1 00:00:02,720 --> 00:00:08,320 Speaker 1: Life Audio. Hello friends, I'm Alan Fadling, and you're listening 2 00:00:08,360 --> 00:00:11,800 Speaker 1: to the Unhurried Living podcast, where we inspire you to 3 00:00:11,960 --> 00:00:16,920 Speaker 1: rest deeper, live fuller, and lead better. Over the years, 4 00:00:17,120 --> 00:00:20,720 Speaker 1: more than one person has described the ministry of Unhurried 5 00:00:20,800 --> 00:00:25,000 Speaker 1: Living as prophetic. To be honest, I've never been entirely 6 00:00:25,040 --> 00:00:29,160 Speaker 1: sure what to do with that description. In this episode, 7 00:00:29,280 --> 00:00:32,800 Speaker 1: I want to explore why that word has increasingly resonated 8 00:00:32,840 --> 00:00:36,720 Speaker 1: with me. What Eugene Peterson taught me about the lives 9 00:00:36,720 --> 00:00:40,879 Speaker 1: of the prophets, and how an unexpected insight from the 10 00:00:40,960 --> 00:00:46,000 Speaker 1: Recovery movement helped me see prophetic ministry in a new light. 11 00:00:46,800 --> 00:00:50,480 Speaker 1: After a brief word from our sponsor, we'll continue the episode. 12 00:00:58,720 --> 00:01:01,880 Speaker 1: As I mentioned in the open, I've had many fellow 13 00:01:01,960 --> 00:01:05,080 Speaker 1: leaders over the years describe the ministry of Unhurried Living 14 00:01:05,200 --> 00:01:08,440 Speaker 1: as prophetic. For a long time, I wasn't quite sure 15 00:01:08,440 --> 00:01:12,440 Speaker 1: what to do with that assessment. Part of me pictured 16 00:01:12,560 --> 00:01:16,360 Speaker 1: profits as being a little wild around the edges, people 17 00:01:16,400 --> 00:01:19,840 Speaker 1: like John the Baptists living in the wilderness, or Jeremiah 18 00:01:19,840 --> 00:01:24,960 Speaker 1: speaking words nobody wanted to hear, or Elijah standing virtually 19 00:01:25,000 --> 00:01:28,600 Speaker 1: alone against the powers of his day. To be honest, 20 00:01:28,640 --> 00:01:31,679 Speaker 1: I wasn't sure that being prophetic sounded like the best 21 00:01:31,760 --> 00:01:37,399 Speaker 1: strategy for building and funding a nonprofit organization. Prophets don't 22 00:01:37,440 --> 00:01:43,040 Speaker 1: seem to attract large constituencies. They don't win many popularity contests. 23 00:01:43,560 --> 00:01:47,600 Speaker 1: They aren't often found at the center of power and influence. 24 00:01:47,640 --> 00:01:51,080 Speaker 1: And Yet the longer I've reflected on the life and 25 00:01:51,120 --> 00:01:54,400 Speaker 1: teachings of Jesus, and the longer I've reflected on the 26 00:01:54,400 --> 00:01:57,760 Speaker 1: work we've been called to do through unhurried living, the 27 00:01:57,840 --> 00:02:01,080 Speaker 1: more I've begun to wonder if perhaps people were seeing 28 00:02:01,160 --> 00:02:06,160 Speaker 1: something I hadn't been seeing. As I've sat with this question, 29 00:02:06,440 --> 00:02:10,279 Speaker 1: I've begun to realize that I was missing something important 30 00:02:10,560 --> 00:02:14,919 Speaker 1: about the prophets. Now, we tend to remember a prophet's 31 00:02:15,040 --> 00:02:20,400 Speaker 1: dramatic moments. There's Elijah on Mount Carmel, There's Jeremiah confronting 32 00:02:20,400 --> 00:02:24,239 Speaker 1: a nation. There's John the Baptist calling people to repentance. 