0:04

Hello and welcome to the John Mark

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Comer Teachings Podcast. I'm Strawn Coleman, your

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host and part of the teaching team

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here at Practising The Way. Each

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week on this podcast we share a

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teaching from John Mark or other trusted

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voices in the formation space. And

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it's great to have you with us. In

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part two of this discussion, John

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Mark and Gere Jones talk about

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the practice of contemplation and

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the invitation for each of us to

0:32

spend time gazing at the beauty

0:34

of God and being formed by Him. As

0:38

you listen, you may like to ask, which

0:41

of the three doorways into contemplation

0:43

do you most resonate with? Here's

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John Mark and Gere Jones. It's

0:53

great to talk again. Last time

0:55

we had a wonderful conversation around your book,

0:57

God Has a Name, and really digging into

0:59

why you wrote that and some

1:01

of the profoundly helpful things you write in

1:03

that book for us to discover who the

1:05

real God is and the beauty of who

1:07

the real God is. And

1:09

we ended with a really

1:12

important journey from

1:14

just knowing the contents

1:16

of that book and who God is to

1:18

actually seeing that knowledge truly

1:20

transform us and

1:23

change us and for it to be

1:25

experienced, not just head knowledge. In

1:28

this new edition of God Has a

1:30

Name, you've written an

1:32

extra chapter specifically around how we go

1:34

on that journey from explicit knowledge as

1:37

you put it to internal knowledge. Tell

1:40

us a bit about this journey

1:42

and why it was so important for you to write

1:45

for this new edition, this chapter. increasingly

2:00

aware of the dramatic

2:02

limitations of

2:07

insight and willpower to change

2:09

us. You know,

2:11

I think there's something really, there's

2:13

a lot of overlap between both

2:15

kind of evangelical Bible

2:18

culture and like

2:20

millennial Gen Z TikTok therapy

2:22

culture, and that

2:24

both of them, I think, over

2:26

elevate the power of insight. So

2:29

I often think, because insight's easy.

2:32

It's that amazing, that aha moment,

2:34

that feeling, that rush of emotion,

2:37

when you get a new insight, whether

2:39

it's into a biblical text or your

2:41

particular form of trauma or attachment filter

2:44

or personality wiring or Enneagram number. And

2:47

I think there's a part of our brain that

2:49

can easily be deceived into, wow, I

2:52

know it now in explicit

2:54

knowledge. Like I see it, I have insight,

2:56

I'll go do it now. I'll go be

2:59

it now. And then

3:01

we often go out with

3:03

genuinely good intentions and authentic

3:06

desire to live into our new

3:08

insight, whether it's about God or

3:10

about who we are or

3:12

who God is or anything in between. And

3:15

then often we royally crash

3:17

and burn very quickly.

3:21

You know, so as I meditate on

3:23

this God who is compassionate and

3:26

gracious and slow to anger and

3:28

so on, I'm struck

3:30

by how often I am nothing

3:33

like that. I

3:36

am often judgmental and

3:38

critical and perfectionistic and

3:41

demanding and full

3:43

of contempt and resentment. I'm quick

3:45

to anger and impatient and

3:47

easily agitated at times. And

3:50

it's not because I don't have insight

3:52

into who God is and who I

3:55

am made to be. And it's not

3:57

because I don't have genuine desire. to

4:00

be compassionate and gracious and slow to anger.

4:03

It's because there's some mechanism

4:05

of the soul that has yet

4:08

to do its work, informing me

4:10

into a person who doesn't just

4:12

behave like God, but is in

4:14

my inner sense of self

4:17

like God. And so the original kind of

4:19

book just ends with this kind of closing

4:21

chapter. I think it's called Carry the Name.

4:23

That's just kind of this call to like,

4:25

all right, this is who God is. He's

4:27

compassionate, He's gracious. Now let's

4:29

carry the name. Let's be these kinds of

4:31

people in the world. Let's be compassionate and

4:33

gracious and slow to anger and abounding 11

4:35

faithfulness. So go be that everybody in

4:37

the world. And I

4:40

stand by that ending, but I

4:42

think seven or eight years later, I'm just really

4:44

aware of how I can't

4:46

be that kind of person on

4:48

a consistent basis. So

4:51

I'm really interested in this question

4:53

of how do we change? Like

4:55

it's kind of the animating question, at least behind

4:57

the last decade or so of my life. What

5:01

is that process? I know there's not a

5:03

formula. I know it's not linear. I

5:05

know it's not like three alliterating points, you this and

5:07

then you that and then you this. But

5:10

how do we become the kind

5:12

of people who are compassionate and

5:14

gracious like God? And so

5:16

that's kind of why I wrote this new

5:19

afterward, to just offer some introductory thoughts. It's

5:22

such a huge question. Yeah,

5:25

it's almost like the question. I know,

5:27

I'm just hearing it. How do I change?

5:29

And what comes to my mind is often

5:31

the dichotomy of, well, does God change me?

5:33

Do I just let God change me then?

