#126: JL Gerhardt: Look to Love
Writer, Bible teacher, storyteller, and pilgrim - JL Gerhardt is giving us a heartfelt way to read our ancient text.
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EP. 126
Tony: [00:00:00] Hey everybody. Welcome back to the Reclamation Podcast, where our goal is to help you reclaim good practices for faith and life. I'm Tony. And today is episode 1 26 of the podcast where I get to sit down with writer, Bible teacher in Pilgrim jail. Gearhart jail has an incredible voice with her brand new resource.
Look to love. We talk about how to read scripts. We talk about traveling the globe and how do we hear God's voice? I think you're going to enjoy her fresh approach on how to look at ancient texts. There's so much here. I'm so thankful to share it all with you, and I'm thankful to connect you to her. I think you're really going to enjoy following her on the gram.
Hey, if you do like this episode, do me a favor. Hit that subscribe button, wherever you listen to pod. Also, if you could leave us a rating or review on iTunes, it would mean the absolute world. To me, we're trying to get to a hundred views by the end of the year, [00:01:00] it does help people find the podcast. Also, if you didn't know we are a ministry of spirit and truth, spirit, and truth is a brand that is all about renewing the local church with revival and what it means to be kingdom minded.
We're so excited to be one of their ministries and connecting with all of them. And finally the best compliment you can give us is to share this podcast with a friend, referrals are the best way to grow and your voice matters. So if there's something in this podcast, that means a lot to you, then do me a favor, share it with somebody who maybe it'll impact them.
That's the goal here. Share the mission of God with the people of God. Now, without any further ado, here is my conversation with JL Gearhart. Hey everybody. Welcome back to the podcast. I'm here today with a writer, storyteller and Pilgrim JL. JL. Thank you so much for being here today.
JL: It is my joy.
Tony: Now. I, we were joking before I hit record.
Because I'm going to start calling this an international interview. You're in [00:02:00] Belfast, UK. Is that right? Yeah.
JL: Belfast Northern Ireland actually leave here in a week to go to Zagreb Croatia. I'll be there for a month and then I'll be back in Ireland again for a month and then somewhere else.
Tony: So, so help me understand how how the Pilgrim life started for you.
I mean, where was this born out of and how did you get to a place where you're like, man, I should take my entire family all over the world.
JL: Well, you know, I mean, I'm up for adventure. My husband and I have always been very open-handed people. Years ago, our elders prayed over us and one of our elders said the thing I love about the Gearharts is that they'll go wherever the spirit leads.
But for the last 10 years, the spirit has been leading us to stay. And we've been in one place in the suburbs outside of Austin in a state, we never thought we'd live in, in Texas. Living a very beautifully holy ordinary life. My husband was a minister. I was on staff at the church. [00:03:00] Our kids grew up in the same church.
They were both one and two when we started there. And so we had been very rooted and located and we're happy to follow God that way. But about, about a year ago right. You know, right when COVID was heading and helping a lot of us ask good questions about our lives. What the kingdom ought to be and how it ought to function.
My husband really started asking some questions and praying and he felt like God was kinda releasing him from something. And then maybe he was pulling him into a new kind of work. And I felt like that God would eventually do that with him at some point. And so when he came to me and he said, Hey, Jen, I think I want to just quit my job.
And do something that I'm not sure what yet. I looked at him and I said, that sounds great. I I'm I'm up for that. I think God had been preparing me for it. And so when that was what he said, I was ready for it. And so we didn't really have a plan for how we were going to make this work. We knew his work probably.
Involved in income [00:04:00] for years. And we thought, how could we lighten the load? How could we make sure that we just didn't have bills? And the main way we thought is, Hey, what if we don't have a house? And we don't have a car, maybe there's a way that we could make life cheaper. And it turns out that has involved for us traveling.
And so we don't have a house. We don't have a car, we don't have any of those normal bills that you have to pay. But we move around. We work, we basically look for the cheapest Airbnbs on Airbnb, like the absolute dirt cheapest ones, and they pay our bills. They pay the water and the electricity. And we lived there for as long as the country will let us live there.
So we were in England for five months. Before this summer, then we came home to the states for awhile and stayed with a bunch of friends. And now we're in Belfast in Croatia. We'll be staying with friends. So it's just been, it really is a Pilgrim life. And, and it's been delightful. Like I've got a 12 year old and a 13.[00:05:00]
And one of them is always up for an adventure, loves this kind of thing. And the other one is such a homebody. You know, we always say that one of our daughters, if there was a zombie apocalypse, she would be like the queen as she would be leading the charge everywhere. And one of them would die within the first four minutes.
