#131: Men's devotionals are terrible (but Jesus isn't)

To commemorate the launch (and the irony) of my latest book (a men’s Bible devotional), my friend Anthony McLean returns to host the show and interview me! We talked about men’s mental health, overworking ourselves, permitted male emotions, and purity culture… and then we riffed deep on original sin, brokenness and how to understand freedom and love in a beautiful wide open field of grace. This ended up being one of my most favourite conversations and I hope you’ll listen to the whole thing.

You can order my brand new book, Mornings with God: Daily Bible Devotional for Men, right here.

You can learn more about Anthony McLean at anthonymclean.org

Listen to the earlier episode when Anthony interviewed me about learning to love ourselves.

Support the show and my other work by becoming a Patron or making a one-time donation, at jonathanpuddle.com/support
Order my trauma-informed 30-day devotional, You Are Enough: Learning to Love Yourself the Way God Loves You.
Find every book or resource I’ve talked about recently on my Amazon storefront, in Canada, the United States or the United Kingdom.

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Text Transcript of Episode

Jonathan Puddle  00:00

Don't intentionally cause destruction, and don't, and don't through your willful ignorance, allow destruction to continue. But, know that you're going to keep making mistakes. And those are not any great obstacle to God, and own what you've done, and grow and learn and be mature and continue to grow in maturity. And continue to grow into yourself and be yourself and let goodness and freedom and love and hope and joy be manifest ever more and more in your life. And that's what the Spirit is drawing you towards.

Jonathan Puddle  00:46

Hey, friends, welcome back to The Puddcast with me, Jonathan Puddle. This is episode 131. This time we're doing another fun switch around where my friend Anthony is the host and I am the guest. And we're going to talk about why that is. And we're going to talk all about why men's devotionals are so bad. And actually, we... Oh man, this is one of my favorite conversations ever on The Puddcast, we talk about such a whole range of things, from overworking ourselves to expressing emotions as men, the images of masculine violence that we grew up with, how the church purity culture began to do bad things further bad things to our masculinity. And then we we get into talking about sin, Original Sin, whether sin separates us from God, what we how we handle the mistakes that we make in life, while trying to live into Christ in abundance and joy. And, honestly, I commend this to you, we get, you know, kind of in the weeds of masculinity for the first half. And then we get into some really, really fun, theological places. It's probably important to point out that we recorded this back in the summer, not long after, I'd spoken with Holly Oxhandler, who is the most recent interview here on the show, talking about limits and the things we need to put into our life to maintain an awareness of the divine within us, when I talked about having cut out coffee and alcohol that was in that space that I was at in the summer. Yeah, and, and I can thankfully report now that a few months later, I'm in a much better place. I'm sure you can hear that in my tone of voice. Once we get into this, you're gonna be like, Oh, wow, Jonathan sounds really bleak and dead. And yeah, I wasn't I wasn't hard space. So we get honest about that. And I'm happy to report that I'm in a much better space today. Thanks. Thank you, Anthony, for making this happen. Let's get into it.

Jonathan Puddle  02:50

Once again, I'm welcoming a alternate host to the show, I'm gonna be I'm gonna be the guest. And my good friend Anthony is going to interview me just like we did a couple of years ago, for You Are Enough. If you haven't listened to that interview, it's a really special conversation. Anthony and I go way, way back. And we hadn't seen each other in a few years. And we ended up... he's an amazing speaker, and he was speaking at an event in my city. And I went to go and listen to him. And then he had just a few minutes available afterwards. So we ended up in a cemetery, in the rain, catching up. And honestly, some of that conversation propelled me to write You Are Enough. And then Anthony, came on and interviewed me about that. And we had a really kind of sacred time, two years ago now. So yeah, so this is my new book. I was not going to do a dedicated episode for But Anthony has been reading it and loving it and said he, he thinks we should. So it's, it's Anthony's fault that we're doing this. We he said, Jonathan, we should do it conversation around men's devotionals and how they don't have to suck like they do normally terrible, but they don't strictly have to be so. So we were just we were just catching up before we started recording. And we're kind of chatting about where we're at with our mental health. And, and Anthony said, Hey, let's get this on air.

Anthony McLean  04:28

Yeah, hey, it's great to be here. And Jonathan the reason I said we got to get this on air is because I asked you, how are you doing? And instead of giving the response that everyone gives, which is I'm good, I'm fine. I'm busy. That badge of honor of being busy. Instead of any of those responses, you took a deep breath. And you said that you're not in a great space right now. And I shared how I haven't been in a good place for the last year or two, you know I have good days and good afternoons. But I've been dealing with depression and anxiety that I've never known before. And hearing you open up and share that, it's just I think it's so refreshing to be able to talk about the stuff that we're going through. So that's one of the things I appreciate about, you.

Jonathan Puddle  05:23

Well, mutual man, I appreciate that. It's fascinating. You know, I, my mother just arrived for visit for a few months, and we haven't seen her in four years, because she's in New Zealand and COVID border, you know, locked down all that kind of thing. And, you know, yesterday I was, I was, I was in a panicky, anxious state, and, and my mom is sort of, like, how can I help? And and I'm just sort of laughing because I'm kind of like, well, this is this is the question that Maija has been asking for half of our marriage. But I've always struggle to frame an answer. And, and we're still working through that. But, but Mum, mum was telling me how her father used to have these panic attacks, all the time, and would so often essentially oversubscribe himself. And he had such a heart to care for people, and to provide, and in all the ways that accounting day job that he did, and all the pastoral work that he did, he would often end up just completely overwhelmed, and then would try to go out, you know, for a date with my grandmother. And would would end up sitting in the gutter kind of shaking and just trying to keep himself together. Like, that's me. That's me to a T.

Anthony McLean  06:48

Whoa.

Jonathan Puddle  06:49

And, and I didn't know that about my grandfather. Until yesterday. And, and see, my father has had a long, long struggle with depression. And I was aware of that. And that, you know, has that shaped a lot of actually my teenage years, because my father kind of checked out for a chunk of my young man years, because he was just trying to keep himself above water. You know, now I can look at that with grace and compassion. But But during my teenage years, it was hard to kind of have lost access to my dad, before my parents ended up divorcing. And so, yeah, knowing that about my father, and having had conversations with my father, about his own mother and aunts, and uncles and other members of his family, is a fairly significant amount of mental health challenges in that side of my family. Well, now I can see, okay, great. I've got coming at me from both sides. Hurray for that.

Anthony McLean  07:47

But to be able to, to be able to talk about it, because I know there's so many families that it is rampant, but no one talks about it. And someone has an episode, but it's just not talked about. And how can you process something that you never talk about?

Jonathan Puddle  08:02

Well, that's exactly right. That's exactly it. You can't if you don't confront it, if you and confront sounds like an aggressive kind of word, if you don't turn to face the reality, then yeah, they're gonna keep they're gonna keep driving behavior and patterns and systems, behind the scenes, sowing destruction.

