I Stopped Chasing Big Moments and Found Joy in the Small Ones | A conversation with Justin Baldwin

[0:00] how much joy and fulfillment in life as Christians do we miss out on simply from not being grateful how frequently does God bathe us in all kinds of blessings incredible things that we experience in life with him and in life with others that are meant to be gifts gifts from Our Father who loves us so much and yet we live a life of ingratitude we miss the ordinary the beautiful blessings the mundane things that nevertheless are great miracles from the hand of a loving father simply because we've been trained away from noticing them simple things like a cup of coffee or a moment of sweet affection with your pet or a loved one or maybe hearing a really really good song for the first time all this and more is what I'm going through with my good friend Justin Baldwin in today's video he's releasing a new song called The Sacred and the ordinary which I

[0:47] actually learned today was partly inspired from a video he watched on my very Channel we're going to dive in we're going to give it a listen we'll unpack the lyrics and then we are going to have a whole big long interesting conversation on the other side it's probably going to take us in some directions you might not be anticipating I think it's been a long time since I've been this excited in a video and you should be able to tell my enthusiasm is through the roof brilliant guy he's a brilliant musician but he's just a wonderful human being who loves Jesus with all of his heart and it bleeds out of every word that he says so I'm going to pray that this conversation is a huge encouragement to you and I think it's going to be worth every second so without further Ado my conversation with Justin baldwi right on well hey Justin welcome to the channel man glad to have you here how you feeling today I'm feeling good man thank you so much for having me on here holy cow I've been looking forward to this one man we've

[1:35] got a lot of stuff to talk about I'm really really excited to have you here I'm really excited to chat through some things um you might be new to the people on my channel you might not be known yet although you're getting more traction and then every person that subscribes to your channels I'm excited about but if you don't mind um I would love it if you could just intro yourself to us and and let us know what you're up to where you come from a little bit about what you're working on and and your Ministries and what you're up to yeah thanks again for having me man it's such an honor to be here and this first time we're actually technically meeting so it's amazing it's awesome um I I love it man uh so I'm primarily a worship leader I I live in Southwest Virginia um my dad pastored for the entire time that I was alive he passed in 21 there were not a

[2:25] lot of musicians there and so that kind of I I cut my teeth on all the instruments at the church there um I did a lot of my practicing during the church services because my dad really enjoyed to have music playing while he was um like exhorting and uh preaching and whatnot so I really kind of started from there and that just kind of turned into leading worship and that's like my primary Ministry I love going to different places whether it's church or just like an event somewhere or I I love coffee shops playing like that I've done a lot of worship nights in coffee shops so that's my primary Ministry I feel like um I also serve on the worship team at our a church that my wife and I attend um so that's my favorite being

[3:14] able to just I don't even like to necessarily see it as like leading worship as well as like kind of getting together and all of us just singing corporately yes singing these songs I like to think of it like I'm blessing the heart of the father and I'm also trying to invite others to do the same so there's that um and then I uh I have a YouTube channel that which I haven't posted on it in a few weeks um kind of bad to all of us uh it's like I get hit with the motivation and it's amazing at times sorry my mic is like Falling Slowly um and then other times it's like I forget that I have the YouTube channel um so it's called Evergreen worship and the idea behind that was just like

[4:02] evergreen trees last throughout all seasons they're always like healthy and strong the same way like God's love is the same way it's it's not seasonal it's constant so that was my my idea behind that so it's just um worship sessions that I record in my little home studio and I try to forget that I'm recording and I try to just picture just me and Jesus in the room so I do that um and then I recently started a it's just an Instagram account right now um but I hopefully like to make it bigger at some point but it's called Evergreen apologetics it's the same idea um but just wanting to better defend the faith the scriptures and also use it as an accountability tool to keep sharpening

[4:49] me because I'm like it's it forces and uh whatnot so I got that and then um I guess the last thing is I I really love teaching verse by ver through scripture and I have a men's group that I started at the end of last year and uh it's become I think there's like 16 or 17 of us now which is kind of amazing in the small time um but I wanted a group that we could get together and not just read the Bible but also do life together you know I've been saying it's the power of a me too so it's like when someone's like I'm going through this and someone else is like me too it really helps see that you're not isolated so it's just kind of like arms with each other going through Seasons going on Hikes just hanging out and then also reading scripture together and

[5:36] pointing each the one anothering like in the in the New Testament it's almost like I've read that somewhere or something so I know right it's so wise man it's amazing so cool dude yeah I mean and one of the things I love about you is uh is and something that I relate to personally is that you've clearly got a lot of passions if you're a worship leader you love doing music and you also want to create a Ministry around apologetics and you also want to operate a small group and you're also you know loving teaching verse by verse through the scriptures those are all things near and dear to my heart too but there's a lot to that um you just have a a love of life and a love of all good gifts from God that is really just radiates from every time you and I have ever talked uh so I appreciate that about you a lot it might be good for us actually to talk

[6:25] about how we got connected there's kind of a couple of funny stories there but like were talking about it just before we hit record that this was actually the first time that you and I have like actually seen each other face to face and yet we call each other friends so how the heck did that come about yeah it it's amazing uh so um it's kind of funny because it was such a slow process that I feel like they got me here that's almost like I forget how it's so funny um but I'm also good friends with Will Hest from the church split and I got connected to him through YouTube he's a great guy great guy and uh love his book so I remember just like Googling or uh youtubing a random Bible topic one time I can't remember what it was but I ended up finding one of their videos and at first I was like this guy

[7:13] he comes across is pretty rough around the edges I started just like the more I watched I was like man this this guy's great you know and I started um watching his content more eventually reaching out to him on Facebook and then I did an episode with the church split and so then I just you know follow his stuff actively and then he has you on his channel um and it was like a debate review between you and James White was that correct that was a great debate it was a great debate and I was like watching that and then I was like okay let's go see this actual debate I'm like man Tim is like destroying and they were saying it was like was that wait was that your first debate or my first publicly moderated debate yes I'd had other debates around like ecclesiology and around uh conditional immortality

[8:02] annihilationism that kind of a thing but uh that was my first public moderated debate well did so well he did so well and even if you did talk too fast right it is my curse that I both talk too fast and I listen too fast I got in trouble with that in the Steve Greg videos that I've been doing these responses to because I I can him on only 1.5 or only 1.75 speed thinking that was slow because I listen to everything two and a half or three times speed so it's it's a curse he was like rapping and you were just responding to his raps and they were like slow down it was bad yeah I ended up just uh I I then went down the rabbit the Rabbit Trail and um found your channel and I was like man this guy reminds me so much of Tim Macky and so

[8:53] your teaching style was like also reminds me of like Steve Greg two teachers I admire so much and then Mount Rushmore that is just to even be in the same sentence as those guys is a huge honor oh yeah I I love their stuff and so and then I ended up messaging you and I think I shared with you that exact thought and you were like man those guys are like you know they're top tier and so from then on we just connected really well you could just tell it was one of those like God ordained friendship kind of things didn't have to work for the conversation I have a feeling we could talk for hours not get tired yeah anybody that uh starts up a conversation with me and mentions the names Tim Mackey Steve Greg will has is going to be my kind of people within short order it's not going

