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Manhood often feels like navigating through uncharted territory, but you don't have to walk alone. Join us as we guide a conversation about how to live intentionally so that we can join God in reclaiming the masculine restorative presence he designed us to live out. Laugh, cry, and wonder with us as we explore the ins and outs of manhood together.
God's Activity In Our Lives | The Practice of Spiritual Direction with Greg Ehlert
Jesse French
Hey guys, welcome to another episode of the Restorative Man podcast. My name is Jesse French and I'm one of the hosts here. And today, the honor of being joined by my friend and colleague here at Restoration Project, Mr. Greg Ellert. Hello, Greg. See you. Thanks for joining us. You've been on the podcast before. You're a seasoned veteran. Isn't that a good word? Yeah. Thanks for coming back.
Greg Ehlert
Hey Jesse, it's good to see
Yes, I'm very seasoned.
Jesse French
Sometimes when we do these intros to the episode, it's a little bit of the opportunity to kind of, you know, just surface some lesser known facts around our guests. And at this point, probably in your mind, you may be thinking like, oh boy, why, where are we going? But I'll just stay very, you know, fairly benign and just say that Greg is, he is a diehard Dodgers fan. so often at our staff meetings when we jump on zoom.
Greg Ehlert
Yes.
Jesse French
Greg has a world series, you know, LA Dodgers world series shirt on. has a lot of Dodgers hats. And so much to the chagrin of some of our other staff that are not Dodgers fans.
Greg Ehlert
90% of our listeners, Jesse. Thank you for that.
Jesse French
I bet it's more than 90. That's wow. And look at this. I'm just, I just not wasting an opportunity to throw a at you. So I love it because you knew me, Greg. He does not give any sort of vibes of like the evil empire in any way. And so the fact that he roots for the evil empire, it just is wonderful that it just, you know, throw a little wrench in your understanding of Greg. So
Greg Ehlert
Yeah.
Great. That's great.
Wow, I've never been so honored in an introduction.
Jesse French
Yeah. You're like, can I leave this conversation? is, this is not what I had in mind. No, Joking aside, Greg, Greg is just a remarkable wealth of insight and I'll say knowledge, but knowledge is a disservice. I don't want to just cast it in an informational kind of book knowledge vein. is.
woven its way into wisdom. so Greg's wisdom around the Christian faith, the history of the church, and again, not just the academic perspective of that, but the actual translation of that into our own lives is such a gift. so excited, Greg, that you're here and to kind of, yeah, scratch the surface of a topic that you and I have talked about at various points over the past couple of months, and that is the space of spiritual direction.
So Greg, I'd love to maybe just start, even as I say that for some people, spiritual direction that might, you know, spark instantly. yeah, I'm familiar with that. I'd imagine for some, it probably sparks more questions than anything else. So yeah, just take us into the ground level for those of us that aren't familiar with that. What is this intriguing space of spiritual direction?
Greg Ehlert
That's a great question. I didn't intend to share this, but what popped up right when you asked was the story in the Old Testament where Samuel is as kind of a child, a young person trying to go to sleep and he hears something. He hears God inviting him to listen and to engage. And so he goes to Eli and says, what did you say? And Eli says, I didn't say anything. And so.
Samuel goes back a second time and hears the same invitation to engage with God. And then he goes back to Eli and Eli's the third time he hears and goes, Eli said, he said, God's trying to speak to you. Just say, your servant, you know, here I am Lord, your servant is listening. Eli was giving Samuel spiritual direction. Basically spiritual direction is the practice of holy listening, kind of attending to what a directee, how a directee is perceiving, understanding.
responding and experiencing God in his or her life. And so as spiritual director, someone who's a trained listener, someone who is trying to listen to the direct D story, the direct D's concerns, and is just prayerfully holding space for openness to how the spirit wants to guide that direct D in making sense of his or her world with God. But really it's pointing the direct D to God in places maybe they haven't seen them before.