Anthony McLean  08:27

I love that image of I think it's Super Mario Brothers. I don't know if you played that growing up?

Jonathan Puddle  08:34

Of course.

Anthony McLean  08:35

But the ghosts right in what's with the castle, a browser's Castle, right. When you face the ghosts, they freeze. But when you turn away, they chase you. And how? And how many of us, right? We instead of like, facing our feelings and being honest with what we feel, we might self medicate. We might over spiritualize and deny it. No, no, there's nothing wrong because I have Jesus. So I can't be sad. This is not sadness. And we just kind of ignore it and turn away. And we're tormented. And so it takes a lot of courage. But yeah, I think this is what it looks like: talking about it being honest about it. Journaling about it, which is one thing that really helps me a lot.

Jonathan Puddle  09:20

Yeah, so I'm, I'm literally reading a book right now about journaling. Or trying to read it. I'm struggling. But it's by my good friend, Marc Schelske. And it's a fantastic book. And it's not out yet. He's given me a pre release copy instead of trying to give him some feedback until I actually had to message him today. And I was like, look, I'm loving this book, and I have feedback for you. But I'm struggling in myself, and I know that you can handle hearing that. But like I resisted. I spent the last two weeks resisting sending him that message. The one guy who's always like "Jonathan, as much as your capacity allows. Only ever within your health limits." This is this is a guy who, who gives those disclaimers up front. And I'm still holding back from saying, Yeah, actually, I'm in a shitty place. And so I finally and then I'm like, but then to actually send them a message, I've got to put the words together. And I've got to try and cognitively wrap myself around something that I don't actually understand or really like, I don't want to get I don't even want to get close enough to it to put cognitive words to it. So I just recorded a voice memo, I do up my friend Anthony. I never send voice memos literally until you started sending me voice memos. This is the future of communication. This is way better. And so I'm just like, send this long. rambly Hey, I love your book so much. And it's actually what I really need right now. But I can't I can't do it. But journaling is, I think, something I need to pick back up. You know, there's things we have to pick up and things we have to put down, right? Like, I'm taking a break from coffee and alcohol.

Anthony McLean  11:11

Hmm!

Jonathan Puddle  11:12

I have, I have had to do this before. And, you know, for me that I what happens in my body is I get into this, this feedback loop, where I'm feeling down, I'm feeling really low energy and depressive. And so I'm like, okay, coffee, coffee will pick me up. Now I'm not the kind of guy who who has a morning coffee or is addicted. I just really like the flavor of coffee, I hand grind my beans, I'm kind of like a real bougie coffee drinker who's not who doesn't actually need it. But I turn to it. And then it picks me up and I'm feeling good—for about 45 minutes, before it triggers my anxiety. And now I'm shaky, I'm jittery and panicky, and that's drinking half-caf. And so like if I'm on full bore, it's bad news, well, then by four or five in the afternoon, I've like I got to come down, I'm not in a good way, I need a beer, I need a glass of wine, I need a Scotch... that will help calm down my body. But this starts to become a daily cycle that I can't get out of, and I feel an awareness of what I'm doing. But I'm like right now this is better than just being stuck at a low level. Now, I've spent long enough in contemplation and meditation, that I'm aware, I can actually get back to an equilibrium sometimes through silent contemplation and meditation. But that also requires a certain bandwidth to do that I don't always have. So anyway, all that's to say, I've currently cut out coffee. I've cut out most alcohol like like, if I'm sitting down with my family, for like, I might have a glass of wine. That's not the same as day drinking to survive. At least that's how I'm justifying it today. You know.

Anthony McLean  13:05

No, I get it, I get.

Jonathan Puddle  13:07

So  I'm dropping those things. And then I'm picking back up some of the rhythms that clearly I need. And again, it's kind of like, there's only so much that you can that you can do you know, you can't hustle your way to wholeness. But sometimes you do need to be a little a little intentional about the systems and rhythms. And that's sort of what I'm trying to like, okay, Jonathan, what do you need?

Anthony McLean  13:27

Yeah. Oooh, that is... So that's such a great question. Think about that. Asking yourself. Jonathan, what do you need? Anthony, what do you need? Oh, my goodness, this idea of like taking care of yourself, the way you would take care of a child that you're responsible for, the way you would take care of a child that you love. Thinking of yourself as that child and taking care of yourself intentionally. What do I need? Because as a dad, now my kids are older than 14 and 15. But when they were young, if they were getting, you know, just kind of wild and they're just kind of out of sorts, I can recognize as a parent, I can look from the outside and say, you need a nap. And my three year old son would be like, No, I don't need a nap. I don't want to nap and you know, spinning around and and in hysterics, and then 15 minutes later, he's sleeping and peaceful and he wakes up and he's good. And so it was up for me to say like, no, no, this is what you need. And I would enforce that. But now the task of being an adult is parenting ourselves. And so having permission as a parent as a, you know, busy person to pause and check-in and ask questions like What is coffee doing to me? What is why am I drinking so much? And what do I need? I love that.

Jonathan Puddle  14:58

Yeah, yeah. And I struggle to articulate that often, often to answer that question is challenging for me. I think it can be challenging to many people and challenging often to men. Certainly, as an Enneagram Type Two, I, my framework is that everybody else has needs, and my job is to help meet their needs. That's how I serve. That's where I fit in the cosmology. But the fact that I have needs, you know, I mean, I talk about this on The Puddcast all the time. So trying to actually sit down for a minute, and actually just do it. Okay, well, I need a hug... I need and if there's nobody around, right now that I need to rub my arms, and I need to maybe pull down the blanket, pull down the blinds, and I can still hear the children in the house. And I know they're safe. And I know my mother is watching them, but I can still hear them. So actually, what I need is to get to get my headphones, headphones in so that I don't hear them. And then I need to put on some very chill Brian Eno so that I can just be okay. And then I can go through my breathing exercises. And then I can, I can grab a copy of You Are Enough and actually walk myself back through my own stuff, right? Like it's, I don't know, it's, I have this weird relationship with that book, where every week people send me their stories about how it's changed their life and how they're found a safety with God that they've never known. You know, maybe they've been religious people and they've never known God is safe and loving. And this book has helped them. Okay, that's great. Praise God. Wonderful. It's a privilege. But for me to read that book, for myself, often feels weird. Like, you know, do you listen as a musician to your own music sometimes, like I do, as a DJ, listen to my own recordings. But I have this kind of a weird relationship with it. And then, but then it's doubly weird because I wrote this book out of my own journey. So I shouldn't have a weird relationship with it. If anything, it should be like reading my own journal. But there's an aspect of writing that is a craft and is slightly performative. So anyway, I have, I have a weird relationship with that book. And I, I struggle to pick it up and read it for me, which is exactly what I need. So sometimes I just listened to the meditations. And I listened to myself walk myself through the meditations. And that's fine, because that doesn't feel like content... that just feels like meditation.