And they're both cool with that. But the one who died in the first four minutes, this has been really hard for her. And I had to write an essay about what does it mean to be a Pilgrim for you? What are you learning about being a Pilgrim? And she actually, I mean, this is her school assignment. She loves school.
She does really well. But she refused to do the assignment. Got rid of. Like emotional about it. And finally, I sat down with her and I was like, what's going on? She's like, I just don't feel like a Pilgrim. She said, I feel like I'm on your pilgrimage. And so we've been able to do this beautiful work with her over the last few months to help her understand that when God calls people you love, he's calling you to we've helped her to take some time and look for what God might be up to.
And[00:06:00] Really growing and loving it. And she talks to me about how, how much easier it is to give things up. Now, now that she's been doing this for awhile how much easier it is to accept a change and a transition because she's got experience doing it. And both of our girls are just getting so much closer to God because I mean, he's who they have.
They don't have a lot of friends over here. And so they're spending a ton more time with them and it's, it's been beautiful for all.
Tony: The word that came to mind, as I heard you describing this was resilience, right? Like you're, you're really kind of instilling some resilience in your kids and very practical way.
And that's, that's a very beautiful thing.
JL: Oh, for sure. I mean, when we we had to come back over here after beating the states for the summer and with all the COVID stuff travel is nuts, right? And so sometimes it takes us days to get where we're going tons of tests or paperwork or, and so we were really delayed on this last one and all kinds like everything bad that could happen kind of [00:07:00] did.
And I remember looking over at the two of those girls in the Dublin airport after we'd been traveling for two days, They're in the same clothes. And they were just happy and calm and I thought, man, you would not be this way two years ago. I mean, we'd be whining for snacks, you know, they'd be arguing with one another.
So there, this is definitely shaping them. Now they look more like Jesus, which isn't surprising since Jesus was a Pilgrim. Right? I think the Pilgrim life is good at shaping it.
Tony: Yeah. And anytime we can give up control, I think is a good thing. One of the questions, one of the questions that I love to ask people is how they hear from God.
Right. And so how, how did you know that it was God calling you to this Pilgrim life? How do you know that it's, God's nudge when it's time to move? How do you know that it's God's voice in. For somebody who is maybe not as practice as you and your [00:08:00] husband are, what's the first step in hearing from God from your experience?
JL: Well, I think for me, it's, it's laying the groundwork. So every day I pray God, I want to do what you want me to do. You know, my life is yours. I'll go where you take me. And I think keeping that in my prayers gives me a lot of confidence when I feel like he's calling me somewhere, because I've said, Hey, I want to go where you want to go.
I don't want to go where I want to go. And I really trust prayer. I trust that if I ask that that God's, that God's going to do that, that he's going to purify my intentions and my heart. But then in addition to that, when something like this comes up, I think for Justin and I. It was really powerful that we both had the same amount of confidence.
That we both felt like this was something good. Am I believe in the holy Spirit's indwelling in him? And I believe that the holy spirit is indwelling me. Sometimes I hear him wrong. Sometimes he hears him wrong, but it's convicting when we both hear him the [00:09:00] same. But I think the thing that was the most powerful for both of us, Was that when we went to our elders to tell them about this, so it's not going to be good.
Right. You've got to tell them we have a board of, of eight, nine guys who led our church. And Justin had been the minister there for 10 years. The church had been experiencing a lot of growth and health. He'd led them through just a really beautiful kind of king David season for the church. And and so we knew they weren't going to be excited about him saying he was leaving.
And yet with every single one of those conversations, but one, there was one that didn't go great. But with eight of the nine conversations, they looked at him and they said, yeah, this is exactly what you should do. They said, we hate to see you go, but this is, this is exactly what God's been preparing you for.
And, and we really believe you should do it well, that just blew our mind. And then we would tell friends. And before we told her elders before we'd made the decision, we'd tell friends and [00:10:00] we knew they suffer for it. Right? We're moving away. This is going to hurt them. And again, in the grand friends would look at us and say, no, this is what God made you for.
You need to go do this. And there was just so much confirmation on that. I think you got to trust the voices around you that you know, are full of, of God. And then, and then too, we just knew I'm always testing everything against. And so I've looked at this path, right. Okay. What is, is there anything in it for me?
Like, is this selfish? I'm trying to ask that, but then too, like, does this look like scripture? Is this look like the kind of thing God would call somebody to? And and what he, you know, what Justin wanted to leave to do was work that needed to be done in the kingdom. It was good work. It was work that he was clearly created for.
