This podcast episode explores the profound connection between leadership and the well-being of one's soul, as articulated by our esteemed guest, Jason Tourville, in his book, *The Leader's Soul Purpose*. The discussion illuminates how both theological and psychological principles intertwine to shape a leader's inner life, emphasizing the necessity for leaders to nurture their souls amidst the rigors of their responsibilities. Jason articulates the critical importance of understanding trauma's impact on leadership, positing that unresolved trauma can significantly hinder one's effectiveness and authenticity. Furthermore, he offers practical insights into how leaders can cultivate emotional awareness and establish healthy boundaries, thereby fostering an environment conducive to spiritual and personal growth. Ultimately, this episode serves as a clarion call for leaders to prioritize their inner health, as it profoundly influences their capacity to lead with integrity and compassion.

Takeaways:

• The podcast emphasizes the significance of soul-centered leadership, which integrates theological and psychological perspectives to foster effective leadership.
• Jason Tourville discusses how unresolved trauma can adversely affect a leader's soul, impacting their ability to lead effectively.
• Listeners are encouraged to cultivate emotional awareness and establish healthy boundaries in their relationships to enhance their soul's well-being.
• The concept of cognitive and soul congruence is explored, highlighting the importance of aligning one’s thoughts, desires, and emotions with spiritual truths.
• Practical insights include the necessity of taking regular sabbaticals to recharge and maintain a healthy soul amidst the demands of leadership.
• The discussion underscores that leading from the soul requires vulnerability and authenticity, which are essential for effective ministry and spiritual growth.

Hey there and welcome back to Clarity Podcast.

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

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

Today we have the phenomenal opportunity to have those on the podcast, Jason Tourville.

We get to sit down and discuss his book, the Leader's Sole Purpose.

What theology and psychology teach us about about the formation of a leader's soul.

You will enjoy this podcast.

Jason provides some very practical insight and honestly it was things I consider myself well read in both of these spaces.

But at the same time he brought new insights, new encouragements, he challenged me and really appreciated how he navigates trauma and how trauma can impact the formation of a leader's soul and just the importance of a leader taking the time to guard their soul because of the impact that they have on so many.

So really appreciated Jason and being on with us.

Do want to ask you to also subscribe to the podcast.

I know the podcasts I subscribe to are the ones I listen to.

They show up on my feed every Tuesday and I know what I'm going to listen to throughout the week and also ask you to continue sending your questions for back channel with Foeth.

That's where we get to sit down and learn from Dick.

Many of you have sent questions in over the last six years and so if you have some new questions, some insightful questions, please send them our way so that we can get those to Dick and then we'll, we'll have them on a back channel with both and you get your questions answered.

So and also want to thank you.

Many of you have listened into the podcast over the last six years and grateful for that.

Looking forward to the 400th episode and some great interviews in the days ahead.

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 with a new friend of the podcast.

Jason, welcome to the Clarity Podcast.

Thank you so much, Jaron.

So happy to be here with you and all of our workers across the globe.

Yeah, looking forward to our conversation today.

Jason, you and I have got to serve.

Well, probably about the last year and I've gotten to serve under your leadership.

You lead the mental health commission for the semblance of God and gotten to know you through that.

But for those who've not got to serve with you, will you share just a little bit about yourself and then I'm going to jump in and start asking you some questions.

Sure.

And so my Wife and I, Renee, met my California girl years ago.

Married 32 years almost.

Now we've got four kids, two grandkids and another one on the way.

Those are the most important things in my life.

Let me just throw that out there.

But in addition to that, God's allowed us to minister and to partner and to do his bidding over the years.

26, 27 Years of pastoral ministry.

Every place from the rural cornfields of Pennsylvania to right outside Philadelph, and so everything in between.

At one point, we were 20 miles outside Manhattan.

And so that began another stream in life, another ministry expression, if you will.

And so I've served in some capacity now.

After 26 years of pastoral ministry, I was invited to join the Pennsylvania Delaware Ministry Network, the Assemblies of God, I think is our official name.