33 00:02:25,240 --> 00:02:28,200 Speaker 1: But I discovered in the writings of Eugene Peterson an 34 00:02:28,240 --> 00:02:33,079 Speaker 1: invitation to pay attention to something else. He points us 35 00:02:33,160 --> 00:02:39,400 Speaker 1: to the long stretches of hiddenness, solitude, and seeming insignificance 36 00:02:39,440 --> 00:02:45,560 Speaker 1: that often precede those public prophetic moments. In Elijah's case, 37 00:02:45,639 --> 00:02:49,920 Speaker 1: Peterson suggests that life in the wilderness and life with 38 00:02:50,240 --> 00:02:54,000 Speaker 1: the widow were not interruptions to his calling. They were, 39 00:02:54,040 --> 00:02:58,920 Speaker 1: in fact, where his calling was formed. Listen to this 40 00:02:59,040 --> 00:03:03,160 Speaker 1: beautiful passage from one of my favorite of Eugene Peterson's books, 41 00:03:03,680 --> 00:03:08,440 Speaker 1: The Jesus Way. In it, he says, once we have 42 00:03:08,560 --> 00:03:12,680 Speaker 1: the entire story of Elijah before us, it will become 43 00:03:12,840 --> 00:03:15,840 Speaker 1: clear that his life in the wilderness and with the 44 00:03:15,880 --> 00:03:20,800 Speaker 1: widow is out of the way. Life marginal to everything 45 00:03:20,880 --> 00:03:26,119 Speaker 1: we assume is important and significant, is foundational to whatever 46 00:03:26,280 --> 00:03:30,960 Speaker 1: effectiveness he will have when he has the attention of 47 00:03:31,040 --> 00:03:36,119 Speaker 1: the world. We are often tempted to assess as trivial 48 00:03:36,600 --> 00:03:40,480 Speaker 1: the behind the scenes and between the drama's moments of 49 00:03:40,520 --> 00:03:44,240 Speaker 1: our lives and the lives of others. For gem and me, 50 00:03:44,920 --> 00:03:50,160 Speaker 1: there were many years of declining visibility and an apparent 51 00:03:50,320 --> 00:03:53,720 Speaker 1: lack of any sort of growing impact in our work 52 00:03:54,120 --> 00:03:58,880 Speaker 1: at times that seemed difficult to reconcile with a vision 53 00:03:58,920 --> 00:04:02,760 Speaker 1: we sensed God giving us back in our twenties about 54 00:04:02,920 --> 00:04:08,040 Speaker 1: expanded influence. Looking back, I can see that those years 55 00:04:08,040 --> 00:04:11,360 Speaker 1: were part of the hidden work of God preparing something 56 00:04:11,440 --> 00:04:16,360 Speaker 1: that would later be revealed what God does often takes 57 00:04:16,560 --> 00:04:21,760 Speaker 1: time to do. He doesn't always work through miracles in 58 00:04:21,839 --> 00:04:25,719 Speaker 1: the moment. In the case of Elijah, we gravitate toward 59 00:04:25,800 --> 00:04:29,960 Speaker 1: the remarkable public stories of his life, but we fail 60 00:04:30,080 --> 00:04:35,120 Speaker 1: to recognize that those are simply the above ground expression 61 00:04:35,680 --> 00:04:41,000 Speaker 1: of an invisible, underground reality in his life. What happens 62 00:04:41,040 --> 00:04:45,039 Speaker 1: in the wilderness and what happens with the widow is 63 00:04:45,240 --> 00:04:52,239 Speaker 1: part of Elijah's whole life. Peterson observes that Elijah lived 64 00:04:52,480 --> 00:04:56,960 Speaker 1: his life on the margins, marginal to the popular religion 65 00:04:57,000 --> 00:05:01,159 Speaker 1: of the day, marginal to the power policy of the day. 66 00:05:02,160 --> 00:05:05,760 Speaker 1: He goes on to note that of the nine locations 67 00:05:05,800 --> 00:05:11,239 Speaker 1: associated with Elijah's story, only one of them, Mount Carmel, 68 00:05:11,800 --> 00:05:16,880 Speaker 1: provided a public stage before a crowd. The rest took 69 00:05:16,920 --> 00:05:22,200 Speaker 1: place in out of the way and seemingly insignificant places. 70 00:05:23,520 --> 00:05:30,440 Speaker 1: That's a remarkable observation. We remember Mount Carmel, God remembered 71 00:05:30,440 --> 00:05:35,520 Speaker 1: places like Cherith, zaraphath Arab and all the other hidden 72 00:05:35,600 --> 00:05:41,640 Speaker 1: places where Elijah learned to trust him. Prophets usually live 73 00:05:41,760 --> 00:05:45,080 Speaker 1: on the margins of what is accepted as normal or 74 00:05:45,120 --> 00:05:49,560 Speaker 1: as usual, or as the status quo, and in this 75 00:05:50,440 --> 00:05:54,039 Speaker 1: prophets don't do their best work in the middle