Ep 1264 | Why Intimacy with God & Their Wives Is So Hard for Christian Men

I am unashamed. What about you? So welcome back to the Unashamed Podcast. This is our Friday episode, Unashamed with Hillsdale. We're taking these courses that Hillsdale offers for free. You guys can join us at unashamedforhillsdale.com. We are in the CS Lewis course on CS Lewis on Christianity. I've thoroughly enjoyed this, but I was kind of wondering. How is it? Because we're now in this is episode. This is the fourth lecture. It got a little hairy. If you're not a philosophically minded person, but now how you guys, I mean, you know, Zach, it so it wasn't as bad as when I was in college and I was in quantitative methods, which was a statistics, the next level statistics course. It wasn't that bad because when the guy was talking, he was like given the first lecture, it sounded like the Charlie Brown teacher, a womp, a womp, a womp, and all I got was if you're not serious about statistics, you don't need to be here. And so I got up and I walked out of that class and I walked over to my pastor, and I said, I'm dropping that course. He said, well, you can't get your business degree without this course. I said, then what else we got here? So it wasn't that bad, but it was about halfway through the lecture. I mean, I was I was kept backing it. I'd stop it and I'd back it up and I would listen again. And I just I wasn't getting it. I was like, Christian, could you, we're we together? Yeah, no, halfway through listening to it, I was like, I hope me and I'll run the same page. But I said, I know somewhere out there, Zach, it's just filming at the mouth because he's enjoying this. I said to the far four are thinking this is the best thing ever. And two of our four they got what is he talking about? I will say this to and we'll get there at the end of this podcast. But it all came together at the end. It would have helped. I did not read this book, and it would have helped had I read it. I'm sure because the first one is on his book, Surprise by Joy, which is his that's his really kind of a little bit like his testimony of how he came to faith in Christ. But yeah, and I mean, the reason why we wanted to bring that up at the beginning of the podcast is because if you're sitting in this course, I mean, it is, yeah, it's a little it's a little heavy in terms of the content. But I think you guys y'all both went through, we went through a episode or lecture five. So we the next two podcasts we're going to be focusing on those two lectures lecture four and five. But but it's one of those things when it courage you like like if you're in it and you're like, whoa, this is heavy like push through it, how you push through it, Christian, you push through it, it came out the other side and and at the end of it, you know, I mean, we were talking at the beginning of the podcast, I mean, your light bulbs are going off, you know, so sometimes when you're you're in to do content, if you're not used to, you know, learning in a certain way. But I mean, this is these are courses that you would take at their college. And so I mean, these are, this isn't easy. So but I mean, I think we kind of said that from the beginning, we're stepping into, you know, educating our audience, we want to be educated along with you and and CS Lewis is obviously he's a huge part of, you know, Western civilization. I don't know any preacher that doesn't quote CS Lewis at least three or four times a year. Yeah. We quote him every Sunday at our church, but just about, but um, can you imagine that being with the group because we talked about this in the previous podcast, the the inklings, which would that that name came out in this episode, uh, these group of guys that would need together consistently of, uh, at Oxford and they would, they were all brilliant and they're on right. John, like you kind of done a little bit more research on the, the nature of their relationship, but it's kind of interesting that that group and that dynamic. Yeah, I got really into them for a while and started reading like some of the stuff the other, other guys wrote that were in that group, which the biggest ones were CS Lewis and J.R. Tolkien. And their whole thing was getting together. They would read passages from the books they were writing and they would critique them. And so it was just like a rose session on the books they were writing at the local pub at the pub. Yeah. And over a pint over a pint. Yeah. And that's like, that's where, especially J.R. Tolkien and the early like Nornia books, that's where like they were, the first guys who heard them was there at the inklings. And that's why I think while they were so good too, because they were critiquing them as they were writing them. Yeah. Yeah, because who knows what the versions of their work would have been without that. I mean, that was part of their process that fitted it, which is really interesting. And we kind of know that from, um, when Davel was writing his books, we kind of did it, Team Style, it was me and you and your dad. And we kind of had that back and forth through the process of writing it. I guess