290. What is Your Picture of God? Part 1 with Trevor Hudson

Ever wondered how to truly discern God's will for your life? Join Janell as she sits down with Trevor Hudson, esteemed author and spiritual mentor, who offers an enlightening roadmap in his latest book, "In Search of God's Will: Discerning a Life of Faithfulness and Purpose." Trevor distills wisdom from spiritual giants like Dallas Willard and Saint Ignatius, helping us align our hearts with God and understand our spiritual identity. 

Trevor's journey to internalize God's love, especially amidst life-altering experiences like his shocking imprisonment during South Africa's apartheid, reveals the ongoing process of moving from intellectual understanding to heartfelt acceptance. This episode underscores the importance of faith-based counseling in overcoming the misconception that divine love must be earned. By sharing these pivotal life moments, Trevor illuminates how our picture of God reshapes our inner lives and spiritual journeys.

Chapters

• 0:03 Discovering Belovedness Through God's Will
• 11:14 Long Journey to Discover God's Love
• 16:35 Healing Through Embracing Belovedness
• 26:32 Discovering Unconditional Love Through Belovedness
• 37:58 Experiencing God's Overflowing Love

Transcript

Narrator: 0:03

Today's episode is brought to you in full by Heart Lift International, a 501c3 dedicated to making home and family the safest, most secure place on earth. Learn how you can donate and support the podcast at heartliftcentralcom. Now settle in for today's remarkable conversation with Janelle. Now settle in for today's remarkable conversation with Janelle, wherever you find yourself today may these words help you become stronger in every way.

Janell: 0:42

Have you ever asked what is God's will for my life? Today's guest, Trevor Hudson, is bringing to us some possible answers to that question from his newest book In Search of God's Will Discerning a Life of Faithfulness and Purpose. Hello and welcome to today's podcast. I am Janelle, your trusted guide to this conversation with Trevor. Trevor's a hero of mine. I can't even believe that I was blessed and invited to have this conversation with him, so I try to manage my exuberance, as you know, which is pretty hard for me, but Trevor has crafted this book as a user's guide to discern God's personal will for our lives. Trevor's spiritual formation himself has been deeply shaped by the wisdom of Dallas Willard and Saint Ignatius, two of my other heroes. After serving the local congregation as a Methodist pastor in South Africa for almost 50 years, trevor now lectures, teaches and offers spiritual retreats, both locally and internationally Over the years. This one question about discerning God's will is one that he has heard again and again.

Janell: 2:08

In Search of God's Will creates a Biblical imagination around the concept of discernment so hungry to know more about discernment and it provides practical ways to discern God's personal will for our lives, ultimately helping us to become the unique person God wants us to be.

Janell: 2:32

We're going to learn how to align our hearts with the heart of God, attune ourselves to our calling. Listen to God in scriptures. Pray the scriptures. Pay attention to the movements of the Spirit in your heart. Uncover and exercise your God-given giftedness. Notice God's presence and activity in daily life, which I really, really engage in conversation with Trevor about. Engage in sacred conversations with trusted companions. Make faithful decisions and take the initiative when God seems silent. What I love most about Trevor's practical work and his depth of desire for us to know God better is he gives us discernment exercises at the end of each of these movements and chapters in the book. We also talk a great deal about another one of Trevor's books Discover your Spiritual Identity, because that's such a big tenet here in our heartlifting community. Before we began our conversation, I asked Trevor if he would pray and I happen to have it on the recording which I have listened to so many times, because I just so admire this man of God and so let's welcome Trevor and enter into prayer for our time together today.

Trevor: 4:08

Lord, thank you for the gift of conversation and for the gift of your family belonging that stretches across oceans and across nations. So thank you for the gift of this moment with Janelle, thank you for the eternal work that she does and for the heart that lies behind that work, and for your own presence and activity in that work. And so help us in this conversation. Help me even though I don't know the listeners well help me to say things that hearts most need to hear. In the name of Christ, our Lord, amen, amen, amen.

