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You might believe all the right things about Godโฆ and still not trust Him.
In Episode 138, we dig into a surprising truth: our lives are not shaped primarily by what we say we believe, but by the ideas our hearts actually assume.
These hidden ideasโformed through experience, culture, and even churchโcan quietly block us from the very life Jesus offers: a secure, intimate, with-God life.
So how do we uncover what we really believe about God?
And what if your anxiety, your relationships, and even your body are already telling you?
TRANSCRIPTION
Our True Ideas About God
Hello, and welcome to the Soil & Roots podcast, where we journey together into deep discipleship. Iโm Brian Fisher, and this is Episode 138: Donโt Get the Wrong Idea. Itโs the fifth episode of season 7.
If you are new to this podcast or have forgotten, the title โSoil & Rootsโ refers to our hearts, our roots, and the soil in which they are planted. The soil represents the ideas that power and govern us.
That might sound like a strange metaphor for the name of this podcast and the organization. Whatโs the big deal about ideas? Soil & Roots is, at heart, a discipleship effort, or a spiritual formation, so thatโs the link between ideas and how our hearts are formed?
Well, as it turns out, a whole lot. Ideas are one of the most powerful forces on the planet. They are assumptions, conclusions, and principles in which are hearts are rooted, but of which we are generally unaware. They arenโt so much intellectual agreements as they are experienced realities. They typically sit underneath our belief systems. We all live in and are governed by cultural and individual ideas, whether we know it or not.
Iโm doing some research and reading right now on our ideas about the Bible โ the unconscious assumptions that govern how we approach, read, and study it. That has been a rather eye-opening experience โ maybe weโll explore it later this season.
Season 7 is entitled โDeep Calls to Deep,โ which comes from Psalm 42:7:
Deep calls to deep
at the roar of your waterfalls;
all your waves and breakers
have swept over me.
It may seem like an odd verse to frame the question we are exploring this season: How do we become people of depth? How do we love like Jesus? Or, to put it another way, how do we become love itself? Or yet another way, how do our hearts assume Godโs ideas about Himself, the world, and ourselves?
Do we become deep disciples by jumping into the ocean and being overpowered by its waves?
Becoming Christian Mystics
As we say every so often, if you are new to the Soil & Roots experience, we invite you to start back with Episode 1 and work ahead at your own pace.ย The episodes and seasons build on each other.
However, if you would like a good refresher, try Episode 133, which attempts to summarize the first 6 seasons.
Not to further confuse you, but Iโve gone back over the past four years of our journey and reframed it for us this season. Weโre looking at discipleship in three stages: The Good Life, The Great Omission, and the Journey into Depth.
The Good Life is what a life with Jesus is supposed to be, at least according to a staggeringly large number of passages in the New Testament.
The Great Omission is what weโve explored for years here, and itโs one of the primary things getting in the way of us living the Good Life.
The Journey into Depth is the answer to the โhowโ question.
If we arenโt living the Good Lifeโthe with-God life, the life of a Christian mysticโand we agree that The Great Omission and all its issues are part of our problem, then how do we get off that train and actually journey into depth?
A Note About Sin
I want to clarify something before we go any further.
The typical evangelical Western Christian would be quick to suggest that the primary reason so few people experience the with-God life is sin. Sin separates us from God. So, it makes sense to assume that sin is the primary reason we struggle to experience the Good Life.
Some might argue that the three stages should really be: The Good Life, sin, and the Journey into Depth. God gives us a vision of a present life with Him; sin gets in the way, so we need a remedy.
Except apprentices of Jesus are no longer separated.
Yes, we still sin. But because of the cross, we are restored to a right relationship with God. Christian mystics are still sinnersโthey simply live increasingly in a reality where sin has little appeal. So, something more is happening here.
This cycle we are exploring describes someone who is already following Jesusโsomeone who has every opportunity to experience the Good Life.
I am suggesting that we tend to treat the Good Life as obscure or unavailable (if we know about it at all), and that The Great Omission is a primary reason we do so. If we are not making genuine disciples, we certainly are not experiencing the Good Life.
The intimacy and secure attachment into which God invites us are hampered by a host of cultural and church assumptions in which you and I live. They are the air we breathe. And some of it is polluted.
The Three Primary Problems
We have explored a few of these diseased ideas before, but here is a quick review.
