Our Addiction To Hurry | John Mark Comer Interview

how's it going guys I'm Jeff I'm Alyssa welcome to the real life podcast today we have a special treat for you one of our favorite people from afar you guys know we love using the interview series on this podcast for people that we enjoy online personally as I don't want to use the word consumer because I don't like that word but as partakers of the Internet there are people that we really enjoy and are inspired by that are in our community and you know and we don't live with us but we have a relationship to in some sorts and our guest today is one of those people so today we have the sensei ninja Bible teacher exactly how's it going it's going great especially since I just found out I'm a ninja I know right sensei and ninja you put those together I'm like that's essentially I feel like how you interpret and teach the Bible so I want to let you enjoy yourself but I want to give my interpretation first so John Mark comer we've probably known each other I don't know if I've told you this I've known of you since before we were friends yeah I was I was 19 following the Lord for maybe six months to a year go into a tiny little school in an enormous town called Forest Grove Oregon if you don't know if you guys are listening inside joke that I think there's about five people that live there and there's more cows than people and I was attending some one of my buddies said hey he should come to this thing called the way on Friday nights where this guy teaches the Bible really in an awesome way and it's kind of like college students young adults so I was like a decade ago at this point do you remember those days yeah and that would have been at least a decade ago yeah yeah longer so that was my first we're just Jeff before you were Jefferson day I know right that's actually the joke with the podcast a college student 19 playing baseball in Forest Grove Oregon it is funny that's how we actually know sometimes of people like actually know me you know in like a relational way or if it's just they've just seen my stuff online because they usually will call me Jefferson but I like it sounds more regal I'll receive it um okay so now but what would you say though so now up until that point catch me up what do you do now I mean I obviously know but for people listening how would you kind of say in a couple sentences what you do what you enjoy doing what kind of takes up most of your vocational work and maybe a minute or two on like your family team yeah I live right in the city in Portland Oregon and I pastor a church there and I kind of spend most of my time and emphasis on teaching and I write books and stuff and do a little bit of that but really my heart is around teaching and I really want to see I want to really want to help people discover how to follow Jesus not just what it means to follow Jesus or what the Bible says but how to actually do it so that's kind of what I'm about that's awesome and if you guys if you don't listen to his sermons and his teachings online you don't know where to find them Bridgetown church on podcast incredible sermons our small groups actually been going through the identity and calling series that you guys did last year I think really so it's really blessing our little tribe and our little community and we got a couple rapid-fire questions for you to start off before we get into some really good stuff we're excited to chat about but the first thing I want to say which is hilarious there's like a running joke in our family we're like me and again I'm hoping one of these days we actually can hang out a little bit more I'm whenever I'm in Portland you're gone whenever you're in Hawaii that's a different island it said we're always close but no cigar but from afar I can definitely tell that I feel like me and you very much have had a similar journey theologically but also walking with the Lord and then also we love it seems to me we very much read are similarly wired and read the same stuff and very much drawn to and inspired by a lot of the same authors and so what's funny is I think because of that a lot of our outputs can be really similar and and but what's hilarious is what was I think is maybe a year ago we're sitting in like a this is just the first of this happening like 20 times of you know yeah you have it you have an amazing book called Garden City everyone needs to read that it's self explanatory if you know that imagery of Scripture basically Genesis to Revelation work vocation rest etc beautiful and amazing you have a chapter in there and Sabbath and our group got talking about and I have a book called it's not what you think which is very similar it's kind of about trying to get a little bit more trying to push the Jewish context back into the scriptures understand the worldview that Jesus was in and especially also in the Old Testament as well and we were all in the group talking about like Sabbath that everyone's like because we're a big staff of proponents we've been doing it and honoring the Sabbath for a couple years now hugely life-giving practice and so I was I wrote about it like four years ago not that point in that book or three years ago and so ever I'm not talking about and kind of asked us some questions and stuff like this and then and then unless it was like oh you guys know what you to do just go John mark has a really good chapter yeah John has this book called dirty city and he has a chapter in there on the Sabbath and it's phenomenal and I was like I know sir and I was like it is phenomenal but I was like you do know that your husband has a chapter on the Sabbath right in a book of his as well he's writing a book he's processing it with me the whole time so when it actually like comes out I don't actually read the book because I feel like but I've heard this five times so I forgot that he had a chapter on Sabbath yeah the best things about living in communities it was just no one cares when you have any kind of you're in front of people kind of yes ministry it's so like everybody has to be somewhere where you're just shoulders shoulder you know or nobody special totally and yeah there's a weird thing we're like it's it's weird for them to sometimes read the bike my stuff like I get it you know I mean like we're just friends and this is our community and this is our thing so so it is funny because like no one I kind of almost try to keep my stuff away from the community alone and they support it and they love it but it's funny that how that's happened and I agree I think I yeah I think I think some of the best especially if you have any online presence which some people who hear on the podcast listen to that do I think you you need to be in a place where they they don't act like it it doesn't exist but they don't really care you know I mean like that's the private land really cheer you on but