out in the morning, you get to see all the good stuff. And so I get up, jump in my truck, and I'm just driving through the park and just looking at elk, there's some elk in the river, yeah, it's just killer. And Jesus says, You need to go down to the river. Actually, no, I think it was the Father. The Father said, John, go down to the river. I'm like, okay. So I drive down. I park in the parking lot. He's like, No, no, no, get out of your truck and go down to the river. Okay, Father. Okay. So I get out and kind of take the whole trail down to the river. I just stood there. So I'm by myself, and there's this, it's the Snake River that comes out of Jackson Lake there. So here's this gorgeous river, and it's, it's beautiful and it's clear. And He says, You need to pray the river of life into this loss right now. He's like, death is here and it's getting in you and it's getting in the story, you need to pray the river. And so I did in kind of like a little two minute prayer. And He's like, no, no, no, I mean, you keep praying this until I tell you to stop. So about 20 minutes, I stood at the river, having the visual, right. Praying the river of life, that's what He meant, the river of life that flows from God to us. And John 7 says, Hey, everybody, this is supposed to flow from your heart every day, like this, you get this. This is one of your things.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:22:03] Yeah. What a gift.
John Eldredge: [00:22:03] So I'm praying the river, the river, the river. And it was transformative. So we had the, the evening in the car, the evening in the truck, weeping, shouting, processing, quiet, then more shouting, you know. And then the morning I'm down at the river and it's life, life, life, life, life, life. It was so healing.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:22:27] I have taken a journey into a book you wrote 22 years ago, I believe, Wild At Heart. Am I right on 22 years?
John Eldredge: [00:22:36] Yeah.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:22:37] And the last conversation we had, I had read Fathered By God, Walking With God, and Get Your Life Back were kind of the three that informed my questions. And here we are, now that the book has been out, you know, well, you know, over two decades and I'm diving into Wild At Heart.
John Eldredge: [00:22:52] Yeah.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:22:53] Which many of my friends are like, Really, Jeff, you're just now diving? I'm like, Well, I'm late to the game, but I'm grateful. I'm really grateful. And I know that your vision is continue, I took some pictures downstairs, of different translations that you're translating your resources. Do you know how many languages now, Wild At Heart?
John Eldredge: [00:23:08] Oh my gosh. No. It's all over the world. 30 languages.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:23:12] So grateful. So as I've been diving in though, I also did the Bible reading Plan on You Version The Wild At Heart Bible reading plan. And just like so each section, I just like, spend time meditating on God's Word. And I know this is part of who you are, is when you write, and the Pause App, the different tools and there's like God's word, your kind of guidance back forth. So, I was hoping I could read a few Bible verses and just let you kind of anything that bubbles up, you're like, Oh, this might be for the dads. This is kind of your take on that for us, dads. Would that be okay if we just do a little journey here?
John Eldredge: [00:23:44] Yeah.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:23:44] So the first one is from Ephesians chapter 3. Says, and it's a few of these are the paraphrase translations, my response is to get down on my knees before the Father, this magnificent Father who parcels out all heaven and earth. I ask Him to strengthen you by His spirit, not a brute strength, but a glorious inner strength that Christ will live in you as you open the door and invite Him in. And I ask Him that with both feet planted firmly on love, you will be able to take in with all the followers of Jesus, the extravagant dimensions of Christ love. Reach out and experience the breath, test its length, plumb the depths, rise to the heights, live full lives, full in the fullness of God.
John Eldredge: [00:24:37] Wow. So, guys, that's Ephesians 3, beginning in verse 14, if you just pray that for a week, just pray that for a week. Just go, I mean, that's a phenomenal passage with all kinds of stuff in there. Each sentence, each phrase we could riff a whole podcast on. So my encouragement to you is go pray that for a week. Like, agree with it. Okay, Father, this is what You wrote, this is what You promised, so I am asking, strengthen me with that mighty power in my inmost being. Root me and ground me in love like all that, right. Pray it into your being. Because here's a really surprising thing, Jeff. I was talking to a group of people about this, this last spring. Group of leaders. The danger for good dads, is sincerity. You're going to try and do all this out of your own strength because you want to be a good man. Like, maybe because your dad wasn't or because you didn't have it modeled for you or whatever. You want to be a good man. But what you're going to do, guys, because I'm telling you, first person here is I have lived so much of my story out of my own strength. And that'll kill you. You just, you can't pull it off over time. It's not sustainable. You might be able to cut through, you know, a family reunion like that, you know. But you can't sustain that life. And what Paul is saying here is the Father doesn't want you to. He wants to impart Himself to you.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:26:23] Yeah.