5:36

Or do I have to do something? Change

5:38

myself through the right. Is it willpower? Or

5:40

is it let go and let God? And

5:44

I think this is why this chapter is so helpful because in

5:47

many ways it's the cooperation between

5:49

ourselves and the Holy Spirit, but

5:52

we have to cooperate. And you talk about

5:55

what our role is in

5:57

that transforming work of the Spirit in our lives.

6:00

and you use the word contemplation. Tell

6:03

us a bit about that word. Yeah,

6:05

so, you know, Augustine in

6:07

the fourth century, you know, said something to

6:09

the effect of, without him

6:11

we can't, but without us he won't.

6:14

And it's just a way of saying what you just

6:16

said, that in our formation

6:19

and our development as persons of

6:21

compassion and grace and ultimately of

6:23

love, God has a part

6:25

and we have a part. And that's not to say it's 50-50.

6:28

I don't know what the breakdown is. I'm sure it's not that,

6:30

but we both have a part to play. And

6:33

so yeah, how we become who

6:35

we become is a sacred mystery

6:39

and I'm resistant to any attempt to

6:41

formalize it. But if you were to like

6:43

back me into a corner and put a

6:45

gun to my temple and say, how do

6:47

you think we change to become more like

6:49

God? Which is my style. Which is totally

6:51

kind of just how you roll. I

6:55

think I would say, or I

6:57

know I would I would say, if

7:00

I had to simplify it down to a sentence

7:02

or even to a word, I would say you

7:04

contemplate. And I think,

7:06

Hui Hui Tan, who's

7:09

a writer from Singapore, has

7:12

this beautiful line, you are

7:14

what your mind thinks about.

7:17

You are what you contemplate. And

7:20

so this is the miracle of, you know,

7:22

what scientists call neuroplasticity, what

7:24

Paul and his letter to the Romans

7:26

calls the renewal of the mind. What

7:30

you give your attention to, and

7:32

that's one way to think about

7:34

the mind is as directed attention

7:36

and academic speak. What you give

7:38

your attention to, what you look at in

7:41

your mind's eye, what you think about and

7:43

you let fill your imagination and pass

7:46

through your consciousness in your field

7:48

of mental vision, will

7:51

shape at a deep level who

7:53

you become as a person. Because

7:56

God's wired the human brain to

7:58

take on the proper. of

8:00

whatever it is that it gives its attention

8:02

to. So, you know, a

8:05

scientist would talk about mere neurons and

8:07

the role they play. And so when

8:09

you smile right now, you're starting to

8:11

smirk. I'm starting to smile back at

8:13

you. You're laughing. I like, you know,

8:15

if you were to yawn, I would

8:18

probably like have to suppress a yawn.

8:20

If somebody like glares at you, will

8:22

tend to go into fight or flight and

8:25

either glare back or shrink back. Like our

8:27

brain is just wired to take

8:29

on the properties of

8:32

whatever it is that we fill it with.

8:35

So if you think about a very pragmatic level,

8:38

you know, people who spend

8:40

hours a day reading angry,

8:42

partisan political news, tend

8:45

to not be relaxed, peaceful,

8:48

nonjudgmental, open-minded, nuanced

8:51

thinkers with a compassionate heart. They

8:54

tend to be angry, full

8:56

of contempt, us versus them,

8:58

either or thinking, this is true of both the

9:00

left and the right, partisan,

9:02

narrow-minded, ideological, and often

9:05

like deeply agitated and

9:07

afraid. People that

9:09

spend hours every week on

9:12

doing online shopping or wandering around malls and

9:14

looking for new outfits and more pairs of

9:16

shoes and thinking about buying a new car

9:18

and looking into this new watch and thinking

9:20

how this thing would great, tend

9:22

to be people who are not

9:25

deeply satisfied and content and happy

9:27

and grateful and generous. They tend

9:30

to be unsatisfied and discontent and

9:32

even greedy and materialistic at times.

9:35

People, hypothetical people that spend hours

9:38

a day doomscrolling on social

9:40

media tend to become,

9:43

this is not opinion, this is fact, unhappy,

9:45

neurotic, insecure, not sure

9:48

who exactly they are and what

9:51

they even believe, more into the

9:53

herd mentality deeply, often

9:55

insecure about that. And so I'm over

9:57

making the point. The point is, you

10:00

become like whatever it is you

10:02

look at on a regular basis,

10:05

whether that's TikTok or Instagram or

10:07

the New York Times or Fox

10:10

News or the Father and the

10:12

Son and the Holy Spirit. And

10:14

the word that kind of captures

10:16

this reality used by the New

10:18

Testament writers and down through the

10:20

Christian tradition is the word contemplation.

10:23

And that word sounds a bit

10:26

esoteric, it sounds a bit technical.

10:28

Now it sounds a bit like

10:30

for introverted monk type of people.

