Loveshaped Life 1

Nathan Stewart and Bob Hayes are launching a new venture called Love Shaped Life, with the goal of experiencing and living God's love. They discuss their personal journeys with faith and how they have come to see a different, more loving picture of God through reading the Bible. They emphasize the importance of understanding God's love and how it can bring healing and transformation to a broken world. They also mention a dark time in Bob's life that led to a deeper understanding of God's love and the importance of trusting Him. Welcome to the Love Shaped Life Podcast, where our dream is to see, experience, and live God's love. I'm Nathan Stewart, and I've got my friend Bob Hayes with me, and this is the maiden voyage of the Love Shaped Life Podcast. In fact, it is the maiden voyage of a brand new venture called Love Shaped Life. How did you get here? Well, first off, I want to say how excited I am to be here, Nathan. I mean, like you said, this is a dream. This is our dream. It's a big dream. To be able to launch Love Shaped Life, to be able to see, experience, and live God's love. I mean, that's what the Bible's all about. That's what the heart of God is all about. That's Jesus' heart. So, you know, God has put this on our heart, you know, and how did we get here? How did I get here? Well, it's a journey, you know. Life's a journey. And my journey began when I was a teenager. I began to read the Bible, came from a home that my dad was an alcoholic. There was a lot of trouble in the home. That's tough. Yeah, my older brother was an alcoholic. Yeah, it was a tough situation. But I began to read the Bible. I went to, I was involved in a religious group that had a picture of God that was that authoritarian, you know, if you stepped out of line, literally they let you know the fire was going to come down from heaven. Boom. Like a lightning bolt. Just like a lightning bolt. I still remember the first day that I skipped going to service and I hid behind a tree. You told me about this. You're literally hiding behind a tree waiting for fire to come down. Wow, that's crazy. Yeah. And so I could bring you to that tree today. Because I remember exactly where it was. If it's still there, I know exactly where it was. That's how vivid it is in my mind. But when that didn't happen, I mean, life went on. I began to... Isn't this something we, like, I have friends, because I'm a chaplain right now. I'm in hospice. And I'm also in a hospital chaplain work. And so my co-workers have commented about their religious experience as being, as recovering in recovery from childhood religion. Wow. So, I mean, this is a pretty common experience to have this religious experience that literally terrifies you. Well, continue your story. You were afraid of the lightning bolt, but it didn't happen. So you just kept, so you just sort of kept pulling away. Is that where you're going? Well, I was pulling away. But then somebody as a teenager, I did get into drugs, you know, but somebody as a teenager challenged me to read the Bible. So I began to read the Bible when I was 16 years old. And as I went through that New Testament, I began to see a different picture of God. Wow. I mean, the life that Jesus was living and how he, his teachings, you know, it painted a different picture, gradually, because, you know, these pictures that we have in our mind and our experience are deep. And they hang on like a monkey on your back. It's like somebody stamped them in your brain. Right. You know, so you don't just shed them overnight. Right. But as I began to read the Bible, and God was really speaking to me in the sense of when I say God was speaking to me, he was giving me understanding. It wasn't me. God was giving me understanding in his Word about who he really is. And you know, the Bible says that God is love. And so as I began that journey, I did make a decision to accept Jesus as my Savior. And I began that journey. As I began that journey throughout my Christian walk, I did become a pastor. God continued to show me more and more and more of who he is. And really... Sorry. No, no, no. Tell me. So the Bible is about, you're a pastor, and you should have it all together. I mean, that's like the outside vision, like these guys have it all together. Of course, today in the media, we're really questioning that. Sure. But on the inside, did you feel, what was going on on the inside as far as having it all together, this picture of God, did you feel like you just got it, and that was kind of it? Or... Tell me about that. Well, I think that, you know, again, looking at the Bible and looking at the disciples, disciples weren't like these perfect human beings. Again, the religion I was raised in showed oftentimes pictures of the disciples with halos over their heads. Okay, okay. They had the picture like they were perfect. But when you read the Bible, they were far from perfect. Okay. Right? So that gave you a little bit of comfort. Right. Gave me comfort, because that's reality. Yeah. Reality is that they were with Jesus, and that love that was flowing out from him was shaping their life, right? Even though they hadn't attained yet, there was this transformation going on. James and John were known as sons of thunder, because they had bad temper, right? But