Jesse French
I love that introduction. love the story of Eli and Samuel, the phrase, holy listening. What a beautiful articulation probably holds so much. Greg, take us a little bit into some of your journey with Spiritist Reaction and what that's looked like over the years and what the arc has held for you.
Greg Ehlert
Yeah, for sure. Well, a couple of key components for me. One is when I was in the process of seminary, which for me was a seven year long process. was while my kids were all got, were being born and I was full time doing youth ministry. was introduced in one of my classes. It was a Christian formation, a spiritual formation class to the likes of people like Henry now in and Eugene Peterson and just learning about what
church history is before the Reformation, before the Protestant Reformation, which was about 500 years ago. And I really awakened to what many would call the contemplative streams of our faith. And by that, I mean not navel gazing per se, but intentional community, maybe like in the monastic tradition, and started to discover that this goes all the way back, all the way back to the earliest centuries in the formation of the church. And it really resonated with me in particular,
And the way my mind works, it's my mind's always going, but not always, it's right way to say that productively. I can just get stuck in my head, spinning, analyzing paralysis of analysis, whatever you might. And certainly knowledge is not less than having information, but knowing is so much more. And I started to find that the contemplative tradition, which is one that involves more silence, more solitude, more space for reflection and quiet.
one that's more of a posture of listening and receiving than it is thinking and achieving. Those were all things that I just needed personally in my life in ministry.
Jesse French
Felt this draw towards that.
Greg Ehlert
Absolutely.
It was like oxygen to my soul. I mean, really, honestly, it was like a relief for me.
Jesse French
everything
that that was.
Greg Ehlert
Well,
I think that was because of my story. I grew up as the oldest child in a family where I had a really critical parent where a 4.2 GPA, three sport letterman most likely to succeed. No matter what accolade I got, it was never enough where I was just constantly criticized. And so I think I just projected that kind of family of origin ethos onto my imagination about who God is and what he expects.
So to achieve, to strive, to figure out, to problem solve, to carry the world on my shoulders, you you can call it Messiah complex or whatever you want, but it's just, I would say a distorted or kind of misaligned posture towards God. And so the contemplative slowed me down, which allowed me to kind of catch my breath. And by that, mean, you know, spiritually and everything. And, you know, one of the key themes in.
I mean, I guess you would say one of the key presuppositions, is just fancy spancy for saying I'm laughing.
Jesse French
Cause
I love, I love it when Greg just drops these little nuggets. Thanks for.
Greg Ehlert
One of the key themes in direction is that it's the kindness of God that leads us to change and repentance and that we are beloved adopted children, as it says in Romans 8. So what does it look like to have a life centered on the reality that there's nothing we can gain and there's nothing we can lose in our relationship with God? Because our relationship with God is not based on our performance. And we know that in our head, we say it all the time.
You know, it's an eternity between my head and my heart or whatever you want to call it. But I would say the contemplative streams of Christian history and then the practice of spiritual direction in particular really help cultivate a deeply rooted identity and life in responsive fidelity to God's love. So for example, kind of my life passages is Ephesians three.
where Paul is writing to the church in Ephesus. He says, for this reason, I kneel before the Father from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. And I pray that out of his glorious riches, he may strengthen you with power through his spirit that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith. And then he said, I pray that you being rooted and established in love may have power together with all the saints to grasp how wide, long, high and deep is the love of God.
and that you would know this love that transcends understanding that you'd be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. That passage, that vision, I would say spiritual direction is one Christian practice that helps us along the pathway of that vision.
Jesse French
Greg, how old were you when you kind of felt this draw to the contender?
Greg Ehlert
So that would have been about, well my first introduction would have been when I was in college at probably 22, but really in seminary, it's about 20 to 25 years ago. So I would have been in my early to mid 30s at that time.