[9:40] to take long and uh you know we'll we had all kinds of other stuff to talk about afterwards but it was that was real easy one sweet I loved it man so super again like we've been we've been planning this for a while I'm glad to have you here we had something really interesting came up where um there's a song that you came up with that there's a backstory behind this thing too but you you sent it to me I really wanted to listen to it but I felt like it'd be better for us to listen to it live and so we'll get to that in just a second but I'd like to ask you about the song first and you know give us you know title and maybe again a little bit about where that came from yeah absolutely so this song it's it's near and dear to my heart it really

[10:28] feels like it was a gift from the Lord and it's called sacred and ordinary the the season because I just wrote it's very you know I'm not sure when this video would be out but it'll probably will already be out by the time this video is out I was kind of doing some soul searching as I guess I should say because I I kind of got to a place and it's really easy to do this for me feel like man if I was just like a worship leader full-time that would be amazing and then I would really feel like I was living in my calling or man if I could really grow my Spotify streams and just get to where I could travel different places and get not famous enough but you know what I mean like U more recognized enough to where my wife could quit her job we could just travel around and I could lead worship places and I just kept thinking reaching for the big things like if this if that

[11:17] um and then I started feeling like uh sweet conviction in my heart towards not overlooking the joyous mundane things and the title the song actually came from one of your videos Tim um and you actually like the phrase you Ed was was you were talking about living in that reality of like heaven meeting Earth in the way that we live our life in the way that we might share a meal with someone or spend time with their spouse or just hang out with a friend enjoy coffee a latte and and you said the those two words in a sentence uh you mentioned the sacred things you'd mention the ordinary things and I was like bro that would be an amazing song wow and so I just like I I immediately went to the notes on my

[12:05] phone and typed in sacred in ordinary I was like I'm gonna make that to a song and I sat down at the piano and I just try to think like and without giving away much of the lyrics if you're going to play I was trying to think of like hey what are some really simple things that I overlook all the time that are amazing things because you know it's really easy to live in the reality of being a Believer and being blessed that we are and to take that for granted it's so easy to take it for granted to take for granted my wife and my friends my my health things I just so so easily forget you know I'm like halfway done eating a meal and my mom or my wife is like did you pray over that and I'm like oh no I forgot you know it's so easy to even

[12:53] enjoy it did you get like halfway through the meal and then you finally started tasting the food really it was like a duck I was swallowing it man it wasn't enjoying it yeah I got to say man I didn't even really know the full backstory of the fact that it came from a video of mine too like the obviously the spirit's working through all of that stuff but the fact that that something that I created did contribute in some way to to your thought process and what the spirits after with with your art and your creativity is just an again it's a huge honor um you sent me a short demo so I kind of know what's coming but I'm not 100% sure uh I don't have I hav't given the final MTH Master a good listen so let's give this let's give this song A [Music] shot I'm starting to take notice of a

[13:52] Kind spoken word the way the morning Whispers the quiet I want ignor a creation that is turning to one day be restored the GS of Heaven are an Open Door the sacred and the orinary the life that's in between the eternal and the temporary the things others don't see if I had another love to live it would never be the

[14:43] same the simple and extraordinary the moments you create W I'm embracing tiny Pleasures like the setting of of the Sun the laughter of a friend and desp Tender Touch I'm learning to find Wonder in the places I pass by you see the heaven hiding in an orary [Music] the life that's in

[15:32] between the Eternal and the temporary things are this don't if I had another life to live it will never be the same simple and [Music] extraordinary you [Music] shift my perspective small moments are precious Pride when was the last time iow down you see the beauty in your [Music] eyes it's the sacred and the

[16:23] orinary things I the love to live you can never be the same simp ex moment [Music] you the moment you create that is it brother no man that was you have a gift dude thank you it's really fun listening to it with you man that's awesome holy cow bro like yeah I'm I'm definitely emotional about it um yeah

[17:14] there's so much to this um man there's so much I want to talk about it's just uh first off again just you you're you're a very talented guy clear you were made for this um thank you so much my my sweater I don't know if you can actually see I wear this one a lot for videos now that I think about it but it actually says it's hard to see but it says slow down and enjoy oh that's so awesome so you heard that line you were like like I'm there bro I'm there that's so cool yes oh brother so I want to get back into like nobody wants to just sit here and watch me cry for like another 20 minutes or something um but we got we got to talk about it so yeah dude what a great

[18:03] um what a great song what a great message it's so wild because I think that we as Christians we really are sadly disconnected from a whole world of things that Jesus would I expect think we should see as gifts as as expressions of love as uh if if Paul can say that God gives us all good things richly to enjoy um there's a whole category of things that if it's not spiritual we we are almost trained to ignore it we're or we're trained to even doubt its goodness somehow and I think that we're so impoverished when we do that absolutely it's so easy to do in

[18:52] this fast-paced world that we live in if it's not like miraculous or like major then we just kind of like pass over it take it for granted very easily man exactly well and so I also was reminded of just a hundred other songs that I love there's um you know there's there's a guy named uh Jonathan Colton who is kind of like a nerd culture icon he he wrote some songs for video games he did a a couple of songs like there's one about a a couple of guys who used to work at an office together called AR your brains in which one of them turns into a zombie and is like singing about it's all this corporate speak it's it's aming I recommend it it's it's awesome he he wrote glasses that's about family life you know and and the whole song is just

[19:41] about enjoying a A Slice of Life looking at the random things that happen in a day and trying to take in every second of it and live presently live in that moment and and take in what's good about it and so you get lyrics like shed the days like skin pray for evenings in hold their hands in the street when you walk them off to school uh a box too full to shut a cardboard paper cut the bleeding edge of a picture of your parents when they were cool you know and it's just all these little things that you're just looking at and you're like there's something beautiful there there's something incredible there um the difference I think is gratitude which is a whole category thing we could talk about oh yeah oh man sorry I'm still just reeling that was awesome um no no I I appreciate the kind words man I have

[20:29] self- diagnosed ADHD I don't know if I actually have it or not but like I'm always like boom boom bounc from one thing to the next that it is really hard for me sometimes physically to sit down to like take a deep breath and be like this is amazing one of the things I think really helped me before this song came about as far as I taken advantage in a good way all the little mundane things you might call it um this year we had like 850 snows that hit our area and so there was a day that um I can't remember if I got because I work from home I can't remember if internet stopped working my wife was off for one we were snowed in might have been a weekend actually uh we were snowed in she was working and we

[21:17] literally just hung out all day we played the switch some Mario Kart you maybe watched or something and it's we have like the same family somehow I don't know how possible must man literally described what we do when we have time me and my wife that's amazing day night man it's so funny uh I I always tell people I have the gift of hindsight it's like my superpower it's like I might not get it in the moment but at the end of the day looking back I was like man today was full of so many small blessings that in the moment I often don't think to stop and be like thank you Lord for this moment thank you for my wife that I see every single day but is an Incredible Gift that because I here every day sometimes like I allow

[22:05] that to become normal when that is that is sacred you know what I mean holy cow it's so easy to do that I I log in to work and I'm like this person at work is driving me crazy so then I forget to be grateful for my job you know and and but at the end of the day my hindsight kicks in and I'm like man there was so many blessed things happened today that I just ran past um like a Sprint my goodness dude yes okay so um God there's so much I want to touch on okay so I um I definitely do have ADHD I have been diagnosed apparently I was diagnosed when I was seven and then my parents did not tell me and so um that's this has been a journey that I've been on over the course of the past six months I actually kind of want to do a video

