Getting Our Whole Heart Back with John Eldredge

Hey Brave Coleman, this week's podcast episode is John Eldridge from our BraveCo conference last year. I know you're gonna love it. Have a great week.

We live in a time where masculinity is shamed, and men don't know what it means to be a man. As a pastor and counselor, I've spent the better part of my life equipping and training others. My goal with this show is to translate my hard-earned experience into tools and tactics to help you become stronger as a man. This is a BraveCo podcast. I'm your host, Jason Valentin.

Jesus, sum up my whole heart back. Just linger with that for a moment. Jesus, I want my whole heart back. Jesus, I want my whole heart back. I want my whole heart back. I want my whole heart back. Come into this room, Jesus, with your love and your playfulness, your fierce heart over my life. Come into this room and take me further in. Help me recover lost places in my heart.

We reject fear, and we reject pressure. Because there's even a kind of spiritual pressure that comes into as great an environment as this today. It's kind of a pressure to like, you know, get your act together and, you know, come on, get with, catch up, catch up to these guys. That, that won't get you anywhere. That's just not helpful. So whatever form of pressure you feel to kind of get more spiritual or whatever, like, no, no to pressure, no to performance, no to fear. Jesus doesn't ask that of you. It's not how he befriends people.

But put within us this wild, passionate heart, this nuclear powerhouse called the masculine soul, the masculine heart. He gave you his heart when he created you and breathed into you the breath of life. Then he set you in this wild world and in this unbelievable story. A love story, for sure, but a love story set in a pretty wicked battle. And most men have been taken out. And it's, it's just heartbreaking. It really is.

This is a, this is a brutal world, and we lose heart somewhere along the road. We lose heart in our story. And then over the passages of our life, we lose places in us that are so vital to our thriving and to who we need to be in this hour on the earth. And that the crisis actually doesn't begin it with us. It doesn't begin in our story. The crisis begins back in Adam's story because he is the father of us all, and we share things from him. There were things that were passed down through the family line.

So he's made a warrior, he's made a lover, he's given this world full of adventure. And he faces his next great challenge. Is actually the one that's tempted. And there's a pretty wild passage in Timothy where Paul says that Adam was actually not deceived. Okay, Adam, Adam was eyes wide open. He did, he actually didn't buy the lie. And there's this moment where Eve has taken the fruit, the forbidden fruit, the one thing, just one thing, guys. Eve has eaten. And something in her essential femininity now is fundamentally flawed. Fundamentally. Okay?

And can I just give you guys a piece of advice? Just beware any fallen goddess. I know she looks like the River of Life. I know she looks like the answer to all your questions. But Eve, Eve is now fundamentally flawed. And Adam has this moment. It's, it's an incredible moment. He is not deceived. It says she took some and ate it, and then she gave some to her husband who was with her. Okay? So there's this moment, and Adam is literally standing right there. Hebrew for "with her" is elbow to elbow. He's not somewhere else in the, in the, in the vineyard while this is going on. He's right there.

What is Adam's fundamental failure? What is his personal crisis? Okay, he doesn't do jack squat. He, he doesn't intervene. He is born to intervene. He is created to intervene. It is everything in his nature. That little boy who's holding up Thor's hammer, the little guy who wants to be the Jedi Knight. Like, it is so in us to intervene on behalf of others. Okay? So Adam's fundamental failure is passivity. He checks out. He goes into, he freezes. Right in the fight or flight or freeze thing, in his moment, he just, he freezes. Doesn't say anything. Doesn't do anything. And then he, he actually chooses Eve over God. And if you think that's an overstatement, just look at the world. Like, men worship at this altar. They will destroy kingdoms for their sexuality or what they think will satisfy love for intimacy, to get Eve back, or what that's come to mean in their life now. Okay?

Adam goes into hiding. So there's a fundamental failure in Eve. Eve passes down to all her daughters this. And then Adam passes down to all his sons this fundamental failure of masculinity, which is the failure to engage. Okay? So you feel it in you, damn it. Like, there's the, "Oh," like, there's the, you hate that part of you, but it's there. Thanks, Dad. You know, great, great, great, great, great, great granddad. But, um, and then Adam goes into hiding, right? Goes off in the bushes. We're in Genesis 3 now. And this is one of the most beautiful moments of scripture, of the heart of God. Yahweh, Papa, Father, comes looking for him. Okay? Because they used to hang out together in the cool of the day. "Hey, how'd it go? What'd you do today?" "Architecture?" "No way, you figured that out? That's so cool." Okay? So this, this is what's going on with his dad. And he goes off in the bushes. How does his dad handle it? It's extraordinary. He says, "Uh, Adam, where are you?" It's not Adam. There's no shame. There's no blame. There's no anger. There's no violence. It's so intimate. He literally gets down on Adam's level. "David, where are you? Nathan, where are you, son? Jackson, Sam, where are you?" Right? He comes looking for his sons.

Okay, Adam comes out of the bushes. And he says the most essential verse for masculinity that you'll get. He says, "I was afraid because I was naked and so I hid." That's it, guys. Right there. If you want to understand every man in your life, your dad, your boss, your friends, yourself, it's that. "I was afraid because I was naked and so I hid." Right? And, and what you meet when you meet a man is very rarely his true heart. What you meet when you meet a man is his brilliant fig leaf. A fig leaf that has been created over time through harm and sin and brokenness and fear, through what was rewarded and what was not rewarded, what was shamed. Okay? It's like, what we call our personality is often very rarely our true heart. It is, it is what was constructed over time for self-preservation.