John Eldredge: [00:26:25] And so we're back to the soul is healed, the reunion with God. The whole thing comes back to union so that through your union, you can be the son. You can receive those things, whether it's wisdom or strength or patience, in the moment. All that stuff can be imparted into you. That's the only way we're going to make it. Sincerity will not sit. It just won't get you to the finish line.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:26:49] Yeah. The hustle, the striving. It's how the orphan thinks and acts. Which is my gravitational, like, I just feel like the way I drift is back in that direction of striving and trying to hustle my way through. As I read through The Poser and the Wound sections of Wild At Heart, I continued to kind of wrestle, maybe wrestles the wrong term, to see moments of, Oh, that's how a son would live. A loved son would live that way, not that way. I want to just explore this a little bit with you around Sonship and being a loved son of God that doesn't have to earn love. How would you encourage all of us to choose that path?
John Eldredge: [00:27:31] Well, okay, so let's go back to Ephesians 3. Here's the kindness about Paul is saying we need help in receiving the love of God. We need help. Because you think, well, if it's there, how come everybody in the world isn't just living from the love of God? Right. I mean, it transformed the whole planet in like 30 seconds. Things are in the way. Your framework, your self-protection, your style of relating, childhood, your current job, your current spouse. You know, come on, there's a lot of stuff in the way. So rather than saying, okay, guys, I want you to do a Bible study on this, what I want to say is if the Scripture assumes we need help, ask for the help. So, again, this is just the other day, and so now I'm back, I'm back in the real world, but I'm still grabbing those 7 minutes. Yeah. And I grab them, I grab in the morning, I grab it at lunch and I grab it in the evening. I can get 7 minutes. And so I'm standing on the porch in the morning, and it was really beautiful. I was just praying. And I said, What do You want, what do You want to make known to me today? And I thought it was instruction for the day or for the week back to work. And He said, my love. And I'm like, and it was really funny, I'm like, okay, okay. I know it's about Your love, but I don't live like that. I live like, let's get it done. Let's get this stuff done, man. Okay. So He paused me, got my attention, and then here's what I had to ask for. I said, Jesus, I actually need a revelation of Your love. I need assistance. I need help. I would ask for that, guys. Just ask for it. Just say, God, I need Your help getting to Your love. I need Your help. Show me Your love for me. Give me a fresh look at it.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:29:31] How would you encourage, so we're experiencing, we're stepping in like, like with gladness to experiencing the love of the Father. We see some of our friends, brothers, some family members who like it feels like, wow, they're, it looks, it feels like they're in the hustle, get it done for themself mode. Like what are, what are some ways that our DadAwesome community can actually help show and invite those that we are in relationship with to step into, without like a judgment side of just like, no, actually you can experience, there's more of God's love available. What are, what are some ways you would encourage there?
John Eldredge: [00:30:09] These are the same exact answer, if you would have asked this question, How do we impart our faith to our children? It's the same answer and it goes like this, you have stories to tell. Fresh, current Jesus stories. They're infectious, right. If you just say, Oh my gosh, here's the coolest thing. So the Ebike, which is bringing so much joy. Okay, it's awesome. I get on and I just laugh. Okay. So they're really expensive, man in And I prayed about it last summer, I thought last summer, like, okay, I'm trying to make the transition. I have a really nice, a really nice mountain bike that's, you know, it's dual suspension and all that. But I was praying about last summer and the Father said no. I was really disappointed. I'm like, Why? He's like, Wait. Okay, I'll wait. I'll wait on Your timing. And then in the fall, I had forgotten about it. And it was a it was like a Sunday. And He says, Now go down to the bike shop. It's out of the blue man, out of the blue. He's like, Go down to the bike shop. And I'm like, what? I'd really written it off and just like, okay, that's too too much money to spend on that particular toy at this season of my life, okay. But instead, He's like, go down to the bike shop. I'm like, okay. So I go down and I had already looked at the bike that I wanted, and I went in and went to the back where these, you know, where the Ebikes are. And there was a guy up on the rack pulling some bikes around and stuff so he wasn't really helpful. So I was sort of looking at things and and then he came down and he said, Hey, can I help you? And I said, Yeah, I think I'm interested in in this Ebike here. He's like, Yeah, that's a good bike. He says, But that's a hardtail and that's going to beat you up on the trail over time. He's like, I like hard tails. I use them for like the park and that kind of thing. But why don't you get on this bike, this bike is on sale right now. It's last year's model and they just upgraded all of the the technology like the app and how it interfaces with your phone and all that kind of stuff. And like, I don't care about any of that, man. So I jump on this bike, I go for, I am laughing as I'm riding this bike because it's so joyful. I come back in, This bike is $1,500 marked down. And I'm like, Father, wooooo, you know. Okay, so...
Jeff Zaugg: [00:32:41] Love that.