by the time Jesus got done with them, John wrote the most about love. In fact, as we move along in this episode, we're going to talk about John, and in a future episode as we're unpacking things, John comes up. I was just noticing as we were reviewing notes the other day that there's one time where it's John, John, John, John, just different ones in the books, because John really does dial in on this. Yes, he does. Yeah, we can talk about John later, but yeah. He was the one who said, God is love. Right. Yeah. Just plain out. That was his definition of God. God is love. So I know this understanding of love we have in our society is very confusing, and so looking at the Bible and looking at the life of Jesus, it really shows us the true picture of what love is. It reorients us. Yeah, it reorients us. It really is. So how I got here was, it's been a journey. Now, in the past, you asked a question, I did settle into, I had to be who I was, that I'm on a journey with God, I'm just trying to help other people on the journey, all of us. I'm not any better than anybody else, we're all on a journey, like you and I, we talk about, and any other person. So we got here because you and I, we've talked through the years that we wanted to launch a venture where we could just seek to unpack the character of God, to help people see the beauty of who He is, that they would fall in love with Him. Because when you really seek God for who He is, you'll fall in love with Him. You won't live in that, the way that I was living growing up, but on a fear-based position, right? Like, you know, you get out of line, you're going to be zapped, you better stay in line, and so on. It's a love relationship. So going through that journey and experiencing that with God, that's how I ended up here with you. God, in His providence, brought us back together. We were together, remember, in the 1990s. You were just graduating from school and in school, and you were doing some work at a church I was pastoring. And so here we are, 20 years later, together, launching this venture together. Because God really put that on our hearts. And I want to say, Nathan, too, that this was not the result of some revelation that we got from God in the sense that we had a dream, or God sent us a text message, or called us on a cell phone. It was nothing like that. It's just a burning desire on our heart, because we live in a world that is falling apart. We live in a world of brokenness, and the only hope for that world is to see the beauty of who God is, and to see the beauty of what, really, the Savior of the world can bring to them. To bring healing to them. You and I know something about each other's stories that our listeners don't know, and that is that we came to value this framework of a life transformed by seeing God's love, because we've been in a dark place. So you're sitting here in part, and we're going to unpack that in another episode, but just in a nutshell, there were some profound discoveries you came to that came in a very dark time. Can you just tell us a little bit, because that's essential to where we're sitting right here today. That dark valley, that dark tunnel you were in, was very formative in pulling pieces together that we're actually going to talk about in an upcoming episode. Sure. So in a quick nutshell, tell us just a little bit about that that gave birth to where we're at. Again, the journey of life, right? You're going to hear me use that word a lot, because I'm very passionate about it, because life's a lot of experience, and we go down into valleys sometimes, and sometimes we're on a mountain top, and a lot of times we're somewhere in between. So circumstances can happen, and we can find ourselves in a valley, and in a dark place, but we're not even sure how we got there sometimes, but I was there, and I know a lot of people are there. It's something that people don't like to talk about. But when I was down in that valley, God was really impressing on my heart to just hold on to Him, to hold on to what I see of Him, the beauty of who He is, right? And I just want to jump in real quick. You say dark valley, and it sounds so easy for you to say that. Some of our listeners are going to sort of pass that off as, oh, it's a pastor's dark valley, not such a big deal, but you were, and again, we're not going to get into super detail now, but you were basically paralyzed mentally, and even on the edge of getting sick physically. We're talking about a serious dark time. This is not just like a pastor's bad day. This is like a paralyzing bad. This is a very dark time. And so in those sleepless nights that you've told me about, in your mind, God was calling you to trust Him, and that's somewhat what we're going to unpack, and that's where those pieces begin. Am I right? That's kind of where the pieces begin to come together that gave birth to, and I don't think it's true that they gave birth to something new so much as they were the catalyst for pulling together for, if I'm getting it right, what I sense is you just had to choose whether you were going to embrace kind of what you knew. It's coming together now, and you're at the crossroads. Surviving this means you embrace the thing you know about God or you don't. Is that? Yeah. You know, as a