Today's Heartlift with Janell
Sometimes the story we tell ourselves is not really true. Sometimes the story others tell about us is not really true. On "Today's Heartlift with Janell," Author, Trauma-informed, board-certified marriage and family specialist, and Professional Heartlifter, Janell Rardon, opens conversations about how emotional health and mental fitness effects absolutely every area of our lives. When we possess and practice healthy, strong, resilient emotional health practices, life is so much better. Read Janell's newest book, "Stronger Every Day: 9 Tools for an Emotionally Healthy You."
Today's Heartlift with Janell
299. Discovering Your True Calling: Embracing Faith and Identity with Reverend Chris Lee
"You have more value than the purpose set for you."
-Reverand Chris Lee, Know You are Beloved
As the world grapples with the complexities of modern life, we turn to the timeless wisdom of the Desert Fathers. These ancient Christian monks offer profound insights into how solitude, prayer, and spiritual discipline can help us navigate societal shifts and find peace amidst chaos. Rev. Chris Lee, author of "Know You are Beloved: Press Pause, Breathe Deeply, and Be Known By God," guides our discussion about today's challenges facing the American church, emphasizing the need to acknowledge pain and foster a deeper relationship with God. This historical perspective encourages us to nurture a profound sense of identity and peace in an ever-changing world.
Our conversation also highlights the transformative power of spiritual practices such as prayer, non-judgment, and community support. Inspired by monastic figures like Moses the Black and John the Dwarf, we explore how to create a "spiritual scaffolding" that supports a secure identity rooted in divine love. By sharing personal reflections and biblical stories, we illustrate the impact of understanding one's identity and calling, encouraging listeners to cultivate a life filled with serenity and purpose.
Get to know the "Internet's Favorite Vicor," Rev. Chris Lee: BELOVED
Follow Chris on IG: @revchris7
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today's episode is brought to you in full by heartlift 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. Wherever you find yourself today, may these words help you become stronger in every way.
Speaker 2:Hello and welcome to today's Heart Lift with Janelle. I'm Janelle, your host for today's uplifting conversation with the one and only Reverend, chris Lee. I'm so excited to bring Chris to you. He is a young vicar who has taken the internet by storm. Chris was ordained in the Anglican Diocese of Mount Kilimanjaro yeah, you heard me right at the age of 24, while living in Tanzania as a missionary. You'll hear Chris and I talk about that just a little. When he returned to Britain, he went to Cambridge where he studied theology, served as an assistant chaplain, received a hockey blue and he met Jenny. Chris and Jenny got married and now they have two girls. He became a curate at Holy Trinity, brompton in London, where he was involved in the church's homeless shelter. He is now vicar at St Saviour's, also in London.
Speaker 2:His first book, the OMG Effect 60 Second Sermons to Live a Fuller Life, was released in 2020 and it offered bite-sized wisdom to help all of us refresh our outlook, reflect on our values and transform our lives. And his message of positivity and inclusivity has inspired people around the world, whether they think of themselves as religious or not, and most certainly heartlifters. He uplifted my heart and I know that he's going to uplift yours, and we all need a heart lift right now. His latest book is where we're going to hone in today Know you Are Beloved. Press, pause, breathe deeply and be known by God. This released in 2024, and he's taking us on an inspiring journey to live life with purpose and serenity and be secure in our knowledge that our identity and our worth these are our words, heartlifters, this is what we stand on are found in the one and only place that we know Jesus' love for us. Chris says this the book will take you into a deeper place, with your faith more secure and more intimate.
Speaker 2:As a grand follower of PBS Masterpiece and the show Grantchester, oh my goodness, it was such a privilege, such a joy and such an honor to meet an actual vicar and chris, he's just gonna bring your heart some strong, strong joy. Are you ready for it? Please help me welcome chris to the show. So I would like to welcome you, chris lee. Reverend chris lee vicar. Chris lee, what do I, you, chris?
Speaker 3:Yeah, you can call me Chris, but sometimes people online call me Rev Chris, but just Chris, rev Chris, rev Chris 7.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 3:Rev Chris 7.
Speaker 2:Exactly 350 million hits on YouTube, so you absolutely have been given a large space. I would be what's the word? Use the scripture words right expansion of one's expansion of your capacity, and then I'll use publishing words platform, platform, platform influence influencer, all of these things, yes and uh said to me let's just take all that with a grain of salt. Sure, you know. So I do wonder, though, as someone who started as a missionary got ordained at Mount Kilimanjaro, which is epic.
Speaker 3:I've just actually returned from there.
Speaker 2:Oh, oh yeah, oh my.