Janell: 5:15

Hello and welcome to today's Heart lift with Janell and Trevor Hudson. Trevor has come to the table today all the way from South Africa and, as I have already said to Trevor, I am honored, humbled, grateful, blown away to have a conversation with you today, trevor, welcome, welcome to the show.

Trevor: 5:39

Thank you, Janell, and you are very generous in your welcome, j, and you are very generous in your welcome and I just want to say that it's a deep privilege to be with you and to be with those who are also listening into this particular podcast yeah, so thank you, thank you, oh, my goodness, it Seriously so deep breath, janelle, because I know that my heart lifters really seek to know God through his son Jesus, and want to experience the power of the Holy Spirit spirit.

Janell: 6:27

So it is my goal today to kind of have a triune conversation in the sense that, first and foremost, the book that really took my heart I'm rereading it for the 18th time probably is all about discovering our spiritual identity. That is one of the major tenets of my work. What I pound the table over is helping myself, my family, my legacy and anyone that happens to listen or read my work to understand that power of belovedness. That's how you frame it, and I just think that it's a mystical framework that we do not hear really taught a lot. So I just wanted to have you come to the table and help us understand what does that mean? To move through life from that position of belovedness.

Trevor: 7:20

Thank you. Thank you, Janell. Thank you, thank you, Janell. It is a very deep theme in my own life and it would have autobiographical roots, obviously. Okay, yeah, and it all started really for me. I think I just turned 30, which is 53 years ago and 43 years ago, and I was really in a very desperate place in my own work inwardly, and I found my way to a wonderful psychiatrist by the name of Dr Cliff Orwood, and I'd never been, I'd never gone to see anyone before, but I'll never forget that at the end of our very first conversation he asked me two questions and the first question was very simply Trevor, what is your picture of God? And you know, somehow it was a strange question for a psychiatrist to ask.

Janell: 8:28

I would think so.

Trevor: 8:30

It was the last thing I would expect, but somehow he had an intuitive sense that so much of my own inner turmoil, struggle, was related to the way in which I saw myself in relation to God, and so I think his question it started many things for me, but the very first thing that started was it got me reflecting on my relationship with God and how, and not so much what I intellectually thought about God, but much more what I really sensed in my gut, how God related to me. And my deep sense at that stage in my 30s was that somehow, for some reason, I had formed a picture of God in which I somehow needed know, in my case not very unhealthy consequences. So his question began a journey of how you know who is the God we worship, the God we worship and how do I see myself in relation to God? Because I think our picture of God shapes everything. It shapes and predominantly it shapes the way we see ourselves.

Janell: 10:21

It does. Please tell us. Because this, yes, Lacey Finn Borgo is a spiritual director that I've had on the show and she wrote a children's book about St Julian of Norwich and in that is exactly that theme and that was the first time I had been provoked by someone to consider my picture of God. So when I saw that, you know, when I read that in you know, discover your spiritual identity I was like, ooh, I don't know. We really do have to get that picture right, don't we?

Trevor: 10:56

Right, because what?

Janell: 10:58

shapes that picture.

Trevor: 11:00

Right, right, and I think you know we do form a picture right from the word go. You know, parents, school teachers, sunday school teachers, culture.

Janell: 11:11

Nones Right.

Trevor: 11:14

Whether we like it or not, a picture is being formed very deeply within us, particularly via our authority figures in our lives. It really meant facing as deeply as I could my default picture. And it's owning up to the fact that, yes, yes, I do believe I need to earn God's love, and I accepted that. I acknowledged that and I confessed that. Yeah, yes, and then I think you know, then, the long journey of really discovering if I can put this very simply, of discovering that we have a Christ-like God. Tell me more.

Trevor: 12:14

You know a God whose face we see, in the face of Jesus Christ to put it very simply, but that again can simply be a very intellectual journey. So somehow this intellectual conviction that I am loved by God am accepted by God in Christ as I am, somehow that had to go on that long journey. It's a long one, from the head to the heart.

