Transcription
Ellen, how was your summer?
It was a really good summer. It was a summer mostly here. We didn't travel a whole lot, so it was time with family. It was relaxing, and probably one of the most revealing conversations about what's going on inside me happened this summer with a friend. And it was, it was, I think it happened because it was a low-key time, and so there was time just to have a leisurely conversation. And he asked me, "How would you say God is coming through for you?" And I, you know, the question was awesome. I leaned in, and we started talking. And I could see his expression was more and more curious. And what I was telling him is, "God comes through pretty much in the nick of time." So if I need something, you know, or there's an issue, like he'll, he'll come through. And if I, you know, if it's financial, or health, or if it's an opportunity for something, it happens, but usually at the last possible second." And he said, "Well, what's a word picture for that? How does that make you feel?" And I said, "Well, the word picture is probably me in an ocean, dog-paddling. And the good news is I'm not drowning. Like, I survived. That's good. I don't go under. But I'm also not walking on water, and I'm not progressing. I'm just kind of sustaining, barely." And that was when it hit me, "Boy, I have made some kind of agreement. Some, something's not right about that." And yet, it feels so true. "Yes," could you name the agreement? "God provides just enough for me to get by." And, and, and it was even mixed with this, "But yeah, but he always provides. Like, always. In the nick of time, he comes through. And that's good, right?" But thankfully, the friend I was with had a lot of wisdom on that and called me on it. And it was a time where not only did that get named, but an agreement got broken that was hidden. It was below the surface that I didn't even see.
Friends, welcome back to the Ransom Park podcast. John Eldridge, Alan Arnold in the studio this week. Want to unpack for you, uh, the category of agreements. It's a phrase that we use quite a bit in The Ransom Heart vernacular. If you've been to one of our events, you've heard us talk about it. But we've had some correspondence from folks who say, "Hey, could you shed a little more light on that? Um, not really sure I'm tracking what our agreements can you help me name them? Help my friends name them?" So we thought, "Okay, sure. Here's a category for us that has proven immensely helpful over the years." I mean, this is a real simple thing, but if you have this in your tool kit, like, it's super helpful.
It is. It is. I think most people don't even realize there is a category of agreements. And so the default is, "I'm good. Like, I'm, I'm good. I don't think I have any." I don't. In fact, the guy who wrote "In the Ally" and said, "Can you talk about this?" said most of his friends, they don't just not understand what an agreement is, but even when they hear it, they don't even believe there is such a thing in their world operating. Maybe it would be helpful to start back with, you have an enemy. Scripture is very clear on that. That everyone has an enemy, the evil one, the adversary, the Accuser of the Brethren, is what he's called in Revelation 12. So we know that he is an Accuser. And we know that Jesus called him the father of Lies. He says, "He was a liar from the beginning and he is the father of Lies." So you have an enemy, and he's a liar. Now, the thing is, gang, if that was super obvious, if his lies, his deceptions, his interpretation of your life and your experience was so blatant and almost comical, nobody would fall for it, right? He wouldn't be called the father of Lies, he'd be called the, the father of foolish suggestions or the father of obvious and ridiculous interpretation, right? But he's good at it. He's very good at it. That's what Jesus meant by the father of Lies. Like, it originates with him. He is an expert at reading human nature and taking advantage of situations and events and putting his spin on the situation.
Let's ground this in scripture. Go back to the Garden of Eden. You have Adam and Eve. You have a very, very healthy couple. You have a couple without marital strife. You have two human beings that are unbroken. Nothing wrong with them. They're whole, they're holy. And yet, the evil one's ability to distort the interpretation of things. So God has given the commandment not to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil. And the enemy comes in, and he begins to twist the story. It's not blatant. He says, "Did he really say you shall not eat of any of the trees in the garden?" Well, no, no, that's actually not quite true. But the power of his deception worked on an unfallen woman and an unfallen man. That is very, very significant for us to look at. The father of Lies is very good at this. And, and what he'll do is he'll come into experiences that you have, particularly when things go wrong, fears, places in your life that you haven't been able to get breakthrough, sometimes even just the look on your spouse's face. And he will put a spin on it. He'll put an interpretation on it. And what he's looking for in his lie, he's lying to us on a regular basis. Scripture is very clear on that. You are being lied to. And even an unfallen one, an unfallen man, were not completely immune to this. And so we make agreements with those lies. They tend to be very subtle. They tend to be under the surface.