[22:52] about like ADHD and mental health at some point but um that'd be great but no you're 100% right I think it's a feature you're not a bug it can obviously go really wrong but it's the way that a person who has ADHD the way that our mind would work assuming you do have it I'm not a doctor um is is just that we have a really really kind of a faulty short-term memory and so it can be it can be it requires some intentionality to stop and notice things and be present to the moment and to look around and and take things in and I found that one of the things that helps me the most is really good questions so um I've just I've tried to make it a habit of asking questions like what would this exact same situation be like if I didn't have blank and I've put all kinds of weird

[23:44] things in the in the blank right it's like what this exact situation be like if I didn't have arms right what would this exact situation be like if I didn't have eyeballs what would this exact situation be like if I didn't have my wife what would this exact situation be like if I didn't have a car what would this exact situation be like if I didn't have a roof over my head um but just asking questions like that even is a great way to kind of recast your light or your your existing World In a Different Light um or questions like what's what's something in this room that I have never noticed before that's really cool good good questions unlock a lot I again this is another I have yeah dude they're great and and if you come up with any and you know comments uh anybody goes down to the comments and

[24:30] gives us some I'd love to pick y'all's brains too but um the key thing though and that's really it's just a tool to get at something else um and the something else is gratitude right it's really honest to God gratitude and this is one of those things that um there's so many things I want to talk to you about when it comes to this song and the themes that it presents and what it's on about what it's talking about but the the first thing is gratitude like I was just having a conversation with a couple of our dear friends we we were at small group last night and we were discussing gratitude and how like our expectations Rob us of seeing something that's good as a gift simply because we've come to expect it or take it for granted right

[25:18] and um pointed out the one one of the best bits of marriage advice I was ever given really early on in my marriage was the difference between a a desire and an expect it's like there's there's three ways you can feel right there's happy there's okay I'm okay things are fine and then there's I'm unhappy and obviously it's much more complicated than that but it's like a if I have a desire I'm happy if I get it but I'm okay if I don't like hey I I wanted to go and watch the Broncos game or something or I wanted to go and hang out with our friends but something happen something came up we can't go play D and D with someone that's fine I'm fine I'm okay but if we get to do it I'm happy right but if it's an expectation if it's something that I've come to just expect then if I get it I'm

[26:07] only fine and if I don't get it then I'm unhappy wow yeah that's true we have control over how happy we are simply by being grateful for them and not taking something for granted we have control over that yeah yeah it's just wild and that's true in marriage that's true in parenting that's true in all kinds of things but this is one of those things that came up in this song is like man we just pass by so many things that if we were simply grateful for them we would see them for the gift that they are absolutely yeah I um there was there was one day here I was I feel like since I wrote this song there have been several instances where I'm like slow down stop enjoy something that you're that you're doing right now and so this is my home studio but it's also the

[26:54] office that I work from home in and I have a window right over here and we have like this super beautiful mountain landscape just and like I see it every day I don't think anything about it but there was one day I was in here and I was like you know I I'm going to turn on some worship music of some kind and just like not even pray but I'm just going to think about Jesus and I'm just think about the things that I have in my life that are amazing and I I walked to the window I just looked at that creation and I was like man I see this every single day but it's so beautiful but I just walk right past it in my tired blle mood logging into work and I'm literally living in this beautiful place that I'm gifted to be in and like that intentionality that you

[27:45] mentioned that's such a powerful thing because it's like the difference between like I can be in like a not so great mood for work or something that I have going on but it's like if I stop and say I'm intentionally going to be grateful for this because you don't have to feel a certain way to be like Lord thank you for this you know what I mean yes and when I do that I have noticed I'm like my mindset is changing it changes and I'm like that's so powerful that you can like make that decision to be like I'm gonna be grateful for this or I'm G to rejoice in this beautiful mundane thing that I do every single day yes and then all of a sudden you're just like then you it's almost like um I don't know if it's like a dop me release but then you're like I'm grateful for everything you know and then you just start it's

[28:32] like God just downloads all of the like this list of things feel overwhelmed yeah you're like overwhelmed with gratitude at that point and I'm like just that little shift that little turn from yes I'm always doing this and seeing this wow I I'm always passing by this and I don't take the time to rejoice in it or be grateful for it because I am so fast paid and running around all the time my goodness yeah dude so so this leads me I'm actually at kind of a Crossroads because I don't know which topic I want to talk about first the first thing I want to talk about is like the sacred secular divide and how that robs us like I said of a whole category of things to be grateful for but then I also really want to talk about hurry and about how the fast pace

[29:21] of things Keeps Us frenetic Keeps Us fried keeps us from focusing on things one of the things that's so important to me my own Ministry is is really want people to see clearly how good God is and to clear away all the assumptions to clear away all of the bad theology all the bad teaching that leads to a gap between people and the God who loves them so much that he died for them right I want them to see all those things so one of the great problems that I see and you can you know tell me if this is something that you res with is this concept of the Sacred secular divide and so the sacred secular divide thinking if I were to kind of make break it down quickly is the idea that well there's some things over here that are holy and

[30:09] and they're they're Church e or they're Jesus e or they pertain to God stuff and maybe you know the most toxic version of this would be um well when we drive to church now we're in the house of the Lord and we walk into the house of the Lord and when we're in the house of the Lord uh we don't do certain things there's certain behaviors that we don't engage in you know um wipe that smile off your face son we we behave ourselves in church and it's this idea that okay I've entered into like a holy place or a holy time and we're doing holy Christian Jesus e God things but then the minute we leave we kind of check that at the door and yeah the attitude going in was kind of unhealthy but then the attitude going out is unhealthy too because it's it's almost like an ass the the assumption is okay well we've left the god stuff behind and now we're going to

[30:56] go back to I guess we got to eat we got to go find some food for our body um we got to go you know Drive our car around town and maybe we're going to go and spend some time with some friends and and those things are good but they're not like holy and so it's kind of like the whole thing is really toxic and so right we have trip into this all the time when we think about places you know like we think about church as a holy place or we think about prayer time in the morning is a holy time and then the assumption is the rest of it isn't right and that's really really really dangerous um not only because it's false god is everywhere and at all times right he's with us at all times the psalmist says where can I go from your spirit you know uh where can I escape from from you there's I go up into the heavens you're

[31:45] there I go down into the depths of shaol you're there there's nowhere we can escape and there's no time in which we exist that God is not there with us and if we believe the testimony of scripture he's closer to us than our own skin right he inhabits everything even the breath breath is his anting life energy from the spirit right to borrow a phrase from Tim Mackey um but then it's it's dangerous also because it robs us of a way of viewing the world that is biblical the creation itself you can't get past the first two pages of the Bible without seeing that God is so serious about the world that he made and he calls it good in fact he calls a good seven times and and then very good he calls especially you know womankind which is inter in discussion but he calls very good he calls the creation very good after he puts the Capstone on

[32:32] it and it's it's like we we we assume that the fall broke that somehow so that the the Creed order isn't good anymore and there's all kinds of dangerous ideas but I I want to expand on that even more and I want to talk about that even more but obviously this is some of what's going on in your thinking when it comes to writing this song so where does that stuff land with you yeah so I um it was kind of like a a paradigm shift for me to show how much it shifted for me there was a song that came out several years ago and this is before I um probably got plugged into the Bible project that I think has a very healthy view of Heaven on Earth and like living in like in that Unity between the two um and so I heard his song and I'm not sure if you've heard it