Jesse French
Yeah. Part of the reason I ask is I think, you know, I really appreciate your articulation of some of the draw being, you know, the environment you grew up in, this, this learned kind of way of being of achievement and performance, which I think makes a ton of sense. But I think I'm also curious around what about that kind of that timing of being in your thirties? Do you think there was an element of that? Like you said, Hey, I'm going through seminary.
doing youth ministry, have young kids, like, were there aspects of kind of those conditions of your life that also in some ways fueled some of that, that draw towards spiritual direction, towards the contemplative strain?
Greg Ehlert
Yeah, I do. think there are some contextual factors and I think there's just some personal ones. think contextually, the church I was serving was the church that I got connected to when I was in college. And a lot of the kids that I used to just look after and babysit when I was in college, when I was their youth pastor, you they all were in my youth group. So I knew these families. I'd known these families a long time. And I started to realize, my gosh, the way we're even imagining.
being disciples and the way that we're doing church really isn't resulting in transformation. Like our Sunday morning and our Wednesday night youth group or whatever, those are good things, but they weren't really moving the needle much. And so I started to bring some of these contemplative practices into my youth ministry and into my family ministry. And what I mean by the contemplative practices would be, you know, forms of prayer that are more quiet and receptive, more still, and then kind of
doing ministry out of those types of things. And I could maybe in another podcast kind of detail what a half a dozen of those kinds of things are, but the fruit that came from that, I just. Unbelievable things that you'd hoped a kid or a parent would see, you know, over the long. So I think that was this, just the pragmatic side of it was.
Jesse French
Yeah. Big.
Yeah. No, that makes, that makes a ton of sense. So you kind of felt this draw towards this expression of contemplative engagement. Did you then begin receiving direction from a director kind of shortly after that? What did that look like?
Greg Ehlert
Yeah. So, so yeah, I would say, of course, the energy around things for me was personal in the midst of my context. And so the first real contemplative author that I dove deeply into or with was, Henry Nowen. And for those who don't know who Henry Nowen was, he was a Dutch Catholic priest who spoke multiple languages. He was a first born kid. He had a PhD in psychology and the classes he used to teach at Harvard, as I understand it, are historically the biggest classes they've ever had.
His spiritual writings are very simple, but so profound. so that really connected with me. It was when I left the college town to take a pastorate ⁓ out of state, actually in Colorado, which is where I got connected with you all. There was a man there in Colorado in the Denver area who did some training for our staff at the church and he was a spiritual director.
He had actually written a book on Teresa of Avila. It's called Mansions of the Heart. I'd recommend it to anybody and could explore that sometime. But anyway, I started to meet with him about once a month for spiritual direction. And that was kind of my first foray into it. And I found like it fit really well, kind of hand in glove with some of the other contemplative practices that I was employing in my life. Went from there.
Jesse French
Greg, take us into a little bit of the kind of the outline of times of direction. And I asked that, you know, not all wanting, but like, Hey, this is the formula for what good spiritual direction is at all. And I'm sure the way that that, that gets expressed is, is unique to the director and the directee. And there's, know, a lot of uniqueness there, but, I imagine some people are listening and are kind of like intrigued and also like, well, what does that time, you know, functionally look like?
We'll have an hour of spiritual direction. you kind of just walk us through again, just some of the framing principles of often how that time is set up.
Greg Ehlert
Yeah. Good. That's good. Well, spiritual direction is really a regular confidential conversation often on like on a monthly basis, you know, a spiritual direction session could be anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour or something like that. But really where you're kind of focused on the question, where is God in this? What's the Holy spirit up to here? And so that question could look, can strike someone who's experiencing direction different ways, depending on where they are. Sometimes people are in this transitional phase where they're trying to discern
you know, a major life transition, like a job change or a move or somebody just died in their family, or there's some kind of more acute thing that they're trying to discern as they're walking through. Others might be just more in the mundane where in the weekend, week out, they're feeling dry or maybe disconnected from God. It's really not, what it isn't is it's not counseling. You're not trying to heal somebody, although healing can happen. It's not coaching.
but sometimes clarity can emerge, you know what I mean?
