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Yes, guys, welcome back to The Way. Man, we've got an exciting episode today. If this is your first time watching, I'm Zach, and I'm joined by the best. Whoa, that's huge. Oh, Zoe.

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I was expecting a list. Is Zach and Zoe coming at you? We hope you're having a really good day. Yeah, guys, we've got a, I just learned this word, a Johanine scholar, three-login. I will not be introduced any other way. No other words will do. Johanine. Podcaster, writer, speaker, like...

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You genuinely like, I know we only just met, but you are probably one of the coolest people we've had in the studios. Is that a hot take? Is that a hot take? Throwing out so many compliments right now. Receive, receive. Thanks. You're really overselling me. Bella, you're so welcome here. And thank you so much for coming. We're going to get into your story a little bit. And we're going to get into some stuff that you're writing about right now. Sure. I'm really gassed. I'm really gassed. Me too. I'm having fun already.

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Guys, before we get into the rest of the episode, you know that our mission here at The Way is to spread the good news of Jesus to every young person. And straight up, we can't do that without your help. So if you're watching on YouTube, why don't you subscribe, hit the notifications bell, and drop a comment. We'll let you know what to comment at the end. Yes. But if you're listening on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, drop a follow and give us a rating.

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Yeah, preferably an honest one. An honest rating. An honest one. Yeah, we don't do dishonest. No, no. But all that does is it just helps with the algorithm to push it to people who probably don't know Jesus yet. So just help us out with the mission. Yeah, that's great. But more importantly, we're helping with the Lord's mission. Hallelujah. Was that a bar? That was a bar. That was a bar. All right, let's get into the rest of the episode.

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Bell, I know, like, obviously you study, like, theology and lots of Christian topics now for, basically for a living. But you didn't, like, you didn't kind of start with, like, a super firm foundation, as far as I understand, in your own personal faith.

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Oh, yeah. Can you take us back to when you grew up? Yeah. You grew up Christian in Wales, yes? But you kind of alluded to this a little bit beforehand, that you weren't like super sure about it yourself.

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Well, I was this funny thing. So yeah, so I have one of those testimonies, one of those stories that doesn't have like a before and after moment. It does like God wasn't like a plot twist in my life where he like came in and flip things upside down. I was born...

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I was honoured, like totally blessed to be born into a Christian family. In fact, in some ways, I feel like my testimony starts before I was even born because my parents dated when they were teenagers. They lived like a couple of doors down from each other. Okay.

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Dated as teenagers, my mum was a Christian in a Christian family. My dad wasn't a Christian, nor was he in a Christian family. And so as they were dating, my mum kind of definitely chose my dad over sort of her faith. Although she never stopped believing in God, like, you know. Yeah. She just started kind of like drifting. And then they got married when my mum was 19, right?

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Wow. Isn't that wild? And your dad wasn't a Christian yet? Yeah, my dad wasn't a Christian. My dad must have been 22. And they got married because they wanted to go to uni together. And then my mum got pregnant with me. So they got married, moved away. My mum got pregnant with me. And she tells this story where she heard God say, are you really going to do this without me? Like, are you really going to have this baby? Wow.

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And all the babies that may come after, of which there were many. Wait, how many siblings do you have? My parents had five babies in five years. What? Wow. Yeah. Shout out. Kudos to your mum. I know. So I'm one of five. And yeah, five in five years. In the oldest. Yeah. Number one in age and stature. And...

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yeah wisdom acclaim um but your dad wasn't a christian my dad wasn't a christian so my mom had this she felt like she heard god say you're really gonna have this baby start this family without me and she was like so she started going to church again started taking my dad to church i need to double check with my dad but he became a christian when i was a baby like um so now they both are praise the lord

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And so I had the joy of growing up in a Christian family and really being able to see what it looked like to love Jesus and live for him and all of that. And so it's not that I didn't have a sure foundation. I've loved Jesus every day of my life, like imperfectly. But what was weird about me is I was deeply, deeply, deeply embarrassed about it.

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Like seriously embarrassed about it. Okay, that's super interesting. So that's what was different is I, like if I had to be really vulnerable and honest up until maybe like five years ago, total double life, like completely. Wow. That's real.