Speaker 3:Just got back from uh climbing it again. Actually no, oh do tell sorry, yeah, so we're getting off to a. No, it's okay, I've got to know.
Speaker 2:I did want to talk about calling, because you you say, you know there are signposts to your calling. Well, uh, let's just go there, let's just transfer there, because you were 24 visiting Tanzania. Blah blah, blah Okay.
Speaker 3:So do you want me to go tell me the story of that, or tell you what I've just done in Africa?
Speaker 2:Blend them both, because I know you can.
Speaker 3:Okay, fine, let's do this. So I would say, well, first of all, I'd say at 20 years old I was kind of struggling Like who am I what's life? I kind of struggling like who am I what's life? I describe myself as being on a bit of a um in the UK I would call like a middle class conveyor belt. So I was in a comfortable home, I was in a family that, uh, put me through private school, put me in. You know it goes private school, then it goes university and then after university is get a job, get a house, a mortgage, and you know that's the conveyor belt, the conveyor belt, that's what.
Speaker 3:I like that term a lot and I just was like sitting on this and and I just didn't know who I was. I had made no decisions for my life and I was a bit unhappy in searching. And then, basically, a really good friend of mine dropped out of university and went to Tanzania to help on a small mission and he spoke to me and said Chris, you would love this. It's right up your street. What kind of things that you love. And I was an adventurer, I was growing in faith at the time and I wanted to get out there, and so basically that's what I did. I quit my job. I put my house on the market. I kind of rang home and said, oh, you already had a house, yeah, oh, you already had a house. Yeah, well, I had a house. When they were giving out mortgages like jelly babies here, you know, they were just like oh, you want one.
Speaker 2:I do yes, yes.
Speaker 3:This was pre all the crash and whatever which led to it. Yeah, they were giving out mortgages, very simply, absolutely. Yeah, I had all that and I had that kind of baggage of life, but I had no idea who I was. So I basically I pulled the ejector seat and I told my parents look, I'm going to go to Africa, I'm going to be a missionary. And they were a bit like what?
Speaker 2:Delayed gap year? I don't know yeah exactly.
Speaker 3:It was all that formational time of life. And you know, I always think that in order to follow calling, you need courage, you need to do something, sometimes drastically, to get out of where you know life has thrown you in order to get into something else. Yeah, we'll come back to that. Yeah, sure. So I just left, I put my house on the market for rent, I quit my job, I went to Africa and it was there really that I came to know Christ as I know him today, as a personal relationship with Jesus. And then I just I fell in love out there with the people and the culture and faith. And then, while I was out there, I thought, well, what do I do? Am I going to be a long term missionary? Am I going to do this?
Speaker 2:And then I felt the call yeah.
Speaker 3:So I decided to train out there.
Speaker 2:Initially you felt a call. You can just maybe expand, just if I, if you don't mind, like if I interrupt the flow of yeah, no sure, please, um.
Speaker 3:so I felt like I don't know how to describe it, other than it felt like a bit of gravity, like god, this gravity within me, where everything was shifting towards this idea of me serving God. And it became like a lens in which suddenly was placed upon me and everything I was looking at was in relationship to or what if I do this? What if I'm a long-term missionary? What does that mean? What if I stay here and serve God in this way? What does that? And then it became kind of clear that my shift was kind of more towards God and more towards falling in love with him and more towards me serving him. And what did that then look like? How would I have a life sustained by serving God? And that led me to think more about ordination and becoming a pastor, a priest in the church.
Speaker 2:Wow, Did you have spiritual guides, mentors?
Speaker 3:Well, funny enough, I had a bishop out there who was from Liverpool, who's a great guy, but he's one of these adventurer types and I walked into his office and he was sitting kind of having a quiet time and I said, excuse me, bishop, I've been thinking about maybe getting ordained. And he just closed his eyes and he sat back on his chair and he's like you can start on thursday, and that was it. That was it. That was my discernment with my, with my eldership, which is not common. Wow, that was like the Monday, I think. And so the Thursday I started my ordination training and started doing a kind of a biblical degree through an American seminary which supported the pastors in the mission that I was in, helped them on to ordination. So yeah, it was a bit of a bit of a different route to normal.
Speaker 2:I like that though.
Speaker 3:But yeah, always kind of, I've always done things. It feels as what I've always done things a bit squiggly, a bit differently. Uh, yeah, that's fun, but yeah. So I started training and then did two years of that degree course and eventually was ordained into the diocese of mount kilimanjaro as a deacon, unbelievable, unbelievable.