we were some sort of inklings, but it was, it was really interesting because dad was kind of the core of what we were going. And it was his sort of way, but then all of us contributed and pulled back and added in. And you know, and we came out with some really good product, you know, the process. Very openly. I mean, even though how we started this podcast, I think it's appropriate. I mean, we're, you know, we're not drinking out of the cool right here. Like we're telling you that sometimes these courses get difficult and you work through the content, but in the end, the final product is good. And so, you know, this first episode or I say episode, this first lecture is today lecture four, the first of the fourth lecture is about Lewis's, um, memoir, surprise by Joy, where he tells the story of his early life leading up to his conversion to Christianity. And then one of his friends, one of the, one of the inklings, a guy named John Wayne, a Dr. Ward pointed out not the John Wayne that W E I end more like, yes, yes, he heard John Wayne don't think about the West, but one of the guys, and that was his attempt to be funny, but he took typical Brit. He said it and he never laid even cracked a smile or anything. It was funny. It was funny. I mean, I chuckled, but he was just like, oh, it was just like, don't. He said, he said, he's an excellent teacher, by the way. He's great. He said, and I believe that John Wayne has 180 degrees wrong. He did say that. He pushed back her because John Wayne had a criticism of this book and essentially said that it was lame and that it was convincing. I'm convincing. Dr. A failure. I mean, I'm unconvincing as it could possibly be. I mean, he didn't just think what was his point was it's a hundred and it's a 190 page book. And there's only two pages dedicated limit to his conversion. So in Wayne's defense, there is some credence there. No, I actually totally agreed with that assessment. I did. I heard a lot from reading the book, listening to him say, I was like, that's exactly what I thought too. Well, two was kind of like a lot of that. Look at his word expanded on it. When Lewis went from atheism to being a theist, his conversion was more grand. And the way he explained it was more loud and those kind of things he made that point. And then with his conversion to Christianity, it was just like a subtle and he didn't really expect. So I'm sure people were excited to know what what that moment was actually like for him. And then they were, yeah, I mean, I can imagine that being underwhelmed with like all the stuff you've ever written. The one thing that this word said that made me feel better was that he said that he had to read the book four times to get what he got to get where he got to. And I thought, well, that makes me feel better because you're just a lecture four times. Exactly. I can't listen to the lecture. And I think, well, I feel like a goose in a fog. You know, I think the problem is that when you're, and yeah, this is like part of learning. I mean, if like you try to pick up, for example, Bay of Wolf, and you're just going to read Bay of Wolf, like if you're not incubated in that content and that type of writing, it's going to like literally it is a foreign language. Yeah. But, you know, if you, if you force yourself and it is hard, but you push yourself into the content and into reading that and in the simmering and eventually like your brain, something happens in your brain and you start to kind of understand it. And it's the craziest phenomenon. But I think that's true of all things. And so that's why I've always like, yeah, she'll be keeping things simple. Yes. But I think that at the same time, we should also fire out these other parts of our brain and our neurons that can draw us into a deeper understanding of who God is. I thought that this whole two, the two lectures we're going to talk about over the next two weeks for me were, it really is the journey that I've been on for a while. And the big difference is is a contemplation. He mentions this in the course. Comptemplation versus the enjoyment. And these are two really real ways that we access reality and that we acquire knowledge. And how do you know what you know? Well, one way you know what you know is you observe, you know, you contemplate, you look at it and you contemplate what it is. And then there's another way of acquiring knowledge, which is more of a relation or knowledge, it says you enjoy it. And those are two equally, I'll say not equal, those are two very real ways that we know the world around us. And what Lewis is pointing to in this book, surprised by joy and his story and maybe his whole apologetic is that one of those is more primary than the other. And the one that is more primary is actually that at the core of your being, you are a being who desires. And I actually found that to be true in my own life. You know, that's more foundational to how I actually live my life than what I think about our contemplate. And to the point where I can actually contemplate something and I can miss, I can actually miss the whole thing and it never really changed what I