This podcast is hosted by John Eldredge, an author, counselor, and president of Wild at Heart, a ministry that helps people find God's love and Kingdom. With his experience as a counselor and teacher, John shares insights on how to discover the heart of God, recover one's heart in God's love, and learn to live in God's Kingdom. The podcast covers topics related to faith, personal growth, and discovering one's purpose in life, providing guidance and encouragement to listeners who are seeking to deepen their relationship with God.
Having a rightly ordered and oriented heart Yes. Every day stops chaos even hitting my week. Yes. And I think Yes. I think that may be maybe the most important thing you can do.
Jon Tyson:Because the truth is we have so little agency over the world. That's why it produces so much anxiety. Right. You unless you unless you work in Washington, what can you really do about Washington? Not that much.
Jon Tyson:Right. You can do everything about the orientation of your heart towards Jesus. Yep. You have total agency over your inner life with God. And the help of the Holy Spirit.
Jon Tyson:Yes. So I think one of even the starting points in dealing with the anxiety and the chaos is realizing the best you can do everything about the most important thing, which is you can orient your heart and get the chaos out of your
John Eldredge:own spirit. Everybody, welcome back to the Well at Heart podcast. We are in part two of a conversation with John Tyson, a new friend of mine who we're kind of just discovering so many similar loves and passions from the, kind of the apologetic of desire to the power of prayer to just loving seeing people come to Jesus. Yeah. Yeah.
John Eldredge:There's a lot of kinship, from a guy that lives mostly in the wilderness to a guy who lives in Manhattan, New York. So I think you're gonna enjoy part two. Probably makes sense to listen to part one if you haven't, but you don't have to. You can just jump in this week if you want. Before we all do that, let's take a moment and we're going to take our pause.
John Eldredge:And I just want you to tune in right now. What is your condition? As you come into this moment, as you're listening to us, wherever you are in the world, just tune in. What is my condition right now? And notice your body.
John Eldredge:Are you tense? Are you kind of holding things? Notice your breathing. Is it short and kind of shallow breaths? You see, that's all.
John Eldredge:All that is what the world does to us on a daily basis. And we take these moments to just let it go. Let it all go. Okay. So let's pause together.
John Eldredge:Let me just say, Jesus, I I do. I need I need to come into a moment of stillness in a constantly buzzing world. I need stillness. Bring me into stillness for a moment. Help my soul and my mind to get still.
John Eldredge:I need to just calm down a little. And I need to release things to you I'm I'm already carrying, work, people, school, loved ones, something you just heard on the news. I just need to release all of that. And and the basis of this is first Peter five, verse seven, cast all of your cares upon the Lord because he cares for you. So let's do that right now.
John Eldredge:And as you do that, just notice your body. Are you able to relax a little bit as you do this? Notice your breathing. Are you able to breathe a little deeper? Let's take a moment.
John Eldredge:Thank you, God. Thank you. Yes. Breathe into me now. Breathe in to me.
John Eldredge:Your presence reorient me to your presence and how your presence reorients me to everything else. Amen. So I want to use what just happened for me in the pause Okay. As an entree into this because it was clearly, clearly from God. I was having a hard time tuning in at all to the presence of God, which is not my norm.
John Eldredge:You know, just like any other habit as you cultivate your ability to cycle or run or, you know, prepare meals or give a talk, you know, comfort a child as you, as you cultivate your ability to be with a three year old, you get better at it. Right? Okay. So I have a deeply cultivated soul that is able to tune pretty quickly into the presence of God with me. I couldn't I couldn't do it during the pause.
John Eldredge:And so instead I just ask, I'm like, what is jamming this? What I feel jammed. I feel like in wartime, you know, the first thing they always go after is communications, take out communications. Yeah, the guy the guy you did not want to be, you know, in any of any of the recent wars, you know, with radio sets and that sort of thing is the guy with the antenna. Right?
John Eldredge:In the platoon. It's like take that guy out because he has the radio. Right? Okay. So I'm sitting in a moment trying to pause.
John Eldredge:I'm not finding God. And so I just tune in. I may, I am able to ask, what is this? This feels like jamming. And, and Jesus goes, yeah, it's, it's chaos and distraction.
John Eldredge:I'm like, but why? And he said, over calling and purpose. Now last night you and I had a very important conversation around calling and purpose. It was very, very deep, very, very important. And we were kind of coming into awareness of, man, there's an awful lot set against any person's story with God.
John Eldredge:Yep. Right? The the true story he has for you versus the version the world wants to keep giving you. I think that's informative for part two. I think that's what's going on for a lot of us is the chaos of the world and the pace of things and the just the jamming of communications, find, you know, hard to access God.
John Eldredge:Not just because they're just trying to be irritating, they, meaning the enemy's forces, but just but at a higher level of, we don't want you to see what God's doing with clarity and what your part is with clarity. Right?
Jon Tyson:That kind
John Eldredge:of felt like that's a lot to get out of a twelve second pause. But that's what was going on. It's like, I can't find you. It's chaos. Why is there chaos?
John Eldredge:It has to do with calling. And so I think that kind of sets us up for our conversation today.
Jon Tyson:Yeah. Yes. I I we were you said something yesterday that this morning. It's all a giant blur, mate. Time time is Yeah.
Jon Tyson:Whatever it is. Yeah. You said to not teach people about how to really live with god and fight in our relationship with him to get that clarity, to get that connection, is spiritual malpractice. I was like, gosh. You think about how many people, have lawsuits over various forms of malpractice.
