July 16, 2024 • 71 mins
Summary
In part 2 of this 2 part conversation with Rich Pantusa we explore the theme of being sons in the workplace and how to see the sacred work of God in it. It draws parallels with the experiences of the Israelites in Egypt and their journey of sonship, highlighting the importance of going through uncomfortable places to develop character and trust in God. The conversation also discusses the preparation for reigning in the coming kingdom and the restoration of all things. Jesus' life is examined as a model for navigating challenges and finding purpose in the workplace. They discuss the significance of Jesus' hidden years and how they relate to our own journeys of initiation and maturity. They emphasize the need to bring our questions and frustrations to God, rather than trying to escape or find fulfillment elsewhere. They also share personal stories and insights, highlighting the importance of finding peace and purpose in our current contexts. The conversation concludes with a prayer for guidance and wisdom in navigating our work lives as sons.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:03):
God asks me to be patient with him.
It's a two way relationship in patience
that it's not.
I don't just click on something
in Amazon and I get it,
and he's up
to far more than my human mind
can ever fathom.
He's up to more than I can understand.
And now, at 47 - 20 years
into what
(00:23):
I would call my journey of sonship,
I can say with some confidence
that I needed to go
through 20 years of a journey of sonship
to be able to wield
the power that I do have.
Hey sons,
welcome back for part
two in this discussion
(00:45):
with Rich Pantusa,
if you did not listen to the first half
of this conversation,
I strongly encourage you to do that.
What we are discussing is, how do we,
as sons
with a growing knowledge of the Kingdom,
with a growing kingdom heart,
with a growing revelation,
or with even the curiosity
(01:05):
about our identity, our calling,
in the Kingdom of God,
how do
we wrestle
with being at a post
that we do not understand,
with a post
that is raising issues and desires
and even awakening deep frustrations
that makes us want to exit?
(01:25):
I was
in that position for 14 years of my life,
and I've got so many thoughts about it.
Rich also has so much wisdom about this,
and we want to pass it on to you,
because where you are
and how you wrestle with this tension
is immensely
Important to you now,
(01:47):
to your relationship with God,
to your sense of security,
your peace, your rest, and to the future
that God has for you
because he wants to release you,
but not a moment before you're ready.
So please join Rich and I
and I
as we walk and talk a mile
talking about being sons
in the workplace. Enjoy this ride.
(02:11):
Let's just do bullet points here, okay?
Let's just put ourselves
inside the mind, inside the heart,
because we're both there.
But we're also around
men who are wrestling with this.
You and I have the privilege
of gathering,
around campfires
with men and seeing men in real life.
Okay, so just like bullet points,
a man is in a job that he hates.
(02:33):
Or let's just say he's
feeling deep tension.
What he's feeling is the tension between
what he feels is the sacred versus
the secular.
It's I have to put food on the table,
and I hate where God has put me.
That allows me to put food on the table.
Okay. In bullet points.
(02:55):
What are some of the sentences
that come up in the heart of a man
that reveal
the places inside that man,
that God
is needed to get some work done?
Yeah. That's that...
That in and of itself is a
hours and hours of unpacking.
(03:17):
Exactly, exactly.
Let's, let's do some bullet points.
Yeah.
I have to do this job
so that I can put food on the table.
Yeah
I think Jesus said something I have to.
Yeah. What.
Where did that come from.
What what orphan-ism
is that raising in you?
What agreements are you making with what
(03:40):
about just that I have to do this
to put food on my table.
Because Jesus said something
about what was it? The sparrows?
And they don't worry
where their next meal is coming from.
Well let,
let let's just
focus on the bullet points here
because like without, without
(04:00):
the maturing in our relationship
as sons,
we don't even know
the scripture that ties to it.
At that point.
We just know what's presenting itself
and what's causing the pain and,
and the desire to escape.
Right.
So so yeah, absolutely. So,
I have to.
It feels like a trap.
(04:21):
Okay. I'm trapped.
I hate this job.
Yes.
What about this job?
Do you hate. Right.
Yeah.
Why are you punishing me?
Why are you punishing me?
Why can't I break out?
What did I screw up.
(04:46):
Are you angry at me.
Yes.
That you would put me here.
Am I missing
your purpose for me in my life.
I'm not experiencing
any sense of significance at all
where I am,
everything I'm doing is fruitless
(05:08):
and worthless and insignificant.
Why does this job cost me so much
time, energy, heart-space?
God, I have so much more potential
and I have so much more to give
than what I can give here.
(05:29):
Why am I not somewhere where I can
offer it?
Why can't I be more like him.
Yes.
okay.
In a, in an environment
where I have a kingdom heart
and I'm working with people
without Kingdom Hearts, stuff comes up,
has come up in me like I'm.
(05:53):
I'm better than this.
Yes, I'm.
I'm better than this.
I have a heart for the kingdom.
They do not.
So what's the deal?
Judgment,
ugliness, ugly attitudes
toward other people.
Resentment, unforgiveness.
(06:18):
the decision to isolate,
the decision to separate the decision
that the differences between us
are unbridgeable.
Therefore why try
or worse.
I love Jesus, I'm a good Christian man.
But they don't allow that here.
(06:43):
My Christianity is not allowed here.
I can't play worship music.
I can't have religious icons or verses
posted on my desk.
I can't share my faith,
I can't pray out loud.
I can't do the things that I know
keep me rooted in God.
(07:04):
Okay.
So sons you as you're listening
to these things
that the rich and I are just
reflecting that have all,
I'm assuming
every one of these things
has come up in my heart over the years.
Yeah.
what's coming up in yours.
What would be the ugly
painful
(07:26):
reality
that being in a position
in the workplace,
presents in you?
And the reason
this is such a vital
question is because God will always
allow us to see
the UN fathered places
(07:46):
and give us the option
of whether or not
we're going to invite him into that.
There is there
there are a couple kinds of men.
There's the kind of man that goes
into his workplace and
has a
bitter, hateful attitude toward his,
the people that he works around with,
whether it's
(08:06):
in position above or below him,
and the guy that just says
that's the way that it is.
And in his orphan comparative,
worldview never grows out of that.
And then there's the son who recognizes
this is ugliness in me.
(08:29):
This is brokenness in me.
And instead of
trying to escape
and change the environment,
he has the wisdom
and the discernment to go to God
and to confess what he's feeling and say,
what are you doing?
You're bringing this up in me.
I don't like it.
(08:49):
I'm uncomfortable.
It's an opportunity
to pour our hearts out as sons to him
and say, God,
I don't like
what you're presenting in me, Rich.
I don't think many people know
that God puts us
purposefully in positions
to be miserable,
because the source of that misery is not
(09:10):
where we are.
The source of that
misery is the brokenness
within our souls and God in his kindness,
he puts us in dark places
to help us overcome our fear of darkness.
Yes.
You know,
not because we're sentenced to darkness,
but even in this world
that we're living in, it's a dark world.
(09:31):
I mean, it's, it's God bathed.
He is everywhere, like you were saying.
But
but it's not surprising that
we live in sorrow and in sadness
as we see the brokenness in the world.
But that's not our future at all.
That's that's not the deeper reality
God wants us to to acknowledge
(09:53):
what we're feeling and then say,
God, you're my father.
I need you to teach me.
I need you to father me.
Out of this way of living and into life,
into this joy
and this rest, in this peace
and all this other stuff
that feels inaccessible
where I am in my current position.
So it's not the physical geography.
(10:15):
I will say this.
The physical geography
we should never overlook
as the way that God is.
Opening us to reveal
the internal spiritual
geography of our heart
in the spiritual geography is what
(10:37):
brings about the love
and the joy and the significance
and all the other things
that that help us walk in sonship.
He's just going to use places and jobs
to bring that stuff up.
So let's shift gears a little bit,
because there's two powerful biblical,
(10:58):
pictures of this.
and, and then we can kind of reflect
back on it
because you've,
you've said it
that we're, we're in stages
where being father would being initiated.
There are unfinished places in us
that God is using our work environment.
he can use our work environment to,
to flesh out so,
(11:20):
biblically, it's fascinating
that when you go to Exodus
that when God sent the Israelites.
So you get Abraham, Isaac, Jacob
and their immediate descendants,
which are a small family,
they go to Egypt
(11:42):
to be fed during a famine,
and they end up getting some favor there.
Right?
Everything actually looks like
it's going really, really well.
There's early, early favor
on God's people,
and then they end up being in captivity
for hundreds of years.
Did they screw up?
Did they make a mistake?
(12:03):
Did they not hear God's voice?
Were they not supposed to go back
to Israel?
Like what?
What what what's going on here?
But the fruit is that
there was a famine
in the Promised Land in the end,
in the land of Canaan.
And you've got a bunch of evil
people who were worshiping gods,
and they're laying
(12:24):
their children on sacrifices,
you know, on, on these altars,
and they're sacrificing their children
in the most painful and satanic ways.
And Abraham and his family, Isaac, Jacob,
were basically
exiled to Egypt for a time.
And over the course of their captivity.
(12:45):
This is strange,
because in Babylon and Assyria,
this did not happen.
But in Egypt this did happen,
that the Egypt,
the Egyptians felt
that the Jews were unclean.
So instead of them
being deeply ingratiated in
in the Egyptian culture,
they had geography set aside
(13:06):
over there so that their lives mixed
as little as possible.
So even though Joseph is the second
in command under Pharaoh
and deeply trusted,
they never ate a meal together.
Because in the Egyptian mindset
that would have made the Egyptians
with all of their gods unclean.
So God sends this small family of
his chosen ones
(13:27):
that he's created, promises
he's given, promises to.
He sends them into Egypt,
who enslaves them, puts them to work in
a job that they hate.
But he keeps them outside the camp.
They sleep outside the camp.
They're allowed to worship
outside the camp.
They're about
they're they're allowed
(13:47):
to call in desperation
on the God of their ancestors,
and to remember the promises
that they're under.
And then God sends a deliverer
long after they've been begging,
after generations, way,
way longer than they would ever have.
The courage
to stay
(14:07):
in that level of perceived oppression.
They had no idea what God was doing.
And then God sends a deliverer who comes,
who confronts the enemy.
these chosen people sit back
and they listen to this conversation
that Moses
the deliverer, has with the one
holding them captive.
(14:27):
And he says,
this is what the God of Israel says,
let my people go for these people.
Israel.
This is my firstborn son
that captivated my attention.
And in that moment
that I read that as I
as I read that for the very first time
after being a son
(14:48):
or learning about my experience as a son,
God just said, what you see me taking
Israel through
is exactly
what I'm going to take you through.
Do not think that you're going to escape
the blueprint
for sonship.
So pay close attention
(15:09):
because they're going to struggle
with their new identity,
and I'm going to have to put them
in places
that they're not going to like, so that
eventually they can be
what I've created them to be.
They're my firstborn son.
So, yep, God miraculously delivers them
(15:29):
blood over the doorposts
representing Jesus.
He takes them through the water,
represents baptism.
And then you've got this nation
that has been set free.
And here's the here's here's a beautiful
thing.
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in
their small family
living in, in the land of Canaan.
Could they have become
(15:51):
an army of millions in that environment,
like they would have had
God not sequestered them in Egypt
and given them the land of Goshen
all by themselves,
like they go into captivity
small and weak, and they come out
an entire army that strikes fear
(16:12):
not only into
the surrounding Canaanite nations,
but the gods
that actually empowered
the Canaanite nations.
So there was deep purpose
to what they felt like
was an unfair enslavement.
There's something that God is doing.
And then at the right time,
he calls them out by the blood,
(16:33):
by the water,
by being led
by the Spirit of God into the wilderness.
They're in the wilderness. Right.
And then, yeah,
one of the
things that I've always
been really curious about
is, I remember as a kid when
I learned that
of all the places on the planet
(16:55):
that the Son of God would manifest,
why would it have been the Middle East,
which I felt was the armpit of the world?
I mean, like,
why would he not show up in the hill
country of Texas or,
you know, someplace
that was more beautiful?