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Yeah, I had this, as I was writing the book that I've just written, I wrote this like memory down because it's a super vivid memory for me. I must have been maybe six or seven, like primary school age. And are you laughing because you don't know what primary school age is? No, I was laughing because you said six or seven. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

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This is, this is. I heard someone else. This is, that's the first time that's literally ever happened to me. This is the most. I'm so sorry. This is the most jam said thing I've ever been. I'm so sorry. No, I love it. I was six, seven.

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And I was in school and I was walking, like, I was literally walking through the school gates and this boy who was in my class, he came up to me and he just, like, asked very innocently, Belle, do you and your family go to church? And something within me, like, I blurted out an immediate and instinctive no.

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I was like six, right? I mean, frustratingly for six-year-old Belle, my cousin was with me and she's way more pious and honest than I am. So she like looked at me like, yes, we do. And she was like totally unable to make sense of the fact I just denied it. And so was I, like, I didn't know why I'd done that. But there was something, even within six-year-old me, that was like...

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just felt like that was necessary somehow that I had to protect myself, that I had to shield that, that I was about to be judged for that. And, um, that is such a bizarrely vivid memory for me. And I think that I've lived in that place, that place of feeling like I, I need to like keep it all in for decades, which is what makes what I do now work.

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really funny died for myself wow and like where did that embarrassment come from yeah like do you know i think it's quite yeah i know i think there's a couple of things i think part of it is me i am like a chronic people pleaser like truly um truly like left to my own devices i can i'm

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like my instinct is to sort of like mold myself into what I think the person in front of me wants me to be it's one of my most sort of like I don't know toxic traits I guess and so I guess in my head like I must have convinced myself that nobody in front of me would ever want me to be a Christian and so I'll mold myself out of that to be able to meet this person where they're at and to be able to please them

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So part of it I know is me. It's a personality thing. Like I am a broken and chronic people pleaser. And I'm very open about that now. But also, so I am 29. I was born in 1996. So when I was in school, there was just no, like, bearing in mind, I was in school, like I was watching cartoons and also I was in rural West Wales, right? Mm-hmm.

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Even there, like the fact that there were buses going around London at that point, literally with like, God does not exist. Now enjoy your life emblazoned on the side of them. Yeah. So like, that's the, that was the culture I was growing up in. Right. And if you'd have asked six year old me.

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Like, was I aware of that? I would have said like, absolutely not. Of course not. But it had trickled down even to me in that context. This idea that there was like no social permission at that time. Wow. No social permission to believe in a God. Like...

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Topping the charts, like the book charts, was a book called The God Delusion. So I was breathing in this story that I was delusional, that I was deluded, that it was embarrassing to trust what I trusted or believed what I believed or want what I wanted. You know, like just all of that. There was just no space for it. Like at all. I felt deeply, deeply silly, like deeply unintelligent for...

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For going to church. And it wasn't... I feel like sometimes if you speak to people now and you say they're a Christian, they might be like... There might still be some hang-ups with some people, but it might be more about like...

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what they think christians believe whereas back then it was just that you believe anything at all like that's ridiculous you know all that we see is all that there is like science is king like it just deeply felt deeply silly i think so i think it's a mixture of those two things it's both me as like it's the broken parts of me being broken but it was also definitely the cultural air that i was breathing in yeah

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Did you, did you start studying before you kind of dropped that embarrassment? Oh yeah. Or did you drop it and then start studying? I, no, I've had that embarrassment. I still fight that embarrassment, right? I write again in the book, I write this story like about a year ago. I, and this is ridiculous because I literally do stuff like this. Like my biggest secret is Googleable. Do you know what I mean?

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yeah literally just like comforting myself by thinking that i'm some covet christian i'm on the way like this is ridiculous but i i wrote this like story about a year ago i was in my back in my hometown i bumped into someone i dated in school now when i was a teenager like absolutely i would go to like severe lengths to be disguising the fact that i love jesus i can't believe i'm admitting all of this it's fine like whatever wait what do you mean like severe lengths like

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So like, I wouldn't invite friends over to my house because they might see a Bible on the shelf. Oh, shoot. Yeah, stuff like that. Or at the time it was Facebook. Facebook was the social media of choice. And I had the settings on that. I would have to approve anything I got tagged in before it went on my wall. Because I was like, if people see that I've been at a church summer camp.