And I serve as the minister, care director and church health director for our, our district.

And so that occupies a good bit of my time.

In addition to that, I'm an Emerge therapist.

And that's, that's a joy for me.

Some things we have to do in ministry and other things we get to do.

And that's one of the things I get to do.

Yeah.

Very, very cool.

Very, very cool.

And it's been, it's been an honor to serve with you and learn from you through the, through the time and the process.

Jason, you've written a book.

It's.

It was challenging for me as I hit before I hit record and we prayed.

I just shared.

It's not a book, just full of knowledge, but it's full of things.

Knowledge gives you great action points and things that I think that, you know, I've been able to apply in my life.

And so looking forward to the conversation today.

So soul centered leadership.

What does soul centered.

Could you paint us a picture of what that looks like?

Yeah, so.

So in the book I introduced this concept called soul centered leadership.

And it's.

A lot of this has been worked around my personal experience and my work with those who are spiritual leaders, whether it be in an official capacity, a ministry leader in our church, or what have.

And at the moment of salvation.

So this is both the blending of theological and psychological, and those two pieces go together.

At the moment of salvation, the spirit of a person is transformed.

We believe that, that it goes from death to life, from darkness to light.

And if anyone's in Christ, he is a new creation.

Right.

The old has gone, the new has come.

However, body, soul, spirit, the spirit's transformed.

But the soul and body are still a work in progr.

And most often what gets in the way of effective leadership, effective ministry, effective marriages, effective parenting is the soul that is not coming in alignment yet with the Spirit.

Because, man, that's some work to do.

Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure.

And so that soul centered leadership concept is really focused on, you know, what we do flows out of who we are.

And that's a key concept there.

And so allowing the identity in Christ that transforms part of us to now lead our soul and our body.

And the moment we get that reversed, we get into a lot of weird theology and scary doctrine and so much so, by the way, that the church in Corinth did this.

They said that we could have a, the spiritual gifts and we could be transformed by the Lord, but it didn't matter what our body did.

Right.

And so they were involved in a lot of sexual immorality, those type of things.

And ultimately we call that Gnosticism, the tearing apart of this knowledge, of the spiritual knowledge, but it didn't matter in the natural.

And I'm saying we are a whole person before the Lord.

And so soul centered leadership is an integrated approach.

Wow.

I love it.

Love it.

Any other.

Any more thoughts on the biblical understanding of our soul, Jason?

Yeah, really kind of outlining what I see in scripture around the soul, which is, interestingly enough, the New Testament Greek word for soulless psyche, which is really the study of the soul or the psyche of a person is where psychology began.

It's gone off on some weird pathways at times as man gets their hand on it, things get perverted and so forth.

But the soul itself outlined throughout scripture, sometimes it's referred to also as the heart, but it's really outlined as the mind, will and emotions mind, our thought life.

This is why scripture says, be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

Our mind hasn't been transformed yet.

It's an.

It's the ongoing process.

So I can have righteous thoughts and I can have unrighteous thoughts.

Yeah.

And while spiritual leaders, we don't like to talk about those things, we all struggle with that.

And so our mind, our thought life, our will, our what we desire what we long for.

And then we could go down a whole track with that about the desires of the heart and.

But mind will.

Emotions what we feel.

And I also oftentimes like to call the emotions the indicator lights on the dashboard.

Okay.

And in those indicator lights will tell us what's going on under the hood.

Our emotions are not the enemy unless they're the leader.

Interesting.

And so we need to pay attention to those emotions because God gave us the capacity to feel those feelings.

And oftentimes they're the indicator lights of what's going on under the hood.

Now, I hate car problems there.

And I just have to admit, they always come in at an inconvenient time, and they're always more expensive than I have the capacity to pay.

Exactly.

And so that indicator light comes on.

I wish I could just ignore it or put a black piece of tape over it and it'll go away and everything will be okay.

But normally the more I.