they don't put you on a pedestal in the city don't try to humble you either exactly in the same way that they would for the landscaping company guy and for the guy who owns a videographer business it's like we support you we love you on your corner how can we sir but it's not they don't care anyway and we found that it's really special and awesome so okay rapid-fire you guys ready there's only a couple of them first one is it's usually what's your Starbucks drink because we interview a lot of basic white girls but I know if with you it is not a Starbucks drink so what is your go to honor or something exactly exactly so what even though I will say and coffee shop of choice yes which I have a couple in Portland and I I'm interested to hear what you say but yeah what's your go-to coffee uh oat milk latte black coffee would be just black coffee made in a Chemex yes and my favorite coffee in Portland would be heart with a close follow-up by Cova ooh dude okay so Dom actually just took me like I feel like I've done all the coffee in Oregon and all the coffee in Portland I've never done Hart and there dude I just had it last weekend phenomenal yeah it's it's not me and I'm a barista guy too and and Yakko was amazing so okay next one and I know you're on on this Jam is what is your any grand number and I actually already know because we you know you talk about it but so maybe tell people your number and then maybe give us a minute on the most thing that it's been helpful for or what you've enjoyed about it yeah well first off we have to preface that by saying you know Jeff that in traditional Enneagram theory before it became popular I know I'm not allowed to type people so you're actually not allowed to ask that question and if you're asked you're not allowed to answer that question yep because Enneagram was designed as a tool for personal and spiritual growth and if you know somebody else's number it's really easy to label them when them judge them because Enneagram exposes like the deepest darkest secrets of he really ugly motivations yes and one of the things that I'm really trying to do as a type one so the cats out of the bag it's it's public knowledge but who sees the world with very perfectionistic judgmental critical thinking eyes and can tell you everything that's right and everything that's wrong about a person or situation or a church or an idea is I'm really trying to refrain from judging people's motivations and rather just stick to the behavior because I think so often I read intention by into somebody's behavior and it's like I assume I have the power of mind control or something I don't have the power of mind control and I really want to like recondition my mind to believe the best about somebody's motivations and just deal with their behavior in the sense of if I have to call somebody out or judge a behavior I'd rather just judge a behavior than somebody's intention especially since sometimes all of us do bad things for long for for decent reasons you know y'all bad decisions at times with good motivation that said I am an any Graham type 1 which is the perfectionist or the reformer depending on how its labeled my driving need in life is to be perfect or really to be good I see almost everything through a moral lens whether it's like a theological interpretation of the way of Jesus or what kind of coffee or the color paint on my walls everything feels like a moral issue to me yeah and the reason Enneagram has been so helpful is because for two reasons one I think one of the most important things in our apprenticeship to Jesus especially as we start to age a little bit into our 20s and 30s and Beyond is dealing with what you know young called your shadow side a number of spiritual formation writers have started to use that language one of the Enneagram lines is the best thing about you is also the worst thing about you and so for example my perfectionism means that I motivate em I like my attention to morality means that I'm motivated by duty which is actually a really good thing so if you want to tell me you know what I need to start or stop doing all I need to figure all you need to tell me is what's right and what's wrong that's enough of a motivation for me so like you know I have a lot of close friends that are type 7s for them like the route need is to like escape pain and have fun exactly you know and others it has to be relational so I don't need like that carrot in the sense of something doesn't have to be fun to drive me or relational to drive me or make me look good to drive me it's not because I'm more virtuous that's just not the way I'm wired I'm very much driven so there's this good part of me but the downside to that is because I see everything through moralize and because I have such high standards and because I have like my therapist calls it x-ray vision like I do see everything that's right and that's wrong the downside of that is I can also be I'm the I'm the quintessential older brother in the prodigal story of the prodigal sons and I can be and that's kind of christiany language but I can be very judgmental I can be very like self-righteous I can be holier-than-thou I can be condescending toward people I can constantly be criticizing and harping on people these are like when I'm in the flesh and I'm immature and I'm tired and I'm on healthy and it's been a long week and I'm just not my best self so Enneagram has been so helpful because it exposes your shadow side and helps me see the the shadow in a sense to the light like the the back side weakness to my front side strength and that has been so helpful because our shadow sides tend to do more damage in our interpersonal relationships and life than anything else because often they're there in the dark we don't see them we don't knowledge then we don't do the hard work of self-awareness and dealing and and I'm coming to understand how other people experience us which is usually very different than how we experience ourselves and so it's so helpful for that and the second thing I love about it is Emmy Enneagram gives me hope because unlike myers-briggs or others that are more static personality tests about how you see the world Enneagram will show you this is an immature unhealthy fleshly in the language the new testament version of your personality and here is a mature healthy christ-like image here's what rice would look like if you were to grow and mature into the best version of yourself and here's some of the the journey that you have to go on and that for me has just been worth its weight in gold 100% 100% yeah we we absolutely love it's been helpful to us in our marriage personally and I agree with what you said and I think this is actually even outside of the Enneagram just as a truth of life I think one of the things that seems so self-evident really if you just spend two seconds on it but that we don't