Addicted to Hope with Drake DeLong Farmer

In this episode, we dive into the ideas of hope, healing, and living your purposed life. You know - all things walking in your calling. It's a vital conversation in a world of so much hopelessness, settling, and surviving instead of thriving. 
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MEET DRAKE:

As a pastor and speaker, Drake De Long-Farmer has been passionate about inviting people into the deeper life with God and creating spaces for people to wrestle with what they believe about themselves, God, and the world around them. His hope is that, in some way, through his words and work, he can inspire people to become #FullOfLove, #FuelledByFaith, and #AddictedToHope. Drake currently serves on the leadership team of Beulah Alliance Church in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Growing up in a military family, he has moved a lot in his lifetime and has had the privilege to travel across Canada and Europe, but he is most at home when he spends time with his wife and four kids.

Website: www.drakefarmer.com
Facebook: facebook.com/drakefarmer
Insta: instagram.com/drakefarmer
Get the Book: http://getbook.at/addictedtohope

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Transcript

Juli Wenger: 0:03

Welcome to becoming ourselves, the podcast, where we help you answer the questions Who Am I? And why am I here. And then we help you get out of your own way because the world is waiting for you to show up and own your power. You have been placed on this earth for purpose, with purpose and on purpose by a God who loves you fiercely. And he has called you to something that has been specifically created for you right now. I'm Juli Wenger, a coach and author, speaker and Enneagram teacher, a Jesus lover and an entrepreneur that rocks ADHD. I am passionate about helping you step into the life you've called to, that something you know is possible, but haven't been able to reach. So buckle up, because it's not always an easy ride. But on the other side, is a life that is fired up to filled. Let's go. Today, we're back in the podcast with a friend of mine, Drake DeLong. Farmer, do you just go by Drake farmer or DeLonge? Farmer what? Like, I don't know. It's both in lots of places. Anyway, I'm excited to have Drake on the show. Today, we are going to talk about his book, addicted to hope. I love that you wrote this. And I love the accessibility of this book. And I want to just jump right into this because I think there's so much content and so much story here that is going to be healing and hope giving. I mean, that's kind of like cheesy to say, but addicted to hope and hope giving I mean, clearly. So anyway, why don't you introduce yourself for a hot second, you can tell people about you a little bit. All right.

Unknown: 1:53

So yeah, my name is Drake. I am I live in Alberta, Canada, and a city called Edmonton, me and Julio actually lived in the same region. And so the pastor at a church here, and I would say that I'm an accidental author, because I never, it was never my intent to write this, write a book necessarily write this book, as it was more of a way to kind of grow and communicating. And I wanted to start writing more. And so when I looked at my service project years ago, I wanted to decide like, what I was going to write on, and at the time, at the time, there wasn't actually a lot being written on hope that's changed. And, and understand, Billy, and where we are in the world. And also just it's a good thing, because, you know, it is it is a topic that we need more voices on, to be able to lead people towards, you know, actualizing hope.

Juli Wenger: 2:46

Yeah, there's something that I've been hearing as I went through my own book writing process about how there are different people that are assigned to your voice, then, you know, other authors or other people who are speaking. So for there to be that whole context of oh, I'm gonna write a book, but there's already someone who's written about it, it's like, well, that's okay. Because not everyone is going to connect with everything. So, and you're right, because I think after going through this whole, like pandemic experience, there's this sense of dread or there's a sense of hopelessness, that's been very pervasive. And, and I just want to point out for a minute that I find it so kind of funny, I don't know, funny is the right word, but funny that you are an accidental author, because for so many people, they intend to be an author, and they just never get there. Like they never decide. And so you take on this project of, I'm just going to sit down, and I'm going to write every day, and I'm going to improve my communication and get more concise and all of that stuff. And then it turns into a book. So I just, I think that that's kind of awesome. And, you know, from having gone through writing a book process with Billy, over here, I find it kind of amusing. So let's talk about this hashtag addicted to hope, and where that comes from, and the kind of three and one concept of what goes with that?

