How does maturity happen (and can you stumble into it)

Why does maturity (both spiritual and emotional) seem so elusive? And why does it seem as though we either don't have it, only others possess it, or we only seem to stumble into it? Join Joshua and Ken Hoffert as they dive into how we can go about expecting spiritual and emotional health.

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Transcript

00;00;02;02 - 00;00;20;13
J. Hoffert
I.

00;00;20;15 - 00;00;37;10
J. Hoffert
I live in rest because I'm with him. Right? So let's let's step backwards then, from this idea of what it was about being pressed to talk a little bit about, can you stumble into maturity?

00;00;37;12 - 00;00;50;22
J. Hoffert
You.

00;00;50;24 - 00;01;23;09
J. Hoffert
Hey, everybody, and welcome to another episode on the Wind Ministries podcast. we are presently in a series where we are diving into the topics of healing and wholeness, what it means to be a spiritually mature person. And, that's a you know, it's a big topic. There's lots of different thoughts about that. what it means to recover ourselves.

00;01;23;09 - 00;01;54;22
J. Hoffert
We're calling this the Spiritual Maturity series, and I'm joined right now with the man, the myth, the legend who many of you know because his voice sounds very much like mine. Dad. Hoffert. Good morning. Good morning. Dad. It's good to, good to be with you. Yes. Yeah, yeah. Everybody with you as well. There was a, a a, group I was, participating in not a long time ago.

00;01;54;22 - 00;02;18;07
J. Hoffert
This would have been, you know, 15, 20 years ago. And, my dad would call to, you know, he needed to have a conversation with me or whatever, and he would ask, is Josh around? And people would think that, I was playing a joke on them by calling the house and asking for myself because they would say that.

00;02;18;13 - 00;02;38;11
J. Hoffert
Oh, your dad's voice. It sounds so much like yours. So, yeah, that was, you know, there was a time in my life where that really angered me because I didn't want to be like my dad. Well, that's a good thing. We're talking about maturity, then. Exactly. Well, I got better. You know, that's part of the reason why both of us like talking about these things.

00;02;38;11 - 00;03;03;12
J. Hoffert
Because we got better. Yeah. All right. And we'll continue to do so. And you know, we're today, you know, Lord willing, we continue to do so. I, I there was a number of there was a, it was a season of life, you know, to use a really Christian term. It was a season of life where I would I would ask the father this question in prayer all the time.

00;03;03;14 - 00;03;30;12
J. Hoffert
God, what do you say about me today? Yeah. Not my father. I mean the father. Right? God, what do you say about me today? And there was there was a period of time where, the the phrase that I would hear returned to me was, you are Josh, son of Ken. And that would drive me crazy. Like, it's got to be better than that, right?

00;03;30;14 - 00;04;06;27
J. Hoffert
I'm on. Why can't I be Josh, your warrior? That will conquer everything, you know? Yeah. Why is it Josh? Son of Ken? Like, that's so boring. I like, I don't want to be my dad's son. I want to be my own person. Right? I remember how how much it would drive me crazy. You know, this a this has been 20, 20 or so years ago, and, and it dawned on me over time that what the Lord was doing was challenging me to be content with the person I was, the family I was from, and the man that he'd created me to be.

00;04;07;02 - 00;04;27;26
J. Hoffert
You know, if I couldn't be Josh, son of Ken, how could I be anything else? True. Right. And, And so, you know, I, I, I just about, the anger and all the frustration with my own father, but he's right here. So, you know, I also had to be honest about and and unattended and unattended. That's right.

00;04;27;26 - 00;05;06;06
J. Hoffert
That's because that's because he's spiritually mature. or on and so on. Let's, let's, let's talk about that statement for just a second. Yeah, yeah. Go for it. Go for it. Yeah. Because we say spiritually mature. Yeah. But the reality is maturity needs to be whole life maturity. Yeah. That's right. It's a it's a holistic thing. We talk about it being spiritual maturity because we're we're looking at a, life, as it flows from the spirit and then and interacts with our, with our inside stuff, our, our spirit.

00;05;06;08 - 00;05;36;05
J. Hoffert
Yeah. But the reality is it's whole person maturity. Yeah. That's right. It's the act actions, not the act of because it's not a singular act, but it's the process of becoming, well, Jesus said perfect. Yeah. And and we probably should talk about what what that he means by that in Matthew. Matthew five. Yeah. where he says be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect because that's a that bothers people.

00;05;36;09 - 00;06;07;29
J. Hoffert
It does. Yeah. And it shouldn't it should be, it should be an encouraging statement. But instead it's a, it's, and overwhelmingly it feels like a judgmental negative statement, something. That's right. You could never you could never be that. And yet he he said be that so or, or or people would read it and go, well, he said that because now all have, you know, under the, under this guy's all have fallen and fallen short of the glory of God.

00;06;07;29 - 00;06;30;20
J. Hoffert
And so we so he told us to be perfect, but we can never be perfect. And thus we need grace and know. And if we have that grace, then his perfection becomes my perfection. Yeah. And we go through this whole process. But that's not at all what he said, because then in that, in that schema. Yeah. Murray and I have actually been talking about this on the voices from the Desert Podcast.

