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Part 2 of 2: In this second part of our time with Jon Petersen, Jon delves into an overview of six stages of life and leadership development and the challenges and welcome of the Father into maturity as well as the role of surrendering control in the process. If you’d like to hear more from Jon, check the full episode notes for links to Jon’s two books.
From Navah Church KC, stories and interviews chronicling how God is using 24-7 Prayer Globally to Revive the Church and Re-wire the Culture.
God is the God of crisis. Crisis is the gift of God to force us out of our own strength and into His.
DB:Hello, One and all. David Blackwell here joining anyone and everyone, whoever might be listening on this Navah podcast where we interview some of our favorite people from around the globe, hearing the great things God is doing with 247 in particular, how he is using and partnering with 247 to revive the church and rewire the culture. It is an amazing day when John Peterson is in town. John, welcome.
JP:Thank you, David. It's great to be here.
DB:Here we sit in Kansas City. How long did you live in Kansas City for again?
JP:6 years. 6 years? Yep.
DB:Six great years.
JP:They were great. I fell in love with this city.
DB:I know you did.
JP:I know you guys.
DB:Yeah. John When John was living here, spent a good bit of his time researching the spiritual roots of Kansas City and passing that on to us and helping us be aware of what God's been doing long before any of us arrived in Kansas City, long before Nava or Boilerum was even an idea, and the encouragement it brings to know that there's been men and women, great godly men and women who come before us that have sowed seeds and prayer prayers and done lots of great things that have contributed to the city now.
JP:Almost 200 years. Wow. 18/21 when they first came and started bringing native Americans in. And Shawnee Mission, Kansas was started as a mission to 17 different tribes, led by beautiful men and women of God who felt a call from the Lord on the East Seaboard to come and host them here. Amazing.
JP:And found a place for them to live and set up shop. It's a beautiful story.
DB:I love it. One of the things I've always appreciated about you, John, that's helped me is your kind of big picture view as you've even spun and spoken to about Kansas City, seeing 200 years and how it shapes even this moment.
JP:Mhmm.
DB:And in your last book, Unveiled, you speak to, at least in part, some of the stages of development that people go through, that leaders go through. And I find it really helpful in understanding what I'm going through. Mhmm. I remember calling you recently as I've just turned 40 and, you know, kind of sharing some of what I'm feeling and what I'm thinking and thinking, oh, gosh. This is bad.
DB:I'm feeling this. I'm thinking this. And I call you, and some of what you spoke to me was an understanding of a pattern Mhmm. That has kinda played out through history
JP:Right.
DB:That brings some encouragement to us that helps us understand the moment we're in and maybe how to respond to it. Would you just share some of those those stages and some what characterizes each of those stages?
JP:Yeah. So I was 39, and I felt like I needed a year off from our work in Amsterdam. And I and I ended up at the School of World Mission at Fuller Seminary. I swore I'd never go to the seminary, and there I was enjoyed every minute of it. Wow.
JP:And I was in the, master's degree program on intercultural leadership development. So one of the professors there had this theory that he had researched that there were 6 phases of development in the life of a leader from birth to death. Sovereign foundations, inner life growth, ministry maturing phase, life maturing phase, convergence, afterglow. He went into scriptures. He found a lot of the patterns in some of the scripture figures.
JP:Yep. He studied leaders from all over the world and found that there was what I would call a loose framework. It's not something you can bank your life on. Sure. But, boy, was it consistent with my own life and the life of my classmates.
JP:And we were from 30 different nations. So we had a lot of conversation about. And we were 39, 40, some were a little older, some were younger. And the beauty of it was it was redemptive thinking. It
DB:was Yeah.
JP:That you were born with a purpose, no matter what you were born into. And all throughout your life, there's a destiny that God is desperate to get to you, to get your heart, to get you on the track that he created you for. Yeah. So that's the premise. It's called leadership emergence patterns.
JP:So there is there is a pattern in your life. And I it was fun because I was looking back in my early years, which were not easy. I I was born into another culture, spoke another language. I was the only white kid for 6 years in my village. I was molested twice, kidnapped twice.
JP:Sheesh. Got depressed at 12, got angry, had a major conversion at 17, begin the process of cleaning me up.
DB:Yeah.
JP:But all those were it started to make sense to me even though it was painful. That that was not my identity. And so this threat of Jesus trying to replace the identity of Adam and all that we've gotten from sin and fallenness Yeah. By the person of Christ and the beautiful work that he did through the cross and the resurrection. That was kind of the premise.