And, and we just felt like, yeah, we got to go do this. We got to take this risk. And it looks like the kind of thing that would end up in Hebrews 11 and what a privilege to get to live that kind of.[00:11:00]
Tony: No, I think that's beautiful. I love the way that you talk about laying that foundation for the decisions that you make. One of the things that we love to say around here is that if you're not dedicated to your disciplines, you'll be destroyed by your distractions. And I wonder. I wonder if if you would share with us some of your daily disciplines, I mean, you've now written, this is your seventh book that you've written.
So obviously, you know, you're a writer and you write, you know, about God that, right. So how do you stay fresh and that indwelling of the holy spirit and your cup full and, you know, motivated to put seeking the kingdom of God first in your life.
JL: Well, yeah, I've got some that are, I love and that are so easy to do and that I do every day.
And then I've got some that I don't like at all. And I do anyway. The ones that I love, I'm a Bible study junkie. I love the Bible. My degrees in literature. I [00:12:00] taught college English for years, teaching kids how to read literature. I loved to read books and the Bible is a special book. It's other.
Perfect. And I've come back to it again and again and again, and every time I open it up, I love it. So I'm going to be in scripture every day. Prayer is something that I'm going to be doing every morning, for sure. And then of course, like throughout the day My, one of the disciplines that maybe isn't exactly a discipline, but that is essential for me is spending time with God and nature.
So I want to be walking outside every day. It really brings me peace. It's an opportunity for me to be quiet with God. I've got twin daughters right now, you know, like a 12 year old and a 13 year old and they talk all the time. And so we've had to like worse. We've had to enforce. On the, on the walks and like, okay, you have to be quiet right now.
Cause that's kinda what this is about. So quiet in nature is one for me. [00:13:00] Another one that our family is really big on is celebration. So celebration is a regular rhythm in our home. Celebrating the things that God's doing celebrating the good things that we see celebrating, even in the midst of.
We want to make sure that celebrations always something that we're thinking about. We're making sure it's happening. One of the ones I really struggle with and don't really like, but have been very persistent with is community. I love my little family and I love, you know, like a couple friends. I, I struggle sometimes with the big.
Family of God, you know, the huge, like our church got bigger and bigger and bigger every year. And and that's beautiful and praise God for that. But eventually I was like, I can't no 500 and something people like Done knowing all of you. But but again and again, God has reminded me how valuable that is.
And, and it's not just your best friends or your mentor.[00:14:00] Who speaks truth into your life? Sometimes it's somebody random and the church hallway. And there's a beauty and being a part of a body that's full of people you wouldn't choose to be with. And so I like forcing myself to be in a room with people I wouldn't choose regularly because God reminds me that I don't, I don't have perfect taste.
And that the diversity of the body is what's so beautiful about it. So I, I, the church is like, I just keep coming back to her. I'm crazy about the local church. Even as it's just not ideal for me, the introvert.
Tony: Well, I think it's it's such an important admission because we're called to that idea of, of corporate worship of corporate community of the, of the big church. And yet man, people are just so messy, you know, and it's, it's a mess. It's a messy, messy world and those kinds of relationships. What kind of rhythm do you have for your writing?
[00:15:00] Because I would imagine the amount of persistence that it takes to go from your first book to your seventh book. You've probably learned a lot about yourself and about God in that process. I was wondering if you could share any of those revelations as you've now. You know, written another piece we were just talking to, you know, you final edits today.
It's so much work over extensive period of time. Like w how's that process been for you?
JL: Well I love to write and I hate to write it's the best and the worst thing. It's joy and loveliness and it's wrestling a bear. Right? It's all those things. I think in, in terms of writing. And my relationship with God, it's been a beautiful discipline to help me examine what he's doing in my life.
So my books aren't exactly about my life, but you can't write a book without bringing to it, the context of your life. And so often what I'm doing when I'm writing. Is looking for him. Where has he been active in my life? What have I learned? What am I [00:16:00] processing still? Usually I write a book, not out of mastery, but out of curiosity.
And so most of the time, for example, my book about prayer, I wrote because I wasn't great at. I, I didn't like the, maybe didn't like as a strong word, but I didn't feel like I'd been well acquit in churches growing up to pray. And I felt like I didn't have good rhythms and I felt like I didn't have good examples.
And so I went on the hunt for them. And writing then became a way for me to discover things about serving God and discover things about what God had for me in prayer. But this last book I wrote about Bible says. It's been more of a reflection on something he's been teaching me my whole life.