I just couldn't wrap my mind around it.
But you continue to follow the story.
What God
(17:17):
did in Israel,
in the nation of Israel, is
he takes them into the wilderness.
He tests them in ways that sound
incredibly familiar to the conversation
that you and I are having.
And he brings them to the place
that the sinfulness in the
the brokenness in their humanity
(17:38):
all gets exposed.
And without God coming through,
they would have been annihilated.
They had no army.
God told them,
you're not allowed to have an army.
You're not allowed to create treaties
with other nations.
All the things
that they would have been tempted to do,
like everybody else, to secure themselves
(18:01):
as a nation. God forbade them to do.
And he said,
you belong to me, and me alone.
I will be your God.
I will be your general.
I will be your protector.
I will be your provider.
I'm going to give manna in the desert.
In other words,
the son, this Son of God
had to go through a season
and there was only one purpose.
(18:21):
Why I say that
I'm generalizing here,
but the ultimate purpose
of that season in the wilderness
was for them to acknowledge
that they could only
rely on God,
that.
All goodness, all protection,
(18:41):
all provision,
everything that they would ever need
is actually available with God.
And they didn't have to sink
to the depths that the world does
to to secure those things for themselves.
So their entire existence
and their sustenance and their provision
and their protection
was supernatural
(19:01):
from the beginning in the wilderness.
And generations had to come
up, generations had to die.
And eventually
God said, now that you've learned
utter dependance on me,
now that you've learned that
though you've wanted to escape,
now I can give you the promised land.
(19:22):
Now I can
go, and I
can put you into a position
in this little sliver
that's being so contested right now
in the world.
Why is the nation of Israel
so under assault?
Why is it so contested?
Why do nations long for it?
And why was it so
strategically important to God?
(19:42):
Well, you've got this little sliver
where you've got an ocean on this side,
and then you've got
the Jordan River on this side,
and then you've got mountains,
and it's this tiny, tiny little
trade route back
then where Africa and Europe
and Asia
all had to travel
through for their goods,
(20:02):
because one region
desperately needed goods
for their culture
to be imported from each of the others.
And so you had this incredible
trade route.
And so God's got them off
in the wilderness
doing something in them,
preparing them to take over
the Promised Land,
(20:24):
knowing that if you don't first know
that you need me for everything,
I cannot trust you
to be the ones guarding
this most precious, most prized
crossroads of trade routes in the world.
Because
they will see how
you are different than them,
(20:45):
and you will have the richest geography
in the world
to then answer the questions and
and preach the goodness of God
so that it gets taken
to the most powerful
and prominent places on the earth.
Like that's that's the story.
Like
(21:05):
in my own life, Rich.
That's what I see God doing.
And as you articulate
what God has been doing in your life,
very simply,
he's bringing you through
uncomfortable places
because he knows that's
the only way
that he can bring you
into the Promised Land
and give you things that otherwise
you would be unable
(21:26):
to handle mentally,
emotionally, spiritually.
It would be way out of your gifting,
your skill sets,
or even your your immaturity could be
the the greatest damaging factor to him
finally giving you
what he most
wants to give you
and what you most want to receive.
(21:47):
We will blow up.
Apart from wrestling with the things
that you and I
have been
talking about
for the last hour and 36 minutes.
Yes.
So that's the story.
That is the story of sonship you know.
So sons, sons I would,
I would welcome you to go back and read
Genesis and Exodus and Leviticus.
(22:08):
And even if you just went
to the Bible project
and looked at their summaries
of the first 4
or 5 chapters of of the story in the
with the lens on that, you're looking
at how God calls his sons forth
and now how he prepares them.
because without proper preparation,
(22:30):
we will collapse.
Without intimacy with God,
we will utterly collapse
under the weight of what
God wants to give us some time
in the future, right?
Right.
that's there's so much in there that is,
thank you
for sharing that the, the
the whole unpacking of it
(22:50):
because I'm sitting here responding
internally to. Yeah.
Oh my
goodness, what you're talking about
is the fact that God
asks me to be patient with him,
just like just like
it's a it's a there's a
two way relationship in patience
(23:13):
that it's not.
I don't just click on something
in Amazon and I get it.
And he's up to far more than my
human mind can ever fathom.
He's up to more than I can understand.
And now at 47 - 20 years into what
I would call my journey of sonship,
I can say with some confidence
(23:35):
that I needed to go through 20 years
of a journey of sonship
to be able to wield
the power that I do have.
Yeah.
and wield it well,
because when I wield it well, I'm
not aware and I'm not striving
and I'm not trying to put
something on or put on a show.
(23:57):
I'm just being me.
And I say that in humility, in the places
that I do wield power.
And I know
with his affirmation that I'm wielding it
well, I'm not posing.
I'm not.
I'm not straining myself to love the
people I'm around. I just do.
And I just
(24:18):
after years of
initiation in my craft, I just do it.
I have a level of expertise that, like,
would not have come in any other method
that involved the shortcut.
So you are now.
Well,
I don't want to put words in your mouth.
Would you say,
would you be able to affirm that you are
(24:40):
at peace in places in your soul now,
where you are not at peace?
When we were in this pit of despair,
even after being invited
into this category of sonship.
Yes,
yes, yes, so much so.
And there's so much more
(25:03):
for him to work out in me.
Yeah, like I, I,
I'm nowhere near there.
I'm not arrived.
But I'm in process
and the things that he has done in me
is more than enough for me
to continue to, to submit.
Yes.
(25:23):
There's more to come,
there's more work to be done.
This isn't a matter of arriving
or gaining mastery.
This is about it.
A journey.
Because if I can skip ahead in the story,
what you're talking about is
what is he preparing us for?
What's the preparation?
What's the goal that I'm in process
to and
(25:44):
what I'm aware of is, like,
we we kind of miss
a lot in the story of what's to come.
And what I've, what I believe
is that whatever it is
that he's gifted me to do, just like,
you know, Morgan teaches us, I am going,
you are going to be a man forever.
(26:07):
You reveal the image of God
as a man uniquely, and you will forever.
You will always and forever be a man.
That's who God created you to be.
And so that extends into
so many other things
in terms of gifting
and passion and creativity and what we
what he's uniquely designed us to be able
(26:28):
to do and release into the world
will go on forever.
It will go on.
And he's initiating us in,
even in the crafts that we're doing.
Because another truth that I'm aware of
is there's no legitimate career.
There's no legitimate
job or vocation out there
that doesn't serve what he promised us
(26:51):
in revelation.
And what Jesus said
is coming in the coming kingdom.
There's no job, there's no career,
there's no gifting.
Even warriors
where we believe that
the enemy will lay down
his arms, there's, there is a task,
a job, work that we will do for eternity
(27:14):
because we make the assumption
when he says he's
going to renew all things,
that the restoration of all things
is going to happen
in one flash bulb,
like we're just going to have bright
light get blinded.
And then when we come back,
into our senses,
everything's going to be restored.
I don't think that's true.
(27:37):
I think
that the
renewal of this earth
in the God's original design
and plan is going to be done with us.
We're going to restore this earth
into what we want it to be, in union
with our creator who created it for us.
He's going to use the skills
(27:58):
and talents that he's uniquely
given to me,
and the skills and talents
that he's uniquely given to you and Bob
and Jim, and to Isaiah
and to the heroes of our faith
and to the men that lived silent lives of
of submission
to God, like this whole army of men
(28:20):
are going to restore
this earth, and women
and will do that forever.
That's how we are going to reign
and do it in love.
He's preparing us now
to be
able to handle
that kind of power and rule
well for eternity.
Yeah.
So he's he's not very concerned
(28:43):
with the sharpening
of our skill sets near
so much as he is concerned
with the sharpening of our character
and our submission and our humility
and our ability to trust him,
because we're going to be
in an environment where
the tree of life
is going to be there again.
(29:03):
And the invitation and the joy
is all going to be
about partnership with him.
Building and who knows?
I mean,
I don't know what
we would have to protect any anyway.
There's a lot of questions around
what the coming Kingdom looks like.
But yeah, I agree with you for sure.
Dallas Willard,
(29:24):
you know, talks about
training for reigning.
That's what is going on right here.
And that's that's a hard pill to swallow
when you're in a job that you
you feel like you hate.
Or that feels right.
Pointless. Yeah.
Well, let's reflect,
let's let's close this out.
with a reflection of the one
(29:45):
that God sent us to be the model
and the pattern.
Because while God sent us Israel.
And that's really helpful,
they made a ton of mistakes
along the way.
And, that was God's first born son.
But also, we get the incredible benefit
of being able to see
God's only begotten son, his unique son,
(30:08):
here on earth, doing it well.
And,
so yeah, let's reflect on
Jesus, the very first podcast that
I ever did,
was about
what I felt was an invitation from God
to think about the life of Jesus
in ways that I never had before.
(30:29):
And it is so applicable to where we are
because.
In Hebrews,
I'll say it this way I grew up.
With enough exposure to the church
(30:49):
to consider Jesus life as a mystery,
and I had the impression
before reading through Scripture
that Jesus was able to sail through life
without a lot of problems.
You know,
I remember
watching the show Bewitched as a kid,
and she can,
(31:10):
you know, twinkle and blink her eyes
and shake her head and her hips
and whatever
she wants to manifest,
she's able to manifest.
And I,
I put this hybrid of Jesus,
the Son of God,
a human,and genie together.
And I thought, well,
he's up on the cross
and he's faking the whole pain thing
(31:31):
because clearly
anybody in their right mind
who had the ability
to take the pain
of those spikes in his hands
and his feet away is going to do that,
and he's just going to go through it
almost as some sort of a
a picture or it's just a play,
you know, when he's playing
the role of an actor.
And I
read through
(31:51):
as I was reading through Hebrews,
it said that he is able
to identify with everything,
every pain, every trial.
That you and I
have to wrestle with which challenge
and challenges me.
And you, I'm sure.
(32:12):
Well, what did he know about
being at a job that he didn't like?
Like, where is that?
And I confess with great candor,
my immaturity
and how little I had ever considered,
the way that God.
Presents Jesus story
(32:34):
up until the moment he's at the river.
And John the Baptist is,
is baptizing him,
you know,
when he's commissioned into into the work
for which he was created.
but let's just go back
through that story again, because we've
we are meant to find ourselves
in that story
in the same way that Jesus came.
(32:55):
So that he could come
and enter into our story,
we get to enter into his.
Yep.
0 to 12 years old.
His dad's following - his earthly dad,
Joseph is just
responding to dreams
that God speaks to him in,
and he's skirting death.
(33:16):
And Mary is given visitation by angels
like supernatural visitations
for you know,
mom and dad to guide this boy and
and then at the age of 12,
he's in the temple.
And, that's the age, exactly the age
where the gifted young students
(33:38):
would have been invited to become rabbis
and become the premier figure
in in the entire Israelite community.
There's no political figures,
there's no potentates, there's no kings,
because they're under the Roman.
They're under,
they're in Roman occupation. Okay.
But the highest person
(33:59):
would have been a Pharisee,
and Jesus could easily
have taken that position.
And I even wonder
if Jesus at times wanted that position,
if that's maybe he just thought he may.
Is Jesus going along
and just trusting his heavenly Father
to tell him which way to go,
(34:19):
whether you turn to the
right or the left,
this your ears will hear a voice
behind you saying, walk in it.
And going back to what
you were saying earlier,
there could have been multiple ways
that God
actually channeled Jesus energies
to help him
mature to the point where he was able
to do what
you know he did on the cross for us.
(34:41):
But it's staggering to think about
what was going through the mind
and the heart.
How much did
Jesus actually have to wrestle
with his father knowing the path and him
not knowing the path?
What stands out to you in Jesus story?
Yeah, yeah.
Thank you for raising it.
I'm struck
because this was
(35:02):
one of the most transformational,
journeys that God ever
has invited me
into in the life of Jesus,
because it starts
with the reality
that the whole tribal system
that you talked about,
that was set up
in the Promised Land continued on.