We had a rocky summer. It was, it was a good summer, but it was a rocky summer. We had some family losses that we went through. We had just some different upsets. It, it was a rocky summer. It was a good summer, but it had its share of disappointments. And as we were making the turn into fall and into what will be a very exciting but very full fall season here at Ransomed Heart, with our Wales conference in September and Captivating in October, with Stacy launching a book and I'm finishing a book, I mean, just all kinds of great stuff going on. We're doing a boot camp in Australia, first of December. Okay, I'm making the turn into fall, and I'm not looking forward to it. I'm really not. I'm having emotions around the passing of summer. And, you know, you can feel fall in the air, and I'm not happy. Fortunately, I paused and I asked Jesus, "Lord, I need your help with this. I'm melancholy. I'm apprehensive. I'm not looking forward to the fall. Yet I don't feel ready. But I need your interpretation." And here's what he says. He says, "John, he says, your summer was beautiful, and it was enough." Well, and I had to kind of stop for a second. "Go, really? Because it doesn't feel like it." I need to go back and look. "Okay, wait a second. There was that day at the park with the kids, and we were playing in the stream. Okay, that was really beautiful. And there was that evening with Stacy on the patio, and the crickets were chirping. And no, you're right, God, that was really beautiful. And there were these, there was beauty in the summer." And I had to go back and see that. And then the big agreement for me was, "It was not enough. I'm not ready. I, I did, I didn't get enough replenishment. I didn't get enough time with God, and I'm not ready." And, and to have him say, "No, it was enough," exposed the agreement that I was making, that it wasn't. Yes. And in about an hour, in the course of of letting that be true, honestly, my internal experience did a 180. And I, with Stacy and I were, you know, packing up some things and putting away some of the summer stuff, you know, the kids' toys, you know, baby toys and stuff, literally packing up summer, right? And kind of putting it away, putting the deck chairs away for having sex. And I said to her, "You know what, honey? I'm good. I'm actually good. I, I'm looking forward to the fall." Total change of experience.
And what was it that triggered in you? Just the light that said, "Okay, there's an agreement that's about to be made here." How did you sense that?
I'd already made the agreement that summer was not good and it wasn't enough. You know, we'd had too many disruptions. And for Jesus to say, "No, no, John, it was beautiful and it was enough," exposed the agreement. It allowed me to break it. And coming out from under that, my perspective, my interpretation. I think that's another word that might help people. Agreements are how you are interpreting situations, people, a talk you just gave, you know, something you just said to someone. You walk away from it, and suddenly, you know, there's, it's all there. You're, you're interpretation of reality, including your interpretation of yourself. We make all kinds of agreements around ourselves. Your interpretation of God, right? So Alan, you were, you were sharing the story about the conversation with your friend, and he asked, "How is God coming through for you?" Okay, so listeners, I just want to show you how powerful agreements are. I just want to say, "God is coming through for you." Okay, listener, "God is coming through for you." How do you react to that internally? Now, some of you are like, "Yes, I see it. It happened last week. He was right there for me. You know, that check came through in the mail." But I guarantee you that more than half of you are going, "Um, yeah, not really sure how I feel about that sentence." Right? Right. And, and I think it's harder to figure out where the agreement is the longer it's been operating in your life. And John, you've talked a lot at boot camp. I've heard you say how the enemy loves to strike when you're young, when you're vulnerable, when you don't have all the ability to interpret what's going on. Yes. And so just, if you would talk a little bit about that, because I think some of those agreements that we've made go back to boyhood, girlhood, and it sure doesn't feel like an agreement. It just feels like that's been life. Yes.
Yeah. And gang, I mean, to be kind, agreements are always based in some kind of fact, some kind of situation. They don't, you know, the ones that work, the ones that stick, the ones that really pin your heart down or or shape your interpretation of life, they come through pain. They, they come through things that actually happened. So we're not making light of any of that. We're trying to shed light on it. Everyone has a story, and not everyone understands their story well or in the light. The enemy knows your story, and he knows what works with you. Okay. So go back to, you know, my childhood growing up in an alcoholic home and multiple experiences of parental neglect, parental failure, family chaos, financial collapse. I mean, there's all kinds of chaos going on in my house, trauma, to be honest. And I remember in the midst of that, you know, my young heart said, "I'm on my own. I'm on my own. There's no one here for me." My father, who, who now is with Christ, and all that's going to be completely worked out in the Kingdom, but my father, you know, as an alcoholic, like totally abandoned and an unstable household. And, and so no one's here for you. And my mom had to go back to work and worked very late hours, and I literally was on my own. And so this agreement comes in through fact, through data. "You're on your own." And that took such deep root in me. It really required adulthood, when Alan, as you were saying, when you begin to have some of the tools, and you begin to have some distance from your story, and some objectivity, and the help of friends, or the help of a counselor, or a priest, a pastor who can help you work through some of your interpretation and surface some of these agreements. In childhood, when you're vulnerable, oh man, some of life's most defining agreements take place.