And so Bible study has been something that, like I said, that's my jam. I love it. And so it was a harder book to write, frankly, because there was so much to process. I had to think through all the different ways that I have encountered him in scripture over the years. Think through all the different.
[00:17:00] Things I've been learning as I've been studying. And so it ended up being a very long and exhausting process, even as it was wonderful. Because it, it was a little bit different that way, but, but in general, I think writing writing is one of those things that a lot more people should try because it's just sitting down and being intentional with your thoughts.
It's trying to order them, trying to make connections in your life with the things that have happened before and the things that have happened now and the things that God's saying it it's really just making art out of what you've been given which involves processing and most people don't process their life.
And so I guess it's a lot like therapy, right?
Tony: Yeah, no, I mean, writing has been therapy for me. And I think when I'm, when I'm doing pastoral counseling or when I'm talking to somebody, I always ask the question, have you written this out? Because you can't write out thoughts halfway, right? You can't stop in the middle of a word [00:18:00] and get distracted when you're actually writing out the word.
But yet when I'm just in my own mind, I can easily walk away from a thought that feels. Maybe a little too close to a tender spot in my soul or something like that. You know, it's, it's a much, it's much harder to to hide the pain when it's all coming out on paper on a, on a screen so much less important to hide it.
JL: Right. You're safe there. I think when it's just you and God and a piece of paper, there is a safety that you don't always feel in conversation or in another place where it might fall off. And people you might really like, oh, wow. Did I say that? Or did I do that? It's safe for that kind of thing to fall out onto the paper.
Tony: How did you get motivated? Cause the book is like you mentioned, it's a book about how to read the Bible in a way that helps you fall in love. With the Bible and with Jesus. Right. And God, and like, yeah. Yeah. And so like, how did you get to a place that you're like [00:19:00] motivated? Cause it's, it's kind of a meta thought, but it feels also really important.
What, what kind of moved you in that direction and your journey?
JL: Well, frankly, I just don't think a lot of people love. That's where I've been landing. I've been in ministry for, for 20 years now. And I think tons of people want to love. Lots of people want to love God, lots of good people who are Christians.
Who've been Christians for a long time, but I think they'd say yeah, but I don't. I remember reading Francis Chan's crazy law and you know, years ago, and I was like, yeah, I want to love God like that. But I walked away from it thinking, but how do you love God like that? And I think most of the advice we get is we'll be obedient or pray and read your Bible.
Or Andy, and for me, there was just not a connection. I was like, yeah, I want to fall in love with God. I want it to be, you know, it's not just all your strength, right? It's not just all your mind, it's your heart and your soul. And [00:20:00] I knew that I was missing that heart and soul part. And so, and I, and I think for most people that is what's missing.
It's like we, we get the obedience, we'll go to John and say, no love is a bang, the commands. So all obey the commands. And that means I love God. I think, you know, that's not the truth. Right. I think if most people have you sat them down and be like, do you really love God? Do you think about him? Do you think, oh man, what could I do for him today?
Do you think I want to be with them today? Right? The questions that you would ask somebody if they were like, I think I might be falling in love with someone, right? You'd ask them questions like, well, do you think about them all the time? Do you want to make sacrifices for them? You know, are you curious about their lives?
Do you want to be with them all the time? All those kinds of questions. Our questions that we art that, you know, that would inform us would let us know whether or not we really love God. And so I think the, what, like when I got done with crazy lab, I just felt kind of like, oh, I don't love God. How do I fall in [00:21:00] love with God?
And that's been a process for me, has been figuring that out and really what spurred this whole book was an article I read in the New York times about how to fall in love. It was an article that was referencing a a study that had been done by this guy, doctor Aaron, I don't even know what university at this point.
And he was trying to figure out if there was like a experiment he could run that would help people fall in love. And so he created one, he ran it and it was very successful. He would bring random people who didn't know each other into a room, have them talk to one another back and forth. He would have them ask these questions.
He had like 36 questions. They were increasing in intimacy. And then at the end he had them look at each other in the eyes for four minutes. That was the entire experiment, usually took about an hour and then they would get. And after six months he had his first marriage, people who had met in that room, asked each other.
These questions looked in each other's [00:22:00] eyes and gotten. And the person who was writing the article had tried this at a bar. She run into this guy who was a friend of hers from work. And they'd been like, Hey, you know, I read this interesting article. And he was like, yeah, well, let's try it. And so they asked the questions, it looked at each other's eyes for four minutes and they're married today.
And I thought, okay, this is interesting to me. What is it that's happening here? Right? It's attention. I'm choosing to give my attention to someone, to look at them closely, to see really who they are. And then I'm sharing who I am with that person. And we're looking at each other which also spurred me to think of Shakespeare.