Yeah, tribal system
and the nation of Israel continued
(35:22):
until Jesus's time.
And it mattered.
It mattered deeply
to the identity of God's chosen nation
and the people that were in it.
And so if we were to make the assumption
that Jesus was like you said, sort of,
you know, given unbelievable privilege,
(35:43):
then he would have been born as a Levite,
and he would have been born
into the line of those
that were assigned full time to steward,
the temple,
steward God's
word and steward his people
right, and set apart.
He would have been born into that world.
And lo and behold,
what we miss
so much is the fact that he wasn't,
(36:04):
he was a from the line of David,
which was the throne of
it was the tribe of Judah,
which was, you know,
they were warrior culture
and they were normal.
They were very,
the sort of blue collar, if you will.
Jesus was not born into a line
of holiness, necessarily,
as those set apart. He was like us.
And so he had to contend with the things
(36:24):
you just described
in his childhood of like, yes, okay.
His parents had
unbelievable faith
and unbelievable provision
from God
to protect this boy and to protect them.
And then he arrived,
like our buddy
Morgan likes to point out, as a teenager
with all of the teenage
(36:44):
trappings of self-centeredness,
which is not a sin
at the temple,
to sort of reveal and try on his power
and try on his authority, that he has.
And it was astonishing right.
And then,
like you were talking about
God leading us into darkness,
(37:05):
what happened is your interpretation.
But something happened that they left,
and he left with his parents
at the age of 12.
And the next time we hear about him
is 18 years later when he's 30
and he's at the wedding at Cana,
and he's
being baptized by John the Baptist
(37:27):
and all that,
there's an 18 year gap
in what theologians
say is a 33 year life span.
That's over 50%.
Over half of his life is in complete
hiddenness.
It's a mystery.
We don't really know what the
Dailies look like.
(37:47):
And the fascinating thing
is, I've asked a lot of people
that know a lot about Scripture
and theologians
and pastors and ministers,
and as far as I know, there's
nothing recorded
about the life of Jesus from 12 to 18
to to 30. Nothing.
There's no like just, you know,
journal entries or,
you know, a historical documentation
(38:08):
that says that this man did
anything of massive import.
He was not an important man
in his teens, in his 20s.
What was he doing?
Well, the reality is he was working.
He was, as you say, a tektōn.
He was working for his dad
(38:29):
some point, took over the
the family business.
He did it for 18 years and whatever
that look like,
whatever the details are,
let's not get mixed up in it.
He worked, he produced a product.
He sold it in the marketplace.
He helped other people
and what is profoundly impactful to me is
(38:51):
he wasn't tiptoeing through the tulips.
And he wasn't just
doing this to mark
time till 30 was some age of authority
and power,
and people would recognize him
as a grown man.
Those 18 years,
the majority of his life, was
necessary for his initiation.
(39:12):
It was
necessary for him to
contend with his humanity,
to contend
with all of the trappings
of being a human,
and the divine power
that he held in his heart,
that he held in his body
that was contained in his identity.
He had to contend with all that
for that majority of his life,
(39:32):
so that he could be
the man that we see in the Gospels.
So that he could wield his heart
and he could learn the rhythms of life
and he could learn
like so many questions come up,
so many questions about how Jesus,
how did Jesus learn how to do that?
(39:54):
How did like for instance,
one of the things
that is profound to me is
he was the Jesus
created everything in this planet.
He created the planet
and everything in it.
He was the
artisan that created the earth
and imbued it with life.
This is all his design
and he takes his deity
(40:19):
and he constrains it into a human body.
At some point,
he had to deal with the limits
that two hands and two feet can,
can constrain you to either
deal with that he to learn how to say no.
And he had to practice saying no.
He had to learn how to say yes.
He had to learn how to give consent
and how to withdraw
(40:40):
all the rhythms of his life,
of engaging and retreating.
And things are getting too big for him.
He withdrew and
entrusted into his father's care.
All of that had to be trained.
All of it had to be learned.
He didn't just show
up on the planet with like, you know, the
all the gifting
and all the understanding that he needed,
(41:00):
he needed to go through, like you said,
so that he could understand.
Rich, like he
he had to go through
what you and I are talking about.
Yeah.
And he did what
you and I must learn to do.
And that is to take the pain
and all of the, the crap
(41:23):
that our unhappiness.
that our jobs surfaces,
all of that
unhappiness, all the lack of peace,
the joy, the questions,
the comparisons, all that other stuff.
We have to take that
to God and say,
(41:43):
what do I do with this?
How would you have me handle this?
What is your counsel?
What are you doing in me?
And to consider that Jesus spent
those 18 years
and in the amount of energy.
Well, I say the energy,
the amount of wisdom,
intentionality
(42:04):
on God's part to leave that 18 years
in Scripture
with absolutely nothing said about it
actually says a ton.
It's meant to drive us to ask
what on earth was happening in
you those 18 years,
and to create the parallel
in our own lives where we feel like
(42:27):
we're not doing anything
that's making any difference?
How do I get there?
How do I get that right?
Well, Jesus,
Jesus story has that baked in.
You know,
Yeah, it doesn't make any sense, does it?
You're going to you're going to
not at first.
(42:47):
Your son in,
you're going to release
your son into the world.
And, you know, his time is limited,
even just by the fact that he's a human,
but he's going to cause such a stir
and he's going to offend so many people
that they're eventually
going to execute him.
And it's going to happen really quick.
It doesn't make sense that you take
what you know to be about a 33
(43:07):
year lifespan, and 90% of it
is given to his initiation,
so that it's not spectacular
event after spectacular event
after miracle
after miracle after miracle.
90% of that
precious time on this earth
to save the whole planet,
(43:28):
to save humanity once and for all.
To announce the arrival
of the Kingdom of God and 90% of it.
He just puts and hides
it under under the
the cloak of initiation
and taking the hard questions to God
as a human being,
how am I supposed to deal with this
(43:52):
like God, father in heaven?
I'm reading the scriptures
and you're revealing to me
that I'm supposed to be
the guy that does this, I'm afraid.
What if I fail?
Who's here that understands me?
There's nobody that I can share this with
that even can comprehend.
(44:15):
I mean, even
his closest friends had no idea
what was going on.
Probably his closest confidant
in the only person
that he had that
even who could barely understand
what Jesus was going through was his mom.
Which is probably why
the father used his mom to release him
into ministry
and reveal his glory
(44:36):
at the wedding of Cana,
because it was the kindest way, you know,
could be very,
very well be that Jesus knew.
This is the only person that I can trust.
And if my mom is saying this,
she's actually speaking
the words of the father
to me to release me into
what?
Probably at the age of 12,
he might have been excited about.
But over the 18 years
(44:56):
he matured enough to realize this,
the cost of this
is
is enormous.
You know, we want power until we know
what it's going to cost.
We want influence
until we know what it's going to cost us.
And then
we begin to be hesitant about it.
(45:18):
And hopefully we've got the maturity
to enter into the promised land
and to be able to steward it well.
But until we understand
what it's going to cost
us, we're not ready for it.
Yes, same thing with Jesus.
He wasn't ready for it
until he knew
what it was going to cost him.
Yeah.
And and that was a beautiful moment.
That speaks volumes to me.
Where, dear woman, why do you bother me?
(45:39):
My time has not yet come.
let's take
all the religious drapery off of that.
Let's take all of the nonsense
and all of the lies and toxicity
out of that,
and listen to his heart for a second,
because what I hear
in what he says is he's arrived,
so initiated and so affirmed,
(45:59):
like you said, aware of the cost,
that he loved what he had been doing
for the last 18 years, so much
that he would have
rather kept doing that.
He would have rather stayed hidden
doing tektōn work, stone masonry,
(46:21):
whatever that is
in that world, in that community.
He loved that to
the point that he didn't.
Actually, he resisted the push of now
it's time for you to reveal yourself.
That's disruptive.
For me, it is.
I mean, I'm
not saying then that
what's that is what happened.
(46:41):
We don't know.
I mean,
I just love the mystery of it
because that's a strong possibility.
And, you know,
you and I have seen that beautiful clip
in Gladiator where the emperor comes to,
to Maximus,
who's proven on the field of battle.
He's a man.
He's an initiated man in in the position
that's about to be open.
(47:02):
Requires
a man who's been initiated to take it
because there's.
Because they're his son, Marcus Aurelius.
His son is too immature,
and he will destroy people,
and his power will be used
for his own good.
And so he comes to the humble servant
who he wishes had been his son,
but is not,
and says,
I have one last task for you
(47:23):
before I go, before I die, what is it?
I want you to become the Caesar.
When I'm gone.
And then you see,
like the heart
of a truly initiated man
who understands the weight,
who says with all my heart
no.
(47:45):
And then the emperor is able
to look him in the eye
and say your response.
That is why it has to be you.
Because you know what it will cost you.
You know the importance of it
and any man
who does not have the same response
that you just had to me
is unworthy of that position.
(48:05):
And I think God has to bring all of us
to that, to the man who thinks
I have to go into ministry because,
like full time ministry
or somehow
that that will never find
their significance or their,
their, their calling in the place
(48:26):
where they are,
they're in a dangerous spot
until they come to the place
that you have described,
going from that place of tension
and anger to the place of peace,
even though you don't have
all the answers, like we have no business
being released to do what we want to do
(48:46):
until we are set free
to do
what God wants us to do, where we are.
Yeah. You're you're.
Yes, absolutely.
And I just want to like,
extend on that
thought for a second
because I'm going to borrow
a phrase that,
Morgan uses a lot
when they talk about men
going on vacation. Right.
The problem
(49:06):
with me
going on vacation is that I go with me.
right.
It's also true of exactly
what you're describing.
And let's broaden
the topic here for a second
and not just talk about, okay,
I need to leave where I'm at
because this is soul crushing
and like
getting rid of that superficial run away
from that kind of feeling and say, well,
(49:28):
I just need to get out of here
and go do something else.
I need to self initiate
and be an entrepreneur,
or I need to write a book,
whatever it is
that is like the alternative
that's out there.
And this is not a message on like,
don't ever quit your job.
This is a
this is the conversation is around God,
what are you up to
and what I'm where you
have me planted right now.
(49:50):
And wait
for the that term of like God
I will leave when you make it
impossible for me to stay instead
and with that in mind, the problem
with bailing
or leaving
where you're at or leaving your post
to go
do something else,
is that you go with you.
(50:13):
And what I have observed, both in my life
and in plenty of other men’s lives, is
if these issues that God is raising to
for us
to bring our questions back to him,
if that's short circuited in any way,
you're never going to find your peace.
You're never going to find
that level of maturity.
(50:35):
You're never going to find it.
In trying to just bail on the context
that you're in,
because you're going to
take all that with you.
All of
those unanswered questions go with you,
all of your all of your disappointment,
all of your wounding,
all of your heartache, all of that
(50:56):
that is lacking goes with you
in the same way
that a man leaves his wife
to look for a better wife,
the chances of the second marriage
are disastrous.
right.
The chances of of the survival,
the success of the second marriage
(51:17):
are disastrous in a third marriage.
And a fourth marriage
just gets more and more atrocious. Why?
It's because marriage
is meant to bring up
the painful stuff,
so that it's an environment
where God can deal with it
and he can bring us into maturity.
You know,
in the same way
that guys come into their 30s
and their 40s and their 50s
and they have, quote unquote,
the midlife crisis and
(51:39):
they do something really, really
drastic in hopes
that it's going to change their situation
and make them happy.
But as you
said, problem
is they take themselves with themselves.
And, and God is going,
as Dan Allender says,
don't waste your pain
if you're feeling pain where you are,
well then that's
what you need to deal with.
(52:00):
Bring it to God
and let him deal with the pain.
You come to a place of peace
and we make much better decisions
when we're at peace.
Yes, yes.
And it's it's a self
it's a self-serving cycle.
