The principal focus of this podcast episode revolves around the critical importance of soul care, particularly for leaders navigating the complexities of their roles. Our distinguished guest, Mindy Caliguire, a prominent figure in the realm of spiritual formation, shares profound insights into the necessity of understanding the state of one's soul amidst the demands of leadership. Throughout our conversation, we explore the tendency of leaders to prioritize a superficial sense of happiness over authentic emotional experiences, which can hinder genuine healing and growth. Mindy articulates the concept of "spiritual bypassing," wherein individuals attempt to evade painful emotions by resorting to platitudes or quick fixes, ultimately depriving themselves of the opportunity for deeper healing. This episode serves as a clarion call for leaders to cultivate environments where vulnerability is welcomed and where true spiritual connection can flourish, thereby fostering resilience and holistic well-being in their personal and professional lives.

Takeaways:

• The state of one's soul is crucial for effective leadership and personal health.
• Leaders often struggle to allow others to experience their full range of emotions.
• True healing requires walking through painful experiences rather than avoiding them.
• Spiritual friendships are essential for personal growth and community support.
• We must challenge the notion that leaders should always maintain a happy facade.
• Recognizing the importance of humility helps leaders connect authentically with others.

Hey there and welcome back to the Clarity Podcast.

This podcast is all about providing clarity, insight and encouragement for life in mission.

And my name is Aaron Sandemier and I get to be your host.

Today we have the phenomenal opportunity to have with us on the podcast Mindy Caliguire.

She leads Soul Care and I got to meet her in Orlando at Ms. You Nexus.

She was doing a teaching on soul care and the importance of it specifically for leaders and just found it to be insightful and valuable.

Got her book, read her book and just was excited to have her on the podcast.

So we get to sit down and learn from her today.

Insightful.

I ask a question that she talks about in the book, this idea of what is the state of your soul and why that is so important in the world we live in today we talk about the Many listeners in the podcast have heard me talk before about my struggle with only wanting my family to be in the happy zone, right?

Not to feel any of the other feelings or emotions, but one is to stick in one place, just everybody to be happy.

And she unpacked the importance of being able to walk through seasons so that healing can take place.

And I ask her some questions about leaders.

And sometimes leaders.

We want people to move through situations quickly because we feel awkward, we feel maybe inadequate or maybe have some insecurities.

And I would sign me up for all three of those at times in my life where I've just tried to move people through things because I was uncomfortable with their feelings and their emotions and I just wanted to get to a happy place and to make it sound better so that we can move.

But she gives some challenging things for leaders to understand that for true healing to take place, a lot of times people have to be able to walk through pain and if we try to fix it, then they don't have that opportunity for the healing that comes from our Heavenly Father, who comes from Jesus Christ.

For us to be healed, it needs us to be able to walk through those painful times and walk in those painful feelings and emotions.

You'll love Mindy.

She's a phenomenal communicator.

She does a phenomenal job of weaving in stories and it was just a joy to have her on the podcast.

Do want to ask you to continue to subscribe to the podcast and do the podcasts I subscribe to are the ones I listen to and they're the ones that show up on my feed on Monday and Tuesday and know when I'm going to be listened to throughout the week.

Also continue sending Your questions for back to Adam Foth.

That's where we get to sit down with Dick Foth.

Get to learn from him.

And it's just been a joy to have Dick on the podcast.

Well, there's no time better than now to get started.

So here we go.

Greetings and welcome back to the Clarity Podcast.

So excited to be here today with a new friend that I got to meet in Orlando, Florida.

Mindy, welcome to the podcast.

Thanks.

Glad to be here, Aaron.

Mindy, I got to spend some time learning from you at Mission Nexus and it was valuable for me as I shared before I hit record, I got to read your book.

So I feel like somewhat I know you from a distance, but probably the people listening in maybe haven't got the opportunity to read your book yet or they probably weren't at Mission Nexus getting learned from you.

So you share a little bit about yourself and then I have a list of questions for you.

Oh yeah, happy to.

Happy to.

I wish I could turn the tables and get to learn about you too, but maybe another time.

Sure.

So, friends.

Hey.

I have been in ministry most of my adult life.

I now live in Boulder, Colorado, which has beautiful views of the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains in the United States.

My journey into ministry began many years ago.

My husband and I were church planting interns at Willow Creek Community Church.

Then we were church planters into Boston, which is a little bit like being a missionary.

Not the same, but very similar in some ways.

And then, and then midway through, that was how I really came into my understanding of the priority of the care of the soul.

So we'll probably talk about that today.

In the years since I've had the opportunity to serve back at Willow Creek in the area of spiritual formation and then at the Willow Creek association in the area of transformation, helping churches think about that.