Jon Tyson:It's somebody's job, and they're entrusted with training and authority to to do a thing to help you, and then they fail to do it or they do it wrongly. And your take was we are we are committing spiritual malpractice by not helping people realize there's an enemy that wants to block communication. Yes. You're in a war, so it's wartime communication, not just peacetime communication. Yeah.
Jon Tyson:And people aren't talking seriously enough. And the result of that is you end up blaming God for the work of the enemy. That's so true. God is distant. Where is he?
Jon Tyson:How can and it's it's not god. It's the enemy. Yeah. And Yeah. Establishing that ongoing orienting ourself is, I think, really, really important.
John Eldredge:Yeah. Yeah. That's it. Yeah. That's yep.
John Eldredge:That's right. It is malpractice. Down at the at the most practical possible level. Okay. So what do I do about this?
John Eldredge:You know, I've I've got jamming going on, which is really interesting because Dave, our engineers, we always we always pray before, you know, we try and consecrate what we do and and we listen and ask God because we want this to be helpful to our We're not just in here to kind of riff and what are you saying, God? What are what do our people need? And we felt like the word was orientation and then what's in the way. And and then Dave, our engineer says, I feel like it's chaos. I feel like chaos.
John Eldredge:So, you know, New York where you pastor a church and you've been for twenty years. Twenty years?
Jon Tyson:Yes. Twenty years. Okay. Happy anniversary. Thanks.
John Eldredge:It's like an espresso version of the world.
Jon Tyson:Yeah. It is intense.
John Eldredge:Yeah. It's an intensified version of everything, whether it's sexuality or ambition or or cultural excellence or even, you know, culinary excellence. Right? It's it's just like an espresso version.
Jon Tyson:Chaos? 100%. One hundred %, mate. There's so part of the challenge is that on a on a basic level, things have sped up so quickly that that produces chaos. You know, you remember those games where the old games where there's one thing coming at you and you can hit it, and then there's two things and you can hit it, and there's three and then you square.
Jon Tyson:And there's so many you just get overwhelmed. That's the so part of it is just modern life. New York is like that's the pace of life, and it's the amount of people. You are just confronted. All you need do is get out of the city for a bit, and you get back in, and you're immediately assaulted by sensual sense sense sensory.
John Eldredge:Yes. It's almost different.
Jon Tyson:All of those. All at once. Yes. Like, I just saw Yes. 30 things I'll never see in an everyday life in another place.
Jon Tyson:So, yeah, there's there's definitely that sense. And then you can go from one neighborhood to another neighborhood, and it's a totally different kind of chaos in a three minute walk. And if you walk, you know, several blocks, you're exposed to completely different ideologies, different sociology, different spiritual dynamics, different confrontations with different kinds of people. It's just it's everywhere all the time. So it does feel like that.
Jon Tyson:So it requires a kind of rootedness and orientation to be able to navigate the complexity of the onslaught that's coming against you. You you don't have to be in New York to get that. You can just turn the news on, and you will get that coming at your heart. You will get high definition footage of every global trauma in bite sized bleeding components fed to your heart for news ratings, you can you can choose that. Yep.
Jon Tyson:Let alone it just being thrust on us. We often choose to allow that into our life, and it's doing tremendous damage.
John Eldredge:Yeah. I I I follow some people and some things on YouTube. And so when I get on, you get the short reels and the advert you know, you get the things that are trying to get your attention. Right?
Jon Tyson:I just I listen. I hate it, but I just pay for premium just so I'm not assaulted by the ads.
John Eldredge:It's a
Jon Tyson:time versus assaulting my ass.
John Eldredge:Me too. Yeah. Yeah. I went with premium. Yeah.
John Eldredge:Get that out of my face. But even still, here's what I noticed. Even still, the the reels and the little tile they put on them are getting more sensational.
Jon Tyson:Yeah.
John Eldredge:Because we've got to get an already distracted, you know, human race who is already in disorientation. We we got we got to shout louder and here's a little bit more drama or that sort. You know, the shocking thing the president just said or you won't believe this.
Jon Tyson:Yeah. Yeah. The the the clickbait titles and the algorithms, the research has shown they they form us over time towards the extremes because it's in some sense like pornography. It has to get more and more extreme because people get numbed and desensitized to it. And so the algorithms and content makers realize if it's not more sensational, more anxious, more fear, more we've basically taken the seven deadly sins and turned them into marketing strategies for the human soul.
John Eldredge:Yeah.
Jon Tyson:So they're always appealing to the the worst of the flesh. Yeah. And it's very, very hard to fight that.
John Eldredge:Yeah. Yeah. So what what we're saying, what and what we were hearing God say on your behalf, dear listeners, is orientation. Orientation is so important because part of what we were also talking about at breakfast this morning is when you misdiagnose something, right, you're gonna when you misdiagnose something, you're gonna misprescribe it. You're gonna mistreat it.
John Eldredge:Right? And so if you just give a sociological explanation to something that actually has a spiritual root to it.
Jon Tyson:Yeah.
John Eldredge:And part of what we were talking about do you remember that?
Jon Tyson:Oh oh, for the rest of my life.
John Eldredge:Yes. Okay.
Jon Tyson:Yeah.
John Eldredge:Guys blowing their lives up was part of the conversation.
Jon Tyson:Yeah. Yeah. Well, can I wanna can I say three things? Yes. Like, you you there's three ways of things.
Jon Tyson:One one analogy is so when I was in seminary, I had a professor who was in the air force. One of my just for one class. He was really good, and we were in DC. The the the cohort was in DC for this particular series of meetings that we had some military folks. And he talked about OODA loops versus ODA loops and, basically, how pilots would fly when the planes were a little slower, which was observe, decide, and act.