pastor, so my heart, our heart was teaching people about the beauty of God because we know that that's who God is and helping people see how you can fall in love with God. But then all of a sudden you've got your own life to deal with, and going through the pandemic, we went through a pandemic, we went through a lot of challenging times in that pandemic, and so we can go, that was part of going down into this valley, right? So when I was in that valley, there was four things that God impressed upon my heart to get me out. Tell us, because we're going to do a partner on this, but just tell us right now. Sure. So the first one was, God was saying, do you see me, in the sense of, do you see me for who I am? You've taught it throughout the years, and you're on a journey to see more of me, but you really see me. And number two? But let me finish up. So seeing me, I had to hold on to what I saw. Oh, yes. Yeah. Well, we're going to unpack that, right? Yeah. So the way, in order to hold on to what I saw, it was to meditate or to process what I saw in my mind, because it has to become part of us. Not just an idea. Not just an idea. Not just, oh, that was really good. I mean, when you're down and out, it was holding on, and was this really the God that I knew? Yeah, so what's number three? Number three was accepting it as my own. I had to make sure that I was accepting what God was saying to me, that I was His child, that He loved me, and that I embraced all of His promises for myself. And then number four? I wasn't just telling others now. Yeah, yeah. I was always telling others. Right. And we want to help. That's in our heart. But oftentimes, in telling others, we can lose sight of me. Yeah, yeah. Right? So number four. And number four was I had to rest in that love. That's awesome. And what was the impact? It brought me out of the valley. Yeah. Those are the principles that God used to bring me out of the valley to come back to life, so to speak. I want to call it come back to life. And to be able to live and abide in His presence. So it was those four principles, which I'm really excited about the Padna are coming up, where we're going to unpack those principles to help others experience the same. That's right. And by the way, that is going to be introduced in our next episode. So we'll tell you more about that as we come around. So Nathan, that was my journey. That's your journey. What's your journey? Oh, yeah. This is a good question. I'm flipping it. I am. Absolutely. It's my turn. Back in 2015, I had a personal crisis, actually a family crisis. And for a long time, in my childhood, I had a very similar view of God. I wasn't afraid of lightning bolts. But my religious world was defined, and my moral compass was motivated, driven by guilt. So the religious world that I grew up in was very centered around performance, moral performance. We're not just talking about big rules of don't lie, don't cheat, those kinds of things. We're talking about don't eat this kind of food, and don't watch this. So rules that move beyond just the big moral ideas down to very small, particular expectations, but with moral weight to them. In our understanding, my understanding was that if I could follow through with sort of complying with these expectations, that I was good with God. And so my motivation for being good was this weight of guilt. Can I interrupt you there? So a weight of guilt. So help me, and I'm just throwing an idea out here. It seems like from listening to you, you're talking about your relationship with God was really a lot of performance-based. A lot of performance-based. So it was how you were behaving was determining whether you were accepted with God or not. Exactly. It's very common, by the way. It's very common. It is very common. Even if you're not like a super God-believer, it can be this sort of monkey on your back, right? It's the picture that we have of God, that again, there's a lot of distorted pictures about God, and that's what Love Shaped Life is all about, is to help us see the clear picture of God, or what we want to say, the truth about God, right? You know, will the real God please stand up, right? Let's get the mess, blow the dust away, clean the house, let's see what's actually there. So anyway, so I'm living with this guilt on my back as I move from childhood through high school into college, my religious worldview, and into, because I ended up taking up congregational ministry as well. The whole time, I'm living under this weight of guilt. Basically my moral compass was a negative compass. Do I feel guilty about this, was kind of the question that determined whether something was moral or immoral. And in an interaction I had with a chaplain coach some time back in Wichita, Kansas, where I was for a time, I realized that in my mind, God had become the unpleasable parent. So I was living under this sense of unachievable obligation, constant burden of unachievable obligation. I would never be good enough. I was always expected to perform, but all of my performance was never good enough. You know, that what you just mentioned, I've got to stop you there again. Never feeling good enough, right? You can never measure up to the standard, right? So you just, the guilt is just like being put on you like peanut