And then I got brought to Boulder, Colorado through a technology firm that I worked at for a long time that also cares a ton about human flourishing and people in ministry.

So anyway, that's me now.

And now I'm full time with Soul Care.

My team and I, every day at soulcare.com, we are trying to figure out how to give as much lift to this topic globally as we possibly can.

And we believe we're part of a wave of healing that the Lord is bringing.

So I'm really honored to be with you all today.

Thanks, Erin, for the invite and excited.

And I appreciate your passion and it's, it's contagious.

So I'm going to jump in and Ask you some questions.

Yeah.

So in your book, you talk about the importance of asking this question, what is the state of your soul?

So what.

What are some reasons that is such a vital question?

Well, you know, for many who are listening in ministry, especially in an evangelical context, which is, I'm going to guess, you know, not a political sense, but a spiritual or a theological sense, the only time we talked about the human soul was with reference to its eternal destiny.

And so many of us are involved in highly evangelistic organizations, and rightly so, that's a good thing.

But it kind of can have an unintended sort of consequence in that we only talk about the soul, again with reference to its eternal destiny.

Is the soul saved or unsaved?

Is it lost or found?

And then once the soul is saved or found or in Christ, we could say, then we don't really talk about how is the soul of someone who is saved, because it's obviously fine.

And we've, as a result, lost a way of understanding how our soul could be very much saved, but maybe not very well.

And so that is why I think it's really important to recover.

It's not like it's never been there, but in our context, in our day, it's important to recover our capacity to examine how is our soul.

How is our soul today even.

Yes.

Saved.

How is it?

Wow.

Wow.

Challenging.

Challenging.

Challenging.

You know, as I was reading your book, you talked about this idea of the being comfortable operating from the happy zone.

And many of the listeners in have already heard my family's journey on that and how my.

My kids, you know, shared with me that basically they were only.

They felt like in our family, as long as they were happy, everything was okay, but any other emotion or feeling was not, you know, a lot not allowed in our family, which was transformational for me as a father.

Raved children.

Yeah.

So we went through a debrief and.

But I was so appreciative of that as a father to hear and made a ton of sense.

But you share this idea of only feeling comfortable operating from the happy zone.

So can you share.

Can you share more about that?

Yeah, totally.

Maybe your kids and I would have a lot to talk about.

I think it's very common in Christian settings.

And then further in leadership, where we feel like we're supposed to be painting this compelling vision of life with God.

And wouldn't you want this life of joy and peace and unending happiness?

And so we stifle anything other than that.

And sometimes we even use Bible verses to Kind of talk ourselves out of it.

Like, say, I'm feeling afraid on a given day.

Well, I can't admit that to myself or anyone else.

And so I start quoting Bible verses that, you know, there is no fear in love and perfect love Cassavir.

And there I slap on that happy face again.

And, oh, I think we do that to our great loss and spiritual unhealth.

We.

We sort of.

There's a psychological term, maybe you guys have discovered this in your debriefing, but they call it spiritual bypassing.

Where when we're kind of.

We're on the cusp of actually dealing with something, a pain, a loss, a grief, a fear, anything, and we use spiritual language to hop over it, to bypass it.

And.

And.

And we just start quoting Bible verses or only do the happy talk.

And all of a sudden we.

We've.

We do in systems, we end up communicating inadvertently to our children, to the people we lead, that it's not okay to experience pain or loss or confusion or any of the things that are more on that negative side.

And so for me, I was totally like that.

I would cross off things in my journal and, like, rewrite things to the happy version.

I mean, you would have been so annoyed by me.

You would not have liked being around me.

Maybe not, because it sounds like we were.

We were simple, similar.

Because that seemed to be where I was.

You know, I was functioning.

I would call it.

I'm just reorienting, Reorienting you.

And I didn't give the.

I didn't give the place.

I didn't give the place.

And I'm sure my kids had the courage to share that with me, but I'm sure there was other people in my life where I would.

I would move it towards that.

My counselor said one time, he said, you know, you fall.

Anytime someone's demonstrated bad behavior, you follow it up with, but they love Jesus.

They love their family.

And he said, but that doesn't excuse bad behavior.

He's like, you're trying to make excuses for them, what they've done in bad behavior.

So once again, trying to hop, as you said, hop over that bad behavior, move towards something positive and move forward.

So, yeah, it just really resonated with me, and it was a great reminder to me because I think sometimes we drift right?

You know, we.

We.

We have.

It's muscle memory.

It is.

It is.

And.

And when your soul's not necessarily in a good place, you kind of drift towards some of the things that aren't the.

Aren't the best.

Let's be honest.

Painful feelings are painful.

Yeah.

So who wouldn't want to slap a tourniquet on the thing that's bleeding all over the table?

Right.

So it's like, it's inconvenient nobod time for that.