desire. And what I actually do in my real life is what I want to do. That's what I desire. It's not what I think about our contemplate. It's what what do I want. And so I think he's actually getting at really the core of what it means to be human. You got to make sense. It does. We want you to sign up and take this course with us. It's free. Unashamed for Hillsdale.com is where you go to get that. Yeah, I agree, Zach. And I think one of the things that, because Smith, who was my mentor, who was a smart guy, but at the same time was very powerful with the gospel and just, a straightforward type guy too. But he told me when I was very young, he said, I'll never be afraid to put things out for people that they have to reach up for, meaning in your teaching. You know, don't just, he said, we want to be always back to the gospel and Jesus, but at the same time, we want people to have to reach and stretch because that's how you grow. And so that's always stuck in my mind that it's always healthy to look at life through someone else's prism. And you learn things from that. And so I do think that the uniqueness of people's testimony to how they come to see Christ, how they come to live for Christ is very much seen in these two lectures in NCS Lewis's Life. This man looked at life completely different than me, but I've learned a lot from listening to his pontifications and who he is. So I think that's good for all of us, you know, to try to kind of walk in someone else's shoes. And then we grow. I mean, we see things that we did see before. Yeah, the core of what he's getting at here, I think, and John Locott on this in the last podcast of some of the, probably push back against Lewis. And I can understand even more of what you were talking about in the last podcast, John Locott, going through these two lectures, I think about why people might push back against Lewis's presentation of the gospel here or at least presentation of his own story. When you think about this podcast, for example, I will tell you, I read a lot of the comments over the years. And we've been doing this for how many years now? We're in our seventh year now. Seventh year, I don't know how many we've done a ton of podcasts. And one of the biggest complaints that we've gotten, like just like people pushing back against what we're saying. And we've got, you know, there's we got it, we get a ton of ton of ton of it. I mean, just it's the nature of the business, right? So some of it you kind of just got to have to be in. I have to. Jason says, don't read the comments. I do read the comments. Jason's that he wants to detach himself from any criticism. I can imagine. Jason's been someone who detaches himself. That's so out of character for this the way the man lives. But you know, the one of the biggest complaints or not complaints, but maybe rebuttals that we've gotten is when Phil would say I could inverted him. He would use that word converted. And what Phil always meant, a jesus user, the few times we've always used it. Like, yeah, I'll tell you, we had a couple guys come now, we converted them. And they're always like, you didn't convert anybody like Christ converts and they have a whole thing about conversion. But even the word conversion is kind of like a it's a weird phrase. And it, I think people have an aversion to it because what they're thinking when you hear that word conversion, maybe you're thinking about like the crusades or like the conquistadors that are converting, you know, the indigenous population and their forcing their constantine and his whole army, you know, like just yeah, almost like your forcing them. Yeah, because they're like, no, you actually make a disciples and then conversion just I think what we're where it gets lost in translation is when you when like when I would hear the word conversion growing up, what I heard was that was synonymous with we baptized him or baptized turn. And it was a moment. Yeah, right. And then we even had the big debate inside the churches of Christ. Like when is the moment of salvation? Like everything was about a moment like this one moment. And I think the reason why Lewis, the way he portrays one of the reasons why he portrays according to Dr. War II, he portrays his own conversion, particularly the Christ. And really, I mean, it was two pages. It was like not it wasn't what you thought it would be. It wasn't this big drawn out emotional thing. It was because it is it's kind of hard to identify really what that is. You said in the last podcast, John, like about when I was talking, I've never seen anyone come to Christ to apologetics. But then you kind of shared your own story, which convicted me. And it's like it sometimes it's a lot more of an incubation process. And it's hard to sometimes just to nail what we want that moment. And for Lewis, it really was a process of becoming. And I think that's why the maybe it might fall flat. If you're looking for like the I was dark and then boom, the lights went on and everything was made sense all of a sudden. I don't think that that really wasn't Lewis's story. You know, I mean, well, I think part of that, Zach, was