Day One
Man #1: I would say I feel most connected to God when I’m in community, whether that be at church or in a small group and we’re together, focused on Him, discussing Him.
Woman: So, I would say I feel most connected to God when I am outside just observing nature.
Man #2: I feel most connected to God when I’m listening an… Or even singing praise and worship songs.
John Fuller: Well how do you best connect with God? Maybe your faith is inspired by beautiful art or maybe a s… A song like we heard there. Or you love God by serving others or perhaps you find great meaning and strength through church and spiritual traditions. We’re gonna explore all of these and more today on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. I’m John Fuller and Jim, I wonder what happens when you take diverse people who experience God in all sorts of different ways and put them together in a room, uh, the quiet devotional ones and then the, the loud uh rejoicing ones.
Jim Daly: Yes, I think you end up with 60,000 denon… Denominations (laughs)-
John: (Laughs)
Jim: … Right? That’s kind of what happens with that.
John: Yeah.
Jim: But it is interesting that we do kind of have different temperaments that bend us in a different direction, maybe where we’re comfortable.
John: Mm-hmm.
Jim: And uh, in our worship and our connection with God and we do, we do get kinda dogmatic about the way it should be done and just think of the way marriage works. You know, we tend to marry opposites, you know, Jean is an introvert scientist. I’m more a marketing guy on the uh, extrovert scale and it’s true of our worship too. I could see that so clearly-
John: Mm-hmm.
Jim: … You know, she likes really structured worship, she wants to go 10 minutes this way with song and you know, five minutes of prayer, now let’s get to the kid’s devotional. I’m like, “Let’s just do it in the car on the way to church.”
John: Oh (laughs).
Jim: (laughs). So it’s just so fun to see that and hopefully we could look at that way and understanding how we’re wired, how the Lord is… Uh, provided our temperament in a way to worship Him is key and then being able to do it. So I’m looking forward to this discussion today with one of our favorite guests-
John: Yes, Gary Thomas is a great friend, he’s a neighbor now, living up-
Jim: (laughs)
John: … In the Denver area. He’s back with us. Uh, Gary is part of the teaching team at Cherry Hills Community Church in Highlands Ranch. Uh, he’s a prolific author and speaker and he’s written more than 25 books. We’re covering the content of one of those today called Sacred Pathways: Nine Ways to Connect with God. Uh, it’s a wonderful resource and we’ll encourage you to get a copy. We have details uh, here at the ministry. Look for it at focusonthefamily.com/broadcast.
Jim: Gary, welcome back to Focus.
Gary Thomas: Hi, this feels like home away from home, guys.
Jim: Yeah, you’re just down the road.
Gary: It’s always great to be back.
Jim: It’s so fun. Let me ask you this, I’m thinking it’s uh, quite a statement to say Sacred Pathways: Nine Ways to Connect with God, we’re you ever worried in the middle of the night, the Lord would say, “Gary, there’s Ten.”
Gary: (laughs)
John: (laughs)
Jim: Hey, Gary, you missed one. (laughs)
Gary: (laughs) You know, o-one of the reasons I love talking about this is it’s a gift to a person in that we’re always looking to our spouse for affirmation, or our kids or the world at large and God is the only place where we can get it. So this is something that delights people. But what hits me is it also delights God when we take an effort to get to know Him. James 4:8 says, “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.” That’s talking to Christians, you look at it in context. He’s just saying take a step in my way and I’m just gonna pull you in.
Jim: Yeah.
Gary: It… What strikes me, the relational nature of our God, the first question God ever asks, you guys probably know where I’m going. But Adam had sinned and it wasn’t just a little thing. Everything was changed, God created a perfect world, everything was set up so perfectly and the minute Adam sinned, God knows what’s gonna happen. The wars, the, the murders, the theft, the abuse. And then I think God knew what it meant. The Father looks at the Son, the Son looks at the Father and they know the terrible cost that’s gonna happen because of what Adam did. And I’m just thinking, you know we’re all parents, fathers, you could run in and, and first the question that come out of our minds is, “What have you done?” Or, “Do you have any idea what this is gonna cost me?” And instead God’s first question to Adam was, “Where are you, why are you hiding from me?”
Jim: Wow.
Gary: And, and it’s not information… God knew where Adam was. He didn’t say, “Hey angels, you wanna go out and do a posse, we gotta figure out where Adam…” It was a relational statement to us, even when we really blow it, God is most concerned about the relationship.
Jim: Hmm.
Gary: “Come back to me. Draw near to me.”
Jim: Yeah.
Gary: And that that’s God’s first question tells me one of the biggest studies of our lives should be how do we connect to this God who so passionately wants to connect with us?
Jim: Yeah, it’s a good statement, but here’s the question. What’s really hard is how we get into this one size shouldn’t fit all.
Gary: Yes.
Jim: And it’s what divides us so often-
Gary: Mm-hmm.
Jim: … About how we do worship, how we connect with God, how we commune with Him and we end up breaking down into these groups and if you don’t do it our way, you’re not doing it the right way. Um, (laughs) that’s really the opening comment, that’s what you’ve written about here.
Gary: Yeah, yeah. Well we preach our preference and we act like there is just one way and what I’ve found and I hope God has mercy on young men that I was discipling in college.
Jim: (laughs)
Gary: Is that we then turn it into an obligation. Well, here’s how you connect with God. In college I had it down. You wake up at this time, you do this, this is how you pray, this is how you study scripture-
Jim: Start in the morning.
Gary: … This, yeah, e-exactly what, what you have to do. And when you take this incredible opportunity that the God of the universe who loves us like nobody else loves us, we were made to love, and then we make it an obligation like have you taken your vitamins today? Have you done your exercise today, have you met with God today, we’re completely missing the opportunity. And so I realize it’s, it’s not the who, it’s the how. The reason it feels like an obligation is we’re trying to have people connect with God in a way that doesn’t fit how God made them.
John: Mm-hmm.
Gary: But if we can teach ’em how to relate to God in the way He made them, it’s gonna be like, I get to meet with God today!
Jim: (laughs)
Gary: And if they, if life happens and they’re not able to do it, at the end of the day rather than feeling guilty they’ll feel like I missed it, but I got tomorrow.
Jim: Yeah, and I… You know, reading the material, reading the book, this, this idea that we’re living on a starvation diet-
Gary: Yes.
Jim: … Man, that caught my attention like back to your point about, you know just having it regimented and-
Gary: Yes.
Jim: … But, but speak to that, that really convicted me, the starvation diet when it comes to communing with God.
Gary: It’s all about keeping the presence and affirmation of God flowing through our lives. Uh, Jack Sanford grew up in New England. He had an old, old family farm that had a, a well that had served his family for generations. And when they modernized the farm, they brought in electricity and plumbing and whatnot, they stopped up the well and kept it for emergencies but now they had plumbing and… But whenever the kids would gather and the whole family, he would just brag, “Oh man, you’ve never tasted water-”
Jim: (laughs)
Gary: … “Like this well water.” And so finally one of ’em called him out on it, “Well, let’s, let’s go taste it.” He goes, “Oh this is gonna be great.” So he unstops the well, he drops down a bucket and pulls up nothing. Now that well had served his family for generations through the worst droughts, the worst things you could imagine. So he goes into the locals and says, “W-w-what’s up with this? It never ran dry.” And they explained that in New England, that part of New England the wells are fed by 100s of tiny underground rivulets. As long as water is being drawn from ’em, the hole stay open and that well will never run out. But if you stop drawing water from the well, the rivulets fill up and the well goes dry.
Jim: Wow.
Gary: And I found that with our hearts, the more we draw from God, the more His presence is dynamic and filling and affirming and we want more of it. You get a taste of God and you want more of God. You get too busy and distracted, you start to get by with just a little bit of God.
Jim: Mmm.
Gary: And that’s not too far from stopping up the well altogether and then it becomes an obligation and you’re not really getting hardly anything from God.
Jim: No, that’s really, really good. Um, I understand this idea of different ways to connect with God became an issue for you (laughs) and your wife, Lisa.
Gary: Oh.
Jim: I always like asking these questions (laughs).
John: (laughs) He wrote about it so it’s fair game, right?
Jim: And uh, you know this is when you were dating in college, so we could start there with these contrasts-
John: (laughs)
Gary: (laughs)
Jim: … So what, with you and Lisa-
Gary: Yeah, it was funny.
Jim: … What happened?
Gary: It was… Well look, I f… I fell in love with this… Like you said-
Jim: (laughs)
Gary: … With Jean, who I love more than life and was exactly opposite from me in so many ways.
Jim: Uh-huh.
Gary: What we thought constituted food, I grew up the junk food junkie, she grew up in a family that ate 100% whole wheat bread-
Jim: (laughs)
Gary: Things that grow, stuff like that. Um, and then our schedules were so different. I was convinced back then you had to get up and have your quiet time first thing and it had to be early. God’s a busy God. If you’re sleeping in past 7:00, He might be running China or Russia or something-
John: (laughs)
Gary: … And so that’s, that’s what I did. And Lisa is not a morning person so even in college, um, she would… If she had an 8:00 class, she would roll out of bed at 7:30, brush her hair and teeth, go to classes and come back and she loves to be in the sun. And you could go up on to the roof of the dorm back then, lay in the sun with her Bible and she called it quiet time. And in the flirty way college students do, I said, “Lisa, come on, who, who goes up onto the roof at noontime, lays in the sun and calls that a quiet time?” She couldn’t say anything but two weeks went by and I hear this knock on my dorm room door. I open it up and Lisa’s got this smile on her face.