You take your questions to God
and he
leads you into adventure
to find his heart and find his answers
(52:22):
so that you can be at peace
so that you can hear
his voice more clearly. Yes,
so that you contend with
bigger and deeper things
and you can find more of yourself
in more of his presence
and in union with him.
It's it's a process.
And to slap a term like that on
(52:43):
it seems unkind because we in
especially us in the workplace,
want to get there. We want shortcuts.
We want to find our way,
give us the steps
and tell me that I'm doing it well.
And God, like you said,
is not all that interested in the next
two years
(53:04):
because he's planning for an eternity.
Yeah.
You say that,
but you probably are of the practice
of at the beginning of the year,
we can go to God and say what
can you give me
just a little piece of your heart for me.
What would you like for me to cling to?
What's an advance word for the year?
(53:26):
And that is a rescue.
And oftentimes that is a
that is an invitation
through our work life,
through our family life,
to cling to
him and allow our hearts to be changed.
You know, hopefully at the end of
of the year, he's grown some,
father place in us to be able to handle,
(53:50):
stuff well.
And, yeah.
So we didn't we didn't, we didn't...
I loved hearing about your story,
and and there's just so many things
about my own story
that I just say yes, yes, yes and amen.
But, oh,
my goodness,
I've wrestled
with everything that you're
talking about,
rich, and in my own, you know, unique way,
(54:13):
unique story.
And I wouldn't trade.
I wouldn't trade the 14 years
that I was doing a job
that I wanted out of for anything
because of the benefit of it,
because that's what changed me.
And I needed that to be where I am today.
And I,
and I also needed the
(54:33):
long story,
because there are days
where I do not want to be
where I am today.
I want to be doing something
else, you know?
But there's something about knowing
with great clarity
that you are exactly
where God has called you to be,
and that you have
gone through
what we've been talking about.
atmospheres and geographies were really,
(54:54):
really difficult.
And God,
and you learn to work together
as partners to get through it.
I mean, you
nothing can take that away from you.
The devil can easily
steal the faith from somebody
who does not have
that intimate
relationship and journey with God, but
man. Like what?
What you and I have in terms of
(55:17):
and what many of you out there
have as well as sons, is,
you have a story.
You have a story with God.
You have a testimony.
You can testify with,
You can testify
about this story
(55:37):
in the same way that, you know,
the richest testifying about him now.
So anyway,
it's of is of incredible importance.
So, friends, I,
sons, I want
I hope that this was encouraging to you.
I know it doesn't,
answer every question,
but I do pray that you can find,
and discover that you are not alone
in the things
that you have been wrestling with.
(56:01):
by no means that
nothing has come upon you.
That is uncommon to man.
and nothing that you are experiencing
where you are was even uncommon to Jesus.
And what, what a what a relief that is.
So I, I do pray that God has met
(56:21):
you and has offered,
if not an answer,
maybe what's even better
is a better question for you to be asking
in this hour.
What is the question that God wants you
to ask him?
What is he surfacing?
What is he looking to heal?
(56:43):
What
means is he using your current situation,
to father you?
In what way is
he fathering you through this particular
geography or context?
There's probably
no more important question and is.
You started this off with, Rich.
(57:06):
How am I in?
How are you inviting me to be a son
here in this place
that I have to invest so much of my life,
even if I don't have vision,
especially if I don't
have a vision for it and for its purpose.
So, rich, I'd like to give
give you
(57:26):
just the last opportunity here
to close this out.
There's something that you would want
to share.
Yeah, I'd love to
my heart for
men like me that this is
speaking to
is this is not a tangential issue.
(57:48):
This is not a minor issue.
This is not something that we tend
to treat it as is.
Like,
I'll just ignore what I do
with most of my day, most of my days.
this can set men on fire
if they can find God
in the places that they go to work.
(58:09):
This is that important.
And so I want to encourage anybody
that has access to their own hearts,
to a community, have the conversation,
ask the questions, talk openly
about what you do, what is happening,
where you are,
what you're being led into,
your frustrations, all of it.
(58:30):
This this can no longer live hidden.
This can no longer be in darkness.
Especially for the hour that we're in.
I want to close, J,
if I can, with a story
and a real life parable. Let's do it.
My life and my career
mentioned I'm in the military,
(58:51):
and I hope that this connects,
with so many.
My life and my career started in earnest
when I became mission qualified.
Being able
to actually do
my job after years and years of training
day, one of my mission certification
training was September 11th, 2001.
(59:11):
The syllabus that we were in that day
took us into,
talking about our enemies,
who they were and,
you know,
basically what they wanted to do,
as adversarial acts towards us.
That was day
one of our certification training.
It was September 11th, 2001.
(59:31):
I woke up
and the place that I was living
and turned on the news and saw it,
and it was that seminal marker for me.
And the instructors started the day with,
whatever we're teaching you,
we have to get through.
But just understand that
all changed today,
and that's been
true for my entire military career.
(59:52):
that what happened
that day changed the landscape
and it defined everything that I did
and everything that I served
for the next two decades.
So just for for younger listeners
here, like my son
will probably be listening to this.
And what you're referring to
is before he was even born.
So what is the event
that you and I could never, ever
(01:00:13):
forget that some people may need
your help referencing?
Yeah, those terrorists that hijacked,
4 commercial airliners
and flew them into
or attempted to fly them into buildings.
So, two planes crashed into the Twin
Towers at the World
Trade Center in New York City.
(01:00:35):
a third crashed into the Pentagon
in Washington, DC,
and a fourth,
indeterminate was bound
somewhere in Washington, DC,
probably the Capitol building
or the white House
or something like that.
It was hijacked.
And then some brave Americans
took over the plane again
from the hijackers
and crashed into a field in Pennsylvania.
It was an act of hate.
It was a desperate like the
(01:00:56):
The imagery
in the things
that even several states away,
that I experienced was heart wrenching.
It's too much tragedy to define.
It was a dark day in the days of America.
And and it defined the fact
that now
we are engaged in a war
against terrorism globally.
(01:01:18):
long gone was
the near
pure power
competition between the United States
and the,
Soviet Union,
and where there was evenly drawn
battle lines.
Now, it was a brave new world.
And, you know,
military service just changed
dramatically and and engaged us
for right or wrong,
and theaters in the Middle East
(01:01:38):
and in Afghanistan and fighting terrorism
wherever we saw it.
And that's been my career.
And it wasn't
but a few years ago
that Robin and I actually went to
Manhattan.
I had never been in New York City before,
and I knew
deep in me
that I wanted to go to ground Zero.
Ground zero
(01:01:59):
is where the twin towers of the World
Trade Center
stood, and 20 years on, they've made it
into an unbelievable memorial
to what happened there.
And every person that perished
there is honored.
They have their name
in very large letters in this memorial.
It's stunning and it's deep and it's
(01:02:20):
there's it's a dark night of
the soul to go there for me.
And one of
the things that I remember
there was so much and it's vibrant now.
It's in a vibrant,
area in the,
you know, southern part of Manhattan.
and there's a lot of art and life
and joy around it and all of that.
We were just walking around
(01:02:41):
and of course, deep tears of,
undescribable emotion
welled up in me just being there.
And I happened to walk
past a tour guide
that was giving a tour to some people.
So I decided to freeload
and he was describing this tree.
(01:03:02):
And anytime
God brings awareness of a tree to me,
he has my attention because so much,
there's so much theology
and so much gospel is preached
through trees like the power of a tree.
Just as an aside,
like one of the heroes of the faith,
brother Lawrence
(01:03:22):
didn't need fancy theology,
and he didn't need fancy teaching
to come to Jesus.
He stared at a tree
that was leafless
in the middle of the winter
for three days, and he contemplated.
And he walked away from that tree
three days later and says, I believe
this lifeless
stick coming out of the ground
will bear fruit in three months.
(01:03:42):
This is impossible without God.
So with that is the context.
there was this tree
and this man told the story
that all the rubble.
Months of excavation had to happen
after these massive skyscrapers and,
all the rubble
that came down
in these 110 story,
structures all crashed down.
(01:04:04):
And they did this
massive work of excavation.
And a worker noticed just a little,
little growth coming out of the ground.
One day.
And something in his heart
just said,
we have to protect this, so he
probably put some cinder blocks around it
and protected it while all the work of,
you know, demolition and, you know,
(01:04:26):
whatever else happened,
there was just one little sapling
just coming up out of the
ground, insignificant.
But 20 years on, it's
a tree that provides shade and leaves
and life and more so
it preaches the gospel to me in that
that tree matters
(01:04:47):
so much to God and its insignificance in
the ground
zero of the tragedy and the warfare
and all that's going on around it.
But it will not be stopped.
And now it is a tree of significance.
It's a tree
that talks about all of the things
that we rallied around on September 12th,
(01:05:09):
the day after the tragedy, that our
our spirit will not be stopped,
life will not be stopped.
We will not live in fear.
We will grow and flourish.
And whatever,
whatever discretion that tree had,
which was none,
it chose to bloom where it was planted
and it chose to find life.
(01:05:30):
And God nourished it.
And now it's strong
and it's significant,
and it has power beyond words.
If God can do that in a tree,
imagine what he can do in a son, that
he takes infinitely more delight in.
(01:05:52):
Will you pray for us?
Close us out. I will.
I want to pray, if I may,
using a prayer
that was given to me,
by one of my brothers, if you'll just,
provide me one moment, pull it up.
(01:06:13):
this is coming from a cowboy
and a wild man
that I'm privileged enough
to share a fire with monthly.
he shared it out of a book of prayers
by a woman named Germaine Copeland.
And this is just riddled with scripture.
So, father,
(01:06:34):
too often I allow urgency
to dictate my schedule.
And I'm asking you to help me
establish priorities in my work.
I confess my weakness
of procrastination
and lack of organization.
My desire is to live purposefully
and worthily and accurately as a wise,
(01:06:57):
sensible, intelligent man.
You have given me a seven day week,
six days to work and seventh day to rest.
I desire
to make the most of the time
buying up each opportunity,
help me plan my day
and stay focused on my assignments
(01:07:17):
in the name of Jesus, I demolish
and smash warped philosophies
concerning time management,
tearing down barriers
directed against the truth of God
and fit every loose thought, emotion,
and impulse
into the structure of life
shaped by Christ.
(01:07:37):
I clear my mind of every obstruction
and build a life of obedience
into maturity.
Father,
you are in charge of my work
and my plans.
I plan the way I want to live,
but you alone make me able to live it.
Help me to organize my efforts, schedule
(01:07:58):
my activities and budget my time.
Jesus, you want me to relax.
It pleases
you when I'm not preoccupied with getting
so I can respond to God's giving.
I know you, Father God, and how you work.
I steep my life in God reality, God
(01:08:21):
initiative, and God provisions.
By the grace given me,
I will not worry about missing out
and my everyday
human concerns will be met.
I purpose in my heart
to seek, aim at and strive after,
First of all, your kingdom, Lord,
(01:08:42):
and your righteousness,
your way of doing and being right.
And then all these things taken together
will be given me besides.
Father, your word is my compass,
and it helps me see my life as complete
in Christ.
I cast all my cares,
worries, and concerns over on you
(01:09:05):
that I might be well balanced, temperate,
sober of mind,
vigilant and cautious at all times.
I tune my ears to the word of wisdom
and set my heart
on a life of understanding.
I make insight my priority.
Father, you sent me, Jesus,
(01:09:26):
that I might have life
and have it more abundantly.
Help me remember that
my relationship with you
and with others are more important
than anything else.
Amen.
Amen.
Is that prayer
some place that we could access it
and put it in the notes?
Yes it is.
(01:09:46):
Okay, so we'll have a
we'll we'll have a link to that prayer
in the, in the show notes here.
Rich.
So good to be with you again.
Thanks, buddy.
What an important conversation.
and I
appreciate the work that you have done,
with God to be where you are
(01:10:08):
and to offer leadership and inspiration,
for a very difficult,
a very difficult source
of wrestling and struggling
for all men and a broken world.
So thank you for your leadership in that.
You've been an example to me.
(01:10:28):
Yeah.