wrestle with enough is the fact that like whatever you're wired like most likely your gift is your curse you know that there very much is like a double-edged sword to you and it seems just so obvious even in Scripture right look you got Paul enormous zeal that clearly you know allowed him to and deeply passion and deeply discipline that clearly allowed him to not make the best choices in regards to how he treated Jesus followers before he became one and then once he had clearly he put that into practice me as an eight or even a couple other you know wirings that I would particularly have yeah very easily wanted to find myself against everything else which i think is a gift in the sense of I'm very able to never ever yeah ever submit to groupthink like unless I actually do you deeply think it should be done yeah but doing that be like a rock in the middle of a river exactly but doing that a default it's like well sometimes the group's right you know and sometimes that's actually where people need to go and where our people are going and and I think passion is coupled with that so David seems similar to that of like passion was his blessing passion was passion was his curse but yeah not just a blessing and curse but really the potential like you as exactly yeah you can look out and say either I can become dr. Martin Luther King jr. or Donald Trump both yeah the list of it is a very huge spectrum yes I look out and you know Lenin like you know slaughtered hundreds of millions of people was the one and so was the Apostle Paul you know that's crazy it's so helpful for me to have like this is what a mature healthy christ-like version of your personality can look like as you you're over a decade over life mitigate against your shadow side hundred man just continue to as the the old school reformers would say mortify your sin love good old John Owens crucified but I like that word totally I agree you bring it back man what happened to mortification I know I know that's the hard part about I think the loss of the loss of I think fundamentalism is we're actually losing a lot of well you can talk about that with even I think you're in recent series like we're losing actually we're losing some very good things we need to lose but with that we're also losing a lot of the very like strong language that actually is very helpful for sure so what uh the only thing I might do I'm going the next rapid-fire question well I do but I don't want to stay here so we okay okay last rapid-fire question then we're gonna spend our bulk of your time on what you've been journeying and writing about lately which I'm excited to get into so last rapid-fire question which is a fun personality personality revealer what was your go-to 90s jam if you could pick one or two songs II feel like man that's the one I remember that's the one I think about when I go back to my 9 these days which what would that like winning high school yeah college yes I'm born eighty so 90s was 10 to 20 so 98 can you think of a song or two that was like your go to them yeah I still I think late 90s was still my like favorite era for music so far in my lifetime so I'm gonna embarrassing myself here but Third Eye Blind yeah a little in divides to you it's like the little kind of like nut it's not emo but it's like they're really it's that rock that good rock like there was a couple a killer there back in the day they were kind of like the crossover I was really in the indie rock like all high school if you if anybody heard of the band I stopped listening to it kind of thing and then later in high school I kind of came back around and got a little bit into more mainstream and they were like the perfect blend of like pop and indie back in the day so did you wear the really tight jeans even back then before they were cool no that was before or tight jeans that was in the yeah I feel like our high school was to the punk scene as much I was in the like boarding Ripken's or everything from like goodwill and Value Village so I wore at all just like 70s polyester her with in with like Birkenstocks and have necklaces and long hair Portland before Portland percent off if you wore polyester and I mean just like like at fake leather jackets from the sky for parents Volkswagen van I just played an indie rock Telecaster all the time that's amazing I feel like us you you were you were you were doing Portland before Portland was doing Portland you know wasn't as cool as it is now totally totally okay let's spend most of our time of the rest of our time on what it seems like I think you just turned in your book I think and the topic of that and kind of maybe if you're anything like me during a writing season and when you turn one and that definitely is kind of the at least for me it's something like that's what I've been journeying through the last year or two and so it definitely feels like it's been on my mind it's fresh it's almost funny I don't know if you agree with this but when the book finally comes out I also feel like I'm past that at that point like I'm I'm on to something else but that's just how long the process takes so um tell me about it so it's on hurry and I'd love to hear maybe you just give kind of like the the pain point there or the need there of why you're maybe personal journey or why you think that book should be written because yeah I'm just really intrigued by that because a cousin version of that that I've been thinking about is I feel like I've noticed in Christianity we're getting very good even people that are in solid camps streams etc we're very good at the not just proper belief but just kind of like what would Jesus behavior or answer have been to a question you know and we're very getting very good and I think knowing that but I feel like I'm starting to realize man we really don't spend any time on actually kind of his cadence like how did he just kind of feel throughout the day how did he kind of operate how did he kind of spend his days in his weeks in his years because I think that's deeply important but I don't know if that's related but yeah weird this topic come from why you kind of sitting on and writing about it right now and and and what you say the pain point is there yeah I mean gosh that's it's hard to even know how I got to it I got through my own autobiography of kind of emotional burnout I was the pastor of a mega church and just kind of had an emotional crisis and just you know got to my early 30s and just realized man this is not the person that I want to be this is not the father the husband that I want to be and so four or five years ago I guess four and a half years ago I resigned and went on a sabbatical and maybe not resigned demoted myself kind of went on a sabbatical and I have some of the last four or five years just deep dive and therapy and Sabbath and the spiritual disciplines and spiritual formation and spiritual