Jesse French
I love that you brought those two things up and from a broad perspective, broad brush here, but like, you know, you said it's not counseling in this, Hey, you know, we're going back, you know, decades back into the past to look at an event. It's not coaching, which again, broadly speaking is like, Hey, what is sort of our future movement of how do we engage or improve XYZ? It feels more again, in the holy listening of where's the activity of God in the present of our life.
Greg Ehlert
Yeah, that's right. That's right. It's just so it's not problem solving or advice giving although problems are brought Sure and decisions where advice might be wanted or brought into it So there's nothing that's quote off the table, but the spiritual directors job isn't to try to tell Directions to say spiritual direction can be a little bit of a misnomer because when you're trained as a spiritual director It's the Holy Spirit that directs not the director. Oh, the spiritual director is trying to stay in tune with the Holy Spirit's doing
And to ask some really curious questions for the directee to consider how and where God is in whatever is being brought in that moment.
Jesse French
So there was a period of, think about two and a half years where I was able to receive direction kind of on a monthly basis. And one of the things that I loved about it was the woman that I received direction from the way that we would start our time together was said, Hey, I'm going to have a very brief, simple prayer and have, have some silence. And that is space for you to ask what might be brought up. And she goes, maybe that time is, you know, in 30 seconds of silence and then
You you say, Hey, I'd like to explore this. Maybe it's the whole hour. There's not a right, right. Response to that. I think one of the things that I was so grateful for about was most of the time I would bring something up that I didn't have this at all. Anything close to this neat bow of, think God is, you know, present in this way. I was not even able to articulate it to that point. It was much more of this nudge of.
Hey, this feels important. And, and not knowing, you know, really any of the implications or the layers of that, but just saying, Hey, after being in some silence, this event for my day or this interaction in the week feels important that I'd like to explore more. And so then just having the room for her to, as you're saying, right, to ask various questions, to wonder around that was such a gift and it felt so unhurried.
In the sense of, never felt like, okay, she's needing me to get three steps down and tie the neat bow of, you know, God is doing this thing in Jesse's life right now. It was, it was so open-handed. And I think again, like good language from you of the attendance to, to what the spirit is doing. The fact that like, I'm not driving this process to just to ask and wonder, which felt so
Greg Ehlert
Yeah. Yeah, dude. Yeah
Jesse French
It's like such a good gift and just very open-handed without the need to get to some sort of certain deliverable.
Greg Ehlert
Yep. That's really good. Wow. I, you, you'd asked me to say what it was like and actually you just really did a good job of talking about it. And it made me think about how that's exactly right. And I think in Restoration Project, right, one of our key phrases in our Grove retreats and in the ethos is awareness and curiosity and kindness. And I think those three values, those three skills, frankly, those three are true of spiritual directions. Like.
God's brought this to your awareness, right? And a lot of times you think about it, it's easy in our faith when God brings something to our awareness for it to become kind of an indictment, kind of like, this is where I fall short again, or this is where I need to try harder, do more. But in light of the kindness of God, awareness is always an invitation. It's not an indictment, right? So then you can be curious about it. Huh, I wonder what God's up to in this, right? That's something to...
pray about that something to have conversation about that's something to listen for. But it's all wrapped in the reality of the kindness of God, just meaning God is constantly actively working to free us from frankly, lesser love attachments and lesser identity attachments. And so that's where there's kind of like a Venn diagram, there's crossover, right? There's some blending, like there've been direct D's. One of the things we haven't said about my story is I did go through a spiritual directors training program.
And so I've been doing spiritual direction as a director as well. And in directing these directives, I, boy, very often with the men that I'm working with, it's like, it would be really good for them to come be a part of what we're doing in Restoration Project as well, because God's obviously working on their stories, obviously working on aspects of their self understanding, their understanding of Him. And so there's really some overlap there where it's very much a holistic
Engagement with a person, I guess, is my...