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that's my secret out so i would be like constantly monitoring things i would go to sleepovers on a saturday night and be like oh sorry guys i've like got to go early because i've just like got a family thing and the family thing would be church

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On a Sunday morning. Like this is so ridiculous. It's so ridiculous. You're so right. I wasn't lying. But then the weird thing is I would step into church and I would be like, oh, this is like where I'm supposed to be. Do you know what I mean? It's absolutely not that I was a reluctant Christian. It's just that I was embarrassed. Um,

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And that hasn't completely gone away. I just died to that like all the time. I actively died to myself. So yeah, I wrote this story in the book where I was in my hometown and I bumped into an old boyfriend that I was with when I was in school. And he was like, what are you up to these days? And I was like, oh, I like write a bit. I like write a little. He was like, what about? I was like, oh, yeah.

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Like, don't worry about it. I'm just so sorry. How are you? Like, that's still my instinct. Like, six-year-old Belle is still definitely fighting her case within me. It's just that I actively now have to be like, I died to that. I died to that part of myself. I have to push past it. So a lot of what I do in my job is, like, rejection therapy.

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But it's fine. It's healthy. It's good. And it's right. I mean, it's right. Yeah. Wow, that's so growing. What? Why, thank you. You're welcome. Sorry. What made you actually start studying theology? Like, what made you decide that? Because...

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So even, even just like, I feel like things have changed, things have shifted now, as you've been saying, in terms of an, oh, kind of more of an openness to spirituality, but surely that would have been a pretty big move, even just when you started studying. How long ago did you start studying theology?

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That's a really good question. I must have been 18 and now I'm 29. So yeah, like 11-ish years ago. So 11 years ago. Yeah. That must have been a pretty big move 11 years ago to start studying theology. Yeah, you're right. Well, I think, so again, like growing up in Pembrokeshire, which is the small sort of rural Welsh town I was in, it was like the type of place where they were like five job options. Like you could be a nurse, you could be a teacher, you could work in the local oil refinery. Like, you know what I mean? It was that kind of vibe.

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And so I guess I thought, okay, well, I want to stay in Pembrokeshire my whole life because I don't know why I thought that, but I did. And so I was like, okay, so what, what of these five am I going to pick? And I was like, well, if I decide to be an RE teacher, I could go and do theology. And like no one had bought an eyelid and it would be chill and it would make total sense. So I'm going to go and do that. So that was actually how it started is I assumed I'd be an RE teacher, religious education teacher for anyone who's just not in the UK.

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Yeah, so that's how it started. And I mean, honestly, I...

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my love of the Bible has always been so central to my faith. Really? Yeah. And that sounds silly to say because like, as it should, but I just think because I'm quite a bookish person, because I'm quite like a geeky person, because like, like we were talking earlier, like literature in general is just my thing. But the fact that my faith has always come with this like gorgeous library of literature. Mm-hmm.

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has just always hit me on multiple levels. Yes, on a faith level, but also like on an intellectual, like this is fascinating. I wanna like fancy I could go and study this for three years level. So it started that way. It also started because when I was very young, my mum was our youth worker, our youth pastor. And I remember she was, she must've been ill once. Or she, for some reason couldn't make it to like our Wednesday night youth thing. And she was like, Belle, you're gonna have to preach.

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No way. Yeah, because I'm not around. Yeah, deep end. And I was like, okay, so I must have been maybe 15, 16. And I just loved it. I mean, don't get me wrong. This was the worst sermon in the history of sermons. Like must have been. It must have been about three minutes long when it was supposed to be 20. Probably like earing on heretical. That's awesome. But I was just like, man, this idea that I could go to the Bible.

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kind of like pull stuff out of it, pray that through, deliver it to a room. Like all of that just got me, immediately captured me as something that I could do, as something that I wasn't good at, but did enjoy. So maybe I can get good at it. And then again, I was like, well, if I want to do that, I've got to really get to know this Bible inside out. So it started, yeah, in that kind of place and just snowballed. Wow. Yeah.