First, to journey into the Good Life, we must not only know Jesus more intimately but also know ourselves more intimately. This is the theological concept known as double knowledge. But because most of us are not taught the importance of self-knowledge, we get stuck in what I call the Discipleship Dilemma. I see theologians online complaining that the quest for self-knowledge is harmful. That drives me crazy. It is necessary if we want to become deep disciples.
Second, human beings are best formed to become like other human beings by intentionally joining certain types of communities. If we want to become like Jesusโif we want to become loveโthat happens best in intentional ecosystems featuring five elements: time, habits, community, intimacy, and instruction. Most of us do not have access to these ecosystems, and so we live in a Formation Gap.
Third, most followers of Jesus are unclear on their purpose. In our age, the gospel has often been reduced to justification by faith. We are bad, Jesus died for us, accept Him so we can go to heaven someday.
There is very little interaction between a forgiveness-only gospel and the Good Life. If I am forgiven and have my golden ticket to heaven, there is little reason to take the journey into depth now. In this popular scenario, the with-God life begins after death.
But the Gospel of the Kingdom is the good news that Jesus came to take back all His stuff and invites us to join Him by embracing a new way to be human. Without that vision, there is no reason to seek the Good Life.
Dallas Willard famously said that the enemy works primarily through ideas and idea systems. So yes, sin matters deeply. But we are looking at sin primarily as a corruption of idea systems, not merely isolated acts of disobedience.
We are talking about widespread, systemic, long-held assumptions that dissuade entire populations from experiencing what God so generously offers.
Edwards and the Good Life
You may have noticed that over these first few episodes, I keep coming back to describing the Good Life in various ways, and thatโs intentional. If the research that I quoted to you last time is correct โ that perhaps 3% of all people who claim to follow Jesus actually experience this type of life โ then it is likely that most of us may not have a full grasp on what it is.
Weโve described it as a secure, daily, intimate, real experience with God. Weโve pulled out all sorts of verses that describe it from different angles. People who live this type of life share that they have a two-way, routine conversation with God. Yes, they hear from Him in all sorts of ways (and not just in the Bible) with great regularity, in the normal course of events.
Iโve given you a few names of these Christian mystics throughout history, including Augustine, Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, Frank Laubach, and Ruth Haley Barton.
One I havenโt mentioned yet and may surprise you is the 18th-century American pastor and writer, Jonathan Edwards.
Owen Strachan and Doug Sweeney have studied Edwards at length, and they paint a different picture of him than we might glean from stoic pictures and perhaps his most famous sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.
In their book, Jonathan Edwards and the Good Life, they write, โIn reality, Jonathan Edwards was not an angry man. He was one of the happiest men around. He loved to play and talk with his children, and he enjoyed much cheer and laughter in his marriage to his wife, Sarah. He cherished his time in his study. Unlike many people, Jonthan Edwards knew happiness at the very core of his being. In a way that many of us donโt even think about, Edwards possessed a holistic intellectual and spiritual happiness. Though his temperament was calm, he lived with zest and vigor, modeling the happy way of life he taught his people.โ
They go on, โIn sum, Jonathan discovered a simple but vitalizing truth: God had not made mankind to be miserable. Being a Christian did not mean the absence of pleasure. Much to the contrary, God had made mankind to experience unending delight and joy in Him, to be happier and happier as knowledge of God increased, and to constantly soak up the sweetest pleasure the world affords in the life of faith โ all of which flow together to constitute the โgood life.โโ
In other words, Edwards was a Christian mystic who believed that anyone who apprenticed with Jesus could experience the same.
Oddly enough, Edwards seemed to have picked up the same disconnect weโve discussed here at Soil & Roots countless times โ the difference between the head and the heart.
Edwards wrote, โThus thereโs a difference between having an opinion about that God is holy and gracious, and having a sense of the loveliness and beauty of that holiness and grace. There is a difference between having a rational judgment that honey is sweet and having a sense of its sweetness. A man may have the former, that knows not how honey tastes; but a man canโt have the latter, unless he has an idea of the taste of honey in mind. So, thereโs a difference between believing that a person is beautiful and having a sense of his beauty.โ
Itโs a good book, though the authors conclude, based on Edwardsโs work, that the good life is simply living in obedience to Godโs commands. If we live out Godโs commandments, we are living the good life. Certainly, thatโs true, but there is a reason why I havenโt positioned it that way for you. I think the authors neglect to stress a critical point that philosopher Dallas Willard made.