butter, so to speak. Just laying on top of you, and it's a heavy, heavy guilt. It's a very difficult situation to be in. But from pastoring and our journey in pastoring, again, you're not alone, right? There's a lot of that common experience. So my compensation, because I had heard some good stuff about God when I was, I think in my early teens, middle school age, I heard some good stuff about God. So I had this kind of dualistic or hybrid religious experience where I was holding on to a little bit of God, a little bit of, and a lot of guilt, enough of God is beautiful that the guilt wasn't crushing me. But I was afraid to let go of the guilt model because I didn't know what would happen to my life if I let go of that as my moral driver, my moral motivator. So anyway, fast-forwarding, and I think we're going to do a podcast where I talk, expand on this, but fast-forwarding, family crisis, 2015, and at that point I realized, I was confronted with the fact that my moral model of living under obligation wasn't working. My family was falling apart. I wasn't doing well. And at that point I said, okay, I'm going to believe the truth about a God of love. I've seen glimpses of it, and I'm just going to go all in with it. And since that time, it's had a profound impact in my life. In 2019, our family had adopted a child in his teens, our oldest son, and in 2019, he died of a drug overdose, December. And the fallout from that was that I am no longer in paid congregational ministry. And in the intervening time between his death and right now, a dream to do something in ministry to share the story of God, this picture of God that makes beautiful people, kept gaining traction. And here we are, Bob and myself, having experienced the power of a new paradigm, said, okay, let's do it. And so here we are, made a podcast of Love Shaped Life. Exciting. Very exciting. The journey, beginning the journey. Exactly. We're on a journey, just like with anybody who's listening, nobody's attained, but we're on this journey with God to see, experience, and live, and be molded and shaped by the love of God. There's a few Bible passages that inspire us, because this isn't just sort of a Bob and Nathan dream, we just picked it up in the middle of the night and said, hey, I like that theology. This is actually something that's baked into scripture. We miss it a lot, but it's baked into scripture. Let's talk about a few of those passages. The first one is John 13, and I think I'm going to read that one because you've got something from John 17 for us. So I'm going to look at this John 13 text. This is Jesus talking to the disciples, John 13, 34. This is a really fascinating wording of Jesus. He looked at the disciples and he says, a new commandment I give to you, that you love one another. What's fascinating about that is there was nothing new about Jesus' words, but it was new to them. Their theological world, their religious world, had become so inebriated and contracted that the idea that the big thing God wants is loving one another was entirely foreign to them. The idea that that was actually the heart of what God wants for human beings wasn't even in their religious landscape. So Jesus tells them, a new commandment I give to you, that you love one another as I have loved you, so you also are to love one another. That's John 13, 34. And again, like you mentioned, this was nothing new. It was new to them. And perhaps it's new to people today, that the reality of what God desires for all of us is to love one another as God has loved us. But unless we really see that beautiful picture of God and who he is, we're not going to experience true love. This is not something that happens out of fear. It has to be in a love-born relationship. There has to be that freedom there, the love. It's experiential. It's not theoretical. It's experiential. So this is it. This is it. And this is where, for us, this is where the name Love-Shaped Life is born, because it's this idea that the big dream of God for human beings is for us to live lives shaped by love. We're talking about not just love that makes me feel good and happy, you know, I go to church and I walk out feeling good, but a life that is shaped by love in the radical way that Jesus talked about, where he gave himself for the blessing and benefit of others. He spent hours. You read the gospel accounts of Jesus, he tried to duck into houses to escape from the pressing crowd. But at the same time, when he sees them, his heart is sort of the deepest depth. He feels physically moved when he sees hurting people. He feels physically disturbed by that. It's not just a psychological thing, I've got to help these people to look good. This is not a performance. This is the heart of God, and the language is this sense of compassion, is this sense of actual physical, internal agitation, this internal, you feel it physically, this drawing, I've got to care for these people, I can't just walk by and leave them. That's the heart of God for us. Yeah, that's the heart of God. So you've got John 17, right? Yeah. John 17 is an interesting prayer of Jesus. In fact, it happened, he prayed that prayer the night before he went to the cross. Here he is pouring out his heart to the Father, right, he's pouring out his heart, and he's really