Unknown: 4:15

Yeah, sure. One of the things that the story at least how we got to this idea of this, you know, these words being put together, being addicted to hope. I was actually in my last church context, and this is this is years ago, I was leading a staff, devotion, and we had worship and we had, you know, communion together. And as we were praying I was and I was speaking on First Corinthians 13 Very familiar passage read at weddings a lot. But it has this idea of you know, faith, hope and love as a kind of the last thing and then it was all else fades is love. And so I kind of took this idea and but I was praying I subconsciously I don't know. I kind of rearranged the order and said that we would be people Will who were full of love fueled by faith and addicted to hope. I wouldn't say it was a throwaway statement. But you know, I didn't really put a lot of thought into it. I was just praying. And this is kind of what came out. And when somebody on the team was like, Hey, did you notice what you said? And I said, No. And so they mirrored it back to me. And I was like, oh, that's, that's interesting. That's, you know, that's good. I'm gonna write that down, you know. And so, I started kind of, like, percolating on this idea. And even in my own journey, and sort of clinging to this, this idea of being addicted to hope. And I say in the book, you know, it's kind of like the scandalous, pervasive thing, to kind of take these two words addiction that are addicted, or addiction being such a negative thing, and actually, being subversive about it and flipping it and saying, you know, if you had the same poll, the same obsession, towards hope in your life in the world, like an addict does for its next fix? What would that look like? Right? So that was kind of like the idea behind the whole concept.

Juli Wenger: 6:03

So let's talk about resting a little bit. So I know when we were chatting the other day are talking about how hope and rest go together. And that's something that you mentioned in the book of this interaction between the two. And as I've been going through my own journey, the last I don't know, kind of couple of months, there's been this consistent push of, you need to rest, you need to rest, you need to rest, you need to learn how to rest, you need to do the Sabbath thing you need to like it's everywhere, it's kind of, Okay, gotta get it. But there's this concept of resting in hope. And I think that that, just conceptually, is something that we can really lean into when we're feeling maybe burnt out or overwhelmed. And so if you want to fill them in a little bit on, but you think about resting and hope.

Unknown: 6:54

Yeah, totally. So when we're thinking about this idea of rest, and hope, it might be something that you think well, how do those two things go together? Because you think about hope, I mean, talking about the book as being something that's elusive, it's always seems like hope it's something that's out of reach. And I think that's actually in design, because hope is always needing to propel us to something forward to new possibilities, new breakthroughs in your life, new discoveries, all that type of thing. So, so kind of wrestling with his idea, and seemed almost like a second complete left turn in this idea of like, well, what does rest have to do with this, right? And so actually, I actually play on the city of rest and, and peace in the book. And if you actually go to the route, ancient word of these in the Hebrew, it's actually Sabbath and shalom. And shalom, or peace is an interesting thing, because it's not just about like, we're not talking rest or peace and like zen like nothingness. But, but actually, that the way that the Bible talks about this is actually meant to be rest in action, or to find rest in peace and action. And so even the word shalom is actually or peace, or we translated English to peace is more than just like, Oh, I feel at peace. But it's actually like to bring things in order to bring to bring the chaos into order to bring peace, you think about war and peace, right? And so the renewal of our life, the renewal of our neighborhood, the renewal of creation, and the main verse that I look at this, and it's a pretty well known verse, and it talks about Jesus says, all who are weary come to me, and I will give you rest. And I will, you know, take on my yoke, which is not burdensome. And in the book, I give that one it's quite well quoted, and and so I use the message from Eugene Peterson, and he puts it like this, if any of you are burnt out, you know, he says burnout and religion, but think about like, burnt out on life on whatever the thing is, is come to me. And I will teach you the unforced rhythms of grace. Right. And so there's this the sense of like that, that, that, you know, again, not this zen like thing, but there is a way to live life and to move towards hope, in a way that is unforced that there is a sense of that. So there is activity involved in this, but it's life giving gives renewal, and it's and then I quote, later on Peter, he after Pentecost, he's there and he's preaching to the 3000s. And he gives this this this kind of like he puts these two words together rest and hope that we find hope in rest in Jesus ultimately, that this whole thing is found in this is not a not a motivational poster bumper, sticker type hope that just goes gets you out of bed, but this divine deep rootedness that actually finds transformation renewal in our life, and that's, that's the hope we're talking about. And now imagine that life, world changing trends It's forming, renewing type of hope, that that somebody can be addicted to. So not just something that's always seems out of reach, but pushes us and drives us and compels us, like a compulsion, like an addiction forward, that actually sees real life change in our lives, into the people in our life, our neighborhood in the world.