the when you talk about conversion, when you go back and look at the book of Acts, which is when we see the first conversions to Christianity out of Judaism, you know, because all those people, initial people there in Jerusalem were Jewish. And so this is the first time this has ever happened. And so we watched that unfold. And so now 2000 years later, sometimes we kind of look back on that and say, well, yeah, that's exactly the way it has to be with everybody now. But that was 2000 years of context. It's quite different than it is now. Once we've had Christianity around for 2000 years, in different ways for people to incubate the thought process. So you're right, Zach, we tend to to look at it and say, well, it has to be this way. That was our problem. I think in the COC, early was we were saying, well, it's got to be the example of this right here. And so everybody has to be the same. And that's not true at all. And you have to you have to factor it in. And I think we'll get into this in the next podcast. But even when you look at the Bible, you have to look at context, genre, the books, all of it. It's different. And so I think that plays into this. No, I was going to say that too about, well, just to point on conversion, because I was thinking about this too and how it was kind of a slow process for him. And he doesn't really hit that like big moment. And I knew this guy. He was a youth pastor. And I think he's maybe his preacher now. Really smart guy, but really, really covenant theology guy, like, to love all predestination, all of it, super into it. And his whole thing was every conversion was that huge light bulb moment. And he had that like he like when he told us testimony, it was I'd never, you know, I didn't want God. I was interested at all. And then I think he had like the he was sick or something. And he like thought he was going to die. And he like felt like God spoke to him. He had this huge like moment. And then from then on, he was like all on fire for God. And he believed that that is how it should be for everyone. And if you don't have that moment, like you haven't been converted, yeah. And I was like, I just don't think that that is everybody's experience. Like you can get take, you know, you can go from the Bible, but just also from just talking to people and how they've come to Christ. And sometimes it is like that. But most, I think probably most of the time, it's more of a long, long process of either growing up in the church, thinking about it, doubting, coming back, doubting, you know, up and down, you know, it's just like whole, whole process. And then so I thought that was a really good point that Cs Lewis was making is that it doesn't have to be like this like huge like moment, but it's just like a steady building of your relationship with God and with Christ. And plus we've been talking this whole time about how the four of us that we viewed life so differently and and John Luke and Zach tend to be more philosophical in your view of if that's true in just the four of us, multiply that out to all of humanity. Right. In terms of how people view things, I mean, of course it's going to be different. And I don't know about y'all, but I mean, if I were an atheist and I had then converted to being a theist and then later to Christianity, which was the process he went through, probably, I mean, in my mind, going from atheism to theism was what was a hugely, that's probably that was probably bigger than the other one because the yes, yeah, because to say there's nothing to that and there's no God and all of a sudden you think whether he is a being and then say, okay, well now I'm willing to embrace what that being says about himself. Once the being usually for most of us, that comes together, right? I mean, like we're converted to God, the creator of the cosmos and to his plan at the same time. Most of us experienced it that way now, but he didn't. And I mean, I could see, so I wasn't, when I read it, I mean, we're heard in the lecture, I thought it was, well, I could see where that would be pretty magnanimous. You know, that step, that was a big step. Well, this is what Lewis said about his conversion. He said that when he finally came to a belief that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, there was, quote unquote, nothing of him left over or outside the act. The whole man had moved. He had, as it were, stepped inside the beam of Christian knowledge, which sounds great, but to me it's kind of confusing. I was, Zach, can you ex nothing of him left over or outside the act? And then I was, I was confused on the whole beam of light and how that with the enjoyment, tell that story. Confusing about the, that was kind of, it was called the tool, shit meditation in a tool. It was an article, I think he wrote, isn't it? Or something. Yeah, he was looking at, he was looking at the beam of light and that was, there was like a difference between comp to play. This is what I started off with. Like, the big shift is, is the difference between contemplation of something and the enjoyment of something. And and he plays this out throughout the, you know, these