Longer I wait, the more expensive it gets.

Interesting.

And the same thing happens with our emotions.

If we ignore it, they don't go away.

Yeah, just the price gets higher later.

Yeah.

Jason, you mentioned when our.

Our emotions.

But when they're our leader or something like they're.

They're in control.

Could you share just a little bit about that?

What that would look like, say, or.

Because you said that's.

That's a function where we don't want it to be correct.

We don't want our emotions.

Yeah.

We don't want them leading us, but they do inform us.

Okay.

So that's a key distinction there.

And so, for instance, I'll take it, in many of our roles in ministry, all of us at some level engage in anxiety.

It's an anxious thought.

It's a conversation we really don't want to have.

But whenever anxiety leads the conversation or leads the decision, we don't.

We aren't leading from the wise self or the spirit led self.

We're leading out of the anxious, insecure part of us, which then causes us to make decisions in order to alleviate our anxiety, not to be led by the Spirit.

Same thing could be said true for anger.

That's why Scripture says, be angry, but don't sin it.

Don't be led by anger.

It's okay to acknowledge, hey, this makes me really upset or I'm ticked off or whatever that looks like.

But then we also want to submit those feelings, understand why and how we got there, and then say, all right, Lord, but what are you doing?

This is where we go to the spirit led self, submitting our mind, will and emotions to the transformed part of us.

The spirit of Christ is leading.

Love it.

Love it.

Jason, This, I thought, fascinating.

You talked about cognitive congruence and soul congruence.

I never, you know, I do a lot of reading.

I'd never heard somebody unpack it the way you did.

And so I thought that was super insightful.

Could you unpack some of the similarities and differences between those two?

Cognitive congruence and soul congruence?

Yeah, I'll try not to geek out on this piece for a little bit.

It's, It's.

You got a little bit.

Okay.

Yeah.

So cognitive congruence is something that we oftentimes hear in the psychological field.

It's this, this, this part of us, the thinking, our thought life aligning with truth.

Whenever there's incongruence, is that all of a sudden our thinking of what we know to be true or what we're feeling and experiencing things are not in alignment.

And that's a key term there, alignment.

It's not to say that there's not a battle or a struggle, but there's not alignment.

And when the moment that we're not acting in alignment there could we hear this for some in the military world, there can be moral injury when what I had to do did not match up with what I believe to be right, to be true.

Okay, right.

So that would be a practical example in a different context.

Soul congruence takes this a little bit deeper, past just the thought life of the thinking, and it goes into the other aspects that we outlined, the desires.

So am I chasing after something that is not in alignment with what I know to be right and true?

That would be misalignment.

And it could also be just simple things out of woundedness.

God called me to this ministry or God called me to this context.

But now that which he called me to is now hurting me.

What do I do with it?

And sometimes, if we don't rectify that and come to some type of, I would say, biblical wise, solid solution, then there's soul misalignment and not soul congruence.

Wow.

Wow.

I love it.

I love it.

And Jason, along along those, that, that same line you talk, you share in the book about how wounds can impact our soul.

And.

And then I wanted to ask you a question as I was reading.

Are wounds and trauma the same thing?

Or is that.

Are they two different things or are they together?

So, first question, I guess I shouldn't ask you two questions at the same time.

But how do, how do wounds impact our soul?

And then I'm other question about how wounds and.

Are wounds and trauma the same thing?

Or, or is there some differences?

Yeah, so.

So wounds impact our soul because they at times create new meaning.

And so, so for instance the soul, once again that part of us, our mind, will and emotions.

If a parent is harmful and not protective in nature.

Comments like, you'll never amount to anything.

You're just like your fill in the blank.

Father, mother, all those types of things can wound the soul because they send messages that are not building up, they're tearing down.

Okay, okay.

So the things like that can ruin the soul.

All types of abuses, sexual abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse as experienced by an individual.

They can wound the soul because it, it changes how we view our perspective on life.

On authority.

It can change how we view self.

I'm not valuable.