Thank you for leading me
into permission to explore
and to to share this time with you.
I pray that it blesses just one man.
Well, I hope more than that,
but yeah, sure, we'll go for one.
We'll go for one.
Yeah.
So friends,
thank you for joining
Rich and I
as we walk and talk
about BEING SONS in the workplace
(01:10:50):
along this tried and true
road to BEING SONS.
Bless you guys and we'll talk to you
in the next conversation. Bye.
God asks me to be patient with him.
It's a two way relationship in patience
that it's not.
I don't just click on something
in Amazon and I get it,
and he's up
to far more than my human mind
can ever fathom.
He's up to more than I can understand.
And now, at 47 - 20 years
into what
(00:23):
I would call my journey of sonship,
I can say with some confidence
that I needed to go
through 20 years of a journey of sonship
to be able to wield
the power that I do have.
Hey sons,
welcome back for part
two in this discussion
(00:45):
with Rich Pantusa,
if you did not listen to the first half
of this conversation,
I strongly encourage you to do that.
What we are discussing is, how do we,
as sons
with a growing knowledge of the Kingdom,
with a growing kingdom heart,
with a growing revelation,
or with even the curiosity
(01:05):
about our identity, our calling,
in the Kingdom of God,
how do
we wrestle
with being at a post
that we do not understand,
with a post
that is raising issues and desires
and even awakening deep frustrations
that makes us want to exit?
(01:25):
I was
in that position for 14 years of my life,
and I've got so many thoughts about it.
Rich also has so much wisdom about this,
and we want to pass it on to you,
because where you are
and how you wrestle with this tension
is immensely
Important to you now,
(01:47):
to your relationship with God,
to your sense of security,
your peace, your rest, and to the future
that God has for you
because he wants to release you,
but not a moment before you're ready.
So please join Rich and I
and I
as we walk and talk a mile
talking about being sons
in the workplace. Enjoy this ride.
(02:11):
Let's just do bullet points here, okay?
Let's just put ourselves
inside the mind, inside the heart,
because we're both there.
But we're also around
men who are wrestling with this.
You and I have the privilege
of gathering,
around campfires
with men and seeing men in real life.
Okay, so just like bullet points,
a man is in a job that he hates.
(02:33):
Or let's just say he's
feeling deep tension.
What he's feeling is the tension between
what he feels is the sacred versus
the secular.
It's I have to put food on the table,
and I hate where God has put me.
That allows me to put food on the table.
Okay. In bullet points.
(02:55):
What are some of the sentences
that come up in the heart of a man
that reveal
the places inside that man,
that God
is needed to get some work done?
Yeah. That's that...
That in and of itself is a
hours and hours of unpacking.
(03:17):
Exactly, exactly.
Let's, let's do some bullet points.
Yeah.
I have to do this job
so that I can put food on the table.
Yeah
I think Jesus said something I have to.
Yeah. What.
Where did that come from.
What what orphan-ism
is that raising in you?
What agreements are you making with what
(03:40):
about just that I have to do this
to put food on my table.
Because Jesus said something
about what was it? The sparrows?
And they don't worry
where their next meal is coming from.
Well let,
let let's just
focus on the bullet points here
because like without, without
(04:00):
the maturing in our relationship
as sons,
we don't even know
the scripture that ties to it.
At that point.
We just know what's presenting itself
and what's causing the pain and,
and the desire to escape.
Right.
So so yeah, absolutely. So,
I have to.
It feels like a trap.
(04:21):
Okay. I'm trapped.
I hate this job.
Yes.
What about this job?
Do you hate. Right.
Yeah.
Why are you punishing me?
Why are you punishing me?
Why can't I break out?
What did I screw up.
(04:46):
Are you angry at me.
Yes.
That you would put me here.
Am I missing
your purpose for me in my life.
I'm not experiencing
any sense of significance at all
where I am,
everything I'm doing is fruitless
(05:08):
and worthless and insignificant.
Why does this job cost me so much
time, energy, heart-space?
God, I have so much more potential
and I have so much more to give
than what I can give here.
(05:29):
Why am I not somewhere where I can
offer it?
Why can't I be more like him.
Yes.
okay.
In a, in an environment
where I have a kingdom heart
and I'm working with people
without Kingdom Hearts, stuff comes up,
has come up in me like I'm.
(05:53):
I'm better than this.
Yes, I'm.
I'm better than this.
I have a heart for the kingdom.
They do not.
So what's the deal?
Judgment,
ugliness, ugly attitudes
toward other people.
Resentment, unforgiveness.
(06:18):
the decision to isolate,
the decision to separate the decision
that the differences between us
are unbridgeable.
Therefore why try
or worse.
I love Jesus, I'm a good Christian man.
But they don't allow that here.
(06:43):
My Christianity is not allowed here.
I can't play worship music.
I can't have religious icons or verses
posted on my desk.
I can't share my faith,
I can't pray out loud.
I can't do the things that I know
keep me rooted in God.
(07:04):
Okay.
So sons you as you're listening
to these things
that the rich and I are just
reflecting that have all,
I'm assuming
every one of these things
has come up in my heart over the years.
Yeah.
what's coming up in yours.
What would be the ugly
painful
(07:26):
reality
that being in a position
in the workplace,
presents in you?
And the reason
this is such a vital
question is because God will always
allow us to see
the UN fathered places
(07:46):
and give us the option
of whether or not
we're going to invite him into that.
There is there
there are a couple kinds of men.
There's the kind of man that goes
into his workplace and
has a
bitter, hateful attitude toward his,
the people that he works around with,
whether it's
(08:06):
in position above or below him,
and the guy that just says
that's the way that it is.
And in his orphan comparative,
worldview never grows out of that.
And then there's the son who recognizes
this is ugliness in me.
(08:29):
This is brokenness in me.
And instead of
trying to escape
and change the environment,
he has the wisdom
and the discernment to go to God
and to confess what he's feeling and say,
what are you doing?
You're bringing this up in me.
I don't like it.
(08:49):
I'm uncomfortable.
It's an opportunity
to pour our hearts out as sons to him
and say, God,
I don't like
what you're presenting in me, Rich.
I don't think many people know
that God puts us
purposefully in positions
to be miserable,
because the source of that misery is not
(09:10):
where we are.
The source of that
misery is the brokenness
within our souls and God in his kindness,
he puts us in dark places
to help us overcome our fear of darkness.
Yes.
You know,
not because we're sentenced to darkness,
but even in this world
that we're living in, it's a dark world.
(09:31):
I mean, it's, it's God bathed.
He is everywhere, like you were saying.
But
but it's not surprising that
we live in sorrow and in sadness
as we see the brokenness in the world.
But that's not our future at all.
That's that's not the deeper reality
God wants us to to acknowledge
(09:53):
what we're feeling and then say,
God, you're my father.
I need you to teach me.
I need you to father me.
Out of this way of living and into life,
into this joy
and this rest, in this peace
and all this other stuff
that feels inaccessible
where I am in my current position.
So it's not the physical geography.
(10:15):
I will say this.
The physical geography
we should never overlook
as the way that God is.
Opening us to reveal
the internal spiritual
geography of our heart
in the spiritual geography is what
(10:37):
brings about the love
and the joy and the significance
and all the other things
that that help us walk in sonship.
He's just going to use places and jobs
to bring that stuff up.
So let's shift gears a little bit,
because there's two powerful biblical,
(10:58):
pictures of this.
and, and then we can kind of reflect
back on it
because you've,
you've said it
that we're, we're in stages
where being father would being initiated.
There are unfinished places in us
that God is using our work environment.
he can use our work environment to,
to flesh out so,
(11:20):
biblically, it's fascinating
that when you go to Exodus
that when God sent the Israelites.
So you get Abraham, Isaac, Jacob
and their immediate descendants,
which are a small family,
they go to Egypt
(11:42):
to be fed during a famine,
and they end up getting some favor there.
Right?
Everything actually looks like
it's going really, really well.
There's early, early favor
on God's people,
and then they end up being in captivity
for hundreds of years.
Did they screw up?
Did they make a mistake?
(12:03):
Did they not hear God's voice?
Were they not supposed to go back
to Israel?
Like what?
What what what's going on here?
But the fruit is that
there was a famine
in the Promised Land in the end,
in the land of Canaan.
And you've got a bunch of evil
people who were worshiping gods,
and they're laying
(12:24):
their children on sacrifices,
you know, on, on these altars,
and they're sacrificing their children
in the most painful and satanic ways.
And Abraham and his family, Isaac, Jacob,
were basically
exiled to Egypt for a time.
And over the course of their captivity.
(12:45):
This is strange,
because in Babylon and Assyria,
this did not happen.
But in Egypt this did happen,
that the Egypt,
the Egyptians felt
that the Jews were unclean.
So instead of them
being deeply ingratiated in
in the Egyptian culture,
they had geography set aside
(13:06):
over there so that their lives mixed
as little as possible.
So even though Joseph is the second
in command under Pharaoh
and deeply trusted,
they never ate a meal together.
Because in the Egyptian mindset
that would have made the Egyptians
with all of their gods unclean.
So God sends this small family of
his chosen ones
(13:27):
that he's created, promises
he's given, promises to.
He sends them into Egypt,
who enslaves them, puts them to work in
a job that they hate.
But he keeps them outside the camp.
They sleep outside the camp.
They're allowed to worship
outside the camp.
They're about
they're they're allowed
(13:47):
to call in desperation
on the God of their ancestors,
and to remember the promises
that they're under.
And then God sends a deliverer
long after they've been begging,
after generations, way,
way longer than they would ever have.
The courage
to stay
(14:07):
in that level of perceived oppression.
They had no idea what God was doing.
And then God sends a deliverer who comes,
who confronts the enemy.
these chosen people sit back
and they listen to this conversation
that Moses
the deliverer, has with the one
holding them captive.
(14:27):
And he says,
this is what the God of Israel says,
let my people go for these people.
Israel.
This is my firstborn son
that captivated my attention.
And in that moment
that I read that as I
as I read that for the very first time
after being a son
(14:48):
or learning about my experience as a son,
God just said, what you see me taking
Israel through
is exactly
what I'm going to take you through.
Do not think that you're going to escape
the blueprint
for sonship.
So pay close attention
(15:09):
because they're going to struggle
with their new identity,
and I'm going to have to put them
in places
that they're not going to like, so that
eventually they can be
what I've created them to be.
They're my firstborn son.
So, yep, God miraculously delivers them
(15:29):
blood over the doorposts
representing Jesus.
He takes them through the water,
represents baptism.
And then you've got this nation
that has been set free.
And here's the here's here's a beautiful
thing.
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in
their small family
living in, in the land of Canaan.
Could they have become
(15:51):
an army of millions in that environment,
like they would have had
God not sequestered them in Egypt
and given them the land of Goshen
all by themselves,
like they go into captivity
small and weak, and they come out
an entire army that strikes fear
(16:12):
not only into
the surrounding Canaanite nations,
but the gods
that actually empowered
the Canaanite nations.
So there was deep purpose
to what they felt like
was an unfair enslavement.
There's something that God is doing.
And then at the right time,
he calls them out by the blood,
(16:33):
by the water,
by being led
by the Spirit of God into the wilderness.
They're in the wilderness. Right.
And then, yeah,
one of the
things that I've always
been really curious about
is, I remember as a kid when
I learned that
of all the places on the planet
(16:55):
that the Son of God would manifest,
why would it have been the Middle East,
which I felt was the armpit of the world?
I mean, like,
why would he not show up in the hill
country of Texas or,
you know, someplace
that was more beautiful?
I just couldn't wrap my mind around it.
But you continue to follow the story.
What God
(17:17):
did in Israel,
in the nation of Israel, is
he takes them into the wilderness.
He tests them in ways that sound
incredibly familiar to the conversation
that you and I are having.
And he brings them to the place
that the sinfulness in the
the brokenness in their humanity
(17:38):
all gets exposed.
And without God coming through,
they would have been annihilated.
They had no army.