Janell: 12:54

You write, bridging the massive crevice from head to heart. I write about that in my last book too, and it's like that is the longest journey ever. And then now I've done so much more study of our third brain, which is our gut right, Our intuitor, and it almost has to travel down there too, because there's 500 billion neurons in our gut and only 100 billion in our brain. So I'm like, well, the gut's got a lot to do with this little program. So you know, I think, in counseling terms anyway, that would be, we come from our mind into our heart. Soul, right, Emotions will intellect all of that into embodiment.

Trevor: 13:37

At a cellular level.

Janell: 13:39

At a cellular level. Yeah, Every little nerve has to also be reset.

Trevor: 13:48

Right.

Janell: 13:49

So I'm so curious when you went to the psychiatrist, did you have knowledge that he was a follower of Jesus?

Trevor: 13:58

Yes, I did know that.

Narrator: 13:59

I did know that and I'm curious.

Trevor: 14:02

No, thank you for asking that. That's a very important question Wondering. I knew that he was a Christ follower and I think that also gave me some confidence myself in going to him.

Janell: 14:20

That's a big step and that's not a correct and that's not a.

Trevor: 14:25

In no way am I now evaluating psychiatrists who are not Christ followers. No way, not at all Just for me in terms of my own journey. That was an important component of my taking that step, of making the appointment and going to see him, and then that began a journey which, I really need to say Janelle continues to this day. I think I wouldn't want to say that I know in every aspect of my body that I know I'm safe and loved. So the journey continues to this day Gives us all hope.

Janell: 15:11

Trevor's still on the journey. That's good. I'm excited. I wonder. Okay, two thoughts. I got to know the second question. He asked you, but you were 30 at that time.

Trevor: 15:26

I was? Yes, I was 29, 30. 29, 30. Huge threshold, of course, a very big moment. Just had gotten married when I was 29, 30, 29, 30. Huge threshold, of course, a very big moment. Just had gotten married when.

Janell: 15:40

I was 28.

Trevor: 15:41

Okay, so I'd just gotten married. That was one. It was almost a bit of a perfect storm. You know, I had my first experience of being in prison in the South Africa. It was during the apartheid struggle and you will know that tragic part of our history. So I had just you know that had been quite a shocking experience for me.

Janell: 16:05

I would say you were a minister at this time. I was a minister as well, methodist minister.

Trevor: 16:09

Correct, I had just gotten married. I was also finding my way as a pastor, so I think, just you know, it was like a perfect storm, really Perfect crucible. Right, absolutely. And it was within that context, background context, that I found my way to see Cliff and to speak with him. And, as I said earlier you earlier that question started a journey and if you meet anyone in my life and you ask them what is Trevor's favorite hobby horse or favorite theme, they will say Trevor's always talking about our picture of God.

Janell: 16:51

Thank God, I'm so thankful you are, because my thoughts go to the fact of the stigma. Was there a stigma? There had to be, I don't know. I didn't grow up in South Africa of seeking psychiatric help. There still is one today within the Christian faith. We're just now the Christian faith. You know, we're just now post-pandemic, inviting the conversations to the table. But I know, I mean, I'm 63, and I know you just didn't do that, you just didn't go. Only the true psychiatric necessary, as we would say DSM-5 top 14s would get help, right, right, so was that you broached a huge. That was brave.

Trevor: 17:45

You know, the other day I wrote a letter to my younger self. For the same. There was a young pastor who said Trevor, what would you say to me? And I said to him you know, I don't think I want to say anything to you, but I'm going to say something to myself as a young person. And then I gave him, you know, my letter.

Janell: 18:04

Lucky guy.

Trevor: 18:07

So I think one of the things that I was able to say to my younger self is you know, young Trevor, you did have some courage, you sought help, you sought a helping relationship when you needed it, and there were some things that perhaps you could have done better as a 30-, 40-year-old, but this was one thing that really was on the side of your own journey towards healing and wholeness.

Janell: 18:46

And, as I say, Janelle, very quickly it's a journey that continues today as well.