We have all our reasons, but, oh, at our own great loss.

And I think the ache of God who wants to meet us in those places, who, who was watching, like, teetering on the edge of heaven, going, oh, are they going to finally come talk to me about that?

And like, oh, well.

Nope, not again.

There they go again.

Sure.

For sure.

So someone, someone's listening in.

They'll probably send me a question if I don't ask this question here.

If somebody recognizes that's a pattern in their life where they just kind of, I think you said spiritual bypassing.

Become self aware and they recognize it, how do they, how do they get the courage or do they need to be.

Have a coach walk with them so they can begin to walk through those hard times.

Any, any words of wisdom for somebody that maybe recognizes that, but they just don't know how to get past that friction point to move through it.

Yeah.

First of all, I, I would give yourself pause.

You can even pause as we're listening.

Go back to the podcast when you're done talking to God about it and just give yourself grace.

Be like, oh, maybe, yeah, maybe I have done that.

And maybe there's a different way.

And if there is a person that you can talk to about that kind of a thing, that would be wise and not do the same thing.

Because I think that's part of our whole systems.

We have bosses that will do that.

We have pastors that will do that.

So you've got to find a safe person who knows how to hold space for things that are hard.

But there are those people out there.

There absolutely are.

And God will make a way.

If it seems like you look cross your relational horizon and you're like, I don't know anybody that knows how to hold and talk about this stuff, then just start talking to God about it.

Not with any judgment, no condemnation, guys, none of that.

Just with curiosity, like, God, is there a different way?

I maybe had wondered if that could be, you know, see what, see where the Lord takes it.

But be honest with yourself, even if it feels like confession, not, not like beating yourself up confession or I'm so terrible.

None of those things, but confession in the sense of agreement with God.

Oh, if this is true God, then I think maybe I could be done with this.

Maybe there's a new way.

And let him lead you.

He's a good shepherd.

He'll find a way.

He'll pull resources out of thin air that you don't even think are near you right now.

And they are.

But yeah, know that there is so much life, so much actual joy on the far side of dealing with sadness, fear, confusion, grief, all the things that are painful.

And, you know, I'm sorry for the pain.

Whatever pain you're in, that's painful.

Yeah.

But there's a great book that was written many years ago.

You probably know this, Aaron, it was called.

It was by a man who studied with lepers, Dr. Paul Brandt.

Yes.

And Philip Yancey co authored this with him.

So it's beautifully written.

But it's called Pain the Gift Nobody Wants.

And when I was in my own recovery, I read that book and somehow stumbled upon it.

And my goodness, I did not know that the disease of leprosy that Jesus often heal by touching.

Right.

The one thing, that contagion, you know, that comes by contagion, he pushed against all of that with his power and love and healing.

But leprosy is a disease of losing your ability to feel pain.

Yeah.

And when we do that, when we've lost our ability to feel pain, we end up injuring the parts of our body that we would receive warnings that something was wrong if we could feel the pain.

And so the danger of the spiritual bypass is that we are sort of doing self imposed spiritual leprosy where we're saying, I won't feel that pain, I don't want to feel that pain.

Well, actually the pain is the gift nobody wants.

Pain is the thing that is our invitation, ironically, into healing.

And I do believe God is bringing a wave of healing wherever you're listening from, wherever in the world you serve the spirit of the living, God is bringing healing your way.

Yeah, yeah.

But it sometimes involves feeling the pain.

Yeah, you know, the listeners know.

I.

We lived in Madagascar for 14 years and part of my.

Oh, a lot of my focus there was working with leprosy and a disease called chromoblastomycosis.

So the skin, oh my goodness, I had no idea.

So it's.

Yeah, but God knows.

And so he brings those things.

He brings those things and makes those connections.

So it was a joy.

But, but what you just described is 100% true.

And in the realities of that, pain does give people the opportunity to avoid injury.

So one of the other questions.

I'm sorry, I'm going off script.

I sent you some questions and I'm asking you different questions.

So a leader that's listening in, you've mentioned the person that maybe they want to come to you, but maybe that leader is going to redirect them.

Any way that or any suggestions for a leader that maybe recognizes that themselves that people have come to them.

Yeah.

And they've tried to redirect them.

How can they.

Because you said it's, it can be awkward, can be uncomfortable.

I think some of the time if it's our own insecurities that we, we're uncomfortable.

So we want to help people move through this quickly because we ourselves feel uncomfortable.

So any words of wisdom for a leader that says, you know, I really want to be a safe place where people can come to me and, and not me.

Not be such a rush to get them through it, but able to be, be there with their tears.

You know what's coming to mind, Erin, is as leaders first of all know again that you are not alone in that we are at this point decades into ways of understanding our life with God that has continuously avoided this kind of pain and provided, I'm sorry, even if they're Bible verses, they are 10 cent answers to million dollar questions and we need to stop providing cheap answers to deep questions.