Jon Tyson:And they they were moving at a point where it was the pilot's felt instincts that enabled him to navigate with safety. But as jet engines came in, they were moving at such a spay a speed where he couldn't trust his own observations. So, so they had to put in a word, went from an oda loop to an oda loop, and the second o was orientation. And that meant you had to look at the instruments because you couldn't trust your senses. Wow.
Jon Tyson:And guys were flying into cliffs. So you've you've heard these famous analogies where a pilot will take someone up, spin them, and then ask the question, which way is up? And they would swear on their life that up is above them, but they're like, if I did what you said, we would drive into the ground right now.
John Eldredge:Yes.
Jon Tyson:And so you have to rely on the instrumentation. You have to orient by a source based in reality outside of your own experience. And I think in our modern world, that's what really the heart of it is. You cannot orient on culture dynamics. You can't orient even on human emotions.
Jon Tyson:You need something outside of the circumstance, timeless aligned with reality, which is Jesus and his kingdom and his word. Yeah. And in the midst of the chaos, you can't just go, I'm observing what's happening. I'm deciding what to do, and I'm gonna act. That is just gonna be a cycle of reactivity to anxiety Yeah.
Jon Tyson:And fear. You gotta orient in the middle of it towards something outside. You gotta break that pattern in that cycle. Yeah. So what's the pause?
Jon Tyson:What's the pause app? It's a brief orientation outside of the moment and the senses to God and his word to get you past true reality and perspective in the midst of any given moment so then you can decide and act from a kingdom and a peace perspective, not a fear or, you know, just a cultural perspective.
John Eldredge:Yeah.
Jon Tyson:So that the role of orientation more than ever Yes. Is the key skill. Yes. Second thing, we were talking about sociology versus spirituality. Our sociology has gotten great.
Jon Tyson:There's so much data and there's so much research, and the social sciences have gotten so interesting. You know, I'm listening to Malcolm Gladwell's new book, Revenge of the Tipping Point right now. I'm like, this is amazing. It's on how negative I'm like, this is fascinating. But Malcolm Gladwell's not asking the question, where is God and where is Satan in this?
Jon Tyson:Exactly. And so we have so and in the church, I think, the churches have tended to be so, not in a godly sense, but an irresponsible sense, hyperspiritual, that we've ignored sociology. There's actually a lot of really good stuff in sociology diagnosing what is happening. But the problem with only having sociology is nobody's asking, are there spiritual forces behind this that we can be aware of? Yeah.
Jon Tyson:And to me, that's where so many people go wrong is they're orienting only around social forces, and they're not orienting around spiritual realities. Yeah. So let me just take a shot at an example. We're working more than ever. The pace of life is radically unsustainable, and so sociology is telling us that we need to rest.
Jon Tyson:K? This is telling us you're working too much. We're burning out. We're burning a generation out. Nobody's asking the question, why would God want us to burn out and have a life apart from him, and how is the enemy involved in this?
Jon Tyson:Or is Satan using our fear of burning out from robbing us from reaching our full redemptive potential so we never learn to work and expand our capacity? We're just reacting to sociological data and, you know, workplace trends and surveys and Gen Z in the the workplace, and no one's asking, what's God doing here, and what's the enemy doing here? And so our orientation is insufficient at best because it's not oriented towards ultimate reality, which is God, what are you doing in this generation? Yes. Same principle with our own life.
Jon Tyson:So I think it's very important Yeah. That we get to the spiritual roots, not just the sociological analysis. That's and that's one of my biggest takeaways. I love sociology. Every sermon I preach has a sociological insight in it.
Jon Tyson:And I'm so convicted. Like, does every sermon have a thoughtful, prayer filled, genuine attempt at a spiritual diagnosis below the sociology so people can live in freedom in light of it. The answer is it will from now on, sir. Good. So that was good.
Jon Tyson:But then, again so that's two things. The third thing around men blowing themselves up and why are men failing in this particular moment. There are sociological forces Sure. That that Satan can use to do it, but there are spiritual realities deeper than that. Yes.
Jon Tyson:And we're in an epidemic of men's lives falling apart. Yes. And I think a huge part of it is they have not built an inner world with God to orient them in light of the temptation and forces they're facing in leadership. Yes. And one of the sad dynamics of my life at this point I'm at that point where where in seminary they warn you, you know, several you know, look at the guys to your left and right.
Jon Tyson:Only one of you's got like, I'm only one of you will finish right. I'm in that. Many many of my fathers and mentors are not finishing well. And I don't
John Eldredge:think so sad.
Jon Tyson:Oh, it's it's beyond tragic to fail at the finish line, be disqualified. You're not disqualified from the grace of God Mhmm. But to work your entire life. Now I've had some mentors who this has been a cornerstone for their transformation, and they are different men because of it. They've been through a process of grace and redemption and restoration.
Jon Tyson:Their marriages are healthy, and their kids respect them. I've seen some beautiful redemption, and I've seen some absolute dumpster fire tragedies. And you said something to me as well, which is like, it's not because men are not orienting the whole of their lives around the person of Jesus. We've got these unoriented fragmented parts of us caught in sin and trauma and abuse and strongholds. Yep.
Jon Tyson:And under pressure, those things get triggered, and people are living out of that rather than integrating and orienting that towards the person of Jesus.
John Eldredge:Yeah.