Juli Wenger: 10:19

And it requires an act of participation from us, right? Because as I look at that passage, it's this, walk with me and work with me, and watch how I do it. And you know, you'll recover your life, and you'll learn to live freely and lightly, it's not just like, I'm going to help you sleep better, and you're going to be rested. It's just slow down, and go at my pace, and pay attention. And then do what I do. Because Jesus is our example. Right? So we get to imitate, how, how does he do it? How does he move through life, and I heard this thing recently, and it was so it was a kick in the face. For me, honestly, it was that God wants to take the hustle out of his house. Because we're all just like, Go Go, go, go, go, move, move, move, move all the time. And I have this moment last week, or sitting and is trying to take this time off. And it's like, why is this so hard? Why is it so hard to rest? Right? Why is it so difficult for me to slow down? And there's this piece there of if I slow down? Can I really trust that he's got it? And that's one of those opportunities, I think, for us to be cognizant of what are the stories we're attached to? And then what do we get to choose? Right? Do we get to choose hope? Do we get to choose to say, Okay, no, I'm going to believe the promises that you make, I'm going to believe that you are bigger, I'm going to believe that you are constant, I'm going to believe it. You're faithful and get past my own stories and say no, I'm going to choose and I'm going to practice because honestly think rest is a practice. And so that, like it's not rest as a burden, right? Rest is something that is a gift and something that allows us to be filled up and to spend time with him. I was like sitting there and I'm journaling. And all of a sudden they get this, you can't fill up the car while it's driving. You can't put fuel in the car, while it's driving, you'll just leak it all over the road. Like I need you to slow down long enough that I can fill you up so that you can go operate from this place of fullness instead of being drained. And it just strikes me that that is part of the learning these unforced rhythms of grace. It's like there's a working and there's following, and there's resting and refueling. And then there's more working. And then there's more

Unknown: 12:42

you know, when it's interesting, so, I mean, there's there's a few things that are going on in my head at none of the things about this. They're actually in the book, but they're they add to what what's being said, just because there's some recent like, this was interesting with this book, because as I continued venturing into this I, I continue going, Oh, there's another there's another layer to this. And I was like, Oh man, like all these ideas, like, am I writing a second edition, which I'm not as much as some people would like, but I go like, that's what I think. Right? Like, and maybe I'll start, you know, I need to grow as a communicator again, right? You think? Yeah. So a couple things there is, is one, you know, we think about rest, we're thinking about Sabbath, right? This, this this ancient idea of Sabbath. It's interesting, because you know, God, we get this because in models after the seven days of creation, that six day God works in seventh day, God rest. And what's interesting about this is that God didn't need to rest. It's not like God got tired, right? And he's like, oh, man, I need a I need a break. No, because there's more to this, in the sense of giving us this what are what are rhythm unforced rhythms of grace looks like, but also to enjoy one's labor to be able to, to have a different pace and things like that there is there is this the sense of we talked about hustle culture. I love how a friend of mine put he says we need to slow down long enough to be able to keep up with God. And I was just like, Okay, wait, I need to wait, what? This doesn't make sense. But there were there is this principle to go like we are, we're actually going so fast that we're actually missing where God is heading, because our focus is on the things that are not there. Or another way to put it like I was at this class not long ago, and we were talking about these, this idea and it's like, Jesus is inviting us to come with him not go over there. Right or there's this wonderful passage, Deuteronomy 31 Eight and God says, I will go before you and I will go with you. And so part of this, this learning thing of this, this act of rest, that leads to Shalom renewal, hope in our life is really about this. This sense of understanding something that's different. You know, it's interesting in the culture we are right now because we still have this push halls, hustle culture or the other side of the coin is to go quiet quit, right. And if you're gonna quiet quit at work, you're gonna quit quit at life, like there's this, there's a lot of conversation back and forth. And the motivation to wanting to create boundaries and find balance. It's like balance has a myth to it. Because you have this sense of like to find balance, I need to lower everything, when in reality, it's actually directing our attention into the right things, and putting your energy into the right thing. So were you may be passionate about the work you're doing. Or put it like this, are you as passionate about rest, as you are about the thing that you're trying to accomplish? Are you passionate about spending quality time with your kids and your family, as you are about the project that you're working on? Imagine if you had that same passion and drive towards rest or the different rhythms in your life, it's finding, it's finding the right rhythm, more so than it is about finding balance. Now there is boundaries, and there's good things and you need to be unapologetic about all of that stuff. But rest is a deeper thing. And it is a renewal thing. And it ultimately in the New Testament says that Sabbath is found in Jesus our relationship with Him that He brings true Sabbath, true rhythm, true shalom, true peace, and ultimately, the true actualization of hope in our lives.