And so I was thinking about this line, which I've always loved and Romeo. Where Juliette's going to this party and her mom says, Hey, there's this guy there. I want you to marry. So, you know, take a look at him. And Juliet says, well, I'll look to like, if looking like in move saying, Hey, I'll look. And if, when I look, what I see is [00:23:00] enjoyable, I'm happy with it then.
Sure. I'm in. But if I look and I'm not interested, then I'm out, but I liked that line. I'll look. Because there is an intention that happens, like when you choose to focus on somebody with the goal of seeing them like truly seeing them and understanding them love is what happens. This happens for us romantically, for sure.
But it also happens like this has happened with my parents before in moments where I get the chance to really sit down and understand them. I recognize that, oh, wow. I love them more because of this hard conversation we just had. And I loved them before. I love them more now, because I know about what happened in the past for them than I did before.
And so, you know, it's the taking that social science and I was like, could we apply this to God? Does this principle work? And I think that's, David's whole emo. He's like, I love to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord. It's in staring at God that David has fallen in love [00:24:00] with God. And you see these songs over and over and over again, what's he doing?
And he's like, you are this, you are this, you are this, I've seen you be this. I've seen you do this. It's just David staring at God and telling us what he said. And I think in seeing God like paying attention, looking to love, David fell in love with God and God ended up capturing his whole heart and all David wanted to do all day, which is sit there and look at God.
Tony: Do you think? Cause I, my natural thought process is that maybe if it w you know, based off of what we're saying here in the, in the social science behind it, is that what we need to do when we read scripture. Is look to love God when we read it. Right? So we go in with a particular posture of our heart, you know, and that idea, which then leads me to the next question that maybe you've experienced as you've done this research, which is why, or how are most Christians reading [00:25:00] scripture today?
That's that's not happening?
JL: Well, I think most of us look for ourselves. But I think that's the first thing we look more, we think, how does this apply to me? How is this about me? What can I learn from this? What can I take from this? It'll make my life better. All of that I think is a way to read scripture that is not invalid.
It's just not the best, first way to read scripture. And it's, it's, it's the way we read it. It's the way we interact with like our parents when we're chilling. Right. What can my mom give me, what can my parents do for me? How can they make my life better, but it's not love. And if our goal is to love God, then we want to start looking for him first asking questions about who he is first.
And then I think we end up getting more from scripture and ultimately really deeply falling in love with them. There are other things we look for in scripture, too, right? Depending on our preferences some of us are looking for. We're looking for like a ticket. We want to like, figure [00:26:00] out all the ways that if I did this and this and this right.
Everything will be good. Some of us are, you know, so we're reading out of fear. I think some of us are reading in some beautiful ways, like for comfort or we're reading for knowledge. We, we want to know all the things we've been taught. That's how you read the Bible so that you know, all the books.
You know, I recently my kids went to a Bible class that at my church where I got. And we'd just come back into town. And the Bible teacher who was their Bible teacher was the Bible teacher who was my Bible teacher in middle school crazy. And so he, he saw them come in and he said, oh, Jennifer maze.
That was my name and my maiden name. And and he said, oh, girls, can you recite all the books to the Bible for everyone in class? This is like the first thing he asked my kids. And, and what's crazy is they don't know the books of the Bible. I've never had a memorize them. But they've read [00:27:00] most of the books of the Bible.
So they've read songs and they've read Esther and they've read all the gospels and they've read acts. And when I was in middle school, I hadn't done it. I just knew all the facts. Right, right. And I've been trying not to do that with them because I don't want to just, I don't want them just to read to know I want them to read to love.
So I think that's another one. There are all kinds of reasons why we might read our Bible. There are all kinds of things we might be looking for in there. But I think a lot of times we miss him when I, when I teach this way. And so I'll teach a passage. I did Cain enable this last week. When I teach a passage and I go the same Instagram, by the way.
Yeah, I do. So I'll teach kid enable, right? And, and I'm saying, let's look for who God is. And Cain and Abel, I had a woman send me a passage day and she said, send me an email today about that talk. And she said, I have never heard that story till that. She said, I can't believe that I love God more after listening to a story about Cain and Abel.[00:28:00]
And she said, and another thing, I can't believe how much compassion I feel for Kane. It just blew her mind because we're so used to reading that story as a moral don't kill your brain. Right. You know, don't, don't lie to God or don't, don't kill your brother. Or if, you know, if you make one bad mistake, don't make a second.