direction and Enneagram work and Shadowside and like just learning psychology like all this stuff has been basically the last half decade of my life it's been life-changing but the hardest thing of all of it has been this idea of hurry and that's the other intersection because I think no matter what your story is everybody recognizes that culture has sped up to this insane crazy fast pace and with the digital age with the phone what infinity in our front right pocket has done to most of us I live in a cities those urbanization and then you have three kids and no matter where you live you can live in like rural Eastern Oregon and if you have three kids your life is busy you know activities so where's the the refrain of busyness and then what the digital age has done just to amp that up to 11 and and then just experiencing as a pastor really wanting to lead people into life with Jesus and a life of transformation and realizing what are the obstacles and some of them are the obstacles that you would expect money sexuality we're in this crazy progressive hyper secular City or people think we're crazy to believe what we believe all the political stuff all the anger right now there's some of the stuff that you would expect me to say but the number one thing I've come to realize that's keeping people from life with Jesus from transformation from how from growth and maturity is honestly I think busyness and hurry I honestly think that's at the top people are just too busy and in too much of a rush to actually experience the life that Jesus has on offer and then out of that to become the kind of person that Jesus has for them to become and so I think like when you talk about hurry you kind of talk about the tip of the spear so the whole book was born out of I've been hanging with this older wiser pastor down in California by the name of John Ortberg and have you read any of his stuff Jeff yeah I think orberg is one of my favorite actually in regards to like I almost I know you're a big Willard fan but um and it's not that Willard's too deep for me because he's like I want me of course he's a legend and he is deeper than me but um but there's a lot like I just can't get on his cadence you know I mean and so I almost love Ortberg better because he's like a little disciple and the sense of interpretation and so yeah so I had to say soul keepings or is it that's what is he has some other ones I love work so yeah and his his new one by the way is insane it's called I think it's called eternity is now in session and it's excellent for anyway so John Ortberg is this you know 60 year old pastor down in Menlo Park who was mentored by Dallas Willard for 25 years or something up until his death and was at Dallas funeral and the whole thing and his essentially is popularizing a lot of Dallas's ideas and so I've been hanging with them a little bit lately and he's not like my mentor or anything because he's way out of my league so I just have been asking like can I get lunch with you give me one hour I'll buy I'll buy you lunch I'll come with the Journal ten questions I'll make it worth your time and he keeps saying yes and now we've done it I don't know how many times you have another one on the docket in a couple of weeks and I just know through my secret agenda is like he's gonna wake up about a year in and realize dang it I'm entering this kid no business worthy of me yeah anyway so I've just had some wonderful I mean he's just a really incredible Jesus he dude and we've been talking a lot about this idea of hurry and he tells a story about back in the late 90s was when he was on staff or Burke was on staff at Willow Creek in Chicago which is interesting because they're in the news right now for some pretty nefarious reasons and he was just getting sucked into kind of just the speed and insanity and stress of the megachurch world not that it's all bad it's just it's a part of it and so he calls if his mentor you know this philosopher Dallas Willard out in Southern California and says all right how what do I do what am I missing and the way he tells the story there's this long silence on the other end of the line because apparently Willard there was just always a long silence he was notorious for being really slow and really smart and really loving those are kind of like three of the things you hear a lot about him and this is long silence and then Willard says you must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life hurry is the great enemy of spiritual life in our day and then you know or Burke writes that down and that's incredible what else is there another long pause and then Willard says there is nothing else you must ruthlessly eliminate hurry and the first time that John told me that story I think it resonated deeply with just my own journey but it also really struck me as odd because that's just not what I would have expected you know I mean I live in one of the most progressive secular cities in America and face all kinds of challenges in my own life with Jesus much less the church that I pastor or I'm one of the pastors at and I think if you had asked me a couple of years ago what's the greatest challenge you face I don't know what I would have said but I guarantee you her II would not have even been a contender for top ten but the more I'm at it the more I get into the world of spiritual formation the more I just follow Jesus the more I realize man that again that's that is the crux issue we're just in too much of a rush and too much of a hurry to experience life I mean if you think about just the triumph ray that Jesus in the Gospel of John and Paul and pretty much all of his writings just harp love and joy and peace hurry is basically the main obstacle between all three hurry is incompatible of love like you guys are parents you're lovers you get this like hurried people are not loving people and the memory the kids start freaking out they don't feel loved any parameter a pusher could hurry they just bet yeah they stop they go the other direction honestly most of my worst moments as a dad as a husband as a pastor as a neighbor are almost always when I'm married when I'm in a rush when we're I mean when I normally lose my temper and yell at my kids or say something I'm massively regret it's almost always because they're late or have this thing we scheduled too many things to do we didn't get a Sabbath or whatever it is almost almost always fighting 90% of the time so hurry Sun compatible with love it's incompatible with joy like I mean Jesus and all that like master Jesus people down the realsense a Jesus people down through millennia now purchase tree not to mention all of the like positive psychologists and secular mindfulness experts and Buddha's Happiness gurus like everybody's all saying the same thing happiness is or joy is essentially about focus on the moment on the here and the