[33:18] but it's by 10th avw North it's called all the Earth is Holy Ground ah okay yes and the the idea behind the song is that there's nothing really um secular per se it's just a world waiting to be redeemed fully oh and wherever your feet take you that is Holy Ground you know because like as as a child of the king we're taking the temple essentially with us you know we're the temple and it's like the first time I heard that song I was like I don't know about that you know me because I never backed away and seen the entire Cannon of scripture as like one full story and so I heard that I was like that seems kind of worldly I just can't

[34:06] wait to get out of this Earth You know this is happening and that's happening I just man this place is terrible and know and I would fall into the same things when I was teaching I'd be like you know you gotta get out of here but it was such a slow like realization I'm like that doesn't make sense that um and so uh you know getting into the Bible project and then eventually like it was kind of like then finding your content was kind of like refreshing all those things in me and I was and it's kind of like yeah so you know let's say I'm in church leading worship and I'm and I'm behaving like a child of God but then if I leave that at the door I get in traffic and I'm like yelling at this person in traffic because they cut me

[34:54] off it's like there's two different mes mhm um and I'm have there there was like a sacred version of me um and then a secular version right it's like I would teach about patience here but like not live it out here you know what I mean um yes and so my prayer for the last couple of years has been like Lord help me to to bridge that gap between what I know and what I do and so having that realization of like complete tearing the Von too right so it's like it's Christ's presence permeating the Earth that's broken it's like the kingdom is here maybe just not fully realized by and creation is groaning and that's why I

[35:40] threw that line in there by creation groaning for restoration I immediately Romans that's where I got it from and I think of like yes the world uh that has much corruption in it but that's not the final story you know that's not that's not the last straw so whenever I like tie eschatology into something that I'm sharing during worship I stress that you know we're living as ambassadors now my goal is not to just live as good as I can and then die and leave here this wretched world that will go up in Flames but my goal is to pray daily Lord let your kingdom come your will be done on Earth as it is in heaven and so as that like merge

[36:28] is like happening I try to like slide like the eschatology thing I kind of like try to slide that in there like Jesus when he returns he's gonna make all things right right like when he confronts evil and he ushers in beautiful new creation and like our friendships as we know them now like yours yours and my friendship like that will be thriving even more than now it's a beautiful restoration thing that like basically I feel like I'm talking a lot no dude you're doing great exactly right though you're speaking exactly to like if I had my way if I had a magic button that I could press that would install one thought into the mind of every human being on Earth right now it would be that the promise of Christianity is not that you'll get airlifted off of the planet

[37:17] while God nukes it so that you can go just to an eternal worship service up in the sky standing on clouds and playing Harps like it's Tom and Jerry or something it would be that the promise that God has on offer in Christ is the promise of everything being made new being restored to the original vision for which it was created which in the very beginning was God desired Humanity to be partners with him over the world that he made and called good serving him sure but enjoying to the fullest possible ability all the good things that he had woven into the world relationship with him relationship with others and that our calling is to is that we've been restored to that in seed form now as his followers and that we can look with curiosity through every

[38:05] second of our life every Arena of life for every possible way to act that out now as an act of resistance against God's enemies that are pushing against God's Vision we're engaged in a war against their purposes that we know God already will win we already know the victory is won the the the their Destiny is sure and the Eternal destiny that we're all headed towards is a re renewed restored healed holy world creation Universe all of it in which we will be once again restored to the vision and the purpose and the meaning for which humans were created in the first place which is eternal existence in a remade world with him and that that's the promise of Christianity and if we get nothing else right at least if you still reject it that's what you're rejecting

[38:53] and if I could just install that one you know one one thought it's a lot I just said but if I could get that one idea installed in the brain of every human being that would be my life's work that's that's what I want people to know about it's like it takes a paradigm shift now that I've shift it it seems obvious when I look at the the whole of scripture you know um and I think of like when Paul's talking to uh the Christians in I guess it's first Thessalonians you know because there have been several deaths that have taken place and he essentially is trying to encourage them he says um you you're not grieving as if you have no hope yeah you have hope right and you know yes and your mind your mindset is like originally maybe when you read that you just kind of think of okay the hope of

[39:40] seeing them again someday you know that is a benefit right but it's so much deeper so much more glorious it's like I'll be in completely unhindered fellowship with that person with these people with God in a world that is completely untainted it's like think of how beautiful the world is now but fully beautiful no corruption this is the true hope right and it's like you're not talking about it like I feel like it seems really simple but it it's for some reason very easily missed and I for so many years I missed that exact same thing I was in the same exact boat and this is why I'm so passionate about it is because I remember being really confident that I had like this whole Christianity storyline thing figured out which is d dangerous anytime you know um

[40:29] I still don't feel like I've got that I I've gone the other way to the point where I'm don't I don't ever want to feel like I have total certainty about any part of this I'm more than willing to let the scriptures come in and scramble my thought like scramble my brain like eggs again uh the same way it did when this happened but the main thing that really drove this home I've told this story I think a couple of times and it's in the the beginning of my book you mentioned that your father passed away a few years ago my my dad too he passed away on Groundhog Day in the year 2018 and it was leading up to that experience I was reading a book called All Things New by John Eldridge bit of an odd duck I absolutely love John Eldridge but he's not everybody's cup of tea I still think every person alive should read this book phenomenal book but I had been reading

[41:16] that and going through it and he's talking about how the promise of Christianity in this same way that we've just been talking is the restoration of all things in fact I think that the subline or the subtitle to the book it's all things new Heaven Earth and the restoration of everything that you love and it just blew my mind I had to read it um just to see if it was true but up until that point again like my my thoughts about heaven were like Tom and Jerry I was getting Tom and Jerry ideas about what the new creation is like or what God's plan is sing constantly yeah and then it was leading up to that I was reading that book in probably October November we found out late December that my dad was uh you know we were we were on a zoom call opening Christmas gifts he was living out in Wisconsin with my older brother and uh you know he he was starting to cough up blood and we're like are you like what's going on here

[42:03] he went and got that looked at and he was he had open sores in his throat and and you know ulcers and was was bleeding into his stomach and all that they they went into the hospital like probably New Year's Day or the day afterwards in 2018 and did a scan and found hundreds and hundreds of cancerous spots in each lung and a cancerous tumor the size of a tennis ball in his liver um and we lost him within a month like he he had he was gone within a month it's tragic in the sense that death of any kind is an assault on God's good order it's not what he created the world to be like um he intended for Humanity to exist in a world where the tree of life was ever present we're Bible project fans here they chose not to see his autonomy for themselves but they

[42:51] chose instead to trust God's definitions of right and wrong and leave the whole governing of the universe thing to him and trust in him and to submit to him nevertheless as partners so death entering into the world was I again this could get into the open theism thing but I believe it's contrary to God's plan I think contrary to God's desire for what his creation was intended to look like I think that it was not intended to feature death um right but then it's it's tragic in that way but the gospel does give us truth and promise that that's not the end of the story and this book was the thing that unlocked the possibility for me to say I'll see my dad's bright electric blue eyes again in fact not only am I going to see them

[43:39] again there's going to be a world in which he and I can maybe go camping again we'll share a coffee together that chills man thinking it's amazing and every good thing that I enjoy now in some way will either be completed and given back to me in that world uh like just every time I see Justice served against someone who deserved to be brought to Justice part of me is like oh man that just I'm looking forward to a day when Justice is complete there will be no more need for ongoing like shifting and change putting things to right one day all will be put right and so yes you know judges lawyers police officers doctors their job is not like they'll lose their job in the new heavens and new earth but only because God saw what they were doing as so valuable that he completes it for them