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Wow, that's super interesting. I love the concept of loving the Lord with your mind. I think I didn't, I don't know. I think an element of my story is like growing up in small town Canada. I didn't see a lot of people that were kind of, I would say, for lack of a better word, like charismatic in their faith as well as intellectual in their faith. Yeah, no.

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And what did I? But I think it's such a cool kind of both and to love the Lord with your mind and also with everything else, like with your emotional life, with your mental life, with your spiritual life, like all of that being encompassed. I love that.

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Yeah. Yeah. Well, I, if I'm like honest, I think I find it easier to love God with my mind than with my, I mean, it's like kind of a false binary, isn't it? But then with my heart, let's say it's just where I naturally find him. So, um, I'll quite frequently find myself getting like weirdly weepy when I read a piece of the Bible and I'm kind of doing this puzzle with him. Wow.

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Do you know what I mean? Like getting all the translations out and doing this stuff when I'm really in the thick of it or something from like a puzzle feels like it's being pieced together. That is like the most emotionally spiritual, emotionally charged spiritual experience for me. And you're right. I didn't massively have a framework for it.

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Um, sometimes I still don't like, I think I'm still a rarity or at least I am in my circles, but I don't know. Yeah. It's just always been the way my brain has worked really. Um, yeah. Wow. Wow. Should we touch on, I feel like we should touch on this like wilderness theme.

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We haven't really mentioned it, but we were talking before about, like, I guess it's sort of connected to the, like, emotionalism that we kind of see, I think it's fair to say, we see a little bit in our generation who are in the church right now. Okay. And I've had some recent conversations with people around, like, why am I not experiencing the Lord in my emotions? Yeah.

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Is it just that they haven't kind of found their lane of faith? Like which for you might be like studying? Is it that they haven't gotten into studying? Or is it that they haven't found the right style of worship? Or what would you kind of say to that? Because I think we're noticing that a lot.

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Oh, that's really interesting. I would say a few things. I would say that there is a slight tendency for us to think that God meets us all one way and it looks the same way for all of us. And we can kind of get into...

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we can kind of get into this thinking where we kind of have to park our personality when we enter into God's company, like park what comes natural to us and try and find him in ways that we're seeing modeled around us. And I suppose I'd wanna be like, God made your personality so that he could meet you in it. Like you don't need to park what you find interesting, what you find easy. Like he made you, like he knit you together. You're fearfully and wonderfully made to meet him there.

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So, yeah, there is this idea. I think that's part of it. There's this idea of like, oh, well, I tend to be like more like head driven and quite type A. I think I think that's OK. I think that's really OK. But then on the flip side, I try to challenge myself to.

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do something that will keep my mind ticking over so that I can meet God in ways that aren't as natural to me. And I think that's also okay. So for example, right, this is so random, but the times where I find God speaks to me the loudest, personally for me, are either when I'm in the shower or when I'm driving.

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And I've realized it's because my brain has like this level of like distraction to it that actually my brain stops getting in the way. And I kind of have like this freedom of like I'm doing something, but I'm doing something that I know how to do really well. So it's kind of this subconscious distraction. Right.

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is also that there's like there is pushing ourselves as well to sort of meet god in ways that doesn't feel quite as natural and if you do are somebody who just has a very loud brain is noticing the places in your life where your brain is the most quiet and then inviting god into those places even if they're as mundane as i'm about to drive to the supermarket i may as well use this time to talk to god because i know that my brain will kind of be like placated by the

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yeah, it's kind of both on. It's a bit of a tension. It's a bit of a tension, isn't it? What would you say if someone just feels like they're not hearing from God at all? Yeah. Because we were even saying like sometimes, sometimes some people are saying like, oh, I'm in a wilderness season. Yeah. Like I'm not hearing from God at all. And some people really struggle with that. I think others almost like kind of boast in it.

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of like you know i mean like oh i'm in a hard season with the lord but he's really fortifying me yeah one yeah should we be looking to experience god is that the goal and two is that actually a wilderness season like is a wilderness season if i'm not hearing from god

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Yeah, so that's really interesting. So a wilderness season, if we're going to get really biblical with it. Oh, go on. Yeah. Let's get biblical with it. Why not? A wilderness season. So, of course, the wilderness in the Bible is literally like a character in itself. It's mentioned 250 times in the Old Testament alone. That weird wilderness. Yes.