Janell: 18:53

Obviously, he was sent of God because he asked you that poignant question that is now your life question that you stand on. So thank you, dr cliff, and all right, so I'm. You know my readers are hanging. They're going to say ask him what the second question was if you can tell I have gone back to therapy myself, at the advice of a neurologist and a rheumatologist. They were like you need, you're at a threshold you know, right so it is a brave decision.

Trevor: 19:26

Okay. The other question was also very intriguing. It was so he said to me. And he said this to me after one and a half hours of listening to me. He said to me Trevor, I'm really intrigued, what you haven't told me yet, oh, oh, and that was a wonderful question. It was a wonderful question because he put me in touch with what I had marginalized from my life. You know, what I had pushed to be.

Janell: 19:59

Oh yes.

Trevor: 20:00

And he just put his finger on events that happened when I was five, six and seven that I had in fact not spoken to anyone about, and so I think it was a question. It was just a very healing question to kind of put, to put my arms around the ignored parts of my history.

Janell: 20:22

Repressed, ignored. Yeah, they're all just sitting back here in your subconscious like and and Brilliant.

Trevor: 20:32

So that began a. It began a, a journey that lasted quite a long time and eventually it was a wonderful relationship because it morphed into a partnership of him and I doing healing days in congregations around South Africa.

Janell: 20:53

That's so great around South Africa that's so great.

Trevor: 20:55

Yes, it was lovely to just you know, have just to have our two different vocations.

Janell: 21:03

Oh heavens, you have been bridging the gap for a long time, Trevor, thank you. Why was I not there? That sounds so amazing. I love that so much. And I love because, once again, let's you know, rewind to that stage, and that I mean the evidence of the effects of trauma were just burgeoning at that point, if not a little behind that, because it's only been the past 20 years that we've really had come to our conversations about trauma. That's really he was. He was well ahead of his time. I'm so grateful for him. I just has he written books now?

Trevor: 21:44

Okay, he hasn't, I would be the first to recommend. Dr cliff is now in his 80s and he lives down in the cape, the southern parts of southern africa, soaking in healing and beauty for himself.

Janell: 22:03

I love that, so that journey is lasting a lifetime for you. So, leaving that office, being asked that question, trevor, I want to know what your picture of God is. I can't wait. You know, I'm curious about the things you haven't told me about your life after an hour and a half. And how did that then lead you to this belovedness embrace? Like I am god's beloved right. It's still about halfway down for me, like, but maybe right here here. Sure I haven't got to my heart yet sure.

Trevor: 22:42

Thank you, jenna. I think a number, and I'm just going to maybe just touch on a number of very simple ingredients that have been helpful.

Janell: 22:52

That's why you're so effective, because you just bring it down to us.

Trevor: 22:56

I think it begins. It began for me simply by asking God Lord, I would really appreciate it so much if I could come to know your personal love for myself.

Trevor: 23:14

So there was a very simple request and I still to this day. There are moments when I will say to the Lord Lord, I really need to know today in terms of what I'm facing, lord, I really need to know today in terms of what I'm facing. I need to know that I'm, that you know, I need to know your personal and intimate love for me, I need to know that I'm your beloved and I need to know that I'm safe. So there's this. It's not something I have to manufacture or white knuckle myself into or kind of repeat over and over anxiously. It's really a gift that God gives us. You know and I think, I just think I don't want to do a big Bible study but you know the whole thing of the Spirit being sent to join with our spirits crying out Abba, father. So I was asking for that, I was asking the Lord to give me an ever-deepening assurance of the Lord's love for me. So it started there. I think then there was a bit of a biblical journey for myself, janelle.

Janell: 24:34

journey for myself, janelle, in terms of really getting to know the God who has revealed God's self to us in Jesus Christ.

Trevor: 24:38

So really, you know, immersing myself particularly in the Gospels and the words of Jesus and the deeds of Jesus, and that you know that when I see Jesus, well, this is what God is like.

Janell: 24:53

Yes, you know, this is what God is like.