These internal scripts, I call them that it mars them according to a perverted view or a harmful view.

And all those types of pieces.

But not all wounds have to get infected.

Okay.

I say, oh, and this is along your lines.

Your back.

I was going to say that's my skin.

That's the skin.

Coming, coming.

The skin.

My profession.

Yes, for sure.

So yeah, but you're the, you're the, you're the guest.

So unpack it for us.

Yeah.

So I say we all experience wounds in life, even in the most healthy settings.

We will get wounded, we will get, we feel like we're misunderstood, we're marginalized, minimal pieces.

And then it goes up from there with different wounds.

But what we do with the wounds matter.

Okay.

And oftentimes, and I would defer to you on this piece on the medical element, but ignored wounds rarely heal.

Well, true.

And so that's why I say not all, we all get wounded, but not all wounds have to get infected.

And so if we, we pay attention, we clean them, we wash them, we recover them, we, we care for those wounds instead of ignoring.

Say how do we ignore wounds in our emotional and psyche?

Yeah, we say, I'm okay, it doesn't matter.

Praise God, he got me to this, he'll get me through this.

And we over spiritualize something in order to ignore it and hoping it goes away.

But I'm saying it rarely goes away.

In fact, pain doesn't go away, it just relocates if we don't resolve it.

Wow.

No, I love it.

And you know, pain is a, it's a good indicator.

Right.

And so God created it there.

I mean if you go back to the skin part I don't know about the soul part, but it's an indicator for the, for a wound.

It lets you know there's something wrong in it.

It lets you know that needs attention.

And so that's, that's trying to get attention to it.

To it.

So I could go down 20 ways, but I won't do that, Jason, because we're here to talk about soul centered leadership, not dermatology.

So wounds and trauma piggyback on what you just said.

Pain.

Yeah.

You know, C.S.

Lewis wrote that book, the Problem of Pain, and I've got a problem with pain.

I don't like pain.

Pain is painful.

It's full of pain.

I just, you know, the self defining word and.

But just like the indicator lights on the dashboard, oftentimes our emotions are indications of pain.

And so I am angry because I feel misunderstood or overlooked.

And so that's a pain that I'm experiencing in this moment.

I am, I am sad because there's been a loss in my family or a loss of a friendship or whatever.

Those are pain points that I think we need to pay attention to because they're for our benefit.

And just like the skin you were mentioning a moment ago, it causes you to pay attention.

Yeah.

And it's not a lack of faith.

In fact, it's a sign of maturity to pay attention to the pain and heal it.

Wow, good word.

Good word, Jason.

One of the other things this does bring me back to like my anatomy and physiology.

So in my classes they taught, they said.

One of my professors earlier on, he said, Aaron, you're never going to learn all the diseases and all those things.

He said what you need to recognize is what a healthy body looks like.

And anything that deviates from that, you'll.

That should be a sign, like you said.

And it might just be a normal deviation, but you'll know this is what a healthy body.

Anyway, so then that made me think of you.

Describe what some signs of what a healthy soul is and could you share a few of those with me?

When somebody's thinking about what does a healthy soul look like, what comes to your mind?

Yeah.

Healthy soul, first of all, loves ice cream.

Sorry, maybe that's just me.

That just might be adjacent thing.

I don't know.

Yeah.

A healthy soul, sometimes it can feel like the it factor.

Okay.

Whenever.

Whenever an organization or person has that it factor, you just know it's there.

It's hard to define, but whenever it's not there, never unhealth is there.

You also smell that as well.

Yeah.

You kind of feel that.

And so some of the key indicators I would describe in the field would describe as health in the soul.

For instance, there oftentimes can be described as an inner peace.

Even during external pressure.

It can be emotional awareness.

I would say this is an important one, emotional awareness.

Am I aware of what I'm experiencing in this relationship?

Can I verbalize that?

Am I aware, emotionally aware of what the other person may be experiencing?

This awareness factor, Whenever there's unhealth, in some ways those.