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It's like a character. It's like it pops up in every major story in the Bible. If you think about it, there's not one key character in the Bible where the wilderness is not also a character in their story. And it means two things. It's a physical wilderness. Like the Israelites traveled through a physical wilderness, like feet on the ground. We can go there.

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Yeah, yeah. And it's square miles. Like we can put our feet there. So there's that. But then because the biblical authors are so beautifully like creative and poetically minded, they start using the word for that desert, for that wilderness. And they start using it to mean...

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Times in our lives where the circumstances make us feel vulnerable or like we're out of control, like we can't really make things happen for ourselves and therefore are incredibly dependent on God in a way that we aren't in other seasons when everything's going really well. Now, the Bible's really clear that wilderness seasons, we do not get to choose when or if we enter them. It's just part of life. We will. We just will. Mm-hmm.

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So it's also really clear that the wilderness seasons, let's talk about it as seasons in our lives, they are both the best and the worst place you can find yourself. Literally in town. The worst place because like they're uncomfortable at best and like dangerous at worst, right? They're hard. Yeah.

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They are circumstances that we would not choose if we had the choice. There are times in our lives that we would edit out if we could. We don't want them. So the Bible is really honest about that. Often more honest than we are. Of like there are times in our lives that just feel really hard. So in one hand, the worst place you can find yourself. On the other hand, God is always, always, always using the wilderness in the Bible. And I think...

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just off the pages of the Bible as well, as his classroom, as a place of discipleship. As his classroom. Yeah, as a place of like, if in the wilderness seasons...

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we go to God again and again and again, he's teaching us how to trust him and reliance on him. It's a place of discipleship. And so that's how the Bible describes it anyway. So for example, when we meet David, you know, the shepherd, taint songwriter, taint warrior, taint king,

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And then kind of all of those things like mashed in together. When we meet him, before he ever steps foot on center stage of the Bible, we're told that he's out in the wilderness. And so what the author of 1 Samuel is telling us is David is out there in both the worst and the best place he can be. So when he's- Yeah, so when he steps into the pages of the Bible, we're about to meet someone who has been like fortified in the classroom of God before he's even entered the scene. So-

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There's no way we both just did that. Clock that. Wait, that's crazy. Yeah, and that's what the wilderness is. So you're right. It's like, there's no point being like, I'm in the wilderness and I love it. Like, God, test me and test me again and test me again. Like, that's not a biblical response to the wilderness. The Bible's really honest. Like, it is tough out there.

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But it's also not a place of like utter surrender where you're like, do you know what? Forget it. Like God's obviously gone. He's obviously not interested. I obviously don't have his attention. It's this place of tension where we're like, I am in the thick of it and God is present in the thick of it too.

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Because the same wilderness that drove, say, King Saul utterly mad, made him unravel, is the exact same wilderness that made David the king he went on to be. Like we get to choose in the wilderness how we're going to be within it

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And so that's what I would say about that. But the wilderness absolutely is not a place where God is not. I think to like circle back to your initial question, that's, I mean, God is everywhere. God is everyone. Like there's that Psalm 139, which David wrote, right? Psalm 139. Like if I go down to the, if I make my bed in the depths, like you're there.

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He knew that full well. Like he knew that full well because he had done that. He'd gone and made his bed in the depths. He'd hidden out in caves. He'd fought bears and lions in the wilderness. He'd been in the classroom of God. And again and again and again just like cried out to him to the point where he can say something like, where can I go from your presence? That there's literally nowhere I can go where you're not already there waiting for me. So there is no place where God is not. So that is not what a wilderness season is.

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It might be that for whatever reason, be that our circumstances or kind of like, I mean, I've been through seasons, right, where I've hardened myself because I'm in a hard season. And I've hardened myself so much to try and shield myself from the circumstances around me that I've also hardened myself to the voice of God. So I have to actively be like, this is going to be painful, but Lord, like soften me again because you can't get to me. I feel like you can't get to me.