Jon Tyson:And I have one guy that I respect deeply, had a profound impact on my thinking about apostolic mission. I mean, probably the most of anyone I know who recently had an affair and blew his life up. And I was like, I don't think that was him. Yeah. That's not the guy I know making a dumb decision.
Jon Tyson:Yeah. I don't know where the guy Yeah. That I know went, but that guy's not that guy. Yeah. You know?
John Eldredge:That's right. Yeah. Yep. And and you can choose to bring the highly enchanted worldview
Jon Tyson:of
John Eldredge:the Bible into the assessment of the situation. Or you can try and use the latest psycho stuff, right, and sociological and, oh, well, you know, it's the midlife crisis or, you know, it is, it is, it is a form of spiritual malpractice that we are not discipling people into a very rich understanding of how God engages the world, how he engages the human soul and how Satan does. Right? Because that that is the fundamental world in which we live.
Jon Tyson:And
John Eldredge:things like YouTube and distraction and that sort of thing are not, oh, just, oh man. There was a, for a couple of years, and this isn't true anymore, thank God. For a couple of years Colorado Springs was the, leading the nation in youth suicide. Wow. Colorado Springs.
John Eldredge:And you kind of go, man, this is a Why? That's, that's really bizarre because this isn't, you know, this isn't The Congo. This, you're not in some sort of horrible war torn, you know, you see trauma every day. You're not in that. And, and this isn't, you know, DC, New York, San Francisco intensity overworked over, you know, what is that?
John Eldredge:And the conclusion of some people that I love was it's the cell phones. It's their cell phones. It's teenage girls and cell phones. And I'm like, you are that there is some truth to that. There is some truth to that.
John Eldredge:But that is so woefully inadequate when you leave out the rest of reality. Right? And why do epidemics like this happen? And what are the spirits at work in the situation there? So again, we're not going to, we're not going to reveal lots of personal detail on on recent events, but you, you and I are in a time of prayer and your phone blows up.
Jon Tyson:Yeah.
John Eldredge:With data from across the world that it just like, we're praying against stuff and all of a sudden your phone's like, Mayday, we're getting attacked by this over here kind of a thing.
Jon Tyson:Like That that was as that was as I mean, I wish we could share more details. I I I'm not quite sure we can. I'll I'll try and make the them full explanations. It was like this it was like pushing a button and then it being answered. We're in your office.
Jon Tyson:We're praying through a particular issue. A serious issue. Very. Yep. Yeah.
Jon Tyson:Not morally serious. No. Spiritually serious. Yeah. And then the very thing which is very serious that you're praying about, a spirit that you're like, there's a spiritual attack coming against you.
Jon Tyson:Yes. This is very serious.
John Eldredge:Yes.
Jon Tyson:And then the very thing you you say, I've just had god's just revealed to me there's a spiritual attack against you. Here is the attack. Yes. And in the middle of you saying that, my phone blows up where the very attack that you said God showed you was coming against me just happened to someone in my family Yeah. At the exact same moment.
Jon Tyson:Yeah. Yeah. Conversation about a certain relational dynamic, Satan wanting to meddle in a certain relational dynamic. Yeah. And in the middle of you saying that Yep.
Jon Tyson:The exact relational meddling happens in the middle of the very dynamic that you're talking about. Get it text. Instant. Yes. You see, it it would be like saying, would you like more coffee with a coffee mug?
Jon Tyson:And I say yes, and you pour it in that fast. It was just I think it was just such a beautiful reminder. Yes. There is a spiritual realm behind this one. Yes.
Jon Tyson:I think in our fear of the excess of Pentecostalism that everything's a demon and you're casting demons out of everything, mean, you're like, it's probably not a demon, man. It's probably just Yeah. You're tired. Yeah. In our overreaction to that Yep.
Jon Tyson:And in our hyper connection to this world because of the speed of technology and what's available, you call it being discipled by the Internet Yeah. Everything's available immediately. We've gotten rid of the spiritual realm whatsoever. Yeah. And I think as a result, there's all of these forces taking shape that need to be addressed and responded to Yes.
Jon Tyson:In a godly, responsible, mature way. Yes. And it's spiritual malpractice to send people into a war with no tools for war. There's a quote from one of your books. I I, it's you quote someone.
Jon Tyson:We and the world will always be at war. Retreat is impossible. Arm yourselves.
John Eldredge:Yes.
Jon Tyson:And I I think about that a lot. Yeah. There is a spiritual war. Retreat is impossible. We have to arm ourselves.
Jon Tyson:Yeah. And Paul says we are not ignorant of his devices, and yet I think we are in a little bit.
John Eldredge:Massively. Massively. Yeah. Okay. So for example, I'm taking a pause and and I can't find God.
John Eldredge:Instead of going to, well, there, you know, there it goes again. He's he's distant, you know, like always. Or there it goes again. I'm just not very spiritual. I I guess I don't.
John Eldredge:I don't really get this. You know, I think I'll go back to my other ways of of finding refreshment. You know, gonna go scroll my phone or something. Instead of going there, you go with what is interfering, possibly, what is possibly interfering here and dealing directly with it, dealing directly with it. So I think that there is I don't think.
John Eldredge:I know. You see on a human level chaos in the world. Just it's just it's just chaos.
Jon Tyson:Yeah.
John Eldredge:And folks, whatever politics you are, whatever flavor you are, an enormous amount of chaos is being released in the world politically. Okay. Just it's just unbelievable. If you only think that that is human, you will never get it out of your head and out of your house. Right?
John Eldredge:Because you go, hang on. The kingdom of darkness thrives in chaos. It absolutely thrives in it. And all of the horrible things, you know, terrorism and extremism and, and all that, they all thrive in chaos. You know, mob mentality, mob panic, all that thrives in chaos environments.