Juli Wenger: 16:26

So let's tie in from there to fueled by love. Because, you know, since we're talking so much about Jesus as the example, he's also an example of here's how you live as love, here's how you'd be love. And one of the things that tied together because there's the three, right, there's the addicted to hope, and then there's the fueled by love. And so tell us about love, love and full of love. Fueled by faith, okay, so let's talk about full of love. And then let's talk about fueled by faith.

Unknown: 16:56

Yeah, so one of the interesting things I mean, that comes in mind, you know, talking about the boat full of love, right? Like I basically say, before we could even talk about hope, for record, we can talk about the actualization of hope, we need to think about the source of this, which is Jesus and the source of that is love, love comes to earth, Jesus becomes one of us. It says in Philippians, two, you know, that he did not consider equality with God, something to grasp, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant. And when he found himself in human likeness, He humbled Himself even to the point of death, right. And therefore, God exalted him to the highest place that every Nisha bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. So there's this interplay, that God becomes one of us that he lives his life with us, and that he, he leads and by going to the cross, He says, a joy was set before him. You know, in Hebrews, it talks about that he goes behind the veil, and it's torn that he, he basically what he's doing is, as you're looking through human history, that God the Divine is interacting with humanity, be it with no, or Moses, or Abraham are the Israelites. And he's creating these agreements, these covenants with them. And what's what's amazing is there's these four main covenants and three of them, there's an agreement that the humanity does, and one of them it's just God's promise. But all three are all the covenants that humanity has an agreement, we break, we screw it up, there's this, this hopelessness, this cycle of hopelessness in our life that happens. But what's amazing is that God goes, Yes, you broke your side, but I will, I will choose to fulfill my side. And so here's what's amazing that happens and why it's so important that, that Jesus is both God and human, because he needs to be divine need to be God to forgive sins, to but also but more importantly, to fulfill the promises that God said I would do in my side of the covenant. But then being human, he's actually perfectly because he's not tainted by hopelessness and a cancer of sin, he is able to actually fulfill the covenant side of humanity. And this is a great picture of this is that Jesus, that a Jesus and the name Joshua are actually the same route, just we get Jesus from Latin and Joshua, we get from the root of Yeshua, from from the Hebrew, and the story of Joshua in that verse, Deuteronomy 31, Ada will go before he can go with you as this promise of going in the Promised Land. Joshua leads the people into this promised land. And so when Jesus you know dies, the curtain is torn, we see the story of the divide between God and humanity. And Hebrews says, he goes behind the curtain he goes behind the curtain of history, and he opens the door, he fulfills the covenant. So now that we have direct access to the Divine to God the Father and to be reconciled this broken relationship. So this this is all motivated by this idea of agape love, right? This idea that God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son like the most like quoted passage, but when we read this passage, it like every time we should read this because it should blow our mind. But because we're familiar with it, we just, we just glaze over. But like think about that for a second that God so loved the world that He gave His one and only son. And so there is this love. And so what how do we respond to this is is twofold. One is in is resting in this love, and the other is trusting in this now there's, there's more facets to it, but for the sake of this conversation. So resting is you know, and you're thinking about, well, how do I find hope in my life, it might be you need to go back to the to the basics and foundations. And you need to just sit and rest in, in, in God's love in the sacrificial work of Jesus on the cross, and have that permeate in your life till you are over full, you're full of His love that it overflows out of you. And from then you can start doing the work towards actualizing hope. The other is trust. And this is an interesting thing. So how do you fully rest in this is actually the sense of like, a total abandonment to it. And I share this story in high school. And I'm a part of this video ographers team like this is back analog, giant cameras that weigh like 50 pounds on your shoulder and stuff. And so this is this, this was a extracurricular activity that I did for credit in my school, the community I lived in, there was three main communities in the area. And one of them was a military base, I grew up military kids, I was always on or around a military base. And so these three residential communities, one being on the base and two in the area, I wanted to, to join together and become the tri city. And so to commemorate this, there's a walking path that goes through all of these communities. And they were gonna have people span from one end of the community to the other, all holding hands. And so they wanted to be able to record this. And so they actually asked us to partner with the Canadian military. And we were going to get in a helicopter and film this. And so how it would work is if you've seen any type of like, these are Griffin helicopters, if you want to Google that, or you saw any, like these old warm winds open door, yeah, the wide open doors, you see these things, and they come down, you know, like Vietnam or things like that. And they'll have a seat that's bolted in the ground. And that's like five port horns to hold yet. So you're sitting in the seat, you've got this camera. And the idea is that the helicopter would come completely tilt accident aside, where you be facing bird's eye view, and you would film this walking path, right. And so as the lead on this project, you know, as a lead editor and project manager, this, they actually gave me, you know, first rights refusal, and I said absolutely not. I was like the idea of getting in this helicopter and putting my trust in this fight for I had more trust in the law of gravity than I did in this five point harness, right. I'm just like, No way. And to this day, I regret this decision, because what an amazing experience that would have been to put us as a bucket, you know that but I just like no way. Because I had more in the fear of what could happen and I'm putting the trust in the equipment that I was there was going to keep me safe. Right. And more often than not, we look at this idea of resting and God's love has had this component of abandonment and trust in something outside of our control. Right and to be able to actually move deep and start moving towards actualizing hope to be addicted to hope. We need to be able to to surrender ourselves and fully trust in this divine love outside of our control and to rest in these things and allow God to do His work in us. But it takes a step of thing not me but you I give up no longer meet you know, all that stuff. So there is this, this thing. So the question is, can you trust in Jesus and His love and the finished work and the cross like you could have five point harness flying in a helicopter?