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um and i need you yeah so this it's that it's like you might be in a season where you've put up like barrier like you've got like you've put guardrails around yourself and with good reason like let's be gentle with ourselves but like we're hunkering down and there's no there's no way for god to get to us in that in that posture wow and how would you say is like say somebody that's listening is in a wilderness season right now and does have these like guardrails up

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yeah how like how do they get them down like what should their response be um how can they grow in the wilderness season instead of being you know turning out like king soul yeah and like unraveling yeah i think the key like there are a few things i could say but i think the number one thing would be honesty honesty with god he can't help you through a season you're pretending you're not in

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yeah like he can't heal something he can't heal a wound that you're pretending isn't there so i just think it has to start with like interesting yeah like like jesus didn't die for like the fake version of us do you know what i mean like the polished up squeaky clean version of us and so i think that has to be step one is even to say like god i need you here and i'm not feeling you like i need to hear your voice and i can't hear you i i'm not feeling you

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I need your guidance and I can't seem to find it. I think like, again, David in the Psalms, that's what he teaches us. Like, be honest, even in that Psalm I just quoted, Psalm 139, there's like this little chunk that we actually don't know what to do with. David gets like quite angry.

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So even in all of that, he's quite angry with God because he's like, I don't understand why the wicked are getting away with what they're getting away with. You know, I don't understand why, you know. And the book of Job is all about that. Like God can handle every emotion you throw at him. It's wild grace to me that he would prefer me to sit there and scream at him than to sit there and ignore him. Like that's just nuts to me, but that's the way he is. Wow.

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And so I think there's two things. So be honest, just say, God, I'm hurting. Like the amount of times my only prayer to God has been like, God, I hate, I'm in pain, you know? And then there's that other thing. And this is like a brave thing to pray. It's actually something I'm trying to pray at the moment where I'm like, God, I think I need you to soften me.

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And like, my gosh, I'm scared because if you soften me, like all of this other stuff can come to me. My God, I, you, like I'm keeping you at arm's length and I can't do that anymore. So maybe that's a prayer for someone listening. And it's a really vulnerable prayer, like maybe do it in community because you want people covering you when you're being that vulnerable. But praying for like God to like soften the soil of your heart again, you know.

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um yeah those would be my two main things those are great i mean that reminds me even of um like placing god in his right place like god is our protector and god is our defender yeah like realizing that we actually can't we can't walk through the wilderness on our own no no literally can't yeah yeah so that's so beautiful yeah yeah i kind of want to i want to

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You want to pivot? I want to pivot. Yeah, you pivot away. I really want to talk about the, you've got a new book coming out. Is it in the summer that it's going to come out? June 4th. June 4th. It's so soon. That may have even come and gone by the time this is in people's ears. Yes.

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Yeah. So, so June 4th, you've got a new book coming out. And as far as I understand, it's about, um, kind of what we, what we had mentioned before about this new openness and like longing for a connection to a spiritual reality. Is that right? Yeah.

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That's exactly right. Yeah. So everything that I mentioned about kind of the context I was growing up in 20-ish years ago, I just think like the tectonic plates have shifted. I just think things have been flipped upside down. There isn't that like...

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there isn't that hardness now to a spiritual reality. People are actively wanting it and seeking it. So we're in a very different like cultural landscape now to the one that we were in. So that's, yeah, the book is called the sacred ache and it's,

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it basically is both to and about people who would call themselves spiritual but not religious so people who are doing spiritual practices as a form of kind of self-help because they're craving something beyond themselves something bigger than themselves like you said like a spiritual realm a spiritual reality they're kind of done with this idea that all that we see is all that there is like humans are at the top of the pyramid they

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we don't seem to want that anymore as a society. So they're doing like spiritual forms of self-help, but definitely are still a little reluctant to sign up to like a quote unquote institutionalized religion or particular religious story or whatever. So I wrote this book for them and I wrote it about them as well. Yeah. Wow.

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How should we as Christians, do you think, be approaching having conversations about faith with people who would fit into this category? Yeah.

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I have my theory. I have the way I've been doing it and I'm trying to do it. People don't need to agree with it though. It's my caveat because I get that it won't be for everyone. These people who are doing, and for example, like one of the chapters of my book is about manifesting, you know, like people manifesting their dreams, right? Or tarot cards or astrology. Are those literally like the chapter titles?