sharing his dreams, his hopes and dreams for not only his disciples, but if you read the chapter, it's also about those who came after them, which includes you and me and everybody else. So here in this chapter, he shares his hopes and dreams for humanity, and he starts off this prayer in verse 1 through 3, where he says, He said, Father, the hour has come, glorify the Son, that your Son may also glorify you. As you have given him authority over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as you have given him. And then he goes on, this is the key point here, and this is life eternal, that they might know you, the only true God in Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent. That's powerful. Jesus defined eternal life as knowing God. That's crazy. We always think of, well, it's true, eternal life is an expansion of time that will never end, but Jesus defines it in this relationship context of knowing the Creator himself. And this is his hope and dream for all of us. In fact, he goes on in the prayer in John chapter 17. And before you go, I just say that we're not going to look at it in this episode, but in an upcoming episode, we're going to find out that this dream is the dream of God's heart that permeates Scripture, to be with us. That relationship defines the rhythm of reality as God's designed it. Right. Not a relationship of fear, but this relationship that is in this flourishing space of radical love. So John 17, you're going to move down in the chapter. Yeah, move down in the chapter. Jesus goes on to say, starting verse 20 through 23, he said, I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in me through their word. Again, talking about us, moving it down through the generations. That they all may be one, as you, Father, are in me, and I in you. That they also may be one in us, that the world may believe that you have sent me. In the glory which you have given me, I have given them, that they all may be one, just as we are one. I in them, you in me, that they may be made perfect in one, that the world may know that you have sent me, and have loved them as you have loved me. See, that's powerful right there. I mean, that's the John 13 idea, which I didn't read. But this idea that when people love people radically, it's a revelation of the heart of God. You know, in religious circles, when we talk about evangelism, there's a lot of sort of salesmanship. So we think of how do we answer the objections of people who don't accept God or don't see God the way we do, right? So there's, and they call that apologetics. The apologetic of Jesus is when people see your radical love, they're going to love God. Wow. So we can literally dump the apologetics. Just dump them out the door and say, listen, when you love like God loves, the argument's settled. And as long as the church doesn't love like God loves, as long as religious people who spew all this religious stuff don't love like God loves, it doesn't matter what they say, they're losing the argument every time. Yeah. The identifying mark, he's saying, that I am your Savior, right? That you're united with me, is how you love. Love-shaped life. Love-shaped life. Love-shaped life, right? It's not by your perfect theology. It's about how you treat other people. Because how I treat you identifies my relationship with God, right? Exactly. So this is what Jesus is saying. What's the interesting part about this prayer, though, is when he comes to an end. Tell us about that. He comes to an end, and he's actually sharing how this experience of oneness with God is going to happen. How this love is going to be able to be imparted to each and every one of us. And this is what he says, I have declared to them your name, which in a biblical sense, the name means character, right? So he said, I've declared to them your character, and I will declare it, that the love which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them. So he's, listen, I've declared unto them your character, and I will declare it, so that the love which is in me might be in them. That's profound. That's profound. So it's cause and effect. I revealed to the world who you are in my life, and the cross was probably the greatest revelation of the heart of God. In his life, he reveals the beauty of the character of God. So in seeing that, again, love-shaped life, in seeing that beauty of who God is, there's a transformation that's taking place inside the individual. As we see God's radical love, it's catalytic in that it is the thing that kicks off transformation in our own hearts and lives. We don't want to get off too far on this, because literally the thing we're going to spend five episodes in our pod and are on is how to experience, how to see, experience, and live that love-shaped life. And we're really excited about it, because this is our journey, and this is where God has brought us to. So we're excited to share it, but also to help people along the way. That's what we're here for. That's right. A couple of the texts we're going to throw out there. One's John 14. And John 14 says, The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory. Glory, again, in Scripture, is God's character of radical love. So we see Jesus came, and that's how we saw it. And there's another one. What's