now and just being full of delight in gratitude and this is like what Jesus has been saying since the Sermon on the Mount so I honestly think when I'm in a rush when I'm in a hurry it's really hard for me to drink deeply at the well of celebration and live a grateful life and then of course peace like none of us are ever in a hurry and just feeling like deep Shalom you know and there's so much anxiety right now on the newsfeed and the way that everything is just the the anxieties ramped up so high and I so bad they want to be an awning ship reson s-- you know so all that to say I mean think hurry is just right at the access point of so much of the intersections between spirituality emotional health maturity family relationships marriage parenting cultural needs I think like it's right at the intersection yeah that's so good as I'm just thinking what do you think is making us hurry cuz we're like I feel like we we don't even live in a city we don't go to war like we work from home and yet I can still feel the hurry in our we're probably like the least likely to be hurry people yeah temptation yeah hurry so what do you think is feeding that and then what would you say I mean obviously this is on your book but what would you say then is a few things that you'd recommend to combat hurry yes no that's awesome yeah well I mean there's a spirit of hurry and then there's also just like your body is in a hurry you know domain and there are ways sometimes you go do things fast where you can keep a calm spirit but yeah I mean I think again I'm not a sociologist so that's not my area of expertise but all the reading and research I've done around it has pointed to a couple of different like if it's a murder mystery like who killed off a slower life you know there's a couple of strong contenders one is for sure money ironically we don't realize that in America how how we talk of a lot about the middle class disappearing but we forget is that the middle class is only like 50 to 70 years old and so a lot of it has to do with more wealth equals more options so if you were living a hundred years ago and you're a poor farmer and you don't really even use cash and you do most of your life through trading there's not a lot of like there's not a lot to hurry you if that makes sense so so much of hurry has to do with you have money which means you have options like I wanna go out to brunch I'm gonna do this and I want to see a movie and I want to catch up on entertainment I want to play on my phone and I want to there's all there's just too much to do so money and affluence has definitely created people that have too many options and the more options you have the more anxiety you have so there's been all sorts of really solid scientific research that basically ironically points to the more that I mean the promise of America and capitalism is will give you endless options but it actually decreases your happiness because it gives you decision fatigue and anxiety I sang xiety and FOMO and all of that stuff so money is one factor technology is a huge factor of course like 2007 the release of the iPhone is the greatest thing ever but it goes back for at least 150 years I mean in the 1960 is of all the labor-saving devices you know for everything from a toaster to a microwave to a dishwasher to I mean all of this stuff and and you have the automobile which sped things up you have the freeway you have the clock I mean if you go way back you have like my walk which was actually is where it kind of it all began and which began parsing time down so the interesting thing is you know we have we've even made our lives more efficient than ever before like in the 1960s there was this famous subcommittee hearing before Richard Nixon were all these like sociologists and experts and futurists predicted that by the 1980s the average American would only be working like three hours a week or something like and they said the main problem in life which like people were envisioning the future as the Jetsons right the main problem they thought would be too much leisure and and yet leisure has plummeted since the 1970s it's down like 40-something percent and that's including entertainment so the reality is we're more efficient than we've ever been and as a human species and time you know labor-saving devices have saved us all this labor but the the reality is we've just spent all that time on other things and so that shows that the root problem is deeper than just technology there's like a human condition problem there where we could keep coming up with more technology and it's just gonna make a bad problem worse because we don't know how to steward technology it's the great problem with technologies things like a phone like an iPhone and Wi-Fi access take an extraordinary amount of self-awareness and self control and self mastery for them to be a tool and not a master and most of us don't have anything close to the self mastery that's required to have a phone a knife and Wi-Fi access basically so this is like a human condition thing so I think money technology consumerism or the city for sure but even it's definitely when you're outside of cities when I was like I was just in Eastern Oregon camping the last couple of days and it's like you just feel the whole pace has slowed down totally so much and welcome the city to you and like internet or technology Vanille on the island life and you're out work man just have three kids and a phone and there you have it and you know especially if you have any you know middle-class kind of life for up man yeah it's a thing so what's funny is just yeah and it's funny how you mentioned some of that like I'm huge on tracking like wind things shift and pivoted and a lot of those innovations and inventions are deeply fascinating and I have a part in my next book there were almost a whole part of the chapter is on the light bulb and how that radically again yeah it's formed our ability on exchange for sleep circadian rhythms ability of always and like and and when I talk about there's there's a fine line between harnessing as image-bearers meaning like we're harnessing God's world for the better good of our vocation and there's a fine line between that and cheating right cheating sleep cheating work cheating our families with these harnessing abilities right and and the light bulb crossed over very fast into letting us cheat sleep cheat work etc and when you read the inventors of it it's deeply fasting as well whether it's Edison and some other people obviously involved it's like they hated sleep they actually that was actually their goal like his goal is like I think I can beat this I think I can beat this I don't ever want to sleep it's a waste of time so it's fascinating it's really fascinating that like they refuse to let their humaneness be an actual blessing and only a curse you think about I'm sure you