Speaker 2:I didn't even know there would be a diocese and yeah and then, basically, my wife.
Speaker 3:I fast forward to now. My wife and I have been supporting a charity called IJM International Justice.
Speaker 2:Oh yes.
Speaker 3:Yes, yes, and they help bring freedom to people in slavery and trafficked kids, and also in Kenya. They do they kind of petition against police violence and and corruption. And so we, I was invited by them because I work with them. They've asked me to be kind of ambassador for them. Of course, they asked me to come to Tanzania and Kenya to climb Kilimanjaro to raise awareness for their work there. So I have just done that. I've just climbed Kili, well done, which was brutal, ugh, but did it? Kili? Is that what we call it? We climb? Yeah, yeah. So kilimanjaro, yeah, yeah. And then did that, and yeah, I'm too old, I'm not sure back. So what? What day is it today?
Speaker 2:it's today is monday monday I got back last tuesday, so well I appreciate because that's, uh, quite the journey and then just get right on into this kind of thing. So thank you very much, chris. I appreciate it. You're welcome Hot off the path there. Did you climb it alone?
Speaker 3:No, there was 12 of us and 10 of us made it up. Two sadly didn't the oldest and the youngest of the group.
Speaker 2:uh fell sick and the altitude hit oh, I know that's how old was the oldest 63 64, I'm 64, okay, well, you could do it if you train get in get in the train. I'm against it. I'm not against that kind of challenge.
Speaker 3:I would say it's brutal. It is. It is tough the last days. You do a full day walk. You go to bed in the afternoon, you get woken up at 1130 at night. You then do six hours through the night, from 12 till 6, climbing up to the summit, you see the sunrise, which is amazing.
Speaker 2:Oh my.
Speaker 3:Climb down and then you have another four hours after that. So it's extraordinarily tough, but it was brilliant after that. So it's extraordinarily tough um, but it was brilliant series of sermons coming, I hope, or maybe a possible. Yeah, my church gets bored with me starting a story with when I was in africa, you know I was in africa.
Speaker 2:Yes, I've been to kenya. I did quite a love it. I absolutely adored it. It was, uh, I want to go back for sure. Uh, not sure I'll climb killy, but you never know, you just never know what god gives you energy up and down a little bit, you know, you can do. Yeah, just so I can say I did a mini Kili. Exactly, I did something In my. In my family we call those things bang sweeps because it's like you know. Oh, when I was climbing.
Speaker 3:Oh, is that a bang sweep, the bang sweep, or you?
Speaker 2:know when I was, uh, you know, 30 days in Europe traveling around. You know, it's just these mountaintop experiences. They really are you know, and. I just really would love to know what you learned on that hike up there. But I'm going to stay on topic with your new book.
Speaker 1:Know you Are.
Speaker 2:Beloved. Okay, know you Are Beloved. Press pause, breathe deeply and be known by God. Beloved, press pause, breathe deeply and be known by god. You write. I pulled out for the sake of time, yeah, because I would really like to go deep. Sure, I believe that. Uh, like you say, there is a great unsettling in the world and it was very affirming to hear someone like yourself acknowledge that, because I know that the American church might feel it, but it doesn't. It's. It seems to me at least, that it's not really being talked about business as usual.
Speaker 3:Right yeah.
Speaker 2:And it can't be business as usual anymore. It just can't be. At least I just want to hear from your wisdom. You have a great deal of wisdom.
Speaker 3:Oh, you're very kind, I I'll try my best, but I think, um, one of the things I reflected on is is is post-pandemic, just after the pandemic, yes, where the world was in a hurting place, a place where, in a sense, we needed a little bit more ability to lament and to, yes, deal with the pain of being squished up or being in solitary, where we found it, you know, a shuddering of all the kind of things of life that held us up A lot of churches.
Speaker 3:They didn't know how to react and they went back to kind of, as you just said, business as usual and it wasn't particularly good, I think.
Speaker 3:I think we need to be able to address pain and complexity within the church and I think we are, yeah, and then coming forward from that and just in the social media age, the kind of political and kind of tectonic shifts of the world and with social media, we're in this unsettling time and I think that we need to be better at being confident in stillness and silence and peace and, as Christians, being confident in the treasure that we have for historical past that can speak into today, to be able to show that peace in the church. And I think, at the moment, what we seem to often be doing is we are comfortable in what we've had for a long time and we're unsure and insecure about shifting those tents, those tabernacles that we have, and we need to be better at going okay. Well, how do we grow in confidence and stillness and peace? How do we maybe borrow from the past where they've had this great teaching? And so in the book I talk a lot about spirituality and Desert Father spirituality.