00;06;30;20 - 00;06;49;05
J. Hoffert
So side note too, that anybody this listen to this, go check out our Other part podcast with our good friend Mary. Do voices from the desert. We've been talking about these kind of things to is we have you have a schema that is essentially based around when it comes to redemption and growth, it's based around escaping wrath.

00;06;49;07 - 00;07;18;07
J. Hoffert
And when you have a schema that's based around escaping wrath or what you're what you're stuck with is growth by negativity. Because we need to remove everything that that, would cause wrath to happen. And and so then I don't actually know what to do. So I'm essentially I get stuck because then the and then I go, well, how come how come other people seem to grow and I don't, which is the problem of stumbling into maturity.

00;07;18;09 - 00;07;37;18
J. Hoffert
Okay. And and then, you know, throughout the whole series we're going to talk about, well, you know, there's certain things that set the stage in terms of brain development, in terms of, childhood development and all of this, that actually make it easier for people to stumble into maturity. Right. And, and that and they truly do stumble into maturity.

00;07;37;20 - 00;08;06;21
J. Hoffert
So is it possible to stumble into maturity? The answer is on a technically yes, you can stumble into maturity. Well, it's possible to stumble into portions of maturity. There you go. Yeah. And that's usually because you were lucky earlier in your life. Right? Right. But based on the card of hands that was dealt to you. And so when we're talking about what Jesus says when he says, and in Matthew five, be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect.

00;08;06;21 - 00;08;41;00
J. Hoffert
He's not talking about perfection in the sense that you have filled in all the right boxes and answered all the right questions, right? That's not what the word perfection even means, right there in the no, not in the Greek. And just for the record, by the way, the man who is sitting across from me digitally anyway, in terms of the other audio voice on this, my father is, is has a degree in classical languages and at one point was, pretty fluent with both Greek and Latin, I think.

00;08;41;00 - 00;08;59;16
J. Hoffert
Is that correct? Pretty fluent. Yeah. Yeah. So I remember that there were moments like, I'm getting there. Oh, okay. Well, I remember there were moments in church where the pastor would stop in the. Yeah, this happened once or twice and ask, hey, Ken, is that how you say that word? Because you'd have your Greek Bible right there. You were following my Bible.

00;08;59;16 - 00;09;24;07
J. Hoffert
Okay. Yeah. Which, you know, I mean, at some point, you know, pretentious. Yeah. It's feels that, you know, people, if you've studied through the language, it's really helpful to be able to take that and read through it constantly because it keeps you fresh. Yeah, yeah. Other people find that to be a little bit. I'm just saying, if anybody thinks I'm pretentious, I there's a direct correlation.

00;09;24;07 - 00;09;56;27
J. Hoffert
Never came from where I'm across. Yeah, I maybe I took it and I made myself pretentious based on your, Yeah. It's possible. Yeah. So it's like it is from the, Greek word telos, which, which means complete. Yes. Which is a way different implications and perfect. Right, right. It's and and so we should probably talk today, if not right this moment, but we'll get back to talking about what, what is it?

00;09;57;00 - 00;10;19;12
J. Hoffert
In what way is God complete? Sure. Father in heaven. How is the father in heaven complete? And in what way would a human being be complete like that? Yeah. No, that's. Yeah. That's. Well and and this is coming out of this, this sermon on the Mount teaching which we talked about, which is a master teaching of, of Jesus.

00;10;19;14 - 00;10;42;25
J. Hoffert
And, and it's probably something he taught multiple times. Right. And and, Matthew in, in chapter five and six, you know, brings this, puts it all together. Yeah. and it may have been a single moment where he this was happening, but it's not something that he didn't teach multiple times over. Yeah. That's right, three and a half years that he was.

00;10;43;00 - 00;11;03;25
J. Hoffert
And, you know, that's actually one of the things that just as a side note, that really gets me about, the scriptures in the Gospels in particular, it's it's like sometimes you sometimes you read people read the scriptures. Yeah. I remember doing this when I was younger thinking, oh, man, they had a really good memory to just write down what Jesus said off the cuff in the moment, you know.

00;11;03;28 - 00;11;25;03
J. Hoffert
Yeah. Or they had a stent graph right there St and it starts sonographer there. And well know that Jesus repeated these things continually and constantly. And so you have a rendition of the sermon on the Mount in Luke. But it's slightly different because Jesus was constantly talking through the principles. So Matthew pulls it all together into one.

00;11;25;05 - 00;11;47;29
J. Hoffert
And and again, we said this last week that Matthew is what he's essentially laying out in Matthew five six and seven is this is what it means for a human being to participate and be part of God's good kingdom. Right. This is these are some when you when you look at someone, this is the kind of person that you would find in the Kingdom of God.

00;11;47;29 - 00;12;11;11
J. Hoffert
This is what new creation people look like. Exactly, exactly. And they look they don't look perfect. They look complete. Which which or another way of saying that they look whole. Yes. Right. And, and you could probably say not. I'm not whole in and of themselves. Yeah. Oh, the interesting thing about wholeness or completeness is it requires others.

00;12;11;13 - 00;12;35;26
J. Hoffert
Yeah, that's very true. I think, even the Trinity requires multiplicity. Yeah. You know, there's this there's I'm just have this thought. There's this, there's this there's a lot of language right now or there's not even just right now. There's just people talk about this. I just notice it, in the spiritual formation crowd, which is, you know, in one sense, we're part of that crown.