Juli Wenger: 23:55

Yeah, I was reading this morning. Also in the message in Ephesians. Three, there's this passage that talks about asking that with both feet planted firmly on love, you'll be able to take in with all followers of Jesus, the extravagant dimensions of grace, love. And I was just thinking that as you're talking of this posture of surrender and being available to receiving that right and taking taking our own walls down, being able to say no, I'm going to I'm going to be available to this I'm going to be open to this like show me and because sometimes we we go through life and we can have people love us or we can have people speak really great things over us but we might not be willing to actually hear it we might not be willing to receive it. And so there's this piece for me of are we choosing to allow him to love us in combination with this. Choose seem to trust and looking at how much faith do I have? Do I trust him as much as I would trust that five point harness? Let's jump though to yield by faith. Let's give them the Here's the overview of what fueled by faith looks like. And then they have to read the book to get all the details and go by the book.

Unknown: 25:16

Yeah. So I mean, the premise of the book is we spend the time on hope, you know, and I start with love. And then we we unpack things like, what about, you know, this idea of like, what about hope for the world? You know, how does the church fit into this? How does my life fit into this? You know, this idea of words kill this idea of what about hope for the hopeless? What about hope for the addict? You know, and not just addict like, what you think drinking drugs, sex, but like, what about the hustle? What about performance? What about perfection? What are we? Everybody's addicted to something there's this drive, something that is either holding you you're addicted something and hopelessness or negative? Or can you be addicted to something that is positive? The end of the book he talked about? Well, how do we how do we actually now actualize this and this idea of faith? So I find it interesting that you use the analogy of trying to gas a car while it's driving, right. And I say that both faith in a field by faith, faith is the fuel, right? So like, you can have the nicest car, be it like a Ferrari Lamborghini dark pink land, dark Land Rover, right? So you can you can get into this vehicle, right? And has all these amazing features that handling, you know, the horsepower under the engine, all that stuff. And you've got this, this piece of machinery that, you know, if you think about a Lamborghini, and the speed that the thing can go, and the handling it can do and all that stuff. But if you don't put fuel into the gas tank, that sucker is not going anywhere, right. And so what's interesting about faith is that is both the thing that gets us started, but also the thing that that completes us to the end. It's the thing that is our faith. And faith is a gift from God, and it's given to us. And we utilize it, there's this partnership between what God gives us and what we do. There's all these other things, or thinking about it like this, that you know, when we die the idea of like, well, how do I? How do I get how do I start moving in this was what's what's hard about actualizing hope getting started as always the hardest thing. So think about like when you were kids, you had these these like steel, merry go rounds, right? Like, it's an eight year old kid, you're grabbing the side of this, and you are putting all of your effort to get this sucker moving. Right. And as you as the momentum goings, and as you keep it going in that momentum, like at some point, you have to jump on, because if you don't, it's gonna take all of your strength to hold on this thing. And you'll get thrown off and break your arm, right? Like, these things were dangerous, right? Like the weight of this, well, it takes all of this effort to move it forward. But once you go get that momentum going in the faith that continues and you just gotta be on the side and you're kicking your foot, and you've got that momentum going. Or another way to look at it is if you decided you're gonna want to run a marathon, you're not just one night, you're sitting on the couch, eating potato chips, watching, binge watching, you know, something on Netflix, and the next morning, you wake up and run a marathon that that's that's not how it works. And so I had this line in the book that says, Every marathon starts with a first step. Right? Like any goal that you have in your life needs to start with some type of action. If you want to lose weight, you need to change the habits that are in your life, to be able to actualize the goal that's in front of you. And just like that, finding hope renewal rest, peace in your life, being a person who is addicted to hope. It's like running a marathon, but you need to train for this. So the question at hand is what's the, what's the one thing you could do today? What's the one step that could get that momentum going, and that you could build off of that as it does, it becomes this compounding thing. And hope becomes something that becomes this perpetual thing, you know, and it's interesting, because we have these cycles in our life, we have negative cycles in our life, or we have positive cycles in our life, right? Negative cycles is guilt, and shame. And that has momentum. And so when we find ourselves in these hopeless cycles, that we're addicted, to hopelessness to these negative things in our life, they become these cycles of guilt and shame, that perpetuate themselves and they build themselves in the same way of this faith that leads to actualizing hope. The positive cycle, once you're moving, is actually freedom and intimacy. So as you find renewal and rest and peace and hope and it's actualizing you find new freedom, like you think about a person finds freedom from their addictions, that actually opens up whole new possibilities of intimacy and openness, that no longer there because you are numb, that you have an intimacy with God and intimacy with others intimacy with creation, intimacy, and with with your spouse and your kids and your friends in ways that you weren't or do and that intimacy then again, leads to new freedom which then leads to intimacy, which leads to freedom. And you actually have this perpetual cycle. I have of positivity of hope in your life. Because you're moving in that direction, the difficulty and all of that is, the first step is really hard. And I talked about the story and that too, for sometimes it's just simply to believe that you can change. Just simply having the belief to say that hope is for me that Jesus's love is for me that something could look different. Or I give this example of Alcoholics Anonymous, the power of community and so others that's

Juli Wenger: 30:29

gonna say that it's like, we have to talk about community, like

Unknown: 30:33

this is something you can't do on your own. Ultimately, if you try and do this in isolation, the hopelessness you have the addictions that you have you leave them in the dark, the way to disempower them is to bring them into light into community.

Juli Wenger: 30:46

Let's talk about community and how important that is in living out hope.