Those awarenesses are blocked because we're seeing it through a wounded lens.

This is the difference there.

Yeah, there are healthy boundaries without loads of guilt.

And so I've watched people set up healthy boundaries, but the next three days, they feel so guilty.

It was ruining those three days.

And so without.

That's why I said without loads of guilt.

Sometimes we'll feel a little bit guilty, and that's okay.

We just don't want it to impede functioning.

And so a lot of these pieces very similar, that if it's impeding normal, typical functioning, then we know there's a sign of unhealth that's there.

It's not that there's a battle, it's taking over.

There's unhealth, being able to have relational presence, being able to sit with somebody without losing yourself.

And so we call this differentiation oftentimes.

And it's this process of growing up where I become my own person, even apart from my mom and dad.

But can I sit in a room and allow Aaron to be Aaron and Jason to be Jason?

I can celebrate Aaron and be celebrated as Jason, and both can be great all at the same time.

And to me, that's a sign of emotional soul health.

Because this integrated, surrendered soul, I'm okay with who God's created me to be.

And I celebrate who God's created you to be.

And I also think, taking all this a step further, what's our responsiveness to the Holy Spirit?

Okay, instead of being reactive to the things of life, how do we lean in?

And how often times did Jesus end a sermon, you know, the master teacher, and he would say, he who has ears to hear, let them hear what the Spirit's saying.

Is our soul disturbed so much that we're having trouble hearing?

Or can we slow our soul down enough where the Holy Spirit speak?

Because he's not deaf and he's not mute.

And so the Lord's always on the move.

He's always got something to say.

And can I still my soul enough so I can hear and absorb that so those are a few thoughts.

I love it.

That cover kind of the spirit and the soul there.

Yeah.

Love it.

Love it.

Jason, next question I got for you.

Is this a question about the soul?

It's a phrase, actually.

It's.

I read in your book, obviously, but it's rang in my heart, and I've done a lot of thought about it.

The soul grows by what it endures.

The soul grows because endure, you know, for me, is like one.

It's like you're enduring.

It's not like a joyful thing, you know?

I mean, so, yeah, the soul grows by.

What's it.

What it endures.

Can you.

Can you share more about that?

Yeah, I'm gonna.

I'm gonna flash back to our conversation about pain.

Okay.

And so I'll give an analogy and then a little bit of a teaching.

So going for the head picture for the heart here about a year and a half ago.

I've had seven knee surgeries over the years.

Lots of reasons, mainly because of sports, being.

Being a dumb boy over the years, doing crazy stuff.

And.

And so when those things catch up, the older we get, unfortunately.

But I had to have a double knee replacement.

Okay.

Now, I could still walk whenever I went into the surgery.

Now, my right knee was extremely painful, but I could function.

I could walk, I could kneel down, I could do things, but I couldn't do it at the level that I wanted to.

Okay.

And no other surgeries were going to help at this point.

And either I could be okay with my limitations and my current pain level, or I could pay attention to what was happening and get these.

This bilateral knee replacement.

Now, anybody that's been through a knee replacement knows it is torture.

I mean, it's just ridiculous the amount that you have to go through post surgery, but not just with the surgery, but with the therapy.

Okay.

All right.

And this kind of grew out a little bit of maybe my sports experience, but my therapy experience and therapist, they would help manipulate your knee to bend and straighten.

And it's a kind way of saying, we're gonna force it.

And so literally, they put my leg up on a block, and then they would press down on my knee in order to get it to straighten, and then actually hyperextend, so that would bounce back to normal.

And he used to tell me, jason, your health is determined by the amount of pain you can endure.

Interesting.

And so then they would also make it bend.

And I had a lot of trouble, especially in my right knee, with it bending.

And so they literally would push so hard I'd scream in my pillow, Aaron.

And times they would move the whole table as they were pushing.

And was I willing for those who are not willing to endure that type of struggle?

Yeah, they never return to full functioning.