JP:And then I look at my, so we call it the Sovereign Foundation years. Whatever you're born into, whether you're an orphan, whether you're from a rich family or poor family, good or bad things happen to you, it's all part of God's destiny and design for you. And he redeems it or he builds on it because some of it's really good. Sure. I had a great history in the word of God.
JP:My mom made me memorize scriptures every day before I went to school. Hated it at the time. Man, am I grateful for that dedication to the word of God. My mom, a little baptist lady, prayed every day, and and that went into me, you know, that that pattern of righteousness. Yeah.
JP:And then, you know, I Inner life growth phase. I I I find myself in in California at 18 years old. Jesus movements on, I mean, early on. And I was there when it just exploded. Amazing.
JP:So it was affecting my thinking, changing my paradigms, came into the Holy Spirit. I got nuked by the Holy Spirit when I was 19. I mean, it was so radical that it started hitting my depression. Wow. I was finding other men and women of God that had a limitless hunger for God And we would ditch our classes to go to church Wow.
JP:And just hang out with 4,000 hippies. I mean, it was really something. And and so that second area is is the is the season around your conversion. And when everything starts flipping.
DB:Yeah.
JP:And a lot of us got good stuff during those days. A lot of us missed some things. Sure. So as we progress in life, God's always trying to go back to add in the things that may have missed. Maybe a strong biblical foundation.
JP:Maybe, we didn't learn to hear the voice of God. Yeah. Or maybe we did. Those are all it's centering you in the things of God. Yeah.
JP:So redeems your past, centers you in God. Beautiful. And then you start into what I would call they call the early ministry phase. Ministry phase, ministry maturing phase is usually the longest, about 20 years. Wow.
JP:Let's say you get saved in your late teens, early twenties. The next 20, 25 years, the focus is is really about your calling, your gifting, your ministry. Yeah. And all the highs and lows. And by the time you get into your twenties, you are the twenties are a funny decade because there's a lot of idealism.
JP:Sure. Right? You're gonna change the world. Oh, yeah. Everything and then all the all of a sudden everything starts getting punctured and popped.
DB:Yeah. Jacked with.
JP:Oh, man. Big time jack. And relational issues, hard stuff. Just hard stuff
DB:Yeah.
JP:Along with the good stuff. And you're starting to discover who you really are, what you're good at, what you're not good at, what you're dreaming about, what you don't dream about. You're learning relationship issues, how to get along in a marriage, get along with friends. If you're planting a church like I was, you're learning all the Oh, yeah. Church policy stuff and what's of God and what's not.
JP:All that. If you're in business, you're you're, learning to, understand what your niche, what you're good at in that realm. Yeah. You're starting to make money. You're starting to, you know, move up as it were.
JP:And then it all of a sudden, it starts to hit people, or it should hit people. That all of this is not for the ladder climbing, not to make me a greater, bigger star, which is tempting when you're in your twenties. But God is using all this not to give me more ministry or or or more career. The Lord's using the ministry to give me more of himself. Wow.
JP:That it's the delivery system. It's the vehicle Yeah. For introducing me to more of God's ways. Gotcha. Which means then that he can take me out of the game whenever he wants.
DB:Exactly.
JP:Yeah. And then the thirties are just more the same. I call it the buffet years, the cafe years. Yeah. There's a huge table.
JP:It's loaded with trash. I say to 20 30 year olds, go for broke. Try everything. Experiment, travel, get out. Yeah.
JP:You know, it doesn't look like You're identifying,
DB:oh, I I'm I'm good at this. I'm not good at this. I really like this. Yeah. I don't like that.
DB:I'm not fit for that.
JP:Right. And then you discover, you know, the question often is, what should I do? Sure. I have young guys gonna be all the Oh, yeah. I don't know what to do.
JP:I don't know what I'm supposed to do. This is not the question. The question is who are you supposed to be with? It's it's relational. Yeah.
JP:Who's God called you to be alongside? You need people in three levels. You need them above you, next to you, and and as it were below you. What I mean by that is that Somebody They're those that we're investing into. Right?
JP:Not below in terms of value, of course. Then something weird happens. Life maturing phase. Somewhere around the late thirties into the mid forties. And this is the time when if we give our hearts are right before God, the world calls it the midlife crisis.