Jesse French
Yeah, I love that you brought those three postures up because I think that makes so much sense that really those, and we really intentionally use the language of postures at Restoration Project, right? Like this is, this is deeper than a kitschy technique, but it really is a way of being right. That is hopefully adopted in our relationships with other men, with our family. And I love that you bring it up with towards ourselves and with the living God that actually those, but that.
that sensitive awareness, open-handed curiosity and that commitment to kindness just permeates. This is actually how I am in the world, in the spaces of which our relationship with God is so central and so important that that would be expressed in that place.
Greg Ehlert
Definitely. And I think the way we actually set up our church gatherings, particularly Sunday mornings, aren't a great time to know and be known in community. It's, it's, it's pretty event and information heavy. There's also a thing called group spiritual direction, which I think churches can do more as well, which I don't want to get off, but where you're with a group of people and maybe you're focusing on one person, but then those who are in the room are kind of holding.
that space with that person and asking these questions kind of as well. But I think spiritual direction does justice to our human experience of what a life with God looks like. Because a life with God is full of ups and downs and questions. It's why we have the Psalms, right? There's disillusionment, there's anger, there's grief, there's joy, there's excitement, there's anticipation. There's the whole range of experience and it's a very safe, confidential place.
to bring who you really are. And that process itself can be really illuminating for people.
Jesse French
I think part of that too, Greg, as, as you're saying, right, the whole breadth of our experience as humans, you know, is what we experienced. think some of the huge benefit of direction is to have 45 minutes or an hour to, at least for me to have space to kind of wade through that. Right. And man, it is, I mean, the cliche of, you know, as we go through our days of like, how are you? I'm fine. You know, talk about your days and it's, you know, kind of the
the easily repeatable, know, this is what I did. Maybe this is a high, this is a low, but to have both space by ourselves to process and with someone else and with the spirit to really go slowly and to be able to just kind of like, you know, sort our way through our experience and even just kind of outline. think there's something here, right? Just the slightest nudge. And then to have the room to wonder, to explore that. think just that.
I guess what I'm trying to say is the pace, that unhurried pace with a trusted guide that Direction offers. That's so rare, right? That you would have number one, someone just generously offering their listening to you, that you would even have the space within your day. Like, Hey, here's an hour that is just completely open for this. feels so contrary to the typical rhythms, right? Of like, of the catch up with people of the...
Greg Ehlert
You
Jesse French
You know, just our attachment to efficiency, all of the things in terms of modern day life, I think that makes that exploration harder.
Greg Ehlert
It's very true. It's very true. And several of the men that I meet with currently, they're in ministry, right? And for some of them, it's the only place where they don't have to be in performance mode or they can just bring a hundred percent of what their experience has been. they're what their question, again, the questions, the wrestling with God and trying to make sense of, you know, his leading and just kind of being, it's really having a companion along the way is what it is. It's just.
It's not trying to tell somebody what to do or, you know, any of it. It's just, I love Eugene Peterson who passed away not too long ago, but who wrote the message version of the scriptures. And he wasn't, by writing the message version, he wasn't saying this is the only way to read scripture. He was just trying to put it. But if somebody wants to understand what contemplative means, reading that version can help. Cause it's kind of like, ⁓ you know, what is it? But he would say, you know, a pastor's real role if he's, he,
as being a pastor is to really do spiritual direction, to point a person to God, maybe in the places that they're not seeing him. I would say we have reduced the pastoral role to, you know, a program director or an information giver or, and those things are important too. But really walking alongside someone as they're making sense of God's activity in their individual life, but also their, their sense of their connection with the church and you know, what their sense of direct call is and what they're doing.
in life cooperating with God out there in service and yeah, yeah, it's all of it.