00;12;36;20 - 00;13;10;02
J. Hoffert
and, and there's a, there's this idea that we need to be taking a Sabbath, right? Yeah. And this is, this is one of the disciplines that, you know, we look at Foster and Willard and, and then some of the contemporary guys, and it's a good discipline. It's. Yeah, it's a it's not a bad discipline. The idea and then the I, the I, I've heard the, the quote a number of times that the Sabbath is while the Desert Fathers and the Christian contemplatives in the mist is not my I mean, the Desert Fathers don't talk about taking a Sabbath rest.

00;13;10;02 - 00;13;32;11
J. Hoffert
It's just not a thing. you can't find it. And, but the idea is we need to take a rest from our busyness to enjoy God and and set a day aside to do that. And it's a good. It's not a bad discipline. By no means am I saying it's a bad discipline. I'm just trying to lay the groundwork for something.

00;13;32;14 - 00;14;03;22
J. Hoffert
And and, the, the you we look at things like, you know, the author of Hebrews talks about there being a rest. That's for the people of God entering into that rest. There's Psalm 4610, see striving and know that I am God, right. Coming to this place of rest. yeah. The idea is not so much when it comes to, the spiritual life and spiritual maturity, because I'll say this one aspect of being complete as your heavenly father is complete is to be in a place of rest.

00;14;03;25 - 00;14;23;21
J. Hoffert
And, that's that's one aspect of it. Right? And the idea isn't so much. And I think when we when the Sabbath as a discipline where we rest from our work and we take a break on the sixth day and we look at that and we go all the way back to the creation narrative and go, well, God took a break.

00;14;23;21 - 00;14;43;12
J. Hoffert
So we need to take a break right? That's kind of sometimes the logic behind it is the thing is, when God rested, he never stopped resting. So when it's in the Bible and says, well, now he came out of rest right on the seventh day, he rested and he never stopped resting. And now he invites people to participate in his rest.

00;14;43;14 - 00;15;10;06
J. Hoffert
So coming to a place of rest in terms of being complete as God is complete isn't a matter of not doing anything anymore, but it's a matter of being totally content in who you are and why you are and being restful in and of yourself. And that's actually who you are and where you are. And that is derived not because you've disciplined yourself to take rest or because you you have finally dealt with anxiety.

00;15;10;08 - 00;15;39;00
J. Hoffert
It's happened because you've finally begun participating in the rest of God. And this is where, rest is not so much a thing you do as it is a quality you participate in God connection with him. And and so now we're restful now because we've. Okay, I've, I've, I've gone and laid on my bed, but because I'm actually connected with him, I've found my wholeness in him.

00;15;39;02 - 00;16;01;13
J. Hoffert
I, I'm, I'm in a lifestyle where I'm engaged with him and I'm around people that are engaged with him, and I'm at rest because of that, not because I've actually practiced rest. And that's where I find that the the conversation around rest as a discipline, in the sense of a Sabbath can, can actually, have people misunderstand. Well, now I'm busy and I need to rest.

00;16;01;13 - 00;16;23;24
J. Hoffert
I'm busy and I need to rest. I'm busy and I need to rest. Right? Right. Actually, we need to live in living. I live in rest because I'm with him right away. So let's let's step backwards then, from this idea of what it, you know, of being at rest to talk a little bit about. Can you stumble into maturity, right.

00;16;23;25 - 00;16;59;16
J. Hoffert
As if you. So let's first define maturity again. yeah. Because my maturity is if we if we use the kind of if we use that nice blend that, a lot of the brain science guys, especially Jim Wilder and others have been putting in there about about what maturity looks like. It's maturity is is the successful completion of, of the stage of growth from brain science perspective.

00;16;59;16 - 00;17;28;10
J. Hoffert
So the brain goes through a process of addressing things through a particular time frame, and then it and then the brain shifts and there are things that need to be accomplished within that time frame. But then that, that, that era for, for the brain and then for the human, so that, that, that shift that happens, can get you into the next phase that you need.

00;17;28;13 - 00;17;52;04
J. Hoffert
So you start off as an infant and you know what's required of an infant, learning to receive, learning to be loved and, and, to, to, learning to have joy and return from joy. But, you know, it's there's not a lot required of an infant, but there are some things that an infant needs to get and, and.

00;17;52;04 - 00;18;14;15
J. Hoffert
Yeah, you know, and, and needs help getting those things. Needs help getting them and, and, you know, and, and and in a healthy environment, they do and but but then we're talking about people that are struggling with maturity who may not have had that healthy environment. And there's. Right. Exactly. So there's kind of where we we run into issues.

00;18;14;17 - 00;18;46;20
J. Hoffert
Some people could stumble into maturity primarily because they've been they grew up in a fashion that they got many of the things they needed from each stage of, of, growth for the human being so that they have a, a substantial, base of stability within their lives. That's right. that's been handed to them because of, of good parenting and good family relationships, etc., right?

00;18;46;23 - 00;19;11;12
J. Hoffert
That that they can then move on easily and they don't have it. Most people who have that don't know, they have that now and then and then when not when, when other people don't have it, they can't even comprehend why those people would struggle. Exactly. And it's true. And I'll just just for example, I was watching I was in a group the other night and a couple that I loved dearly.