Jim: (laughs)
Gary: She goes to my Bible, opens it up to Acts 10:9 and I read these words, “About noon the following day-”
Jim: (laughs)
Gary: … “Peter went up on the roof to pray.”
Jim: (laughs)
John: (laughs)
Gary: And I… That can’t be in there! And she actually initialed it. If you go to my old Bible there’s LRE-
Jim: (laughs)
Gary: … ‘Cause her last name was Ely, not Thomas yet. Um, and it was just like, it, it really kinda opened up my eyes to-
Jim: (laughs)
Gary: … Not being quite so judgmental ’cause here’s the thing, I knew Lisa loved the Lord and I knew God spoke to her. I wouldn’t have fallen in love with her if He hadn’t, but it helped me realize, but that doesn’t mean we’re gonna have the same kind of devotional styles or the same kind of quiet times, even at the same time of the day or in the same place, or doing the same thing. It was… It really was an eye-opening moment for me.
Jim: Yeah, it’s so good, it’s so specific. At noon on the rooftop.
Gary: (laughs)
Jim: I don’t know if I get answers quite like that.
Gary: I thought, w-what are the odds of that (laughs).
Jim: (laughs)
John: Love her spunk.
Jim: That’s so funny. Um, one of the concerns obviously is h-how do we know that our spiritual temperament or our favorite form of worship toward the Lord is within orthodoxy? Maybe some people don’t think about that but I think the, some of the strife within the church is around that. Um, h-how do we measure it? What scripture do we use to say, “Okay, this is within the norms of Christian Worship.”
Gary: Well it’s a very valid concern and I think as a Christian it all has to go through Jesus. It’s about having a relationship with Jesus. Not spirituality per se, but with a real, living person. And then scripture does give us widely, certain things that we’re not to do. We’re not to consult the dead, we’re not to worship after other gods. There, there are certain things that are prohibited from us because they lead us astray and they lead our hearts astray. But the fascinating thing is, while the Old Testament Worship is so specific, sprinkle a little of this here, say this here. On this day of the month you do that, on that day of the month you do that, at nighttime you do this. I mean it’s very specific-
Jim: Oh yeah.
Gary: … In the Old Testament. the New Testament is the exact opposite. I-it really doesn’t give us those directions. There are a few things, make sure it’s in order, people should do this at that time but as far as individually relating to God, the freedom of the New Testament is astonishing if it’s offered through Jesus, through the power of the Holy Spirit and so I, I think for me, every form of worship needs to be found in scripture, honored by scripture, based on scripture. Uh, but, scripture gives us a lot of freedom as long as Jesus is our focus.
John: Mmm.
Jim: You mentioned four elements in Mark 12:20.
Gary: Yes.
Jim: Um, that’s a good-
Gary: Yes.
Jim: … Indicator for us. What, what did you find-
Gary: Yeah.
Jim: … In Mark 12:20?
Gary: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.” So I’m… This isn’t straight exegesis but I think it’s a fair picture of the four elements that are essential for us to relate to God. Heart, I’m referring to a-adoration. There should be times when we’re not just trying to use God, would you please do this, would you please fix that? Th-there’s gotta be adoration of God. There’s gotta be that seeing God in His glory. Seeing the beauty of God. W-we have to shape our hearts so that we love what is lovely and God is the definition of that. Soul is communication. I-I need to talk to God, I need to hear back from God through Scripture is the, the, the solid way, but there’s gotta be that sense where I lay my request before God. Mind, I need to shape my mind around the Word of God. We know scripture is the revealed Word of God, it’s His will, we find different ways to get scripture in our life. Some people, they’re gonna go to the Bible study fellowship with a big room full of people and, and other teachers. Some, they’re gonna have their commentaries and concordances out there. Others will listen to scripture on their way to work. Others will focus on memorizing scripture but getting the Word into our minds is an essential part of following God. And then strength and that’s important ’cause it’s not just about loving God, it’s about being sent by God. It’s not just relating to God, it’s being used by God. So we need to find a different way that God loves us so that we can love others.
Jim: Mmm.
John: Mmm.
Gary: It doesn’t end with us, we’re getting filled up by God so that we can be poured out for others.
John: Mmm. This is Focus on the Family with Jim Daly and our guest today is Gary Thomas and we’re talking about concepts in his book, Sacred Pathways: Nine ways to Connect with God. Get a copy of that book from us here at Focus on the Family uh, give us a call, 800, the letter A and the word FAMILY, or stop by focusonthefamily.com/broadcast for details. And Gary, I love how what you’re talking about right there is, is individual worship and individual connection with God. Talk about the importance of connecting with God in community, especially these days it seems a lot of Christians are saying, “Uh, I do God by myself. I don’t do-”
Gary: Yeah.
John: … “Any connecting with God at church.
Gary: We’re, we’re gonna talk about nine different ways of connecting with God. I think we will impoverish ourselves if we have the outdoor chapel of the naturalist, the rock and rolling church of the enthusiast, the bruise and beaten church of the activist, because we need to learn from each other. God has given us the church where we can expand our understanding of Him and it, it would be sort of like trying to understand the game of baseball if you only hung around catchers. Or you stayed in the bullpen and you only talked to pitchers.
Jim: Hmm.
Gary: Or you only talked to the designated hitter. You don’t have a full understanding of all that baseball involves until you see different ways that people play the game.
John: Yeah.
Gary: And I think as a Christian, when I can draw from others and not just draw, but learn from others and appreciate others I get a fuller understanding of who God is a-and I broaden my own delight in connecting with God and grow in my ability to connect with God. I, I do think the longer we walk with God, i-it’s like our hearts are awakened and we can connect to Him in ways outside of our pathways. You see all nine pathways in Jesus. I can see five in David and three or four in Moses.
John: Hmm.
Gary: So it’s not about putting ourselves into one box, it’s really opening up our minds and hearts to connect to God on any number of ways.
Jim: Yeah, uh, uh Gary, we’ve talked about it, let’s get it out there, the nine sacred pathways or temperaments that you identify in the book. Then, if you will allow us, we’ll post those on the website-
John: Good idea.
Jim: … So people can go look at ’em ’cause we’re gonna go, uh-
Gary: Absolutely.
Jim: … This time and next time through the nine, we wanna cover them. But what are the nine pathways that you’ve identified?
Gary: The first the naturalist. Their hearts are awakened to God when they get out of doors and they’re-
Jim: That’s John.
Gary: … Surrounded by all that God has made.
John: I do like the outdoors.
Jim: (laughs)
Gary: And it’s, h-how can you not be a naturalist in Colorado?
John: Yeah.
Jim: There you go.
Gary: Little more difficult in Houston-
Jim: (laughs)
Gary: … Cement city, but Colorado leads you that way. The sensates who approach God mainly through the five senses. If you tell a sensate to close your eyes and bow your head, they’re likely to fall asleep. Uh, they like the majestic architecture. When their senses are awakened, their soul is awakened to God. The traditionalists love God through ritual and symbol. They like to worship God like people have for 1000s of years. They may have a rule of prayer, they like symbols that remind them of the faith. People downplay religion as this awful thing but religious trappings and symbols and ceremonies can be very meaningful to a tradition… traditionalist. I mean, it makes their heart and mind come alive. There are the ascetics who seek God in solitude and simplicity. They wanna be alone, they wanna be quiet. Think of a monk or a nun. You have the activist, they’re drawn to God in the midst of confrontation. They feel closest to God when they’re fighting God’s battles. So churches where you get petitions signed, where you recruit volunteers, where you get your batteries to be charged up so that you can really connect with God outside-
Jim: That sounds like a prophet.
John: Yeah.
Gary: It does.
Jim: Yeah.
Gary: A-and they need to receive God’s affirmation because God may be the only one who loves activists.
Jim: (laughs)
John: (laughs)
Gary: They’re sorta those ones that really get under the saddle and um, they need God to love them.
Jim: But they, but they serve a purpose is your point.
Gary: Yes, absolutely. And then you have the caregivers who love God by loving others. When they show care to others they feel this special connection with God. I think of Mother Teresa when she said that she was caring for the leprosy patients, she felt like she was caring for Jesus Himself.
Jim: Mmm.
John: Mmm.
Gary: Um, when Franklin Graham told me this when he saw Mother Teresa for the first time and he was visiting with Bob Pierce. Bob Pierce at the time headed up World Vision.
Jim: Mm-hmm.
Gary: So you have Franklin Graham who’s representing the Billy Graham Association, Evangelistic Association. You have Bob Pierce with W-World Vision. I mean these are two… I mean this in a positive way, big fat cats from the US, right?
Jim: (laughs)
Gary: I mean there are a lot of resources, a lot of influence and they’re there to meet with Mother Teresa and the sister comes out and says, “M-Mother Superior is, is caring for a man who’s dying, she’ll be out as soon as he’s dead.” And y-you’d think mostly, I mean, the resource… I mean they did depend on charity, she’d be out, but if you talked to Mother Teresa it wasn’t like she would be leaving this nameless, faceless man, because that’s what he was. He was taken off the streets of Calcutta for… To go see Franklin Graham and Bob Pierce. To her it’d be like leaving Jesus in His moment of need to go see Franklin Graham and Bob Pierce. And for her, there’s no competition. She’s not gonna leave Jesus regardless-
John: Right.