[44:27] and then gives it to them in fullness so that they can go on to do more of what they were that's good man right that's wonderful and then some of those things yeah it's it's some of what I talk about in my book but then the other equation is that there will be other things that live on into the new world and there will be uh creativity and beauty and making art and making extravagant food beautiful food craftsmanship inventing new stories these are things that we'll live on and we'll have a place but it's just wild think like okay so yes is tragic is awful is not what was designed for it was not what God intended for his creation when he first made everything that is and called it good and yet nevertheless death doesn't get the final say but the end of the

[45:16] story isn't just yeah we'll see him one day and he'll be up there singing forever which you know look I love a good worship service I love singing yeah right yeah of course but it seems like we were made for more and I'm thankful that we get more when we're remade absolutely I think like some people are when they just think of the idea of just simply going to heaven and and seeing forever they're totally Fin and content with that but that it creates problems for some people some people I can't imagine like just doing that forever you know and it feels like almost like another good argument for True Christian because you're like man like just think of if there's anything in your life that you currently enjoy just like picture that like Amplified you know what I mean

[46:04] and just um picture that you don't ever have to worry about someone going and just like slandering you behind your back you know I mean you don't have to worry about someone doing something to harm you or your family you don't have to worry about oh man so I I you know like I lost I lost this person and like take my dad for example we had a great relationship um but we definitely bumped heads quite a bit about certain things um and to think of like we we were really really good and close um before he passed and to just think of like okay not only will I like see him but I have a baby on the way and it's been hard for me to think like congratulations like not gonna yeah thank you it's hard to think like man my dad's not going to

[46:53] meet him but then I'm like but he will and it'll be the most glorious way someday you know what I mean and like thinking of all those things once that all happens just being like saying it was worth it you know it was worth the wait and that's like you see a world that is hurting it is like yearning for justice and restoration and for the pain to cease and some people have went through things that are so like I can't even imagine the the loss that some people have went through but I feel so confident that no matter what the loss was when that happens like the the full restoration of all things I just I just like I don't know I feel like I'm like kind of like talking about it it makes

[47:40] me like wow that really is incredible yeah you're accidentally quoting Romans 81 18- 21 I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us I think it says in us not to us there's some discussion there but for the creation Waits eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed for the creation was subjected to frustration not by its own choice but by the will of the one who subjected it in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to Decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God that's beautiful man it's incredible audio Bible reading oh dude I would love to yeah we had a whole conversation you and I about Bible translations I'd have to pick which one first but yeah I would I would love do

[48:28] your own you can just spread your own yeah I'm waiting for a Macky translation if Tim Macky ever puts out there I'm I'm hoping I I check every now and then the on the app I'm like does he have a painfully literal translation that' be awesome I'd love going through the Testament talking about God's long nose for how patient he is and yes man I love that life unto the age yeah Bible project is is just phenomenal for all of this stuff um but so okay I want to I want to kind of shift things now um we could I could just ramble on and on about the fact that the new Earth is coming is is cause for gratitude but to kind of go back to the theme of the song and the the fact that like the sacred secular divide is also people it kind of seeps into our eschatology like what you were just

[49:15] describing like we think there will be a secular the secular future that is everything physical that exists gets nuked and no longer will be anywhere in the universe and so the sacred future which is what we should hope for is non-bodily immaterial existence in heaven but we still have bodies like how does that work floting yeah it's like we we call that Resurrection when the meaning of the word Resurrection simply is the returning of physical life to a physical body we just make the word mean it's opposite so like people think about that escatologico my personal escaton the end State the the thing for which I'm destined is somehow like a disembodied existence and it's it's not in the physical world or if it is we call that thing heaven and then it's this weird thing where I think that the fact that

[50:04] God is going to restore and renew the world and heal it and unite Heaven and Earth again imbus our whole life now with so much more significance in meaning specifically because I will be able to do things like enjoy a coffee in the new world that my coffee now almost takes on a new meaning right this old Tim Keller quote where he says if if we came from insignificance meaning like if there's no meaning behind the creation of the universe and we're destined for insignificance meaning we're all just waiting for the heat death of the universe and there's nothing past that and all of this is going to ultimately come to nothing then nothing in the meantime is significant right if we come from insignificance and we're destined for insignificance then everything is insignificant now and I think that the opposite is true if we come from perfect

[50:53] significance and meaning in Genesis 1 and2 God had such a wonderful plan for Humanity for the world that he created and if we are destined for Eternal significance Eternal existence reworking that plan doing that plan again for all eternity and collaborating with God then it's almost like everything is significant now yeah right and that's so good it's just that everything is significant now period and then there's a lingering if we were to really live like we believed that there's a reverberating effect that it would have on everything where I look at the incredible complexity I'm looking at my MacBook Pro right now and I'm just thinking about the complexity that goes into creating a liquid crystal display it's unfathomable the the visual equipment that you and I are using microphones cameras the internet that connects us

[51:41] you're all the way down in Southwest Virginia I'm over in Fort Collins Colorado like you and I are having a conversation and edifying one another in this world because of Technology like this that exists it's just leads you to just your mind can get blown if you just take that thought into everything and let it reverberate as far as it'll go it's incredible oh yeah I I guess around like 20 13 2014 is when I really just got a huge thirst for the word of God and I just went through a deep dive and I'm still today like I've changed so many things that I think since then of course um but you know just a few years ago I would tell people I'm like I don't really study eschatology because it doesn't really affect anything now and I would say that and I truly believe that

[52:29] um and is because I had heard so many of like the negative side of eschatology yeah and you could even say probably like some of the most popular thoughts that you have today of eschatology I was like why study it you know it's like I know it's gonna be bad for the bad people good for the good people you know and like my faith is in Christ I'm good you know um but it was as I began to understand the implications of what I would think is the correct eschatology now um how it affects it even though like the last couple years I have had the thought wow okay certain eschatology it really does affect everything I did begin thinking that the last couple years but I didn't quite realize it until I'm in like your uh the overlap life group on Facebook

[53:18] and I I was like yes it does and I two separate things but when I let like that hope and that uniting within Christ that he makes alive in me right now it's like and you had mentioned it to me um I think in Colossians uh I know you could the way you word stuff is so good so much better than me um but you're essentially saying like reaching forth to the resurrected you pretty much ah yes living as that man now um being that now and I remember seeing seen a comment on a video that was like man I used to think man I can't wait to see how much I mature in five years but then I thought I'm just G to be that mature man now you know and like

[54:07] it's like that same mentality I'm GNA live in light of that beauty of heaven right now and now suddenly I'm more patient with people in my life and suddenly I'm I'm more kind um and suddenly like as you said drinking a cup of coffee I'm like this is such a gift you know uh I get a date night with my wife or I um I go to my mom's house on a Sunday to take a nap and just hang out I'm like this is glorious and I'm like living in that reality now might it might not be fully realized but we can essentially live in that now holy cow dude there's so much there yes exactly like we don't want to there's a phrase called um over immanentizing the escaton which is super

[54:57] nerdy uh like nerdy academic words but it's like we we don't want to for example we don't want to assume that we can just experience total complete glorification and healing here and now we won't the powers are still at work the enemies of God are still hard at work working cross purposes even though their days are numbered and now they know it because of the death and burial and resurrection and Ascension of Jesus but it's still pretty would say irrefutable that Paul's logic in most of his letters and I would say that a lot of the logic undering teachings of Jesus and Peter's letters and even the yanine epistolary literature first John second and third John that a lot of what's happening in that language and in that thinking is you have been remade you