00;19;13;07 - 00;19;49;13
J. Hoffert
and you can tell that one of the parties grew up in something pretty healthy, and the other party grew up in something dysfunctional. And one doesn't always understand the other because of that. Right. So what? Why do you struggle with this? Well, why don't you struggle with this sort of thing? Right and right. And, and it's good when we begin to see that, because we can see what someone who has stability, you know, that they have it, and we start to learn from them.

00;19;49;13 - 00;20;13;20
J. Hoffert
We watch them and and it helps us to move through stages because we're watching other people. I mean, you know, I grew up fairly in a fairly dysfunctional family, right. but I got into a into a church that was pretty, pretty good initially, and I was able to watch a lot of practices that helped me establish things.

00;20;13;20 - 00;20;40;04
J. Hoffert
And internally, not not everything got resolved, but a lot of things did because of a community that I was actually in, right where I could watch people who had healthy ways. I didn't know, and I can say all these things now as I look back on it. But at that time, I wasn't thinking that I was just, being discipled sideways in a, in a sense, right.

00;20;40;04 - 00;21;02;06
J. Hoffert
I didn't know it. They didn't know it, but it was happening because I was in the atmosphere. And you not so much that you. Because that may sound like you saying I stumbled into maturity, right? Yeah. It's not. But you it's not real. It isn't because you had to want it. Yeah, well, exactly. And and because it it's not like.

00;21;02;09 - 00;21;22;24
J. Hoffert
I mean, it is, it is narrowing science. But it's not rocket science. Right. That. Yeah that's good. It is like. Yeah it is. There are certain requirements that have to be met for a person to mature, right. To become emotional, especially just even just to become emotionally mature. Right. And by the way, we will talk about those as we progress.

00;21;22;27 - 00;21;44;12
J. Hoffert
Yeah. Yeah we will, we will. We're going to, we're going to pull apart every one of those. And so you you really didn't stumble into it. You discovered the things that were necessarily required. And you may not have been planning it. Right. But they are the things that were required. Right. And it nobody matures without them. They get they get stuck without them.

00;21;44;12 - 00;22;12;02
J. Hoffert
So you can stumble into it, but only because you discover the thing that you needed all along anyway. Yeah. And and so and you're going to discover that in another person and you and and the, the reason why people don't mature is because they don't discover it. Right? You know, maybe they don't find a spiritually healthy community and emotional, a vibrant community or other spiritually and emotionally healthy people, that are more advanced and they are this kind of stuff.

00;22;12;07 - 00;22;40;19
J. Hoffert
Let me let me just localize the example a little bit to make it make, even more sense for people. one of the things that, my wife and I, we've talked through a number of times, my, my wife, her dad was out of the picture when she was four and completely gone when she was eight. And so she has she had essentially no fathering and and even, even when he was there, he was a deadbeat dad.

00;22;40;19 - 00;23;05;25
J. Hoffert
He was a drug dealer, a drug abuser. He would go on, drinking benders. And so he just wasn't he wasn't there and he wasn't available, and there was no emotional input. Right. And, and so we had this conversation a couple of years ago where we were talking about a particular situation that was happening with our kids and how do we navigate this particular situation.

00;23;05;27 - 00;23;29;21
J. Hoffert
And so I was saying to her, well, this is what my parents did when I acted out in this kind of way. This is I remember then my dad said this kind of thing and, and so I would I was I was going back over my history. How do my parents deal with these kind of pressures? What do I remember from them, and what can I glean from what they did and what whether it was cleaning, what they did that was good and whether it was gleaning what they did, that maybe we don't want to recreate that.

00;23;29;22 - 00;24;11;05
J. Hoffert
Right? Right. And and Aaron kind of paused and she goes, you know what I think about that? There's just a blank space. and it was a it was eye opening for both of us that I had this thing because of my, my upbringing that was in a relatively stable environment. but, you know, having two parents and all that, it was perfect or anything, but relatively stable, until, you know, we're not going to get into all the details until later, but, but I could look back and have this like, oh, yeah, I have got this, this comfort in parenting that my wife doesn't experience because when she thinks about it, she's

00;24;11;05 - 00;24;40;03
J. Hoffert
flying by the seat of her pants because she's got no example. Yeah, because her dad's gone when she's four, her mom has to work more than full time really, at that point in terms of commuting and everything. And so she was basically raised by a haphazard group of people that had space in their house. So she can't think to examples like that and even even, even more so now looking at, oh, there's moments where she'll see like, you know, our daughter was struggling with anxiety last year.

00;24;40;16 - 00;24;57;05
J. Hoffert
and she's, she was nine at the point at that point. And, and so I would go in and I would comfort her and maybe lay with her, have her come snuggle with me in the bed or whatever, just because it's like, well, she needs the presence of her dad to calm her down, calm her anxiety. Right.

00;24;57;08 - 00;25;20;25
J. Hoffert
It's not logical. And so Aaron, my wife, would look at this and go, oh, that's what a dad does. Or one other. One further example, is when when Aaron and I went with our youngest son to Texas and, my dad came from Florida to come visit us, I, I called my dad up and we had booked our tickets, and I said, hey, dad, we're going to be in Texas.

00;25;21;27 - 00;25;35;03
J. Hoffert
you know, why don't you come visit us? And you were like, my dad was right here. He was like, oh, yeah, that's fine. Well, it's what you're going to be. They're all come out there. And Aaron was like, wait a second, like, is that what dads do? Like because it's a ten hour drive for you, right?