That's helpful. But what if we read that passage is look at the way God loves Cain time and time and time again, that God loves cane. After the offering, that's no good that God loves cane after cane decides to kill his brother, that God loves cane. After Cain kills his brother. He's just, again and again, stepping in with protection and love and wisdom.
I, I hadn't noticed that before, because my eyes were on me or my eyes were on the interesting characters in the story. And I just missed God.
Tony: As you're talking about this. I'm sure that there are a lot [00:29:00] of people listening who feel like they've, they may have come to the realization that they don't love God. And or don't love God to the fullest. And so I, I guess my first question after that would be, how do we fight off shame in this dialogue?
About loving God, because there's a, there's this weird as I heard you talking, I was like, I love God. I love God deeply. And I was like, oh man. But what if I didn't love God? You know what happens then? You know, like how do we, how do we stave off that feeling of shame in, in these kinds of dialogues around love?
JL: Well, I think. It's more tempting to feel shame if it'd be hard to fix the problem. If I was like, well, in order to love God, you've got to climb five mountains and then you're like, oh, I'm not going to do that. And then you just feel this like weight of oh, but it's. So easy to love God. I think it's a, it's a, it's an offer.
It's an invitation, you know, God's, God's commands when God says, love me, [00:30:00] God, isn't standing there with a hammer. Like I want to hit you. If you don't love me. It's an invitation, it's a proposal, right? God saying love me and things are going to be good. Things are going to be beautiful. And so if you want to love God, you absolutely can love God if there's no shame to it.
Okay. And I think that's what I'm trying to do with this book is to show how much easier it could be than we think it is. He's easy to love, really easy to love. And there's, there are like, I've got a whole chapter in there about what about when God's unlovable, because there are plenty of those moments.
But a quick answer to that would just be how many people do you love, who are unlovable? Probably a lot. You know, there are people who love me and I'm a mess. You know, my husband is so good to me and the fact that he consistently loves me, despite who I am it shows the power of love. And I think we're not going to discover that God is bad.
But we may discover that God, isn't what we wanted him to be, or that God, isn't what we [00:31:00] expect him to be. And that can be disappointing sometimes, but what's so beautiful about love is it helps us stay in a relationship with him even when we're disappointed. And so we read these passages of scripture, looking for him, trying to understand him.
We find ourselves falling in love with them, and then that love carries us through hard things. It makes it possible for us to stay with them when we don't feel like loving him. It's like a long marriage. It's easier for me to love my husband. Now, after 20 years of being married than it was after two years of being married because.
I that love has built up and it's so strong that it carries me. So I, with the shame thing, you know, I would just say, Hey, don't be ashamed at where you are. Just take a next step. And this is totally an option for you. It's something God wants for you. And when God wants to give you a gift, he is quick to give it.
I thought that I have to plug, have [00:32:00] plug. Computer in it has the battery has run out much more quickly than I thought.
There we go.
Tony: Awesome. So I I also want to ask, if you could talk to the person who feels like they're unlovable by. Right. And so there there's two parts of this relationship, obviously there's the person who, who wants to love God, but then there's also the person who maybe feels like God, there's no way that God could love them.
I wonder if you could maybe minister to them a little bit in your thoughts and what you've experienced as you've kind of written about God's love and the relationship that God wants.
JL: Hmm. Well, I think this is where reading the Bible comes in. I think we're afraid that [00:33:00] if we open the Bible, we're going to find out that we're unworthy of his.
And instead we open the Bible and we find story after story, after story poem, after poem, after poem song, after song, after song from people who were entirely unworthy of God's love and who God loved. We see, you know, you start right there. With Eve. I was noticing today that, you know, Eve gets kicked out of the garden and we think, oh, that's the end of it.
Like, see, I'm going to do that. I'm going to eat an apple and then it's all gonna be over, you know, like that's me, I'm Eve. And we think, ah, God's not gonna let. But even after Eve has eaten the fruit, right. We find God creating a fur coat for her, like killing one of his precious animals to give her covering.
Then he sends her out and we think, oh, he sends her away from him, but she read right there in Genesis chapter four at the beginning. And you see, God is right there with her. And when Eve has a baby, she says the Lord has helped. That's what she names her first shot. And then her, [00:34:00] her third son, she names given because he's a gift from God.
And we start to realize, oh God, didn't leave. He didn't levy. Just because she left the garden just because she's not in a perfect place anymore. Doesn't mean he's not there with her. Right. And then he's there with Cain, Cain kills his brother. And we think, well, that's a murderer. That's the worst.