the essence of John 14? Because we had 14-8. What's the essence of that text that we're talking about here? Let me read that text to you. John 14, verse 8. John 14, verse 8. This is Philip, right? Philip's talking to Jesus, and he said, Lord, show us the Father, and it's sufficient for us. Show us the Father. Jesus said to him, Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not known me, Philip? He who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, show us the Father? In other words, what he was saying, Listen, Philip, you've been watching me all along. You've seen how I've lived. You've seen how I've been compassionate to people. I've only done good to people. This is the Father. I am one with Him, and I'm revealing Him. This was the mission of Jesus, was to reveal the true character of God to the world. And this is what we're committing ourselves to, in the hands of God, to be part of unpacking and helping people to see that beauty of who He is. Yeah, so this is a great place for us to, I mean, there's so many texts. We talked about the one in 2 Corinthians 4, where we are earthen vessels, and in these earthen vessels, we carry the light of the knowledge of the beauty of God's character. Did I get that right? That's the essence of 2 Corinthians 4. And John 12, Jesus said, If I'm lifted up, referring to His crucifixion, I'm going to draw. There's something powerful about the unveiling of the truth of God's love. Yeah, so what we were sharing was, again, the mission of Jesus to reveal the love of God and who God is. And then what you're mentioning here is there's a power there. There's a power. There's a power, because God is love, and love radiates out from Him. And that love is a power to transform people's lives. That's why you're mentioning John 12. If I be lifted up, Jesus said, I will draw all men unto Me. So there's a drawing. There's an attraction there. It's hard to resist. Jeremiah 31, verse 3, God says there, I have loved you with everlasting love. Therefore, with loving kindness have I drawn thee. It's like irresistible. So the motive for moral goodness in the rhythm of life as God envisions it is not lightning bolts. It's not the monkey of guilt or shame on our back. It's falling in love. It's falling in love. It's falling in love. The bottom line. That's the desire. When you get rid of all the fog and the true light is shining through, that's what's shining through from the heart of God. That God is love and He desires to draw us into this relationship with Him. He's motivated because He is love, right? By how He treats us and cares for us. And then He wants to put that same motive in our heart to respond to Him and then to respond to each other. Isn't that beautiful? And it's very simple. That's the beautiful part about it. It's simple. It's not complicated. So before we go today, we want to share with you a couple of things very specifically. One is our big dream. And Bob, why don't you read? We're just actually going to pull it right off our notes here because we want to get it right. This is our big dream. Our simple big dream. Yeah. So a movement of people who see God's beauty with everlasting... Oh, I got to back that up. Sorry. Let me correct that. A movement of people who see God's beauty with ever-increasing clarity. Experience His presence with ever-deepening wonder and live everyday lives of radical love, loving more like Him as the days go by. That's the big dream. We believe that as we see who God is, as we experience the reality of who He is, that our life is transformed. Again, we're not just talking about, oh, I feel so good right now. We're talking about a life transformed in how we treat people, how we talk to our kids, our dogs, on the phone, on Facebook, on whatever social media platform there is. Like the person we are literally being transformed by seeing God for who He is. That's beautiful. In other words, I think what you're saying is we're the same person inside the house as we are outside the house, right? We're the same person inside the house that we are on social media. Exactly. We're talking integrity, right? Yeah, integrity. You cut through somebody's life like you cut through a block of cheese and it's going to be the same texture and tone through the whole thing. Well, I just want to mention there, Nathan, again, we're talking about that our big dream is a movement of people who see the beauty of God with ever-increasing clarity and experience, right? Because the journey that God is inviting us into is experiential. It is. And I'm so happy about that. It's just not a creed or a theory of religion. It's an experience with the God of heaven which Jesus described eternal life again as knowing Him. And that's what God wants to offer us here in this world. And I also want to mention the other thing. You mentioned John 12, right? If I be lifted up, I'll draw unto me. And we don't have time in this episode to go into it. We'll clarify it later. So the love of God is a drawing power. It's irresistible. It draws us to Himself. If we resist it, obviously it has an effect on us. But if we're drawn to it and we open ourselves, then it has a transforming power. 