Gary: … Of whose there. Because for a, a caregiver, it’s that clear. For them, they sense the presence of Jesus when they’re giving care to others. There are the enthusiasts, those are the… The tend to be charismatic, they like to worship in groups. They could go to the two or three hour worship services. They never get tired and they also like to focus on the supernatural. The traditionalists likes things like, okay, offering’s being passed at 10:34.
Jim: (laughs)
Gary: All is right with the world.
Jim: Right.
Gary: The enthusiasts are thinking, I hope God comes in such a fresh and new way that we don’t even get to offering. That everything is blown apart. They like to take spiritual risks. Lord, let me see somebody today that I don’t know. Maybe I give ’em a gift, maybe I give ’em an encouraging word. But that energized their faith, seeing the supernatural God. You have the contemplatives, which I’m not using it as the word is used historically as far as contemplation as an act of meditation. It’s, they have an emotional connection to God. For them, prayer is sitting in God’s presence, they might even describe it as holding God’s hand. It’s the Eastern Orthodox approach to God is experience is above knowledge.
Jim: Hmm.
Gary: They just wanna be with God.
Jim: Yeah.
Gary: Which really frustrates the last one, we’ll talk about the intellectuals. They always wanna have something to apply because for an intellectual you open up their mind to open up their heart. W-what, what’s something new I can learn and something new I can apply? And so the intellectuals say to the contemplative, “Well what did you learn?” “I don’t know but I held hands with God.” And the intellectual, “W-w-w-what, what good is that?” Now here’s why I love that there is such a difference. God is, is so brilliant in this. People often think of caregivers and activists as opposite sides of the spectrum. And in a sense that’s true. But here’s what’s going on, the activist is confronting evil on a macro scale. Let’s stop the evil systems, let’s stop the evil from happening. The caregiver is caring for the victims of evil on a micro-
Jim: Mm-hmm.
Gary: … Scale. Individuals who are hurt by evil. How brilliant of God that He creates people who feel closest to Him when they’re trying to stop evil at its source and then He creates people who feel closest to Him when they’re caring for the victims of evil that hasn’t yet been stopped. That’s why I don’t want the church to be one person.
Jim: Yeah.
Gary: God knows what He’s doing that we feel drawn to Him as He’s building His kingdom on this earth through many different people in many different ways.
Jim: That’s the beauty of this and this why the, the content’s so rich and good and it really helps to understand your temperament in this direction and to uh, I think give a bit of leeway for those that feel it differently, right?
Gary: Yes.
Jim: That’s the key point you’re making. Um, we’re gonna go a little deeper next time into those nine, so we’ll pick that up, but as we end today, you have a concept you talk about, finding your Gethsemane.
Gary: Yes.
Jim: Let’s cover that and the importance of that and what you mean by that. And then we’ll come back next time and dig into the nine so we understand them better.
Gary: Yeah. We always talk about Gethsemane at Easter time because it was a place of such drama where Jesus met with His Father before He was betrayed and agreed, okay, I’m gonna do this. But the reason Gethsemane has such a big role on Easter week is because it had such a big role in Jesus’s life prior to Easter week. And that’s the whole point of the pathways. When things are getting real (laughs). If your family is breaking up, you’re being attacked, a loved one is lost, you’re facing doubts, where is the garden you can go to where you know you can connect with God? When you really need to hear from God, you have this pathway that’s saying more often than not, this is where I meet with God. John 18:2 says that Judas knew where he could find Jesus because, “Jesus had often met there with His disciples.” Judas didn’t have to think, where is Jesus gonna be? He knows things are going down, says, “Well, this is where Jesus usually met with us.” And so if you look at the history and there are other verses we don’t have time to get into, Jesus knew He would face this challenge alone and He thought, where can I meet with my Father? This is the moment of His life and His ministry, this whole purpose in coming was about to unfold but He knew this… Excruciating isn’t a strong enough word, there isn’t a strong enough word in English to describe the torturous hell that Jesus was about to face. And so He needed to connect with His Father and here is the garden of Gethsemane. And so I wanna say to believers, where is your garden? When life is getting real, when you’ve gotta step forward in obedience. For some of you, it might be having a guitar in your hand. For others of you, there might be a familiar walk by the creek. For others, it’s stealing into a chapel and praying in the quiet. For other, it’s taking your Bible by a, a, a waterfall. For others of you there’s a special place in your room or maybe you’ve got candles and pictures and everything set up that reminds you of the presence of God. It’s finding that place where you can connect with God, have your spiritual batteries recharged, receive the affirmation of God so that you can go out and do the work of God.
Jim: This is so good, and Gary, we’ve just gotten started. There’s so much more to cover and I do wanna come back next time and dig into those nine types. I hope for you, what you’re hearing is how we want to help you develop your relationship with the Lord, that’s-
John: Mm-hmm.
Jim: … The bottom line.
John: Yeah.
Jim: Whether you’re watching on YouTube or listening on the uh, radio or podcast. However you’re getting Focus on the Family. But this is part of our goal is to help develop your Christian faith and partnering with Gary here with his great book, Sacred Pathways: Nine Ways to Connect with God, is a wonderful tool. Make a monthly pledge of any amount and we’ll get it out to you right away as our way of saying thanks for helping us strengthen and equip others to grow in their faith. Uh, that’s a big part of what we do here at Focus on the Family, evangelism and discipleship and I wanna invite you to be part of our faith building team. Make a monthly pledge or send a one-time gift today. Gary, thanks again for being with us.
Gary: My pleasure.
Jim: Let’s come back and we’ll keep digging.
Gary: Looking forward to it.
John: And we did a really quick dive there into the nine. We’ve got that list posted and then for a, for a deeper look, go ahead and get a copy of this book from Gary called Sacred Pathways: Nine Ways to Connect with God. Give us a call, our number is 800, letter A and the word FAMILY, or you can donate generously online. Uh, we’ve got the details at focusonthefamily.com/broadcast. On behalf of the entire team, thanks for joining us today for Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. I’m John Fuller inviting you back as we continue the conversation with Gary Thomas and once again, help you and your family thrive in Christ.
Day Two
Preview:
Gary Thomas: The more we draw from God, the more His presence is dynamic and filling and affirming and we want more of it. You get a taste of God and you want more. You get too busy and distracted, you start to get by with just a little bit of God. And that’s not too far from stopping up the well altogether and then it becomes an obligation and you’re not really getting hardly anything.
End of Preview
John Fuller: That’s a profound observation from Gary Thomas. He’s our guest again on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly, helping us explore how we connect with God, how we can, um, get to know God better. I’m John Fuller and thanks for joining us.
Jim Daly: John, it’s always great to have Gary in the studio, he’s uh… I’m gonna puff you up a little bit.
Gary: (laughs)
Jim: He’s brilliant! Yeah, he’s a great communicator and that is all true. Normally I go home like tonight I’ll go home and say to Jean, “Hey, I’ve got this great idea, this assessment of nine ways to worship the Lord. Maybe we should take that.” And she’ll say, “Who’d you uh, tape with today?” (laughs)
Gary: (laughs)
Jim: She’s got that down, it’s wonderful so I’m looking forward to learning more. If you didn’t hear last time’s program, go to the YouTube channel or you can get a download from focusonthefamily.com. Um, it’s a great way to do it. Or the app is another good way to do it so you can hear the program from last time. We’re gonna continue today with Gary and talk about this idea of Sacred Pathways: Nine Ways to Connect with God. We kinda joked last time that you know, th-this is why denominations exist (laughs) because we get into a more dogmatic approach to the way we worship and commune with the Lord when the Lord creates us-
Gary: Mm-hmm.
Jim: … To commune with Him in a variety of ways. I mean it’d be pretty boring as the creator to create one temperament, one style. So the Lord, like a bouquet of flowers, said, “I’m gonna do it multiple ways.” And that’s His prerogative because He’s God.
John: Yep.
Jim: Now the idea is can we figure it out.
John: (laughs) And, and fortunately we have people like Gary who uh, have put some thought to this and offered us this uh, great tool, Nine Ways to Connect with God. Uh, there’s a quiz that you can find and then we’ve got the list of nine temperaments that we’ve posted for you.
Jim: (laughs)
John: If you wanna do the deep dive here for us. Find out more about Gary, the book and that list I mentioned at focusonthefamily.com/broadcast.
Jim: Gary, welcome back.
Gary: Great to be back, guys.
Jim: (laughs). It’s good to have you as a neighbor living here in Colorado now.
Gary: Absolutely.
Jim: You enjoying it?
Gary: We’re loving it.
Jim: That’s good, it’s good. Hey, we’re not gonna repeat stating the nine, we’ll just go right into the nine. So let’s start with the naturalist. Um, people who you said last time connect best with God in the outdoors. Certainly you joked about living here in Colorado, most of us are probably naturalists that way. But uh, give more description and let’s go into a little more depth about the naturalist.