Yes. I remember vividly when I had graduated from college. So at this point, not a young boy, still not a grown man, and a boy inside, though. Boy inside in so many ways, right? Right. And I was in the driveway of my grandfather and grandmother's home. And my dad and I were at his car, so we're about to leave. So his mom and dad's place, I'm with him. And I was asking him, when I graduate, you know, "Dad, there's all these choices, and what do you think I should do?" It was time to find the job. And he just made the comment, standing there before we got in the car, he goes, "You know, um, I don't know, but Arnold men don't really make good leaders." And he didn't say it like, he didn't say it in a way that was meant to be spiteful, or he wasn't trying to cut me down. He was naming his own, right, agreement. And he, and he said it just like you'd kind of say, "What do you want for lunch?" And just matter of fact. But he cut the conversation off. And that was left hanging. And in his career, he had gotten to kind of a mid-level job at a utility company and stayed in that job for about 30 years. And so, you know, faithful provider, but but wasn't on the upward track, was not a leader of people. And so it felt true. And it's your own father saying this to you. And so right, sometimes I think we have to, as we look back, go, "What did we observe and interpret? And also, what was interpreted for us by the very ones who are supposed to be bringing life to us?" Yes.
Even what was spoken over your life. The number of stories that I've heard of parting words of parents, either parents that are leaving, divorcing, or or parents who are passing away. And the father who says to the young adult son, "You know, you're going to drive this family business into the ground," and he does. You know, it ends up being a sentence over his life. Or that word spoken by the angry mother over the daughter, "You know, no one's ever going to find you attractive." Right? So she begins to live that out. Now, gang, to be clear, agreements span the entire spectrum from major life events and and defining agreements like, "I will never be loved," or "I will never be seen," or "I'll never be a leader," "I'll never be a success." "In a major, major life, no one, no one will ever appreciate me." "Don't ever trust anyone." Okay, so big, big sweeping life agreements to very simple things, gang. Very, very simple things. And, and it might be more helpful to identify and work on some of the simpler ones. So I would be very frank. I was late to get to the studio. Ran out of gas here. Ran out of diesel in my truck, which is not actually a good thing to do to a diesel truck. As I was driving down here, I could just feel, I wasn't looking forward to this recording. And I thought, "Wait a second. I love going in the studio. I love Alan. I love our conversations. What is this?" And I could just feel in my heart, I could kind of feel the sentence was, "I am totally not ready for this. I'm flustered from what just happened. I'm late. I, you know." And so here was the agreement: "The agreement was, I'm not looking forward to this." And it was shaping my experience of it while I was letting that be my interpretation. Yes. And so I had to stop and go, "Wait a second, Jesus, I renounce that. That's not true. I reject that. I am looking forward to this." And the number of times that's happened to me, walking into a family gathering, a certain, you know, party I am required to attend to for social reasons but don't really want to go, you know, whatever it may be, certain meetings with people, difficult conversations. And just that, "Oh, I'm not looking forward to this." If I just let that be, yes, that's my interpretation, that's my assumption, would be another word, that's my agreement. I have made an agreement with that interpretation, right? If I let that be, it totally shapes it, right? I don't have a good time, or it doesn't go well, or, you know, these things, they have a great deal of power to them. And breaking them also has a wonderful, wonderful power to it as well.
It sounds like, as you're going through that, that agreements are not the same like their sin. And there's freedom from sin. And certain kinds of sin where God heals you and you just don't deal with that anymore. It's not an issue anymore. And you went into that detail in the book, "Free to Live," what is holiness and how do you get that freedom? But agreements feel like a whole different type of animal because it's not one and done necessarily, right? Or it's not, "I had an agreement once in my life and it's broken." It feels like it's part of something we always need to be at least watchful of or aware of.