2 Corinthians 3.18 says, But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory. That word glory, again, meaning character. And even as by the Spirit of the Lord, the text says. As we behold it. Sorry, go ahead. Because I was thinking of the unveiled face part. We're not going to get into the language behind that. But the idea is just with wide open eyes. We could just say that. Wide open eyes. It means to gaze. Behold means to gaze upon. You're just fixed. It's so beautiful. You're fixed upon. And again, we're transformed into the same image from glory to glory. Talking about glory there meaning character again that you mentioned. We're transformed from character to character becoming more and more filled with the capacity to love like God. That's a journey. So it's a drawing power. It's a transforming power. And Paul mentions in 2 Corinthians 5.14 that the love of Christ compels us. So it's a motivating power. It's all in one capsule. That's right. Drawing, transforming, motivating. It compels us to want to help people. And we've captured that in sort of the way we want to go about facilitating the love-shaped life. The way we've captured that are those four words. See. See God for who He is. Experience that. Receive into ourselves the truth, the reality of who He is. And those two steps result in transformation, a life then that is transformed into serving and giving. So that's why we say see, experience, live. That's the big core of how we believe we move from unloving lives in whatever various ways that's happening to love-shaped lives, increasingly love-shaped lives. It doesn't happen. I don't go from my broken place now to waking up tomorrow being, wow, I'm this amazing, loving guy. It's a journey. It's a journey. We become more shaped, just like a potter, over time become shaped. And the space that happens is seeing and experiencing that's shaping us. And so then we live. And I want to say, Nathan, again, we're going to cover it in our podcast, future podcast. But God is an infinite being. You're talking about the universe. When you look at the universe, once upon a time astronomers thought there was 5,000 stars. I mean, soak that in. Now through the telescope Hubble and the new telescope they have up there in space, there's literally billions of galaxies with billions of stars. They can't see the end of the universe. So when we're talking about from glory to glory, being transformed, there's no end to becoming more and more shaped and molded in the love of God. That's awesome. That's beautiful. It's just a journey. That's beautiful. So as a venture, Love Shaped Life and this adventure we're doing together, we've got some products. The most important thing that we want to produce, that we want to create, is a community of people, an online space where we journey together in seeing, experiencing, and living the love of God. We want to create that space where we're as individuals, literally Nathan and Bob, and then our dream is an expanding number of people who can walk beside others in moving deeper into that seeing and experience and living of the love of God. You know, teaching is great. There's podcasts in our dream. This is obviously what we're doing now. But the big idea is creating that space where there's connection with other people who share this dream, who want to walk this road, and through that space, to kind of rub off on each other, mentor each other into moving deeper. I was talking to a friend of mine, and he was reflecting on his childhood. He said, nobody ever taught me how to walk with God, how to know God, how to experience God. And his life was hyper-religious. But nobody ever sat down with him and said, listen, here's how you can experience God. We want to do that. We want to be that space. Love-shaped life at its core is about creating that space online, and then with in-person somehow creating this culture of this community where we're all about seeing, experiencing, and living this love-shaped life, life driven by the beautiful vision of God that Scripture holds out for us. The reality is we're in a digital world. We're in a digital space. And I think COVID helped us to move more into that digital space and be comfortable about it. So what we're talking about is forming a community of people worldwide that want to share in the big dream, right? The big dream of seeing the beauty of God, experiencing that, and then living it out, not only in their family life, but in their community as well. Because let's face it, what the world needs now is love, right? That's what the world needs, and that's what God is calling upon people everywhere to do. We have a quote by Cornish, Ornish. I think it's Ornish, right? Dean Ornish? Dr. Dean Ornish. We're going to share in a future episode. But he basically says the most powerful medicine is not whatever you get out of the health food store, not whatever you get from your doctor. It's love. Yeah, it's love. And he's coming at it just from a scientific perspective. He's not an evangelist for the church or anything like that. He's just saying, from everything I've looked at, love is the thing. Yeah, correct. And we believe that that is not just a great scientific observation, but that's the core of the rhythm of Scripture. Right, right. So, Nathan, we're talking about this dream of forming this community, right? Yep. So how do people that are listening to us