JP:Right?
DB:Sure.
JP:So Dave, you're 40. Yeah. Right? Midlife crisis. Yeah.
JP:I bought a Porsche. It's always been seen as a little
DB:It's out there.
JP:He bought a poor slave.
DB:I shouldn't have done that.
JP:No. No. Take turn it back in. Son of a There there's a funny thing. The the world just says it's really bad.
JP:Right? People are afraid of it. Yeah. And it is a time when the divorce is high, when affairs happen. Right.
JP:There there's a dissatisfaction with the way I am. A dissatisfaction a sense of is this all there is? Yeah.
DB:Is this all there is?
JP:Is this all there is?
DB:Why Yeah.
JP:And where is this going? I got 40 more years. Oh, my gosh. How am I ever gonna
DB:Right. Make this through this. Do it. Yeah. Anything significant.
DB:And
JP:usually in the for someone's extremely fruitful in their forties. Late thirties, forties. They're they're doing their stuff. They're good. They're good at what they do.
JP:Yeah. A lot of them have experienced either wealth or success with whatever they're touching, pastoring churches, whatever it is.
DB:Doesn't matter. Yeah.
JP:Doesn't matter. And this is the time when God gives himself permission to a son and a daughter to grab them by the ankles, flip them upside down, and shake everything out. And it's the most insecure Yeah. Feel of I'm out of control and that's exactly the point. Is there's so much control in our lives.
DB:Wow
JP:So much unfiltered, undetoxed dreaming that to get the destiny that he wants for us, he has to park us. Dang. Burnout happens with a lot of people because they're operating usually either as orphans and they where they need to be loved to be validated and so they get rejected really easy or they're slaves.
DB:Yeah.
JP:And then they they they get their jollies by doing something and getting
DB:prove it, work for it.
JP:There's no end to that. It's it's it's an addiction. Yeah. And so God, in his love, breaks in and says enough of that. And the goal of that, what they call the life maturing phase, phase, 4, is that we begin to realize that we're sons.
JP:We're loved with the father.
DB:Yeah.
JP:Not do I do it, don't do. I'm loved. And a rest begins to come into the spirit.
JP:Wow. Usually, we lose a lot in those years. There's things that get taken away.
DB:Interesting.
JP:Or dreams aren't quite as fruitful as we had hoped and we're okay with it because we have him. Yeah. Right? All the tribes of Israel, God's doling out all this inheritance, gets to the Levites, says I'm really sorry. All you get is me.
JP:I am your portion. Right. So until that until our heart resonates with that, that's enough. Then we're gonna be clamoring for other stuff. And I I work with guys that are in their fifties and sixties who are unsatisfied to this day.
JP:They're still trying to attain, you you know, utopia as it were, be it business or be it church work or whatever, missionary work. And these are successful guys. A lot of them. Oh, they're very successful. Yeah.
JP:But they're very broken. Yeah. They're they're they've got relational issues. I guarantee it. Because you cannot be that way and not affect the people around you.
JP:Leaders that won't abdicate their their churches and and let the new generation come through.
DB:Unhealthily holding out
JP:Same way business executives who just won't make room for the young guys. They they get their jobs from that that lead role. Yeah. And and that's the beauty of the next the next one. It's called Convergence.
JP:It's when usually in the mid fifties, when all of those lessons, all the relationships, all the experiences, all of the skill set begin to come together into convergence.
DB:Yeah.
JP:And we find ourselves not needing to be seen, not needing to be heard, secure in our sonship in Christ, and trusting the father to lead us into all that we're meant to be. Wow. And then you find yourself stepping into being a father. All of a sudden, the young guys are asking for input. They're asking for help.
JP:You're a safe zone. They can come and say anything. They can do anything. You'll love them no matter what. It's unconditional.
JP:It's pretty cool place to be.
DB:Amazing, David.
JP:And I wanna give hope to anyone that's still years away from that and say, he will get you there if you keep your heart open to ours towards him. Yeah. And, a, learn your lessons, forgive backwards, and don't don't hold stuff, and just remember he created the universe. Bam. He created the universe.
JP:I love that in Ecclesiastes. God is in heaven. You are you are on earth, Therefore, let your words be few. In other words, and did you create Right. The Leviathan, you know?
JP:Where were you? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's a sense of greatness of God and smallness of man.
JP:That's health. It's essential. That's really essential. Amen. Yeah.