Gary: Yeah. Psalms 19:1 says, “The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament shows His handiwork.” So there’s something about the naturalist when they get outside and see the world that God has designed, He just becomes more real to them and He could speak to them through it. They see how He gives the smallest attention to something as tiny as an ant. But then here in Colorado you look up and you see the majesty of the mountains. You see the different kinds of colors and grasses and I-I grew up with a naturalist bent, uh, I-I loved it the Pacific Northwest and then in Virginia I would go to the battlefields and they were so underused, I could take these hikes. Spent about a dozen years in Houston, which my wife affectionately calls Cement City.
Jim: (laughs)
Gary: So I-I drifted back more to the intellectual approach that we may get into, but coming back to Colorado, is just yesterday morning, it’s been a long stretch, I knew I had this coming up. Taking uh, just a very leisurely run around the High Line Canal trail and then Old Dry Creek trail and you know, Colorado right now as we’re taping it-
Jim: Beautiful.
Gary: … Just on the verge of fall, barely starting to turn and just smelling the air, what not, it just… It’s where God lifts us up. I’ll never forget one climber telling me, he was climbing this one mountain, it’s not a popular mountain. He said h-he might have been the only person that year who climbed that mountain.
Jim: Hmm.
Gary: And there’s this beautiful flower near that top. And he said, “It told me God creates beauty for the sake of beauty. This isn’t utilitarian, no other person might see it but God glories in the beauty of nature that He’s created because that’s the kind of God He is.” And that’s what carries the naturalist all the way.
Jim: Yeah. Let me ask you, i-in the naturalist context for me, (laughs) and this may be showing my stripes as a traditionalist, I don’t know, this is interesting. But is, are there some core things… I mean if you are in to kayaking and you’re feeling the presence of God while you kayak, do you need a little more there? (laughs) Do you need you know, like, Lord this is great bopping up and down on this river, I feel close to you, but do we need a little more structure?
Gary: Well we do.
Jim: (laughs)
Gary: We need… There’s what’s called general revelation and specific revelation. I think nature is filled with general revelation. C.S. Lewis talks about how God was speaking to him through the smell of bonfire, the sound of wild ducks flying overhead, morning cobwebs in late summer-
Jim: Ahh.
Gary: … With a little bit of dew on ’em and the noise of falling wave or whatnot. That tells you there’s a creator but we need the presence of the Holy Spirit and God’s Word to remind us that there is a specific creator.
Jim: Yeah.
Gary: There’s a God that we’re relating to because y-you can let the love of nature overcome your love of a person. Ultimately, we worship a person. Not what that person has made but who that person is.
Jim: So now the second temperament is sensates, this sounds like something out of Lord of the Rings-
Gary: (laughs)
Jim: … But uh, (laughs) you know, the sensates-
Gary: The sensates are coming.
Jim: … The sensates are coming, run.
John: Yeah, sound the alarm.
Jim: What is a sensate?
Gary: Yeah, I-I score lowest on this. Uh, and it’s so opposite. I grew up where you walk into this Baptist church and they would say, “Please maintain an attitude of quiet and reverence as we enter the presence of God.”
Jim: And then we frown at children.
Gary: Yes.
Jim: (laughs)
Gary: And, and, and so you can’t have any sounds, you can’t have too much uh, statuary or anything like that. It would be considered irreverent and yet for sensates, it’s the majestic cathedral, it’s the majestic music, it’s the smells, it’s the sights, it’s the sound. Eastern Orthodox worship is very sensate where they have incense and bells are ringing-
Jim: Right.
Gary: … And even touching or kissing things. Henri Nouwen is an interesting case in point. He was sort of at a life crisis, deciding to leave teaching at an Ivy League school to go work at a home for developmentally disabled adults. So to meet with God, he went to where the original of Rembrandt’s Return of the Prodigal Son was kept, it’s in a museum in St. Petersburg. And he just sat for hours in front of that painting.
Jim: Hmm.
Gary: And he says it was the expression of the Father, the reds, the colors, the way the light hit that God spoke to him so strongly through that painting. I can’t imagine looking at a painting (laughs) for more than five or 10 minutes. But for a sensate, they don’t wanna close their eyes and bow their heads and have it quiet. It’s the, the sensate world, smell, sound, taste, touch, sight opens it up. And so if you’re trying to pray and you fall asleep, create… And I, I’ve seen a pastor do this, on his wall are a picture of photographs. These are the people he prays for. The key staff members, key families, key friends and he’s looking at that picture to focus on his prayers.
Jim: Wow.
Gary: One Easter season during Lent, uh, I carried uh… I think it’s a masonry nail, I’m, I’m not sure. I’m not a very hardware type of a guy.
Jim: (laughs)
Gary: I’m more of a-
Jim: I like you more and more.
Gary: … poster guy-
Jim: (laughs)
Gary: … Than a hardware guy. Um, but I just kept that nail in my pocket.
Jim: During Lent?
Gary: During Lent for 40 days so that if I’m grabbing my keys or I just bend over and I feel it pressing into my leg, I’m remembered the sacrifice of Christ. The, the sense of touch really helped me-
Jim: Yeah.
Gary: … Celebrate those 40 days.
Jim: Interesting.
Gary: And so it’s just finding ways to incorporate the senses to awaken you. And, and the reality is, our, our brains are sort of like those old school computers where the more programs are firing, the more the mother board is a alive and the reality is as much as I hate this as a pastor and teacher, the church is more awake neurologically during worship songs when you’ve got sound and sights on the stage than when you’ve got a talking head behind a microphone.
Jim: (laughs) That doesn’t make you feel too good, I can tell.
John: (laughs)
Gary: But, but that’s where worship can hit all of the senses and that’s what makes the sensate come alive.
John: Mm-hmm.
Jim: I like that, yeah. The next one is traditionalist. I think I lean in this direction but you know, again, you’re not all in one. You’re probably two or three different things. So the traditionalist is that person who enjoys the rituals and symbols. W-why is that important and does that maybe constrain us in some ways?
Gary: I have a special place in my heart for traditionalists. I think I kinda lean there.
Jim: Yeah.
Gary: I’d say that would be one of my blends. And the reason I like to support ’em is that people often talk about how it’s all just in your head.
Jim: (laughs)
Gary: But there is a strong tradition in the Christian life about worshipping God the way that people have worshipped God for 1000s of years. Praying excellent prayers that were prayed 1000 years ago. Celebrating the church calendar. A-and I love it. If you celebrate Lent and Advent and then the coming of the Holy Spirit, a-and the seasons of the church, you get a pretty full picture of the Christian life throughout that and so they don’t wanna just make Easter a two-day celebration where maybe you got to a Good Friday service, bring out your best clothes on Sunday. They’re gonna go through practices like Stations of the Cross that Christians have done. They’re gonna observe Lent so that it becomes richer and it’s not because we do it out of obligation. I-I’m speaking as you know, and evangelical. But it can create new meaning. I remember one year I decided to give up sugar, which my wife wishes would be just a life calling that I would do that.
John: (laughs)
Gary: But I said I’m not gonna eat any special dessert for 40 days, which is a big thing for me. I mean, it’s not a meal if you don’t have a dessert in my mind.
Jim: I’m with ya. (laughs)
Gary: And, and so giving it up, and I remember going to a Christian bookstore like a week before Easter, I had to pick something up. I remember saying, “Can you believe it’s Easter already?” And I’m like, “Yes! It’s crawling here, I’ve got one more week-”
Jim: (laughs)
Gary: … “And I can have cake on Sunday.”-
Jim: (laughs)
Gary: … I mean it was just a simple act of giving something up. Observing a long-standing tradition um, is… Made my Easter so much more memorable and so following a rule of prayer, having symbols. Traditionalists like to have symbols. I-I know a pastor, I thought this was brilliant. He struggled with how do I keep my focus on my family and church in balance. There was a pond halfway between his home and his church. When he leaves church, he’s praying for issues of the church, his staff, people he had counseled.
Jim: Sure.
Gary: What’s he gonna do on the sermon. He reaches the pond and he mentally would say, “All right God, I’m throwing all of these concerns into the pond. They’re yours. You work on ’em.” And then he says, “I wanna pray for my family.” And he prays for his family, let me be fully present when I get home. Let me be there for my kids, let me be attentive to my wife. And then the next morning when he leaves home he’s still praying for his family and he comes to the pond. “All right, Lord, I’m picking these up. What are we gonna do about this, what about this elder, what about that sermon?” And that symbol helped him keep the proper balance between loving on his family and fulfilling his duties as a church. And so you might put a cross in the car if you have a problem with anger. I-I think it’s better, put the cross in the car than outside on the bumper sticker.
John: (laughs)
Gary: Because we’ve all been-
Jim: (laughs)
John: (laughs) Yes.
Gary: … Cut off by somebody, honk if God loves you. And you’re like, “I wanna honk, but not for that reason.”
John: (laughs)
Gary: Um, so symbols and rituals can be a meaningful thing for them, it’s not boring, it’s God has met me here. They might have a chair where they do 90% of their quiet times in that chair, go through a prayer book, have all of these things that they’ve done throughout their life. An early church father Chrysostom taught how if you were a Christian during that time you would read and pray through Psalm 62 in the morning and Psalm 140 in the evening.
Jim: Hmm.