of things, 76 00:05:54,360 --> 00:05:58,760 Speaker 1: but on the edges of things. From there they have 77 00:05:58,839 --> 00:06:02,120 Speaker 1: a unique perspective on what those in the middle of 78 00:06:02,200 --> 00:06:08,960 Speaker 1: things sometimes can't actually see. In that spirit, our lives 79 00:06:09,080 --> 00:06:12,680 Speaker 1: have felt prophetic. This is not to say that we've 80 00:06:12,720 --> 00:06:16,760 Speaker 1: worn uncomfortable clothing or spoken in an apocalyptic language. It's 81 00:06:17,640 --> 00:06:20,560 Speaker 1: simply to say that we haven't lived our lives or 82 00:06:20,600 --> 00:06:23,680 Speaker 1: done our work in the middle of what tends to 83 00:06:23,720 --> 00:06:27,599 Speaker 1: be praised at the center of things. Of course, there's 84 00:06:27,640 --> 00:06:31,719 Speaker 1: nothing essentially spiritual about being on the margins. The point 85 00:06:31,760 --> 00:06:34,719 Speaker 1: is not to stand outside the center simply for the 86 00:06:34,800 --> 00:06:39,080 Speaker 1: sake of standing outside the center, not trying to win 87 00:06:39,120 --> 00:06:46,240 Speaker 1: an unpopularity contest. Rather, the margins can become places of clarity. 88 00:06:46,960 --> 00:06:50,520 Speaker 1: They can help us see God more clearly and the 89 00:06:50,560 --> 00:06:55,359 Speaker 1: assumptions of our culture more Honestly. If there is a 90 00:06:55,400 --> 00:06:58,599 Speaker 1: prophetic dimension to my message, I think it's rooted in 91 00:06:58,680 --> 00:07:03,240 Speaker 1: the genius of g Jesus's unhurried way of life and leadership. 92 00:07:03,680 --> 00:07:08,000 Speaker 1: I've come to believe this to be a prophetic message. 93 00:07:08,080 --> 00:07:10,400 Speaker 1: Others have said this to us in various ways, but 94 00:07:10,520 --> 00:07:15,040 Speaker 1: it's coming home to me now. Prophets speak from the 95 00:07:15,320 --> 00:07:19,040 Speaker 1: edges of a culture or an organization. They aren't the 96 00:07:19,040 --> 00:07:23,720 Speaker 1: ones who hold political power. Kings or key leaders are 97 00:07:23,760 --> 00:07:27,920 Speaker 1: the ones at the center, and there's often tension between 98 00:07:28,040 --> 00:07:32,480 Speaker 1: kings and prophets. Kings often want to have an established 99 00:07:32,520 --> 00:07:37,080 Speaker 1: set of values that work, while prophets seem to be 100 00:07:37,240 --> 00:07:40,239 Speaker 1: open to the word of the Lord that may well 101 00:07:40,360 --> 00:07:45,520 Speaker 1: and in fact often does, surprise us. It feels hard 102 00:07:45,560 --> 00:07:48,520 Speaker 1: to build an organization when you haven't managed to get 103 00:07:48,560 --> 00:07:54,680 Speaker 1: surprises under control. Now. Eugene Peterson spoke to this prophetic dynamic. 104 00:07:54,960 --> 00:08:00,240 Speaker 1: He says, lots of people more or less believe in God, 105 00:08:00,280 --> 00:08:04,840 Speaker 1: but most of us do our best accustomize God to 106 00:08:04,960 --> 00:08:11,000 Speaker 1: suit our convenience by adapting and modifying, making him relevant 107 00:08:11,120 --> 00:08:16,920 Speaker 1: to our situation. Prophets insist that God is the living 108 00:08:17,080 --> 00:08:22,840 Speaker 1: center or nothing. Our task is to become relevant to 109 00:08:23,080 --> 00:08:28,240 Speaker 1: his situation. They insist that we deal with God as 110 00:08:28,320 --> 00:08:32,920 Speaker 1: God reveals himself, not as we imagine him to be. 111 00:08:34,160 --> 00:08:37,960 Speaker 1: Prophets aren't much interested in relevance, if by that we 112 00:08:38,080 --> 00:08:42,319 Speaker 1: mean figuring out how God fits into our preferred way 113 00:08:42,400 --> 00:08:46,480 Speaker 1: of doing things, rather than praying that God's will might 114 00:08:46,520 --> 00:08:52,160 Speaker 1: be done among us. Again, God is the living center, 115 00:08:53,120 --> 00:08:59,640 Speaker 1: his kingdom supersedes our human kingdoms, including our religious kingdom. 