two lectures, lecture four and five, it really comes together really, I think in five, when he ends up on the road to Emmaus, which we've talked about on Harp like us a lot, because the 24 is one of my favorite passages in the Bible. And he's drawn the distinction between the word of God and then the God of the word. And so I've done this a lot throughout the years. I'll take a phrase like, like too many of us have put our faith in the gospel of Christ instead of the Christ of the gospel. And so what we would do is you take the formula, the death burial and the resurrection of Jesus, but then that becomes a formula that you, now I'm into the formula, but are you into the man? You know, and so when, on, there's a moment in John 5 when Jesus says you study the scriptures diligently. And by them, you think you're saved yet you've missed me the one that they point to. So the point is is that you can, you can actually look at something like that beam of light that could be that could be the the word of God like the scripture maybe. And then you focus on the beam, but you're not actually living in the story of the beam. And so when Jesus meets those disciples on the road to Emmaus, what he does is he takes out the Bible and he shows them from the scriptures why Christ had to die be buried in race and the dead. In other words, these were all pointing to me. And so it has to move from knowledge about God to more of an intimate knowledge of God and who he is relationally, which is why John 173, the way that Jesus defines eternal life is not, he defines it as as an intimate knowledge of knowing the once your God. So it becomes more about union than it does about spectating of what it is. So that makes sense. It does. We want you to take this course with us. It's free on a shame for Hillsdale.com. So he, so the beam part of this just to try to break down a little bit if you're looking listening or watching is he looked into this shed. It's dark in there and there's a beam of light that's the sun is shining. And so when he's when he first sees in the beam is like alongside him, he can see somewhat in there and what's in there because the beam is not directly in his eyes. So that's the one he said alongside the beam or along the beam. That's enjoyment. Then in other words, how you see things are different. When the beam he steps forward, the beam is directly in his eyes. Then he says he can't see anything but the beam. So then he's into contemplation because he can't see anything. So he's having to just imagine. It's right in his face. Right. It's right in his face. It's like it terminates on him. It's like what it is is that terminates on itself or if you if you if you had just enjoyment, I mentioned this quote. I don't know if it may come from the same story. I believe in the sun not because I can see it but because by it, I can see everything else. So it's it's that it illuminates the world. There's a just real quick. There's a I think they're the one of the issues that we have in Western thought is we typically in the church, especially but even in society as a whole, when we think about what it means to be human, we typically think about like that we're primarily thinking and believing beings. So if we can get the right set of beliefs, right? We can get our all of our our right belief systems right. Then we'll be right. But there's been quite a few authors, including Augustine who have who have pushed back on this and and have said, no, no, to be human at your core, it actually it's not we are thinking beings and we are beings that believe. But primarily what we are at our core is we are beings who desire. We are another another word for desire is love. Another word for that is affections. Another word for that is longings. Another word for that is worship. These are also anonymous words when we talk about what it means to be human. You're that that's what you primarily are. And the reason why you know this to be true because do you know what one of the biggest probably the maybe the most pressing crisis in the American church among young men? What would you say it is? What's the biggest crisis for young men in the church? What biggest struggle pornography? Yeah porn. And do you think that men in the church know that pornography is wrong? Yeah. Did they have the right belief system about pornography? Yep. Did they believe that it will ruin their marriage? Yep. Did they believe it will ruin their sex life? Sex life? Yes. Did they believe that it makes them miserable? Yeah. They have all the right belief systems about it. All of their thinking about porn is right. It's right. They hold all that to be true. And then the question is, well, why do they still do it? Why do we still struggle? Why? Well, why? Because we want to. So the reason why someone looks at pornography is not it's not a it's not a knowledge problem. It's they do what they want. So the issue them becomes is what here they think it's going to be a joy for. There's going to be enjoyment. It's somehow it's going to satisfy some longing. And I think what Lewis is hitting at here in his whole conversion story is that that