Anthony McLean  17:19

That makes so much sense, though, of course. But the fact that you wrote a book out of a place of this is the healing that I needed. And this is the healing that worked for me, this is how I came to know God as safe and loving. And then giving that to the world. I mean, that's just so beautiful. Which is actually the perfect segue into when I heard you were gonna write a second book... so You Are Enough, had a profound impact on me. Both that day in the cemetery, I was in tears as those words "you are enough",  were spoken over me. And you walked me through seeing myself as a child. That's the first time I've ever experienced that, and thinking of myself and parenting myself, and what does the four year old Anthony need to hear? As you walk me through that I was in tears, and it's changed my life. And so when I heard you were gonna write another book, I was like, Oh, my goodness, I cannot wait to see the journey that this book takes me on. And then I heard it was a men's devotional, and I'm like, yo, Puddle sold out, man, he sold out. This is what happens to rappers, they drop like a really good album, and then they do some commercial stuff, just to make the money. And I'm like, Man, Puddle sold out.

Jonathan Puddle  17:34

Gotta pay da bills...

Anthony McLean  18:43

Gotta pay da bills. I'm like, "A men's devotional?! Come on, man!"

Jonathan Puddle  18:49

I had the exact same reaction.

Anthony McLean  18:51

Did you really?

Jonathan Puddle  18:52

Yeah, I didn't want to write a men's devotional at all. A publisher a publisher came out and came after me they they sort of done with You Are Enough and I guess they'd found my blog as well. And and they just said, Hey, we're, we're creating a men's devotional, we're looking for a writer. We've already scoped it out, at least... they hadn't scoped out the content they had just basically scoped out the concept and the length and and just a few parameters but they were looking for someone to come and do all the all the writing. And that's kind of like yeah, no. Hard pass. That does not interest me.

Anthony McLean  19:27

Because why?

Jonathan Puddle  19:28

Because men like okay, a men's like you said already said men's devotionals are awful. I used to run a Christian bookstore.

Anthony McLean  19:35

I knew you then!

Jonathan Puddle  19:36

Devotionals and journals are the were the bread and butter of the bookstore, but but specifically to women, and men's devotionals are typically about golf or guns. Army camo covers, and are just full of trite garbage. Often, often they're really actually quite shaming You know, and they're kind of like, like, I don't know if you remember Mark Driscoll back in the day?

Anthony McLean  20:06

Oh!

Jonathan Puddle  20:06

He was so savage...

Anthony McLean  20:08

oh man

Jonathan Puddle  20:08

...to the men in his church. And that was his whole grid for how to call men up to a higher standard. And you know what the men did? They loved it. They ate it up... until until it made them sick.

Anthony McLean  20:21

Yeah.

Jonathan Puddle  20:22

You know, and I mean, if anyone who's not Mars Hill, that podcast is a piece of work, man. Anyway, so yeah, men's devotionals are terrible. And and to be honest, like Men's Ministry is terrible, right? Like the, who wants to go to breakfast at 6am with a bunch of guys? Not me. Now, talk to me about brunch and mimosas at 11. That's like, yeah, anyway, so. So I was kind of like, not really that interested. But then Marc Schelske , who's probably besides you, one of the most pivotal friends in my writing relationship, my writing career, he said, Jonathan, you could bring something really unique to this space, if you wanted to, you know, if you were just yourself, and I think I think you could do something really fun and interesting. And so I thought, yeah, maybe I could, you know, and then I kind of thought a bit more about it. And then and then I found out that I would have no theological gatekeeping at all. And I basically could just pull 365 proof texts for my theology. And that would be okay. And I was like, well, then, okay, maybe we maybe we could have some fun. So, you know, yeah, I still kind of apologize to people when they see... when I'm like,  Yeah, My new book is called. Mornings with God.

Anthony McLean  21:42

Oh, that's great. I really love that idea.

Jonathan Puddle  21:44

Yeah, it's pretty cool. Daily daily Bible Devotional from from men...

Anthony McLean  21:48

Sorry, I didn't catch that last part, for...

Jonathan Puddle  21:51

for men.

Anthony McLean  21:52

Oh it's a it's a men's devotional.

Jonathan Puddle  21:54

It isn't okay, it's a men's motion. But the gendered content is very, very, very, very light. As you know. I think there's maybe three or four times where I say something like, as brothers, as men.

Anthony McLean  22:06

Well, this is what I want to jump into. Because anything that I was so happy when I began reading it, because anything you say about men in this book is addressing like toxic masculinity, or an invitation to look at masculinity differently. So on that note, I want to crack open the book that I have been loving. And in the introduction, you say, "It is a confusing time for men. Growing up in the 80s my role models were cool, strong and unemotional, like Sly Stallone. Today, we're expected to be tender and compassionate, like Paul Rudd. That's not an easy pivot for anyone." Dude, I have to ask you, because that's exactly what it's been in my lifetime. I remember growing up Sly Stallone and Rambo, and he's just like this, you know, just just being strong and not in no emotion other than anger. And then this shift that's happened to this compassionate person. How did you come up with that specific comparison, Sly Stallone to Paul Rudd?

Jonathan Puddle  23:15

I love introductions for books, I find them really satisfying and fun to write. I know hardly anyone reads them. But I just find them really great fun to sort of try to situate my reader, if they if they're even gonna read it. But I was, I think, I think I wrote that on the airplane. And I was thinking about my childhood and thinking about my male role models. And I, I always had a conflicting relationship with masculinity from from a young young age like I was not sporty, or particularly athletic. And I grew up in New Zealand, which was sports crazy. And furthermore, I have big, big emotions and always have, and men are expected to be stoic and cool and calm. And, you know, again, like you said, anger is really the only permitted male emotion for for a lot of our upbringing. And, and I think like, yeah, what do you think about when you think of Sly Stallone, right? Like he's angry. He's violent, Rambo, Cliffhanger. You know, Rocky. I thought he he was really a picture I think of of this kind of masculinity. More so than even like Arnold who I preferred as an actor, but Arnold got really goofy in a way that I think I actually found very freeing as a child to see a man be silly. To see a man pretend to be a woman and pretend to be pregnant. Like those are ridiculous movies, but they actually spoke to me in a way that Sly Stallone has never spoken to me.

Anthony McLean  24:49

Wow.

Jonathan Puddle  24:51

What anyway, I just was like, oh, so where are we at today? And then all of a sudden, I was like, Well, Paul Rudd was just like it was a year or two ago that he was like, sexiest man alive.

Anthony McLean  24:59

Yeah.

Jonathan Puddle  25:00

And I'm like, That is insane.

Anthony McLean  25:02

Yeah.

Jonathan Puddle  25:02

That is wild. That that pivot from from that kind of machismo to kindness to Paul Rudd, who throws this big event every year in his hometown and like, gives all the money to kids in hospitals and walks through the hospitals and meets kids. And it's like, like, by all reports that I have heard, Paul Rudd is a genuinely delightful human being.

Anthony McLean  25:29

Yeah, yeah. And he, I love his pranks on Conan.