116 00:09:00,800 --> 00:09:04,800 Speaker 1: Prophetic ministry can tend to be a bit lonelier than 117 00:09:04,840 --> 00:09:09,359 Speaker 1: other forms of ministry. Perhaps that is one reason solitude 118 00:09:09,440 --> 00:09:14,599 Speaker 1: is such a common companion through the prophets. Again, Peterson 119 00:09:14,679 --> 00:09:20,319 Speaker 1: mentions that Abraham Heschel comments on Elijah's hill top hermitage, 120 00:09:20,840 --> 00:09:25,440 Speaker 1: has anything of significance in the realm of spirit been 121 00:09:25,480 --> 00:09:31,480 Speaker 1: achieved without the protection and the blessings of solitude? I 122 00:09:31,679 --> 00:09:36,080 Speaker 1: find that to be such an arresting question. I'm going 123 00:09:36,120 --> 00:09:40,080 Speaker 1: to read it again. Has anything of significance in the 124 00:09:40,120 --> 00:09:44,959 Speaker 1: realm of spirit been achieved without the protection and the 125 00:09:45,000 --> 00:09:50,880 Speaker 1: blessings of solitude? There is a movement from solitude to 126 00:09:50,960 --> 00:09:56,120 Speaker 1: engaging with cultural power from the perimeter. Solitude perhaps trains 127 00:09:56,240 --> 00:10:00,880 Speaker 1: us in eternal vision. We share that that vision from 128 00:10:00,880 --> 00:10:05,199 Speaker 1: the edges, rather than as consultants to the center. This 129 00:10:05,240 --> 00:10:09,480 Speaker 1: has been so far implicit in who I am and 130 00:10:09,520 --> 00:10:13,480 Speaker 1: in who unhurried living has been. We don't have a 131 00:10:13,600 --> 00:10:19,439 Speaker 1: message that tends to be wildly popular. Popular things tend 132 00:10:19,480 --> 00:10:26,439 Speaker 1: to be easier, simpler, and mostly in harmony with our preferences. 133 00:10:26,480 --> 00:10:31,800 Speaker 1: In discipleship, Jesus challenges us to hard things to a 134 00:10:31,920 --> 00:10:37,559 Speaker 1: narrow way invites us to reconsider our preferences considering His 135 00:10:37,800 --> 00:10:42,720 Speaker 1: wise and loving purposes. And so the reason we make 136 00:10:42,880 --> 00:10:46,760 Speaker 1: solitude such an important component of our leadership training in 137 00:10:46,880 --> 00:10:51,640 Speaker 1: PACE is because we've learned just how strategic solitude is 138 00:10:52,200 --> 00:10:57,600 Speaker 1: in protecting us and blessing us. Solitude protects us from 139 00:10:57,640 --> 00:11:02,520 Speaker 1: the easy assumptions of the majority. Solitude guards us from 140 00:11:02,600 --> 00:11:07,600 Speaker 1: the temptation to shape God into our image, rather than 141 00:11:07,640 --> 00:11:12,920 Speaker 1: offering ourselves to be shaped into his. As I've reflected 142 00:11:12,960 --> 00:11:15,959 Speaker 1: on this, I've come to see that the margins themselves 143 00:11:16,040 --> 00:11:20,040 Speaker 1: are not the point. The point is what the margins 144 00:11:20,240 --> 00:11:26,200 Speaker 1: teach us. They teach us dependence. They remind us that 145 00:11:26,280 --> 00:11:30,760 Speaker 1: we are not the center. They expose the illusion that 146 00:11:30,800 --> 00:11:34,880 Speaker 1: we are sufficient in ourselves, and that realization lies at 147 00:11:34,920 --> 00:11:39,960 Speaker 1: the heart of both prophecy and recovery. And that brings 148 00:11:40,000 --> 00:11:42,600 Speaker 1: me to an insight from my experience of the recovery 149 00:11:42,600 --> 00:11:47,080 Speaker 1: movement that has spoken deeply to me. Ernest Kurtz noted 150 00:11:47,120 --> 00:11:51,199 Speaker 1: that recovering alcoholics are united not by what they can do, 151 00:11:51,360 --> 