did those recycles I did this I've came across that in my research as well like the average American in 1850 slept 11 hours a night and now we're down to 7 is the arrow so that's a significant decrease total so you're like the old like biographies of Charles Spurgeon or whatever famous Christian you read nightly 4:00 in the morning praying and it sounds incredible you're like yeah but they went to bed at 6:30 totally exactly well that's it and that's why I started thinking about is we spent in Seattle yeah we spent we spent yeah true we spent time in Uganda and it's like you just go to bed when it's dark because like you can't see you literally can't see you know it's and so it's really interesting and and I heard of this before but I just read it in a different way on the plane yesterday that I thought was a really cool image that this guy used it was a brain scientist neuroscientist talking about the blue light of course and how that just kills our brains in regards to the false artificial light of phones and Technik screens and he kind of used this imagery of like essentially when you look at the blue light it leaves like he there's these call that there's these molecular like a me oh somebody that he said where they get stuck on these parts your brain and he kind of said they're basically like brain plaque think of the same way with teeth and plaque on your teeth and he goes you can kind of shake him out throughout the day you can kind of shake off the plaque but if you're doing that read before you're right before you go to bed like he goes think he's like that's like eating a Snickers every single night before you go to bed as like the best thing for you before you go to sleep in so I just got this picture of like brain plaque like if you look at it before you go to bed you're literally just stacking this gross filthy plaque on your brain and like that's just gonna like kill you in the same way that a candy for candy bar before bed would so it's really interesting what would you say one question I have because don't you got another one go ahead well no I just learned him to then follow up with yeah yeah so I'm gonna ask a similar question because it's very similar so we talk on this stuff a lot we're we're I love that ruthless language from Willard I feel like I want us I'm gonna start talking about that and using that like we almost feel weird because we literally just tell people like our mission in life is to and you have to be ruthless in this age to actually make the most important things the most important things and so we are weird when we schedule time you know to turn off our phones and we schedule time in our calendar that says do nothing so that then when people ask or say we have something on the calendar but it says do nothing yes you know like and so all these different things and so but what I would but one question we get a lot from people is they do push back a little and say well like that's good for you you know and like you can maybe do that because of XY and Z with resources and privilege which I totally understand and I'm very sensitive to but also they'll say but like I want to get there but I but like my season of life like they kind of say like after this season of life I will and so I'd love if you can talk to that which is kind of like how can so for example the one I just got the other day was a college student grad student I think med student so maybe a middle middle of the 20s you know insane work with you know papers and research etc so they basically said like I just can't get there I can't do that right now with this level of like a job rent my medical like there is some time like here's what I'm asking is there sometimes seasons to kind of buck that a little bit and if not or if or whatever then yeah what would be the remedy it's like how can no matter what season you're in busy you're not busy how ruthless can you be and what are come some tips to do that yeah well I think those are kind of two it's connected with separate questions I mean I think I always want to know where that question is coming from and honestly most of the time when I get that question it's a place of self defense and don't impinge on my lifestyle not a place of honest asking with the exception of young parents who people in your exact stage of life yeah 20 sometimes 30 something little kids I think that is probably the most difficult season of every season there is way more than the grad school student to like just even follow Jesus to be nice to people and sleeping 8 hours a night and being emotionally healthy person but clearly you guys are a great example of ways to do it without legalism with plenty of freedom and based on your personality and all that kind of stuff so if you can do it with two little kids and one on the way then honestly I think pretty much anybody can do it so I think that honest I mean I don't want again I don't want to judge people's motivations if people are asking because they just want to make an excuse then it's kind of a waste of breath to have that conversation if people are honestly asking and I think I would say a couple of things one I would say you know remember we're not talking about sin as much as we're talking about wisdom so you know it's you you and your own body and your own soul will reap the consequences it's not like gods angry at your whatever I'm sure he would love to spend more time with you with you in his mind with him in your mind but it's we're not dealing with the sin issue per se we're doing with wisdom and so you know your body and your mind and your soul itself and your relationship with Jesus and with others will take a hit and so you just have to is grad-school worth that you know and the reality is it doesn't mean don't go to grad school it means you might have to do it differently the second thing I would say is what are your digital entertainment habits the average American watches 5 hours of TV a day the average millennial is on top of that on their phone five and a half hours a day that's average middle of the bell curve so when people tell me they don't have time I honestly very lovingly most the time say yes you do yeah you know I mean because everybody I don't know any grad school student or anybody I know like hardcore metal residents like hockey acheiving type or a and they all like have seen whatever recent you know Amazon series on Jack Ryan way before totally I don't know so Mike I think the reality is we waste copious amounts of time on things like TV Instagram shopping football you know and again I'm not saying any of those things are wrong but I'm saying if those are getting your time and Jesus and soul and Sabbath and health isn't then something is way out of whack and your priorities I think it's the second thing I would say is just throw your TV in the garbage till you graduate from grad school and delete