Certain Success™ Podcast

How to Play Chase with God and Win with Chris Morgan (REPLAY)

October 10, 2023 • Matt Fagioli • Episode 21

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In this week's replay episode, stimulate your spiritual curiosity as we sit down with bestselling author Chris Morgan, known for his profound insights in the realm of religious faith. Let the metaphor of "Playing Chase with God" redefine your prayer experience, as we unravel this riveting concept and the meaningful pursuit it entails, in this episode.

 Don't forget to check out Chris Morgan's new book, "Playing Chase with God," for a deeper dive into these inspiring concepts.

Chris Morgan [00:00:00]:

Playing Chase with God is a lifelong endeavor, and it has many seasons and many movements. When you chase God, he lets himself get caught. And it's a prayer idea, right? So the chase is prayer and God who could easily hide beyond my ability to find Him, he allows himself to get caught.

Matt Fagioli [00:00:29]:

Hey, guys, welcome back to the Certain Success podcast. I'm your host, Matt Fagioli, and back with me today is my neighbor, now bestselling author for two days, Chris Morgan. What's up, man?

Chris Morgan [00:00:46]:

Good to be back. And yeah, anybody can do something for two. It's like but yeah, I'm happy to be here and thank you for giving me just a minute to let more people know about releasing this book and excited about it, man.

Matt Fagioli [00:01:05]:

I'm super pumped. The book is called Playing Chase with God. You and I have been talking about it for a long time. I know you've been working on it for some years, but it's finally out in the world. It's been live on Amazon as the time we're recording this. It's been just a few days, and it's number one right now in the category of religious faith, which is not a small category. And as I was saying off camera, you're not even trying. You're just kind of put it out there and it's naturally rising and your natural affinity group is sort of finding it. That's true. Tell me what you said about living an organic life.

Chris Morgan [00:01:55]:

Well, when you and I were talking about that, I just said I had read things about certain kinds of things you should do if you're going to put out a book. And it's not that I was resisting any of that. It was really just kind of in an effort to get it out. I hadn't done all the work of a launch group and some of that stuff, but what I did do is once I put it out, I just started letting some people know just that I'd put it out. And it was really affirming because I got just a lot of really gracious excitement. Like people were like, oh, wow, I'm getting that right now. And a lot of people were sending me notices, showing me where they had ordered it and just that kind of a thing. But you got to love it when it's organic like that. When I say fabricated, I don't mean that it wouldn't be legitimate if I had done the work to try to get people to do that. But it certainly feels a little more authentic when people just go like, you don't even have to sell me, I'm in. And it comes from years of just knowing people, and it comes from investing in them, them investing in you, and them believing the authenticity of what you're talking about, which in this case is chasing God and prayer and all of that whole realm of life. I've been talking about it for a bunch of years and some people have been listening, so when they see a book, they go, Nice, I'm in. So I'm very grateful that that's happened so far. Yeah.

Matt Fagioli [00:03:28]:

I mean, even though you're new, three days old in the world of being an author, but you spent 20 years with thousands of people listening to your literal voice. And as they find out about it, all those people are going to want to take a look and want to hear what you have to say. And it's just like authors that you get, the big authors that you follow, that I follow. And every time they put a book out, I'm like, oh, got to get his new book, whether it's John ortberg John Mark Comer like, whatever, whoever the people are, you're like, oh, got to have his new books. And now you're on that list. Let's let's tell know a little bit about a lot about the sure, already talked about the title. Tell me about where the title came from and all of yeah, yeah.

Chris Morgan [00:04:23]:

So playing chase with God is actually a concept that got buried in my mind, in my heart, many years ago, is actually something my friend and my pastor, pastor Kevin Myers Twelve Stone, just said in the midst of a sermon and probably goes all the way back to about 2004, 2005, long time ago. But he used this metaphor of playing chase with your kids. So the game play chase is kind of the way I categorize it in the book, but it takes a lot of different forms. That could be hide and seek or it could be like tag or any number of children's kind of games that you might play. For me, it might just be running circles around the couch with my kids when I come home from work. But he used that metaphor and he basically said this line, and this was the line I use it in the book, and it just stayed with me through the years. He said, when you chase God, he lets himself get caught. And so inside of this idea, and it's a prayer idea, right? So the chase is prayer. And God, who could easily hide beyond my ability to find Him, he allows himself to get caught. And so the more I thought about that, I thought about even playing chase with my kids when I would come home from work. And they were in those really cool ages, between four and ten, probably. And what they wanted for me when I would come home were games and games, ultimately, a lot of times those kind of games, chase games. And so here's what I know. It would be easy for me to hide from them beyond their ability to find me, but the great delight of my heart was to be found by them. It's true, I was hiding, but I was only hiding because when they chased me, it made the whole scenario dear. Like they would chase me, but I was bursting at the seams to be found by them. And when they found me, there was great joy and then it would play over and over and over. And so this became really pretty for me. Anyway, a very accurate metaphor of how to get to the essence of what prayer is in my life. And so playing chase with God, though, the primary metaphor is more of like a game and there's a lot of play in it. The truth of it is and the book goes into all this, but it's like playing chase with God is a lifelong endeavor and it has many seasons and many movements. And what I began to see and this is the thing that I still to this day, even though I've been messing with some of these concepts for several years now, metaphors, ultimately, a lot of times they break down the more you push on them. They don't keep yielding back insight. They kind of begin to break down. And this one, it's almost like the more I push on it, the more it keeps giving back. And the essence of it is this is that prayer is the invitation to a relationship. And that's not really new information for most people. They get that. But I think that we tend to not apply the lessons of relationship to prayer. And that's really what this book is. I keep looking over here because this is my test copy. You can see it says, not for sale right there. That's the way Amazon sends it to you.

Matt Fagioli [00:07:59]:

I'm glad you held that up because I've got mine on order and it's not here yet, so I couldn't do that, which I usually held it up.

Chris Morgan [00:08:08]:

Yeah, well, this was a test copy and even you could see the title was a little off center. So that was one of the corrections I made. That's the beauty of a test copy. You get to look at it and go like, no, there's still things that need to be done. But here's the thing. The encouraging thing is we all know more about prayer than we even realize that we do because prayer is built from the primary building blocks of relationship building. And we've been doing that our whole life. Like, there's really nothing we've been doing any longer than building relationships with people on Earth. Our big failure is that we fail to take those same really practical, blood, sweat and tears earthly lessons about what it means to build a relationship with somebody else and then apply those to prayer. And that's what this book is trying to the subtitle is moving forward through the unscripted rhythms of prayer. And so the unscripted rhythms of prayer are really the unscripted rhythms of relationship that you're already doing in multiple fronts in your life, but you probably aren't doing it in your primary relationship with God. And as soon as you make that connection for me, sparks begin to fly, begin to go, oh, my gosh. Like, all the places that I tend to get stuck in my pursuit of God through prayer can be decoded and demystified when I begin to apply that kind of thinking. So does that make sense?

Matt Fagioli [00:09:40]:

Well, I want you to go deeper on unscripted rhythms because I think I know what you mean, but I bet we could all use a little bit more.

Chris Morgan [00:09:48]:

Yeah. So think about like this. So think about, like, relationships in and of themselves are very predictable. Like the point at which you and I decided to be friends. There were very practical and predictable things that begin to surface or things that we would have to do. And they're not like big secrets, the least of which is like, if we're going to be friends, we're going to pull out one of these and we're going to look at our calendar and we're going to go like, hey, are you available? And we'd coordinate and then we'd figure it out. Which we began to do right, a couple of years ago, beget more intentional about meeting up. Well, that's an example of a rhythm. There are things that relationships predict will happen, but here's the key, or one of the keys is they're not scripts. Even though it's predictable, the things that will happen as you and I start building a friendship, we're predictable, but they're not scripted. You still have to live them. So in other words, I can't come to a friendship with you and read from some kind of script as if that was the relationship building secret? No, it doesn't work that way. Relationships are never built off of scripts. They're built off of unscripted, predictable rhythms. So, like, as an example, this just gives you the chapters in the book. I have this memorized, but I'll just to make sure I don't mess it up. But it's like, show up, open up, right, protect momentum, start listening, keep rhythm, hike the distance, the journey of maturity. So it's like these are all rhythms that already exist inside of every important relationship that you're building. But what this book is trying to do is to take those same rhythms and pull them over into the area where we're building a life with God and show how that begins to work out. So it's not really a how to book, it's more of a how should you be thinking about prayer so that you can now go build your own prayer movement for yourself. And I think that's very empowering. This is the way I'm built anyway. I would much rather you tell me how to go do the work myself than tell me what to go do. Does that make sense? Yeah. Here's how you should think about it.