The good life is not simply obeying Godโs commands. Itโs about becoming the type of people who naturally, even unconsciously, live out Godโs commands.
I am running a few minutes late; my previous meeting is running over.
Why? Because we enjoy such intimacy and friendship with Him. We are not human doings. We are human beings.
I think Strachan and Sweeney fall into the modern trap of assuming that discipleship is primarily focused on instruction. If we just accumulate more knowledge about God, weโll obey Him and enjoy the Good Life. This is a command-centered approach to discipleship, very popular in many parts of the world. It remains the predominant method in the West.
What Willard was saying is that obedience should be a natural, easy, normal outflow of a heart that has fallen more and more in love with Jesus and, as weโve discussed, a heart that is vulnerably and authentically receiving the life He promises. As Edwards wrote, itโs someone who lives in the real sense of Godโs beauty, sweetness, and delight. This type of heart formation is not simply a matter of instruction. It canโt be.
Our Ideas of God
As it turns out, receiving Godโs unconditional love in its fullness is the first step in the journey into depth. As we are discovering, this is easier said than done. Apparently, about 95% of people who claim to follow Jesus struggle to receive Godโs unconditional love and live in it as a way of life.
Thatโs because receiving the vastness and happiness of His love means surrendering to it. Vulnerability and authenticity open the door to the good life. But letโs face it, thereโs a reason Jesus said the kingdom of God must be received like a child. Children have a much easier time with surrender, vulnerability, and authenticity.
I briefly introduced four potential obstacles to this type of surrender: control, pain, value, and identity. To surrender means we give up control, we allow pain to be a means of grace rather than something to be universally numbed, we gladly embrace the ridiculously high value God instills in us, and we receive our true identity as princes and princesses in the kingdom.
Last time, we mapped these onto a set of ideas: unconscious assumptions that guide our hearts.ย We certainly arenโt computers, but we do have at least one similarity: a human person functions with an operating system โ powerful forces that sit in our hearts and govern how we see and live in the world.ย Ideas are a bedrock part of our operating systems. ย
I agree with those philosophers who argue that ideas are among the most powerful forces on the planet, and I think a simple reading of the Gospels shows Jesus constantly confronting these ideas, both in our cultures and in our hearts.
So, as we move forward in our exploration of the Good Life, we are now at a point that is absolutely essential to our spiritual journey.
What are our real ideas about God? If the first step to a with-God life is receiving His love with vulnerability, might we be struggling because our unconscious assumptions about who He is need some attention?
I shared an A.W. Tozer quote with you way back in Seasons 1 and 2 that Iโm going to pull out of the mothballs, and it is a central premise of the entire Soil & Roots effort. Please listen very carefully, because we can find some elements of the Great Omission in what he says, as well as hints about a life of depth:
“That our idea of God corresponds as nearly as possible to the true being of God is of immense importance to us. Compared with our actual thoughts about Him, our creedal statements are of little consequence. Our real idea of God may lie buried under the rubbish of conventional religious notions and may require an intelligent and vigorous search before it is finally unearthed and exposed for what it is. Only after an ordeal of painful self-probing are we likely to discover what we actually believe about God.”
Tozer mentions self-probing to uncover our true ideas about God โ thatโs double knowledge โ the necessity of knowing both ourselves and God in our spiritual journeys.
He notes that our real ideas of God may lie buried under conventional religious notions. He is recognizing the difference between the head and the heart โ that we must approach our spiritual journeys with both instruction and relationship. Our intellectual beliefs may not mean much if they arenโt in sync with our hearts.
By the way, Tozer is generally considered to have been a Christian mystic โ someone who lived in the reality of Godโs delight and presence, securely attached to his good Father.
Uncovering Our Ideas
If Tozer is right, that our ideas of God are the most important thing about us, that should encourage us to peek under the hood to uncover them. After all, if the first step toward the Good Life is receiving Godโs love with vulnerability, but our ideas of God donโt align with who He is, that might explain why we struggle to fully surrender to Him.
To put it another way, if we live in anxiety, fear, prolonged doubt, a lack of inner safety, or constant guilt and shame, that may suggest our ideas of God โ our unconscious assumptions about Him โ need some attention.
If our hearts operate from the idea that God isnโt safe, that He isnโt trustworthy, that He isnโt dealing with evil, that He doesnโt really care about our needs, that He doesnโt have our backs, that He is going to leave us โ would it be any wonder that we struggle to surrender to Him?