John Eldredge:So we're praying before the show and Jesus says, orientation, guys. And so we're trying to orient. And what's against it? Chaos. Okay.
John Eldredge:And it was it was like the chaos out there. It wasn't the chaos in us. It was the chaos out there. How do we pray? Well, I guess to immediately go to Genesis one.
John Eldredge:You know, God is over the chaos waters. Right? Hovering. Yeah. And and he the power of God, the creation glory of the living God.
John Eldredge:And so to pray something like, you know, we bring the power of Jesus Christ or we bring the authority of the Lord Jesus or we bring the creation power of the living God is glory against all chaos right now that's interfering with me and my prayer time, or that's interfering with this conversation I'm trying to have with my spouse, or that's getting into, you know, our kids you know, the last school board meeting was utterly chaotic. What do we do with that? Well, you correctly diagnose it and then correctly deal with it. Yeah. Yeah.
John Eldredge:Right? Yep. That's true discipleship.
Jon Tyson:Yeah. Yes. Right? I I don't think, you know, we spent some time praying this morning, and I sort of asked you. You have a and you've got these are in the back of your books.
Jon Tyson:These, I mean, these things are sort of written down.
John Eldredge:Public. Yeah.
Jon Tyson:But I sort of say, do you need to do this every day, man? And not sort of facetiously. Yeah. Do you you have to do this every day. It's like, yeah, there's so much chaos in our life and in our warfare in the modern world.
Jon Tyson:You can lose your soul in a day, mate. Yep. You can lose your marriage in a day. You can lose your kids' hearts in a day. Yeah.
Jon Tyson:You the the the speed, the pace, the violence, the acceleration, it requires us every day to put those boundaries up and to reorder our hearts and to one of the things that you were praying in terms of sort of a warfare prayer, renouncing the world. And I was like, man, I gotta do that more in New York because New York is it's it's it's it's leaking on you everywhere, the lust of the flesh, the pride of life. Yeah. You you feel it. And just like I just I renounce the world.
Jon Tyson:I renounce the lusts of the world. I renounce the spirit of mammon. I I renounce the need for recognition. Just and what you're saying to your heart is I am ordering and orienting my heart around God. I'm not even letting in for a day the seeds of the chaos of the world.
Jon Tyson:That's right. The seeds of godless ambition, the seeds of bitterness to get in it and to create havoc in my inner man Yes. My inner woman. Yes. I'm I'm making sure that having a rightly ordered and oriented heart Yes.
Jon Tyson:Every day stops chaos even hitting my week. Yes. And I think Yes. I think that may be maybe the most important thing you can do. Because the truth is we have so little agency over the world.
Jon Tyson:That's why it produces so much anxiety.
John Eldredge:Right.
Jon Tyson:You unless you unless you work in Washington, what can you really do about Washington? Not that much. Right. You can do everything about the orientation of your heart towards Jesus. Yep.
Jon Tyson:You have total agency over your inner life with God and the help of the Holy Spirit.
John Eldredge:Yes.
Jon Tyson:So I think Yeah. One of even the starting points in dealing with the anxiety and the chaos is realizing the best you can do everything about the most important thing, which is you can orient your heart and get the chaos out of your own spirit. And then when you show up, people will be drawn around you. Saint Seraphim says, show up with a peaceful spirit, and thousands will be saved around you. I think there's something true to that really.
Jon Tyson:Smokes. When you show up and you're like, I I'm not caught up in that. I'm not driven by that. Yes. Yes.
Jon Tyson:Peter says, always be prepared to give an answer for the hope within you. Yeah. Maybe an extension of that verse is always be prepared to give an answer for the peace within you Yes. That we get from orienting our hearts around Christ.
John Eldredge:Yeah. Yeah. And so, because you live in a highly enchanted world, and by highly enchanted, I mean it it it is profoundly beautiful and spiritual and populated on both sides with all sorts of wonderful and horrifying beings, which all around us, like the and God and his presence and his kingdom are working at all times. Because that's our reality, when you wake up in the night to anxiety, you don't start with, gosh, I must be anxious. You start with, no, no.
John Eldredge:God has not given me a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and a sound mind. Or or quote Romans eight, you've not received a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you've received a spirit of.
Jon Tyson:What a phrase, by the way. What a diagnosis of life without God. Slaves to fear.
John Eldredge:Right? Okay. Yeah. Right. Exactly.
John Eldredge:So instead of just going with it and go, well, this just must be, you know, this is my current condition. You don't want to make agreements with it. You recognize, hang on, I live in a love story set in a world at war. I live in a highly populated universe. I'm gonna start with some of the basic tools here.
John Eldredge:I reject this. You can't have my soul. I'm not going with this. Right? And banish it.
John Eldredge:Get it out of there. Fry it. I call down the judgment of Almighty God on on this fear that's in our home right now. Get it out. Okay?
John Eldredge:And then and then I'm not trying to be irresponsible. And then in the morning, you begin to notice, Lord, are there vulnerabilities in me that is giving anxiety a place in my life? Are there why? Why does that work with me? You know, he didn't come with pride in the night.
John Eldredge:He came with fear. Why does that work with me, Lord? And so then you do the healthy soul work. Right? And and it yeah.
John Eldredge:Is this rooted in childhood abandonment? Is this rooted in you you your lack of complete lack of faith that your future is good, that God has a good future for you. You got to do the soul work as well. Right? And I'm not trying to be irresponsible with, you know, just kick things out all the time.