God told them,
you're not allowed to have an army.
You're not allowed to create treaties
with other nations.
All the things
that they would have been tempted to do,
like everybody else, to secure themselves
(18:01):
as a nation. God forbade them to do.
And he said,
you belong to me, and me alone.
I will be your God.
I will be your general.
I will be your protector.
I will be your provider.
I'm going to give manna in the desert.
In other words,
the son, this Son of God
had to go through a season
and there was only one purpose.
(18:21):
Why I say that
I'm generalizing here,
but the ultimate purpose
of that season in the wilderness
was for them to acknowledge
that they could only
rely on God,
that.
All goodness, all protection,
(18:41):
all provision,
everything that they would ever need
is actually available with God.
And they didn't have to sink
to the depths that the world does
to to secure those things for themselves.
So their entire existence
and their sustenance and their provision
and their protection
was supernatural
(19:01):
from the beginning in the wilderness.
And generations had to come
up, generations had to die.
And eventually
God said, now that you've learned
utter dependance on me,
now that you've learned that
though you've wanted to escape,
now I can give you the promised land.
(19:22):
Now I can
go, and I
can put you into a position
in this little sliver
that's being so contested right now
in the world.
Why is the nation of Israel
so under assault?
Why is it so contested?
Why do nations long for it?
And why was it so
strategically important to God?
(19:42):
Well, you've got this little sliver
where you've got an ocean on this side,
and then you've got
the Jordan River on this side,
and then you've got mountains,
and it's this tiny, tiny little
trade route back
then where Africa and Europe
and Asia
all had to travel
through for their goods,
(20:02):
because one region
desperately needed goods
for their culture
to be imported from each of the others.
And so you had this incredible
trade route.
And so God's got them off
in the wilderness
doing something in them,
preparing them to take over
the Promised Land,
(20:24):
knowing that if you don't first know
that you need me for everything,
I cannot trust you
to be the ones guarding
this most precious, most prized
crossroads of trade routes in the world.
Because
they will see how
you are different than them,
(20:45):
and you will have the richest geography
in the world
to then answer the questions and
and preach the goodness of God
so that it gets taken
to the most powerful
and prominent places on the earth.
Like that's that's the story.
Like
(21:05):
in my own life, Rich.
That's what I see God doing.
And as you articulate
what God has been doing in your life,
very simply,
he's bringing you through
uncomfortable places
because he knows that's
the only way
that he can bring you
into the Promised Land
and give you things that otherwise
you would be unable
(21:26):
to handle mentally,
emotionally, spiritually.
It would be way out of your gifting,
your skill sets,
or even your your immaturity could be
the the greatest damaging factor to him
finally giving you
what he most
wants to give you
and what you most want to receive.
(21:47):
We will blow up.
Apart from wrestling with the things
that you and I
have been
talking about
for the last hour and 36 minutes.
Yes.
So that's the story.
That is the story of sonship you know.
So sons, sons I would,
I would welcome you to go back and read
Genesis and Exodus and Leviticus.
(22:08):
And even if you just went
to the Bible project
and looked at their summaries
of the first 4
or 5 chapters of of the story in the
with the lens on that, you're looking
at how God calls his sons forth
and now how he prepares them.
because without proper preparation,
(22:30):
we will collapse.
Without intimacy with God,
we will utterly collapse
under the weight of what
God wants to give us some time
in the future, right?
Right.
that's there's so much in there that is,
thank you
for sharing that the, the
the whole unpacking of it
(22:50):
because I'm sitting here responding
internally to. Yeah.
Oh my
goodness, what you're talking about
is the fact that God
asks me to be patient with him,
just like just like
it's a it's a there's a
two way relationship in patience
(23:13):
that it's not.
I don't just click on something
in Amazon and I get it.
And he's up to far more than my
human mind can ever fathom.
He's up to more than I can understand.
And now at 47 - 20 years into what
I would call my journey of sonship,
I can say with some confidence
(23:35):
that I needed to go through 20 years
of a journey of sonship
to be able to wield
the power that I do have.
Yeah.
and wield it well,
because when I wield it well, I'm
not aware and I'm not striving
and I'm not trying to put
something on or put on a show.
(23:57):
I'm just being me.
And I say that in humility, in the places
that I do wield power.
And I know
with his affirmation that I'm wielding it
well, I'm not posing.
I'm not.
I'm not straining myself to love the
people I'm around. I just do.
And I just
(24:18):
after years of
initiation in my craft, I just do it.
I have a level of expertise that, like,
would not have come in any other method
that involved the shortcut.
So you are now.
Well,
I don't want to put words in your mouth.
Would you say,
would you be able to affirm that you are
(24:40):
at peace in places in your soul now,
where you are not at peace?
When we were in this pit of despair,
even after being invited
into this category of sonship.
Yes,
yes, yes, so much so.
And there's so much more
(25:03):
for him to work out in me.
Yeah, like I, I,
I'm nowhere near there.
I'm not arrived.
But I'm in process
and the things that he has done in me
is more than enough for me
to continue to, to submit.
Yes.
(25:23):
There's more to come,
there's more work to be done.
This isn't a matter of arriving
or gaining mastery.
This is about it.
A journey.
Because if I can skip ahead in the story,
what you're talking about is
what is he preparing us for?
What's the preparation?
What's the goal that I'm in process
to and
(25:44):
what I'm aware of is, like,
we we kind of miss
a lot in the story of what's to come.
And what I've, what I believe
is that whatever it is
that he's gifted me to do, just like,
you know, Morgan teaches us, I am going,
you are going to be a man forever.
(26:07):
You reveal the image of God
as a man uniquely, and you will forever.
You will always and forever be a man.
That's who God created you to be.
And so that extends into
so many other things
in terms of gifting
and passion and creativity and what we
what he's uniquely designed us to be able
(26:28):
to do and release into the world
will go on forever.
It will go on.
And he's initiating us in,
even in the crafts that we're doing.
Because another truth that I'm aware of
is there's no legitimate career.
There's no legitimate
job or vocation out there
that doesn't serve what he promised us
(26:51):
in revelation.
And what Jesus said
is coming in the coming kingdom.
There's no job, there's no career,
there's no gifting.
Even warriors
where we believe that
the enemy will lay down
his arms, there's, there is a task,
a job, work that we will do for eternity
(27:14):
because we make the assumption
when he says he's
going to renew all things,
that the restoration of all things
is going to happen
in one flash bulb,
like we're just going to have bright
light get blinded.
And then when we come back,
into our senses,
everything's going to be restored.
I don't think that's true.
(27:37):
I think
that the
renewal of this earth
in the God's original design
and plan is going to be done with us.
We're going to restore this earth
into what we want it to be, in union
with our creator who created it for us.
He's going to use the skills
(27:58):
and talents that he's uniquely
given to me,
and the skills and talents
that he's uniquely given to you and Bob
and Jim, and to Isaiah
and to the heroes of our faith
and to the men that lived silent lives of
of submission
to God, like this whole army of men
(28:20):
are going to restore
this earth, and women
and will do that forever.
That's how we are going to reign
and do it in love.
He's preparing us now
to be
able to handle
that kind of power and rule
well for eternity.
Yeah.
So he's he's not very concerned
(28:43):
with the sharpening
of our skill sets near
so much as he is concerned
with the sharpening of our character
and our submission and our humility
and our ability to trust him,
because we're going to be
in an environment where
the tree of life
is going to be there again.
(29:03):
And the invitation and the joy
is all going to be
about partnership with him.
Building and who knows?
I mean,
I don't know what
we would have to protect any anyway.
There's a lot of questions around
what the coming Kingdom looks like.
But yeah, I agree with you for sure.
Dallas Willard,
(29:24):
you know, talks about
training for reigning.
That's what is going on right here.
And that's that's a hard pill to swallow
when you're in a job that you
you feel like you hate.
Or that feels right.
Pointless. Yeah.
Well, let's reflect,
let's let's close this out.
with a reflection of the one
(29:45):
that God sent us to be the model
and the pattern.
Because while God sent us Israel.
And that's really helpful,
they made a ton of mistakes
along the way.
And, that was God's first born son.
But also, we get the incredible benefit
of being able to see
God's only begotten son, his unique son,
(30:08):
here on earth, doing it well.
And,
so yeah, let's reflect on
Jesus, the very first podcast that
I ever did,
was about
what I felt was an invitation from God
to think about the life of Jesus
in ways that I never had before.
(30:29):
And it is so applicable to where we are
because.
In Hebrews,
I'll say it this way I grew up.
With enough exposure to the church
(30:49):
to consider Jesus life as a mystery,
and I had the impression
before reading through Scripture
that Jesus was able to sail through life
without a lot of problems.
You know,
I remember
watching the show Bewitched as a kid,
and she can,
(31:10):
you know, twinkle and blink her eyes
and shake her head and her hips
and whatever
she wants to manifest,
she's able to manifest.
And I,
I put this hybrid of Jesus,
the Son of God,
a human,and genie together.
And I thought, well,
he's up on the cross
and he's faking the whole pain thing
(31:31):
because clearly
anybody in their right mind
who had the ability
to take the pain
of those spikes in his hands
and his feet away is going to do that,
and he's just going to go through it
almost as some sort of a
a picture or it's just a play,
you know, when he's playing
the role of an actor.
And I
read through
(31:51):
as I was reading through Hebrews,
it said that he is able
to identify with everything,
every pain, every trial.
That you and I
have to wrestle with which challenge
and challenges me.
And you, I'm sure.
(32:12):
Well, what did he know about
being at a job that he didn't like?
Like, where is that?
And I confess with great candor,
my immaturity
and how little I had ever considered,
the way that God.
Presents Jesus story
(32:34):
up until the moment he's at the river.
And John the Baptist is,
is baptizing him,
you know,
when he's commissioned into into the work
for which he was created.
but let's just go back
through that story again, because we've
we are meant to find ourselves
in that story
in the same way that Jesus came.
(32:55):
So that he could come
and enter into our story,
we get to enter into his.
Yep.
0 to 12 years old.
His dad's following - his earthly dad,
Joseph is just
responding to dreams
that God speaks to him in,
and he's skirting death.
(33:16):
And Mary is given visitation by angels
like supernatural visitations
for you know,
mom and dad to guide this boy and
and then at the age of 12,
he's in the temple.
And, that's the age, exactly the age
where the gifted young students
(33:38):
would have been invited to become rabbis
and become the premier figure
in in the entire Israelite community.
There's no political figures,
there's no potentates, there's no kings,
because they're under the Roman.
They're under,
they're in Roman occupation. Okay.
But the highest person
(33:59):
would have been a Pharisee,
and Jesus could easily
have taken that position.
And I even wonder
if Jesus at times wanted that position,
if that's maybe he just thought he may.
Is Jesus going along
and just trusting his heavenly Father
to tell him which way to go,
(34:19):
whether you turn to the
right or the left,
this your ears will hear a voice
behind you saying, walk in it.
And going back to what
you were saying earlier,
there could have been multiple ways
that God
actually channeled Jesus energies
to help him
mature to the point where he was able
to do what
you know he did on the cross for us.
(34:41):
But it's staggering to think about
what was going through the mind
and the heart.
How much did
Jesus actually have to wrestle
with his father knowing the path and him
not knowing the path?
What stands out to you in Jesus story?
Yeah, yeah.
Thank you for raising it.
I'm struck
because this was
(35:02):
one of the most transformational,
journeys that God ever
has invited me
into in the life of Jesus,
because it starts
with the reality
that the whole tribal system
that you talked about,
that was set up
in the Promised Land continued on.
Yeah, tribal system
and the nation of Israel continued
(35:22):
until Jesus's time.
And it mattered.
It mattered deeply
to the identity of God's chosen nation
and the people that were in it.
And so if we were to make the assumption
that Jesus was like you said, sort of,
you know, given unbelievable privilege,
(35:43):
then he would have been born as a Levite,
and he would have been born
into the line of those
that were assigned full time to steward,
the temple,
steward God's
word and steward his people
right, and set apart.