So I think what I would recommend to you if that's you leader, is to actually pull out journal and start reflecting on maybe why you are uncomfortable with other people's pain or your own.

And how could you ask God to show you a different future?

You know, maybe spend some time in the psalms.

We always point to the, you know, yet I will praise him at the end of the psalms, but not all of them end that way.

Yeah.

And sometimes it's beneficial to go soak and it's painful in like Psalm 88 and others like it and just probe the Lord like, why is this in the Bible?

How is this, how is this a good idea to leave this recorded for millennia?

This is obviously not a good thing and it actually can be and is.

And so the other further thing that keeps coming to mind is one of the graces that came to me after my very severe burnout you've read about in the book was a community of women.

That was my small group.

And we, you know, I, I was in such a mess that I finally stopped being the answer girl with all the right Bible verses and everything.

And the best thing I ever did in leading that small group through that time of my own burnout and, and sort of collapse was learning to just shut up as the leader.

Hmm.

And what I noticed was there were several women in that group, it just so happened, who were part of 12 step communities of some kind.

It was AA, it was NA, it was OA, it was some a.

That they were actively in recovery.

And, you know, as you know, that has thoroughly got Christian underpinnings underneath the entire 12 steps.

So they were in that, and they were processing that kind of stuff in our group and bringing the fruit of that work into the way they related to us.

And so here's what I noticed.

Me, the Bible answer girl, right?

Every time somebody would come, and my metaphor was that they'd start bleeding all over the table.

You know, somebody comes in and starts talking about something, it's hard, and they're bleeding all over the table.

And I'm like, we gotta slap a tourniquet on that.

We got.

It's bleeding over everybody else.

It's making a huge mess that they're gonna die.

Like, I.

My prior self would have been trying to, you know, like, stop the bleeding.

Like, that's the goal.

Stop the bleeding.

And I would put a Bible verse on that that I thought would stop the bleeding or some sort of, like, Pollyanna advice about stopping the bleeding.

But I wasn't capable in that season of doing any of that.

And so I was just.

I would just shut up.

I would say the best thing I did leading that group was shut up.

And when these women would start to lean in, they started asking very different questions, like, oh, how long has it been bleeding like that?

Does it bleed on the other side like that, too?

Does it bleed when you pick at it, or does it just bleed all the time?

Like, they were fundamentally not uncomfortable with the blood.

They were able to ask questions to hold.

What I think of is now is like, holding space, whereas the spiritual bypass wants to, like, get out of there fast.

Get out of there.

This is dangerous.

It's bad.

And they were, like, curious and not.

They were just fundamentally not worried.

In fact, they saw it as a good sign.

Oh, somebody is actually being honest.

And.

And the beauty of it, over time that I observed, because at first I was uncomfortable with all those questions, like, can't you tell they're gonna.

They're gonna bleed to death?

Well, sure enough, they weren't bleeding to death.

And here's what I noticed.

The women in that group who were being asked those kinds of questions were starting to heal and get well and including me.

Yeah, they were asking me those questions that I fundamentally did not feel comfortable talking about.

And so back to your question about to A leader, What?

Maybe.

Maybe just being quiet, maybe learning how to hold space with what is very uncomfortable.

It is uncomfortable.

And one of the big tenets of 12 step that I learned was you have to learn to be comfortable with the uncomfortable.

And we can.

Yeah, we can.

Yeah.

But it takes work.

It takes work.

At least for me it does.

I mean, it takes work.

For me it does.

And I'm a nurse.

I was trained in therapeutic communication.

You know, I've been through all those, but I still found, and sometimes I think there was a switch where I could do it in the, in, in the hospital, I can sit with people, but it came in my personal life and other areas of my life that I don't know.

It's like a switch went off and I just wanted to move through it and.

And it had.

It was not the most positive for everybody around.

What helped you, Aaron?

What helped you make the switch?

My kids tell me, you know, I mean, my kids, you know, when you people, you.

A mirror.

Yeah.

When your kids love the people you love the most, the people that you want to be feel safe in your life, when they say that, then I think it makes you reflect and think, is this, Is this the story I want my kids to tell about me?

And they said it in a loving, kind way.

It was not harsh, it was not mean, it was not hateful.

It was just a time of vulnerability in our family, and they shared it.

And in that, you know, I thought the best way I could honor them and was to work on it.

And so I, I do.

It wasn't immediate.

It wasn't like, you know, I woke up the next morning and was comfortable with it all, but I do.

My wife's helped me.

She helps me, you know, kind of give me a nudge, so I slow down a little bit.