Jonathan Puddle  25:35

Right? Right, right.

Anthony McLean  25:36

I mean, if you have not seen his pranks on Conan. Just Google Paul Rudd pranks Conan, it's just great.

Jonathan Puddle  25:42

Which is not to say that, that Sylvester Stallone is a bad person. But, of course, but I mean, that's a separate conversation. Either way, nobody told me how to get from A to B on that pivot.

Anthony McLean  25:57

Mhmmm.

Jonathan Puddle  25:57

I don't think anyone told any of us how to do it. Right? Like, we're out here without a map without a guide. And we're out here in a in a, in a moment, a good a good and right cultural moment, where we are being asked to take a back seat. We have been said, you know, especially men, you know, of my color, and sexuality and gender, and everything. You know, you have had the microphone for a really long time. You have you have set the direction of discourse, for centuries, for millennia. It is time to listen to men and women of color and of different identities and all the different intersect intersections.

Anthony McLean  26:41

Yeah.

Jonathan Puddle  26:42

And so not only are white men and all men, but not only are we confused about how to be healthy men, we're also being invited to shut up and listen. Which is, which is not something many of us are familiar with. And so then, you know, tragically, we see men acting out and, and lashing out, right? Every single school shooting is a young white male.

Anthony McLean  27:11

Man.

Jonathan Puddle  27:13

And so these guys are really stuck. And clearly really suffering. And then being told, you know, it's not your turn to talk about your suffering, because we need to shine a light on the suffering that's not been talked about for a long, long, long time. And I am 100%. I'm 100% behind that.

Anthony McLean  27:38

Yeah.

Jonathan Puddle  27:39

That needs to happen. That is right and good. And I don't know, man, like I feel for these guys. I feel for men. I have I have compassion and empathy for men. But I also, I don't know, it's complex. I don't want to go out there and help men. I feel like men are the worst. I want nothing to do with it. I like I like women I like, like children, like, men are... I've always felt frustrated by men. So I think it was a Yeah, again, I feel like it was a weird, a weird thing for me to write this book. And yet I was basically okay, I'm just gonna be me. I'm gonna serve it up.

Anthony McLean  28:18

Yeah.

Jonathan Puddle  28:19

I'm gonna offer an opportunity for you guys to look at Jesus in Scripture, because I do not care to write 365 verses that you should memorize and that you should like, apply good rules to your life and be a good Bible moralist. I'm like, Look, that's not the reason I follow Jesus. I follow Jesus, because I find in him a relentless tenacious, kindness and grace, that I need. And it shows me a different way to be a man. And it shows me a way to see power and strength in a whole way that I've never seen before. Well, I can spend 365 days pointing you to that Jesus in all the places in scripture that I find him. And maybe, maybe that's a better usage of our time and energy.

Anthony McLean  29:11

I'm so glad it was you. Because, like you said, it's so easy to find devotionals with like, you know, camo and guns and hunting and fishing, and we are men rrrrrrr. And that just doesn't resonate with me at all, and it's not helpful at all. And for me growing up. I remember man, like fifth grade. I remember like, you're 10 years old. And it's about sports. It's about athletics. It's about confidence. It's about being tough, not letting anyone disrespect you. I remember the I remember the term and people still say today, yo you're gonna let him talk to you like that? Right? Or what about this? I remember this. Oh, I don't want to say but I remember this man in like, High School. and stuff like that, "Yo, watch your girl." You know your girls like as in like, put your girl in place. And then you become a dad. And it's like you better have your kids in and you know your kids are in submission, you can get them..., don't let him talk back to you. My kids ain't gonna talk back to me, I'm gonna put them in their place. And all of that, like, don't let your kids talk back to you and make sure you watch your girl and you're gonna let him talk to you like that, all of that stuff is the threat of violence.

Jonathan Puddle  30:30

Exactly, exactly.

Anthony McLean  30:32

That's what it is. It's like, Yo, get ready to be violent in order to assert your dominance and your masculinity. And I remember just feeling so unsafe, and so scared. I remember I didn't know how to fight like, I had never like been in a fight. Okay, actually hold on rewind, because Chris Ford might be listening, and he's gonna remember sixth grade gym class. T said it was out of bounds. I said the ball was not out of bounds. And he threw the ball at me. And I tried to punch him and he ducked. And it was like the craziest thing that happened in grade six that year. So anyone listening from Holy Trinity in Richmond Hill, Ontario, I'm acknowledging the grade six fight that happened in gym class. But aside from that, I never I had never been in a fight. And I remember I was in like, 12th grade. And I liked a girl, but another guy like this girl, and he was sending threats to me, he was gonna beat me up, I'm gonna do this, do this. And I was terrified. But part of like, the code that's like, encoded in the playground in like grade two, is, don't ever be vulnerable. Don't ever let anyone see that you're scared, or weak, don't cry. Like, you can't, you can't have any weakness. And you can't open up about your weakness. And I remember I was terrified that I was gonna get beat up. I knew I didn't know how to fight. I'm naturally kind of strong, and I happen to be tall. So I'm tall. I'm black. I look athletic. I'm in good shape. I don't know how to fight. And so I'm terrified on the inside. And I'm so scared. But I can't tell anyone that. And I feel like that journey of masculinity was so unhealthy for me. It was so toxic and destructive. And I see so much growth in society and personally, and what it means to be a man and like looking at what are we saying, when we say, Get your kids in order? What do we actually say?

Jonathan Puddle  32:42

Yeah, for sure. For sure. No, it's exactly the same. And I feel like we were Yeah, we you had you. You kind of had only one option, or I guess one or two options, right? If you if you were you a man was strong and violent, and unemotional. Or you would be called, you know, homosexual slurs, and homophobic terms if you were somehow perceived to be tender, or weak, or if you were to cry, then the worst things you could be called were either a girl

Anthony McLean  33:20

 Mm hmm.

Jonathan Puddle  33:22

Or, you know, to be called gay. Using that in a derogatory way.

Anthony McLean  33:27

Yeah.

Jonathan Puddle  33:28

And I'm like, it's just really weird. Like, in addition to obviously being toxic and terrible and stupid, it makes no sense. Right? Like, I mean, I love women. Like, yeah, you're married to a woman. We have women in our lives. We have moms. Why would?! Obviously, you know, it's like, it comes back to I think it was a Madonna, right? There's, like, somebody has lyrics in their song where it's like, you know, it's, it's, a woman can wear man's clothes. But but a man will not wear women's clothes because they feel that that's, that's, you know, somehow revolting or less than. Because why? Because do we think that women are less than? There's obviously there's layers to that, but it's just like, This is so absurd. This is this is so absurd. And, and yeah, so we end up we end up in this space today, where, where everybody is given being given, hopefully, more permission to find more ways of occupying space, and of identifying their body. But, you know, we're now trying to raise children in a more open and, and healing and helpful way. But while still trying to figure out our shit along the way, right? Like that, unless you've spent time with a good therapist, and, and a good child psychologist, and a good spiritual director, and, you know, all of these things and maybe Uh, sexual health and like, like all these layers, like how do we even have a grid for how to be men? How to be ourselves? How to foster it? You know, my son, my son's 13. And he's hanging out with all kinds of cool people. And he's got great friends and guys and girls, and I didn't have any female friends, partly because I was scared of being called insults if I spent too much time with girls—which again, is weird, that guys would even do that—And B, then purity culture kind of swept in for me in the years that I was in church, that it was basically like, oh, yeah, you can't have female friendship, because it will end in sex. And that would be the worst case outcome. And so I'm now looking at my son, who spent all of grade seven, his grade seven class, they put, for whatever reason, all of his guy friend's in a different class. And he ended up only with girls that he's known for, like most of his school career. And guess who got the best grades this year? And the principal's award for overall excellence.