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Yeah. No way. That's really helpful. Yeah. I think I've given like pithy little titles to them as well, but ultimately it's like, yeah, tarots and psychics and astrology and, um, what are the ones like energy healing and yoga and meditation? Like, because all of these are increasing in popularity, all of them are becoming more and more mainstream. Like you can buy tarot cards in any bookshop these days. Yes, you can.

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yeah it's so like it's no longer like this kind of like new age like subsection of people over there like like just a stonehenge that's just not that's just not what it is anymore everybody is i read a piece in the new york times the other day about how many people are stopping going to therapy because they're starting going to tarot card readers instead

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So it's like self-help is literally being like switched out for this spiritual stuff, right? So back to your question, like what I'm doing, and this won't be for everybody, but I'm doing it, is to try and be as generous in my curiosity as possible. So what the Sacred Ake does, and the reason it's called the Sacred Ake, so I'm a Christian.

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did you know that i'm a christian i believe that we were made by god i believe that we were made for god and to borrow a quote that i always use from saint augustine i believe that we will our hearts will be restless until they find their rest in him because they were designed to be so that means that i believe we're spiritual beings with spiritual needs

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so i actually think that the cravings that might be leading someone to manifest their dreams or to go to a tarot card reader or to like pay deep attention to their star sign i actually think those are cravings they were designed to have it's just that those cravings were designed to be met in god

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So I'm trying to be as generous and genuinely be like, what do you get from these things? Like, what's on offer? What's being promised? Because for example, if they say, oh, well, I go to a tarot card reader and this is like such a common response. Well, I go to a tarot card reader because I don't want to be the one who's telling like the story of my own life. Like I want guidance that feels like it comes from somewhere like beyond and is therefore feels more trustworthy.

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then I as a Christian can sit there and be like I hear you I have that exact same like longing and craving and I believe that there is a God who speaks like I believe that there is a God who made me and will tell me about what he's made

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Do you know what I mean? So like all of a sudden you're like, wow, there's loads of overlap in the Venn diagram here. And so just because you go there and I go here, the craving is the same. So come and see where I go. And obviously I just always go to Jesus. So that's been my approach. Such an invitation. Really invitational. It's a come and see kind of book.

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Really is trying to meet people where they're at and come and see. Yeah. So I stole that tactic really from Paul in, in Acts, he goes to Athens and it says that when he rocked up at Athens, he was very distressed to see that the city was full of idols. So like, I'm not pretending I'm not distressed.

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I'm distressed. Like it distresses me that people's like good and innate longings, that their restlessness is being manipulated here, there and everywhere. Like there's a distress within me. I'm not pretending that there isn't. But then Paul gets dragged in front of what's called the Areopagus. So this is like a meaning making council, like a cultural council, right?

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full of philosophers and thinkers and it actually says the people there did nothing but spent every day listening to the latest ideas so they chuck pull up there and they're like give us your latest idea and he gets up there and what i notice he doesn't do in this magnificent speech and you can find it in act 17 if you're intrigued

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um is he doesn't demonize them and he doesn't dismiss them he gets up and he says people of athens i can see that in every way you're very religious um as in i see the cravings within you i see that in every way you are searching for god and then he says for i even saw an altar with this inscription to an unknown god

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Which is very Paul for like, but you still haven't found what you're looking for, have you? Like you're still restless. Interesting. You're still, you know, you're still searching. Like it's not quite been satisfied, has it? So I've totally ripped off his method. Thank you.

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Awesome. Yeah. I mean, he's a good guy to emulate, but that's what I try to do. I try to go to these people and say like, I see that in every way you're looking for what I'm always looking like. It's the same stuff. You're restless. I'm restless. Like you're like a cosmically needy human. I'm a cosmically needy human, but I still don't think you found what you're looking for. Have you?

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And then from that place of genuine and generous curiosity, like paying deep attention and refusing to demonize or dismiss, then you have this like come and see invitation. Like, let me tell you about prayer instead of manifesting. Let me tell you about like the spiritual gift of prophecy instead of tarot card readers. Let me tell you about the Holy Spirit instead of the universe. Let me tell, you know, because you realize that actually...