what moved him to Christ was not right thinking. It was that his joy, what he found joy in was now aligned with who the person or the the persons of God, who are they? Who is the father, son and Holy Spirit? That dance. I think there was a term you use, a paraclesia, the dance that God invited us into. Yeah. That's that's the big story that I think is unfolding. I like that. I like that porn analogy as well because I've always said that I thought the biggest attraction to pornography should be that you realize that it's not real. I mean, there are real people there, of course, and they're engaged. They're having sex, but it's not real for you. It's like once all of us have a covenant and a marriage and a relationship, that's real. I mean, to have intimacy with your wife, that's real. But that's fake. And so somehow to think you're going to get the ultimate enjoyment out of it, it's always going to leave you wanting, which is, of course, that's why they dive deeper in. But the results become the same. And it's just a cycle. And he mentions that a lot about the idea of cycles too. And that's going to come up in the next lecture. But I loved it. It began to really solidify. We hadn't got to the best part about the whole garden thing. But it's about the Holy Spirit's role in this idea of the beam. And so that was something to be spoke to me. In other words, he said, you receive the Holy Spirit and then dwelling on the Spirit. And that's this idea of looking alongside because you can't see the Spirit. You know, you can't see them physically, but you know he's there. And you can see the results of it. And he said, you know, when you get in tune with the divine, then you start to see the fruit of it. And then it's even better. Then you could have ever imagined. I thought that was good. I was going to think the point he's making here is that to enjoy the beam, you have to physically step in front of it. And for him, I think that was him stepping into the beam, starting to enjoy it, was actually praying and reading the Bible and going to church. And forgiving, you know, and trying to love. And I think that comes out in a lot of his other books and it talks a little bit more about this in the next lecture. But that idea of going from just like thinking about Christ to actually being in Christ is that physical like not that he's saying like it's that you always desire it, but you are attempting to live out the things that Christ wants you to. Attempting to talk to him, attempting to read your Bible and attempting by meeting. You're doing it every day, whether you like it or not. But yeah, I thought one of the things that Dr. that the that wards it was cool. You saw about Lewis. I can't remember where he mentioned this. Adam might have been in the next lecture, but I think it was this one. But he talked about how Lewis often talked about like the shyness that he had to really tell the story of his conversion. I think just because of how I think maybe reverent and how holy that moment was for him, which is why he didn't really expound on it too too much. I took that as humility. Yeah, I mean, he seemed like a very humble person about that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that was cool. He made that point that he talked about Lewis said that he often felt like a sort of like a sense of shyness to to really kind of expand on what actually happened to him in that moment. Yeah. And by the way, if you guys want to join with us, you can sign up. Take this course for free on a shaperhills.com. We're in the CS Lewis course. But yeah, that's a good point. He mentioned a poet. The job of the poet is to basically point people away from themselves. And so that was a cool point. Yeah, the finger. Yeah. It's like he's pointing in it. And the more that you focus on the poet, you kind of miss the poetry. Right. And so he's pointing you away from himself, which is the point of what Lewis is doing in minimized, not minimizing a story. I don't think he minimizes it at all. I think what he does is he puts the story in a way that that draws the reader into something deeper. So when he, you know, he uses the, I love that one of my favorite parts about the whole lecture. I think it was in the lecture four. When he talks about his brother who brought in the toy. Remember that, the toy garden. Yep. And when he was a kid and and they're playing with this like toy, it was some kind of toy micro garden for kids. And he's looking at it. And and Lewis was basically like, this was like imprinted into my memory of what like what a garden is or what paradise was. Well, the reason why is that the word he used, which was the word of the book, was he says the first time that he can remember feeling pure joy. Yeah. That was the word joy. That's right. Yeah. He said when he brought that in and I looked at that and you know, it's interesting to me because I thought about the time that he's talking about. We're talking about the early, you know, 20th century. And you know, our kids now have all these things we buy. But they love to recreate something into a smaller version, a little kitchen, a little whatever, a