Anthony McLean  36:07

Wow.

Jonathan Puddle  36:07

What is like grades and kindness and school spirit and presence. And I'm going, This is amazing. Look at this kid.

Anthony McLean  36:16

I'm seeing the same thing with my kids. It's like the way the world is changing. And I know it's messy, and it's sloppy, and we're in a time of transition. And it's scary, because if you say the wrong thing, you'll get cancelled. And there's confusion. And it's like, I know, it's like we're in a time of transition right now. And I do think it's going to... 10 years from now, I think it's going to be in a much healthier, more natural place. But the good that's coming from all of this, people kind of like you know, talk about woke culture in a derogatory sense, and, you know, the woke police and cancel culture, in the end, they talk about in a derogatory sense. And I do see when it goes too far, for sure. Because there's got to be room for grace and growth and forgiveness. I say the wrong thing and helped me to learn why that's wrong. And then let me give me a chance to reflect on that and then change. That's as a whole... I love when Jesus said repent, because it's like, yeah, change the way you think, you know what I mean?

Jonathan Puddle  37:10

Which and the Greek in there is not about apologizing. Like, it's it's "change your mind."

Anthony McLean  37:15

That's right. Metanoia.

Jonathan Puddle  37:17

Change your mind.

Anthony McLean  37:18

Yeah, it's a paradigm shift.

Jonathan Puddle  37:20

Absolutely.

Anthony McLean  37:21

It's funny because that was a repent and people think about like this angry religious preacher like, Oh, you're bad, have shame. And it's like, No, Jesus walking around, saying, "Paradigm shift!" You gotta change the way you think.

Jonathan Puddle  37:32

Learn and grow!

Anthony McLean  37:34

Learn and grow!

Jonathan Puddle  37:35

Change your worldview!

Anthony McLean  37:38

So beautiful. This is the Jesus I've been looking for my whole life. I love it. I love it. I love it. But this invitation right now into thinking about others, what would it be like to be a gay teenager at my school? What would it be like to be a girl who's told that your breasts make you a temptation to guys, so cave, your shoulders and wear sweaters and if you're wearing a tank top because it's hot, like you're making someone else sin. Your very presence here, is causing...

Jonathan Puddle  38:13

Your existence.

Anthony McLean  38:14

Your existence as you naturally are, your body that God made. Is a stumbling block and it is offensive. And you are responsible for that guy over there who's perverted.

Jonathan Puddle  38:30

Like that's bonkers, like, and but we were taught this stuff.

Anthony McLean  38:33

We were taught this stuff. Know, Jesus said, If a guy's sin, if a guy is lusting after it's up to the guy to pluck out his own eye, but we somehow came up with...

Jonathan Puddle  38:41

I did not hear that in youth group.

Anthony McLean  38:43

No, I didn't hear that either. I wasn't a youth group in in teenage years, but I heard it later, right. And now having that perspective of empathy, right, whoever you are, I'm a black man. But if I was a girl, if I was a member of the LGBTQ+ community, wherever I am, in my intersection in society, I think right now, it's beautiful, because we are being invited to think about others, which is what Jesus said. He said, treat other people the way you would want to be treated. Put yourself in that person's shoes, what would it be like to be them? And how can we make a world that is safe for everyone? That's the task of our generation. I see it happening. I see growth, and in many ways, I'm very encouraged.

Jonathan Puddle  39:31

Yeah, yeah, me too. Me too. I agree immensely. I'm a hopeful, optimistic person. And honestly, I, I have been sliding towards cynicism lately. And I was at church on Sunday. And, and my friend, our pastor just said, you know, I think I think God's offering to restore some things to people. Is there something that you need? What I felt the Spirit say, was like I'm giving you offering you hope back. And I was like, oh man I need that. So when I'm hopeful, I feel like what we're seeing in the violent out lashing of kind of really fundamentalist conservatism and other labels that might be applied. But But this kind of nasty white male thing that's rearing... I think it's like the last gasp, I hope it's the last gasp, right? Like, I feel like, it's probably still gonna get messier, before it gets better. On on the whole, at least on a on a mile high view, there's going to get more rage and chaos still. I don't think we've plumbed the depths of that, unfortunately. But we're already seeing such incredible signs in our youth, in our children. Filtering slowly into our churches... very slowly. But...

Jonathan Puddle  40:02

Oh wait, hold on. This is news to me. Is it filtering it to the church? Oh, this is great news. I didn't know.

Jonathan Puddle  41:08

I know, a handful of churches that are that are using this same kind of language.

Anthony McLean  41:16

Good. You know, I shouldn't have done that.

Jonathan Puddle  41:18

No, no, it's fun. No, honestly, I get... well if you want to repent for yourself, fine. But but it's real. It's so real. I can show you my calendar right now, is full every day I'm having calls with people who are saying, I'm done. I'm done. I'm done. I'm done. But I do want to hold on to Jesus somehow. And I don't know how, and how have you done it? How did it work for you?

Anthony McLean  41:40

Yeah.

Jonathan Puddle  41:41

And that's, of course, is the wrong... I can't answer that question. But I can, I can help them maybe find a way that works for them. Because what will work for me is not going to work for them. But this is a... thing coming back to our children, like get your children in line, right is like I remember years back, realizing one day, I'm going to stand before the creator and my children are going to stand here beside me. And I don't get the lord anything over them. They're just human beings that I was invited to steward for a time. They're God's before their mine. And will be God's again. And they're all Yeah. So I just get to hopefully, impart a little bit and hopefully get to heal a little bit of went before me bring a little bit of redemption.

Anthony McLean  42:28

Come on.

Jonathan Puddle  42:30

And it rather than sewing more pain and discord actually healing some of the breach

Anthony McLean  42:36

come on

Jonathan Puddle  42:36

and handing them more than I was handed.

Anthony McLean  42:39

Come on!

Jonathan Puddle  42:40

which is no insult to the generations before me, because hopefully, they have been working the same way. And I know for a fact that my parents handed me more than they were handed, like for a fact. And my dad says to me now he's like, man, the stuff that you are figuring out at your age, this is wild. Yeah. And he's like one of my biggest fans, and he's like, I loved your book. I learned so much on it. I wish I knew these things when I was your age. And I'm like, yeah cool. But But we continue.