your in and go get your doctorate or do whatever you need to do and have a Sabbath and the third thing I would say is just augment based on your stage of life so if you have a weird work schedule where you're in school and you work a part-time job and so that means you don't work you know five ten hour days or whatever you have a weird schedule whatever then if you can't get a full Sabbath Inc it what you can if that means every Thursday from 4 to 10 o'clock at night you're gonna turn off your phone you can rest then every Saturday morning you have until noon or whatever it is just do what you can keep to the spirit the wisdom the wisdom is unshakable and so just get as close to that wisdom as you can in the season of life if you have little kids obviously for most people I I if I was just a spiritual director I would strongly recommend that every single disciple of Jesus starts their day with an hour of quiet silent solitude prayer in Scripture I think like just as a general rule regardless your personality type start your day with an hour with Jesus in the quiet before you ever turn on your phone ever do anything well a young parent that means you have to be up an hour before your kid and if your kids up at like 5:30 at some point it's the law of diminishing returns you're just gonna make yourself more angry and grouchy so there are seasons you just have to augment it and so morning devotions might look like you wake up to your baby crying and you recite Psalm 23 and in your mind before you get out of bed and then you do something later you know four hours later during nap time you collapse on the couch and you read a psalm and that's all you get that day and I'm a podcast while you're you know you know taking care of that baby on your day off or whatever it is you know so I think there's so much freedom of flexibility but every young parent I know the reason that they don't necessarily have long leisurely quiet time in the morning it's not because they don't think it's important because there's just not an option and the second it is an option they want to get back to it because it's so life-giving you know totally you have anything you'd add to that or a question you'd ask I'll give you one second I mean your question about how do we actually do it yeah great I didn't know if you had more no I just totally agree with that I think especially in the newborn stage like a bunch of my mom friends and I like we just start crying at reading the Jesus story book Bible because that's like our one that really Oh God loves us so much so I think it just looks totally different in the young kids stage yeah and yeah and then we'll finish finish up he's answered the question I thought he did he said you're Alyssa's question was like what are some practical things to do okay and don't then sing like that then okay that's I mean honestly that's we could have three or four hours of conversation around that and so let me just put on the kind of Pastor Hatter Jesus father a hat I think that right now in a cultural moment where all the elites are talking about this and more and more it hasn't hit the mainstream yet but you have you know Arianna Huffington who's getting rid of her cell phone and you're like elites are all diagnosing the problem and dealing with it which is always a good harbinger of where the rest of society may or may not get to so it's out there and I honestly think that the way of Jesus has more to say to it like we this is an incredible moment for us because we have two millennia of tradition around like copying the lifestyle of Jesus and all of these disciplines or practices designed for spiritual life emotional health life in community life of high intensity and purpose and meaning and simplicity around what really matters not getting sucked into just entertainment fodder or whatever we're endless web clicks or something you know so I think that the Jesus tradition has so much to offer on this subject and so I think a couple of the key like spiritual disciplines or practices from Jesus that are over-the-top important right now if our culture is all about go go go do do do buy buy buy sell experience have you know FOMO then I think right now some of the most important spiritual disciplines are all about stopping and about slowing so they would be Sabbath would be the top of my list silence and solitude would probably be a close second simplicity which is even making a comeback in secularism with the title of minimalism you know is one of I mean because again money is one and shopping and consumerism and busyness and too much stuff in your garage and too many piece of things to take care of and cleaning your house this is all a big part of the hury conversation so the simplicity conversation which is like minimalism but with the best stuff with Jesus you know is man is a conversation I hope the church comes back to and doesn't just relegate that to like monks in the past but like recapture his simplicity as a core practice from the way of Jesus a core spiritual discipline for our life with Jesus and apprenticeship to him and then you know you have John Ortberg and richard Foster and others who full-on like talk about the spiritual discipline of slowing almost as if it's like a new spiritual discipline it's not actually new it just never needed to be said you know 380 you didn't have to tell people to slow down like the fastest it ever go is on your mule or something you know two miles away yes and so like the spiritual the simplest of slowing like so I have like all this list in my next book I have like 30 things like just practical ideas from everything from what you're saying turning my phone off at 8:30 every night and not turning it back on till the same time in the next morning to you know like literally getting in the longest line at the checkout stand and not all of these little like gamification kind of like little games I play to try to slow down my mind and slow down my body everything is serious is Christian mindfulness to as goofy as getting in the slow lane when I'm driving somewhere you know to just try to slow myself down to the speed and the pace of Jesus so that I can experience the love and the joy and the peace that he has for me and that the people that I come in contact with don't experience a hurried stressed out too busy for them unhappy grouchy me but rather experience my best self totally that's so good I feel like the words really been teaching me this lately in the last month even of just feeling and not so much the hurry but just being on my phone a lot and feeling a lot of anxiety yes and then when I've started to put boundaries around it I feel so much more peace and the slowing down but it really takes so much work to do it I think just forming new habits but it's so interesting that you talk about that because then this last week as I've been reading through