And anyway, and I think being in the medical field too, not to explain it away, not to blame it away, but people come into the clinic, they see me, they want a solution to their rash in nine minutes, and they want to be out the door.

Right.

You know what I mean?

And so sometimes you can begin to treat the people closest to you like they're another patient who's come in that has a rash, or they have AC or they have skin cancer and they need a solution in nine minutes and out the door, you know, and they're not, you know, that's not what you're looking for.

The real trick for me is the people who, in my life, I mean, I wanted that, Aaron.

I wanted the nine minute answer.

I'M in pain.

I want the nine minute answer.

I want you to fix this.

Yeah.

And when they stopped fixing and created spaces for healing.

Yeah.

Oh my gosh.

Yeah, that's good.

It's very hard all of a sudden when you're like, wait, wait, wait, I thought you were going to fix this.

Oh, wait, there's a deeper fix.

Yeah, there's a. Oh, you mean I get to take a breath here and we get to remember that God is still God and I'm still not.

Yeah.

Good.

Oh, I love that.

Well, thanks for sharing that.

No, and I love how you said fix.

You know, I say doctors, doctors treat nurses care and true healing comes from God.

And I think how you just said that it's not our job to provide healing.

Right.

God provides healing.

We help create an environment and space for it.

But sometimes when we move in that, I think we, as you said, we try to put fixes in the place of healing.

But God can provide healing if we just give the space for it to happen.

So, yeah, he can.

One of the other things you mentioned was this.

You made a phenomenal analogy, one I thought about a lot.

I actually read your book on an airplane.

And so this idea that parched land being primed for a fire and a dry soul being primed for disaster.

Can you unpack that analogy a little bit more for me?

Yeah, I was just chatting about this earlier this morning with somebody here because in Colorado we get, we're at a high desert, so it's, it's very dry always.

And the, the reality is that, that once in a while it gets so dry that when the wind conditions kick up, in addition to the drier than usual reality of the ground, they have what they call red flag conditions.

And it makes the news, it's the nightly news.

Like there is a red flag condition today because the 50 mile per hour winds, coupled with the very, very dry of the last few months, drier than even normal for us, creates an environment where fires are very, very difficult.

They're more likely to start and they're harder to stop.

They're more likely to start because the wind catches a spark and pushes.

And then they're harder to stop because the wind keeps driving the fires.

And as you know from the book, that's what happened in our community a couple years ago.

But the comparison to our souls is a really helpful one for us to think about.

And sometimes it's good to think about.

Like when should we be aware that we are in red flag conditions?

And those two qualifiers relate to our Soul one is when we're dry.

And sometimes that's often a parched way we describe our life with God.

I feel just dry.

And it's not a clinical term.

There's no diagnosis with it.

But we all know what it's like when we're worshiping, but our heart isn't engaged.

We're reading scripture and it just feels like it just goes right through us.

And we don't feel like we are.

It's not having the intended impact.

It's not fueling our souls for some reason.

Let's forget the reason right now.

Let's just call it a state of dryness.

When you couple a state of dryness with, let's call the heavy winds the circumstances.

So the circumstances that come toward us are, you know, a donor drops off your donor list and all of a sudden you're like, how do I feed my family?

You other unexpected, heavy, heavy wind comes in.

And that is, man.

That is all it takes for one stray spark, one.

One sideways glance that you shouldn't have looked at, one.

One little thing which ordinarily would not cause a wildfire.

But given the dryness and given the force of the wind could set in motion massive destruction.

And I think that's the parallel to our souls is when our souls are dry and when the circumstances start blowing, we are very vulnerable.

We are very vulnerable.

And it's.

It's just good to be aware, self aware to know what's going on.

I love the analogy.

And I. I remember, you know, I read a lot of books, but I remember stories.

And I think this is your story.

That's.

I don't know.

That's.

I think that's just the way.

I don't know.

I think a lot of people think that way.

I think all of us are.

That's why Jesus taught through stories.

It is.

And so it's totally.

And that's why they left us with a Bible that is a bunch of stories for.

For sure.

For sure.

So I'm going to get to a question in a minute about grief, but before I get there, you share about your personal story and the body keeping the score and the new understanding of nothing.

How did this time in your life set a trajectory and help lead you to where you are today?

Well, gosh, you danced on a couple different topics there.

The new understanding of nothing was during my time of being completely bedridden with the physical symptoms, which is the body keeps the score part where my psychologist said you forced out of your body what could never come out of Your mouth, which is the word.

No, I can't keep doing all this.

So.

So that was that.

And then in the middle of the night, I just sensed God just saying to me one time, you know, remember that verse you were having?

All three of your small groups, memorize John 15, you know, five.

We all know it.

If you remain in me, you will bear much fruit.

We love that part.

But apart from me, you can do nothing.

And I just sense God, who I believe has the greatest sense of humor.

