[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hey, there. It's Ramsay here. This is my deep dive on christian spirituality. Let me say from the jump that spiritual beliefs are highly personal. I'm not promoting my beliefs over yours or anyone else's, nor am I trying to convince anyone of anything. I've actually been agonizing over this podcast episode for weeks now. I'm going to try to express some things about what I think and believe about spirituality. If you're not interested or that bothers you, then feel free to press stop or skip or whatever. Now, I'll give you a moment to do that. Hmm. Do, do, do, do.
Okay, moving on. I think of spirituality as the search, the quest, the attempt that people make to reach outside or beyond their mind or their body, to find connections, maybe connections with other people, but more connections beyond people to something more, something higher. People have been doing this forever in so many different ways. It's only in recent decades that rational people have gained any footing, claiming that there is nothing higher, that people are just our bodies, that we evolved from the primordial soup by lightning and happenstance, and nothing else. And isn't it fascinating that even that foothold is crumbling as more people entertain ideas, like we are living in a simulation or a dream, or on the lower levels of a multidimensional universe where beings or aliens or artificial intelligences are programming us or running us like subroutines or dancing us like puppets? Are not these futurists entering the realm of spirituality, finding or creating avenues to look and seek beyond flesh and blood? As I said, this is nothing new. For millennia, people have been looking to the stars, looking at entrails, rolling bones, to try to divine the mystery and will of powers they do not and cannot understand. That all sounds rather messy, but I guess life has always been and continues to be messy. My life has been pretty messy lately. I believe that God told me in late 2023 that 2024 would be a trial. A trial? What's that supposed to mean? Scripture says that we should count it joy when we meet trials of all kinds, for the testing of our faith produces steadfastness. James? One, two, and three. But I have to say that I didn't rejoice when I got that news from upstairs. It felt more like I was going to be on trial, like I was going to be judged. No, God assured me it was more like a challenge, a test, a difficult time that would try my mettle, my spirit, my dedication to him and to myself. He also provided a time and means of preparation, which was Exodus 90, an experience that started in January and led up to Easter, kind of like an extended lent. God told me straight up that was my spiritual boot camp for my year of trial in 2024. I obeyed. I answered the call to Exodus 90. I was miserable. I was disoriented. I doubted that I was doing the right thing or that it meant anything. But I persisted. Many people were praying for me. I was meeting regularly with a group of guys, and we were opening up, telling the truth to each other, the good, the bad, and the ugly. For a few weeks, it made me more miserable. I nearly gave up. Then one morning I got laid off from my job. I think maybe my boss boss took it harder than I did as she gently and warm heartedly delivered the news. But it was okay. I knew what was happening. The trial had begun. Perhaps it had been going for a while, but now it really and truly began. Within an hour, I had the greatest and truest sense of relief. I was freed of professional responsibility. What should I do next? I asked myself. Whats worthwhile? You can guess the next part. I started a podcast because clearly that's what any normal insane person would do at a time like that. Right? Right. But this is an episode about spirituality. I should get back on track. The point is that I've been on a spiritual journey for a long time. But especially lately, I am more and more convinced that there is a powerful connection between mind, body and spirit. I was watching a documentary the other day on prime Video called Healing, directed by Kelly Noonan. Here are some things I took away from it. When our bodies are in a stress response, the classic fight or flight mode, they release chemicals like cortisol to drive the muscles. But these same chemicals impair healing. Which makes sense, right? Because your muscles and systems are either tuned for action or for recovery, either for use or for repair, not for both at the same time. So their point was that we need a calm, peaceful state of mind for physical healing. Experts in the film also talked about the value and power of feeling gratitude. Because by definition, if you feel thankful for something, then you truly believed that it happened. Same with forgiveness. If you forgive someone for what they did, then by definition you believe youve made it past. Youve survived the offense, its over. And this signals the body to act accordingly. If you feel grateful for being safe and loved, forgiveness after issues have been resolved, then your body can relax and run the healing cycles. Can it really be that simple? Gratitude and forgiveness? Why not? So that's the mind body connection. What of the spirit? What is the spirit? What is consciousness? There are a million different answers, none of them definitive, none of them provable. Spirit is the undefinable and undeniable thing that makes us us. I know that I am more than this flesh and these bones. I know that I was no accident, no cosmic happenstance. I believe that I have encountered my father God, his savior son Jesus, and I have been filled with the Holy Spirit. I can't convince you or prove it to you. I won't try. But I invite you to seek and explore through your spirit. Seek and you will find. Ask and you shall receive. Knock and the door will be opened. Seek goodness and hope and love and light and forgiveness and gratitude. I'm confident there's more to living in life than what we see and hear. But I struggle with details. I