John Eldredge:But you start with the immediate. Do not give this place.
Jon Tyson:That that is so interesting. Again, I think we're so overreacting to abuses. I can almost hear in my mind some people saying, well, are you saying that people don't need medication? Are you saying and it's like, look. Not at all.
Jon Tyson:Not at all? But let's at least access all of this which is available in the Lord. Yes. Oh.
John Eldredge:Oh. Oh.
Jon Tyson:Okay. Okay.
John Eldredge:This is this so I've been doing a ton of interviews around the the release of Experience Jesus, really. And, by the way, you had the funniest reaction to it last night. You're like, no, no, no, mate. You should have you should have named it Experience Jesus really, really, really, really, really. Okay.
John Eldredge:Anyway, so I'm on, interestingly, an Australian podcast Yeah. Hosted by a lovely young woman and and we're having a chat and and she's kind of pushing pretty hard back on the accessibility of God in his kingdom because it it can sound over spiritualized unless it is true. Yeah. If it is true that God is the great reality and he she then shifted in the interview after I made kind of my case for, no, hang on. You know, She says, wait a second.
John Eldredge:Are you it seems like you're saying that here we have we are underutilizing God. Yes. That God is an underutilized resource in our lives. Yes. That here is this vast resource, and and we would add to that, you know, the the everything of his kingdom, right, that's available to us, that we are not accessing and we are underutilizing the resource.
John Eldredge:I thought that was a beautiful way of describing it.
Jon Tyson:Yeah. I I think that that is it. It is an overreaction. We are underutilizing as an overreaction to abuse Yeah. Rather than saying, let's just rightfully Yes.
Jon Tyson:Utilize everything that is possible Yeah. As a first resort.
John Eldredge:Either as either as a reaction to abuse, and that's for some people, or just because you are so oriented by the materialist world and worldview that you have a completely disenchanted view of reality, demystified view of reality, and and you are just an utter disciple of the Internet and lost in the current moment of unbelief. Okay. So here was the big example. This this was one of the moments where you went, woah, wait a second. I have not thought about this.
John Eldredge:So folks have heard us talk about the Barnet data of one in two people walking away from serious faith. And they tried they tried in their this longitudinal analysis to go read the Bible, go to church, you know, commit it. Some level of commitment. Yeah. And folks have heard us talk about quote the great, you know, falling away.
John Eldredge:Could we be in that? The apostasy and and, you know, I mean, Australia, it post post, It's so post Christian, it's pre Christian. Right? As one of my Aussie friends calls it, so is Western Europe, so is so much of The United States. And yet God is working and God is moving and people are people are coming to Jesus.
John Eldredge:But as we were praying, I was I was describing what a number of us have seen and experienced in in the fullness of God's perspective of the world that almost like a fog of unbelief. Sort of chaos and unbelief, like a fog of it has just been released by the kingdom of darkness into the world. We call it the eclipse of God warfare. And when you when it hits you and it hit it it had a dear, dear friend of mine recently who is a very deep lover of Jesus, and she's like, when it comes in the moment, he's gone. Yeah.
John Eldredge:I can't access him. And there's almost a level of panic of, oh my gosh, what just happened to me? You go, hang on, hang on. This fog just rolled through. We can get rid of that using the power of the breath of God against it.
John Eldredge:You you had an interesting reaction to that. Do you remember what it was?
Jon Tyson:Yeah. I always so one thing I wanna have a second data point after that, but it was like, I talk about all the time. I care about revival, moves of god, god coming in power. Yeah. And I was like, hey.
Jon Tyson:We live at a time of decline. And, you know, it's like, you know, like, we live at a time of secularism and blah blah. You're bantering around these forces. And, embarrassingly, I'd never thought of wide scale spiritual warfare that was a spirit of unbelief or apostasy. Yep.
Jon Tyson:Is the enemy releasing some sort of spirit of apostasy? Is this a part of his attack or his plan? And, you know, maybe deconstruction, which I think we're sort of over deconstruction, certainly not trending in my world like it was. But did that open a door for some spirit? Even the the the obsession with it, everybody's rioting about opens a door for a spirit to get into.
Jon Tyson:It's actually that being manifest. Yes. And I was like, I always prayed for God to move in a time of decline, but I never prayed against a spirit of unbelief or apostasy. Right. So I was doing the positive asking Yes.
Jon Tyson:Without rebuking the negative, which may have been a huge part of the root of it.
John Eldredge:It's a huge part.
Jon Tyson:Even even when you pray, praying for my friends struggling with faith Yes. Rarely do we say, you know, the thief comes to steal and to kill and to destroy. Yep. Jesus has come for fullness of life. Yep.
Jon Tyson:Even rebuking the thief stealing faith. Yes. I don't think we've ever even I wasn't consciously processing like that. I was overinvested in a materialist worldview subconsciously.
John Eldredge:Yes.
Jon Tyson:Yes. And it was just a a divine reminder
John Eldredge:and corrective.
Jon Tyson:Sociological Second point, you know, the latest Gen Z data shows they're the most spiritually open generation in history. Right. They're spiritually that doesn't mean gospel.
John Eldredge:That's right.
Jon Tyson:But it it's showing the failure of secularism as a narrative. That's right. You know, Charles Tatto talks about the malaise of imminence, which means when you when you get rid of God, you empty life of wonder or in meaning, and all you're left with is technique. And it is not big enough to be a true account of the human experience. You know?