[55:48] have been seated at the right hand of the father in Christ in Christ is so important for Paul it's so important for it's so important for just all the logic of the New Testament but it's like I think that the whole point of that is that we're supposed to borrow from that and pull that person drag the the version of me that is in Christ seated at the right hand of the father ruling and reigning over the universe as his partner his faithful Covenant partner in Christ in that day I'm supposed to borrow that person and drag them into today into today's present circumstances and look around with an eye of curiosity for how I can live that out now in generosity trusting that God will provide for me because he's created in a world that even though broken now is still abundant in my self-sacrifice trusting that the self-sacrifice that

[56:39] led to life for and through Jesus to others will if I model it lead to life for and through others from me if I do the same thing if I follow in his same footsteps and it's like I'm borrowing from that future world and borrowing from that future reality to live it out in some sense now and again that's that's the focus of my Ministry man if I could just get those thoughts like just installed in a thinking but there's a there's a quote that comes to it it's like it's not just me thinking this as though that'll be the end of the story as if just like we as individuals can grasp it it's also something that I think that the whole church is intended to reorient its thinking collectively around right so NT WR this quote will take a bit of unpacking but it's one of

[57:26] my all-time favorites of his I think it was in surprised by hope which again just look NT W he's a wordy guy and that one takes you chewing but it's like a steak dinner one page a day yeah just just Big Man worth it but he says um he says despite the tendency I have this mostly memorized despite the tendency of some parts of the emerging Church to marginalize space time and matter um by which he means kind of like the you know this stuff doesn't matter space time and matter doesn't matter kind of ironically um but what matters is the Eternal worship service in the sky thing and the that's the hope that we're going towards he says despite the tendency of some parts of the emerging Church to

[58:13] marginalize space time and matter I remain convinced that the way forward is to ReDiscover uh I got to remember if he how he gets this he says a true eschatology by which I don't mean are are you a premillennialist or a non- millennialist or a post-millennial or are you if you're premale are you pre-tribulation post-tribulation pre-wrath you know um Do You Believe In A Rapture do you believe in a secret Rapture okay like how do you parse the the 70 weeks of Daniel that's not the point actually that's not eschatology eschatology is the study of the escaton which is the last things and all the stuff the Christians argue about is the next things we all argue about what's next we should argue about what's last what's last is pretty unambiguous it's pretty clear that God wants to

[59:01] restore and renew the world and even if we're talking about a literal Millennium right I'm not a literal millennialist I'm an a millennialist broadly but even if we're talking about a literal Millennium that's a thousand years a thousand years is like a day for God there's a day coming the day of the Lord after which everything for eternity will be a completely different way than it is now regardless of what you think the Millennium is and how it's going even a thousand years that's a drop in the bucket but what we should be looking at when we're talking about like a true esy the way that NT Wright says it is what's last what is eternal what does the escaton look like and if we capture that he says we need to ReDiscover a true eschatology that's the first thing the second thing he says is a true Mission rooted in anticipating that

[59:48] eschatology and I think that what he means by that is that the thing that we're all aimed at corporately the thing that is front and center in our expression and in our community and the way that we all live together and what we spend our time and our energy on what we think is important is is rooted in taking that as the fact that that's our future hope and that's what we're all headed toward and contextualizing that right what we're what our mission is is anticipating that fact and then he says and a true expression of church rooted in embodying that mission and anticipation right so oh it's so deep but it's like so good though focused on is is living like that's coming like

[1:00:38] that's ours yeah um bro sorry and he right breaks my brain sometimes no I understand like I was I was holding on to every word I was like it is glorious but that's the thing man is that it now it brings us back into like these mundane things it brings back into like man this is a really nice water bottle like it's really well made they put so much thought into this like the lid is metal it's brushed metal and it looks super nice and it might be disappearing a little bit because of my green screen some of you just discovered that I'm using a green screen um but it's like this nice like matte texture on the outside and the drink that was inside it is absolutely delicious you know um it's I have a pen here that doesn't bleed through paper and my God how cool this is that I have this pen

[1:01:27] that writes more well than things that existed even 15 years ago because of advances in technology I think about vanilla did you know that vanilla like we literally use the word vanilla colloquially um boy I'm in full-on ADHD mode but um we use the word vanilla Cally to refer to a flavor that is like uninteresting something is vanilla it's like the basic version of something in medieval times the only people that were a to enjoy the flavor of vanilla were royalty in their families because they needed to commission two teams of people to leave the castle go and one team goes and gathers ice from the Foothills from the mountains for preservation purposes they rendevu with the other team who went to the Jungle looking for the vanilla Orchid that produces the vanilla

[1:02:16] bean blooms one time and then dies in one day they needed to go and find that Orchid find the seed pod the vanilla pod and then meet up with the other team preserve the vanilla pod the the one or two maybe three they found that day on ice and return back that evening to the castle with their vanilla pod so that only the king and his family could enjoy it and we have vanilla extract sitting in our cabinets and we just don't even think about it at all and we think that it's boring yeah expires because we don't use it exactly so we we don't know how beautiful the things that we have are we don't we just don't understand it's sad because we also we lose sight and I'm sorry I'm just I'm straight up soap

[1:03:04] boxing right now but like we also I'm soaking it all in I'm glad this is this is the stuff that like I've made a lot of other kinds of videos lately I've made a lot of videos about open theism I'm still passionate about that I don't want to stop doing that I want to continue doing that but this is the stuff that again like I had one thought I could drill into the head of every human being and be this stuff um oh yeah but I love it man the other part of this is like man how sick is the standard by which we judge something as generosity from the part of God right how sick is that standard if you hear the Lord's Prayer uh what what he's talking about is food and water and clothing in the United States even our poor people are overweight because they have so much food to eat and like we just don't even see that as something to be grateful for it's just standard I don't know man yeah

[1:03:54] we throw our clothes on we our shoes on like we like specifically in America too you know we drive to a place on Sunday to Worship the Lord with no fear of persecution or anything and yet if the service is lasting too long it's like bro I gotta get out of here you know and and and because like it's easy to become ungrateful or just like just nothing towards it when you start looking at everything from God as a gift like every good and perfect gift comes from him it's kind of like for lack of a better phrase It's almost like we're all kind of like spoiled children in some ways we're just so used to it you know it's kind of like you know a parent might do all these things for their kid and they're just like yeah whatever you know they don't really but when they get

[1:04:41] older hopefully they come to better understanding like wow I really appreciate what you did and so like I think this kind of conversation it kind of puts us in that adult maturity mindset because then we're like wow okay God as my father you have blessed me with so many things that if I were to start writing them down like I would I would die first before I finished you know what I mean because Ava would be writing different things would be happening and that's why like the the things that we consider mundane or small or tiny are the places I feel like God can truly meet you and I think of like a a friend of mine and her husband they um when they first had their their first child I trying to remember exactly how

[1:05:28] it was um she talked about not having as much time for prayer time and quiet time at first when this child was newborn but then she kind of had mindset shift and began thinking oh I'm always present with the Lord like as I'm holding her or as she's doing her own thing whatever I can I can spend that time with the Lord even these little small moments when she's screaming she's got breath she's got life she's got health thank you that she has the power and the strength and I'm trying to say those things so I remember that whenever my child is scream yeah you're right so I'm like that's I'm really saying that to like put it in my own brain like remember you said this yeah be great I I have an 11-year-old and an eight-year-old well he's going to be 11