Speaker 3:Oh, yes, thank you spirituality and desert father spirituality.
Speaker 3:Oh, yes, thank you Having our ability to be able to, in the church, speak with confidence about what it means to be still and silent and peaceful and not just, you know, throw the baby out with the bathwater and go.
Speaker 3:Oh, we can't do that, that doesn't sound like our spirituality. Let's have big lights and loud music again and, honestly, that sometimes doesn't settle us and doesn't satisfy. And there's this I just see a growing yearning in the church and in young people looking for a bit more mischief, and so what I'm trying to do, I suppose, with this part of this book, is to give people a greater confidence and a greater depth in the historical church and in the teaching from the past and how that can speak to the present kind of ancient wisdom for a modern age. Oh, yeah, um, and just yeah, and. And then teach into that about your identity, being loved and being found in that love and and not a fluffy love, not like, oh, jesus loves you, give me a cuddle, give me a cuddle, we can do, we can all do with the cuddle, but at the same time, I love that.
Speaker 2:Well, I love that british term.
Speaker 3:Give me a cuddle, sorry I mean, it's good, it's nice to have a girl, but you want something that really goes beyond, yeah, fleeting emotions and go sit somewhere deep within you and you go. Actually, I am bound and found in this love, and this love is not based on my environment or the condition around me, but it's based on something eternal and that is powerful and find your place from that, there in that place, and so that's a little bit of what I'm talking about and trying to describe in the book.
Speaker 2:I would love for you because I definitely talk about it, but I feel like you're talking about it as a good pastor would and making it very, very tangible. What and who are these desert monks? Yeah, what does it mean to have a mystical relationship with god? If you might give us a little peek behind what? What?
Speaker 3:you say in uh, no, you are beloved yeah, so just introducing a little bit and I talk about this in the book the desert fathers were um fourth century kind of Christians for fifth century, and what happened is Constantine at the time was a Roman Emperor and Christianity, up to this point was persecuted and was pushed down and there was lots of martyrdoms. And then this Constantine figure rose up, became the emperor of the known world at the time and he adopted Christianity, was famously baptized, and scholars argue whether he really was a Christian or he wasn't a Christian, whether it was a political move or whatever, it doesn't matter. The point is that Christianity then became the popular faith and started to spread very powerfully. Thank God, yes, yeah, exactly. What came with that was that there were some Christians who moved from this place of persecution and strength to suddenly it being everywhere and it started to become a little bit culturally diluted and people were a bit worried about what was going on and there was odd changes in religious practices going on at the time.
Speaker 3:Religious practices going on at the time, and so some, some of the uh, the kind of um men and women of the time picked up and felt called to go into the desert and to spend time in in solitude and silence and in prayer, and really that's where the development of the monastic tradition developed people like saint anthony the great who, who basically felt called by um give all your possessions to the poor and come follow me.
Speaker 3:He kind of felt. He heard that in a sermon and then left and went into the desert and he spent the rest of his life in the desert and it was in there, in that desert place, where there was a lot of trial, where there was a lot of um uh, conflict, inner conflict, turmoil against yourself and they. And it's like the enemy, satan and the demonic forces in the spiritual realm that they sat in these places of prayer and and inner conflict and fought and then became victorious through christ and through these disciplines of prayer, fasting, still stillness of contemplation with the Lord. And then from that arose the monasteries, but also from that rose great traditions of wisdom, teaching and conflict and how to deal with these issues and those issues and how to come back to controlling the mind and bringing the mind in obedience to Christ. And then you get the early development of CBT, cognitive processing theory and a lot of like. These were the early psychologists.
Speaker 2:I know it's amazing to me when you study it.
Speaker 3:It's so relevant.
Speaker 2:So relevant.
Speaker 3:And anyway it was there that they really they went in just to push into God, into the love of God, and in that place, in that kind of furnace of conflict, of solitude, of silence, of prayer, they found this deep connection with God. And then, overflowing from that, that sense of identity found deeply within God, comes this wisdom literature, comes these teachings, and it's called Sayings of the Desert Fathers, and anyway I bring some of their teaching and wisdom and their stories into this book, and two major things, I mean two big themes, came out of the desert which are really interesting, I think.
Speaker 2:Can't wait to hear. I want you to expound upon this.
Speaker 3:Yes, so two things came out of it. One was they talked about staying in your cell and what that means is praying, Like they just said. You have to pray, prayer. They said the cell will teach you everything. Come back to prayer again and again. And it was that vertical relationship with you and God. That you just dive into prayer, you sit with God, with you and God. That you just dive into prayer, you sit with God, you learn from him. And the second thing, which is quite interesting, is non-judgment. They had a lot of teaching about not judging the other, but forming yourself in order to better be equipped to help and encourage and lead others, rather than standing in judgment. And you know great stories of what was it?