JP:And then of course it that moves on. Afterglow. Over time, you run out of physical energy, but you're left with a very rich deposit. You know, Eugene Peterson is such a legend. Right?
DB:Yeah. Seriously.
JP:So the guy sitting in his little cabin wherever it was, Idaho or somebody floating in his little guy. Casting his line out in the lake, catching fish. And he would have a guy or 2 sitting in the boat with him just kind of gleaning from the pearls that came from the guy, you know. That's called the afterglow season. Beautiful.
JP:When and we we tend to discard our older people more and more. I think that that they're irrelevant. Yeah. And God is really raising up a buy and try generational church where we really honor those seasons and we draw from them. Well, we don't discard anybody, a, because they're too young or, b, because they're too old.
DB:That's right. Alright. So Sovereign Foundations somewhere birthed to 16, 17 ish. Mhmm. There's the inner life cultivation late teens to somewhere in the mid late twenties, would you say?
JP:Yeah, mid mid twenties, and then up until where you start kind of doing your first Bible study. Check. Lead worship for the first time. Yep. You you're both in your first That's the ex your first real job.
JP:Yep. You know, not I don't mean to belittle Taco Bell, but I mean somewhere where you kinda Yeah.
DB:Sure.
JP:In where you've been trained or where you dream about working. Yep. And church work might start as a young youth pastor, you know, that kind of thing. Your your first attempts into serving the lord that way. Check.
DB:And in each of those stages, there's, if I remember correctly, a test or a ceiling, a growth ceiling that the Father allows, dare say, kind of coordinates for our good, that's often hard. Can you speak to those that Especially for those that predominantly, I think our audience is gonna be, you know, twenties Right. Maybe late thirties. So Yeah. Those two stages, what's the gross ceiling
JP:Right.
DB:There as you enter from phase, you know, 1 to 2 and then 2 to 3 or 3 to 4, however you wanna take that.
JP:The God is the God of crisis. Crisis is the gift of God to force us out of our own, strength and into his. Yeah. And so that takes the shape of all manner of shapes. Could be a relational issue.
JP:Could be a career issue, a ministry issue. Whatever the thing is that's making you dissatisfied or frustrated is designed of gut. Now he doesn't cause all of that. He didn't bring everything.
DB:Right.
JP:But he redeems everything that's brought to you whether it's by him or by the enemy or by just humans.
DB:Yeah. Right.
JP:And it's different. It's tailor made for every person. God knows how to tailor make the crisis to get to the issues of your heart.
DB:Yeah. So how do we identify which one we're in and speak to how we identify and maybe you kind of it's embedded in that term crisis, like, recognizing the crisis and instead of calling it bad, terrible, awful, which sometimes emotionally and circumstantially it is because it doesn't feel good.
JP:It feels horrible. How
DB:do you rename it, reframe it, and run into it Mhmm. Rather than run away from it? Because right. And I think you've spoken this, like, what can happen is that a person gets stalled or stunted in their growth.
JP:Right. And you get fearful. And when you're fearful and the pain is there, you pull back. Yeah. And a lot of people are stalled.
JP:They stall. So what I tell people that are stalled or inert Yeah. Or just so afraid to step forward again yeah. But I was rejected 7 times in a row. Well, whatever.
JP:Join the human race. Yeah. We've all gone through that miserable stuff. I love David. You know, when you read the Psalms, right, he goes, these enemies are all over me.
JP:You know? And I do this and I do that. Nothing works. And where are you when I need you? You know?
JP:Yeah. You're supposed to be storming out of heaven and beating these bozos up and it and then he ends it with, yet will I trust you. Yeah. You know? Yeah.
JP:I think that's a discipline of learning to just say, look, God's up, I'm down. He's got it, I don't. I don't need to be noticed. I don't need to be seen. What is it in me that wants to control my setting?
JP:What is it in me that wants to blame all these people for what's going on? How come no one understands that I could lead this company and I'm still down at the lower ranks? You know? Sure. That kind of stuff.
JP:Yeah. I've been battling the financial thing forever. How come the, you know, money or we've had faith. We've trusted God, and we get this. Yeah.
JP:All of that ends up blaming God and others and we gotta just we gotta help each other because I can't
DB:Yeah. That's right. That's
JP:where the I need you. You need
DB:me The friends come in.