And then there's. Marking him to protect him as he leaves. We think about that. Mark on Cain is like some kind of punishment, but it's God's protection for him. So no one will kill him. And then you look at people like David, David is my absolute favorite. He's my man. And and I, people will say, how could you love David?
He, he raped best Shiva. How could you love David? He killed your eye. And I'm like, that's why I love David. Because I watched God love him. Like if God loved him, right. God loves me. And David didn't allow that imperfection in him, his own smallness, his own failings. It didn't allow any of that to keep him from loving God and from receiving the love that God had [00:35:00] for him.
So, you know, you turn to scripture and I think you find plenty of people who look like you. If you feel like I'm not worthy that's, that's what scriptures for, I think, you know, so often we come to these stories and we're like, well, this story is about how you shouldn't be like Moses. This story is about how you should be like.
I think more than anything, the story is just, you are like Moses. Here's how God loves you. You are like David. Here's how God's loves you. You are like any number of, you know, you are like Samson for some of us. Here's how God loves you. It's just a consistent theme. It's just all throughout the whole thing.
So if you are feeling like, oh, I don't know if God could love me. Bible reading is the next thing you should do. You should do it right now. You should stop listening to this podcast and open up your Bible.
Tony: Amen. Amen. I agree. 100%. And I think, well, nothing has [00:36:00] changed my life, like reading scripture and then seeing.
Seeing so much of myself in the scripture changes things. I'm curious what happens in the world that we live in outside of outside of our time with God, once we establish the relationship with God and, and in the way that you write about, and in this book, like how, how does the rest of the world change?
I have lots of thoughts, but I'd love to hear yours first.
JL: Well, I think for you, for the individual. Are able now to see God everywhere. So the Bible is such great training for you seeing him because it's like, I don't know, like my husband's handwriting, I know his handwriting because I've seen it so many times.
I've seen him write so many things and now I could recognize his handwriting anywhere. I think with the voice of God, we hear it in scripture. We come to know him, we know his character so that when we leave scripture, we can recognize. So I recognize them when I'm at work. I recognize them. And in interactions with my kids, I see where he is, which [00:37:00] I think makes it easier for all of us to follow, but we can see where he's leading and we can go where he wants us to go to.
We can recognize the gifts that are here for us. I think most people are walking around with treasure all around them and their eyes just aren't open to it. Cause they don't, they don't recognize God's handwriting. And so they don't know, oh, that's a gift from him. So that's another one. I think that knowing God has led me into a greater gratitude for the life I've been given.
Those would be some things I think for the individual I'm thinking, I want to think intentionally here though, about. The greater world. I will say this. I think there's a reason that love the Lord. Your God is the first. I think it is an enabling thing that when love exists between you and God and the two of you are in a relationship and you are in love, there's this channel of [00:38:00] energy and gifting that comes to you.
So. Things are easier to do you all of a sudden are like a superhero, right? It's like that serum that is in the Marvel movies, right. That makes superheroes love is that love has a power that I found that the. More, I'm leaning on my relationship with God. And the more that that love is what's fueling me the more I can do.
I have more energy, I have more power. I have more grapes. I have more patients. I have more talent sometimes, but all of it is traced to that love of him. And so if in a moment I'm like, I want to love God in this moment. It's amazing what Helena. Really is. And I think if we had a whole church full, if the whole global church was full of people who loved God and were pursuing his interests above their own, we're pursuing his purposes and his agenda, but it just seems [00:39:00] like everything would change.
Tony: Yeah, I think oftentimes that when we're madly in love with someone that we want to show them off to the world, and I picture that really, and that imagery, when I think about this idea about look to love and how to read the scripture to fall in love with God and Jesus, and, you know, it's just such an important, I think, important posture as this, as this book, you know, gets launched out into the world.
What's your prayer around what the world does with it. And now that it's, you know, it's out there.
JL: You know, I've been trying to imagine different people reading it. And so I've been trying to imagine college girls reading this book and reading it together with their friends. And I've been imagining girls, my kid's age or boys, my kids age in middle school.
This being like the first way they learn how to read scripture. I thought about, you know, what does it look like for a minister to read this book [00:40:00] and to think about how he could lead his church? And interacting with the Bible this way. And I keep like imagining individuals, people I know reading it.
And my hope for them is just that they would fall in love with God. I, I it's all I want to happen. And it was, I found that happening with me as I wrote it, I've got the section in the middle of this called case studies. And in that section, I go through different passages in the Bible. And I say, how might you read this to look for God just to give examples?