Gary: That’s what the early church did. Those are two particular Psalms and that would sound so boring to probably the majority of people. But imagine that a mother teaches her daughter this when she’s 12. You’re 12 now, we want you to do it, this is what Christians do. And she’s praying through those two Psalms in the morning and the evening until the day she finds someone that she wants to marry. And she prays that Psalm in the morning and evening on her wedding day and Lord it’s not just me know, I’m getting married, uh, thank you that you’ve been with me through my single years, now be with me as a wife. And so she prays this Psalm the morning and the evening that she gives birth to her first child. It’s not just me and my husband now, I-I’m a mother, another generation. She prays those Psalms, it helps her raise her kids through childhood and then teenagers and now she’s an empty nester and she’s praying that Psalm when her daughter goes off… Last child goes off to college. Lord thank you for being there now I’m, I-I’m an empty nester and then she’s a grandparent. And she keeps praying those Psalms so she’s praying them the day her husband dies. And now she’s a widow. It’s back to just being her and God as it was so many decades before. And those Psalms have literally been the bookends of her life. They have walked her through being a single gal, being a young married, being a mom, being an empty nester.
Jim: Hmm.
Gary: And now being a widow. Th-they have tied her life together. Now some people would still say, “That sounds so boring.” But some traditionalists hearing this that never thought about this might thought… Might think, man if I had had a ritual like that, that tied my whole life together, how powerful that would be and maybe I wanna start one now.
John: Hmm. That’s beautiful and uh, this is Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. I’m John Fuller and our guest today is Gary Thomas sharing from his heart and his study of scripture and his uh, considerable thought about uh, spiritual things. Uh, the content in his book is Sacred Pathways: Nine Ways to Connect with God. We’ve got the book and uh, a short cheat sheet if you will, the nine different temperaments uh, online at focusonthefamily.com/broadcast.
Jim: Gary, we’re moving through these. The next one is ascetics another uh, kinda what does that mean, Gary?
Gary: You know, the, the first editor who worked on this begged me to come up with a better title.
Jim: (laughs)
Gary: (laughs) ‘Cause it, it if you don’t read classic Christian literature, it, it sounds like a weird word. Think of a monk or a nun. They’re people who like to get away, they are easily distracted whereas the sensate and the naturalist can draw great connection to God through the natural world God has made or the senses that we have. The ascetics tend to have a very interior faith. Even a ticking clock would be a distraction to them. Something they see or a bird cawing in the distance could be a distraction because they have this interior faith. So they wanna get away and be alone. If you’re married to an ascetic, please don’t take it personally. Um, you’ll actually have a better marriage if you’ll let ’em connect with God. And it doesn’t mean they don’t love you if you’re a distraction but that’s just sorta the soul that God has given ’em. There’s really three things that mark the ascetic, there’s solitude, um, they just have to get alone. They wanna connect with God on their own. Uh, the second one is they tend to be strict. And, and that sounds so hard like you think of monks and nuns as very strict but I put it this way. When somebody’s infatuated, they’re living a very strict life in that they don’t wanna do anything that they can’t incorporate the person they’re infatuated with. They’re very protective of all their other relationships. They’re kinda ruthless with anything that keeps them from their heart’s delight. And that’s kinda how the ascetic is with, with God. And so they need extra time alone. They tend to lead toward a, a, a strict faith. Um, a-and then austerity. Uh, we have a friend who was like this. They just don’t want any distractions. Now she lived in a very small home with her husband and two kids. And it was hard for her to get alone and for things to be quiet, so what she would do in the night when she puts the kids to bed, she would go into the bathroom, they had just one. Turn on the water to create white noise and that would be her best time to pray. It’s interesting reading about John and Charles Wesley uh, their mother Susanna raised… Oh I forget like-
Jim: 12?
Gary: … 12 kids.
Jim: Yeah.
John: Think so.
Gary: But we’re glad because I think Charles was number 12, right?
Jim: (laughs)
Gary: So we’ve got some good hymns out of it.
John: (laughs)
Gary: And, and what do you do in a small house with 12 kids? Well she had this thing where back then women had layers of their clothing. And so she would go sit in a corner and put one of the skirts literally over her head and the Wesley’s learned, you don’t bother mama when her skirt’s over her head.
Jim: (laughs) It’s prayer time.
Gary: She’s just trying to drown out the world. And um, that tends to be what ascetics do. So things like watching in the night. There’s something about praying when everybody else is asleep and you’re seeking the Lord and it make sense because it tends to be quieter, there are less distractions um, stillness is a practice where they agree not to speak, they’re just gonna be silent. And if you’ve ever gone on a stillness retreat or you just go for a hike by yourself, it’s amazing how much closer God can feel and how your thoughts can gather. We lose a lot with our tongue.
Jim: Well let’s see if we can hit the last few that remain. Uh, activists is the next one. Now this sounds a little… Really, is that a temperament or just uh, an attitude?
John: Hmm.
Gary: These are Christians who legitimately feel closest to God when they’re fighting God’s battles. They, they just feel God’s presence and His empowerment. They’re standing up against injustice. It could be an evangelistic campaign, it could be uh, a march that’s a protest, it could be working politically to end something. But they just… They’re the people that God raises up that they feel closest to God when they’re fighting God’s battles. Before Sacred Marriage came out, I wrote a lot of books with some well-known people and one was a person who became quite famous for the issues that she was dealing with and she was brought to the Lord through a very activist Christian group. And uh, I-I was trying to work with ’em because what happened is they would do rallies and confrontations and there were legalities involved or whatnot. And after six months of this, this woman was shattered ’cause it was so draining for her-
Jim: Ah.
Gary: … To be in this confrontation all the time. And they thought maybe she’s falling away because when you’re an activist, they’re excited-
Jim: (laughs)
Gary: … This is great, welcome the police, I mean, welcome the courts. I mean it was just like all of the confrontation made it feel like we’re on the right track and, and I was trying to help them see that well, I think of us are called to a certain level of activism, that there are certain times when we need to stand up. Parents saying to a school board, “No, this isn’t gonna happen in our schools.” For some people, that’s draining. They need to go and walk in the woods or have a two hour worship time at their church. Other people are energized by it and so it’s just recognizing that what fires us up might empty out others and just being sensitive to that.
Jim: That’s really important to remember. Uh, next would be the caregiver category. This one, it’s an interesting one for me. I-I think I do know people that fit this rather well. But the idea that you uh, you know, you gain a sense of closeness to the Lord by taking care of other people. Mother Teresa would be an example of that I think.
Gary: Um, absolutely. And it’s not just caring for sick people. I’ve seen this a lot with men who are the first to volunteer for… And I love this, ministries to fix widows cars or they’re there-
Jim: Yep.
Gary: … To fix up the church. Or on work days, I… My church that I’m a, a part of has a, a, a afternoon times where we go out and you’re helping parks or schools or whatnot. And I like to tell wives to appreciate this aspect. ‘Cause they might be married to man who’s just not musical at all. And so they’re kinda looking at him sideways in worship and he just doesn’t seem to be getting into it and they might think, man does he even love the Lord?
John: Hmm.
Gary: But when there’s something physical to do, to fix a widow’s fence or to take care of this or that. Or maybe they’re an EMT and they’re there to care for people in times of emergency, they’re the first to step up. Singing isn’t the only way to worship God and show your love for God. For these people, music just doesn’t do it for ’em, but showing care in Jesus’ name, they, th-they feel God’s presence reaching out to others and it’s a… I think it’s a precious temperament.
Jim: Mmm.
John: Hmm. Gary uh, last time you mentioned how enthusiasts welcome some level of risk and disruption to life. Talk about enthusiasts.
Gary: Yeah, they need to take spiritual risks I think to stay alive and that’s like they wake up and just say, “Lord let me meet somebody I’ve never met before where maybe they need a financial gift, maybe they need a word of encouragement, maybe I could share my faith.” ‘Cause that makes God feel real to them. Uh, rather than going to what God has done in the past, they wanna know what is God doing in the present.
Jim: Yeah.
Gary: You know the past is sorta the traditionalist, I want God to do something new and fresh and they tend to be more the extroverted in that they like group worship and it’s more fun to do that when you’re surrounded by others. So that’s sort of, they have this outward oriented faith.
John: Yeah.
Gary: Of mystery and celebration.
John: I’m thinking of a friend who lives that way and is I-I’ll just say is unscripted.
Gary: (laughs)
John: This person likes life unscripted, let’s see what God’s gonna do.
Jim: Not just worship, but life.
John: Yeah, yeah.
Jim: Hmm, that’s interesting.
Gary: Well i-it’s something when you look in the Old Testament I mean, there are a number of festivals where Israel is commanded to rejoice and forbidden to mourn. Now I tend to score low on the enthusiast scale and if you’re more intellectually bent or whatnot, you’re thinking is that just a shallow, emotional kind of faith? But the reality is God deserves to be celebrated.
John: Mm-hmm.
Gary: And glorified and the world needs to hear it and so I really respect this pathway and I’m thankful for it-
Jim: Mm-hmm, I don’t wanna neglect the last two which are contemplative and intellectuals. So hit those two quickly and then we’ll move to the close.
Gary: Yeah, contemplatives have an emotionally oriented faith. They sing the songs like God is my lover, I’m His beloved. It’s more of an emotional connection where they just adore Him and they might talk about wanting to just sit in God’s presence and again that has a lot of support in some Christian traditions, particularly from the East that really stresses experience. When you look at things like meditative prayer, or centering prayer, or, or the Jesus Prayer. “Lord Jesus Christ, son of God have mercy on me a sinner,” is the most famous form of the Jesus Prayer. And some people might say, “What is the point in repeating all of that?” “And the point is it keeps me in the presence of Jesus.” “And then what?” And they say, “Well that is the what. I just wanna be around Jesus, I wanna remember Jesus. I don’t wanna forget Jesus, I wanna be directed by Jesus.” And it fills ’em up emotionally and it fills up their minds and their heart.