Speaker 2:moses the black, I think one of one of you know they're john the dwarf yes I have a poem and I would say what would be my monk name I know mama sarah of the desert.
Speaker 3:Anyway, there's some great names and, um, you know the stories, like, I think, moses the black was told to come and stand in judgment about one of the fallen brothers and he famously took a jar and he broke it and walked with the jar spilling water out behind him. Oh yes, as he walked they knew that there was a lesson and they said you know what are you saying? And he says you've come and you've asked me to come and judge this brother, but my sins run out behind me and I do not see them. And they all felt convicted and they kind of didn't end up judging the brother, because the truth is most Christians, when they fall, most of the time we are our worst accusers. We beat ourselves up and actually love and encouragement and support, rather than condemnation and judgment, finger pointing like you just did with your body. Yeah, yeah, so, um, I love their teaching, I love their wisdom, I love their passion.
Speaker 2:Just, you know all, all for god all, in stay all in absolutely all in and um at the great cost, though right, chris being there, was I.
Speaker 3:I I okay the asceticism that they went through was next level, yeah.
Speaker 2:Next level. So I think, how do I then apply that? Let's say, I'm just going to say this because I'm trying to be as gut, level, honest as I've ever been in my life to try to call back to women younger than myself Been through, you know, a patriarchal system for so long in so many ways. But if you say to someone okay, I'm currently not in church, I just can't be, I just can't be. My husband and I I feel you just described what I'm doing COVID started it because it gave me permission to do something that I had felt called to do and that was to go away.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:And you just said we can't get that kind of depth, or what I'm after wisdom, maternal wisdom, matriarchal wisdom in the very, very very very busy churches in my community.
Speaker 3:Yeah, there I said it.
Speaker 2:Well, firstly, I'm sorry, I confess to my Vika. You know it isn't judgment, I'm not judging, it really isn't. It's just I. It is not healthy for me. It's almost like a toxic relationship. It's not like it is a toxic relationship and it that might be my problem. That's what I'm searching. Is it my problem? Sure, but you know, on Easter Sunday we go to church, uh, gladly, and there are people in the parking lot with signs honk for Jesus.
Speaker 3:Okay, Honk for Jesus. Wow, honk, lots of them pickk, lots of them pick.
Speaker 2:It look like a picket, like a picket line, and I was like, oh, wow, I wonder what? Who's picketing this church on easter sunday morning? And then, as we got closer, I was like, oh, wow, okay, hmm. Well, as we say here in the South bless their hearts.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know which is not a nice thing.
Speaker 3:I'm just trying to wrap my head around it, you know and putting a lot of weight on you, I guess, to speak into it, I would say the church has failed when people feel they can't have a place there. Um, and a church a church, you know, isn't isn't an exam we pass and you know it's a family that we should join. They're full of love and grace, where the father invites us to the table where we get messy and, you know, we get things wrong and there should be grace for us. It's not a, you know, always look smart, be the part and make sure you pass the tests. It should be, yeah, the family meal table, which can, in itself, be quite chaotic at times.
Speaker 2:Oh Lord, yes, always welcome.
Speaker 3:I mean certainly my family times at the table is very loud and Irish and colorful language and everything's talked about.
Speaker 2:I would love to sit at that table.
Speaker 3:We go to a restaurant and everyone just goes quiet around us because my family just takes over and it's quite embarrassing.
Speaker 2:I belong there. I'm very loud.
Speaker 3:Anyway, but yeah, so I would say that you know, the church fails when it loses its sense of identity. I would say I would encourage people to find a community, a church, a home group or somewhere you can gather. I think it's so powerful. I think these monks, these guys, they went out into the desert and they ended up turning the desert into cities because people came out searching for them and they would, you know, in finding God in the solitude they ended up discovering Building community, building communities.
Speaker 2:You can't help it.
Speaker 3:I mean we.
Speaker 2:I consider myself a leader, a thought leader in the American church, church at large, I hope you know, and I can't live without it, for sure, for any length of time. But I just love that you're bringing to us. I guess my bigger question was how then do I live that kind of stay in my cell today? What would that might look like? What does that look like in your life?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think there's a couple of things. One is rules of life are coming back into play a lot at the moment Huge and those are quite positive. I have a rule of life and my church now has a kind of a loose rule based around five principles, which are silence, song, scripture, sacrament and service. The idea is that we found it quite.