Matt Fagioli [00:12:19]:

I think unscripted rhythm is starting to make sense to me because in our friendship, or any friendship between two people, you're going to take the time to do the scheduling and do those mechanical things. But once we're in a room or on the zoom or wherever we are, there's no script. We're just talking. And I think that's a piece of what you're getting at with God and what's so powerful. When the relationship with God, when you allow it to get there, it only takes 1 second to get there, but you have to allow it to get there to be that.

Chris Morgan [00:13:00]:

Yeah, and it's like so let's again, very practical. The first chapter is just about showing up. Like no relationship in your life ever develops if you don't show up to the relationship both internally and externally. But then the second chapter really pertains to what you're talking about. It's not enough just to show up. You actually have to learn how to open up. Because the secret to prayer is that prayer has never been about prayer. Prayer is about presence. It's about making a connection with God. And prayer, the activity of prayer, is just the tool whereby that can happen. But if I make the point about the tool, I can end up practicing the activity of prayer, but missing the goal of prayer, the point of prayer, which is to actually build history with God, make connection. Well, this is the thing. We make connection with God today. But when we do that day on top of day on top of day on top of day, then the really good stuff happens, which is we build history together. And see, you and I started two years ago, whatever, by starting to put it on the calendar, and we showed up. But then we actually began to talk about things that matter to you and matter to me, and so we begin to open up. But then you do that over and over and over and over again. Well, now you've actually built history. And when you and I build history, same with God, when you build history, that builds trust. And the conversations go to different places because you now have a history together. And so the prospect of a life where you can build that with God, I think is a very compelling prospect and one that I've tried to live. And this is just me trying to put it in words and to talk about it.

Matt Fagioli [00:14:53]:

I think one of the things that I bet your book is going to do for a lot of people is unlock what that even looks like, because I don't think that most people have gotten there in their prayer life to understand it at the level that you understand it and be in that. Man, I just hung on the subtitle. Now, the unscripted rhythms as we are unpacking, what that explains about the depth of relationship?

Chris Morgan [00:15:27]:

Yeah, well, I love the tension that lives. Think about it. Unscripted rhythms. So rhythms is saying something that happens over and over and over and over. Right. So we know that there are things that do happen over and consistently, and we build those things and we reinforce rhythms in our life that cause the same things to happen over and over and over. But inside of those things over here, it remains unscripted because that's the way every relationship works. Now, that doesn't mean I don't have tools that I use to help get me moving forward in my conversations with God. I have those and have included a lot of the really practical things that help grease the wills, if you will. But it doesn't change the fact that even though I use certain things and I may use them over and over again inside of my use of these things, that these mechanisms that help prayer move forward, it still remains unscripted. So in other words, I'm not just showing up and reading my way through the Lord's Prayer or saying words that sound very churchy, Jesusy and Amen. And then call it good or not even restricting it to this 15 minutes devotion at the front end of my day or at the back end of my day. It's not limited to that. Having some rhythms along those lines are always good. And again, those are included in the book. But the point is that it's both rhythmic but unscripted. And I think that's exactly the way every important relationship that you have on Earth works. It's both rhythmic, but it has to have this unscripted element because that's what makes it interactive and personal.

Matt Fagioli [00:17:24]:

You and I talk a lot about prayer becoming a thing that doesn't even necessarily have a lot of words in it. And I think about that like your relationship with your spouse after decades of getting to know each other, you could be in the same space for a long time without there being any words. Now, that could be a negative thing, but I'm speaking of it in the positive sense that you could be comfortable in your own skin and comfortable with your spouse to the point where you don't need a lot of words to be comfortable for a long time.

Chris Morgan [00:18:11]:

100% what you're saying is true, but it's actually true on the positive and on the negative. Because just in the same way that my wife can go kind of quiet and I can feel that there's a fence in the air that can happen with God, it gets quiet and you go like, hey, did I mess up somewhere along the way? And usually as soon as you ask the question, you already know the answer. Like it's already buried in your soul. It's sitting there. It's just waiting for you to acknowledge it. But anyway, yes, don't jump off of.

Matt Fagioli [00:18:46]:

That because I think you just nailed something that's important, because it is that man Sherry and I are so that she'll do that. She'll get quiet. And I can immediately sense like, oh, what is that? Because I know it's a that there's a that there I know it's there, sure, but I haven't in recent years. I know it with God, too, and you just talked about it. But I think that's a really interesting point to talk about, like getting to know be clear enough about his voice to know when it's not there.