And oftentimes we go through things and I don't think the pains of life God does to us or causes to us, but he will cause all things to work together for the good, for those who love him when called according to his purpose.

And I say, if we let him, if we surrender to him, if we allow the master physician to come alongside during those hard, difficult times, whenever they don't make sense, whenever they've hurt the soul and they wounded us deeply, do we bring those things to the Lord and allow the therapist's hands, if you will, to help us work into health through those pieces so that grow the soul grows through what it endures.

If we allow God to form us through those difficulties, he can make something beautiful out of them.

Wow, Phenomenal analogy.

And that will, I will not forget the analogy.

And so I'm sorry, but too graphic?

No, it's not graphic at all.

But I think it just, it clearly delineates what you're, you're trying to, to share and.

Yeah, and it made me think of all the reasons, you know, you, all the reasons I would not want to do the physical therapy and, you know, the pain, the things you have to go through.

And at the same time, you know, if you, I loved how you said, you know, if you want to return to a healthy state, state, a functional state, you have to go through that.

If not, you're going to be impeded by that.

And so that, honestly, that leads me to my, my next question for you.

So, you know, your book is, is written to leaders in mind, but trauma in the leader soul, how specifically for someone who's leading and mainly in a spiritual leadership role, how does can trauma impact them?

And maybe if they're not willing to endure the pain for that to be, to provide healing.

Any thoughts, Any thoughts on that, Jason?

Yeah, I mean, trauma in the leader's soul, it is so detrimental because I mentioned this a little bit ago, but trauma does not disappear or just relocate in your leadership if you, if it's unresolved.

Okay.

And so, and trauma, of course, first of all, we can experience trauma in our leadership roles, and that comes from at times misunderstanding, abuses from, or mishandling of situations from those above us.

Yeah, but we're also people, we come into ministry at times with trauma from our past.

And so, so it's not just what happens in leadership, it's what we bring into leadership.

And trauma impacts the soul by touching, by really shaping our brain and our brain.

Thank the Lord.

Let me just say this.

Thank the Lord we have what's called.

He created our brain with neuroplasticity, the ability to change.

Around 30s or so, your brain was relatively solid.

There wasn't the capacity to have new neural pathways and those type of pieces.

But now we're understanding the healing process that God has already put into place.

And so the wounding of a leader's soul, for instance.

Let me just give you one example.

Whenever I was pastoring outside Philadelphia, it was a very transient area.

We experienced more conflict internally in the church than I ever knew could exist.

And out of that, people would get upset.

They.

They question my leadership, my integrity, or my love for them, or I need to go someplace where I'm going to be fed as if I, you know, didn't even use the word of God or something.

And.

And so whenever I get those calls.

And God did wonderful things out there, too.

And so we grew and people got saved.

But I remember enough people had called me and said, pastor, can we talk?

Those words still to this day create a little bit of anxiety in my soul because oftentimes, if they wanted to talk, they were ready to leave.

Okay, I go over to my next church.

It's in the cornfields of Pennsylvania.

Never saw myself there.

And.

And so all of a sudden, I. I got.

I was two, three weeks in, and somebody said, pastor, can we talk?

Well, I. I ran from that conversation for about three weeks before he finally cornered me again.

So, pastor, I need to come and see you.

Can we talk?

And I'm like, I'm thinking about, man, I'm losing another one.

Well, he got to my secretary.

She put him on the schedule.

But come to find out, he wanted to write a check for $25,000 because he.

Yeah, but.

Because.

And I'll call it the little t. Traumas I experienced of being abandoned, being misunderstood.

Those words.

Pastor, can we talk?

I associate.

I saw it through the lens of my trauma.

And here a guy was just simply wanting to give us money, brother.

I mean, that's a good day in ministry.

Yeah, right.

And I was ignoring it, running from it.

And so that's how trauma in the soul can influence then how we lead.

We start to run, hide, or attack and protect, those type of things.

Yeah.

And Jason, you also.