Unknown: 30:50

Yeah, this is why like, it is so important when you think about some of these programs. What this says to us like that we need to do this in community. We're not meant to actually walk out this life, let alone the hopelessness and the struggles and the addictions are life in isolation. Like I said that one of the most powerful tools that you can do is actually bring that stuff out into light and bring it into community it is it's probably one of the hardest things to be able to do is actually be able to do this. And I talked about the book that like in this process of like, forgiveness and reconciliation and finding hope that two of the most misunderstood words kind of in this process is confession and repentance. Because repentance is like churchy. Well, the churchy, but it's but it's more than that. It's actually like repentance is just simply like, change your mind 180. It's putting your attention into the right places. So that goes back to is your eyes on Jesus is your eyes on hope is your eyes on this and not on missing the mark and not this idea of like, well, I need to punish myself. That's what repentance is. And to be very remorseful, no, remorseful is a different word. And it's usually you need to be remorseful about the actions done, but even to like accept to be a victim, you know, in her life, that if you are a victim, let me just say that, you know, you are the victim, but at some point to to the idea of repenting isn't to say, I did something wrong as a victim, but the real Issei but I will not allow that what that person did to me to control me. And so I will now change my attention towards something that is healing. The other thing is confession. This idea, because it feels again, it's like, oh, I need to go to a priest and confess. It's, it's, it's, it's vulnerable, but it's just like, just use the word to share and, and to be able to say I need, I need to get this out into the open, you know, to be able to share with others. And this is why things like 12 Step programs, or anything that has to do with reconciliation or community is so important to share. Because once it gets out into the light out into the open, it disempowers it if you keep it a secret that has power over you. And to jump back into this idea of repentance, actually, the better word it's about sharing for, for confession, the better word for repentance is just alignment coming into alignment with what with with what God wants for your life, right to be transformed by the renewing, you know, this idea to walk out the unforced rhythms of grace. And I just like to use this analogy in the book of just, you know, when I was a teenager, my mom, you know, she could only afford just a single mom raising us could only afford so much as a vehicle and this car had this, this pole to the right and needed a wheel and she couldn't afford it. So we always driving around as a teenager and always had to move the steering wheel a little bit to the left cocked died. And you're always to keep the car on the straight, narrow, I go to the go to the shop, get a wheel and we'll drive straight repentance is a soul alignment for us ultimately going to God that he can do this on a continual basis so that he can give you a soul alignment in what's best for us found in ultimately, in this hope, and when we do these things. And so let's kind of look at the idea of that importance. And you don't do that in isolation. Yes, you do have direct line to God, yes, he will forgive. But the most, the most effective way to do this to find this alignment to be able to deal with this is through community. And why we do this is because we talked about this imagery. One of the authors, I quote, a guy named Rob rhymer, and he gives us an analogy of this suitcase, right? Like, if we want hope in our lives, we need to deal with the junk in our suitcase, right? And our baggage is ideas interesting. The word baggage is both like a backpack or a suitcase. But it's also the things that we carry around. And we're only going to find hope and find hope in our life. If we actually trust God