Chris Morgan [00:19:22]:

Not there. Yes. That's beautiful. See, I think maybe not quite as important, but very important is this idea of knowing what the silence of God sounds like, because it's the reciprocal, it's the mirror image of knowing what his voice sounds like or his presence with you. Like that sense of abiding that Jesus invited us to. John 15, I think, where he's like, hey, abide in me, I'll abide in you. And so there's a certain atmosphere of life that goes with abiding. And when that gets fractured or broken, if you've lived if you have history with God and you've been living in that abiding, when it gets fractured and broken, then you're over here and you all of a sudden have this profound sense of loneliness or being alone in a way that you're not normally that abiding sense of God with me has dissolved or at least drifted to a distance. And a really big part of building a life with God and playing chase over the long haul is understanding, I think something's happened. I'm not where I need to be, and then being proactive about that, like, not passive reject passivity. That's part of the book, too. It's like just there are moments when you are part of playing Chase and building a history with God is fundamentally rejecting passivity. But what is that? Listen, that's exactly the same thing you do with every important relationship in your life. What relationship in your life is thriving in the context of you treating it passively? There is not one. So why would it be any different with God? It is not. We just get freaked out by the fact that it's God and we fail to apply the fundamental lessons of relationship building because it's Him. And we go like, yeah, but it's God. I can't see him. He holds all the power. He's holy. I'm not. And I feel a little sheepish about whether I can really know how to do this. But, you know, that's where you just have to go, like, stop worrying about what I don't know and start stepping towards what I want with a level of desire and boldness. And you have every reason in the world to believe that God will respond to that because he's promised to, he says.

Matt Fagioli [00:22:17]:

It come to me definitely more inclined to respond to that than to some sheepish, fearful, faithless approach.

Chris Morgan [00:22:28]:

Yeah, I mean, it's the same way. And again, I'm constantly doing this. It's the same thing that happens in your relationships. Aren't you much more likely to respond to somebody who has a sincere desire to make a connection with you, even if they're doing it in flawed ways like you're way willing to look past the flawed way in which they're approaching you because you can see the desire that they have for you. And for some reason, we think that God's up there going like, no, not like that.

Matt Fagioli [00:23:05]:

Rejected.

Chris Morgan [00:23:06]:

Yeah, not like that. No. Look, stop being stupid. You go figure it out. When you get it figured out, you come back, and that's just not the case. Fully knowing that we don't have it figured out. This is what he says. He says, Come, you who have no money. Come, buy, eat, take for yourself what is good. Why should you spend your money on what doesn't satisfy? He basically characterizes coming to him as a meal that's already been paid for, and all you have to do is come to the table and start tasting and eating. Which is another thing that prayer. This is part of what prayer is supposed to do. Prayer is supposed to take our access to God and turn it into experiences with God. And this is how momentum is protected in the relationship, because, again, this is the way every good relationship you have works. The relationship is sustained by the experience inside of that relationship. In other words, if you and I stopped having fun talking to each other, we would stop talking to each other like we actually get something out of it. There's an exchange going on in the relationship, and as long as that's occurring, I'm still in and you're still in. So our relationship with God has to be the same way. We have to hold it accountable to encounters and experiences with God, because if we don't have that, it will dissolve down into nothingness. And we'll opt for other things that actually do give back, like whatever it know, more time on Netflix or more business pursuits, making more money or whatever. And all of those nothing wrong with any of those things. But the point is, the reason we invest in them is because we're getting things that we like out of them. Well, we have to superimpose that over our relationship with God and realize that's the only way momentum is protected is when prayer turns access to God into experiences with God. And yes, there are all kinds of trades that you have to enact in your life to see that be a reality. And those trades are in the book. Like, I go through I don't remember there's five or six different fundamental trades. It's like, trade this for this. And when you do that, you actually are making yourself a candidate for experiences with God. And when you have experiences with God, that protects momentum in your relationship with God.

Matt Fagioli [00:25:42]:

Dude, I cannot wait to get my copy. I feel like I know every word of it anyway from all the conversations, but cannot wait to read it cover to you know, I've already scripted out how I want you to sign the front of you know, Matt, you changed my life, and I never could have written this without you, or something like that.

Chris Morgan [00:26:03]:

That's partially true, actually. Keep your eye open because I'm getting ready to release a blog that I've already written it, and it's called Why I Wrote a Book. And you actually get a feature moment in the blog, made the cut.