Well, again, you have an enemy. He's a father of lies. He's called the Accuser. So, you know, he's trying to put his spin on your life. And how you see yourself, how you perceive God, how you perceive others, how you perceive your own future, all of it. I mean, he's working it. Historic agreements, the big ones, the ones that you've been making for a long time. "I will never be loved." "She just doesn't understand me." I'm telling you, agreements have the power to destroy marriages, by the way. You make these historic agreements of, "I can never forgive him for that. I can never forgive him." That'll destroy a relationship. Now, that you may stay together, but there's no intimacy, there's no trust, there's no love, right? The romance is gone. So these are very, very powerful. And if they have been historic, if that's been your agreement for 10, 20, 40, you know, 60 years, breaking it for the first time is incredibly liberating. But yes, you probably will have to break it again a few times because the enemy had that ground. He knew it worked with you. So he'll come back and he'll try it again, you know, and try and get you to kind of remake the old familiar ones. Whereas, you know, some of the fresh, current ones, yes, tend to be easier to make because you don't have this long-term relationship with it. Right? It doesn't have that groove in your soul where you just, that's the default, man. You just fall into that rut. And gang, so many ways to identify agreements. But one of them is just what comes out of your mouth when something bad happens. What comes out of your mouth? This is the fascinating turning point, actually, I think, in the story of the Book of Job. I think that this reveals what the Book of Job is about, because when it all comes crashing down, what Job says, what comes out of his mouth is, "I knew it. I knew it." Meaning, "This is what life's really like. This is what God's really like, right? You can't trust anyone. I was a fool." You know, it's that, "I knew it" thing. Okay, so what comes out of your mouth when life collapses? Flat tire? Bounce? Jack? Alan? Yeah, usually it's, "Here we go again," or a sense of, "There's always the next domino." And so that, to me, is usually the internal, even if I don't say it, that's that feeling of, "I'm barely getting by." So gang, what, what comes out of your mouth when something wrong happens? What comes out of your mouth when you blow it? When you forget your friend's birthday? When you say something you shouldn't have said in a meeting? When you do, frankly, mishandle someone else's story or heart or conversation? What comes out of your mouth? You drive away from blowing it. That would be another way of identifying agreements, right? Or what are you thinking as you head into it? Just pay attention. Ran out of gas. I'm late. I'm flying down the road. I gotta get here. You know, and just begin to pay attention to, "Wait a second. My, my internal world. I'm not looking forward to this." Whoa, hang on a second. Where did that come from? Right? So identifying agreements. And it's, it's not just, it's too easy to say, "Well, that's just kind of how I am," or "That's who I am." That's not who you are. That's how you're reacting. And the question is, why are you reacting that way?
John, to your point, so many times personality tests, we talk about how while they may be accurate in the sense that they measure where you are, they don't measure who you are. But they oftentimes measure your behaviors and your fears and your brokenness. They may even be measuring the false self. Yeah, the learned, perfected false self. Right. Right. And some of the areas that we've made agreements in, it got really hard for me to break some years ago because they were working for me. And that I was a very driven, highly productive man. And, you know, back to the story of my dad saying, "Arnold men don't make good leaders." Well, I couldn't have articulated it this way then, but something in me said, "Well, I will. I'll do it. I'll preview. I'll prove it." It was almost in a positive way, I thought, to make him happy, more than a, a spiteful way of, "I'll show you." But the result was, I became a workaholic. I gained some success, chased more, got more success, did more, did more, did more, and so on. And on an outward level, my agreement was being praised, and people were applauding and saying, "Here's the next race, here's the next title." But inwardly, that agreement was not, "Bring the fruit of it." It was not life. Yes. It was, "I'm only as good as the next thing I do, and that house of cards is going to collapse soon, guaranteed." Yeah. Yeah.
"You shall know them by their fruit." Sometimes immediately. You know, you drive away from that small group, and in the car, you're just thinking to yourself, "I'm such an idiot. I'm such an idiot. I should never. I just, I'm so stupid." Okay, that's an agreement. There's an accusation. You're making an agreement with an accusation. And the fruit of it is immediate. I mean, you feel terrible. You feel awful. You regret it. And then all kinds of decisions. "I'm quitting that group. I'm not. I'm never going back." Or you could be in that same car ride home saying, "That group's so lucky to have me. It was all up to my brilliance that kept it going." Or, "Why isn't my wife or spouse complimenting me?" Like, it's there's a myriad of things where you go, "Sure, yeah, sure." But sometimes the fruit isn't recognizable until over time. "I'm on my own." That was my agreement. So I became a very strong, independent person. Now, strength is good, and resilience is good, and the ability to kind of rise above your circumstances, which I did. I, I rose above alcoholic home, all of that stuff, trauma. You know, I, I rose above it. That can be good. But over time, over time, I get into marriage, which requires deep trust, right? And allowing someone else to be there for me. And I'm still making that agreement, "No one will ever be there for me," and "I'll never trust anyone." And wow, does that begin to do damage. So sometimes the fruit's recognizable immediately. Sometimes it takes some exposure of it. But "you shall know them by their fruits."
I think what we'll do is pause because this is a lot of information, folks. And it, it's an immensely helpful category. But I recognize that for some folks, it's a new, perhaps confusing. Those of you in the graduating class, think you have got them all named. But it would be good to just do this. Be good to just pause right here and just say, "Jesus, I need your help with this. I don't know all the agreements that I'm making with my enemy. I know enough, Lord, to know that my interpretation of reality may not be 100% yours. And so God, would you come? Would you shine your light? As the scripture says, in your light, we see the light. Would you shine your light here, God? Shine your light in my life and show me, gently, begin to show me the agreements that I'm making. Agreements about myself, agreements about my future, agreements about my relationships, agreements about you." God, pray that you would begin to show me the agreements that I'm making. And I, I pray Holy Spirit for your strength and power to break them. With that prayer, gang, we're going to pause and come back next week. And that's one of the things we will talk about is, is how to break agreements.
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