today, how do they connect? Yeah, so you're going to see it in the show notes, but the website is really simple, loveshaped.life. So you just add a dot in between loveshaped and life. Loveshaped, by the way, is one word, loveshaped. And then dot life, that's it. That's our website. You get there. So literally, our website is our big dream. The web address is the big dream. We've got a booklet that's on the website. Go to our website, loveshaped.life. You're going to find a booklet, and in that booklet, we lay out those four principles. See, meditate, accept, and rest. We've got a podinar coming up that processes those, but we've got a booklet for you. So go to the website, sign up, connect with us, see how you can get involved and get that free booklet. It's got some worksheets for you that help take this from an idea to an experience to a practice. Very good. Yeah, go ahead. Well, in John 17, again, Jesus talked about becoming one with God, right? So this booklet is really the journey to oneness with God. Those four principles are just tools on being able to use in our life and the journey to experience that oneness with God. So we want to share that with you. Apart from that, remember, our passion is that we want to walk alongside people. People use coaches these days in sports, right? Very important to have a coach. It is. In the NFL, everybody on the team basically has a coach. The average NFL team has 15 coaches. Just behind the scenes saying, here's how you win the game. Here's how to help you for your best performance. There's a quarterback coach. There's a running back coach. It's to optimize them, right? When we're in the religious life, it's like, hey, do you believe in Jesus? Great. Good luck. Go for it. So there's health coaches. There's financial coaches. So what we're seeking to create is really a coaching system, so to speak, just to walk alongside you and walk alongside people to help them in this journey. And each other. Like a culture. Yeah, a culture. Because we're on a journey still ourselves, but together we have 50 years of experience and we've done this in ministry. And that's a lot, and it's our own journey too, but also helping other people. So we want to take that experience and be able to help anyone who is interested in being helped. That's right. And this isn't simply life coaching. If you need a life coach, just go find a life coach. This is a coach that embraces the whole person in the context of a God who loves radically. We want to walk with people to experience what it's like to see and be loved and live out of that love. Yeah, and help people work through obstacles and challenges. Because we all have obstacles and challenges. And again, how we see the God in Scripture. That's right. The beauty of the God in Scripture. So we're here, and that's through our website. Again, you go to loveshaped.life. You can get that free booklet that they're offering. And also, you can connect with us. That's right. We're on social media, at Love Shaped Life. You can just find your favorite social media platform. We're not on everything. We're not going to go out there and have a forest of social media. But we're on the main platforms at Love Shaped Life. And what if somebody wants to connect with us? Yeah, just email us. Right. Hello, at loveshaped.life. Oh, that's beautiful. Yeah. Hello, at loveshaped.life. Hello, at loveshaped.life. And if you go to the website, that'll link you right in. You can find everything you need to to get connected to us. If you want to be part of experiencing of just get on this adventure that we've started. Say, hey, I like the idea. I want to hang out with Bob and Nathan and see what I can do to experience and help others experience it, this Love Shaped Life. Because ultimately, people can become coaches themselves. Exactly. In that journey. In other words, we're here as they learn, you know, just like Jesus would have us to do to help somebody else. That's right. That's right. And you know, the interesting thing about helping somebody else is you grow, too. Exactly. Exactly. So we've got some podcasts, a Love Shaped Life podcast, which you're listening to now. We've got 13 Week Bible, new episodes of that dropping in December. And there's another podcast. You can find the podcasts on our website, podcast page. And that'll take you to the podcast. We're working on any new ones we'll add there. We want to make a promise to you. This is something that we're including in our DNA. And this promise is to communicate to you the clear, simple, beautiful picture of God we find in Scripture. Further, we give ourselves to walking beside you as you seek to see, experience, and live this love personally. We believe that as you, as we come to know and experience this love, your life, our lives will overflow with its rich gifts, transforming our inner person and bursting with gentle grace into the lives of every person we touch. That's our promise. That's the whole thing that Love Shaped Life wants to stand behind and is committed to. That's beautiful. So until next time, we encourage everybody to lean into the Love Shaped Life. Lean into the Love Shaped Life. Embrace God. Lean into God. That's your safest place to be. That's right. For more information, visit loveshaped.life Love Shaped Life