Matt Fagioli [00:26:21]:

Awesome. And I got one more question for you, and I think that's going to tie in. One of the reasons why we meet all the time is you've been writing your book, and I'm writing a book, and we both have been talking about the just absolutely horrible, painful mess that that is wonderful, but painful mess it is to write a book. And we were talking just this morning, I think, about how much it changes you and transforms you in the process. And so I wanted to ask you that what's something about this subject matter and about the book and about God and playing chase with God that you see differently now after the book, I.

Chris Morgan [00:27:08]:

Would say two things, and I think this is the way books tend to run anyway. I think people write books because they have something inside of them that's very fundamental and aching to get out. That's the reason you write a book, right? You try to get a message out on page, but what happens in the process of getting it out is it becomes clearer, like you actually see. I could feel that it was in there, and I had sort of a framework of how this all went together, but now that I've actually written it out, it becomes clear. So I would say first, like, my conviction about building history with God and just dedicating a life that's day upon day, week upon week, year upon year, until it turns into a lifetime, I feel as excited and dedicated to that process for my life as I ever have. And it's more clear to me now that I've actually articulated it to myself. And really, that's a good way of thinking about really what this at least this is for me. Yes, I wanted it to be I wrote it to be helpful for people, but honestly, it's me talking to me. It's me going like, hey, this is what this is. And then this goes to this, and this to this. So clarity was first of all. And then secondly, this is where the book begins to skew as it gets towards the end of the book. There is this stewardship that I believe God has given those who follow Him. There's a stewardship of which prayer is a primary manifestation. There's a stewardship of his kingdom on the know. Jesus said when he gave us the prayer, he gave us the Lord's Prayer, but right in the middle of it, right towards well, not necessarily right in the middle, but I think the thesis of the Lord's Prayer is he know your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. So we steward that. People that follow Jesus are stewarding that movement on earth as it is in heaven. And we are praying around that constantly. And don't think of that as like some kind of churchy Jesus y only prayer. No, it actually pertains directly to what you're doing. It's like when business owners get serious about the movement of Jesus and how the culture that they're building inside their business and even how they're doing business in the Earth actually is a manifestation of on Earth as it is in heaven. It's all building culture in a way that is staying Jesus to the world. So literally, the last chapter of the book is called Everybody and in it, basically, I'm inviting anybody who claims Jesus as Lord to join this prayer journey not only to build their personal relationship with God. This is a bigger conversation than what we can probably just unpack in just a few minutes. But here's what I know that we start early building a relationship with God that's very personal. It's just me and him. I just want to know Him. But then as I layer day upon day upon day and it begins to go down this life timeline, at some point, maturity begins to dictate that I'm not now just only knowing God, but I'm actually taking the purposes of God and I'm integrating them into my life so that his purposes are now my purposes. And in the book, it's just called shared purposes. I say that's what maturity does. Maturity goes to shared purposes. And all you got to do is look at your marriage, right? Like you first married Sherry, for you guys to have a life together, for you to share that relationship, for y'all to get to know each other. But then day upon day upon day upon day. And then at some point you realize you're building a life together. You're sharing purpose. There's something that is happening around the Faggioli name, and it's a thing unto itself. Well, God's doing the same thing. He has purposes. And we all, if we claim his name, are to be a part of that purpose. And prayer is a primary tool for seeing his purpose invade my life and the places where my life is invested. And that's kind of where the book is ending. It's actually pointing towards the fact that God's already said that he is going to fill the Earth with his glory and with the knowledge of who he is. And his invitation to pray is not only an invitation to know Him, but it's an invitation to colabor with Him. And in seeing that to become a reality. And it will become a reality, I don't know how far that will go in my lifetime, but I'm invested in seeing it become a giant reality. And when moves of God begin to infiltrate the Earth, it changes everything. And we just have seen glimpses of it in the day that we're living there's. Little glimpses of that happening in little pockets all around. We just got through seeing the Asbury revival back in February of this year, and I got a chance to go up there and again, I put my experience of that in the book. And when you experience those moments when God's presence invades a thing, whatever that thing is, it changes everything about that thing. So that's a long answer, but two things. So my clarity of what this journey with God is personally and the fact that ultimately that will lead to this investment in a much bigger vision for my life than what I had first envisioned when I started.

Matt Fagioli [00:33:23]:

That's good, man. Well, Chris, thanks for sharing all of that. I cannot wait to get my copy. Guys, if you're catching this podcast and you haven't already, get on Amazon and get your copy of Playing Chase with God, and we'll put a link in the show notes for that as well. And Chris, I know we'll be back on the podcast soon, man, but thank you as always.

Chris Morgan [00:33:45]:

For sure. Thanks, Matt.

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