And this is what Danny was talking about this morning. He says that that fundamental drive for self-preservation is essential. And it's a really good drive, by the way. Like, it saves people, you know, from automobile accidents and doing really dumb stuff. But, but that also can take us in, away from the love of God. It takes us into hiding. And so you meet a guy, and you're like, "Man, like, James is such an awesome dude. How come he won't, like, he won't date anybody? He's like a killer guy, be a great dad. What's with that?" Okay? You're running into his fig leaf. You're right. There's a story there. There's always a story. You know? And, and you go, "Nate, Nate is hysterical. The guy is a crack-up to have around, but you can't ever have a serious conversation with him. Like, what's with that?" Okay?

What you meet when you meet a man is a brilliant disguise. It is the false self. It is constructed over time out of that verse, "afraid of fundamental exposure." And so we hide. We hide behind our brilliance, right? If we're the smart guy. We hide behind our athletics, right? If we're the stud. We hide behind our adventures. We hide behind all kinds of stuff, right? We hide behind silence. We hide behind needing to be the one who's always talking, right? It's, it's infinite in its complexity. It's crafted slowly and painfully over the story of your life through what was shamed and what was rewarded. And it is the false self. It is the fig leaf. It is the poser.

And in, in the pursuit of your whole heart back, you just have to be honest about that and just go, "Whoa, man. Like, where in my life am I faking it?" Wow. Right? And, and because what happens with the poser, he's just in the way. It's not the true you. It's not the real you. The poser is not the real you. Okay? He's in the way. But, but men, while we are still posing and not living from that deep, wholeheartedness, we only choose battles we can win. We choose very small, safe battles, right? And we only choose adventures that we can control. Becomes a really big issue for fallen men, okay? And, and Eve, by the way, but in different ways.

And then we only choose beauties that, that we feel strong enough to be around, right? Which for a lot of guys, they're not even real. It's not even a real woman, right? It's online. It's images. That sort of thing. And the thing about pornography is, you don't have to be a man, right? You don't have to talk to her. You don't have to live with her. You don't have to fight for her heart. Okay? So that's the poser is not your friend. Okay? He is, he is undermining you. And it isn't a source of blame and shame. And, and that you just have to go, "Oh God, Jesus, that guy is so with me. I don't want to be that guy anymore. I don't want the poser anymore."

And, and so the journey towards wholeheartedness is to kind of recognize, all right, we go into Genesis 3, and here's this valiant image bearer of God, this warrior lover, and he fails. He fails fundamentally. He surrenders something. It's not just failure, it's a surrender of essence. And in this case, it's the failure to engage. Okay? And then he passes that on to all his sons. If we could describe the essence of masculinity, it is strength on behalf of others. That's what masculinity is.

So in 9/11, when the, everybody was running down the stairs, you know, in the, in the Trade Center, there were a group of men who were running up. The pararescue guys, firefighter guys. Right? That's masculinity. In, uh, when the aid workers were taken hostage by the Somali pirates, and the SEALs went in to rescue them, they literally shielded the woman and her colleague with their bodies from gunfire while the helicopters came in to get them out. That's masculinity. It is strength on behalf of others. Okay? It is strength in the service of love.

Okay, so we know this. We know this. Like, this is so deep in us. We know. Every man knows. And the core, the core is being that we are made to come through. We know it. And there's places where we're doing it, and it feels great. It feels great to come through, doesn't it? It's just like, "Crush it at work," or like, "Kill it in a conversation with somebody," or "Love your wife well." Feels great. And, and then, and then, yeah, the places that we don't feel like we're crushing it are the places that we run from.

Okay, so what men do is they gravitate towards where they feel powerful, and they stay away from anything that could expose them of not having what it takes. Okay? Because they, that little boy wants to be Spider-Man. That little boy wants to jump his bike over, you know, like the fence. Like all the crazy stuff that boys do, jumping off bridges into rivers and racing motorcycles. Okay? Men want to feel powerful. This is so core. We want our words to matter. We want our thoughts to matter. We, when we walk into the room, we want it to matter. Okay? That, and so core fear, and the core question of every man is, "Do I have what it takes? Do I have what it takes?"

And because of the poser, what we tend to do is gravitate to those places where it feels like we do, or we're at least getting a little bit of gratitude and thanks and applause from the world. And we stay away from anything. You know, so there's guys who would never go to the gym, never, because they fear exposure there. But, but man, like in their medical practice, they're the hero. And so they, they give their life to it. Feel strong there. They feel weak. Right? And on and on and on it goes, right? Okay.

So to become aware of the inheritance of Adam. Dang, I don't like that guy, the poser, the false self. I want my whole heart back. There's a story. There's always a story. Um, I want to just do a quick exercise. We'll start this session with an exercise. And again, you can do it in your head if you want, or you could take some notes. One column is, "I'm killing it. I am winning. I am, I'm crushing it. Right? I am thriving here. I'm, I'm strong." And the other column is, "Not so much. Not so much failure." And just start putting some things in those columns. In other words, how do you see yourself as a man? How do you see yourself as a man? Where are you coming through? Where you feel powerful, strong, loving, engaged? And where you more like Adam and the fig leaf, hiding, posing, faking it, not winning, not crushing it? Let's give that a second. Think about those two columns. Marriage, work, friends, God. Like, where would you put kind of the vital things of your life? Career, romance. Another question: How would the people who know you best describe you as a man? Not just generally, like, "Oh, he's really brilliant," or "He's really kind." But in your masculinity, how would the people who know you well describe you as a man? Or how do you fear they would know? Because you haven't heard them, but how you fear they would describe you as a man.