Cause I know sometimes that can be hard. You're like, let's just semantics. What are you talking about? Exactly. So I go through these various passages and I was going through one today in, I think it was first Timothy that was reading about the requirements for. And I was crying and I thought, man, I want this for everybody.
I want people to be able to see God in a list of requirements for elders and, and to have their hearts tied to him. So powerfully. That's all. I just want everybody to fall in love [00:41:00] with God. And I really think it's possible. I mean, maybe that's optimistic. I'm not generally an optimistic person. But I really, I really do believe that he's easy to love.
Tony: Well, I know my listeners love to pray. And so we'll join you in that prayer. And I think that's an incredible reality that the church can live into. If it, if it chooses to, you know, if we all individually choose to corporately corporately, it will happen. So we, I stand in complete agreement with that.
So, no, I don't mind. I have one more question for you. I'll go ahead.
JL: Well, I was just gonna say, like, I think we we're afraid that loving God will be as hard as loving people. It's a lot easier. And when we learn to love God, when we learn to love God, we're way better at loving people. And we'd done it backward.
We've been like, I love people and then maybe I'll learn to love God. But if you learn to love God first, the loving people really is a lot easier to do.
Tony: Amen. So [00:42:00] I, I know my listeners are going to want to connect with you on the interwebs what, what's the best place. What's the best place to, to find you and your ministry and to keep track of your eighth book or whatever that's going to be and how we can, can follow along and what God has you doing.
JL: Well, I'd say the first place to go to find me is Instagram it's JL dot Gerhardt. Because I've got everything else linked there. I do a bi-weekly essay that I send out where I write about where I'm seeing the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. And so I send those out on substep. I'm also, I've also got a website JL, gerhardt.com.
But, but let's, let's meet first on Instagram if you're there. Cause that's where I am. And that's where I've got my Bible teaching to every Wednesday. I'll put up a teaching video. That's a look to love Bible teaching video.
Tony: Yeah. That's about there, they, they range anywhere from 10 to 20 minutes usually.
Is that, is it about right?
JL: Yep. That's about right. I'm trying to keep them all under 20. Thank you.
Tony: You're [00:43:00] doing a great job. That's that's teaching a Bible study to a camera is a lot harder than I think people, if COVID taught me anything, it taught me that.
JL: Yes. Well, you know, I think that's a part of it is just, I like being with God and and when I'm teaching those, it's really just me and him there, and I'm thinking about the people who are, who are on the other side of the camera, but I'm also thinking.
Him and, and what a delight it is to discover him there and scripture. So I feel like I'm having a conversation with him in addition to having a conversation with.
Tony: That's beautiful. Okay. Last question. We always love to ask people. It's an advice question to give yourself one piece of advice, except I get to set the time and the day that you can get to give set advice.
And so well, yeah, w what I'd like to do is the very first day of your very first. Book being released into the world. If you could go back and give that younger version of yourself, one piece of [00:44:00] advice for the journey that you're about to go on. And at that point in time, I'm sure you're still living probably Texas. What's the one piece of advice that you're given that younger version of.
JL: Well, I think the thing that, that she needs to know is that small is beautiful. I think when I started writing, I thought it needed to be for a lot of people to count. And you know, it's hard to get published if you don't already have a lot of people listening.
And so that's kind of built in to the writing world, but I, I just felt like it needed to be big to mask. And over all these years, I've come to realize it really doesn't. It's not about that. How much joy would I have sitting across the table with two people telling them about God? I know that that's one of the most beautiful things you could do on earth.
And so I've stopped looking at the numbers and that's changed everything for me. I do the work because it's good. I want to write about God. I want to be with God. I want to help other people know him and love him. And that's enough. In [00:45:00] fact, that's more than enough. Privilege to be able to get that, to get to do that.
Tony: Amen. Amen JL. Thank you so much for your time today for your generosity, for all the work that you're doing. I can't wait to see what God does with this resource and to see people madly, fall in love with them.
JL: I'm really excited about it. I can't wait. I'm hoping. That's what happens.
Tony: I told you guys what a great conversation.
I love the way that she shares her heart. I love the way that she shares her life. I just think there are so many wonderful things in this dialogue and, and maybe some things that we have forgotten about, right. That love has to come first, that storytelling can be a ministry and that we're, you know, we're laying the groundwork for the future.
So Hey, don't forget to hit that subscribe button, wherever you listen to podcasts, leave a rating or review on iTunes and share this episode with the. It does mean the absolute world to us. So thankful for you guys and look forward to connecting with you [00:46:00] real soon. And remember, if you want to follow Jesus, you must be willing to move.