Jon Tyson:Well, I know you feel like you're in love, but listen, that's just an evolutionary instinct biologically urging to propagate the species later on. It's like, sorry, man. That doesn't explain Shakespeare. It's and I think a lot of Gen Z kids are on the other side of it because they've been so
John Eldredge:Yes. Yes.
Jon Tyson:Oriented with tech.
John Eldredge:Yes.
Jon Tyson:Their rebellion is tech isn't working for my heart. Yeah. What else is there? Yes. I think it really is a moment Yes.
Jon Tyson:For openness to the gospel.
John Eldredge:I do too. I do too. And then you're seeing it. You guys are seeing
Jon Tyson:Oh, if you came to our church on a Sunday night, we're in the East Village at a big Episcopal church. Okay. See, I don't know. Seats maybe it's 1,300 seats.
John Eldredge:Okay. Last week, I said I have a friend who attends your church. Yeah. This week, I have two friends
Jon Tyson:Okay.
John Eldredge:Who attend your church.
Jon Tyson:Okay.
John Eldredge:So it's
Jon Tyson:Okay. It's growing. I'm preaching on discipleship this Sunday. One of the things people always say is, this is so young, I feel uncomfortable. And my response is always, me too, man.
Jon Tyson:I'm like an old dude with gray hair preaching to the kids. Yeah. But isn't it a beautiful miracle Yes. That in the middle of New York City Come on. This building is full of young people seeking Jesus.
John Eldredge:Come on.
Jon Tyson:I I have had strangers walking past who've said, I've lived in this neighborhood thirty years. How are there so many young people going to church? And I always really graciously say, you know, the good news is better than we remember, man. Come on in. You know?
Jon Tyson:Yeah. So, yeah, I definitely see many young people saying, what else is there? We've tried everything. You've had unlimited access to sex, unlimited access to technology. We've seen the term billionaires get completely normalized.
Jon Tyson:We've had everything big, large, and immediate, and spectacular, and it has not worked. Same day delivery. Yeah. Same day. In New York, it's same hour, man.
Jon Tyson:You need it in an hour. They'll get it in an hour.
John Eldredge:Yeah. Good
Jon Tyson:habits. So people are saying, what else is there? It's a moment for the gospel. We are seeing this in New York, and many other places are seeing it. Now I don't wanna devalue older saints.
Jon Tyson:Of course, we
John Eldredge:need
Jon Tyson:mothers, fathers, sages, wisdom. We need middle aged folks stepping into mentoring. But let's celebrate
John Eldredge:Yes.
Jon Tyson:That what was the great decline is becoming the great openness.
John Eldredge:Yeah. It is. Yeah. It is. That's absolutely true.
John Eldredge:That's absolutely true. And so so much more we could talk about. I'm just yeah. Where do you wanna go? Where do you wanna go, Jesus, with this?
John Eldredge:What a what a lovely thing. He just said, my heart for people. My heart for people. Share a little bit about your passion for revival. Like that's a long seated thing in you.
John Eldredge:You read about it. You research it. You look at the old folks. You Yeah. Like, where's that coming from?
Jon Tyson:It it comes from three places. First of all, it comes from my experience of meeting Jesus.
John Eldredge:Right. Same here. Mine too.
Jon Tyson:Yes. I mean, I I I came into something. This was solid rock youth group at Paradise Assemblies of God in Paradise, South Australia. And I've really tried to be objective and analyze this. Is this just me?
Jon Tyson:Was this just my internal psychological state? Was I primed and ready? Was it no. Mainly no. It was God.
John Eldredge:Yes.
Jon Tyson:God was there. God was at church. Most people would go to church and the last person they expect to meet is God. They expect good preaching, friendly greeters, nice worship, but if God was there they'd be terrified. And I would go to church, and God was there.
Jon Tyson:It was peel you off the carpet in the presence of God Church. It changed my life. It was the kingdom of God's not a matter of talk but of of power. Yes. I I I encountered it.
Jon Tyson:I want everybody to experience what I experienced. A part of it's personal narrative. And I was with a youth pastor. This was a guy named Paul Gearing. Gears, if you're listening, hello.
Jon Tyson:He would take VHS tapes of revivals from around the world, turn them into a revival mashup, get a bunch of youth leaders in a room, play that video, and say, God's gonna do it again through you. And then we'd spend the rest of the night crying out to God. It was the underground church in China shaking under the power of God in a cave is the one I remember. Reinhard Bonke preaching in Africa to a million people, and and he just said, this is normal Christianity. What you're seeing is the this this decline is not normal Christianity.
Jon Tyson:Right. So part of it, I was so blessed to come into the kingdom of god like that. Number two, it's a sovereign theme. Even when I left the assemblies of god, I never left the spirit of revival that founded You know? If you were to peel my heart back, I am a there's a Pentecostal youth camp in my heart, mate.
Jon Tyson:And really enjoying God is what I'm trying to do. Yes. I asked the question, you know, what do they do at camp that you don't do in real life? How do I never lose the camp high? It's like, keep camp culture alive, man.
Jon Tyson:Really try to do that. So so but so part of it is what I encountered. Number two, it's just a sovereign thing. God has made it inescapable from me. I can't get away from it.
Jon Tyson:It I'm so drawn to it in in a healthy but unhealthy manner. I I feel a spiritual deficit if I don't read about it. I read one account of revival every day. Read about a revival in in China about a a these are all people you've mainly never heard of too. This is not Finney and and Wesley and Whitfield.
Jon Tyson:These these are, like, all these local accounts of moves of god. Yeah. I I I'm reading about Evan Roberts said, for ten or eleven years, I read about revival continually, and it was in this way god prepared me for revival. And I find that I think God wants to do it again in the West. Orientation.