[Music]

Every little boy comes into this world with the Imago Dei. But because of the brokenness of the world, every little boy comes into the world with a fundamental need and a fundamental question. The fundamental need is for love, particularly father love, masculine love. And the question is, "Do I have what it takes?" Because he knows, he knows the core of our being, "I am made to come through. Can I? Can I? Like, when the rubber meets the road, when the crisis hits, you know, when the marriage goes sideways, when the daughter is dating a really bad guy, when you lose your job, you know, you live in a culture like ours. Do I have what it takes?" Okay?

Fundamental question. The fundamental search is for love and validation. This is, this is every little boy. Okay? And how that was met, how that was answered for you, has shaped you into the man you are and are not today. Okay? Love and validation. This is so deep. You actually see the need in the life of Jesus. So Jesus was, is the Son of God, but he is also the Son of Man. And his humanity is 100% real. When it says he was tired, he's not faking it. When it says he was hungry, he's not faking it. Okay? Jesus is about to enter into the greatest mission ever given to any man ever. And he's baptized by his cousin in the Jordan. And he comes up out of the water. And the Father, oh, can't, he can't restrain himself. Like, he literally speaks out loud. It only happens a couple of times in all of human history. Okay? And remember what he says? Says, "Jesus, I adore you, and you have what it takes. This is my beloved Son. I adore you. I adore you in him. I am proud. You have what it takes, Son. You're the real deal. You are the real deal."

You see? You go, "Holy cow. If Jesus of Nazareth, like, the rest of us probably have a pretty big tank that needs to get filled. Like, if he needed it, how much more did we? How much more did we?" I told you that the story of your life is the story of your heart. It's a story of the journey of your heart in this world. Every man has a story in this room. And the fundamental story, the essential story, is that story. It's love and validation. It's how your heart's core needs and core questions were handled in the story of your life. And it shaped us into the man that we are today. And, and where we won't go, and where we won't engage, and where we do go because it gives us a sense of strength. There's always a story.

Dante said, "In the middle of the road of my life, I awoke in a dark wood where the true way was wholly lost." So my story, um, I'm early 30s, and I am angry. I am an angry young man. And the bummer is, I'm a young dad, and it's starting to come out at my precious sons. I mean, stupid stuff, you know, they won't eat their dinner, or they spill things, that kind of thing. And there's just this, there's this rage in me. And I had a really, really difficult time with, um, intimacy with men. I wasn't comfortable around men, particularly older men. I did not trust any boss I ever worked for. Did not trust my pastors. Um, there was just this innate anger and mistrust in me. I was a very driven guy, um, performance, you know, achievement, reward, driving hard. And the problem is, the world rewards all that. Like, it's awful when the world rewards the poser because then you just work that thing because it's, you know, it's working for you. And I was driven, performance, angry, um, but I would wake in the middle of the night to an unnamed fear. Dead of night. Just wake up to just dread. And I couldn't, it wasn't like work tomorrow, or a presentation I needed to make, or something like that. Um, there was just this unnamed fear in me. And there's a story. There's always a story. If you want to know a man, you need to hear his story. You really do.

Longfellow says, "We may meet a man and think him cold when he is merely sad." So my story is, I actually grew up in California, Southern California, San Gabriel Valley. I am the only son in my family. I have two older sisters. And we were, um, kind of like a typical American family, except, um, sort of agnostic, sort of the typical, "just good people." Didn't go to church. My dad was a hard worker. He was a salesman in garden products and paper goods. And, and, um, he loved to fish. And my sisters didn't like fishing. He loved camping. He was actually a country boy who tragically married a city girl. He married a pretty tough woman who is pretty driven and had a lot of characteristics that I have. She's smart, his career-oriented. But he loved the outdoors. And so my sisters don't want to go camping and fishing, but I'm like, "Me, me, pick me, let's go." So I had my dad. I had my dad when I was young. We'd take these road trips up through the Kern River. We'd go up into Oregon on the Deschutes, and we'd go up into Idaho. And he was, you know, making his rounds as a sales rep, but I'd go with him in the summers. And we'd go on these fishing trips. And then he'd drop me off at my grandfather's cattle ranch in eastern Oregon, and I'd spend my summers there. And those were precious days, those early days, life on the road with my dad.

And, um, I lost it all. He became an alcoholic. He blew his life up, blew the family up. My sisters wouldn't talk to him. Years into their adult life, they wouldn't even speak to him. And all the trips stopped. There's no more fishing, no more camping. And I was devastated. And growing up in an alcoholic home, as you guys have, you know, it's gnarly because you never know on any given day what's behind that door. Could be happy Dad, could be happy Dad, could be scary Dad. Usually, he was just gone. And then I would run into him. I'd be out with my buddies biking around our town, and he'd be out, like, in his car, just sitting somewhere under a tree, drinking. And so embarrassing. Come to my Boy Scout meetings drunk, and I'd just be so embarrassed to have my dad there. It was horrible. It's like, I remember as a little boy wanting my dad to die and feeling terrible that I did. And the reason was this: was that he had died. He was gone, but he was still there. And so nobody would come to me and say, "I'm so sorry you lost your dad." Like, I wanted the world to recognize this is total catastrophic abandonment.

