I was pretty nervous to talk to Sarah, she’s a pretty big deal out here in the wilderness. She helps head up the Evolving Faith conference, which has put names on their stage like Amy-Jill Levine, Barbara Brown Taylor, Jen Hatmaker, Nadia Bolz-Weber, Pete Enns … so many wonderful human beings.
She’s written best selling books.
She has over 80,000 followers on Twitter.
I’ve been following her for a long time.
And.
I don’t know. The other day my wife asked me, “do you ever get nervous when you talk to some of these people?” Yes, I totally do. I remember when I talked to Pete Enns I almost threw up beforehand (no joke); and when I was talking to NT Wright I was shaking until we said the last syllable of “goodbye” left my mouth.
Shane Claiborne.
William Paul Young.
Amy-Jill Levine.
I wouldn’t call it starstruck … like not that I’m fan-boy-ing, but more just being in awe that somehow life has led me to this place where the people I’ve been reading and learning from for the last 5, 10, 15 years I now get to talk to because they see something valuable in my work that they don't even realize they’ve had a hand in helping me create.
It’s all so amazing to me.
And I also get nervous because there’s a voice inside that tells me I’m not good enough.
Yeaaaaaaah. That voice that you have in you, I have it too. It whispers that Sarah Bessey is so much better than me and Pete Enns knows so much more than me and that my doctorate isn’t as good as Amy-Jill Levine’s and that Brain McLaren is a much better heretic than me.
Just being real with ya’ll.
I’ve struggled with that voice since I was a kid and so whenever I step out onto any sort of stage where the spotlight turns to me, the whispers turn to screams and sometimes it’s hard for me to focus.
That happens to me on the podcast a LOT. And it did in this conversation with Sarah. Whenever she was done talking or whenever she was getting to a point where she was wrapping up a statement, I would find my mind racing to push back the fear that I’d say something stupid or irrelevant.
“How will you edit this out?”
“Don’t say anything stupid.”
“Don’t say that, you’ll sound like a moron.”
When I was in seminary I was told that these voices came from demons or that they were ingrained in my head because of my past. I was told that we had to pray them out or fast them out or that I had to be more dedicated in my walk with God. I went through sessions of inner healing prayer where groups of people would pray for me for what felt like hours, I even went through various deliverance experiences where demons were prayed out of me.
And it all helped.
I’m not going to knock my past or the things I learned in school, I think there was value in all of those experiences.
But.
Today.
… I think inner healing and deliverance and all of that has it’s place, but I think in this area of my life (the struggle with those inner voices), I think I’m at a place where I’m ready to honor them and ask them what they are here to teach me.
You see, I’ve spent so many years trying to get over those voices and so many years trying to push those voices away and cast them out and overcome them that I’ve never really slowed down long enough to ask them why they’re here and what they have to teach me.
My friend Alexander Shaia said it well to me a couple of weeks ago. He said that everyone has a wound and those who create things for the world must learn to create from the place of their greatest wounded-ness. He helped me realize that perhaps one of the reasons the What If Project is so magnetic to people is that it creates a space where everyone is welcomed and loved and accepted just the way they are … a place that was birthed from my own place of pain and wounded-ness that stems from my own experiences.
And so when the voice crept up while I was talking to Sarah, I smiled, and I pulled up an imaginary chair and told him to take a seat and join me for the conversation. “You’re welcome here”, I said, “because I know that whenever you show up it’s because Spirit is reminding me that in this moment I have important work to contribute to the world and that work is always all the more powerful when it comes from the wound that you’ve made yourself at home in here in my heart. So, let’s go. Jesus told me to love my enemies and so … I … I … love you.”
What is your wound, friend?
Perhaps it’s time to stop casting it out and start asking it what it’s there to teach you. As Alexander told me, so I’ll tell you - sometimes your greatest and most powerful contributions to the world will come from your place of deepest pain.
Onward.
Glenn
NEXT WEEK.
Next week we press into PART 4 of our series, “To Hell With Hell” as we talk to Matthew Korpman about the history behind the doctrine of hell and how holding onto a belief in eternal torture or eternal separation from God morphs God and Satan into one. Don’t miss it!
NEW BLOG POST.
The latest blog post on the What If Project is called “The Whole Thing Is My Teacher”, here’s an excerpt …
“If the whole thing is my teacher that means that I can embrace each moment of each day without hesitation, it means that I can look at each person in the eyes …
My friends.
My family.
People I like.
People I dislike.
People who consider me an enemy.
… And I can know that Spirit is working between us to teach us both something so that we can learn from one another and become an even truer version of ourselves.”
WANT TO BE A GUEST BLOGGER?
Do you have something to say? Have you been mulling over something regarding God and faith and spirituality and the Bible and all the things that is different than what your traditions have handed you? Have you ever asked, “WHAT IF this is true?” I’m taking submissions for guest blog posts - write it up, send it my way at gsiepert@me.com, and we’ll talk about getting it on WhatIfProject.net.
Here’s the most recent one from my friend Mike Koolen.
MERCH.
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