00;25;35;05 - 00;26;00;22
J. Hoffert
She goes, she goes, wait, dads do that like you just say, hey, come visit us. And they're like, yeah, I'll drive ten hours to come visit you. She's like, what? So so there's there's she doesn't know what she's missing, that there's these gaps. Right. There's she's not whole and none of us are whole in that sense. Right. It's just a good example that there's these missing gaps that as soon as she sees it she goes, oh my goodness, that's a missing gap.

00;26;00;22 - 00;26;26;01
J. Hoffert
I didn't know that was there. Right. Because they're because of the environment. And so stumbling into maturity is oh I actually that gap was filled because I came across people that could actually show me what that was like. So it's not really stumbling. No. Well, and, you know, the, the life model community, talks about these things as being brain skills.

00;26;26;04 - 00;26;44;28
J. Hoffert
Yeah, yeah. There are missing brain skills that we have that we see in other people. And then we we can learn from other people how to get them. Like, yeah, I didn't know I was missing it until I saw it in somebody else. And now that I see it in you, I'm going to watch you to see how I can get that skill.

00;26;45;06 - 00;27;11;18
J. Hoffert
Yeah. And I might even ask some questions. Yeah, but. But only because now I see that it was a skill I didn't have. And those are, those are essential to know. And and so. If maturity is an on purpose sort of a thing, it's not just a stumbling in but it's on purpose. I mean, it can look like stumbling, like you say, but it's really not.

00;27;11;21 - 00;27;36;03
J. Hoffert
Then some of the aspects of it are that we need to be building capacity. So building capacity looks like allowing myself helping myself internally to grow, to get bigger on the inside. You know, the old, the old, Doctor who, Tardis, spaceship. That's, you know, it's bigger on the inside. Yeah. You go inside, right?

00;27;36;03 - 00;28;01;11
J. Hoffert
Right. Okay. And. Okay, let me just let me say I'll just say this to make capacity. as you're going through the list is capacity is in that sense, the ability to be yourself in the face of big emotions. Right? Right. That's that's an easy way of just saying. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of times you get stuck in those big emotions and you can't return to a place of peace or yourself.

00;28;01;13 - 00;28;23;15
J. Hoffert
So building capacity. Yeah. And so building capacity allows you that ability to return, in the midst of difficulty. So when you start to get stuck in a big a big emotion, say it's say that big emotion is is fear. Let's just say or, and and you, you're stuck there. You can't get past it, but you see other people who can.

00;28;23;17 - 00;28;53;20
J. Hoffert
Yeah. And then you, you start watching them and then even asking them questions. How do you get how do you not let fear overwhelm you? Right? Right. Well, I don't let fear elbow on me because I have learned to what peace looks like. And I come back to. Yeah. And so yeah, that's that's that. And then another thing that, that we, work on is, is being in when I say presence, I don't just mean the presence of God, but the presence of one another as well.

00;28;53;22 - 00;29;25;00
J. Hoffert
Right. So it's, it's this, that sense of and well, we'll call it community, but it's more than just community. It's, it's being present to, to the creator. But being present to one another, which is just, you know, and so that sounds abstract, but it's not it, and it's not something you can say. So these are not things you can you can tick off on a box.

00;29;25;00 - 00;29;49;00
J. Hoffert
Right. Just check the box and say, okay, I'm doing. But rather you're saying, these are things that just simply take time. So if I'm moving towards maturity, then I'm moving towards being in the presence of the creator, but being in the presence of others, this this might be hard. Yeah. So again, let's the it is it sounds abstract, but let me let me just make it practical.

00;29;49;20 - 00;30;17;23
J. Hoffert
you, you sit down to spend a few moments alone. Okay. Silence and solitude. Right. We'd talk about that as part of building capacity, and being silent and being solitude. Being in solitude and being silent is being present with yourself and present with God. and and so, you know, this is where being present with yourself and present with God starts, and also being present with others flows from them.

00;30;18;27 - 00;30;39;08
J. Hoffert
then it's very easy in that place of silence and solitude to think, to get task oriented and think about the rest of your day. Well, you're no longer present. You're living in the future, right? Or it's very easy to go back over your previous day and think about all the things you might have done differently, or the thing that hurt you, or the thing you didn't like or whatever.

00;30;39;10 - 00;31;02;09
J. Hoffert
And so you're living in the past, or you think about the TV show you've been watching, right? You're not living. You're not you're not in the present. You're either in the past with yourself at the TV show, or you're in the future with yourself and all the things that you're going to do. And this is why the the contemplative rhythms in church history like, one called The Prayer of Examen, help you to be present with yourself because they get you through that.

00;31;02;10 - 00;31;23;01
J. Hoffert
The prayer examining begins with me. Examine what happened yesterday. Let me examine what happened last night so that I can get all that other way. Right? Right. I'm no longer thinking, and I'm no longer living in the past or living in the future. Right. And then you can. Those can be even bigger things, right? But we can be anxious about the future because of a big meeting that's going to happen.

00;31;23;01 - 00;31;42;12
J. Hoffert
Or, you know, maybe we're maybe, you know, someone struggling with singleness, right? And, well, I can't wait to be married. And so I'm living actually years in the future rather than just being present with myself. And so that can be that can be, you know, that can happen on the, on the, the micro level in terms of, right, a task oriented checklist.