Trevor: 24:58

And that journey continues today. I think another third ingredient was really noticing in my own autobiography moments when I had known human love, oh, oh, and to really, you know, because sometimes I think we can have storylines in our life and we sometimes miss the storylines of human love and they might have even been a smile of a stranger or you know a teacher that called us by our first name.

Trevor: 25:37

So I went, I kind of really began to get the, because that helped me to get a feeling of what it was like to be loved. These were actual moments of human interaction where another human being saw me, heard me, cared for me, loved me. And I really began to savor these moments, not in the sense of looking, you know, looking continually into the past, but I say yes, as experiences where I was loved and ultimately, all love comes from God.

Trevor: 26:17

Ultimately, that's exactly right yes, you know, in whatever way it comes to us, god is the source of love. You know God is love, so you know. That began to help me. And then I think maybe the last thing I want to say and I could say so much more is I also wanted to learn to be able to give love in an unconditional way to myself and to those around about me. So I wanted to put myself into a little bit of a cycle of receiving belovedness, seeing myself as beloved, and then seeing those around me as beloved.

Trevor: 27:09

You know it was another way of life, another of living. It's just a movement, right you?

Janell: 27:14

you say that in your new book. Uh, pay attention to the movements of the spirit in your heart. Is that what you're saying? That's not like this, holy ah it's noticing right every day, right along the way right a stranger will say something right, or a beam gleam. They will say a glance in secure attachment that just kind of penetrates right and you go. Oh, for me it would be a new grandbaby. Oh absolutely the minute you said it I was like where have I felt a known human love lately?

Trevor: 27:54

Oh, and then to suddenly realize well, God loves me at least as much as my grandbaby, At least as much.

Janell: 28:08

I can't get it though, like I had that thought and I went I don't think I had this. That's really the first thought, like when we talk about the things we marginalize. I think in my life I marginalized that I my dysfunctional alcohol comb right, so I marginalized and hyper function and high function and I have a lot of high functioning uh, heart lifters and I applaud all of us for our coping and defense and the power of the spirit to get us today, but to really know that yes, trevor, yes it is, and I did try to just let it go down to myself, sure sure oh, just take a moment.

Janell: 28:56

I want everyone just take a moment, go back to that moment where you felt oh yes, I can share.

Trevor: 29:32

I can share one from today. Um, I just find it very helpful almost at the end of each day, just you know, building up these little moments where I was on the receiving end of someone's care which was undeserved, unearned, unconditional. At lunchtime, the woman I'm to is debbie debbie's, the woman I'm married to and we've been married for for over 40 odd years 43, 40 years and she made me a toasted grilled cheese sandwich. Now, I didn't yum, I didn't earn that and, uh, there was no catch to it. So it was almost like the human. It was almost human love and divine love made edible.

Janell: 30:32

That's so yummy, that sounds delicious. Toasted grilled cheese sandwiches, nothing better.

Trevor: 30:37

So what I think I'm saying, janelle, is simply savoring Unexpected, unearned Moments of attentive, of attentive Love and care and compassion.

Janell: 30:53

And that.

Trevor: 30:54

I'm a recipient of that In the most Unexpected ways through the day, and it could be a pet that comes and, you know, still thinks, oh yes.

Janell: 31:08

Wag the tail and get up close.

Trevor: 31:09

Yes, I've made my point.

Janell: 31:12

You have made your point and in those moments Debbie was expressing her belovedness towards you. It's just that simple and that beautiful and that mystical in all senses of the word right.

Trevor: 31:30

Right.

Janell: 31:31

I mean other faith traditions or other traditions, not even faith, which just call it mindfulness or those types of things. But this is what I really wanted to bring to my community here is your understanding of belovedness. So it's not a high pie in the sky. I don't have to go off into the desert to receive it, I can just say, Jesus, I really would just love to know, K-N-O-W, your deep love for me.

Trevor: 32:09

Which is 1.