Speaker 3:I think the church and people have found it quite difficult to identify what it means to be and live as a Christian when you can see a Christian over there and they're completely different to you and they completely live differently to you and your values are sometimes opposed to one another and you're like how can we both be Christians?
Speaker 3:And it's quite disorientating, like how can I live? And I think churches and communities are developing these ideas of living by rules to help us what I would call erect a spiritual scaffolding around you that allows you to get into the nuts and bolts of your daily life, the way you look at things or see things, and allow you to shift a mechanism around you that go oh, this is how I choose, or I want to choose to regard my money, regard my neighbors, regard my home life, regard my family, regard my neighbors, regard my home life, regard my family, and you start constructing these ideas and thoughts and going, well, I will, uh, and I will, you know, also putting things in um, like prayer time, um retreats, um, yes, sabbaticals or just kind of things, where you put them into place and you go.
Speaker 3:Well, I will, I will try to live via these principles, by these kind of um ideas, and you construct like the scaffolding. Do you have that word right, scaffolding?
Speaker 2:oh, absolutely, my husband's in construction too.
Speaker 3:So yes, absolutely scaffolding, beautiful psychology, yes it can go up and it can be shifted and it can be moved around. It's meant to be something that helps you get into the building, in a sense, get around the building, figure it out, figure it out, and then you can shift it and move it. So that's the kind of ideas and principles. Is you go me and God and me and neighbor and me in the world, so you base Me in church, right? How do I do me and God and me and neighbor and me in the world? So you base Me and church, right. How do I do me and God? What does that look like? Prayer time, reading the Bible? It looks like retreats, and then it's me and my neighbor.
Speaker 3:How will I deal with people? How do I choose to be generous and to be hospitable, to have people over to do this, and also then maybe you can go inward and go me and myself. How will I deal with myself? How will I choose to um, have grace for myself? And so you construct these kind of things that just help form you as a person. Um and um, those that can be helpful and I think I think more and more churches are looking into this and doing these kind of things um, and then I think there's a resurgence of spiritual disciplines as well, like, yes, what I mean by that is, um, spiritual disciplines, uh, like fasting, for instance.
Speaker 3:That's kind of again, people are looking into that, not just the health benefits but the spiritual benefits, correct, and you know the tradition of where fasting comes from and the fact that it used to be a really common practice in the church for centuries, um, and has lost a little bit of its way. But I've certainly found that a helpful practice to helping me concentrate and live my life as a christian and in a way, it is difficult and it is tough and but it it exposes sometimes the stuff in our lives, the idols that are secretly on that, leading us because you get more frustrated or you get more. You know, yeah, exposes things and and so it's like I talk about this in the book and good, so almost like a spiritual tension on you, yes, which is, but then it highlights what's going on and then clearly direct effort and dealing with that thing.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, I wonder, krista, sometimes. I love that you said spiritual tension, because I feel like that is where many of my peers are living. When you say a big initiative of this book is to understand that God delights in you, I love that initiative. I can't believe that I don't understand that. Just the last two to three years, that's a spiritual tension. God has been tightening and tightening in my life and John 4 like no, if you knew how much I loved you, yeah, yeah, you wouldn't be striving, you wouldn't be so driven or at least you wouldn't be finding any sort of identity.
Speaker 3:You can still have these passions and these drives. Talk to us, not allow them to rule you. I mean, to be honest, that is the. That is the golden thread through this whole book, like the whole book is is is hammering in that you are loved and that your identity is in god, and I just keep coming back to that in almost every chapter, that I'm trying to help people to understand that god is love. I mean, we lose that in today's environment and in the church as well, where we're fighting for these things here and there and we're actually losing.
Speaker 3:What is the good news? The gospel is good news. I know You're loved and precious and yeah, and the teaching of the character of who God is. You know Jesus's main if you look at Jesus's ministries, often just teaching people the character of God, that God isn't someone you need to fear and who wraps you up in his arms, who puts a ring on your finger and a robe around you, who invites you to the feast, who who finds you and brings you home. You know these. This is the character of our god, who loves us and loves us and loves us. And you know again and again. That's what I keep coming back to and that is the real. The hope of this book is that you know that confidence and that depth of faith which is nurtured on. The hope of this book is that you know that confidence and that depth of faith which is nurtured on the security and stability that you are a loved child of God. And, um, yeah, how are you?
Speaker 2:making that known to your children. You let me make sure that I add this quote right here. It will be a moment that we all pause. You have more value than the purpose that is set for you yeah yeah, you have more value than the purpose that is set for you. I had to read it four or five times and go wait a let's see what we're saying here I have more value, but God, put the purpose in me.