00:11:54,160 Speaker 1: but by what they cannot do. As he puts it, 152 00:11:54,920 --> 00:11:59,240 Speaker 1: what unites alcoholics and what makes it possible for one 153 00:11:59,280 --> 00:12:02,920 Speaker 1: alcoholic to learn from another is that the foundation that 154 00:12:02,960 --> 00:12:07,240 Speaker 1: they share is not a strength, but a weakness. Each 155 00:12:07,440 --> 00:12:12,520 Speaker 1: knows what he or she cannot do. The foundation of 156 00:12:12,559 --> 00:12:17,480 Speaker 1: recovery is shared need and weakness, along with a shared 157 00:12:17,480 --> 00:12:20,640 Speaker 1: awareness of a God of grace who meets us with 158 00:12:20,840 --> 00:12:25,040 Speaker 1: love and life in that very place. In many ways, 159 00:12:25,080 --> 00:12:31,120 Speaker 1: that sounds beautifully Christian. Perhaps that's why another reason prophetic 160 00:12:31,160 --> 00:12:37,560 Speaker 1: messages are not always enthusiastically received. Most cultures, including religious cultures, 161 00:12:37,600 --> 00:12:44,760 Speaker 1: celebrate strength, success, influence, certainty, and visible results. We prefer 162 00:12:44,960 --> 00:12:50,559 Speaker 1: stories of accomplishment to stories of dependence. But the Kingdom 163 00:12:50,600 --> 00:12:54,720 Speaker 1: of God seems to work differently. Jesus spoke of the 164 00:12:54,800 --> 00:13:00,240 Speaker 1: poor in spirit, all boasted in weakness. Elijah was formed 165 00:13:00,280 --> 00:13:05,040 Speaker 1: in hidden places, and the prophets continually called God's people 166 00:13:05,080 --> 00:13:10,640 Speaker 1: away from self sufficiency and back toward trust. The older 167 00:13:10,679 --> 00:13:15,559 Speaker 1: I get, the more I find myself needing that reminder. 168 00:13:16,640 --> 00:13:19,600 Speaker 1: Maybe that's why the message of an unhurried life can 169 00:13:19,720 --> 00:13:24,480 Speaker 1: sometimes feel prophetic. It's not because it predicts the future. 170 00:13:24,920 --> 00:13:29,520 Speaker 1: It's not because it seeks controversy. It's because it quietly 171 00:13:29,720 --> 00:13:34,120 Speaker 1: challenges some of our deepest assumptions about what makes a 172 00:13:34,240 --> 00:13:41,240 Speaker 1: life successful, fruitful and significant friends. Perhaps the question is 173 00:13:41,280 --> 00:13:44,480 Speaker 1: not whether we are called to be profits. Perhaps the 174 00:13:44,559 --> 00:13:47,800 Speaker 1: question is whether we are willing to be formed in 175 00:13:47,840 --> 00:13:52,560 Speaker 1: the places where God formed the prophets. Are we willing 176 00:13:52,600 --> 00:13:55,840 Speaker 1: to step away from the center long enough to discover 177 00:13:56,000 --> 00:14:00,040 Speaker 1: that God is the living center. Are we willing to 178 00:14:00,200 --> 00:14:04,440 Speaker 1: embrace our weakness long enough to discover the sufficiency of 179 00:14:04,520 --> 00:14:08,160 Speaker 1: His grace? And are we willing to cultivate the solitude 180 00:14:08,200 --> 00:14:11,960 Speaker 1: that helps us see what cannot be seen in the noise? 181 00:14:12,920 --> 00:14:17,240 Speaker 1: Those are questions I continue to wrestle with myself, and 182 00:14:17,280 --> 00:14:20,960 Speaker 1: so until next time, may you keep growing in the 183 00:14:21,080 --> 00:14:30,800 Speaker 1: grace of resting, deeper, living fuller, and leading better. Thank 184 00:14:30,840 --> 00:14:34,160 Speaker 1: you for listening to the Unhurry Living podcast. To learn 185 00:14:34,200 --> 00:14:38,680 Speaker 1: more about us, visit Unhurriedliving dot com. In the show notes, 186 00:14:38,760 --> 00:14:42,920 Speaker 1: you'll find helpful links and information about our partner, Live 187 00:14:43,040 --> 00:14:46,560 Speaker 1: Audio and all of their other faith centered podcasts.