And, man, I became an angry, angry, rebellious, rebellious teen. I was just crying out for help. That's all that was. Breaking into houses, police record, drugs, alcohol, the full shebang. Got kicked out of high school. Hmm. And I got arrested. But I'm a minor. And so they need to find my parents to come down and get me out. Um, and they can't find my mom. She's gone back to work. She's just, she's gone. She is gone, gone. And, but they found my dad. I don't know how they tracked him down. They found him. And he came down to the police station to get me out. And, um, I'm thinking, "Oh boy, here it comes." Right? Here it comes. When we get in his his old station wagon, and we're, we're driving home, and I'm waiting for the, you know, the rage, absolute silence. Nothing. Nothing. Not a word. "Buddy, what are you doing? What the heck's going on? Like, what can I help? What is this? Why are you running with these guys? What is..." You know, nothing. Zero engagement. I wasn't even like grounded. And a couple hours later, I'm, I'm just out on the streets again.

It wasn't until I actually did some trauma therapy that I, that that the trauma therapist helped me see. They said, "You were a homeless street kid. You have all the symptoms of it. The hypervigilance, mistrust of all people, the brilliance and the cunning to get out of any situation." Like, that was that was me. And so I'm out on the street again. And I remember the day, like, I realized, "I am on my own. I am fundamentally on my own in this world." And I actually made a vow. And the vow was, "I will never trust anyone." See, childhood wounding and trauma leads to childhood vows. We make these covenants with belief systems and lies about who we are and who God is and the way the world works. And for me, the world is a, is a gnarly place, and there's no one here for you, right? So I will, I will never trust anyone. And my poor wife, like, even years into my Christian life, that was so deep in me still. The first 10 years of my marriage, poor Stacy. Like, she married a good guy. So I, I actually came to Christ shortly after that, um, that experience of being arrested. I had a, just a beautiful, intimate, um, I met Jesus and fell in love with him. And, and but it doesn't instantly heal the woundedness. And it doesn't instantly give you your whole heart back. That is, that is something that Jesus does over time. And so I, I'm, I'm his. I'm in. But I'm still that driven, angry guy that doesn't want to be around older men and all that, all that father wound stuff in me. And the rage, and the hypervigilance, and the street kid. And poor Stacy, you know, 10 years of marriage. If you'd asked her, "Does he love you?" She would have said, "Oh yeah, he does. He's great. He's faithful. No affairs." Um, if you would have asked her, "Do you feel needed?" She would have said, "Oh, no, no. There's, there's no access to his heart. He's a fortress. He is a fortified man." And I was. I just wouldn't trust anyone with my heart. And I tried to bury it. I tried to bury it thinking, "If I can just bury the pain, then I can kind of get on with the Christian life and being a good dad and all that." And then the story I told you, the anger starts coming out of my sons, the rage. And, and there's always a story. There's always a story, right? The guy that, you know, we were talking about who's just a jokester and you can't ever be serious, there's a story behind that. The guy who's always at the gym, there's a story behind that. The guy that just still can't get into a relationship, you know, and he's 52, there's a story behind that. Every man has a story. Love and validation. Am I deeply and profoundly loved? And do I have what it takes?

So let's circle back to what little boys need for a moment. I love, I actually loved raising boys. I still love being a dad. I'm more a dad now than I've ever been. Um, that was a big surprise to me. I kind of thought you like finished. And, um, but their problems just get bigger. I loved it. I actually loved it. I love being a dad. And, and we would go on these adventures. Taught my sons, you know, as a rock climber and taught my sons to climb, as a fly fisherman and taught my sons to fish, took him fishing like my dad took me. And, uh, but my favorite times, there was this precious moment in the day. So we're, you know, we're living in a small house in Southern California, all three boys are in one bedroom. And I would go in the bedroom at bedtime. I'd lay down on the floor, and I would tell them stories about the West. "Once upon a time, there were three cowboys named Sam, Blaine, and Luke, and they lived in the West." And I would tell these stories. It was intimate, snuggle time, wrestle time. They love to feel Daddy's whiskers on their cheeks, right? That's beloved son. That's the delight. It's the ice cream, baseball games, it's playing catch, right? Learning to ride bikes together, right? The beloved son. The boy needs to know, "He craves my dad thinks I hung the moon. My dad loves to be with me. Delights in me. Loves the things I love." Right? It's into the, "He, like I like to read. My dad reads to me, or we like to ride bikes. My dad rides bikes." Like, "He loves me. My dad loves." That fundamental need of love.

And then that fundamental need for validation. "Do I have what it takes?" is a question that first is answered by the father. Masculinity is bestowed by masculinity. You can't get it from any other source. You can't get it from the woman. You can't get it from the tribe of boys. You can only get it from men in your life. And it starts with the father. And, and, and the goal was, you know, I, the reason I took him climbing was so I could validate him. And it'd be like, "Whoa, tiger, that's, you're killing it. And I can't believe you did that. That was amazing." And it was all these opportunities to raise the question, you know, they'd, we'd be on a little rock, but they'd be there, you know, and I got them on a rope, you know, top rope. And they'd be looking back. And I'm like, "You are killing it. You are a wild man." And, and a precious day that Samuel did the climb. And now Blaine's doing it. Samuel kind of comes up to me after and he says, "Dad, says, did you really think I was a wild man up there?" Come on. Like, that's golden. That's golden. Because you learn that you have what it takes from the words of your father. And from experiences over time that he arranges for you to discover it for yourself. So it's beautiful to be told. You need to be told. But you also need to discover for yourself.