[1:06:15] in a in about a week and a half my oldest and that is extraordinarily true I have a document I read every morning I'm not religious about this or anything it's something that I created for myself that exists for the sole purpose of reminding me about truths I don't want to lose sight of um when it comes to my identity when it comes to the blessings I do have when it comes to my vocation and my mission and what I feel like I'm called to do it's just something that I go over every day to remind myself of those things but I frequently like I have a whole section in there about things I'm grateful for that I am physic healthy that even if nothing else happens today if I wake up I'm in my bed the second I wake up if I were to take

[1:07:04] stock of everything that I am in possession of and all the blessings that I have my wife who's beautiful and incredible and I still can't believe she's married to me and I definitely am the one between the two of us who married up and it's not even close she's incredible she is a superhero she's one of the most unbelievably loving people I've ever met in my life and I again and I get to be married to her she fars a bed with me she's right there she's not she's not like repulsed by me she actually wants to be around me and like we we live in a room that the temperature is controlled and there's a roof over my head and it's not leaking and it's in good repair and we live in a lovely neighborhood and just across the hall in the other rooms are my two children who have bodies and arms and legs and lungs and hearts that work and

[1:07:53] brains that work even though they also have ADHD and whatever like they have bodies that work and they're healthy and they're sleeping and they're taking in breath and throughout the night heart kept beating and they wake up with with life when they take that first breath and they wake up and their eyes open and they step outside they retain their identity from the day before and we have a loving family and we have good relationships and every last one of us is saved in this household and so we have an eternal life ahead of us and it's just like if I stop and I go through that list every morning I'm like my God how could I be anything other than unbelievably happy and joyful right now it's crazy start yeah I mean like you know it's like we were talking about my song and and that song I love that song but you

[1:08:42] know there countless songs could be written about what we're talking about right now yes and you would never come to an end of it because it's such a deep well and so so many things could be said so many like talk like hearing you talk about that and having this conversation it's like producing like sweet conviction in my own heart producing gratefulness is like as you're saying things like certain things are coming into my mind that I'm like wow yeah that is incredible and like thinking of God's grace in the way that even though I often forget to thank him he still lavishes me the same and I'm like God I wrote that one song but now I feel like I just need to let that be my theme for a while and write like the next 20 songs about that um because you could you

[1:09:32] could never run out of lyrics to write or words to say um when it comes to like the amazing blessings that God gives us on a daily basis okay so this actually this leads me to something we might finish here but this is something that I wanted to talk to you about honestly because I want to know your thoughts about it I want to pull from your experience and your wisdom your expertise um and and it's about creativity and so we've talked a little bit about like creativity in the kingdom of God creativity in light of the new heavens and new earth kind of anticipating um and and and all of that and how art is an expression of Beauty in a world that was made for beauty and we've kind of touched on all of these things a little bit um but one of the things that has become very interesting

[1:10:22] to me lately is this concept of of not just spiritual warfare because again I think that might even that phrase feels like it's also buying into like the sacred secular divide stuff spiritual warfare is like it's gorilla Warfare in the real world too like it's it affects everything it's not just like spiritual realities it's it's all of this so um I want to open up with a quote from uh Andrew Peterson who I I think you're probably also familiar with Andrew Peterson yeah um just incredible genius at everything all alltime great songwriter uh is he worthy made me cry big big grown man Tears first time I heard it lord I can't even think of it right now but the is I think it was in his book um adorning the dark which is about

[1:11:12] his creative process and the battle that it often feels like um he says remember that there is such a thing as spiritual warfare and your gifts are the sword that you swing in that great B attle and so your creativity your songwriting the voice that God gave you your decision to sit down and like your father that you image and you reflect make something that you can call good that goes out into the world and makes it better than it was before that thing existed that is a an act of rebellion or not Rebellion so much as it is resistance against the powers that are currently holding sway over the way way that the world operates in large part it's something that you do that is a a Battle Cry an act of war

[1:12:02] against powers that oppose God and all things good and so you probably feel opposed in so doing sometimes right you probably feel resistance against your desire to sit down and create something beautiful um I I just want to know what you do about that how you think about that how you handle that sort of a thing and if there are any tips you can give to the rest of us not to say that You' got it figured out because it's again it's an ongoing situation it's a war that we all deal with but how do you think about and approach that stuff man that's a great question and it's funny that you did frame it that way because this is something that I have thought about recently and I'm still trying to figure out some of the moving parts of it because there are certain times when like let's take songwriting for instance there are certain times that

[1:12:51] the songwriting comes easy this last song was one that came easy um I wrote a song a couple of years ago called take breath that and I wrote that song while I was heavily anxious um and that song came pretty easy um but then there was one week I I sat down I recorded three demos of three new songs I had written and I was like this is it like I will never get discouraged or um feel like I have opposition again I'm in a flow now and then motivation just left me completely and I I was like trying I've been like trying to process and think like why is it that if I do feel gifted in certain ways why does it feel so hard to maintain that and so a

[1:13:41] couple things that I that I do that helps me is I do try to see it as a Ministry and I I think like seeing okay like music and these lyrics I see them as like relational um and I thought okay when I wrote take a breath there have been several people with anxiety that say man that song just like wrecked me um because it kind of sounds like a modern day Psalm almost um and I thought uh you know I wrote a song called faithful and just that's based off of first john9 and people just being like man I've like and that one's not released yet I'll probably release it uh in the next couple months just an all time great passage I can't wait for that one dude oh man that's like a go-to for me yeah oh man good and I think the testimonies

[1:14:32] for one help me but I think sometimes also the the songwriting it's it's healing to myself even it's almost feels like something spiritual is happening to myself because you almost think I'm writing this song for others or for the Lord and often we might not think we can get benefit from it ourselves but there are still times I go and listen to take a bre breath for myself because I'm like I'm anxious right now um and I might feel like I'm I my flesh is like I feel unloved right now because for whatever reason you know I'm crazy I too much caffeine so it makes me feel like anxious and yeah it's I try to frame it in those ways like okay the this is a Ministry in a way that hearts and lives and people stories may be impacted positively because they

[1:15:21] heard these lyrics the music go to certain and so whenever I find myself struggling with that and I feel some kind of opposition or lack of motivation I try to think of how much scripture and I I think truly that God is obviously in love with music right yes zephani speaks of like how he sings over his people and I think you have like the entire book of Psalms um and not even just Psalms you get into the New Testament and there are poems and stuff and different things and like so creativity and the spirit is seen in US addressing one another in Psalms and hymn and spiritual songs making melody in our hearts to the Lord one of my favorite virtues I quote almost every worship night that I do um because it's like inviting this

[1:16:09] corporate like we're doing this together you know and so I think like realizing I'm I'm not dealing with this creativity in a vacuum like it's just me in the song but it's like me and then whoever else wants to join me like on this journey whether s whether it's a worship song that we sing together or whether it's a song that just speaks right to this person and they're like man I you know I've like um taken advantage of things in my life and um I hope that makes sense like I'm I'm still wrestling with it myself because even now you know with sacred and ordinary about to come out like as the time of recording this it comes out tomorrow and I still even now feel like no motivation to record more things and I'm like still working through that but