John Eldredge: [00:32:43] Like, ask. And then you have Jesus stories to tell, so when you're driven friends and stuff, say, Hey, man, Jeff, what's new? What's new? And you go, I got a cool story to tell you. And it's winsome and it's inviting, and it's not kind of in their face, right.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:32:59] Yeah. Not at all.
John Eldredge: [00:33:00] Oh, my gosh.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:33:01] They just join you in joy.
John Eldredge: [00:33:02] Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then you do it with your kids. You go, Daddy, why? Jesus spoke to you? Yeah, I want to tell you about that. You have fresh Jesus stories.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:33:12] Yeah. I love it. And let me tell, in return, in response, a story a bout my daughters that will take us into the theme of adventure. So just three days ago, Custer, South Dakota, we were invited to this retreat in the mountains, hundreds of acres in this beautiful valley. And instead of the kids, so it was like a retreat, there was a speaker, worship. The kids, instead of having something program, they just said, Run free. And they're up and down both sides of the valley. They finished the night and my nine year old said, Dad, I loved it so much. There were no fences and no rules. It was the, it was the best. I, I want to bring my heart, my leadership to my little girls in a no fences, no rules. Just go. Just go, live life to the full. That side. But I feel like I fail at that pretty often with with or constraints keep me from bringing that full heart and full freedom.
John Eldredge: [00:34:08] Yeah.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:34:09] How, how would you reflect on that story and even practical ways that us dads can bring more of that?
John Eldredge: [00:34:14] Well, let's ask why? Why, why do you hesitate to invite them into that? What's in the way?
Jeff Zaugg: [00:34:22] So it would be fear that they get hurt. My six year old did slide down like a ten foot cliff and get a thorn in her leg, which she like talked about while glowing. But there's a fear side, maybe more for my wife than for me, there's a fear side. Busyness might keep us from being out in the wild like that. Responsibilities. Those are probably the main things that come to mind around why it doesn't happen.
John Eldredge: [00:34:46] Those are big things. Fear, busy, responsibility. Those are big things, not small things. And so in your 7 minutes ask Jesus one by one about each one. Don't bring them all up. Jesus, What about the fear? I need You in that fear. And again, here's the thing, it's not just He's going to talk to you about it, He needs to come into it. His soul in your soul. You want to pray a really cool prayer? Jesus, I pray Your soul would fill my soul. That Your soul would fill my soul. Okay. And then, guys, I realize we're actually kind of riffing a lot on nature. Nature heals. There's all kinds of research on this. Nature restores. Nature, there's a really depressing book called The Last Child in the Woods, and it's about, they're now calling it nature deficit disorder with inner city kids who literally don't know what a duck is. Or a badger. Or like that a horse is not the same size as a duck. Things like that that you just go, Oh, come on, this is a given man. Like, get your kids outside, get them outside. And everywhere we've ever lived, like, I'm thinking, I was in D.C., man. I was, I was in full tilt, you know, high pressure job, but there is always bike paths. And I would get my, Sam was our young, our only one at the time. Get him in the bike seat, get him on the bike path and we would get out and pretty quickly you're in nature, you know, it may only be 40 feet on each side, but you're in it. Okay. Like that's really healing, gang.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:36:40] It's good. As I have had the opportunity to travel, we've been in the RV for almost two years now as a family, traveling with this mission, DadAwesome. Yeah, and my little one's live basically her whole life in the RV, and I've been gathering groups around campfires of dads and a question that often we ask just, Hey, how's it going? And hey, when was the last time you either took leadership in this area of intentional fatherhood and gathered others around a campfire? Or that you had someone else invite you? And 99% of the time they said, you're the first one to invite me into the conversation.
John Eldredge: [00:37:12] Yeah.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:37:13] My hypothesis after this travel has been that if Satan, the accuser, the thief, if Satan has a right hook and a left hook, the right hook is fatherlessness, get as many kids without a dad. The left hook is guys on the sidelines, guys who think, man, the dad life, I'm struggling myself, so who would I be to be to take leadership? The poser side, the accuser says, says, Oh, you would be a poser if you step in to leadership. And I say that's a flat out lie. We need men to step into leadership and learn through leading in brotherhood, host the campfire. I just want to see how you would respond to those, that idea of the right hook, left hook and ideas to get guys off the sidelines in the area of of of DadAwesome, intentional fatherhood getting guys to say let's make a difference here.