Wow. We'd be fishing up on Lake Isabella, and I'd be catching them. And I remember I got to be a better fisherman than my dad. And he loved it. He absolutely loved it. He's like, "Way to go, tiger. Bring him in. Whoa, that's bigger than mine. Man, you are doing it. That's a..." And it was the delight and the affirmation. This was the core coordinate. And in my life, um, all that got taken away. All that went into absolute heartache and tragedy and loss. If you could listen to the stories of the men in this room, oh, there is enough pain in this room to sink an aircraft carrier. Like, you don't get through, you don't get through this war-torn world without being seriously wounded. And, and sometimes it's the dad, sometimes it's the mom, sometimes it's a first girlfriend, right? Or your priest, or a coach, right? An older brother. My pal Bart had a crisis in his life. He was like 45. He's a private pilot. And he was coming in for a landing in a snowstorm. And, uh, almost killed himself and the passenger that was with him. And, and he called me, pretty shaken by it. And, and he said, "John, I don't understand what's going on." He says, "The whole time we're reading down the runway in the ice, and we're about to go off," he says, "I'm pounding on the dashboard." And forgive me because you need to hear stories are real, okay? So he's yelling at himself, "You worthless piece of..." "You worthless piece of..." And I'm like, "Bart, what's the story? Where did that come from? That's deep in your story." And he says, "Oh, yeah. That was my brother. My older brother used to beat me up all the time. A lot of physical abuse. And that's what he would call me. You're a worthless piece." Okay? So it's in there. The wounding is in there. This war-torn world. This is where we lose heart. This is where we lose heart. It is the wounds that we take. It is the wounds we take. And what we do or don't do with them, right? The only thing worse than the tragedy that has happened to you is what you've done with it. Men are famous for mishandling our own hearts. I ran from my pain. It's a natural reaction. Everybody does. But that won't heal. That won't heal.

BraveCo man, stop what you're doing for a second. Get out your calendar and mark down these dates. June 21st through 23rd. We are having our BraveCo conference here in Reading, California, next year. It's going to be phenomenal. So if you want to learn more about this, you can click the link in our bio. Get signed up. Make sure that you're ready to get impacted by God, to bond with other men, and have an incredible experience. Now, back to your episode.

Behind every posing man is a wounded boy. And one of the actual crises of the world right now is, is that there's actually more boy than man in most men. They're, they're older, you, but you, but they're not mature. They're boy inside. They're unhealed wounds, unhealed places. And the story of love and validation. And, and so that the question is, um, what have you done with it? What have you done with the story of your life? What have you done with how your heart was handled? First by your dad, and then by other people? What is the story of love and validation? What was the message to you? Because as men, we are pretty famous for mishandling it, right? We deny it. We suppress it. We say, "Well, yeah, you know, it's, yeah, there were some rough years, but I've heard other people's stories. It wasn't that bad." Father who is home and part of your life, but never tells you he loves you, is a father who has profoundly wounded you. A father who provides for the family, but never wrestles with you, never plays with you, right? Never comes to your games. That is a profound wound. That is a profound want.

Okay, there was a friend of mine who had a very successful dad. Stayed at home. He was a faithful dad. But at night, he would just go work in his office. And my buddy, as a little boy, would sit outside his office doors, home office, and he would write notes to his dad and push them under the crack in the door. And he said to me, "I just wish once he would have pushed a note back." Wow. Silence is wounding. Passivity is wounding. Failure to engage. And then, holy cow, the affairs, the divorce, the rejection, right? Your dad choosing another woman, another family, the alcohol, the violence, right? Every man has a story. It shaped us. The drivenness, the performance, the anger, for me. For another man, the fear, the hiding, the withdrawal, the lack of engagement, right? For another guy, the laughter, the jokester, right? The class president, life of the party. It shaped us. Shaped us. Your story has shaped you profoundly.

And the really good news, guys, is all of your addictions are from your wounds. They're not about your addictions. And it often has very little to do with your sin. What you're doing is you're medicating. So like alcohol, substance abuse, sex, man, sex just feels like it's gonna, it's gonna bring love and validation. All right, so much pornography is about love and validation for a moment. You feel loved, and you feel validated. Okay? So all your addictions. The beautiful thing is, there's freedom there if he will deal with the wounded heart. If you will get your whole heart back.

So what I'd like to ask you is, are you able to name your wound? Are you able to name how your heart was handled when you were a boy? What was the message of love? Was it conditional? "You're loved if you obey. You're loved if you go to church every Sunday and Wednesday. You're loved, right, if you get good grades." Or what? Or what? Or is there, what was the message of love? Is there intimacy? Was there attachment with your dad, especially? Wrestle time, snuggle time, story time, right? What was the message there? And, and then what was the message of validation? How was your core question answered by your dad, your coach, your teacher? What was the message? "Do you have what it takes?" What are you living with down in there?