surrendered to Him. And for him to be able to open the suitcase the baggage we have and allow him to take these things out bit by bit in the process that's needed to do it well and healthily and healing. And once we start dealing with the stuff taking the hopeless Since the garbage, all the stuff in our life dealing with root issues, then he's able, there's room now to put hope inside of that, inside of that suitcase inside of that baggage, and that is best accomplished in community with others. Now, here's the caveat, though, that isn't just anybody. Now for some it might be, you need to, like there's some stuff, you need to go to a counselor, there are things you might need to support. Those are things, it could be friends and family. But the big stipulation is are the people that are walking with the ones that that are people who see the hope that are addicted to hope? Are they people that can accept you in your brokenness in that season? Or are they judgmental? Are they people that are full of love fueled by faith addicted? Hope not not that they're perfect now that they have it all together? But will they have bring grace into that situation? Recognizing you're on a journey, we're all on a journey? And do they have the wisdom to be able to walk those things out? Or will the situation you're dealing with impact them. So there's some wisdom in that and knowing who you bring alongside with you. But I would say you'd be better off to take the risk with the people than to keep it in the dark in isolation with yourself because you're never going to find the freedom and intimacy cycle, you're never going to actualize hope in your life, if you keep that suitcase, full the junk if you keep all that in the dark. And so that is why community is so important.

Juli Wenger: 36:25

There's so many things I could jump into there. One of the things I love about Rob reamer is he talks about like safe community, right? And it's this radically honest and vulnerable and open community of people who not just can you share your stuff with them, but they can share their stuff with you. And where we go through life of this kind of radical honesty. And you can't find that just anywhere. So I think that what you're highlighting about the intentionality of who am I journeying with, is so important, both from you know, are they maybe a permission slip for you, of this is what's possible, or I could live like this, or I could reach for that? Do they call you up? Do they challenge you? Do they see you the way that God sees you? Right, there is a reflection back of that. And can you be some of that for them? Or can you learn how to be some of that by being with them. And then there's also this theme that just keeps showing up because we're talking about some of this, like the shame and the guilt and these cycles and victim thinking and this difference between condemnation and conviction, right, like the spirit of condemnation that says, Uh, you're not enough, and you're not worthy. And you're not, you're not, you're not. And there's a lot of judgment, there's a lot of guilt. And there's a lot of shame that lives there versus, like Holy Spirit conviction of you can step through this. And so that dynamic can show up. And I think it's really important from a community perspective. Do we have people who are living in a condemnation cycle and are committed to that? Or do we have people who are not healthy? Or they're working their way through that? Or they're on, quote, unquote, the other side? I mean, I don't think we ever get to the other side on everything. But do we have people who are really listening for God's guidance and his leading, and leaning into that, which is, you know, the faith fueled, right, so I just wanted to touch on those couple of things. Let's talk just real quick before we wrap up about the power of words, and language, because there's the words killer part of this book. And this is something that as a coach I've latched on to for so long with people, like your words have power. And so I'd love for us to just touch on that before we wrap up for today.