JP:Just say, bro, Let's get perspective on this thing. Let's just worship him. Let's praise him for who he is and trust that he is abundantly able to do more than we're able to ask or think. Yeah. And that's that's that's a choice.
JP:We choose to obey and to worship in the middle of really unanswerable stuff. I have a friend. I just met a guy. I can tell he's gonna be my friend. He's a beautiful guy.
JP:Lives in Colorado. And in January, his wife walked out on him after years with kids. They have kids, adult kids now. No explanation. Nothing.
JP:I just need to get my I I need time to get away and get my life together. I don't love you. I've never loved you. Woah. Well, his life is not over.
JP:God is bigger than that. Yeah. That man sat in a chair and he worshiped the Lord. Sheesh. It doesn't mean that we agree with what happened.
JP:It doesn't mean that we give credence to what anyone does. It's just that we're we're gonna trust God to be bigger than that thing. Yeah. I fell in love with him. What a cool guy.
JP:Dang.
DB:Yeah. Because and Clinton at the end of that book sites that the number one distinguishing factor from those leaders who flourished all the way through the end Yeah. Was those that had a redemptive lens on all of their life experiences. Right.
JP:And leadership studies have shown us that only 20% of all leaders ever converge. Jeez. Think of the lack of human resource and potential that's aborted Yeah. Because that's that's a global statistic. Yeah.
JP:But let's just put it into the church, into the family of God and say, we need to converge. Yeah. And we need us old guys Yes. Need to help the young guys go through all the steps to get there because
DB:it's Exactly.
JP:It's totally possible. God's invested in it. Jesus died and rose to make sure it happened. And nothing will separate us from the love of God that's in Christ Jesus. Nothing.
DB:Yeah.
JP:Our own failures, someone else's injustice towards us, nothing.
DB:Yeah. Massive. I had to talk with a gal, a friend of mine recently, who's just gone back and forth in a wrestle of a sense of calling to a certain field and, you know, in mothering stage, multiple kids and is trying to kind of reconcile those words and promises with the age and stage of her kid and limitations of time. Right? Right.
DB:And But what was amazing is her announcement at the end of that was, you know, I'm trusting that all of these experiences are feeding into the possibility and prospect that that dream or that word and sense that I have from God about a being deployed in this area will come even if it's one of my forties or fifties. So be it. I can either be like fufu ing in all of this right now
JP:Right.
DB:And say, well, God must not have spoken
JP:Right.
DB:Or I can take this in stride
JP:Beautiful.
DB:Try to receive it, harness it, and say, well, who's to say it won't happen later and down the road? And I was like, man, that's a phenomenal attitude adjustment.
JP:That's beautiful.
DB:And I think that's kind of what you're speaking to and that's the redemptive lens.
JP:It is. And the some of the hardest tests are the ones where we did get a word from God or we got a dream or a prophecy.
DB:For sure, man.
JP:And then, of course, we go about trying to make the thing happen. Controlling. Rather than just Yeah. Any word from the Lord has to be submitted back to him. Yeah.
JP:Isaac. Right? Yeah. You gotta take your Isaac and you gotta put him on the on the altar and he will give it back. Yeah.
JP:He will with withhold the destruction of that dream. But in his way and in his time, thank God for Abraham and Isaac. For real. I mean, talk about, I mean, plan b didn't work, you know. Ishmael didn't didn't work out real well.
DB:Yeah. What he tried to do in his own strength.
JP:His own strength. And God is just so cool to to birth the Isaacs through us. And even though we got a litany of Ishmael's back there, you know, in the tent Sure. He he just he gets he gets us through to the thing that he promised. It's a beautiful thing.
DB:It's a beautiful thing. I'd love you to speak to control just a little bit more there. You cited that kind of in every stage, but especially twenties, thirties, forties, where we're still trying to kinda control our circumstances, what we do, how we do it, where we go.
JP:Mhmm.
DB:And, man, what what do you see in that? How what have you observed people who do well and those that don't do well?
JP:There's a lot of, false prophets out there. They say if you just plan your life, you write your own mission statement, you you line out your objectives and goals, and then you stick to your plan. It's like a business plan. It's a life plan. Right?
JP:There's some there's some helpful things in that. The self evaluation is really good. But any anything you come up okay. So I interviewed a bunch of guys who are my age. Yeah.
JP:34 of them in a room. I said, okay. I have a question for you guys. When you were in your twenties and you were talking about what you're gonna do and what you're gonna be, now you're in your fifties sixties. How many of you are doing the thing that you talked about?