I want to give you a couple minutes of reflection now, just in quiet. And just put some words to that for yourself. Was I loved deeply and profoundly in ways that shaped me? Do I know I have what it takes because I was told a thousand times I do? What's your story? What is your wound? And where did it come? And who did it come through? Just give, just give some moments on that. And Holy Spirit, scripture says you search the inmost depths. You search the inmost depths. You know us through and through. Holy Spirit, would you show me? Reveal to me things I haven't even remembered for years, or things I didn't even know shaped me. Holy Spirit, right here in this room, lift the veil. Lift the veil off every heart. And show me, show me where I was wounded, who I was wounded by, how my wounding came. Give that, that a moment. If all that feels a little foggy to you right now, you can also just ask, "Well, where did this poser come from? Where did that come from? Why do I, why do I need everybody's approval? Why am I so angry? Why, why am I afraid to speak up?" That'll take you through the same door. It'll take you back to the wounded heart. Who wounded you? What was the message? Running from your pain or minimizing your story will never heal your heart. It will never work. It doesn't give you your whole heart back. So Jesus, show me. Show me the wounds. Show me the rejection. Show me the abandonment. Show me what I believe. Do I have what it takes? Show me, Jesus.

Guys, just another way to get to this as we're sitting here in prayer is just to ask yourself, "What do I believe about myself as a man? Am I worthy of love? Am I, am I able to come through? What do I believe about myself, Jesus, as a man? Am I dirty? My compromised? And just shame, guilt, self-hatred. What do I believe for?" Um, what we're doing today is we're looking for the lost places of our hearts. Where have I lost heart? Because I want my whole heart back. And for most of us, it begins back in childhood. And it begins with our wounds. Begins with our wounding. And then, and then the way our wounding shaped our relationships, our man, everything, school, career, friendships, all of that stuff, right? It rips you off of life. It rips you off. Most of us won't go there. And so God has to sneak up on us. And, and he will. He will arrange for things to happen in your adult life that repeat what happened to you as a child. They'll be like a big betrayal. A church will turn on you. You know, you're the pastor, and they just fire you one day. Or, or your wife walks out on you, and it's rejection again. Or, you know, he, he will, he will literally arrange for, for that because he's trying to get to the wounded heart. And you're not giving him access. You're not letting him go there. He will sneak up on you. He, he will arrange for the poser to stop working. The poser comes crashing down. Nobody thinks you're funny anymore. You're not getting invited to go on the adventure trips, like, right? Something happens. You're not the man to fix the company anymore, right? They want the younger guys. They start looking past you. So the poser comes crashing down. Your wife just looks at you and says, "I don't even love you anymore." He, he will arrange for the house of cards to come down. Not because he's unkind, but because it's killing you. The poser is hiding the wounds. And the unhealed wounds are going to blow up your life. And so he will sneak up on you. He actually snuck up on me through movies. I love movies. And I, I would be watching certain movies, and they would just elicit these reactions, you know, anger or tears. I, I, the movie "A River Runs Through It." Absolutely devastated me when it came out. Some of you remember. It's a fly fishing story, and it's alcohol, and it's, it's a family that kind of falls apart. It's not an exact replication of my story, but it was close enough. Because at the end, the end of the movie, he's alone, and he's fishing by himself. And I am weeping in the theater at 31 years old. And I could, I couldn't have told you why. That's how out of touch I was. I was just weeping at abandonment, heartache, loss, the loss of father, no more fishing. And then it was, it was about six months later, because I did fish alone, right? I did. I kept fishing, and I taught myself to fly fish. And we moved to Colorado, and I love fly fishing. And I would just go, I'd go alone. Why am I fishing alone? And I remember coming back one evening, and I'm pacing back and forth in the kitchen, and I'm upset. I'm upset, kind of thing. And Stacy's like, "Honey, what's up?" "I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know." And then out of my mouth comes the phrase, "I'll never find him out there." Whoa. I had no idea that for 35 years, I was looking for my father on the river.

All right, so God will sneak up on you to get you to deal with your wounded heart, to let him in, to give him access. You know that famous passage we misquoted a ton because we think it's about evangelism? "Behold, I stand at the door and knock." If anyone will open the door, it's a letter to the church. It's a letter to believers. And Jesus is saying, "I am asking for you to open the door of your heart to me in these places, and I will come in." Welcome in. I will give you your heart back. The message of the Gospel is unbelievable. In Isaiah 61, this is Jesus's favorite verse. He picks it to announce his coming, his mission, right? The Gospel of Luke, he quotes Isaiah 61, and he says, "The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me. He's anointed me for this mission. Here is what I'm here to do. I am here to heal your broken heart and set you free." I want to give you back your heart and set you loose. That's what I want to do. It's phenomenal. People don't even know what the invitation of the Gospel is. If they did, they would be ripping roofs off churches to get in. It's like, "Wait, what? Like, God cares about my heart? My story? My wounds? He actually can come inside of me, and he can go back in my story and heal my wounds? He can give me back my heart and make me whole? And he can set you free?" That's, that's the offer of the Gospel. That's what it's all about. It's just extraordinary. But he waits till you're ready. He waits till you're ready. And it's super kind. It's super kind. He'll wait 60 years. You have to be ready. And you have to be, you, the door opens from the inside. Isn't that fascinating? The door opens from the inside. So in order to open the door to Jesus, you have to go back there. You got to go back to five years old in LA. You have to go back to seven years old in Reno. You have to go back to 12 years old in Detroit. You got to go back. You got to go back to that place in your heart where you lost heart. And you open the door from the inside. You give Jesus permission to come in and to heal your heart. And it usually involves forgiving the people who hurt you. It's pretty big. I, uh, well, man, it took me, it took me a long time to forgive my dad. And I, I actually had a pretty remarkable moment in prayer this summer. I was just in an intimate time of prayer with Jesus. And all of a sudden, he kind of brings a memory of my dad. Like, my dad's face is there. And that, like, that's not happy for me. Those aren't those aren't good feelings. Um, but my dad was young, and he was kind, and he was kind of looking at me with kindness. And I realized, "Oh, man, I still haven't forgiven you." And I, it's, "I forgive you. I forgive you. I forgive you." Because I want my heart back, right? You got to release the people. You really do. And then, and then we invite him in to do the healing work. And there's usually some agreements in there we need to break. Remember mine? "I will never trust anyone." Yeah, there's usually some of that down in there, right? "I can never forgive myself." Might be one, right? "I'm filled with hate." That could be an agreement, right? We break those agreements in order to allow Christ to.