So with a tiny bit of snark in the divine voice, if you can imagine, saying, mindy, what part of nothing didn't you understand?

Apart from me, you can do nothing.

And I think there's a lot about nothing I didn't understand.

The whole metaphor was a little confusing to me, if I'm honest.

It's like, you know, there's nowhere I could go from God's presence.

We know what Psalm 139 says.

And then Romans tells us, there's nothing in all creation that can separate us from the love of God.

Not height, nor depth, and angels, demons.

So what did Jesus mean?

Yeah.

When he said apart from.

And repeatedly, he brought that metaphor forward.

Apart from me, you can do nothing.

So the.

The new understanding of nothing.

For me, I was.

First of all, I was experiencing a whole lot of nothing.

I was literally in bed and could do nothing.

And I think the thing again, back to that, like, if our soul is saved, is it.

Well, the whole idea of us being grafted in, that we are in.

In real time, not just a decision we made years ago, not just theological training that we've had or our strong commitment to the cause, those are all part of the fruit.

But being grafted in, being united to the vine, where the life force of God flows through this point of connection and out to the branch to do whatever it wants.

Well, when that branch dissociates from its real time, in the moment, connection, it can no longer do anything because it can't function without its connection to the source.

But what I thought was, in terms of these absolutes, like, I'm either disconnected or I'm connected.

That's it.

It's a binary thing.

But what I've learned over these years is that actually, like you and I, if we were talking or having a conversation at a dinner table, like your.

Your family, your loved ones, we all know what it's like to be with somebody and not with them.

Yeah, like, you know, you're like, hello, are you here at dinner?

You know, your head is somewhere else.

And that's the.

It's the connection that we're just constantly returning to.

Jesus knows how we're made.

We get distracted, we get discouraged, we get deceived, and all of a sudden we're disconnected.

But it's not our.

Our like, constant state.

It's a current state.

And why.

Jesus's words are all relational in nature.

Like, return, come.

He understands how we're made.

He's just saying, remain, come back, get connected.

So much of his invitations were not commands for moral performance.

They were not commands for ministry achievement.

His invitations were relational in nature.

Remain, abide, connect, come, stay, follow.

All of these things are relational.

Yeah, Good word, good word, good word.

I don't know if I answered your whole question.

It feels like there was one bit on the third.

No, you did a phenomenal job.

Phenomenal job.

And you're right, I liked.

I. I added five things in one question.

So it was me trying to.

I had too many questions for you, so I tried to combine some of them.

And anyway, so let's move on to.

Let's move on to this one.

Go into this.

And you talk about spiritual friendship and the importance of a person.

What are the reason a person is so important?

Gosh, this is such a deep topic.

First of all, I'll just say that by way of testimony, in my recovery from my soul's deep on health, there were expected ways of connecting to God that I needed to learn new ways of prayer, but it was an expected category.

I wanted to learn new ways of engaging scripture, but it was an expected category.

The word of God is living and breathing.

You know, it's like, we know that those are ways we connect.

I had to freshen up some new ways, but the category was clear.

What totally blew my mind completely changed my life.

And I'm glad I told you that story about the small group, but a lot of those women were part of it and others as well who were not.

What totally blew my mind and changed my life was how God started showing up in ways that were healing and transforming me, like shaping and reshaping who I was at the core of my being through these ordinary relationships, through a certain kind of unagendaed but focused on God way of being with each other.

Wow.

Like a spiritual friendship became a way that through a relationship, we weren't picking out a toolbox and fixing each other's stuff.

But we were honest.

We were authentic about what was going on, and we helped each other pay attention to where is God at work and how am I responding to his invitations.

And.

And I've come to believe that that is the sleeping giant in the body of Christ is those kinds of relationships.

And sadly many church and ministry parachurch contexts are far more marked by pretense and that how you look matters more than how you are.

And so we end up, we show up to church, but we're still very isolated.

Even though we attend a service or maybe on the mission field, it's a different context, but it's still very much much.

You know, you have to look a certain way.

You can't be that undone.

And so I think we're inadvertently cutting off the.

One of the very ways that God intends for his spirit to move through these points of connection, these relationships.

And so spiritual friendship has for me become an imperative, not a nice to have.

Okay.

And these kinds of relationships are gold.

In fact there's a video, an Instagram video of me that you've probably seen because it's gone all over the place, all over the world.

We get comments.

Most of the videos our team puts out there have had, I don't know, a thousand, two thousand, three thousand views, ten thousand on a high end, which is great.

I'm thrilled.

I'm happy to help people.

Every time we've posted this spiritual formation or friendship.

It's me talking to a group of leaders a couple years ago.

It's just a clip that one of my sons snagged it, clipped it and posted it.