00;31;42;12 - 00;31;58;05
J. Hoffert
Or it can happen on the macro level in terms of while I'm not in the relationship that I want to be on being. Right. So being being present, it's actually a much bigger deal than people think it is. And we spend a lot of time living in the future of the past, and we have to teach ourselves to be present.

00;31;58;05 - 00;32;15;08
J. Hoffert
And this is what we see again, looking at Jesus as the picture of a true human being that Jesus says, well, I'm only doing what I see. The father doing. Being I'm present with myself, I'm present with the father, and I'm only the words that I'm sharing are the words that he's telling me right. I'm only say right.

00;32;15;10 - 00;32;36;13
J. Hoffert
What he's given me to say. And so everything I'm doing is because I'm present in myself and present with him. And I'm not. He's not living too much in the future. He's not living too much in the past. He's just present with himself and present with God. And and these are the kind of practices that we see in the life of Jesus when we look at him is he was very present, you know, the woman with the issue of blood, right?

00;32;36;13 - 00;32;52;09
J. Hoffert
He didn't he didn't. Well, it's just we've got a place to go, right? If you have a place to go, you're living in that place. You're present in the future. You're not present in the present. And so the woman touches the hem of his garment. He goes, who touched me, right? And now he has this beautiful moment happening around me.

00;32;52;09 - 00;33;23;27
J. Hoffert
Yes, very aware of what's happening around me. Rather than living in the place that I'm going to be. And that's a discipline that we have to teach ourselves well, and that kind of flows us into, Another thing is prayer, and prayer is the awareness that there is something much larger than myself. that's an awareness of humility, that something that's much larger than myself is something that is greater than me.

00;33;23;29 - 00;33;59;01
J. Hoffert
And it's also that that ability to have, a conversation with the one who created us, which sets us back in a rhythm of knowing who we are. Yeah. So prayer is this it's not just petitioning or asking for things. Prayer is a much larger, discipline. And and that it is it includes being present. It includes, yeah.

00;33;59;01 - 00;34;32;19
J. Hoffert
Awareness and awareness beyond ourselves and and not and know and so again not looking into the future but an awareness of what is beyond us. Yeah. Right now, right here and now. So, prayer is a is something that allows us to enlarge on the inside to get bigger, to grow capacity, because we are coming humbly to, to one that's greater than us.

00;34;32;21 - 00;34;56;08
J. Hoffert
Yeah. yeah. That's good. And we can talk about the through and say relationship and all those kinds of things. But but it's it's all of that join together. Yeah. Which is are some of the reasons why Jesus said, when you pray, don't do it like those guys over there. Right. Don't do it like the people that are praying to get something for it.

00;34;56;11 - 00;35;19;17
J. Hoffert
Yeah. Make sure everybody sees that. They're praying that they're getting they're getting their reward already. Yeah. But Jesus said is when you pray, don't go out trying to get a reward, right. Let yourself be hidden and present. Yeah. Be in that as in Matthew six. Right. I just want to draw a couple parallels there from what you've been saying.

00;35;19;17 - 00;35;41;16
J. Hoffert
And what you have said is because he says, you're the you know, when you pray, go into the inner chamber and your father, who sees in secret, who is in secret, actually is your father, who is in secret, will see and reward you openly. Right? Right. So you go into the secret place, right? The inner chamber, which is that was the the inner room of the house.

00;35;41;16 - 00;35;55;14
J. Hoffert
Right? You go into the secret place we hear today, like go in your closet. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. So yeah, one of the transportation. Right. It is one of the I mean, some of the translation says go into the prayer closet. That's not known as an actual room that no one else would see. Right. So go into that place.

00;35;55;14 - 00;36;18;15
J. Hoffert
And the father who's in that place, we'll see you. Right? Right. That's what you sit in front of the window in the living room. Exactly. And say all your prayers for 20 minutes so that anybody walking by was exactly right. So, so what my dad said earlier was what helped him start to recover himself, was seeing other people who were further along right?

00;36;18;17 - 00;36;38;19
J. Hoffert
So when Jesus says, be perfect or complete as your heavenly father is complete, and then almost in the next breath, because it's just a couple verses later, he says, when you pray, go into the secret chamber and your father, who is in secret, he will see you, and he'll openly reward you, right? Right. So when you pray, go into the secret place and see him, right?

00;36;38;19 - 00;36;58;05
J. Hoffert
Because in seeing him, you start seeing someone who is bigger than you was more advanced than you, who is further along than you. Obviously it's God, right? And so so actually maturity starts to happen. I start to see a different way of being. I start to see a different way of thinking, because I start to see him. Right.

00;36;58;08 - 00;37;21;01
J. Hoffert
And that and that's that place of, that's that place of prayer is not petitioning God to do things, but seeing what he's like and being present with him and that begin. That's the only way that that that Matthew five, you know, that last verse in Matthew five actually has any teeth to it. Be perfect or be complete as your heavenly father is complete is when we're in the secret place seeing him.

00;37;21;01 - 00;37;42;14
J. Hoffert
Right? Exactly. Because now, oh, I'm starting to see what others are like. And then in that place of prayer, I discover I'm not alone. I that's why it's important. And prayer can be very important. In prayer, people get distracted by all kinds of forms of prayer and everything, right? It's you know what? We spend all our time speaking in tongues because it's spiritually builds us up.