Janell: 32:10

John 4. That's where I always go, that's where I have gone. That's where I went on this floor three years ago and asked that I read you know, I know God's love for me and I thought I don't know his love for me. I've got no clue, obviously. I've been walking with you 40 years. I don't get it. Why am I struggling with this now?

Trevor: 32:30

And I think, alongside of that, you know to ask also to be open to that love. Yes, in the most vulnerable places of my own life, I think we receive God's love in our vulnerability. We do so. It's learning to be a little bit undefended with God, so we ask for the grace.

Narrator: 32:57

Yes.

Trevor: 32:58

I'm not forcing myself. I'm simply saying, lord, would you help me to be a little bit more open to the depths of your love for me, particularly in those spaces of my life where I feel most vulnerable, most fearful, most anxious. I would appreciate it so much. Would you help me to receive your love into those spaces of my life.

Janell: 33:31

I love how you talk to God. It's so precious. Thank you for sharing that with us, so precious. Thank you for sharing that with us. Needed that more than anything. Just the imaging, I think, of someone that I respect so much and as a leader in the faith movement. Thank you. I just want to thank you for imaging God to me, heartlifter. We are going to close here. I'm going to break this up into a few parts because I think Trevor's message to us is timely and so needed.

Janell: 34:08

This week, as we reflect on Trevor's words, I encourage you, as I encourage myself, to really take the time set apart, the time as I encourage myself, to really take the time set apart, the time to ask ourselves what is our picture of God, how do I see God and what informed that picture? And then the deepest question of all is do I know the depths of God's love for me? Do I know the depths of God's love for me? And Trevor mentioned that it's important to remember times in our lives when we caught a glimpse of the depths of that love. And I mentioned that I definitely had that pour over me when I held each of my little grandbabies right after they were born, just cuddling them and holding them near to my heart was overwhelming, and it absolutely made me ask myself wow, if I love this little baby this much, how much does God love me? To help you in this journey, I'm going to read a few thoughts from his new book that I just cannot wait for you to hold in your hand. In search of God's will, he writes we will only choose to align our heart with God's when we know in our inmost being that we are. He writes when we carry this negative picture of God around with us, we will probably relate to God in a formal way rather than in the way of an intimate personal friendship. So let me ask you what do you honestly believe God feels towards you? Trevor's asking this question. What do you honestly believe God feels towards you? Trevor's asking this question what do you honestly believe God feels towards you? I would love to know your thoughts. He writes.

Janell: 36:27

That question began a journey of exploration. For the first time, I reflected on my image of God. I discovered that I saw God as someone capital S. I discovered that I saw God as someone capital S whose love and affirmation needed to be earned. Even though I preached about God's unconditional acceptance, my default belief was that I needed to measure up to God's expectations to receive it. This deeply ingrained way of relating to God translated into how I related to those around me, as if acceptance and love are earned through performance. You do not need to be a psychiatrist to see how this flawed view of God lay at the root of my drained emotional and spiritual condition.

Janell: 37:21

The healing of my negative picture of God continues even today, he writes. What has helped me most is to look at God through the words and life of Jesus. Again and again. Think of Jesus' description of how the father welcomed his prodigal son home While he was still a long way off. His father saw him and was filled with compassion for him. He ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him Luke 15, 20. Divine compassion fills the whole being of God. There is no room for anything else. Divine compassion fills the whole being of God. There's no room for anything else. No room for anything else. Like the sun that constantly shines, so God's love radiates toward us continually, Whether we receive that love or not. Getting to know this great love, capital G, capital L has gradually moved from just being an idea in my head to a personal knowing in my heart. Heartlifter, this is our assignment this week to somehow absorb this divine great love and have it move from our heads down into the personal knowing in our hearts. Stay tuned for part two next week.

Narrator: 39:10

Thanks for listening today. Please meet Janelle over at Heart Lift Central on Substack at Heart Lift Central, where we can keep this remarkable conversation going. Please share today's episode with a friend and invite them to become stronger every day. Heartlifter, always remember this you have value, worth and dignity.