Hundreds of thousands, millions of views because it's hitting such a raw nerve.

It's about the loneliness and the isolation in ministry and how we could have a soul friend, a spiritual friendship that is safe.

Anyway, that's what I think any the neurology behind it.

Because I've cared about this for such a long time.

I always pay attention to anything that's coming out in the realm of neuroscience and other things about how we are actually literally formed.

We are transformed.

We become very much in the context of how we're seen by other people.

Which feels very un American, feels very not the individualistic self made person, but it is the God designed person.

And when we understand how important relationships are for our overall well being and for who we're becoming, then I think it helps us be more willing to enter into those vulnerable places which you can't do with everybody.

It's not wise but to find a few places where you can be fully yourself.

And if it has to be a paid relationship, which man.

We've tried to figure out how to do this at scale on the mission field because it's like the resource constraints are massive, the ability to get from one city to another.

Since I wrote a book on spiritual friendship 15 years ago, I would hear from people on the mission field who, if I'm remembering correctly, it was somewhere in Papua New guinea where this family had to rearrange their whole schedule around.

I believe it was the mom.

I think she had to take like a six hour drive to get to the city that a friend was in.

And they finally realized it was an imperative.

It wasn't just a nice to have for her soul's health, for her ability to love her family well, to serve the mission well.

And they were finding great joy in rearranging around this reality.

And so again, I'm not saying it's an easy or simple thing.

Virtual spaces open things up that didn't used to be options 15 years ago.

But usually even a virtual space has to be anchored in some sort of physical reality like you and I met.

And a virtual thing feels much more natural because we were in person and man, we're trying to figure out how to, how to deal with that, that for the mission field we are and.

Love, love it, love the concept.

And I do think this idea of having somebody, we've, somebody way back in on the podcast talked about the plastic fantastic, you know, you have this idea of this perfect outside that everything in my life's awesome.

And you're right, you can't be authentic, transparent and just with everyone.

Right?

That's, as you said, that's just not.

But at the same time, it doesn't mean you shouldn't have, have some people, you know what I mean?

And so I think one of those things.

This is my last question for you and then I'm going to ask you probably one more after it.

But one of my, my last question for you, then I'm going to ask you if there's a question I should have asked you.

But there's this idea, I think it takes humility to say that you need some, you know, if you're a spiritual leader, if you're a missionary, you're a pastor, you have this some idea that maybe, you know, you don't.

You need God, you know, you need God, but the other people, you know, you're supposed to be leading them or serving them.

But to say, hey, actually need you in my life, that's where maybe can be uncomfortable with that.

So you talk about this idea of embracing and growing in humility.

We just share a little bit about that.

Yeah, yeah.

It is a hard thing for us in leadership, sometimes because of our own ego or pride.

But even beyond that, I find that sometimes people are the ones that put you on a pedestal.

You didn't want to be up there, but all of a sudden they treat you differently because you're the boss or you're the one or you're this or that.

And it gets.

It's very isolating.

You didn't ask for it, and it's very hard.

And I would say a lot of times your spiritual friendships, it will have to be a very mature person who is within the scope of your leadership, who can know how to be your friend because of the dynamics of power that exist.

Influence, power.

So looking toward ministry peers is often a better way.

But the call to humility.

This is my latest rant on this.

I can't remember if I ranted on this at Mission Nexus.

Did I?

I can't remember.

You talked a little bit about it.

I'm so tired of people.

I was at a thing in Australia before Mission Nexus, and somebody the evening before the event started said, oh, this pastor.

And they were so humble.

They were.

It was just amazing.

They were so humble.

And I listened.

And we've all heard that before about somebody who offstage was really, really humble.

And I was like, something started itching at me.

And that, that is something I always learned I have to pay attention to.

And finally it dawned on me.

I don't know if it was later that day or when I heard someone say the same thing about somebody else, like the next day.

And I was like, that's it.

I. I think we need to stop being impressed that a leader in the name of Jesus is humble.

Like, good Lord, what have we become?

That.

That is impressive.

Like you are.

Imagine, are you a runner?

Like, I'm guessing maybe you're an athlete of some kind.

Okay, so you're a runner.

And you probably are carrying, sorry, more muscle tone and less body fat than somebody who's not a runner.

Okay, just a guess.

Wild guess.

Now.

It's because how many miles a week do you run typically?

Maybe in your peak training, 25, 30.

Okay.

I've never run 25 miles in my whole life, never mind in a week.

Okay.

Now, when we encounter somebody who runs 25 to 30 miles a week, do we, upon meeting that person, go, oh, my gosh, you have muscle tone.

We would be idiots to be over enamored.

Yeah.

With something that is a decided byproduct of a way of life.

Yeah, it's good word.

This is your way of Life.

Yeah.