00;37;42;14 - 00;38;01;12
J. Hoffert
Well, there's nothing wrong with speaking in tongues. We're advocates for that. But just be quiet. Stop. Right. Just. Well, you know, I'm meditating on the words of this book. We'll just put the book down. Yeah, but you don't need to be present with the book or the author of the book. Be present with yourself. And you soon discover that there's something else there.

00;38;01;12 - 00;38;26;29
J. Hoffert
Yes. And that's vitally important to, you know, quote unquote, stumbling into maturity because you're not stumbling into maturity. You're beginning to see a different way of being. Well. And and when people begin that process, it it can be very uncomfortable. Oh, you being, with themselves. Yeah. Kind of leads me into the next thought I was thinking is, is.

00;38;26;29 - 00;39;01;02
J. Hoffert
Yeah. That, another kind of a being on purpose for, for, for, maturity is that we begin to develop an inner wholeness. Yeah. That that. So you you may. Never have experienced what it feels like to be whole. You you may you may just feel disconnected from this part of yourself or that part of yourself all the time.

00;39;01;05 - 00;39;37;09
J. Hoffert
And I know that's a very frustrating sort of an experience to have. But there is a path towards being whole. It's what Jesus said that telling us where that complete. Yeah. Being and and it begins to pull together, you know, and once you start gaining capacity and you start being in that presence and you start, start doing that thing of prayer where you're becoming aware and, and of of the creator, engaging with the creator.

00;39;37;12 - 00;40;02;05
J. Hoffert
There are places where we begin to get healed, the things that we did not get, say, say we were an infant and we had a parent that would not look us in the eye because that little baby. Normally, if you think about a mom and a baby, the mom is looking directly in the eyes of the baby, and the baby is looking in the eyes of the mother, and they and they and they just look back and forth, back and forth.

00;40;02;12 - 00;40;26;22
J. Hoffert
And it's that it happens all the time. It's constant. And then the baby looks away. It, it's been called, climbing Joy mountain. Right? The baby, the baby gets it's looking in mom's eyes and it's getting happier and happy and and happier. And then it gets overwhelmed. But this happiness, this joy of being looking in the in the eyes of someone who loves it squirms around.

00;40;26;24 - 00;40;57;17
J. Hoffert
And that's how it looks there. It looks away and and and then and then it returns back to calmness internally. And then the eyes come again and they look again. And, and this is a cycle that repeats itself. And the baby is learning to be in the presence of somebody who loves him or her and, and enjoy that, that joy, but also learning to return to a place of calm so that there's a rhythm in life.

00;40;57;23 - 00;41;27;16
J. Hoffert
Yeah, but some babies never get that. They either don't get the the eye to eye contact on a regular basis, or they have someone who's a parent who is so is insecure and demands more attention, more eye contact from the than the baby can give and brings the baby back to look again and then and and it never teaches and never allows that child that little baby to to get back to a place of calm and peace.

00;41;27;17 - 00;41;49;10
J. Hoffert
Yeah. And so this may be something, you know, just little things like that all the way through. And there's, there's different stages and, and I just use that as, as one idea. But if you're looking at inner wholeness but you don't know how to be calm, then right then you're you're having to learn processes again. But as you do, there's an inner wholeness to begin to develop.

00;41;49;12 - 00;42;17;24
J. Hoffert
The the places that are deficient in us begin to come together. They begin to and and it's a the beautiful thing is, it's a natural process that, that. Yeah, being in the presence of one who is whole and complete, that would be God. we begin to become like that one because we are observing what it looks like to be whole and complete.

00;42;17;27 - 00;42;37;25
J. Hoffert
Right? I'm participating in a way for that. But. Yeah. Yeah, well, I'll just I just I'll say this the, the going back to what I said earlier, we're participating in this rest. Yes. Right. By looking at him, we're just like the babies participating in the mother's affection and the and the rest of the mother being perfectly rest, holding the baby.

00;42;37;27 - 00;43;01;01
J. Hoffert
And and and because we're participating in it, we start to learn to attune ourselves to it. Yeah, right. It's as simple as that. It really is simple, right? It's not more. It is. I think it is. Yeah, it is. It's natural, but it's not rocket science. It's it is the natural process of being human. We just learn to not be natural at it very well.

00;43;01;01 - 00;43;24;05
J. Hoffert
Yeah. Yeah. There's, there's and this is, it's firmly rooted in the scriptures too, which is what's really, really fascinating about it. Right. I think Jesus lays out, I mean, when you're looking at, Matthew five six and seven, he's really laying out those kind of principles and. Right, I mean, think about the, the, the Lord's Prayer and it's you're taking care of me, right?

00;43;24;08 - 00;43;40;09
J. Hoffert
I'm I'm not moved by great by big emotions. These are the kind of things Jesus is saying, right. Give us this day our daily bread. Right. I know I'll be taken care of. I'm comfortable and safe because I'll be taken care of, right? I'm forgiving people. I'm not letting what other people have done to me dictate who I am.

00;43;40;16 - 00;44;14;25
J. Hoffert
But the Lord's Prayer is is another picture of it is it really is when you think of it through the lens of emotional integration and spiritual maturity. by the way, when we say spiritual maturity to, we mean someone who's emotionally integrated as well, that there they are. You could probably say if you were going to characterize the lack of maturity as someone who is, always anxious about what, always anxious about the present in the future, who has a hard time articulating who they are and is driven by the emotions around them.