So what I want to do is walk into that healing experience with you now, okay? We're just going to give Jesus access. And, and for some of you, right now, you are way more aware of a different wound. It might not be your father wound at all. You, you remember, you know, you're thinking about your divorce, or, you know, some loss or crisis in your life. That's okay. You go with what Jesus is raising. You go with what he's bringing up in this moment. But the core, the core of the recovery of the boy and the healing of the boy is often either the father wound or the mother wound. So I'm going to explain just a little bit about the mother wound, too. Because if that's where Jesus takes you, mother is meant to be mercy. That's what femininity brings. Mercy. Mother is meant to be attachment, right? Deep bondedness, literally nursing you eye to eye attachment. Mother is meant to be unconditional love. Okay? So it may be mother that Jesus takes you to. It's probably father. Might be uncle. My buddies, it was his older brother. But let's just let Jesus take us in. We're going to take a little healing journey right now, okay? So you can just kind of get quiet. And again, you can close your eyes, or you can keep them open. But this is right now, just like sacred space. You and Jesus, okay? So Jesus, we welcome your presence here in the room. And we pray that your presence comes over each man now, over each heart, each, each man now is a sacred space. Each woman that is listening to this is a sacred space. Okay? So we, we insist on that. Every chair, every man is now a sacred space. This is a holy space here. And we're going to let Jesus come in all of the intimate ways that he comes. Okay? And, um, the first thing Jesus is asking you is, "Where do you need me? Where, where do you need me?" And some of you, man, you, you

Know the answer to that. So tell them and others. Go. I don't know. I don't know. Well, just tell him that I don't know. Jesus, he's asking where do you need me? Jesus always asks for permission. And so, what he's asking now is, will you let me in? Will you let me in? Will you give me permission? Find the wounds with you. Will you let me in? Will you open the door?

Now, sometimes within us, there's an angry part that it doesn't want Jesus. Said, and that's okay. That's okay. The rest of you can say yes. Okay. The rest of you can say yes. All right, Lauren, I need you. I really do. I need you. Jesus. Yeah. And then our prayer is, Jesus, show me the age. Show me the age. How old am I? Jesus, take me back. How old am I?

And for some of you, he will take you right to, oh my gosh, it's the playground. I'm eight years old. I remember it. And for others of you, you'll just start feeling something. You'll feel the sadness, or you'll just feel the grief. You'll feel the fear that you felt as a child, or the aloneness. You just, that's okay. You just go. Go with what Jesus. He's able, guys. He's able to get this done. He's, he's brilliant at this. So just don't have to manufacture it. Don't have to make it happen. How old are you? How old are you? And, and I want you to turn off the adult editor, okay? The older you, which is constantly editing everything, just, just turn that guy off for a minute. Listen to your heart. You'd be amazed what you hear your heart. I'll ask the question, how old are you? And your heart will say five. And five. And Jesus says, can I come to you? Can I come to you? Can I come to you? Then again, in all the intimate ways this is happening in the room right now, you just say yes. Of course. Yes, please. Jesus.

Jesus is asking your heart, not your intellect. Who hurt you? Who hurt you? Who hurt you? Who was it? Who hurt you, son? Who hurt you, sweetheart? And he keeps asking, can I come? Can I come? He just, he's asking to come closer, more intimate. He's asking to come deeper. And you just keep saying, okay. Okay. Yes. Yes. You might not see it. That's okay. You might just feel some things. That's okay. Right? He's asking, who hurt you? Who hurt you, son? Who hurt you? I want you to give them to me. I want you to give them to me. I want you to turn them over to me right now. So it's a dad, it's a mom, it's a brother, an uncle, right? Who hurt you? It's your first wife. It's, he's taking men very unique places. I want you to give them to me. I want you to give them to me. And to the best that you can do, Jesus is saying right now, I need you to forgive them. I need you to forgive them. And forgiveness is not saying it didn't matter. Forgiveness is not saying it's not a big deal. Jesus is furious people who wounded you, okay? Forgiveness is saying the cross is enough. Because of the cross, I'm not going to punish them. I give them to you, Jesus. The cross is enough. So he's asking, who hurt you? How old are you? Will you let me in?