And when we have a way of life of following Jesus, who was marked by humility, when we have that way of life, I sure hope I would encounter great levels of personal humility in anyone who has made this their way of life, whether they're a leader or not.

And I'm like, we gotta stop being enamored at this whole thing anyway.

However, we still are because we've tolerated an environment where, you know, if somebody went out and smoked a cigarette in the, in the parking lot, they'd be fired the next day.

But if they're walking around with overweening pride and arrogance, we applaud it and tell them they're a good leader.

Like, this is.

This is.

This is part of what I believe is ending right now.

I believe this is starting to end.

And I believe humility should be our.

Not that we all don't struggle with this, right?

But this is the struggle.

This is the struggling into the way of Jesus.

And it's not heroic.

It's table stakes.

It's what it means to be a follower of Jesus.

Anyway, so that was my rant.

I'm sorry, that was not helpful, but.

No, it was, it was very helpful.

And it's a good word.

It's a good.

It's a good, challenging word for sure.

So my last question for you before I ask you to pray is, is there something you think, well, Aaron, if you were a good podcast host, you would have asked me this question.

Oh, well, I already think you're an amazing podcast host.

I would never frame it that way.

But it's.

It is, but it is my.

I.

It is my opportunity just to give you.

Sometimes people have something that's burning in their heart and soul.

Humility was burning in your heart.

And so is there something that right now you just.

You want to share?

If not, you know, I'll tell you a fun story.

I'll tell you a fun story.

So a lot of times in leadership, we feel like all the demands pull us away from our real time conversational life with God, and it feels impossible.

And we have to kind of get back.

How do I get back?

Many years ago, I was on my way to pick up a gallon of milk with one of my sons when we ran out of milk inconveniently, right as we were all sitting down to dinner.

And so it was dark out.

We get in the minivan, we're going to the grocery store.

I'm trying to make the most of it.

So I asked my son, hey, whatever happened with that thing in Your classroom that we had been praying about the other night, that your teacher, you kept getting in trouble.

And he's like, oh, I was so glad you asked.

That very next day, she changed the teacher, changed the seating chart so I wasn't sitting next to that person that I kept getting in trouble for talking to.

And I was like, oh, thinking it was a teachable moment, Jonathan, that great, you were sensing you were close to God, that, you know, that you were.

That you were praying for something and you saw this answer to prayer.

I was butchering it.

Okay, so Aaron, my little guy in the back seat, brilliant kid, he's in the backseat and he goes, well, aren't we all close to God?

And I was like, oh, well, not picking up the clue phone and still thinking I'm the parent making a teachable moment.

I'm like, oh, well, but yeah, but like, sometimes we can be kind of close to God or we can kind of walk away from God.

And when we walk away from God, I don't know what I said, but some sort of walking away from God versus close to God.

And again, it's quiet in the backseat.

And Jonathan pipes up and says, well, Mom, I. I think walking away from God is like walking on a treadmill.

And then it got quiet in the front seat.

Yeah.

And that's what I would say.

Friend, if you feel like it's been.

It's been a hot minute since you actually let your soul rest in God's presence, who is with you always, everywhere, without a shred of shame or regret or I would have, could have, should have.

None of that.

Don't give a second for any of that.

Walking away from God.

We would never say that we were trying to do that, but through the work we do, sometimes walking away from God is like walking on a treadmill.

You are no farther away than your very breath.

And I would just say, take a deep breath.

Remember that you are with God, that you are in God, that God is in you, and that all can be well no matter what is swirling around you, no matter how much of a red flag conditions it is right now.

All can be well, and all can be well.

And all manner of things can be well because you are.

And this is my favorite quote from Dallas Willard, his picture of the soul being an inner stream of water.

Friend, your soul itself is profusely rooted in the vastness of God, no matter what.

And because you are profusely rooted, you can receive the hydration you need, you can receive the protection you need.

Not because you've earned it.

Not because you deserve it, just because you are a beloved child of the living God.

And he is for you and he is with you.

You got a gift.

Mindy, will you pray for us?

I would be delighted too.

So, God, we just pause and lift up every single hearer of this, wherever they are.

If they can do so safely, may they open their hands as a visual representation of their openness before you, ready to receive.

And God, we just pray that your spirit would.

Would breathe fresh life into these, your friends, that there is no place that they have gone that is away from your spirit.

There is nothing that can separate them from your love.

God, with their hearts just turn, return, come back, rest in your good care.

And God, further, would you make a way for them whatever they need, whatever resourcing, whatever relationships, would you make a way for them to receive whatever would help them on their journey toward soul health?

We know that you care about the mission they're called to, but I believe you care about them and not just as a means of using them for your purposes, even though we use that kind of language, God, I pray that they would experience themselves as your beloved today.

Amen.

Amen.