[1:16:57] I think framing it in a way it benefits me as I'm writing it almost like free therapy too because I try to put myself in like Asama shoes or sandals or whatever my laments my Praises or my confusions or my frustrations out and I don't I think discipline is a big part of that in in the the mindset shift that it's not just for me okay I feel like I'm rambling now no no this is sort of the direction I was hoping you'd take because this is something that um the the primary things creative things that I put out into the world are my YouTube videos that's the primary thing that I create um I also do you know I I work um I'm stepping into the role as uh head of sales at close which is a software as a

[1:17:46] service company um I'm super pumped about that really really excited about it so I produce all kinds of like automations and systems and things like that and I love doing that and I think that that work is is good and right and something that God looks at and says way to go like you're making the world a better place and you're producing more order and beauty and you're pushing back the effects of Chaos in the world and there's a whole conversation around like Theology of work that I also really want to surface uh and and push forward because I think people really are stuck sacred secular divide thinking doesn't affect I don't think almost anything as much as it does what people for work and whether or not they think that what they're doing is producing something that God looks at and says that's good approving of it um I wrestled with that myself you working at I work at a bank so yep yep all the glory of God yeah holy cow maybe part two us to

[1:18:37] talk about mundane things in work that's also glorious yes but it does really like highlight for me man this is a conversation around productivity this is a conversation around being disciplined this is a conversation around if I have the ability if I have even like good systems and good Tools in place that Aid me in producing something like my video setup I've spent a lot of time and energy and even a good chunk of money putting something together that makes it really easy for me when it's time for me to make a video I push record on OBS and then I can start talking and then the video starts happening and then I've got Sops that like this whole process is is if not automated it's checklist it out exactly what it needs to get done so

[1:19:25] that I can take this video and hand it like this raw video file and hand it to my editor Clyde and then he for in a couple of hours can create this awesome thing and then this next week I'm going to sit down and create a a system using some of these automation tools to be able to take a big video 20 30 minutes and this one's going to be quite a bit longer and then get some shorts out of it and then get some you know stuff that I can put on Instagram and then create you know use AI which is this whole other thing uh to create some content or some you know newsletter or post or a Twitter thread or something like that and it's like I'm trying to think about these things and it's like anything that aids you in the process of producing something good and putting it out in the world is like it can be a good thing

[1:20:13] maybe there's bad expressions of it or maybe it's like putting putting out shoddy work but what you're talking about like man you get a process and also you're what you're doing is if you can see what you're doing as something that God is alongside you in doing and putting out into the world it's like it's good to remember that this is spiritual warfare if we're disciplined in the way that we operate our church Gatherings right which I think most pastors would agree we should be and there I there's a whole church what the church is discussion there too but like if that's what we're after and that's what we're thinking and that's what we're trying to do then the stuff that allows us as human beings to produce good work is itself good and part of the tool set that we have working at our disposal to push back the forces of

[1:21:01] Darkness I I love that you said that because it's one thing I forgot to mention I completely revamped my setup to make it easier to create and that's the same week that I wrote and recorded three demos of new songs um and I ended up it was as simple as like having the my MacBook here and then like I turned my piano around you can actually see it kind of in the bottom right here the Nord is the Lord is beautiful um and so I got that there I got a mic um normally like I have this stand and some kind of mic hanging over it so at any given moment I can turn sideways if I'm in here like if if in here doing whatever you know studying or reading scripture whatever any given moment I turn sideways boom I can record whatever and I've done that

[1:21:51] and it's been like super conducive to kind of fuel that creative process as well so it's like doing spending like you you know spending the time the resources and even money to use these things to create something that will be a blessing and will go out into the world and and I like the what I like what you said earlier about making it I forget exactly how you worded it about make basically making it better than what it was before that thing was into the world and you're like me you know there's like the spiritual side then there's like the Practical side too like um and the which is Spirit too by the way yeah exactly no more sacred divide right exactly it's all intertwin and so

[1:22:41] seeing it that way it it makes everything Ministry oriented towards towards God towards the Earth towards everyone that's in your life and so it's I don't know it's incredible I feel like I'm having a lot more realizations of this as we're talking about it um it's kind of incredible thinking about it that's awesome I have dreams of like Christian artists collectives and people who come together to create things and wanting to do you know their Retreats for people who are Christian creatives and or finding where those things are already happening like again I know Andrew Peterson and the people that he works with they have a they have a group called the rabbit room which is just Whimsical and delightful and awesome but

[1:23:28] like getting into those rooms to where I think what we're talking about here could be an encouragement to some people who need that and to need to be reminded that acts of creativity done especially to create Beauty to create expressions of human thought and emotion whether there I I would say and this might be a controversial take but whether they're explicitly targeted at exalting God or simply enjoying something something good and implicitly going with gratitude to God and those things are capital G good in the world and we need that we need more of it ab and again it's it's an act of pushing back against the powers that are trying to take the world back into chaos and death and destruction rather than forward into life and Beauty by the spirit so I have dreams about this stuff where I want to see more of God's people being creative and I want to see more of

[1:24:16] God's people being more creative and seeing it as something that produces an absolute good in the world even if it's a meal that whether it's something that is explicitly like it's got the Jesus ichus fish on it or not or it's you can't have like a b you know you you get a stencil out with a with a Bible verse and you put it over the top of your food and then you drop the salt on it or whatever and then you can see the the Bible ver it's good in and of itself because it was something made with beauty and love it's like man the more we think in these terms the more I think man it's just this is what God's after in the world we should like start something like we should start some kind of like creative room give it some name we'll call it the overlap Evergreen love it

[1:25:05] over overgreen oh there you go we'll talk about that after the call we'll figure that out another time because this is that's a whole part two part three there's a lot to talk about there we can make we can make a series pretty much on the stuff we've touched on today brother like you would you would not hear any complaints from me this is the exact kind of thing I want to be engaged in well man um here we are at the end of the time I I would love to have you back there's any number of things we could talk about uh there's yeah I'd love to man anytime yeah we'll we'll find the time to have you back but um to kind of recap where where people can find you where people can find the uh the sacred and the ordinary where we we'll get a link to that if it's coming out tomorrow as of the recording than it'll be in the past relative to when this is recorded so I'll gra a link and

[1:25:54] I'll put it in the description so people can go and see that but where else can people find you what else are you working on um and and how can we pray for and support you yeah thank you uh so I'm I'm primarily most active on Instagram um that's where I post most of my things um and then of course I don't have a lot of original stuff on YouTube yet but I would like to start kind of sprinkling that in there um I do have a Facebook page it's just under Justin Baldwin um by the way if you look me up on Instagram it's Justin Baldwin music um I'm on Tik Tok as well with the same name some of you all might not have Tik Tok anymore um so yeah that's that and uh whenever so all my music gets on every streaming platform um so anywhere that

[1:26:42] you listen to music it's on there under Justin Baldwin um and then same with sacred and ordinary it'll be on all those things as well um amazing and yeah yeah I think that's it amazing yeah man I'll put all that in the description so people can go find all your stuff your live sessions are really nice and you know if you ever get a chance to put one of those together again um I was greatly blessed by your most recent one so keep that stuff up I I appreciate that I sure will you got it all right Justin well my friend again we'll find time but thank you for jumping on today this is a huge blessing to me um you know I hope you're I hope you're very gratified by the fact that the this song legitimately made me cry and oh yeah I yeah I feel I feel so so grateful for that and I really

[1:27:31] appreciate the uh the kind words with that as well bro yeah it's um you're you're a heck of a musician and God has clearly made you for this so keep swinging that sword thank you man I sure will until next time further up and further in