Unknown: 38:42

Yeah, so one of the chapters this idea of words kill and when we look at it's important part of it, because it's one of the ways that we actualize either and hopelessness or hope, you know, and in Proverbs talks about this idea that the Words have the power to give life or give death, James, the book of James talks about, you know, out of the same spring, you can't have freshwater and saltwater, right, and this, you know, to praise God and to condemn others right into you know, this this dualistic perspective that we can have, or in James as well talks with this idea that you know, that a tongue is harder to tame than a wild horse, or it's a spark that sets a force ablaze and, and the negative spark can set forcibly in the wrong way. But I flip it I mean, it's meant to be a negative imagery, but I also go well think about what speaking hope or encouragement or life into the world, that same spark and can be like a forest fire in or, you know, it's a spread it goes viral, right, this idea like, this is this play on words and you look at the, the front of the book has this, this hashtag idea of, you know, like, hope can be cheap, because you can go oh, I shared a hash tag. Look, I changed the world, right? Like that's slacktivism right like that we talked about but there is this power, that words have right to say that words. create worlds. And so we do have the power to speak now. And I'm not talking like, well, if I say it enough times that you're going to get a million dollars, a million dollars is going to show up in my mailbox. That's not what we're talking about when we are talking about there are the way we think and the way we speak, does actually influence in this one example I give us, you know, we, we live in a northern city in Canada, we've seen snow and every month of the year, and this in one particular season, you know, I stopped doing this and this is one of the reasons is having my cell phone on my nightstand more than maybe the best way to find healing is go get a go get an alarm clock and not have your cell phone there. Because the first thing you grab, what's amazing about that technology is we have access to the world. The downside of is the world has access to us. And here's a prime example. Right, picked up his phone, went on social media. And immediately, you know, post after post after post, there's a blizzard happening aside, right, like in the in the middle of May when it's supposed to be raining, right? And I'm reading these things. And after a while, like, before I even get up, open the curtains and see what's happening. I'm already being impacted by this because of people's words. And I'm ready now to add to the fuel the riot mentality of this negativity of words, but also complaining about the weather. And I haven't even seen it yet. Right. And so this is what this this power has in us and something as simple as complaining about the weather, you know, and that same way, the challenging have in the book as I was, I was singing about the word encourage. Right? And I'm bilingual. So I have, I speak French and I speak English. And I was thinking about this word. And I was like, oh, it's interesting. Encourage encourage courage, uncouth, edgy, cool, guys. And I was like, sounds like the word courage is in encourager or encourage. So I, I searched it up. And it's an old French word that literally means to have courage, right, you know, to speak and to have courage. And so the idea that the imagery I use is thinking about like World War Two the medics that go out, and they're patching people up, and bullets are flying. You know, the danger in this idea, too, is recognizing that if you are an encourager that you become a target. But but as a person who is addicted to hope, to speak life into the world into people's lives. The simple action doesn't have to be this, you know, Martin Luther King Jr. speech, but it can just be simply the passing compliment to you said it to call somebody up to be able to speak life that you could change the world for an individual, simply by how you speak to them, how you choose how you encourage, instead of tear down, because we are easy to be critics. But what does it mean to be encouragers? To be the ones that I say, where are all the encouragers and imagine a world of people who spoke life into the world instead of death? Not not not wise, constructive criticism, being honest and candid, compassionate and those things, but also to go What if I put into the world? You know, and you think about all the negativity happens in social media? What if I had put posts of like, look at this amazing thing that is happening in the world. Look at this amazing invention look at how this person is adding value to the world. What if we actually fought the negativity, the hopelessness by sharing and showing hope in our lives and our actions or words or thoughts, and the things that we do.

Juli Wenger: 43:30

I think that's a perfect way for us to wrap this one up. Thanks so much for being on the show with my pleasure for all of you go get drinks book, I'm gonna put a link in the show notes to Amazon so they can go grab it, because it's awesome until you should all have it on your bookshelf and get a copy for somebody that you know in your life and everything. So until next time has been on my love's Virtual hugs. Thanks for being with us to help you carry on that is on your life. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please please please hop into wherever you listen to podcasts and leave a positive review for us. And the links that we mentioned during the episode will be in your show notes. So make sure to check those out too. Until next time, be love. Be joy. Be strong and courageous and be too much. I dare you