You wrote that sometimes leaders can be afraid to lead from their soul because it requires a level of vulnerability and authenticity, maybe that they.

They might feel uncomfortable with.

And how can.

You're a therapist, you're a pastor, so how can we push back against that fear and, and, and not give in to the fear of if I leave from my soul and that it's going to take some vulnerability, it's going to take authenticity, but not give in to the fear that.

That can sometimes come with that.

Is that a fair question?

It's a fair question.

And I. I've got a strong conviction about this, Aaron, that if we're not leading from the soul, we're also not leading from the spirit, because the spirit has to pass through the soul.

Okay.

And.

And so if I'm not leading with compassion, if not, I'm not leading with understanding.

If I'm not leading with love.

Yeah.

You might recognize these.

Joy, peace, patience.

Now, those are also expressions of the soul.

Right.

My soul loves.

My soul chooses patience to be with you.

You know, with.

With somebody that perhaps an aggravating congregant or an aggravating leader that we're working alongside.

Because not everybody's perfect, including ourselves.

Yeah.

And so I would push back so strongly that if we're not leading from the soul around these things, the.

The spirit's also not growing, and it's because the fruit of the spirit grows in the soul.

Soul.

Okay, let me say that again.

The fruit of the spirit grows in the soul.

Let me say that one more time.

That means it's going to be on the test.

The fruit of the Spirit grows in the soul because, remember, at the moment of salvation, God did a complete work.

You weren't partially saved, you were fully saved.

But my soul and my body are still a work in progress.

And so if the spirit, the fruit of the spirit has to grow, that means it's not just in the spirit, it's coming from the spirit, but grows in the soul.

And so if we're going to lead well, I think we need to have a soul that's been tempered and taught by the spirit of Christ, and that's where we lead from.

Wow.

So I don't know if that answers your question.

No, it does.

It's a.

It's a good word.

And.

Yeah, very, very timely.

Very timely.

Jason, I got two more.

Two more questions for you.

Then I'm going to ask you if you.

You'll pray for us.

In the book, you.

I love analogies.

And so you gave an analogy of whales being Able to drown in water.

You know that I never heard that analogy before, so it obviously piqued my interest.

So can you share the analogy?

And then how.

How does that apply to.

To leaders today?

Sure.

So I first heard the analogy on online.

On the Internet.

So if it's on the Internet, it has to be true.

And so.

But true story.

I actually ended up doing a little bit of research around this because I'm not a marine biologist or anything like that.

And so.

And because they are mammals and they breathe oxygen, and so it's oftentimes they will.

How.

They end up dying for a variety of means.

Sometimes they've been injured, and so they're not able to resurface.

They've been caught up in netting and those type of pieces.

So there's this drowning, and that which they're called to live in can then also cause them to die.

And to me, it was such a powerful analogy as soon as I heard it.

It wasn't the context of which I heard it, but right away it was like it was being appl.

Is that oftentimes as leaders, the ministry God has called us to can be that which feels most threatening because of the wounding around us, because of the environment.

It can be.

It can feel hostile.

And that's where that congruence piece, the cognitive and soul congruence, can feel so confusing.

Because I know God called me to this, but did he call this me to this?

To wound me?

And I would say, of course, now we serve a good God.

We know the character of God and so forth, and people hurt us.

It doesn't mean it always comes from the Lord.

And so that whole whale analogy.

Leaders can drown in what they're called to if they don't remember where their source comes from.

Wow, good word.

And we have to continually come up for air, come up to be rejuvenated.

And if we get so caught up in what we do, our identity and our source becomes in our work, not in our worship of the Lord.

Yeah, good word, good word, good word.

Jason, last.

Last question for you.

What?

What can we do and begin doing today to guard our soul?

Yeah.

How?

What leaders?

Those listening in what are one or one or two things we can begin doing today to guard our soul?

Yeah.

I think first and foremost, I think we all simply need a friend or two.

Okay.

Who do we have that we can laugh with?

We can enjoy?

You know what.

What are those settings?