Jon Tyson:Exactly.
John Eldredge:Exactly. Orientation.
Jon Tyson:I am orienting my heart around moves of God. Hey. There you go. So I'm reading about it, and it's stirring my spirit. Smith Wiggersworth, to talk about the French Pentecostals, used to say, I would read the word the word of god so much and get it so deeply in my spirit.
Jon Tyson:It was harder for me to doubt than to believe. And I would say I've read so many accounts of revival. It is harder for me to believe it's not gonna happen than it's gonna happen. Yeah. It's a sovereign theme I can't get away from.
Jon Tyson:And then number three, when you live in a time of spiritual decline and then you read the gospels and you read history, you see such a massive gap when you look at at the the church in the global South and what god's doing everywhere else but here. Yes. At some point out of spiritual jealousy, you're like, we want some of that here. Yeah. The gap is so wide between what the bible and redemptive history offer and what we're experiencing.
Jon Tyson:At some point, your life big a cry begins to emerge in your life. Close the gap here and now. And so Yes. I can't get away from it. Yeah.
Jon Tyson:What what what are you you've got a couple of options when you look at the chaos and the decline. You can lament. That's very appropriate. There's real sadness here. You can retreat out of self preservation.
Jon Tyson:That doesn't feel godly. You can be overwhelmed by fear, or you can turn all of that into intercession for an intervention of god.
John Eldredge:Exactly.
Jon Tyson:And that's what that you wanna talk about therapeutic, cathartic release? Yeah. Take the anxiety and turn it into intercession, man. And, god and then what I've learned more than anything more than anything, it is in the place of prayer that the heart is transformed. Yes.
Jon Tyson:You don't get transformation in the theory of transformation. Yes. It is in the place of encounter
John Eldredge:Yes.
Jon Tyson:That your your enemy love is released. Yes. It's not released in the agreement of the doctrine. Yes. It's released in the presence.
Jon Tyson:Yes. So all of the fear is transformed into peace in the presence of God. All of the, you know, all of the hatred and anger Yeah. Is turned into love in God's presence. Yeah.
Jon Tyson:So there's such a transformative work that happens in the place of prayer. I know of no other way to stay sane in the midst of the chaos Yeah. And to have hope infused than to ask God to break it and move. Yeah.
John Eldredge:I'm gonna but I'm gonna I'm gonna tag one more thing to that because last week, you were talking about your morning routine. You intake a lot of scripture.
Jon Tyson:Oh, yeah. I'm yes.
John Eldredge:I'm always Well, that's orienting.
Jon Tyson:Yeah, man. I've to renew my mind.
John Eldredge:Exactly. Today's input's tomorrow's thought life. You're like, that's orienting. So as we bring this in for a landing, I want to give our beautiful, beautiful followers a couple things. First off, the chaos doesn't have to overwhelm you folks.
John Eldredge:I would, if you feel like the eclipse stuff coming over the fogginess, the blurriness, where is God? I just can't connect right now. That's not you and that doesn't have to stay that way. Okay? I just have to give that.
John Eldredge:That's not you and it doesn't have to stay that way. You begin to pray against it. Right? And and however you just know how to do, but what I would do is I would pray with our friends right now. We we bring the kingdom of God, which is the supreme kingdom in in all the universe.
John Eldredge:We bring the kingdom of God and the authority of Jesus. And we bring the power of God's creative glory, just his his creation glory, Genesis one, against all chaos and the fogginess that is trying to get in to us and into our worlds. You can do that. You can do that. And and we yeah.
John Eldredge:The just the breath of almighty God. It's so beautiful. The breath of God against all of the cloudiness of intimacy, the cloudiness of perspective and unbelief against unbelief. I just renounce unbelief. We are asking you, God, to orient us to the beauty of your kingdom.
John Eldredge:May we be people who are so oriented to the beauty of your kingdom and your work in the world. And then the second thing I want to say is, Lord, give me, give me your heart for people. Give me your heart for people. I want your heart for people. Give me your heart and then start putting people on my heart.
John Eldredge:Go ahead. My neighbors, my coworkers, family members, give me your heart for people. I want to interceding for people to encounter you because the intimacy I have with you, God, is is the greatest treasure of my life. I want them to have it too.
Jon Tyson:So
John Eldredge:no to the chaos, no to the unbelief, no no to that whole cloud of just the eclipse of God and the eclipse of perspective. Right? No to it. Breath of God against it. Glory of God against it.
John Eldredge:And then Lord, give me your heart for people. I want your heart for people because all these revival movements begin with love. Oh, yeah. Somebody Hudson Taylor, right, saying, give me a thousand lives, I'd still give it for China. Right?
John Eldredge:Like that's just love, That's that's not discipline. It's love. All of these revival movements begin with love. So Lord, give me your heart for people. I want your heart for people and then make it real specific.
John Eldredge:I mean, you know, the waiter and give me your heart for the cook and give us your heart for the owner and like, I want to start praying in that direction. I think those two things I hope people take away from this. Amen. Thanks, John. This has been super enjoyable.
John Eldredge:Mate, what a treat.
Jon Tyson:Thanks for having me.
John Eldredge:Yeah. Next time I'm in New York.
Jon Tyson:Let's go outside. Come on. Okay.
John Eldredge:Alright. Thanks everybody for joining in this week. Hope you enjoyed it too.
Allen Arnold:Hey, friends. This is Allan. Thanks for being part of this week's podcast. And before you rush off into what's next, we invite you to spend some time reflecting with God on what you've heard and on where he's leading.