little, you know, they'd like to put it all in these little places. And in their day, you know, you don't have any of that stuff. So hit the brother literally builds this beautiful garden, you know, on this on this platform. And then brings it in. And he said, that's the first time he'd ever felt joy. And so that sort of took him back to that idea of that there was joy in a garden. So go ahead. So I thought that this was cool. He said, he said the the sensation left him with the desire, but he was uncertain what he desired. Yeah. Oh, that's that's key to the whole thing right there. Because he says that enjoyment is the most fundamental way of knowing. I mean, you guys sit in that for a minute. But enjoyment is the most fundamental way of knowing, which is what I that's another way of saying what I said earlier that the most foundational thing to our humanity is that we are beings who desire. Augustine said that our hearts were made for you and you alone or our hearts are restless until they rest in you because they're made for you and you alone. And so there's the author that I read a book years ago that had an analogy of a beach ball. And he's like, this is like what humanity is like. It's like the beach ball. And if you push the beach ball under the water, then it's like you got to hold it down there. And it's like violently, you know, trying to get up above the water and you're trying to hold it under water and to put on much air in it is in it. How much pressure you're putting on it. But but as soon as you let that beach ball go, what happens to it? It's just violently emerges and it pops out of the top of the water. And then if you sit there long enough and you watch it, what does the beach ball do? It rest. It'll just rest on the water. And so why is it resting? Well, because that's what beach balls do. You like right? They're made like if there's air in it, this is just nature. This is just how it's how it operates. And so when Augustine says that our hearts are restless until they rest in you, what he was getting at is that like all of our strife, all of our turmoil, all of our anxiety, all of our depression, all that is is us fighting against what our true nature is. And the only way that you're going to find real peace and real joy, real satisfaction, real enjoyment is if you rest in God because that is what you were made to do just like that beach ball. You don't have to work towards this. And so Lewis is pointing towards that, but it's a longing, which we talk about in the podcast all the time that is it's not fulfilled yet because the kingdom has been fully consummated. So I don't fully even understand what that longing is. I just know that there is a longing inside of me that nothing in this world can satisfy it. And Lewis would say, well, you might want to consider you were made for another world. And so then we hope for the consummation of the kingdom. So it is that the way he expresses the word joy is an eternal longing that that you can't quite understand what it even is. And it's even in that that makes it all the more desirable. That makes sense. Zach, isn't that what the phrase we've been hitting in the other in our regular, unashamed podcast in 1 John to make my joy complete. You know, Jesus said that several times and John says it again in 1 John, to your point that you just made, that's the only place we can find that. And so I've only missed one question on the quizzes, which is unbelievable because much as I've struggled mentally to stay here. But the question I miss was this one about joy when I watched this lecture. And here was the answer that I missed. Joy, at least in this life, is an unsatisfied desire that is itself more desirable than any other satisfaction, which is I mean, I mean, the reason I missed this because when I read that, I thought, well, that can't be right because you know, it can't be sass, but he's right. In other words, it can't be without this connection to the divine. And even when you see it, you know, you don't want to look right at it. You look at long side it, you know, because it's bigger than we are. So back to your illustration about the garden because you got to bring it to consumations. So he's got the, the first joy ever felt in this little garden. And then his two pages of conversion, he goes to the Whipsdale Zoo. And basically he just says, you know, I was driving to the zoo. When I got there, I decided, you know, I'm a Christian. Yeah. I mean, he's active. I was John Wayne would say lame. It took it took it took to ward the four times to read it because he talked about the quote was wallaby wood with the bird singing overhead and the blue bills underfoot and the wallaby's hopping all around all around one, which he almost describes as as as a Eden coming again. Yeah. But he made that connection to when he talked about the Holy Spirit. Yeah. Being above beneath and within. So it took him some time to take him four times to realize the connection to that, which is what he thought was the most beautiful poem. I think my favorite part of the lecture was the imagery of, because he talked about with the toy garden with