JP:Yeah. Not one. Wow. Not one. Now if you're you're going like a doctor and you study to be a doctor, you're still a doctor.
JP:I gotcha. There are some careers where that that has to be the case. We want our doctors to be clear, go through the training, and become really good.
DB:Yep.
JP:But by and large, most people aren't. And so when when things get derailed from our plan, the control sets in. Yeah. Or the need to to manipulate events, time, and then the frustration sets in. Control is one of the stupidest things you can do.
JP:Because when you think about it right now, we're being rational right now. We've all we've all been through it.
DB:We've all been through it.
JP:And control can be shown in so many ways of the end of the at the end of the day, what control is, is doing something without hearing God. Yeah. And so at every step, we we have a Holy Spirit that speaks from the heart of the Father Yes. Through the Son to give us, he says, I will counsel you with my eye upon you. Yeah.
JP:And so, a, surrender it all. Don't don't stick to your plan unless he gives you permission to, and go to him and just say, I don't get it. Mhmm. There was a period of 10 years when the Lord wouldn't talk to me. He just went completely quiet.
JP:Wow. And it was the best 10 years. Interesting. Because I learned that I didn't need God to kinda talk to me in the sense of hearing every little detail. That that was for immaturity.
JP:I needed it as an immature Christian. Mhmm. But he said, you've got my word. You've got my spirit. Let the peace of God rule or umpire your heart.
JP:Wow. So I learned to just live by the peace of the Lord and if it left, I'd get back to the peace. I get in the scripture and I just say help me do what's here.
DB:Yeah.
JP:Christ is in me, the hope of glory. Yeah. What would Jesus do? I don't know until he does it in me. You know, it's not like some activity I can do all of a sudden.
JP:Yeah. And so I find that really breaks the spirit of control is when you listen to the spirit of God. And if the spirit's not giving you the detail you need, go with the peace of the Lord. It's your birthright as a child of God. Yeah.
DB:I love that, John. It's so refreshing and insightful. It it reorients me, reminds me of God's big picture plan, the safety of surrender and trust. Man, let me just bring one just last encouragement and then pray for us. But for anybody that's aware that they're, you know, in a certain phase of develop development and keep bumping into the kind of same wall, what what would you say?
JP:So funny things happen when you bump into a wall. Right? It hurts. So when there's a pain, there's a reaction to the pain, and usually it's to cut ourselves off from people. Yeah.
JP:Or introverts will just go in.
DB:Disappear for a while.
JP:Yeah. And extroverts all Literally. Just get verbal. You know, they're just different personalities respond to pain differently. I can't stress enough the importance of learning to live an open life.
JP:And go to a friend, Go to your wife. Say, sweetheart, I'm really hurting right now. Yeah. And I don't I don't even know why. But I bumped up against this thing and it's really affecting me.
JP:I had a situation just recently, just last week, where I had one of those and I had to go to a friend and say, I'm really befuddled on this issue. Yeah. I've hit the wall on it. 7 days later and I surrendered it. I was able to say, I don't need to know.
JP:I don't need to know. I don't need to understand. That's part of control. Sure. Control has to know.
JP:Yeah. Figure it out. Yes. Overt the pain, you know. Right.
JP:Do it and around. This is, lord, I don't get it. I just leave it in your hands. 7 days later, there was a provision that came through that was bigger than I've ever had Sheesh. That took care of the whole thing.
JP:Wow. And and Mindy reminded me, she said, we surrendered that thing and God was faithful. Don't forget. This is what he does. You're gonna bump up as against we do against stuff all the time.
DB:Yeah.
JP:Find a friend. Go to God. For Pete's sake, don't cut God off.
DB:For sure.
JP:You know? Yeah. As though he's to blame. He's got a way through it.
DB:Yeah. What was the phrase you used? Live an open life and open hearted life?
JP:Open life. An open life. Yeah. Yeah. I've been blessed with friends all my life and there were times when I didn't take advantage of that.
DB:Right.
JP:And and most of the time, I actually did, to be honest with you. And it's been a lifeline in my life. I had older gentlemen and and and ladies. There's a season when God brought ladies into my life. Yeah.
JP:Because I had a I had a women issue and God brought me 5 super strong female leaders
DB:Awesome.
JP:And it scared the out of
DB:me. Right.
JP:And they have shown some of my best friends in the world.