Speaker 2:This is where my tension is. Okay, if you put all this in me. Did you put all this in me, god? And I know that my heart lifters are sitting, hopefully, in their beautiful sacred space they've created to be alone with God after this season on the podcast. But, you know, is that's even a tension sentence. It's a great sentence, by the way. Thank you thank you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I again. I mean this comes back to a little bit of identity, like where we find our identity.
Speaker 3:Is it in what we are called to do or have, or own you know, and it's not, and and all it's really simply simple thing to do is go back to where jesus is baptized, before the miracles, before the crucifixion, before his his obedience to the father, with that kind of calling, and it says this is my son, in whom I am well pleased, you know. And we have to find that sense of identity in the fact that we are alive, that we are being created, that that we are precious before everything else and and if we can hold that, that I am loved because I'm alive, and the fact that I'm alive is a signpost to the fact that I'm loved, that god sustains my breath and everything. Um, we are, we are greater than our purpose, we are greater than our calling. If you miss your calling, you're still precious and loved, you know. And we're greater than our potential. That sometimes that's it.
Speaker 3:That's a big one yeah, and and and, if you, if you look at the ministry of Jesus, it wasn't his potential in the sense that we saw fulfilled. It was an obedience to a calling that we saw fulfilled. He was the son of God and was miraculous and powerful and he died alone, naked on a cross, despised. That wasn't living up to potential, but he's loved beyond that and deeper than that, and actually it was his, the him knowing that love that allowed him to fulfill all the other things that were, in a sense, required.
Speaker 2:yes, is that why you think he it was one of his primary reasons perhaps for always checking in, going away, away, aligning himself? Was it to go? Okay, I feel like maybe the love has been beaten out of me or I don't know. I just think, you know, I know it said oh, he went away to a quiet place, you know. But I've been digging deeper into that personally and I'm thinking was it perhaps to just know? I'm just so loved. I just I need a cuddle, I need, uh, I need assurance. You know you write that understanding your calling, feeling your calling, can feel like thunder. So then I'm like, okay, chris, reconcile Chris, reconcile that for me that it's not like thunder. You know I got to go out and do and do and da, da, da, da. But then you have more value than the purpose that is set for you, I believe, with how maybe even you are teaching your children that, or do you even wrestle with it anymore?
Speaker 3:Is there going to be a point where we just know we're so loved and accepted that it will just be an overflow it desert? Fathers achieved that, mothers and I'm I and it is a process that I think we are all called to go on, and I am. I am going on it myself. I think what's interesting for me is this question of identity has been something that I wrestled with my whole life.
Speaker 2:I'm an identical twin, so my, I didn't read that anywhere. I have twins, but they're not their boy girl. That's fascinating.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm an identical twin and my brother is in the army, and this has always been the question for me of identity, because we were always treated the same, we were dressed the same.
Speaker 2:I love my parents, but you know, I know it's a twin thing.
Speaker 3:And we always did everything together. We were seen as we were seen um, and one on the same and um, and it was very difficult. So searching for my sense of who I was and calling has been something that's very profound, the kind of big horizon for me, and I think, uh-huh, I'm glad you shared that.
Speaker 2:That's that that informs so much. I think of that. Yeah, conveyor belt, the conveyor belt.
Speaker 3:Yeah, like, who, who am I really Like? Like, what is, what is me and how do I find my sense of self? If you know, I look at the person next to me and they look exactly the same. They they so free characters is similar, you know, like, but what is unique about me? And then you have to go really deep and go where there's something more to life than what I see and experience, and that is the fact that you know I have a. There's a throne in heaven that is mine, that god says. Here's my son, who I love and like.
Speaker 3:We tend to like leave our thrones often and find it in other places, and God is constantly calling take a seat with me. Like, this is who you are, I love you that place. Then you can conquer the world and the world has no, you know, it doesn't matter what's going on, because you know that you're loved, you know there's an eternity for you. And if we were able to lift the veil for a moment to see the look and the gaze of God upon us, his love for us, we would be so much more satisfied and so much more at peace and anxiety would leave. And there are moments that we can get that through discipline, through prayer, through times of worship. But often we end up leaving the seat and going out and trying to find our own. And god keeps us back to this place of you are loved, you are my daughter, I love you, you're my son, I love you. And then, when that love affects us, we become less judgmental, we become less, we become more peaceful and and we're able to more adequately deal with when anxiety or things rise and it's just like breathe, come back to that place of security and then go forward.