He would have been born into that world.
And lo and behold,
what we miss
so much is the fact that he wasn't,
(36:04):
he was a from the line of David,
which was the throne of
it was the tribe of Judah,
which was, you know,
they were warrior culture
and they were normal.
They were very,
the sort of blue collar, if you will.
Jesus was not born into a line
of holiness, necessarily,
as those set apart. He was like us.
And so he had to contend with the things
(36:24):
you just described
in his childhood of like, yes, okay.
His parents had
unbelievable faith
and unbelievable provision
from God
to protect this boy and to protect them.
And then he arrived,
like our buddy
Morgan likes to point out, as a teenager
with all of the teenage
(36:44):
trappings of self-centeredness,
which is not a sin
at the temple,
to sort of reveal and try on his power
and try on his authority, that he has.
And it was astonishing right.
And then,
like you were talking about
God leading us into darkness,
(37:05):
what happened is your interpretation.
But something happened that they left,
and he left with his parents
at the age of 12.
And the next time we hear about him
is 18 years later when he's 30
and he's at the wedding at Cana,
and he's
being baptized by John the Baptist
(37:27):
and all that,
there's an 18 year gap
in what theologians
say is a 33 year life span.
That's over 50%.
Over half of his life is in complete
hiddenness.
It's a mystery.
We don't really know what the
Dailies look like.
(37:47):
And the fascinating thing
is, I've asked a lot of people
that know a lot about Scripture
and theologians
and pastors and ministers,
and as far as I know, there's
nothing recorded
about the life of Jesus from 12 to 18
to to 30. Nothing.
There's no like just, you know,
journal entries or,
you know, a historical documentation
(38:08):
that says that this man did
anything of massive import.
He was not an important man
in his teens, in his 20s.
What was he doing?
Well, the reality is he was working.
He was, as you say, a tektōn.
He was working for his dad
(38:29):
some point, took over the
the family business.
He did it for 18 years and whatever
that look like,
whatever the details are,
let's not get mixed up in it.
He worked, he produced a product.
He sold it in the marketplace.
He helped other people
and what is profoundly impactful to me is
(38:51):
he wasn't tiptoeing through the tulips.
And he wasn't just
doing this to mark
time till 30 was some age of authority
and power,
and people would recognize him
as a grown man.
Those 18 years,
the majority of his life, was
necessary for his initiation.
(39:12):
It was
necessary for him to
contend with his humanity,
to contend
with all of the trappings
of being a human,
and the divine power
that he held in his heart,
that he held in his body
that was contained in his identity.
He had to contend with all that
for that majority of his life,
(39:32):
so that he could be
the man that we see in the Gospels.
So that he could wield his heart
and he could learn the rhythms of life
and he could learn
like so many questions come up,
so many questions about how Jesus,
how did Jesus learn how to do that?
(39:54):
How did like for instance,
one of the things
that is profound to me is
he was the Jesus
created everything in this planet.
He created the planet
and everything in it.
He was the
artisan that created the earth
and imbued it with life.
This is all his design
and he takes his deity
(40:19):
and he constrains it into a human body.
At some point,
he had to deal with the limits
that two hands and two feet can,
can constrain you to either
deal with that he to learn how to say no.
And he had to practice saying no.
He had to learn how to say yes.
He had to learn how to give consent
and how to withdraw
(40:40):
all the rhythms of his life,
of engaging and retreating.
And things are getting too big for him.
He withdrew and
entrusted into his father's care.
All of that had to be trained.
All of it had to be learned.
He didn't just show
up on the planet with like, you know, the
all the gifting
and all the understanding that he needed,
(41:00):
he needed to go through, like you said,
so that he could understand.
Rich, like he
he had to go through
what you and I are talking about.
Yeah.
And he did what
you and I must learn to do.
And that is to take the pain
and all of the, the crap
(41:23):
that our unhappiness.
that our jobs surfaces,
all of that
unhappiness, all the lack of peace,
the joy, the questions,
the comparisons, all that other stuff.
We have to take that
to God and say,
(41:43):
what do I do with this?
How would you have me handle this?
What is your counsel?
What are you doing in me?
And to consider that Jesus spent
those 18 years
and in the amount of energy.
Well, I say the energy,
the amount of wisdom,
intentionality
(42:04):
on God's part to leave that 18 years
in Scripture
with absolutely nothing said about it
actually says a ton.
It's meant to drive us to ask
what on earth was happening in
you those 18 years,
and to create the parallel
in our own lives where we feel like
(42:27):
we're not doing anything
that's making any difference?
How do I get there?
How do I get that right?
Well, Jesus,
Jesus story has that baked in.
You know,
Yeah, it doesn't make any sense, does it?
You're going to you're going to
not at first.
(42:47):
Your son in,
you're going to release
your son into the world.
And, you know, his time is limited,
even just by the fact that he's a human,
but he's going to cause such a stir
and he's going to offend so many people
that they're eventually
going to execute him.
And it's going to happen really quick.
It doesn't make sense that you take
what you know to be about a 33
(43:07):
year lifespan, and 90% of it
is given to his initiation,
so that it's not spectacular
event after spectacular event
after miracle
after miracle after miracle.
90% of that
precious time on this earth
to save the whole planet,
(43:28):
to save humanity once and for all.
To announce the arrival
of the Kingdom of God and 90% of it.
He just puts and hides
it under under the
the cloak of initiation
and taking the hard questions to God
as a human being,
how am I supposed to deal with this
(43:52):
like God, father in heaven?
I'm reading the scriptures
and you're revealing to me
that I'm supposed to be
the guy that does this, I'm afraid.
What if I fail?
Who's here that understands me?
There's nobody that I can share this with
that even can comprehend.
(44:15):
I mean, even
his closest friends had no idea
what was going on.
Probably his closest confidant
in the only person
that he had that
even who could barely understand
what Jesus was going through was his mom.
Which is probably why
the father used his mom to release him
into ministry
and reveal his glory
(44:36):
at the wedding of Cana,
because it was the kindest way, you know,
could be very,
very well be that Jesus knew.
This is the only person that I can trust.
And if my mom is saying this,
she's actually speaking
the words of the father
to me to release me into
what?
Probably at the age of 12,
he might have been excited about.
But over the 18 years
(44:56):
he matured enough to realize this,
the cost of this
is
is enormous.
You know, we want power until we know
what it's going to cost.
We want influence
until we know what it's going to cost us.
And then
we begin to be hesitant about it.
(45:18):
And hopefully we've got the maturity
to enter into the promised land
and to be able to steward it well.
But until we understand
what it's going to cost
us, we're not ready for it.
Yes, same thing with Jesus.
He wasn't ready for it
until he knew
what it was going to cost him.
Yeah.
And and that was a beautiful moment.
That speaks volumes to me.
Where, dear woman, why do you bother me?
(45:39):
My time has not yet come.
let's take
all the religious drapery off of that.
Let's take all of the nonsense
and all of the lies and toxicity
out of that,
and listen to his heart for a second,
because what I hear
in what he says is he's arrived,
so initiated and so affirmed,
(45:59):
like you said, aware of the cost,
that he loved what he had been doing
for the last 18 years, so much
that he would have
rather kept doing that.
He would have rather stayed hidden
doing tektōn work, stone masonry,
(46:21):
whatever that is
in that world, in that community.
He loved that to
the point that he didn't.
Actually, he resisted the push of now
it's time for you to reveal yourself.
That's disruptive.
For me, it is.
I mean, I'm
not saying then that
what's that is what happened.
(46:41):
We don't know.
I mean,
I just love the mystery of it
because that's a strong possibility.
And, you know,
you and I have seen that beautiful clip
in Gladiator where the emperor comes to,
to Maximus,
who's proven on the field of battle.
He's a man.
He's an initiated man in in the position
that's about to be open.
(47:02):
Requires
a man who's been initiated to take it
because there's.
Because they're his son, Marcus Aurelius.
His son is too immature,
and he will destroy people,
and his power will be used
for his own good.
And so he comes to the humble servant
who he wishes had been his son,
but is not,
and says,
I have one last task for you
(47:23):
before I go, before I die, what is it?
I want you to become the Caesar.
When I'm gone.
And then you see,
like the heart
of a truly initiated man
who understands the weight,
who says with all my heart
no.
(47:45):
And then the emperor is able
to look him in the eye
and say your response.
That is why it has to be you.
Because you know what it will cost you.
You know the importance of it
and any man
who does not have the same response
that you just had to me
is unworthy of that position.
(48:05):
And I think God has to bring all of us
to that, to the man who thinks
I have to go into ministry because,
like full time ministry
or somehow
that that will never find
their significance or their,
their, their calling in the place
(48:26):
where they are,
they're in a dangerous spot
until they come to the place
that you have described,
going from that place of tension
and anger to the place of peace,
even though you don't have
all the answers, like we have no business
being released to do what we want to do
(48:46):
until we are set free
to do
what God wants us to do, where we are.
Yeah. You're you're.
Yes, absolutely.
And I just want to like,
extend on that
thought for a second
because I'm going to borrow
a phrase that,
Morgan uses a lot
when they talk about men
going on vacation. Right.
The problem
(49:06):
with me
going on vacation is that I go with me.
right.
It's also true of exactly
what you're describing.
And let's broaden
the topic here for a second
and not just talk about, okay,
I need to leave where I'm at
because this is soul crushing
and like
getting rid of that superficial run away
from that kind of feeling and say, well,
(49:28):
I just need to get out of here
and go do something else.
I need to self initiate
and be an entrepreneur,
or I need to write a book,
whatever it is
that is like the alternative
that's out there.
And this is not a message on like,
don't ever quit your job.
This is a
this is the conversation is around God,
what are you up to
and what I'm where you
have me planted right now.
(49:50):
And wait
for the that term of like God
I will leave when you make it
impossible for me to stay instead
and with that in mind, the problem
with bailing
or leaving
where you're at or leaving your post
to go
do something else,
is that you go with you.
(50:13):
And what I have observed, both in my life
and in plenty of other men’s lives, is
if these issues that God is raising to
for us
to bring our questions back to him,
if that's short circuited in any way,
you're never going to find your peace.
You're never going to find
that level of maturity.
(50:35):
You're never going to find it.
In trying to just bail on the context
that you're in,
because you're going to
take all that with you.
All of
those unanswered questions go with you,
all of your all of your disappointment,
all of your wounding,
all of your heartache, all of that
(50:56):
that is lacking goes with you
in the same way
that a man leaves his wife
to look for a better wife,
the chances of the second marriage
are disastrous.
right.
The chances of of the survival,
the success of the second marriage
(51:17):
are disastrous in a third marriage.
And a fourth marriage
just gets more and more atrocious. Why?
It's because marriage
is meant to bring up
the painful stuff,
so that it's an environment
where God can deal with it
and he can bring us into maturity.
You know,
in the same way
that guys come into their 30s
and their 40s and their 50s
and they have, quote unquote,
the midlife crisis and
(51:39):
they do something really, really
drastic in hopes
that it's going to change their situation
and make them happy.
But as you
said, problem
is they take themselves with themselves.
And, and God is going,
as Dan Allender says,
don't waste your pain
if you're feeling pain where you are,
well then that's
what you need to deal with.
(52:00):
Bring it to God
and let him deal with the pain.
You come to a place of peace
and we make much better decisions
when we're at peace.
Yes, yes.
And it's it's a self
it's a self-serving cycle.
You take your questions to God
and he
leads you into adventure
to find his heart and find his answers
(52:22):
so that you can be at peace
so that you can hear
his voice more clearly. Yes,
so that you contend with
bigger and deeper things
and you can find more of yourself
in more of his presence
and in union with him.
It's it's a process.
And to slap a term like that on
(52:43):
it seems unkind because we in
especially us in the workplace,
want to get there. We want shortcuts.
We want to find our way,
give us the steps
and tell me that I'm doing it well.
And God, like you said,
is not all that interested in the next
two years
(53:04):
because he's planning for an eternity.