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man, we were designed to have every need fulfilled in Jesus. Yeah, real. So it becomes quite an easy invite after that. I'm curious, what would you say to someone who is...

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I would say like pursuing Jesus, but also open to other avenues. How would you kind of communicate? Like, because I assume you would, you would want them to like hone in on just Jesus. How would you, how would you like say like, this is why it's important to put these other things away? Yeah.

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yeah how would you communicate that yeah yeah yeah so this is really interesting because the book doesn't go there because the book is for people to be like try jesus um so this whole step of like now try only jesus is like it's almost like a sequel that hasn't yet been written um

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But I would just be like, I mean, I end the book because I, like I say, I spend the book being just super curious, super generous, really gentle, to be honest, maybe too gentle for some Christians. I'm expecting that to be like a little bit of pushback I get. But then right at the end, I say, as long as your search for spiritual things, for things that are bigger than you, gets shrunk down to being the size of you, like to being all about you, you'll remain dissatisfied. Yeah.

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So I think that's kind of like... Whoa, wait. That's, yeah, wow. Can you like, can you dumb that down for me? Shut up.

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So, and this is, I'm really sympathetic towards this, but like all of these other spiritual practices, they're very much about changing your circumstances. They're very much, I guess, what you could call consumeristic, even though I'm not like, that's a little bit judgy for me, but it is, there's like a gimme, gimme-ness about them, right?

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So like what we're doing is we're desperate for something that's bigger than us. But what we're really desperate for is for that to help us. Yeah. To like come down and then make it about us. So yeah, like we'll look at the stars, but then actually tell me what the stars mean about me. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. And I'm sympathetic to that because I get it. Because again, like...

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that's that's the beauty of being a christian that david again keep banging on about david but he writes a song where he's like when i look at the the work of your hands when i look at the heavens who am i that you're mindful of me there is something within us that looks at the vastness of things the bigness of things the old nuts of things and then things like fancy like fancy god cares about me so even that is a good desire in them right

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But what I'm saying then is as long as everything bigger than you, you're somehow making to be about you, like you're kind of, you've lost the game already. Because actually like true freedom and grace and love is like found in God who's so much bigger.

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Does that make sense? So I guess that's what I would say is I'd be like, Jesus is worthy of your trust. Try putting down all the other stuff and be vulnerable enough to just gaze at Jesus for a while and see what happens. Like just try because maybe spirituality isn't about us in that way. So, okay, maybe we've started going to church, but our circumstances haven't changed yet. So we're still going to keep our crystals on hand. And it's like,

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maybe just try gazing at jesus maybe it's not about the circumstances changing immediately maybe it's about learning that there is a god who sits with you in the circumstances who refuses to flinch who refuses to leave you maybe just try like just try giving him your whole attention and i'm really honest about how that's vulnerable like in the book i'm really honest about how it's vulnerable to have a faith but just try giving him your whole attention and see what he does with it

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um because it is so much bigger and better than anything else is what i would say

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That was a, that was a mic drop moment. Shoot. Wow. Should we? Wow. Sorry. Yeah. What were you going to say? No, I'm just saying like, I would have really needed to hear that like four years ago when I was in first year uni. Cause I, although I was a Christian, I like all of this like tarot card stuff and like manifestation was coming up on my social media. Yeah.

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all the time yeah and it just really like through through me yeah through my priorities and i didn't understand yeah that doing the both and wasn't god's plan for my life or for christians it's not god's plan for us so thank you for sharing that yeah it's such a blessing to hear wow sorry

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Well, Bell, thank you so much for coming on this morning. It has been the biggest privilege to chat with you. I feel like I've learned so much. It's been so, so fun. Yeah, it's been so fun. Yeah, and I've never had this before. Really? Just something I've said. Do you know what it is? No.

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I don't know how to explain it. I hope I played it cool though. It means clocking. Clocking time. Yeah, clocking time. Clocking in. There you go, Spotify listeners. We are clocking time. We're clocking time. Put this emoji in the chat. Yeah, the pinch. The emoji. The pinch. Boom, drop that right there. Oh my gosh, I'm honoured. Honoured. Guys, thanks so much for joining us on this episode. We will see you soon. Don't forget to subscribe, hit the comments, all that stuff. So much love for you guys. Bye for now.