Speaker 3:And Jesus was in the business of bringing this type of healing to people and to affirming them. You know, you look at Mark 5 with the hemorrhaging woman. Who was this woman? Who was just distant from everyone, from her community, from God, from herself? She was someone who was just at distant from everyone, from her community, from god, from you know herself. She was someone who was seen as unclean. He wasn't allowed in the temple, it wasn't allowed to be touched or be around anyone. And jesus brings her in to this crowd and says you know, daughter of abraham, your faith has healed you. And he restores her to this community. He restores her to the fact that her faith is alive when he calls her a daughter of abraham, and he does this in front of the.
Speaker 2:You know, the, the gyrus the father, a literal father crying out for his daughter yeah, and and exactly.
Speaker 3:And he? What does he represent?
Speaker 3:and here is this, this, this leader of synagogue, and this and his daughter, who is seen as the cleanest of the clean, a Pharisee's daughter a virgin, she's beautiful, and Jesus stops and restores this woman, and then he restores the other woman as well, the girl as well, and raises her from the dead. But there's no hierarchy of love in God's kingdom. It's just if we know that we are loved and precious and that he sees us and knows us. He knows our weakness and our failings and our faults, but he consistently says come back to me, because once we established in that loving place, then we are so much more able to walk with peace and we will be less tripped up by life.
Speaker 2:I love that I love, that tripped up, triggered, yes, all of the psychological things that a healthy sense of self helps call you back to.
Speaker 3:There's that wonderful, there's that wonderful resurrection story. When Mary comes and she's the first person to see the resurrection.
Speaker 2:I love me some Mary.
Speaker 3:She pleads to the gardener we don't, you know? We know it's Jesus. And the one thing that the first, the way that she suddenly is aware of who it is, is because Jesus says her name and he says Mary, yeah. Suddenly she's like I'm known, he sees me, he is resurrected, and that is, in a sense, the power of the resurrection is that God sees each of us and just calls us by name and then in that moment we are known and seen and loved and saved by a God who loves us. So getting to that place of security and depth is what I'm trying to do, in roundabout way, as best I can.
Speaker 2:But you're doing it, you are doing it. Chris, please don't stop doing this. Your voice is has. A viral vicar is necessary. I just pray that everyone listening will have that moment as they, as they stay in their cell right, as they continue to stay in the cell. When you feel like nothing's happening, you're not hearing God, because you know, initially moving into contemplative work is contemplative work, you know it's.
Speaker 2:It's a long process to find stillness, and so I think that my prayer that just evoked great deal of emotion when you said it is, he said her name Exactly Chris Janelle. Great deal of emotion when you said it is, he said her name exactly chris janelle. Yeah, I'm gonna sit until I hear him say that oh, man, thank you.
Speaker 3:Oh, you're welcome. Thank you, thank you for having me on um and uh, yeah, I hope it's been a blessing for you, those who are listening, and oh no, it's been uh life changing. Thank you so much bless you and um I bless you hopefully I'll come to the states at some point with oh yeah hopefully we can bring you to the states. I don't want to take you away from a growing family oh no, I love my family and they love me, but I've always been an adventurer.
Speaker 2:Yes, I love it. Well, I'm hoping to take a trip to London, and when and if I do, because Belgium is just a train ride away. So thank you again again and again and I'll see you in London at some point. I'll make sure you're not in the States when I visit and I hope to see you here.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'd love to come across. We'll see if I do some kind of book tour God blessing on the book.
Speaker 2:You will have to do a book tour. It's so good and it's so vitally necessary.
Speaker 3:Writing it and thinking about it, it feels like a message that has been drawn out from me, so hoping it will be a big blessing and in a time where we need it, I think, where the church and people need to be reminded again that they're loved and they're precious and you know, not in some flip-flop way, but in a deep depth of meaning, that your identity, on who God says you are, not on the world.
Speaker 3:You know, I'll finish with this St Francis. So Francis had this prayer and basically this is where the thread of this whole book comes from, where the prayer is simply this it says who are you and who am I, and he prayed that to god, overheard by brother leo who are you and who am I? Such a beautiful, simple prayer like who are you, god and knowing god, you know who you are, and and kind on a cyclical relationship of knowing the character of God really helps you understand who he is, and then that helps you understand who you are. And the book is all around that, like knowing God and knowing yourself.
Speaker 2:Cannot be in my hands soon enough. So thank you, go, have a wonderful rest of your afternoon.
Speaker 3:I will. I will have a great day.
Speaker 2:Thank you, go have the wonderful rest of your afternoon.
Speaker 1:I will I will have a great day, thank you. 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.