Jim: Yeah that’s good and then intellectuals at the very end. I’m thinking of… You know you think of these great scientists uh, Sir Issac Newton-
Gary: Yeah.
Jim: … and Pasteur and others who said, “I pursue science because it’s God’s creation and God’s creation can be known-”
Gary: Absolutely.
Jim: … “Through science.” That’s kind of an intellectual-
Gary: Yeah.
Jim: … Approach.
Gary: I-if I could almost rename that, I’d almost say conceptuals. Intellectuals assumes you have to be smart but it’s really about my heart isn’t opened up until I understand something new about God.
Jim: Ah.
Gary: I learn something about God and that’s when I appreciate and so they might be in an enthusiast service where there’s all these powerful testimonies and singing the same words over and over and over again and they’re kinda dying in the back saying, “Can you give me some data?” (laughs) “Can you give me something I can apply to sink my teeth in?” Just because again, to open up their heart, you open up their mind by teaching them something new about God.
Jim: Well, Gary, that’s so good and we have run out of time but we have covered two days and uh, gotten through the nine pathways. Thanks for writing it uh, Sacred Pathways: Nine Ways to Connect with God, what a great resource and uh, we wanna make it available to you, so get ahold of us here at Focus on the Family. John will tell you how in a minute but uh, make a gift of any amount. If you could do it monthly that helps, that’s how Jean and I support Focus. Dena and John do that too.
John: Mm-hmm, we do.
Jim: Or a one-time gift and we will send the book as our way of saying thank you. I think the bottom line as I’ve sat with you, Gary the last two days is it just gives you an awareness of how to become more like God and how to interact with the Lord in a way that excites you which I think excites God. Um, and that’s the beauty of it.
John: Mm-hmm.
Gary: And a world of delight is awaiting every listener that finds a new way to connect with God on a daily basis that they enjoy and delight in.
Jim: Amen, so get ahold of us uh, let me make mention of this uh, we don’t often talk about the impact that we’re having together but during the last 12 months thanks to your generosity and support uh, we were able to help nearly one million people grow stronger in their faith and your ongoing support is really the critical fuel to help us get that done through the podcast, the radio program, and all the ways that we equip people to deepen their faith in Christ.
John: Mm-hmm.
Jim: And part of it is working with a great partner like uh, Gary Thomas to do that. So thank you for uh, those almost one million people that have been helped just in the past year.
John: Mm-hmm. Yeah your generosity means the world to us and to them. Thank you in advance for any gift you make when you call 800, the letter A and the word FAMILY. Or you can donate at focusonthefamily.com/broadcast. Well thank you for joining us for Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. I’m John Fuller inviting you back next time as we once again help you and your family thrive in Christ.
Day Two
Gary Thomas: The more we draw from God, the more His presence is dynamic and filling and affirming and we want more of it. You get a taste of God and you want more. You get too busy and distracted, you start to get by with just a little bit of God. And that’s not too far from stopping up the well altogether and then it becomes an obligation and you’re not really getting hardly anything.
John Fuller: That’s a profound observation from Gary Thomas. He’s our guest again on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly, helping us explore how we connect with God, how we can, um, get to know God better. I’m John Fuller and thanks for joining us.
Jim Daly: John, it’s always great to have Gary in the studio, he’s uh… I’m gonna puff you up a little bit.
Gary: (laughs)
Jim: He’s brilliant! Yeah, he’s a great communicator and that is all true. Normally I go home like tonight I’ll go home and say to Jean, “Hey, I’ve got this great idea, this assessment of nine ways to worship the Lord. Maybe we should take that.” And she’ll say, “Who’d you uh, tape with today?” (laughs)
Gary: (laughs)
Jim: She’s got that down, it’s wonderful so I’m looking forward to learning more. If you didn’t hear last time’s program, go to the YouTube channel or you can get a download from focusonthefamily.com. Um, it’s a great way to do it. Or the app is another good way to do it so you can hear the program from last time. We’re gonna continue today with Gary and talk about this idea of Sacred Pathways: Nine Ways to Connect with God. We kinda joked last time that you know, th-this is why denominations exist (laughs) because we get into a more dogmatic approach to the way we worship and commune with the Lord when the Lord creates us-
Gary: Mm-hmm.
Jim: … To commune with Him in a variety of ways. I mean it’d be pretty boring as the creator to create one temperament, one style. So the Lord, like a bouquet of flowers, said, “I’m gonna do it multiple ways.” And that’s His prerogative because He’s God.
John: Yep.
Jim: Now the idea is can we figure it out.
John: (laughs) And, and fortunately we have people like Gary who uh, have put some thought to this and offered us this uh, great tool, Nine Ways to Connect with God. Uh, there’s a quiz that you can find and then we’ve got the list of nine temperaments that we’ve posted for you.
Jim: (laughs)
John: If you wanna do the deep dive here for us. Find out more about Gary, the book and that list I mentioned at focusonthefamily.com/broadcast.
Jim: Gary, welcome back.
Gary: Great to be back, guys.
Jim: (laughs). It’s good to have you as a neighbor living here in Colorado now.
Gary: Absolutely.
Jim: You enjoying it?
Gary: We’re loving it.
Jim: That’s good, it’s good. Hey, we’re not gonna repeat stating the nine, we’ll just go right into the nine. So let’s start with the naturalist. Um, people who you said last time connect best with God in the outdoors. Certainly you joked about living here in Colorado, most of us are probably naturalists that way. But uh, give more description and let’s go into a little more depth about the naturalist.
Gary: Yeah. Psalms 19:1 says, “The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament shows His handiwork.” So there’s something about the naturalist when they get outside and see the world that God has designed, He just becomes more real to them and He could speak to them through it. They see how He gives the smallest attention to something as tiny as an ant. But then here in Colorado you look up and you see the majesty of the mountains. You see the different kinds of colors and grasses and I-I grew up with a naturalist bent, uh, I-I loved it the Pacific Northwest and then in Virginia I would go to the battlefields and they were so underused, I could take these hikes. Spent about a dozen years in Houston, which my wife affectionately calls Cement City.
Jim: (laughs)
Gary: So I-I drifted back more to the intellectual approach that we may get into, but coming back to Colorado, is just yesterday morning, it’s been a long stretch, I knew I had this coming up. Taking uh, just a very leisurely run around the High Line Canal trail and then Old Dry Creek trail and you know, Colorado right now as we’re taping it-
Jim: Beautiful.
Gary: … Just on the verge of fall, barely starting to turn and just smelling the air, what not, it just… It’s where God lifts us up. I’ll never forget one climber telling me, he was climbing this one mountain, it’s not a popular mountain. He said h-he might have been the only person that year who climbed that mountain.
Jim: Hmm.
Gary: And there’s this beautiful flower near that top. And he said, “It told me God creates beauty for the sake of beauty. This isn’t utilitarian, no other person might see it but God glories in the beauty of nature that He’s created because that’s the kind of God He is.” And that’s what carries the naturalist all the way.
Jim: Yeah. Let me ask you, i-in the naturalist context for me, (laughs) and this may be showing my stripes as a traditionalist, I don’t know, this is interesting. But is, are there some core things… I mean if you are in to kayaking and you’re feeling the presence of God while you kayak, do you need a little more there? (laughs) Do you need you know, like, Lord this is great bopping up and down on this river, I feel close to you, but do we need a little more structure?
Gary: Well we do.
Jim: (laughs)
Gary: We need… There’s what’s called general revelation and specific revelation. I think nature is filled with general revelation. C.S. Lewis talks about how God was speaking to him through the smell of bonfire, the sound of wild ducks flying overhead, morning cobwebs in late summer-
Jim: Ahh.
Gary: … With a little bit of dew on ’em and the noise of falling wave or whatnot. That tells you there’s a creator but we need the presence of the Holy Spirit and God’s Word to remind us that there is a specific creator.
Jim: Yeah.
Gary: There’s a God that we’re relating to because y-you can let the love of nature overcome your love of a person. Ultimately, we worship a person. Not what that person has made but who that person is.
Jim: So now the second temperament is sensates, this sounds like something out of Lord of the Rings-
Gary: (laughs)
Jim: … But uh, (laughs) you know, the sensates-
Gary: The sensates are coming.
Jim: … The sensates are coming, run.
John: Yeah, sound the alarm.
Jim: What is a sensate?
Gary: Yeah, I-I score lowest on this. Uh, and it’s so opposite. I grew up where you walk into this Baptist church and they would say, “Please maintain an attitude of quiet and reverence as we enter the presence of God.”
Jim: And then we frown at children.
Gary: Yes.
Jim: (laughs)
Gary: And, and, and so you can’t have any sounds, you can’t have too much uh, statuary or anything like that. It would be considered irreverent and yet for sensates, it’s the majestic cathedral, it’s the majestic music, it’s the smells, it’s the sights, it’s the sound. Eastern Orthodox worship is very sensate where they have incense and bells are ringing-
Jim: Right.