DB:I love it.
JP:Because we learned to relate, to hear our hearts, to honor each other. Yeah. Absolutely beautiful. But, living an open life, certainly in your marriage. Certainly in your marriage.
DB:Gotta have it.
JP:Yeah. Gotta have it. And then with those that are mentors, with those that are your peers, and those that Yeah. God's called you to invest in.
DB:Because it's it's scary. It's scary to acknowledge and give voice to
JP:Right.
DB:Feelings, thoughts that are swirling around inside that are, you know, touching places of pain, uncomfortability. Right. And oftentimes, almost as soon as I begin to open my mouth, it starts to kind of crumble a little bit, but when it stays in, man it festers, it's like, ugh. But it's amazing how hard that first step sometimes is
JP:for folks just to call
DB:a friend and It is. Do the verbal dump. Yeah.
JP:And it's really hard if your friend starts preaching at you.
DB:Right.
JP:Right? I've really I've tried in my life not to preach to my friends. Give a word in season and sometimes just shut up and hold them. Hug. Slove on them.
DB:Right.
JP:Give them a chocolate. Right. You know, something gets completely unrelated that isn't trivial.
DB:Yeah.
JP:Because sometimes words are so trivial. A person's hurting so badly. They just need to know you're not going anywhere.
DB:Yeah. That's right.
JP:I'm in your baby. I'm sticking with you. Yeah. That's right. I can just sit here and we can watch TV together.
JP:That's fine.
DB:And there is something to be said, as you pointed out earlier of going to somebody who's older. And not everybody has that safety, you know, history and ability, but man, when possible to go to somebody older because it's they can speak to what they've been through. They're on the other side of it and be like, oh yeah, I mean that's what happened when I called you on my 40th. You're like, oh yeah, yeah, you're fine. Totally fine.
DB:This is normal. Going through essential stuff. You got to go through it. It hurts. It's painful.
DB:Yep. I'm sad for you that you're feeling all this, but you got to go through it. Yep. And so that's probably a, you know, an addition to the packages and go to your friends and where possible go to those that are that are older that have weathered the stages and the challenges.
JP:And this generation has very few older people to go to.
DB:I know.
JP:Many of them. Yeah. Because they're unresolved with their own parents or authority figures.
DB:Yeah.
JP:Get your heart right towards those that raised you, church traditions that hurt you, teachers Yeah. Bosses at work. Get that stuff solved with the Lord
DB:Yeah.
JP:And and you watch what God does to provide mentors for you. Beautiful. I've watched people cut off older people simply because they're projecting their pain on them Right. From unresolved stuff with their parents and and authority figures. Yep.
JP:And it's it's a beautiful thing to have those older. I can't find many that are older than me now though.
DB:Well, I mean, John All my mentors have died. You're getting older. You're not old. But
JP:I'm not old. Thank you very much. You're not old. No. I'm not.
JP:No. I got a lot of juice left.
DB:A lot of juice left.
JP:Well, I
DB:love this conversation, John. Would you pray for us, pray for anybody who's listening, and, we'll close-up our time.
JP:Lord, bless the ears of those that are listening to us. Just, Lord, if we can bring a little encouragement to say don't give up, don't control, give it to the Lord that sounds so trite and it's so true, it's so real. Yeah. He loves you. He's in love with you.
JP:He died for you. He rose for you. He's he's never going he says, I I I will never leave you nor forsake you. He loves you with an everlasting love and with the arms of love he's unfolding you. Love is the center of all that god does.
JP:Nothing that you've experienced, no sexual deviance, betrayal, divorce, the death of a child. There's nothing that can separate you from the love of this amazing father. I just pray that you would have fun in life, that you would enjoy the season you're in, That you would leave it to him. That you would find friends and fathers and mothers. And that you would become exceedingly dangerous against the kingdom of hell.
JP:Yeah. That you would be a weapon in the hands of the Lord to be counterculture, not come under the spirit of confusion that we all see around us. You become part of the solution. I bless you in your work. I bless you in your neighborhood, with your family.
JP:We bless you with, insights from straight from the throne of God. And I pray that the word of God would open to you and you would see just how fantastic God's word is for every aspect of our lives. Pray it, Lord, in Jesus' name. Amen.
DB:Amen. Thanks so much, Johnny. Grateful for you and I'm with you. Thank you. Thank you and I will be with you. Take care.