10:33

And the word means different things to

10:35

different thinkers at different times in church

10:37

history. For some of them it is

10:39

that kind of high stage monkish kind

10:41

of state of prayer. But I

10:43

just mean it in like the Paul sense

10:46

and his second letter to the Corinthians

10:48

where he writes kind of

10:50

his one sentence view of spiritual formation

10:53

where we all with unveiled face

10:55

are as we contemplate the Lord's

10:57

glory, he uses that word, we're

10:59

being transformed into the same image.

11:01

And the Greek word there is

11:03

katotrezo. And it means to gaze

11:06

at, to look deeply at, to

11:08

direct, you can translate it to

11:10

direct the inner gaze of your

11:12

heart upon. So

11:14

it's not just a mental exercise, it's

11:17

not even an emotional exercise. It's like

11:19

a whole person act

11:22

of looking at

11:24

the beauty of who God is. And

11:27

so that's how I would define

11:29

contemplation is looking at God, looking

11:32

at you in love. And

11:35

just that process of looking,

11:38

of contemplating the person

11:40

of God as revealed ultimately

11:42

in Jesus as revealed in Exodus 34, as

11:46

we're talking about now at some level, does

11:49

something to transform who

11:51

we are. So it's more than that,

11:53

it's relational, it's community, it's spiritual disciplines,

11:55

it's biblical teaching, it's healing from trauma.

11:57

It's a lot of things. How do

11:59

we? grow and mature and how are

12:01

we transformed? But I think

12:03

if there is a yellow line kind of

12:06

down the middle of the pathway to

12:08

becoming like God, it has

12:10

to do with looking at God.

12:14

I mean, it reminds me of what Paul wrote. In

12:18

Ephesians, I pray that the eyes

12:20

of your heart may be enlightened.

12:23

And that sense of, we have a

12:25

different set of eyes where our hearts are looking into

12:27

the heart of God. And that

12:30

gazing, and there's something

12:32

in that gazing and

12:34

spending time, gaze isn't quick, right? Gaze

12:37

by necessity, by definition,

12:40

is a prolonged look at something from the

12:43

heart. You can't gaze just from your head.

12:45

This is a heartfelt, and the Holy Spirit

12:47

uses that to kind of go great. You've

12:49

created a space for me to

12:52

make this come alive and

12:54

make this real. What

12:57

are some of the practical ways that you

12:59

would suggest to people? Because I think we

13:01

can't leave it up here in which you

13:04

don't do it so helpfully. We can't leave

13:06

it in the conceptual stage. We

13:08

have to bring it down. It's too esoteric.

13:10

And go practically then, for the likes of

13:12

simple Gare and others, what

13:15

do I do? What are some of the practices? How

13:17

does that actually happen? Yes. Yeah,

13:20

and how does it happen in everyday

13:23

life? One of the words used

13:26

for contemplation by

13:28

previous generations was this word

13:30

beholding, which was another English

13:32

translation of Paul's language in

13:34

2 Corinthians. And

13:37

so, earlier generations would talk

13:39

of beholding prayer. And they

13:41

meant just like looking

13:43

at God and the wonder of who he is.

13:46

I was camping up recently in El

13:48

Capitan Canyon up in Santa Barbara era. Lovely.

13:50

And I was with a bunch of people.

13:53

We were doing fire pits and conversations. It

13:55

was real kind of busy. And

13:57

I was staying right.

14:00

next to this old growth

14:02

California sycamore that

14:04

was a masterpiece. But I

14:06

didn't even realize really it was there until

14:08

the last day we were so busy.

14:11

My attention was so on people

14:13

and my family and friends and

14:15

our programming together. And

14:18

I remember that last day I just stopped for

14:20

a moment and all of a

14:22

sudden it's like I saw the tree for the

14:24

first time. No, my eyes had seen the tree

14:27

and navigated around the tree and thought, oh wow,

14:29

really nice big California sycamore. But

14:31

there are a few things in the world

14:33

like an old growth tree and

14:36

what it does to you emotionally

14:38

just to be

14:40

in the presence of that level of

14:42

beauty, timelessness,

14:45

stability. And so I

14:47

sat there for a moment and I didn't call

14:49

it contemplation, but I was contemplating the tree. I

14:52

was beholding the tree. I was just gazing

14:55

at it slowly, patiently,

14:58

and just without any effort on my part,

15:01

my heart was just welling up with wonder,

15:04

humility, joy,

15:08

peace, a sense

15:10

of my cosmic smallness, a

15:15

sense of how that's a good thing, not

15:17

a bad thing, right? So that's just my

15:19

point there is that gives us

15:21

like, this is not some esoteric thing. This wasn't

15:24

after nine hours of sitting in the lotus position,

15:26

which may be quite helpful for your breathing. But

15:28

I mean, it was just like two

15:30

or three minutes of just, oh, let me just

15:33

stop and stand 10 feet away and just

15:36

look. And so

15:38

I think contemplation doesn't

15:41

have to be this like 19th

15:43

level of heaven kind of you reach it after

15:46

49 years of fixed hour prayer. And

15:50

then that's not to discount stages of prayer and

15:53

theories about that. And I think people often that

15:55

devote their life to God in that way, experience

15:58

God in ways that.