Anthony McLean  43:08

Yo, this, to me, this is the point of life: is to take it a little farther than the generation before us. And my mom just came to visit us. So I live in LA now, I grew up in Canada, of course. But I live in LA now. And she came for the first time visit us this summer. And we had some some powerful discussions with my son who's 15. And you know, my family, you know, she's she's British, my dad's Jamaican. And in the British culture, and in the Jamaican culture, secrecy around family shame is like the unspoken agreement. You do not speak about the shame that has happened in family, you don't talk about it, you keep it a secret, you take it to your grave. But that's not healthy, and it's not good. And we have studies that show that kids who grow up hearing about the ups and downs of their family line, they have more resilience, and when hard times come and they will come, they'll know "Well, I know my family's gone through stuff. I know we've gone through stuff and we've survived so I can go through this." Whereas kids that only think like everything is shiny, you know, I never saw my parents arguing and I thought, you know, relationships are supposed to be... and now I'm arguing with the person that I thought was my soulmate. Maybe we're not meant to be together?! All this all this stuff. When you see the reality and you see the brokenness, you see the pain and parents are honest about their mistakes and what they did wrong. That's what happened with when when my mom was here and we had some real heartfelt conversations. And she apologized for stuff and I told her kind of what you just said about like no shame on the generation before. My mom grew up in a very abusive of home and what she went through with hell as a kid. And she never hit me. She never did. She did better than her parents who probably did better than their parents. Right? And so, and now I've taken all the good that she's given me, and I'm giving it to my kids. And so all the good stuff that she did for me, I'm continuing that. And then the stuff that she regrets I've learned from and I'm trying not to pass that on. And I think that is like the point of existence.

Jonathan Puddle  45:33

Yeah. And you know what that requires? Courage. Faithfulness, tenacity.

Anthony McLean  45:41

Yeah.

Jonathan Puddle  45:43

Discernment. Wisdom.

Anthony McLean  45:46

Wisdom. Yeah.

Jonathan Puddle  45:48

Talking.

Anthony McLean  45:49

Yeah, strategies.

Jonathan Puddle  45:51

Those are things that I think we can say our masculine... should be, can be, are allowed to be masculine values. And not and not to the exclusion of saying that they're only masculine values, and they're not also feminine or non-binary values. No, we're not saying that. But we can grab hold of those things and say, okay, strength gets to look like this.

Anthony McLean  46:11

Yeah.

Jonathan Puddle  46:12

Courage gets to look like this.

Anthony McLean  46:14

Yeah, yeah.

Jonathan Puddle  46:16

I remember that episode. There's, you know, I grew up on on Fresh Prince, and a few episodes that struck me, and I'm sure did to many. You know, one, one were Will is, is wrestling with his dad, why his dad, why he wasn't good enough for his dad, you know, and he breaks down, and Uncle Phil holds him Oh, man, that that wrecked me. But the one that comes to mind, is when he goes back home to Philly, and meets up with the bully on the basketball court. And Will's there to, to kind of like, right the wrong, and he's planning to I think, you know, challenge this guy. But this guy has moved on. And he's got a bunch of young kids that he's mentoring. And Will's kind of shouting at him. And he's saying, Well, what about your reputation? And he's like, Well, this is my reputation now.

Anthony McLean  47:10

Oh, come on.

Jonathan Puddle  47:13

And I remember like watching that 13, 14 younger maybe, years old and just being like, Oooh, that is a kind of strength. That is a kind of courage. Ahh yeah.

Anthony McLean  47:31

I love that. I love that. And that's why I love these conversations that are happening. I don't want to be cynical. That's why I said, Oh, I should have said that about the church. Because Because cynicism is is, is rearing its ugly head in my heart, too. And I'm going through the same thing where it's like, I don't want to part of some of the stuff that I'm seeing in the evangelical church. But I really want Jesus. But I'm like nauseated and like disgusted by some of the stuff happening in the church. And I need to have more conversations like this. And in your book, one of the things that struck me was this passage that gave me so much life. So I'm now going to read to you your own words. And this is from day 21. Created good, still good. Scripture is Genesis one, God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And here's what you wrote: "There's a belief held by some folks that all humanity became bad and wretched because of Adam and Eve's original sin. And that creation itself is now cursed." (This is what I was taught.) "I think that gives far too much credit to evil. God called his creation good. So what can stand against that? Are we wounded and in need of healing? Sure. Lost in need of the Savior. Absolutely. But nothing in creation is bad or cursed. God calls us very good." Talk to me about that. Because that's what I was taught.

Jonathan Puddle  49:14

Yeah, same, same, same. That was that's what I was taught. But you know, what's crazy? The Orthodox Church weren't taught that.

Anthony McLean  49:21

Oh wow.

Jonathan Puddle  49:23

As I started digging into some of the Church Fathers, I was like, huh, there's, there's whole streams within the church that never bought in to this idea of, of original sin as a as a curse that gets passed down simply by the fact that you're born of women, and you know, you are trapped. You never even chose to be born. But by being born, you're now a sinful creature. Because of, you know, millennia ago, somebody made a mistake one time and now because you're humanly born in that line, you are cursed to. And so if you don't manage to find God and opt out of a sin system that you never intentionally opted into in the first place, then you get tortured in hell for all eternity. And we call that the righteousness of God.

Anthony McLean  50:16

Eeewww, hold on, I got slime on me, man.

Jonathan Puddle  50:19

It's slimy! Your whole body reacts to that. It's because because it should because your body knows it's batshit crazy. And I think the fact is, is there's parts of us that have never forgotten that they're good.

Anthony McLean  50:30

Oof!

Jonathan Puddle  50:30

We just, we just haven't called them good. We just haven't used the language because I think, you know, we were given different language we were, we were around and again, okay, look, don't get me wrong. We have a mountain of evidence around us all day long, to remind us that we make mistakes. And the logical conclusion we often come to is, well, I am bad. The fruit of my life seems often so bad, that I must be bad. But you're not bad. You're good. You're just broken, you're frail, you're afraid. You're trying to survive. You're trying to do the best you can with what you got. But you're good. And if you weren't good, you wouldn't care.

Anthony McLean  51:08

Wow.

Jonathan Puddle  51:11

And even the fact that you get angry, right? Like, like, we get pissed off at any number of things. Okay? Like, the things that don't go right. And our children who won't go to my some of my kids are young, and they won't go to bed at night, and oh, gah, and I'm missing out on my evening and my plans. Okay, so anger is the emotion we feel when our plans are violated or something gets blocked, or someone that we care about gets hurt or violated, okay. Well, that reveals that we care about things. Reveals that we have plans. That reveals... the very fact that we get angry reveals that we are fundamentally hope filled creatures expecting good things to happen.