Gary: … And even touching or kissing things. Henri Nouwen is an interesting case in point. He was sort of at a life crisis, deciding to leave teaching at an Ivy League school to go work at a home for developmentally disabled adults. So to meet with God, he went to where the original of Rembrandt’s Return of the Prodigal Son was kept, it’s in a museum in St. Petersburg. And he just sat for hours in front of that painting.
Jim: Hmm.
Gary: And he says it was the expression of the Father, the reds, the colors, the way the light hit that God spoke to him so strongly through that painting. I can’t imagine looking at a painting (laughs) for more than five or 10 minutes. But for a sensate, they don’t wanna close their eyes and bow their heads and have it quiet. It’s the, the sensate world, smell, sound, taste, touch, sight opens it up. And so if you’re trying to pray and you fall asleep, create… And I, I’ve seen a pastor do this, on his wall are a picture of photographs. These are the people he prays for. The key staff members, key families, key friends and he’s looking at that picture to focus on his prayers.
Jim: Wow.
Gary: One Easter season during Lent, uh, I carried uh… I think it’s a masonry nail, I’m, I’m not sure. I’m not a very hardware type of a guy.
Jim: (laughs)
Gary: I’m more of a-
Jim: I like you more and more.
Gary: … poster guy-
Jim: (laughs)
Gary: … Than a hardware guy. Um, but I just kept that nail in my pocket.
Jim: During Lent?
Gary: During Lent for 40 days so that if I’m grabbing my keys or I just bend over and I feel it pressing into my leg, I’m remembered the sacrifice of Christ. The, the sense of touch really helped me-
Jim: Yeah.
Gary: … Celebrate those 40 days.
Jim: Interesting.
Gary: And so it’s just finding ways to incorporate the senses to awaken you. And, and the reality is, our, our brains are sort of like those old school computers where the more programs are firing, the more the mother board is a alive and the reality is as much as I hate this as a pastor and teacher, the church is more awake neurologically during worship songs when you’ve got sound and sights on the stage than when you’ve got a talking head behind a microphone.
Jim: (laughs) That doesn’t make you feel too good, I can tell.
John: (laughs)
Gary: But, but that’s where worship can hit all of the senses and that’s what makes the sensate come alive.
John: Mm-hmm.
Jim: I like that, yeah. The next one is traditionalist. I think I lean in this direction but you know, again, you’re not all in one. You’re probably two or three different things. So the traditionalist is that person who enjoys the rituals and symbols. W-why is that important and does that maybe constrain us in some ways?
Gary: I have a special place in my heart for traditionalists. I think I kinda lean there.
Jim: Yeah.
Gary: I’d say that would be one of my blends. And the reason I like to support ’em is that people often talk about how it’s all just in your head.
Jim: (laughs)
Gary: But there is a strong tradition in the Christian life about worshipping God the way that people have worshipped God for 1000s of years. Praying excellent prayers that were prayed 1000 years ago. Celebrating the church calendar. A-and I love it. If you celebrate Lent and Advent and then the coming of the Holy Spirit, a-and the seasons of the church, you get a pretty full picture of the Christian life throughout that and so they don’t wanna just make Easter a two-day celebration where maybe you got to a Good Friday service, bring out your best clothes on Sunday. They’re gonna go through practices like Stations of the Cross that Christians have done. They’re gonna observe Lent so that it becomes richer and it’s not because we do it out of obligation. I-I’m speaking as you know, and evangelical. But it can create new meaning. I remember one year I decided to give up sugar, which my wife wishes would be just a life calling that I would do that.
John: (laughs)
Gary: But I said I’m not gonna eat any special dessert for 40 days, which is a big thing for me. I mean, it’s not a meal if you don’t have a dessert in my mind.
Jim: I’m with ya. (laughs)
Gary: And, and so giving it up, and I remember going to a Christian bookstore like a week before Easter, I had to pick something up. I remember saying, “Can you believe it’s Easter already?” And I’m like, “Yes! It’s crawling here, I’ve got one more week-”
Jim: (laughs)
Gary: … “And I can have cake on Sunday.”-
Jim: (laughs)
Gary: … I mean it was just a simple act of giving something up. Observing a long-standing tradition um, is… Made my Easter so much more memorable and so following a rule of prayer, having symbols. Traditionalists like to have symbols. I-I know a pastor, I thought this was brilliant. He struggled with how do I keep my focus on my family and church in balance. There was a pond halfway between his home and his church. When he leaves church, he’s praying for issues of the church, his staff, people he had counseled.
Jim: Sure.
Gary: What’s he gonna do on the sermon. He reaches the pond and he mentally would say, “All right God, I’m throwing all of these concerns into the pond. They’re yours. You work on ’em.” And then he says, “I wanna pray for my family.” And he prays for his family, let me be fully present when I get home. Let me be there for my kids, let me be attentive to my wife. And then the next morning when he leaves home he’s still praying for his family and he comes to the pond. “All right, Lord, I’m picking these up. What are we gonna do about this, what about this elder, what about that sermon?” And that symbol helped him keep the proper balance between loving on his family and fulfilling his duties as a church. And so you might put a cross in the car if you have a problem with anger. I-I think it’s better, put the cross in the car than outside on the bumper sticker.
John: (laughs)
Gary: Because we’ve all been-
Jim: (laughs)
John: (laughs) Yes.
Gary: … Cut off by somebody, honk if God loves you. And you’re like, “I wanna honk, but not for that reason.”
John: (laughs)
Gary: Um, so symbols and rituals can be a meaningful thing for them, it’s not boring, it’s God has met me here. They might have a chair where they do 90% of their quiet times in that chair, go through a prayer book, have all of these things that they’ve done throughout their life. An early church father Chrysostom taught how if you were a Christian during that time you would read and pray through Psalm 62 in the morning and Psalm 140 in the evening.
Jim: Hmm.
Gary: That’s what the early church did. Those are two particular Psalms and that would sound so boring to probably the majority of people. But imagine that a mother teaches her daughter this when she’s 12. You’re 12 now, we want you to do it, this is what Christians do. And she’s praying through those two Psalms in the morning and the evening until the day she finds someone that she wants to marry. And she prays that Psalm in the morning and evening on her wedding day and Lord it’s not just me know, I’m getting married, uh, thank you that you’ve been with me through my single years, now be with me as a wife. And so she prays this Psalm the morning and the evening that she gives birth to her first child. It’s not just me and my husband now, I-I’m a mother, another generation. She prays those Psalms, it helps her raise her kids through childhood and then teenagers and now she’s an empty nester and she’s praying that Psalm when her daughter goes off… Last child goes off to college. Lord thank you for being there now I’m, I-I’m an empty nester and then she’s a grandparent. And she keeps praying those Psalms so she’s praying them the day her husband dies. And now she’s a widow. It’s back to just being her and God as it was so many decades before. And those Psalms have literally been the bookends of her life. They have walked her through being a single gal, being a young married, being a mom, being an empty nester.
Jim: Hmm.
Gary: And now being a widow. Th-they have tied her life together. Now some people would still say, “That sounds so boring.” But some traditionalists hearing this that never thought about this might thought… Might think, man if I had had a ritual like that, that tied my whole life together, how powerful that would be and maybe I wanna start one now.
John: Hmm. That’s beautiful and uh, this is Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. I’m John Fuller and our guest today is Gary Thomas sharing from his heart and his study of scripture and his uh, considerable thought about uh, spiritual things. Uh, the content in his book is Sacred Pathways: Nine Ways to Connect with God. We’ve got the book and uh, a short cheat sheet if you will, the nine different temperaments uh, online at focusonthefamily.com/broadcast.
Jim: Gary, we’re moving through these. The next one is ascetics another uh, kinda what does that mean, Gary?
Gary: You know, the, the first editor who worked on this begged me to come up with a better title.
Jim: (laughs)
Gary: (laughs) ‘Cause it, it if you don’t read classic Christian literature, it, it sounds like a weird word. Think of a monk or a nun. They’re people who like to get away, they are easily distracted whereas the sensate and the naturalist can draw great connection to God through the natural world God has made or the senses that we have. The ascetics tend to have a very interior faith. Even a ticking clock would be a distraction to them. Something they see or a bird cawing in the distance could be a distraction because they have this interior faith. So they wanna get away and be alone. If you’re married to an ascetic, please don’t take it personally. Um, you’ll actually have a better marriage if you’ll let ’em connect with God. And it doesn’t mean they don’t love you if you’re a distraction but that’s just sorta the soul that God has given ’em. There’s really three things that mark the ascetic, there’s solitude, um, they just have to get alone. They wanna connect with God on their own. Uh, the second one is they tend to be strict. And, and that sounds so hard like you think of monks and nuns as very strict but I put it this way. When somebody’s infatuated, they’re living a very strict life in that they don’t wanna do anything that they can’t incorporate the person they’re infatuated with. They’re very protective of all their other relationships. They’re kinda ruthless with anything that keeps them from their heart’s delight. And that’s kinda how the ascetic is with, with God. And so they need extra time alone. They tend to lead toward a, a, a strict faith. Um, a-and then austerity. Uh, we have a friend who was like this. They just don’t want any distractions. Now she lived in a very small home with her husband and two kids. And it was hard for her to get alone and for things to be quiet, so what she would do in the night when she puts the kids to bed, she would go into the bathroom, they had just one. Turn on the water to create white noise and that would be her best time to pray. It’s interesting reading about John and Charles Wesley uh, their mother Susanna raised… Oh I forget like-
Jim: 12?