So, the next logical question is: How do I uncover my genuine ideas about God? If Iโm not experiencing the with-God life and find myself struggling to surrender to the unabashed, unconditional love of God, might it be that Iโm functioning unconsciously from harmful ideas about God? Ideas that were formed through past relationships, experiences, bad theology, church hurt, abuse, neglect, or some other malformation?
The quick response to how we uncover our ideas about God is Heartview. We spent all of Season 2 describing this process.
God has wired human beings with Eight Indicators โ signposts that every person exhibits, pointing us back to the reality in our hearts, including our ideas about God. They are our thought patterns, emotions, behaviors, words, relationships, health, and how we use time and money. If youโd like a refresher, Season 2 runs from Episode 14 to 25.
Do our bodies reveal our true ideas about God? Yes. Our checkbooks? Our emotions? Yes. Our relationships? They sure do.
Heartview
I wonโt rehash everything we covered in Season 2, but hereโs a simple example. How does your body feel when you feel safe? You probably feel relaxed. Your breathing is even; your heart rate is normal. Your muscles are soft, as is your jaw. Your mind is at ease โ able to think clearly, attune to yourself and those around you.
If you find yourself in some sort of emergency, your body goes into more of an alert mode, and thatโs normal. But is bodily safety normal for you otherwise?
Weโve talked about how anyone who follows Jesus is universally safe. There is nothing that is going to happen today that is either caused by or known by God, and He describes Himself as good. He has also promised to seek your good. Most people who follow Jesus intellectually believe that God is good.
Do our hearts agree with that idea? That we are universally safe and that God is always working for our good? Or do we find our bodies tense, over-alert, anxious, or hyper-vigilant, even when we arenโt facing any sort of legitimate trouble?
Iโm not sharing this example to criticize or judge anyone, but rather to illustrate the principle. If we admit that our bodies are not generally exhibiting safety, it means our hearts are not resting in the assurance that we are safe in God. Our idea of God differs from our intellectual belief about Him.
Regarding money, are you a miser? Do you hold onto money with a tight fist? Or are you a spendthrift? Do you spend to numb your pain? Either way, your money habits are revealing ideas of God that differ from who He really is โ the God who takes care of sparrows, and says you are worth much more than a bird.
I could go on, but the point is this. God does not leave us in the dark. The human person is designed to indicate our true heartsโ condition about Him, others, and ourselves. The trouble is, we donโt always pay attention!
Closing
Ok, we are getting to the center of the tootsie pop now. We already know that very few people experience the kind of life with Jesus that He intends โ fewer than 5% of those who follow Him.
We also now know that the first step to experiencing that type of life is surrender. I donโt mean the evangelical โsurrender your life to Jesusโ pitch when it comes to conversion. I mean, receiving Godโs unconditional love as a daily exercise of giving up our control, allowing Him into our pain, acknowledging our shame, and confessing we may only trust God so far.
That leads us to further interior discovery. Perhaps I struggle to surrender and receive the Good Life because my ideas of God differ from my intellectual beliefs about Him. Perhaps my heart doesnโt surrender because it doesnโt trust Him, it doesnโt believe Heโs safe, or fears that Heโs eventually going to leave me. Perhaps my heart views God as a harsh judge, or a cosmic critic, or a distant uncle who remains relatively unconcerned.
Brian, are you saying that my heart may hold to these ideas even if I intellectually accept the most accurate, most orthodox biblical statements?
Thatโs precisely what Iโm saying, and it happens all the time. If this is you, you are in the vast majority. And itโs okay. Thatโs why weโre digging into this so deeply.
Lastly, weโre realizing that our true ideas about God always bubble up. Always. And we can uncover them with God and a trusted friend at any time, because it is impossible to hide our ideas about God. They will reveal themselves through our thought patterns, emotions, health, behaviors, words, relationships, and how we use time and money. God has already given us signposts so that we can join with him in uncovering and healing our dark ideas about Him. These signposts are written into the fabric of human existence.
Okay, thatโs plenty for today. Because uncovering our hidden ideas of God is central to embracing the Good Life, weโre going to spend a few episodes on it. Be of good cheer! Iโm assuming you are joining me today because God is inviting you to experience Him as He truly is, and He is anxious for you to take this journey with us. Because He truly does seek your goodness.