Yeah.
You say that,
but you probably are of the practice
of at the beginning of the year,
we can go to God and say what
can you give me
just a little piece of your heart for me.
What would you like for me to cling to?
What's an advance word for the year?
(53:26):
And that is a rescue.
And oftentimes that is a
that is an invitation
through our work life,
through our family life,
to cling to
him and allow our hearts to be changed.
You know, hopefully at the end of
of the year, he's grown some,
father place in us to be able to handle,
(53:50):
stuff well.
And, yeah.
So we didn't we didn't, we didn't...
I loved hearing about your story,
and and there's just so many things
about my own story
that I just say yes, yes, yes and amen.
But, oh,
my goodness,
I've wrestled
with everything that you're
talking about,
rich, and in my own, you know, unique way,
(54:13):
unique story.
And I wouldn't trade.
I wouldn't trade the 14 years
that I was doing a job
that I wanted out of for anything
because of the benefit of it,
because that's what changed me.
And I needed that to be where I am today.
And I,
and I also needed the
(54:33):
long story,
because there are days
where I do not want to be
where I am today.
I want to be doing something
else, you know?
But there's something about knowing
with great clarity
that you are exactly
where God has called you to be,
and that you have
gone through
what we've been talking about.
atmospheres and geographies were really,
(54:54):
really difficult.
And God,
and you learn to work together
as partners to get through it.
I mean, you
nothing can take that away from you.
The devil can easily
steal the faith from somebody
who does not have
that intimate
relationship and journey with God, but
man. Like what?
What you and I have in terms of
(55:17):
and what many of you out there
have as well as sons, is,
you have a story.
You have a story with God.
You have a testimony.
You can testify with,
You can testify
about this story
(55:37):
in the same way that, you know,
the richest testifying about him now.
So anyway,
it's of is of incredible importance.
So, friends, I,
sons, I want
I hope that this was encouraging to you.
I know it doesn't,
answer every question,
but I do pray that you can find,
and discover that you are not alone
in the things
that you have been wrestling with.
(56:01):
by no means that
nothing has come upon you.
That is uncommon to man.
and nothing that you are experiencing
where you are was even uncommon to Jesus.
And what, what a what a relief that is.
So I, I do pray that God has met
(56:21):
you and has offered,
if not an answer,
maybe what's even better
is a better question for you to be asking
in this hour.
What is the question that God wants you
to ask him?
What is he surfacing?
What is he looking to heal?
(56:43):
What
means is he using your current situation,
to father you?
In what way is
he fathering you through this particular
geography or context?
There's probably
no more important question and is.
You started this off with, Rich.
(57:06):
How am I in?
How are you inviting me to be a son
here in this place
that I have to invest so much of my life,
even if I don't have vision,
especially if I don't
have a vision for it and for its purpose.
So, rich, I'd like to give
give you
(57:26):
just the last opportunity here
to close this out.
There's something that you would want
to share.
Yeah, I'd love to
my heart for
men like me that this is
speaking to
is this is not a tangential issue.
(57:48):
This is not a minor issue.
This is not something that we tend
to treat it as is.
Like,
I'll just ignore what I do
with most of my day, most of my days.
this can set men on fire
if they can find God
in the places that they go to work.
(58:09):
This is that important.
And so I want to encourage anybody
that has access to their own hearts,
to a community, have the conversation,
ask the questions, talk openly
about what you do, what is happening,
where you are,
what you're being led into,
your frustrations, all of it.
(58:30):
This this can no longer live hidden.
This can no longer be in darkness.
Especially for the hour that we're in.
I want to close, J,
if I can, with a story
and a real life parable. Let's do it.
My life and my career
mentioned I'm in the military,
(58:51):
and I hope that this connects,
with so many.
My life and my career started in earnest
when I became mission qualified.
Being able
to actually do
my job after years and years of training
day, one of my mission certification
training was September 11th, 2001.
(59:11):
The syllabus that we were in that day
took us into,
talking about our enemies,
who they were and,
you know,
basically what they wanted to do,
as adversarial acts towards us.
That was day
one of our certification training.
It was September 11th, 2001.
(59:31):
I woke up
and the place that I was living
and turned on the news and saw it,
and it was that seminal marker for me.
And the instructors started the day with,
whatever we're teaching you,
we have to get through.
But just understand that
all changed today,
and that's been
true for my entire military career.
(59:52):
that what happened
that day changed the landscape
and it defined everything that I did
and everything that I served
for the next two decades.
So just for for younger listeners
here, like my son
will probably be listening to this.
And what you're referring to
is before he was even born.
So what is the event
that you and I could never, ever
(01:00:13):
forget that some people may need
your help referencing?
Yeah, those terrorists that hijacked,
4 commercial airliners
and flew them into
or attempted to fly them into buildings.
So, two planes crashed into the Twin
Towers at the World
Trade Center in New York City.
(01:00:35):
a third crashed into the Pentagon
in Washington, DC,
and a fourth,
indeterminate was bound
somewhere in Washington, DC,
probably the Capitol building
or the white House
or something like that.
It was hijacked.
And then some brave Americans
took over the plane again
from the hijackers
and crashed into a field in Pennsylvania.
It was an act of hate.
It was a desperate like the
(01:00:56):
The imagery
in the things
that even several states away,
that I experienced was heart wrenching.
It's too much tragedy to define.
It was a dark day in the days of America.
And and it defined the fact
that now
we are engaged in a war
against terrorism globally.
(01:01:18):
long gone was
the near
pure power
competition between the United States
and the,
Soviet Union,
and where there was evenly drawn
battle lines.
Now, it was a brave new world.
And, you know,
military service just changed
dramatically and and engaged us
for right or wrong,
and theaters in the Middle East
(01:01:38):
and in Afghanistan and fighting terrorism
wherever we saw it.
And that's been my career.
And it wasn't
but a few years ago
that Robin and I actually went to
Manhattan.
I had never been in New York City before,
and I knew
deep in me
that I wanted to go to ground Zero.
Ground zero
(01:01:59):
is where the twin towers of the World
Trade Center
stood, and 20 years on, they've made it
into an unbelievable memorial
to what happened there.
And every person that perished
there is honored.
They have their name
in very large letters in this memorial.
It's stunning and it's deep and it's
(01:02:20):
there's it's a dark night of
the soul to go there for me.
And one of
the things that I remember
there was so much and it's vibrant now.
It's in a vibrant,
area in the,
you know, southern part of Manhattan.
and there's a lot of art and life
and joy around it and all of that.
We were just walking around
(01:02:41):
and of course, deep tears of,
undescribable emotion
welled up in me just being there.
And I happened to walk
past a tour guide
that was giving a tour to some people.
So I decided to freeload
and he was describing this tree.
(01:03:02):
And anytime
God brings awareness of a tree to me,
he has my attention because so much,
there's so much theology
and so much gospel is preached
through trees like the power of a tree.
Just as an aside,
like one of the heroes of the faith,
brother Lawrence
(01:03:22):
didn't need fancy theology,
and he didn't need fancy teaching
to come to Jesus.
He stared at a tree
that was leafless
in the middle of the winter
for three days, and he contemplated.
And he walked away from that tree
three days later and says, I believe
this lifeless
stick coming out of the ground
will bear fruit in three months.
(01:03:42):
This is impossible without God.
So with that is the context.
there was this tree
and this man told the story
that all the rubble.
Months of excavation had to happen
after these massive skyscrapers and,
all the rubble
that came down
in these 110 story,
structures all crashed down.
(01:04:04):
And they did this
massive work of excavation.
And a worker noticed just a little,
little growth coming out of the ground.
One day.
And something in his heart
just said,
we have to protect this, so he
probably put some cinder blocks around it
and protected it while all the work of,
you know, demolition and, you know,
(01:04:26):
whatever else happened,
there was just one little sapling
just coming up out of the
ground, insignificant.
But 20 years on, it's
a tree that provides shade and leaves
and life and more so
it preaches the gospel to me in that
that tree matters
(01:04:47):
so much to God and its insignificance in
the ground
zero of the tragedy and the warfare
and all that's going on around it.
But it will not be stopped.
And now it is a tree of significance.
It's a tree
that talks about all of the things
that we rallied around on September 12th,
(01:05:09):
the day after the tragedy, that our
our spirit will not be stopped,
life will not be stopped.
We will not live in fear.
We will grow and flourish.
And whatever,
whatever discretion that tree had,
which was none,
it chose to bloom where it was planted
and it chose to find life.
(01:05:30):
And God nourished it.
And now it's strong
and it's significant,
and it has power beyond words.
If God can do that in a tree,
imagine what he can do in a son, that
he takes infinitely more delight in.
(01:05:52):
Will you pray for us?
Close us out. I will.
I want to pray, if I may,
using a prayer
that was given to me,
by one of my brothers, if you'll just,
provide me one moment, pull it up.
(01:06:13):
this is coming from a cowboy
and a wild man
that I'm privileged enough
to share a fire with monthly.
he shared it out of a book of prayers
by a woman named Germaine Copeland.
And this is just riddled with scripture.
So, father,
(01:06:34):
too often I allow urgency
to dictate my schedule.
And I'm asking you to help me
establish priorities in my work.
I confess my weakness
of procrastination
and lack of organization.
My desire is to live purposefully
and worthily and accurately as a wise,
(01:06:57):
sensible, intelligent man.
You have given me a seven day week,
six days to work and seventh day to rest.
I desire
to make the most of the time
buying up each opportunity,
help me plan my day
and stay focused on my assignments
(01:07:17):
in the name of Jesus, I demolish
and smash warped philosophies
concerning time management,
tearing down barriers
directed against the truth of God
and fit every loose thought, emotion,
and impulse
into the structure of life
shaped by Christ.
(01:07:37):
I clear my mind of every obstruction
and build a life of obedience
into maturity.
Father,
you are in charge of my work
and my plans.
I plan the way I want to live,
but you alone make me able to live it.
Help me to organize my efforts, schedule
(01:07:58):
my activities and budget my time.
Jesus, you want me to relax.
It pleases
you when I'm not preoccupied with getting
so I can respond to God's giving.
I know you, Father God, and how you work.
I steep my life in God reality, God
(01:08:21):
initiative, and God provisions.
By the grace given me,
I will not worry about missing out
and my everyday
human concerns will be met.
I purpose in my heart
to seek, aim at and strive after,
First of all, your kingdom, Lord,
(01:08:42):
and your righteousness,
your way of doing and being right.
And then all these things taken together
will be given me besides.
Father, your word is my compass,
and it helps me see my life as complete
in Christ.
I cast all my cares,
worries, and concerns over on you
(01:09:05):
that I might be well balanced, temperate,
sober of mind,
vigilant and cautious at all times.
I tune my ears to the word of wisdom
and set my heart
on a life of understanding.
I make insight my priority.
Father, you sent me, Jesus,
(01:09:26):
that I might have life
and have it more abundantly.
Help me remember that
my relationship with you
and with others are more important
than anything else.
Amen.
Amen.
Is that prayer
some place that we could access it
and put it in the notes?
Yes it is.
(01:09:46):
Okay, so we'll have a
we'll we'll have a link to that prayer
in the, in the show notes here.
Rich.
So good to be with you again.
Thanks, buddy.
What an important conversation.
and I
appreciate the work that you have done,
with God to be where you are
(01:10:08):
and to offer leadership and inspiration,
for a very difficult,
a very difficult source
of wrestling and struggling
for all men and a broken world.
So thank you for your leadership in that.
You've been an example to me.
(01:10:28):
Yeah.
Thank you for leading me
into permission to explore
and to to share this time with you.
I pray that it blesses just one man.
Well, I hope more than that,
but yeah, sure, we'll go for one.
We'll go for one.
Yeah.
So friends,
thank you for joining
Rich and I
as we walk and talk
about BEING SONS in the workplace
(01:10:50):
along this tried and true
road to BEING SONS.
Bless you guys and we'll talk to you
in the next conversation. Bye.
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