Gary: … 12 kids.
Jim: Yeah.
John: Think so.
Gary: But we’re glad because I think Charles was number 12, right?
Jim: (laughs)
Gary: So we’ve got some good hymns out of it.
John: (laughs)
Gary: And, and what do you do in a small house with 12 kids? Well she had this thing where back then women had layers of their clothing. And so she would go sit in a corner and put one of the skirts literally over her head and the Wesley’s learned, you don’t bother mama when her skirt’s over her head.
Jim: (laughs) It’s prayer time.
Gary: She’s just trying to drown out the world. And um, that tends to be what ascetics do. So things like watching in the night. There’s something about praying when everybody else is asleep and you’re seeking the Lord and it make sense because it tends to be quieter, there are less distractions um, stillness is a practice where they agree not to speak, they’re just gonna be silent. And if you’ve ever gone on a stillness retreat or you just go for a hike by yourself, it’s amazing how much closer God can feel and how your thoughts can gather. We lose a lot with our tongue.
Jim: Well let’s see if we can hit the last few that remain. Uh, activists is the next one. Now this sounds a little… Really, is that a temperament or just uh, an attitude?
John: Hmm.
Gary: These are Christians who legitimately feel closest to God when they’re fighting God’s battles. They, they just feel God’s presence and His empowerment. They’re standing up against injustice. It could be an evangelistic campaign, it could be uh, a march that’s a protest, it could be working politically to end something. But they just… They’re the people that God raises up that they feel closest to God when they’re fighting God’s battles. Before Sacred Marriage came out, I wrote a lot of books with some well-known people and one was a person who became quite famous for the issues that she was dealing with and she was brought to the Lord through a very activist Christian group. And uh, I-I was trying to work with ’em because what happened is they would do rallies and confrontations and there were legalities involved or whatnot. And after six months of this, this woman was shattered ’cause it was so draining for her-
Jim: Ah.
Gary: … To be in this confrontation all the time. And they thought maybe she’s falling away because when you’re an activist, they’re excited-
Jim: (laughs)
Gary: … This is great, welcome the police, I mean, welcome the courts. I mean it was just like all of the confrontation made it feel like we’re on the right track and, and I was trying to help them see that well, I think of us are called to a certain level of activism, that there are certain times when we need to stand up. Parents saying to a school board, “No, this isn’t gonna happen in our schools.” For some people, that’s draining. They need to go and walk in the woods or have a two hour worship time at their church. Other people are energized by it and so it’s just recognizing that what fires us up might empty out others and just being sensitive to that.
Jim: That’s really important to remember. Uh, next would be the caregiver category. This one, it’s an interesting one for me. I-I think I do know people that fit this rather well. But the idea that you uh, you know, you gain a sense of closeness to the Lord by taking care of other people. Mother Teresa would be an example of that I think.
Gary: Um, absolutely. And it’s not just caring for sick people. I’ve seen this a lot with men who are the first to volunteer for… And I love this, ministries to fix widows cars or they’re there-
Jim: Yep.
Gary: … To fix up the church. Or on work days, I… My church that I’m a, a part of has a, a, a afternoon times where we go out and you’re helping parks or schools or whatnot. And I like to tell wives to appreciate this aspect. ‘Cause they might be married to man who’s just not musical at all. And so they’re kinda looking at him sideways in worship and he just doesn’t seem to be getting into it and they might think, man does he even love the Lord?
John: Hmm.
Gary: But when there’s something physical to do, to fix a widow’s fence or to take care of this or that. Or maybe they’re an EMT and they’re there to care for people in times of emergency, they’re the first to step up. Singing isn’t the only way to worship God and show your love for God. For these people, music just doesn’t do it for ’em, but showing care in Jesus’ name, they, th-they feel God’s presence reaching out to others and it’s a… I think it’s a precious temperament.
Jim: Mmm.
John: Hmm. Gary uh, last time you mentioned how enthusiasts welcome some level of risk and disruption to life. Talk about enthusiasts.
Gary: Yeah, they need to take spiritual risks I think to stay alive and that’s like they wake up and just say, “Lord let me meet somebody I’ve never met before where maybe they need a financial gift, maybe they need a word of encouragement, maybe I could share my faith.” ‘Cause that makes God feel real to them. Uh, rather than going to what God has done in the past, they wanna know what is God doing in the present.
Jim: Yeah.
Gary: You know the past is sorta the traditionalist, I want God to do something new and fresh and they tend to be more the extroverted in that they like group worship and it’s more fun to do that when you’re surrounded by others. So that’s sort of, they have this outward oriented faith.
John: Yeah.
Gary: Of mystery and celebration.
John: I’m thinking of a friend who lives that way and is I-I’ll just say is unscripted.
Gary: (laughs)
John: This person likes life unscripted, let’s see what God’s gonna do.
Jim: Not just worship, but life.
John: Yeah, yeah.
Jim: Hmm, that’s interesting.
Gary: Well i-it’s something when you look in the Old Testament I mean, there are a number of festivals where Israel is commanded to rejoice and forbidden to mourn. Now I tend to score low on the enthusiast scale and if you’re more intellectually bent or whatnot, you’re thinking is that just a shallow, emotional kind of faith? But the reality is God deserves to be celebrated.
John: Mm-hmm.
Gary: And glorified and the world needs to hear it and so I really respect this pathway and I’m thankful for it-
Jim: Mm-hmm, I don’t wanna neglect the last two which are contemplative and intellectuals. So hit those two quickly and then we’ll move to the close.
Gary: Yeah, contemplatives have an emotionally oriented faith. They sing the songs like God is my lover, I’m His beloved. It’s more of an emotional connection where they just adore Him and they might talk about wanting to just sit in God’s presence and again that has a lot of support in some Christian traditions, particularly from the East that really stresses experience. When you look at things like meditative prayer, or centering prayer, or, or the Jesus Prayer. “Lord Jesus Christ, son of God have mercy on me a sinner,” is the most famous form of the Jesus Prayer. And some people might say, “What is the point in repeating all of that?” “And the point is it keeps me in the presence of Jesus.” “And then what?” And they say, “Well that is the what. I just wanna be around Jesus, I wanna remember Jesus. I don’t wanna forget Jesus, I wanna be directed by Jesus.” And it fills ’em up emotionally and it fills up their minds and their heart.
Jim: Yeah that’s good and then intellectuals at the very end. I’m thinking of… You know you think of these great scientists uh, Sir Issac Newton-
Gary: Yeah.
Jim: … and Pasteur and others who said, “I pursue science because it’s God’s creation and God’s creation can be known-”
Gary: Absolutely.
Jim: … “Through science.” That’s kind of an intellectual-
Gary: Yeah.
Jim: … Approach.
Gary: I-if I could almost rename that, I’d almost say conceptuals. Intellectuals assumes you have to be smart but it’s really about my heart isn’t opened up until I understand something new about God.
Jim: Ah.
Gary: I learn something about God and that’s when I appreciate and so they might be in an enthusiast service where there’s all these powerful testimonies and singing the same words over and over and over again and they’re kinda dying in the back saying, “Can you give me some data?” (laughs) “Can you give me something I can apply to sink my teeth in?” Just because again, to open up their heart, you open up their mind by teaching them something new about God.
Jim: Well, Gary, that’s so good and we have run out of time but we have covered two days and uh, gotten through the nine pathways. Thanks for writing it uh, Sacred Pathways: Nine Ways to Connect with God, what a great resource and uh, we wanna make it available to you, so get ahold of us here at Focus on the Family. John will tell you how in a minute but uh, make a gift of any amount. If you could do it monthly that helps, that’s how Jean and I support Focus. Dena and John do that too.
John: Mm-hmm, we do.
Jim: Or a one-time gift and we will send the book as our way of saying thank you. I think the bottom line as I’ve sat with you, Gary the last two days is it just gives you an awareness of how to become more like God and how to interact with the Lord in a way that excites you which I think excites God. Um, and that’s the beauty of it.
John: Mm-hmm.
Gary: And a world of delight is awaiting every listener that finds a new way to connect with God on a daily basis that they enjoy and delight in.
Jim: Amen, so get ahold of us uh, let me make mention of this uh, we don’t often talk about the impact that we’re having together but during the last 12 months thanks to your generosity and support uh, we were able to help nearly one million people grow stronger in their faith and your ongoing support is really the critical fuel to help us get that done through the podcast, the radio program, and all the ways that we equip people to deepen their faith in Christ.
John: Mm-hmm.
Jim: And part of it is working with a great partner like uh, Gary Thomas to do that. So thank you for uh, those almost one million people that have been helped just in the past year.
John: Mm-hmm. Yeah your generosity means the world to us and to them. Thank you in advance for any gift you make when you call 800, the letter A and the word FAMILY. Or you can donate at focusonthefamily.com/broadcast. Well thank you for joining us for Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. I’m John Fuller inviting you back next time as we once again help you and your family thrive in Christ.
Gary Thomas is pastor, speaker, and award-winning author who has written over 20 books including Pure Pleasure, Sacred Pathways, Sacred Marriage and Sacred Parenting. He has also authored numerous articles for several prominent national magazines. Gary and his wife, Lisa, live in Colorado and have three grown children. You can learn more about Gary by visiting his website, www.garythomas.com.
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