have trouble working out the details for myself. I have a lot of trouble when other people sketch out or define or insist on details, their own details. More specifically, when they insist that their own details are correct and that other people's details are wrong. I have enough trouble keeping my faith strong and my doubts at bay. I shudder at the idea of insisting that other people believe the same things that I believe or convincing people of anything. I try to come to my own conclusions. I encourage you to do the same. On recommendation from an old friend, I recently went back and read a classic book called experiencing God by Henry T. Blackaby and Claude v. King. Based on biblical examples, primarily of how Jesus spoke about his connection to the Father, they have a profound but fairly simple approach to connecting with God, discerning what his will is for us and how to respond to it. They lay out seven realities of experiencing God as first, God is always at work around you. Second, God pursues a continuing love relationship with you that is powerful and real. Third, God invites you to become involved with him and his work. Fourth, God speaks by the Holy Spirit through the Bible, prayer, circumstances, and the church to reveal himself, his purposes, and his ways. Fifth, Gods invitation for you to work with him always leads you to a crisis of belief that requires faith and action. 6th, you must make major adjustments in your life to join God in what he is doing. And 7th, you come to know God by experience as you obey him and he accomplishes his work through you. That's a lot I know. Let's reflect on it a bit. We're talking about experiencing God, connecting with God, which includes perceiving his presence and impact, feeling his love, hearing from him, and figuring out what he'd like for us to do. But here's a breakdown of what the authors are saying God is doing stuff already. He is actively at work in many different ways. God also loves his creation, nature and animals and people, including me and you. God wants to love us and for us to love him back based on work he's already doing and the love he has for you and me. God wants us to get involved and to join him in the good work that he's doing, and he'll find ways to invite us if we are paying attention. The way that God issues those invitations are through what's written in the Bible, what we experience during and after prayer, and through the things that happen and through the people around us. Once we get those invitations, they are generally not easy and straightforward, but typically involve the need for us to change our ways or to stretch ourselves to meet those needs. And as we step out in faith, do things that may seem far fetched or crazy, that's when we grow and that's when we see the amazing work that God can do through us. That's still complicated though, right? Let me try to break it down even simpler. Here's my interpretation. What I'm trying to do now. I'm looking around for people who are doing good things, who are doing God's work, whether they realize it or not. I'm looking for ways that I can help them, for example, helping them to tell their stories through this podcast. I'm kind of terrified by the whole idea, putting myself out there. I want to do it, but it's a lot. I'm stretching myself. But I can already see God at work through the people I've gotten to know, having discussions on the podcast as well as before and after. And I feel like I'm getting to know God better as a result. I'm a lot more joyful these days than I was a few months or a couple years ago, because I haven't always been joyful or happy. I felt more like I was living with Neo in the Matrix. Do you feel it? That itch, that pull, like something is wrong with the world? How did Morpheus describe it to Neo?
Like a splinter in your mind driving you mad?
Yeah, that was it. I do. I feel like things in the world today don't make much sense on their face, on their own, without some deeper reasons or motives. I see lots of good, lots of bad, lots of who knows what in between. For years, I was tortured by what I saw, what I read about, heard about, watched in videos, reports of evils of the world stacked upon each other. I was learning about them out of some kind of duty, duty to know, understand, acknowledge. But it was really tearing me up, eating me up inside. I wasnt doing anything about the horrible things that I heard about. I was too scared to talk about those things to other people. Evils of the world seem so atrocious that they also seem unreal, not possible, certainly not polite conversation. And what of blame? Would there not be accusations about people having committed terrible acts? Thankfully, I eventually realized that it is not healthy for me to focus on the evil. Evil wins twice if it is committed and then people dwell upon it. I realized instead that I should lean into love and goodness. That I should look for ways to love people and shine and share goodness. Even with the knowledge that evil exists. Especially with the knowledge that evil exists. I don't think it's my job to clash with evil directly. Instead, I volunteer to work with God, love and goodness to make things better for me. These days it sounds like speaking up, talking about what's real, what's important, what's worthwhile. This podcast is as much a spiritual journey for me as it is anything else. I believe that God invited me to go online and find the people I want you to love. Crazy invitation, right? I don't know who they are. I don't know who you are listening. But I know that God is good, that he loves us. He loves you. And for today, that is enough.
[00:12:04] Speaker B: Thank you for asking. What's worthwhile? Visit whatsworthwhile.net to learn more about me, Ramsey Zimmerman, and please provide your name and email to become a supporter. I'm asking for prayer, advice, feedback and connections. The what's worthwhile podcast is on Spotify, Apple, iHeart and Amazon. You can also
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