Jesse French
Which I think, you know, I think the application also is that that type of being that that companionship that open-handed wondering around the activity of God, like would actually bleed over again into our relationships. Right. So not saying that, you know, not watering down the importance of going through the training and becoming a director, but, that same type of like, Hey, within, you know, the close relationships of my life.
could that same way of being also be true? Right? Yeah. Even as we're, you know, sitting across from each other in the living room, but that same attentiveness to the spirit, that same wonder of what is the activity of God, right? Would be pursued even if it's not in a formal, you know, session of spiritual direction. ⁓
Greg Ehlert
Absolutely.
mean, I spiritual direction is used by God to help restore people to their true selves rather than living out of these false identities or personas. And I think, you in terms of RP language, we use first story and second story and people may know or not know what that means within RP, but we're trying to help in Restoration Project, we're accompanying men and helping men reclaim really their birthright in their first story, their God given goodness, their, you know, God bequeathed image bearing.
uniqueness and goodness and glory. And I think in a similar way, spiritual direction is, is helping, it was just accompanying someone in God's activity in that for them. think people in the church aren't aware that they're actually discernible in the same way that there are, I don't want to say phases, but essentially seasons in a growth and being human from infant to.
toddler to, you know, young person, adolescent, young adult and so forth. In the spiritual life, there are different kind of phases as well. And there are some for whom they may hear this podcast and go, I don't know if that's for me. Others are like, that sounds incredible. I mean, and it's not right or wrong, but whether it's Teresa of Avila who wrote the mansions, the interior castle about the different mansions of the heart. She was the, one of the mentor of John of the cross who coined the idea of dark night of the soul.
This is hundreds of years ago. There's just something about just being human that is honored in the space of spiritual direction that is really refreshing. And in that way, think integrative, just like you said, it does impact not only our own self understanding and our understanding of God, but it overflows into all of our relationships because integration is what we're looking for.
Jesse French
Yeah. Yeah. Greg, as we kind of come to the end of this conversation, what would some of your invitation be to maybe folks that listen and have some degree of resonance around what you've talked about here today? Just even with that kind of broad category of, this resonates. Obviously I would imagine, you know, pursuing spirit structure would be one of those things, but even, you know, beyond that or besides that, what would some of your, your invitation be?
Greg Ehlert
Well, I would say stay curious and explore. So I want to make listeners aware of a website they could go to. It's called Grafted Life, Grafted Life, that's G-R-A-F-T-E-D, life.org. And if you go to that, it used to be called the Evangelical Spiritual Directors Association. I think they've renamed it to the Christ-Centered Spiritual Directors Association, CSDA. But in there, they have some information just about what spiritual direction is.
but they also, could throw in your zip code where you live and you could learn about any spiritual directors that are in your area. Now, post COVID, there's a lot of spiritual direction that does get done online, which is, would actually, several of my directees I meet with online, but I would also recommend that if there's somebody local in your area, meet with them and just have an exploration conversation with them about what they, how do they understand spiritual direction? What do they do and learn about it? I think the other thing is just to research like,
I don't know if you're a chat GPT user or whatever, but just research, you know, what is spiritual direction? There's so many good articles. There's good websites. There are really good books. Maybe in the podcast notes, we could put a few for people to look into. And then if you just listen for others, are there's people in your congregation or people in your circles who either have experienced spiritual direction or are directors themselves. Take them out to coffee, have a conversation with them. What are they?
How are they experiencing things? What are they learning and how do they like it? So I think it's just remain curious and press in a little bit and start to see where God leaves you.
Jesse French
I it. I love it. When I was looking for a director, I remember talking to particularly one director and they just gave some great advice. said, hey, go, go meet with several people and don't feel bad about saying, hey, I'm, trying to figure out what a fit is. This is a fit and it's not this obligatory, hey, we meet once and you're going to disappoint if you say no, but like that's part of the process. And even for me, it was fascinating. I met with three people and I thought, ⁓ I know I learned a little bit about some of the background of when I'm like, well that's going to be, that'll be the fit.
And it wasn't. was a very surprising thing. even that feels like some of the
Greg Ehlert
Absolutely. Yeah.
Jesse French
Greg, thank you. Thank you for, for your time, for your insight, for your invitation, for all of us. Greg Ful for who you are and for this conversation, man. It's been fun.
Greg Ehlert
Yeah, it's been fun. Thanks for the invitation. Look forward to next time.
Jesse French
Alrighty. We'll talk to you later. See ya.