Anthony McLean  51:47

Oh. Give me a second. That's so good. I need to listen back to that man. That is so good. You know, I've been seeing I've been seeing the the the error, and the arrogance, of this idea of the church being the only source of purity and goodness, and everything outside of like Christianity is evil. And I like just looking at history. You know, this was this was taught, right? This is a, you know, yeah, this is, you know, colonialism and all that stuff, conquering the world and every other country, their savages until we bring them Christianity, right. And there's no goodness, you know what I mean? Suppose so it's not

Jonathan Puddle  52:43

nothing of value to be discovered out there.

Anthony McLean  52:46

nothing of value except what we bring. Right. So. And when Paul, I guess, Acts 17. And he's wandering around, and was it? I can't remember where he was. Maybe it's...

Jonathan Puddle  52:58

Where he's talking about the unknown God? Yeah, yeah. He's in Athens. And I was just there. And I stood on the exact spot where, you know, maybe not the exact spot, but I stood on Mars Hill, the Areopagus...

Anthony McLean  53:10

Oh my goodness.

Jonathan Puddle  53:12

Where Paul said you Greeks have a temple to an unknown god.

Anthony McLean  53:17

Wow.

Jonathan Puddle  53:18

Well, I will tell you about him. I will tell you about it. I'll tell you about them, you know, yeah, the term doesn't matter.

Anthony McLean  53:23

And he said, and he said, as some of your own poets have said, some of your poets have gotten it. Right. That's it. Right. You know, so many people look at is like, everything is bad. Everything is evil. You know what I mean? Like yoga is evil. It's like how is stretching your body and breathing evil? Come on. Are you telling me that, that in all of the beautiful cultures in the world, you're telling me none of it was inspired by God? Except when Christianity came? That is a load of junk.

Jonathan Puddle  53:55

Yeah. And it's yeah, it's genuinely junk. It's so bogus. I mean, I have Okay, if that's where you've come from, don't hear us insult you. Because I understand. We only know we know.

Anthony McLean  54:09

MHmm.

Jonathan Puddle  54:11

I had a very fragile faith, because I believed in a very fragile God.

Anthony McLean  54:16

Oof!

Jonathan Puddle  54:19

But the bigger My God has got? Man, I don't even and it's the irony is that is that I could say, you might say, well, the bigger My God has got, the bigger my faith has got Sure. Oh, my God, my faith has gotten bigger. But but also, I'm just trusting God to catch every last one of us. And if if scripture says that, in Colossians, that Christ holds all of creation together, that the very atoms and metaphysical building blocks of the universe are actually sustained actively moment by moment by Christ? There is no way that you can go and nothing that you can do that you can't find Christ somehow active within. Which doesn't mean that God is to blame for all the bad things. But he's actively present in the bad things, and the good things relentlessly bringing more good out of them. And if we can build a faith on that kind of God, you know, who is present in all things, holding all things together, catching us when we fall? Well, that is quite robust, I dare say. And we can participate in yoga, and we can go to Burning Man, and we can do all these things that we maybe felt drawn to do, because our body knew there was some goodness in it. That, you know, our leaders didn't understand. Parents and our bosses and whomever didn't understand and told us that it would be bad for us. So well, they they mostly, I think we're looking out for our best interests. Some, of course, were toxic. Some, of course, were manipulative and abusive, but most were just doing what they could with thought they knew. But we know more. And so we can do more. God is what is... "The earth is the Lord's and everything in it.!" That's, that's why there's a few verses that are kind of like the bedrock of my faith. And what's funny is, I don't even know if I actually covered them all in this book, but my grandparents had Romans 8:38-39, printed on a plaquw in their bathroom growing up, and I'm like, a three times a day pooper. So three times a day, I would sit there and read this verse, "For I am convinced that nothing in all creation can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus." There it is. Day 86. Well done.

Anthony McLean  56:56

Day 86. Right there.

Jonathan Puddle  56:57

I couldn't remember where it was.

Anthony McLean  57:00

Wait, can I can I can I share what you said about it? And then I want to hear what you were you were. It's funny because I had this marked and I want to talk to you about so I can't believe you just brought it up. So you go on to say on Day 86: Growing up I was taught that sin separates us from God. The Apostle Paul would disagree. What then do we say of sin? I believe it blinds us to the closeness of God's presence. We feel separated from God. So we act as if we were, but it's a lie. God is and has always been right here with you.

Jonathan Puddle  57:36

That sounds like good theology. I'm glad I wrote it.

Anthony McLean  57:40

It gives me life. It gives me life.

Jonathan Puddle  57:43

That's the funny thing about writing, right? Is that is that you polish it and you have a team, right? Like not like, some of that sentence structure isn't mine, right? My editors refined it and refined it and refined it. And these these devotional entries are so short. There's they're just the tiniest little nugget. So I had I had a great team there that helped me with some of that sentence structure, which I think makes it punchier. But yeah, absolutely. "Sin separates us from God." That was sort of like the most basic thing that I was that I was taught. And at the same time, I'm sitting there confronted by this plaque in my grandparents bathroom every all day long.

Anthony McLean  58:19

By the way, three times a day good on you.

Jonathan Puddle  58:21

Yeah, like 3 times, 4 times even. Like a good day is four times, like it feels like forgiveness of sins to me, man, like, I love it. Like I take similar joy in making a bowel movement as I do in like, having my garbage collected each Monday, like it just gives me great joy. OK so Paul breaks it down. In that verse. It's fantastic. He says, For I'm convinced that neither death, (now make a mental note and see if he's covered everything, okay?) neither death nor life. neither angels nor demons, whatever those are, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else.

Anthony McLean  59:08

You already had it all, but it's like a lawyer's clause where it's like for all eternity and perpetuity throughout the universe.

Jonathan Puddle  59:14

Paul's like I was raised a Pharisee. And I can play this game all day long. Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, and also nothing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. And then and then corollary for that is, is Psalm 139. Right? If I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I make my bed in Sheol, the place of the dead, even there your love find me.