I mean, that was natural.

Whenever we were in high school and maybe young adult years, we had those folks we could Just act a fool's way and hopefully a righteous fool's way and just kind of cut up and be silly.

And sometimes we get so serious in ministry, we forget to enjoy life with people.

Yeah.

People are viewed then as a project or as a means to an end.

And.

And instead of enjoying people, we use people.

Okay.

That's why I say get a friend.

I think that's just so huge for spiritual leaders.

We're among the most lonely of every profession that exists.

Second, I would say for those who are in family or marriage relationships, pay attention to your marriage, okay?

Pay attention to what your spouse is saying.

Is there good physical intimacy?

Is there good emotional relational intimacy?

Is there anything that's unresolved?

Because I'm telling you, you know, we see in scripture, if it wasn't in Scripture, it feels sound like heresy, but Peter says, hey, you know, guys, if you're not treating your wife all right, your prayers are hindered.

And so sometimes we tend to minimize those type of pieces.

I'm doing God's work, I'm God's man or woman of the hour and so forth.

And then sometimes the scripture just reminds us is so stinking practical, it's ridiculous.

If you don't treat your wife right.

Yeah.

If you don't treat your husband right, God's not cool with that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know, good word and two other pieces.

I'd say Sabbath was made for humanity, not humanity for Sabbath.

Yeah.

And if you're not taking the Sabbath, this isn't a matter of being made right with God.

This is a matter of recognizing there are limitations.

And I struggle with this.

Aaron, can I just be honest with you?

Yeah.

There are times I. I sacrifice my Sabbath to go talk about Sabbath someplace.

And boy, is that not just messed up in the brain.

And so thankfully my wife is a good feedback loop for me and she's not afraid to say things.

Yeah.

And we all need people who are not impressed with us.

Yeah.

Very, very true.

That's why we need a good friend.

That's why we need a good spouse.

And I'm telling you, if you just begin to learn to take a Sabbath, it has a trickle down effect because it, it regulates the nervous system.

Okay.

And if you find yourself having trouble with the Sabbath, it's because your nervous system is dysregulated and amped up.

And we can only live like that for so long before there are additional consequences, even including physical consequences.

And so the Sabbath has been designed to teach, slow down, hear from the Lord, relax, regulate the nervous system.

And so to me, that's one of the greatest gifts God has given to us.

I believe we should work hard, but I also think we need to follow and enjoy the gifts that God has given us.

One of those, the Sabbath.

Awesome.

Love it.

Jason, it's been an honor to spend time with you today.

Will you pray for us?

You pray that the conversation we had, God will use it to speak into the hearts and lives of those who listen in and then they'll take action from it.

It won't just be knowledge, but those things as I have things I put into action in my life after read the book.

So will you pray for us today?

Absolutely.

I just want to say, you know, I so appreciate you, your leadership in this context.

You know, the ministries that God has entrusted to our hands are always bigger than we are and.

But yet it's out of your own compassion.

You brought a team around you and so I just appreciate you and your team's career for our global workers and all that God has called them to do and who God's called them to be, creating the pathways, the systems, the resources for them.

Thanks for caring enough to do the work behind the scenes, man.

It's been a blessing to watch.

I appreciate it.

I appreciate it.

We pray for us.

Absolutely.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for today.

And Lord, we thank you because you are called the lover of our soul.

And today, Lord God, you loved our soul enough and you love us and our soul that you at times allow the warning lights to come up on our dashboard of our life so that we pay attention, so that we come to you.

I pray that for any friends listening to this today, and if Lord, for some reason the condition of the soul perhaps is not in alignment, or there's struggles that are theirs, not that they've stopped loving Jesus, but you're caring enough to allow those warning signs to come up.

I pray that they'd find the help, that they would lean into a friendship and that together we might support one another.

As the scriptures remind us.

As each part does its work, the body of Christ is built up.

Let us do our work and let's do it well for each other.

In Jesus name I pray.

Amen.

Amen.

Sam.