161: John Eldredge | Practice. Pause. Be Present.

Ep. 161: Practice. Pause. Be Present.

John Eldredge | Practice. Pause. Be Present.

John Eldredge is a bestselling author, a counselor, and a teacher.

He is also president of Wild at Heart, a ministry devoted to helping people discover the heart of God, recover their own hearts in God’s love, and learn to live in God’s kingdom.

John and his wife, Stasi, live near Colorado Springs, Colorado.

John Eldredge and Amber discuss the collective trauma experienced as we continue life during a pandemic,  the practice of regular pauses, and what it means to practice benevolent detachment.

Practice. Pause. Be Present. Questions John and Amber Discuss:

  1. (7:22) Right before the world shut down you released Get Your Life Back, which spoke to how we can “disentangle from the tragedies of this broken world”. Two years of the world living during a global pandemic, I would love to hear your thoughts on the pandemic’s impact on human minds and hearts.
  2. (11:05) What are some soul care practices we can do right now?
  3. (16:01) Share a bit about benevolent detachment, this truth that “we are not called to carry the burdens of the world, but our village.”
  4. (19:44) Speaking of our mental and emotional well being, how can we be present with our emotions in order to allow Jesus in without being ruled by them?
  5. (30:39) My friend Eric said you gave one of the most powerful presentations of the Gospel he’s ever heard, weaving it into one story God was telling and finishing.  Will you share a bit of that story with us?
  6. (36:18) In regards to prayer and communion, how do you relate to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit differently?
  7. (44:56) What are you working on right now?
  8. (45:39) How have you experienced the sufficiency of God’s grace in your life?

Quotes to Remember From Practice. Pause. Be Present.:

“I was just moved to share this practice we had been doing as a team of learning to pause during the day and give everything over to God, and recenter in Christ.”

“When you watch Jesus move through the Gospels, you are watching Love incarnate.”

“Jesus says he’s not bound by human need. Love is not bound by human need. That’s codependence. Love has the ability to offer or not offer, depending on what God is doing in the moment.”

“I am a deeply empathetic person. One of the practices I had to learn was to consecrate my empathy to Christ.”

“I have to say, Jesus, I give you my compassion. And I give you my empathy, for you to guard and for you to guide where you want me to express it.”

“It’s important to have a healthy emotional life. You read the Psalms, and David, he’s all over the place, weeping, laughing, raging. But he doesn’t give up on God….You allow yourself an emotional life, but you don’t let your emotions drive the bus.”

“Want to care for your soul? What you do is you get beauty back into your life. You do things that nourish. You feel like taking walks, if you love listening to beautiful music or playing music, if you like to ride your bike, painting, reading, studying history, whatever brings your soul goodness, get off of technology and go do those things. And in one month, you will be a happier person.”

“You actually cannot write a good story. You can’t write a good script, without borrowing from the story of God.”

“Your life is part of a story, a beautiful story. It’s a love story. But it’s set in a world war….If you don’t understand that God is at war against evil in the world, you will blame all kinds of things on God.”

“One of the most valuable things was learning to hear the voice of God. And it is one of the lost treasures of the Christian faith. It’s absolutely normative in Scripture. The whole scripture is just stories of women and men who hear God and they’re not all the high priest of the year or somebody famous.”

Scripture References:

Resources Mentioned:

Related Episodes:

Jesus says he's not bound by human need. Love is not bound by human need. That's codependence. Love has the ability to offer or not offer, depending on what God is doing in the moment.
Your life is part of a story, a beautiful story. It's a love story. But it's set in a world war.... If you don't understand that God is at war against evil in the world, you will blame all kinds of things on God.
You actually cannot write a good story. You can't write a good script, without borrowing from the story of God.

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