00;44;14;25 - 00;44;38;17
J. Hoffert
And it's not so much that they just feel emotions, but they can't help from responding to the emotions. Right? And whether it's anger, whether it's lust, whether it's greed, these kind of things happen driven by they're driven. Yes. And and it usually when you finally find your way back to yourself, you regret what you've done. And that's, that is, you know, that's a guilt.

00;44;38;19 - 00;44;59;26
J. Hoffert
And then you live in the guilt and, and and I know what it means to be driven. I've lived in that too many times. Yeah. And not not someplace you want to be at. Yeah, but I can testify. I'm here to testify. Yeah. You go and move beyond being driven. Yeah. And it's not because you willed it to be so, but because.

00;44;59;26 - 00;45;20;18
J. Hoffert
Yeah, you you came into relationship in humility. and I would say, I know we need to wrap this up at the moment, but, a couple of things that we would I would add on to this is that we have we walk through the process of formation, which is something that happens to us whether we like it or not.

00;45;20;18 - 00;45;46;17
J. Hoffert
It's always happening. Yeah, yeah, but we can be on purpose with formation, spiritual practices, prayer, fasting. Yeah. Well, once we understand, once we understand what it is that produces maturity, then it's it becomes less you don't it becomes less haphazard. Right. Exactly right. Yeah. That's the stumbling into it. Part is it seems so haphazard. No, you don't stumble into it, but it does.

00;45;46;17 - 00;46;10;01
J. Hoffert
It becomes less haphazard. So that's what you're saying. Yeah. Yeah. And then and then also community. community is that place where, and it's a, it's a beautiful statement. Iron sharpens iron. So. Yeah. What how do you grow in maturity? What you get some of the rough edges knocked off because. Right. They, you know, they get where we aren't so nice to each other.

00;46;10;04 - 00;46;40;27
J. Hoffert
But in learning how to allow that to be changed. yeah. You know, David says it's amazing when, brothers hang together. Yeah, it's it's like a sweet fragrance from God. Yeah. When brothers hang together. And I think we long for that. I really do think we long for it is our natural state of being. Yeah, yeah, we we don't always live that way, so.

00;46;41;00 - 00;46;59;02
J. Hoffert
And we can tell when we don't have it for sure. And we desperately crave it, you know, and I never I've ever been in a group of people that don't want to be together. Yes, some of you are. That's your church right now. I'm sorry. Yeah. Yeah, that's well, that is sad. That is there is a thing to be said for that.

00;46;59;07 - 00;47;24;09
J. Hoffert
Right. But then you are in a group of people that do want to be together. Yeah. And there is such, joy in that. Yeah. That it produces a lot of growth, peace, harmony that, that we're looking for, that we. Yeah. All of a sudden we just it feels like we stumbled into it because we're in a group of people that want to be with one another.

00;47;24;11 - 00;47;41;23
J. Hoffert
Yeah. All right. So I know yeah I know. Well. Well yeah. Well with that because here's, this is, this is the thing we're just scratching the surface of all the things that I can, I can just as we're talking, I'm like, oh, well we can talk about that in that, in that. And, and on some level you have to call it a day.

00;47;41;23 - 00;48;03;13
J. Hoffert
Yes. and so we have lots we have lots planned going forward. We're, we're I mean, we're going to talk about the big six emotions that might take a couple of, a couple of episodes. What's the experience of the big six and how do we recover from those. and we're going to talk about the, the centers of the brain, the ages, and the areas of maturity.

00;48;03;13 - 00;48;31;06
J. Hoffert
And if you miss those areas, how do you recapture those areas? All this I mean, we've got lots to dive into. And, so, you know, you guys who are enjoying the conversation so far, just keep just stay tuned because we're we're just going to keep going and we're both, firmly convinced that it's a thing. This this kind of information is a thing that people need because we're we're sorely lacking maturity in the body of Christ.

00;48;31;06 - 00;48;49;08
J. Hoffert
But just as you in humanity in general. Right. In general. Yeah. Yeah. In general. Yes. But especially, I mean, especially in the body of Christ, in politics, I think there's no maturity level. No, no, I think the least mature people rule nowadays. but that's it. There's another thing to be said for that. You know, that's a whole nother topic.

00;48;49;08 - 00;49;12;12
J. Hoffert
We could go on people stuck in infant stage or in toddler stage of maturity demand attention. And when they're adults, people don't realize that they're stuck in toddler maturity. They demand attention. They demand, and they demand you anyway. Yes. It's it's it's it's a thing. Right. Exactly. We've got a lot of we got a lot of people in leadership that haven't made it out of the toddler stage and.

00;49;12;15 - 00;49;31;26
J. Hoffert
Yeah, and all kinds of different, you know, they're in all kinds of. That's right. And so that's one of the reasons why we have come together to do this is to, to put some stuff out there that would help grow us up just a little bit. And, the Lord's put I think that's on the Lord's heart. I think, the, the maturation of leaders and of people is on the Lord's heart.

00;49;31;26 - 00;49;44;13
J. Hoffert
It always has been. So on. So as always, dad, fascinating love having this conversations with you and having you. Yeah. Everybody. Until next week. We will talk to you later real soon. Bye bye.