There's some memories that he's taking some of you back to right now, and you just open the door to the memory and go there with Jesus. Go there. You're going to be okay. Now, there are some boys within us that are hiding. And this is very, very common. This is very normal. And Jesus will ask your heart, not your intellect, okay? He's not asking 47-year-old you. He's asking young you. Where are you hiding, son? Where are you hiding? And it's under the bed, in the closet, outside. You know, who wounded you? Where are you, son? Will you let me come to you? Will you let Jesus come? You have my yes, Lord. And even if right now, this isn't making like a whole lot of sense to you, just go. You bet. Jesus. Yes. Of course. I give you access to my soul. Of course, I do. Show me what you want to show me today.

Jesus is still with the question or the ask. I need you to forgive them. And then there's a beautiful moment where Jesus says, I need you to forgive me. Because for some of you, the betrayal feels like, God, that God let it happen. God did not intervene. And you asked him to. And Jesus, in order to recover intimacy, you actually need to forgive him, okay? And don't let your theology get that all whacked out. I just trust me in this, okay? Your heart can't let Jesus in if your heart does not trust, okay? Will you let me come? Will you let me come? And then he's asking again, how old are you? How old are you, son? Will you let me come?

Now, guys, here's a really critical moment. As we pray through this, older you, older you has rejected younger you. You're embarrassed by it. You hate him. He's weak. He's a little boy. He gets you in trouble. And so older you is part of the prothful you are pushing him away. You need to stop pushing the boy away. You need the boy. He's a part of your heart. So Jesus, I invite you into my wounded heart. Every wound, every place, every age. I am, I invite you in. And then let him take you to these places. It's a person you need to forgive. It's a memory that you need to let him in. And for some of you, it is forgiving Jesus. I forgive you, Lord. I need you. I need you. I need you.

And Jesus asked the most simple and beautiful question. He says, will you let me heal you? Will you let me heal you in your wounded heart, okay? And then there's the agreements. All right, Lord, what are the agreements that I've made around my wounds? And Jesus responds immediately with, well, what do you think of yourself? What do you say to yourself? Are you stupid? Idiot? Right? All that stuff we say. All that self-talk. I'll never be loved is an agreement. No one understands me is an agreement. I'm on my own is an agreement. And Jesus says, I want you to break the agreements. To break those agreements. We break the agreements that will never be loved. Agreements that I can never forgive them. An agreement can also be, I can never forgive myself, okay? So we break the agreements. Lord, show me the agreements around my wounded heart. Show me the agreements there. Lord, I'll never be a man. That's an agreement. I can never be whole is an agreement. This isn't for me. This is for everyone else in the room is an agreement. I break it. Lauren, I invite you in. I open the door of my heart into my wounds. And I ask you to come and find me here. Find me in my wounded heart. Jesus, I pray for your love and I pray for your validation. Pray you embrace the boy. And sometimes for healing, older you needs to bless younger you, okay? So I bless younger men. I'm not ashamed of him anymore. I'm not, I don't hate him. I'm not going to push him away. I bless younger men. I really do. And Jesus, I pray that you would heal this broken heart and set this captive free. Heal this broken heart. Jesus, I want my whole heart back. I invite you in.

Here's the beautiful secret. The soul is healed through union with God. And so, as Jesus gets to come in and bring union there, he heals your soul. He heals your heart. So come into this, Lord. Unite yourself to me here. I pray for oneness and I pray for union here in this place. Jesus, union and oneness. Some of you guys are working too hard at this. And Jesus is just saying, just let me do this. It's like, just let me love you. Let me come to your wounded heart. Jesus, I surrender the poser. I'm sorry. I don't want to be that guy. I surrender the poser. And I surrender all of my addictions, all of my medications. I surrender those too. What I need is love. And what I need is validation. And I invite you in to heal my heart, okay?

Guys, um, what we're going to do is something kind of unique in this moment. We can't just like go from that, you know, into announcements or something, you know. Um, so here's what I'm going to ask you to do. We're actually going to covenant silence. Silence, okay? Some of you need to stay in your chair. You, you just need to stay here for a few minutes. Some of you need to get out and go for a walk. This is our dinner break. We're now, we're now at that portion of our evening, right? And we're back Jason at 6:30, okay? See, you got some breathing room there. Doors are open at 5:30. We're back in here at 6:30. And I'm going to just continue on the journey together. But for the next like 10 minutes, it's just silence. Don't get on your phones. Don't like, you know, that's really sacred holy ground, guys. Like you got to just stay with that. You might need to journal a little bit right now. You might need to linger. But this is our dinner break. So we're going to go out. We're going to go out in silence. And you can get in your car or do the meal ticket thing or whatever is going on. Yes, beautiful, perfect. Yeah. So we're going to put some music on. And if you just want to sit in here, that's awesome. And some of you guys, you know, you're feeling the the impulse to pray for one another, go for it. That's great. Yeah, there we go. So if you do need to talk, because in here is the silent space, um, take that outside. Take your conversations outside. But let's just maintain this sacred space. Go out in silence. Enjoy your dinner. Give yourself some breathing room. There's another one of those moments now where Todd's backing off of Shiloh. He's got, just need to breathe a little bit here. And then we'll come back in and, uh, we'll go forward together, okay? Super. So it's quiet in here. We're going to put a little music on.

Hey guys, thanks so much for listening to the BraveCo podcast. If you like this podcast, would you please rate it, review it, leave us a great comment? And if you like this episode in particular, share with your friends and family. That helps us to spread the word. Guys, stay brave. We'll see you next week.