John Eldredge: [00:38:00] Yeah. Yeah, totally. Oh, yeah. Father, fatherlessness is a pandemic and it's a condition of the soul, more than it is a condition of society, because people, you know, maybe grew up with a dad, but they're still fatherless. Okay. So, Lord, come into the fatherless places within me. You know how the invitation keeps coming back to that? I feel fatherless in this area, please meet me here. Okay. Yeah. Guys, you, you will laugh at how easy this is. Okay. You set a table for guys to just have some conversation, that's literally all it takes. You don't need to know anything. You don't have to be an expert in anything, and you don't have to be crushing it as a dad. Honestly, get some dudes together in a safe place, like a campfire environment, and you just go, How's it going? And maybe let's talk about kids and play this week. Like, how's play going? You know, and and just let them go. They will fill the rest of the evening, guys. Like you don't, you don't have to be a therapist.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:39:14] Yeah. Yeah, but going first requires courage. Requires, like, trusting that, hey, like, there's a there's a vulnerability there going first and you being the initiator. But, I fully agree. And I've seen and been inspired by your team, here, at Wild At Heart and how you just said, Take our content, take our resources, gather men, gather men. And there is, by the way, I'm from Minnesota, there is a a community, a tribe of men who are taking deep ownership in the Wild At Heart movement there that are just like, I'm so thrilled for them. And yes, several of them called me on my drive down here to be with you. So, so they they love and are so grateful for the work that you've resource them with. Yeah, maybe we'll end our time here in it's, you know, we've gotten to about 10% of my notes but that's pretty typical actually for these conversations. And I'm very grateful, John, for your time, very, very grateful. Is there any kind of parting words, last words, thoughts, challenge you can get right in our face or you can be gentle, either one's great, that you'd want to pass on to to myself and the dads as we continue pressing in?
John Eldredge: [00:40:19] Jeff, do you know that you are a good man?
Jeff Zaugg: [00:40:26] Yes.
John Eldredge: [00:40:29] Is that taking root in your soul?
Jeff Zaugg: [00:40:40] Not enough.
John Eldredge: [00:40:42] Here's the enemy's plot to the guy who is a complete dick. He says, You're great, man. You're doing so good. He just lets the narcissist stay a narcissist, right. He's just watching his shows and playing golf and eating too much, drinking too much an he's like, You're fine, you're doing great.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:41:04] It's the whisper.
John Eldredge: [00:41:04] Okay. To the good man, the enemy always is a negater. He is negation. No, you're not. It's not enough. You didn't do that right. Well, sure, maybe you did that right, but you didn't do that right. It's always negation, right. Okay, guys, you've got to really take that to the Father. And you got to ask the Father, How am I doing? How am I doing? Let Him speak to that, because you got all that negation coming at you from the enemy, right. You're not a good man. You're not a good dad. You're way behind. Way behind the curve, you know, and you'll never catch up. Hear what I'm hearing?
Jeff Zaugg: [00:41:43] Yeah.
John Eldredge: [00:41:43] All that stuff. I still fight that, guys. I fight negation. No, you're not is the message. Whatever you're trying to be a good dad, good husband, good brother, good, you know, you got to take that to the Father and go, please dismantle this. Dismantle this, Papa.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:42:03] Thank you.
John Eldredge: [00:42:03] Yep.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:42:04] Would you say a short prayer over all of us?
John Eldredge: [00:42:06] Yes. Yeah. So, Father, Jesus, Holy Spirit, take this, take this podcast, take this conversation now and for each and every man, where are we going, Lord? Take me forward with this. What is it that You want me to invite You into? So that we can walk it out together. Amen.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:42:35] Thank you so much for joining us for episode 299 with John Eldredge. All the conversation links, access to these free video resources, these film series that the Wild At Heart team has created are all going to be at dadawesome.org/podcast and then you'll just look for the most recent episode, episode 299, to find those resources. Guys, I want to remind you the episode 300 party is next week. The live event at 7 p.m. Central Time Zone on Thursday, the 19th of October. So check out that event. Would love for you to join live. There's going to be giveaways. There's going to be so much wisdom in one episode and it's going to be fun celebrating all that we've learned and just so much that God has done through this ministry over these 300 weeks. So join us next week for episode 300. Guys, thank you for choosing to be DadAwesome. Thank you for listening today. Thank you for leaning into this gift, this role that God has given us and, man, doing it with wonder. We've been talking about over the last few months, man, we activate dads to lead with wonder. Man, we are just going to just pursue the hearts of our kids. We're going to do it with delight and joy and awe and wonder. That's our posture in being DadAwesome. So, let's go after it this week. Have a great week with your kids.
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· 11:47 - "Think about all those people in countries where they can't get to a therapist, they can get to a healing prayer ministry. They're not left out. The simple thing is, as your soul presents stuff, your fear, your rage, your lust, whatever it is, Jesus says, walk into the center of it and invite Me there And I will meet you there and restore your soul."
· 18:26- "Chesterton described the Christian life as furious opposites. There's beauty, goodness, joy, laughter, play, adventure. There's so much adventure with God. And there is heartache, trauma, loss, evil in the world. It's both. And if you can accept that, you can navigate it. But if you only insist on the happy, the hard's going to really take you out."
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