Jonathan Puddle  59:40

So, sin cannot separate us from God. Actually, in any in any genuinely, objectively, you know, real sense. And yet, what do we do with the fact that we feel separate from God all the time? And the world is full of destruction. Sin runs rampant across the earth. Like, injustice is everywhere. So, so what makes sense to me is that sin, you know, sin blinds us to the close presence of God. Sin, you know, which is really just, I mean sin isn't, I think, increasingly I think sin is not even a very helpful word, because we have so much baggage attached with it. So how about, we put it this way: You were born into a frail, breakable human body that you didn't choose. So you have only ever been trying to figure out how to survive your entire life long. And sometimes you have reached for things in an in a righteous and sacred attempt to survive (because God says Choose life.) So So surviving is righteous and sacred. And in your attempt to live righteously you reached for things that ended up being destructive. But you didn't choose that, as least knowingly, you didn't wake up and choose violence. So because of our, our woundedness, our brokenness, our frailty, we end up making mistakes. And that's the human condition. That's normal. That's okay. Because it's no curse. And it's, and it's no obstacle to God. You know, when you're when your baby filled their diapers, you know, you might not have appreciated the smell, but you clean them. That's what you do. And because that's what babies do, it's in their nature to soil themselves, and they don't yet have the capacity to not, and it's in it's your nature and your job, and indeed, I daresay your great pleasure, to clean them and restore them. And God is no different... God is God is only more that than than we are. So you know, when when we feel separate from God, we fear that we are separate from God. And we have a mountain of physical evidence around us to suggest erroneously, that we are far from God, that God can't tolerate us. So we just continually live in that stuck, broken kind of place where all we're doing is the best we can. But the story I believe, is that when we didn't choose human life, and wouldn't because it ends in death and it's horrible, God did choose human life. Jesus chose to be human, and come down here and live this life, knowing it would end in death. So he does what we all, we won't do. What we don't do, he did. And, and in that process, he experiences I think, what we experienced with Jesus hanging on the cross, you know, and he says, My God, My God, why have you forsaken me? I don't think God's forsaken him for a minute. How could God forsake God, right? Jesus is the what does Paul say, the visible image of the invisible God. So So Christ, God is in Colossians God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself. So God has not forsaken him. He's actively present there. But Jesus in His humanity has taken on all the sin of the human race, and for the first time ever experiences it the way we do. He's blinded to the close presence of his father.

Anthony McLean  1:03:34

Wow.

Jonathan Puddle  1:03:35

But his father has not moved.

Anthony McLean  1:03:38

Wow.

Jonathan Puddle  1:03:41

Right? Like I can close my eyes, and I am blinded to the close digital presence of my friend Anthony.

Anthony McLean  1:03:46

Yeah.

Jonathan Puddle  1:03:47

Who may as well be lost to me. But you haven't moved.

Anthony McLean  1:03:51

Wow.

Jonathan Puddle  1:03:52

You're still right here.

Anthony McLean  1:03:54

Wow. Imagine me saying to my son, when he was younger, if he if he makes a mistake, or he messes up and he does something he shouldn't have done. And he... or he makes a mess that he cannot clean up. He gets stuck, and he needs help. And I say, that's tough. But now we're separated. You're not going to see me. I'm out. I mean, it's ludicrous.

Jonathan Puddle  1:04:22

Yes. Somehow you in doing that you are granting your son an authority over you. He can't even clean up this mess but you are then telling him what you have done is so big that I can't overcome it.

Jonathan Puddle  1:04:36

Wow.

Jonathan Puddle  1:04:38

Right? Like I just don't think we have that authority over God. Put it that way.

Anthony McLean  1:04:43

So then, what do we say about sin? Is it okay then for us to just like, go crazy and just sin all we want and lie, cheat and steal and hurt people? What do you say to that?

Jonathan Puddle  1:04:54

So what's the fruit of those things in your life? Do you feel good about it?

Anthony McLean  1:04:58

Pain brokenness, broken relationships, lack of trust.

Jonathan Puddle  1:05:02

Absolutely. Does it? Does it expand? Does it expand your life? Or does it constrict your life.

Anthony McLean  1:05:07

It constricts.

Jonathan Puddle  1:05:09

Yeah it does. Is that abundant life?

Anthony McLean  1:05:12

No.

Jonathan Puddle  1:05:13

No, that is a shadow of life. Right? So. So I think the thing, the thing that's that's helpful is that we have this wacky conception of freedom, that we, when we hear freedom, we just hear, like, open ended outcomes, right? I'm free to go and kill and murder and rape and do anything I want. And I think, again, this is the fear that we were often raised with that, you know, we were given legalistic rules by our leaders and parents and elders, and whomever, because they didn't want us to use our freedom poorly. And Paul says in Galatians, you know, it was for freedom that you were set free. Don't use your freedom to do stupid things.

Anthony McLean  1:05:57

Yeah.

Jonathan Puddle  1:05:57

And then he goes on to say, the only thing that matters is faith worked out through love. And then it goes on about love and the fruit of the Spirit and joy and kindness and peace. So what are you free to do, Anthony? You are free to love.

Anthony McLean  1:06:15

Yeah

Jonathan Puddle  1:06:16

You are free to create life. You are free in the same way that God is free. You... like God is God is only good, there is no bad in him. And he is completely free. And the most audacious thing I think God ever did was create us with human agency, to give us the power and freedom to go and do whatever. But the fact is, in our brokenness, we are not free, we are bound, right? If I'm stuck drinking coffee and alcohol every day, that's not free. I can say, Yeah, I'm free to choose this every day. But I bound myself to those things inadvertently trying to survive before they began to reap a destructive cycle in my life, and I'm now bound by them. And so Christ says, Hey, you are free. And here's your freedom, you have unrestricted access to the power and authority you need to choose goodness. So, yeah, like, we're gonna keep making mistakes. We're going to keep sinning, if that's the word you want to use. But it doesn't really mean anything as such, right, like, in what does Paul further say? In as much as it's up to you, like, live at peace with everyone. Obviously, don't intentionally cause destruction. And don't, and don't through your willful ignorance, allow destruction to continue. But know that you're gonna keep making mistakes. And those are not any great obstacle to God. And you know, own what you've done, and grow and learn and be mature and continue to grow in maturity. And continue to grow into yourself and be yourself and let goodness and freedom and love and hope and joy be manifest ever more and more in your life. And that's what the Spirit is drawing you towards. At least, that's what makes sense to me here in 2022.

Anthony McLean  1:08:20

And that Jonathan Puddle is a great Puddcast right there, man. Hey, listen, I'm... everyone. Just so you know, I had to talk Jonathan in to doing this. He did not want to make an episode about this book. And I contacted him and I'm like, we got to talk. I'm so glad you agreed to it.

Anthony McLean  1:08:43

I'm glad you pushed me. Thank you. You're a good, man.

Anthony McLean  1:08:47

You are too.

Jonathan Puddle  1:08:59

That was really fun. Thanks, Anthony. What a guy. Friends, if you want to go grab that book, it's called Mornings With God: Daily Bible Devotional for Men, you'll find it linked in the show notes. You'll find it on Amazon. Also, if you want to support me and what I'm doing, I would really love it if you'd consider becoming a patron. I have lost a good chunk of patrons over the last few months because of folks own financial circumstances. And I I totally, totally understand that. And if you've had to tap out please don't feel any condemnation from me. I totally get that. If you are someone who who has a few extra dollars, even four or five extra dollars a month, it would be such a blessing. 20 or 30 more patrons would really fill a gap that has opened up for us financially. You can do that at patreon.com/jonathanpuddle. You'll also find that linked in the show notes. And I would really appreciate that. Friends, grace and peace to you. Go drop me a line on Iinstagram or Twitter Facebook i guess @JonathanPuddle let me know how this one lands with you. If it was life giving I would love to hear about that and if you think I'm totally wrong go find someone else to tell. All right friends, it's been so great to share with you once again. Tryphena and I will be back very soon.