John I feel like over and over the Lord is saying this is for your joy this is for your peace and so I love how you've come and both of those together because I feel like they go hand in hand and as we slow down we get to see how much joy and peace the Lord has for us and so it's like how do we step into that how do we live into that what things do we need that does take work like not getting your phone out in the Costco line I have to mentally be like don't do it don't do it but just it's so good and I love just how the joy and peace go hand-in-hand with that totally so um we're gonna let you go here but I'll just end with one final thought and I'd love to hear what what you want to push people to in the sense of what you feel like book would most encourage them in this space which one you know what the hell they can listen to you how they can get a you know follow you but I think yeah one one thought I said last week we actually Dan interview with Michael and Smith who she kind of writes and talks about home and decor but from a minimalist perspective about like nah you know pushing back against consumerism and also pushing back against the stuffiness and noisiness you know like and one thing i said there that i've actually processed more is this idea of i think our culture and then Jesus followers should have opposite definitions of wastefulness you know like in our culture the definition of wasting your life is usually not doing stuff that awesome like an ordinary life in culture is wasting right that your waste yes because exactly exactly and and an ordinary nasai actually have talked about this lately - I think ordinariness is actually the millennial curse like we think that is the peak center of like I wear I do not want to go in life if I'm ordinary than I've wasted my life and I just think there's a level depends on how you define it I think there's a level of ordinariness mundaneness slowness that all kind of wrap together as actually a virtue of following Jesus and the sense the wastefulness thing I think it's really interesting so they say that's that's wastefulness but I think when you actually look at like take garbage for example like when you go to New York City the wastefulness that piles up on the curbs human waste is because of usually activity and the more activity there is inside that house the more waste they're going to produce outside the house right like the bigger the party the bigger the thing the more people in there and the more they're usually hurrying and not being mindful of how to actually steward the earth then they're going to end up more waste and I think that's a perfect metaphor for our lives that the more but we have and the more active we are the more that's actually true wastefulness like you're actually wasting your life to hurt more hurry DUI because it produces more waste we're gonna you guys seen have you guys seen won't you be my neighbor I cried Rana theatres I sought the day it came like I'm obsessed I got three biographies on him I thought the day it came out in theatres so I'll let's say yes incredible I love how he got angry and that one little moment through but oh man I loved and I was just I mean it blew up in Portland is playing all the really cool indie theaters and I just thought miss a Presbyterian pastor yo like all these indie Portland or secular kids are listening to it's pretty special anyway I love at the end where they take an honest look at like did mr. Rogers ruin the Millennial Generation you mind telling us that you're special you know this thing special and you know did he create this entitlement kind of you know hyper individualistic rattle radical autonomy which is honestly one of the biggest problems were facing as a society right now and they they asked him because he got flack for it like going back quite a while you know what do you mean when you say you are a 'special and he was so gracious he said what I meant to convey with that was you and I might get the quote a little bit wrong maybe you remember it better than I Jeremy this part where he goes when I got it was incredible you don't have to do anything spectacular to be loved exactly and I loved when he said the word tacular that was word he used cuz it's like that's we think we have to be like that is actually the antidote to this culture more than that is what Millennials need to hear more than anything yes and it was so pretty wasn't saying go out and become the coolest sexiest thing who does this amazing things all this really I don't know you say no just you ordinary you yeah you you don't have to go out and achieve something to be loved like you are loved and I just ah man that just I think that captured it ya know that was profound that was if you guys want well that's a good thing to end on if you guys have not seen the documentary it probably will be out soon on Netflix etc won't you be my neighbor maybe at ideas you can rent it but is incredible look at Mister Rogers life and even that part I think in the movie documentary they talked about silence and his profound use of silence in television and how it is blowing I mean he was a mass flow example of an unhurried loving peaceful presence I mean up to a tee totally and it's interesting to how like again back to that wastefulness thing people told him you're wasting television time by being silent for 10 seconds like that's wasting the energy of TV and that to him was actually the opposite and we obviously know that that the impact wasn't wasteful 10 seconds of TV silence is deeply profound so hey thanks so much for being on today man tell us real quick tell everyone who's listening I know a lot of people already follow you that follow us and would you they've wanted you to be on the podcast and so I know that but tell them or the other people where they can find you some books you've written in other ways they can kind of get engaged with you yeah it's pretty easy gianmarco macomb c ome are Instagram and Twitter same thing my name and I've written a couple books they're all easy to find God as a name is the most recent one the next upcoming ones going to be God willing on hurry it's in the hopper we're finishing up with editing right now and that's it or comes out to us in Portland Oregon where we have not so great weather half the year but the best copy around and ice cream pretty much anything because there's nothing to do out we're stuck inside having a beer and food exactly exactly so alright well hey well thanks a ton for coming on man we really appreciate you all we love you guys so much thanks for having me

Channel: Jeff & Alyssa

Views: 17,654

Rating: 4.9221411 out of 5

Keywords: john mark comer, jesus, church, jefferson bethke, hurry, its not what you think, busy, christian, alyssa bethke

Id: XQUfog4EGuk

Length: 50min 9sec (3009 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 30 2018