his brother and that was the first joy he felt. We talked about the, he talked about the idea of the joy he felt when he was holding the garden. And then after his conversion when Eden became real to him, realizing that he is now in the garden. Yeah. That's, I thought that was so cool. That's the only one. Of going from, I'm holding the garden to now being held by the garden. And just that imagery of, of, of life in Christ, opposed to that was the past for me. That was the pal. That was the pal. That's it. This was worth me rewatching four times because that, that really is us and Zach. How many times have we talked about this on the shame? Oh my gosh. That it is a, that the whole purpose of Christ was to reestablish the garden and the relationship. And so the fact that CS Lewis came to Christ that way in a garden makes perfect sense. I mean, it just, it really is the, the greater picture of the entire body. He just did it so suddenly that you would have to read it four times. Our entire, yeah, our entire podcast. And so if you listen to this podcast, that's why I know like push through the lectures. I know they may be difficult for some of us, but like push three because you, because we've already been talking about this return to Eden, this Edenic vision that Christ, this is a return to the garden, but a fully consummated garden. And so, and with the way Lewis describes his conversion experience is, is, it is connecting enjoyment to Eden. And Eden was that original temple. So what he's actually saying is, is that he under, he began to be able to live in the reality that he is a temple, the spirit above within around me. The God, yeah, this thing realizes that this is where this whole thing leads into the end. I think there's beautiful. In the section, the thing that really impacted me was the way that he described it as CS Lewis felt like it was too intimate a thing to share. And I thought that was like such a beautiful thing calling that moment of conversion intimate that it was, he, CS Lewis was almost felt like it was such a personal thing with him and between him and Jesus. Yeah, I was able to share that. He almost couldn't like, didn't want to share it because of how sacred that moment was. And that kind of reminded me, I think that I've thought this for years that I think especially American men, the reason we miss Christ so often in the whole point is that it's because we are the bride, but to think about your conversion to Christ is like intimate. I think it's a very like feminine way to think about it. But that's exactly what it is because we're the bride. Christ is the husband. Christ is the man of the house. And we are coming to him as a bride. And that's a, it's a hard thing for us to like switch our thinking to, but I think once we do, we understand the holiness of our relationship with Christ and of this moment of coming to him. It would be the same reason, Luke, that we don't talk about intimate things with our wives in public. We don't, we never talk about that because it'd be inappropriate to do. I mean, that's something we share just with that one person. And we would never do that. And so to that point, you're exactly right. It makes sense that he would see this as such a sacred moment. And it really is a, it's kind of to me that razor's edge of trying to when you're telling your conversion or telling that point in time. And some people do have a moment. I certainly had a moment. And I tell the story and it is. It's a powerful moment. It impacts other people. But at the same time, it's a very intimate moment for me, even, to think back on what I was thinking at that time. And so when I share that, it's strictly so that hopefully someone in an audience or someone that's listening, if I'm doing this on a video, will say, oh man, that's where I'm at right now. And I need to do something about. So but to share that and to put that out there is a, it's a very humbling and sometimes even frightening moment to do that. And you don't want to, how much is too much? Because how deep do you go into that is to how bad you really were. So it's a razor's edge, I think. It's kind of like the, as you were saying, I was kind of thinking about the movie Jaws from back in the 70s. And they got, you got the experts that they're like the experts in sharkology, whatever that is. And they and they dismissed the threat. That is the scientific territory of sharkology. Is it? No. The sharkologist. I'm going to Google it. The PhD sharkologist, they're like, I did dismissing the whole threat. And then it's the local fisherman sharkology refers to the study science and fascination with sharks. Good job. I mean, guys, you can't make this. Sharkology. Sharkology. I didn't believe that's real. That's real. Sharkology is real man. That's real thing. What's shark. It was shark. It was shark. It was shark. And what would you say? Edenic? I thought those were two. Eden is a real thing. I've never heard of that either. I love that. That was cool. Yeah. The Edenic vision or the Edenic promise. Yeah. That's. I've heard that. Well, I mean, it is your point. Yeah. So, yeah. The point is, is like the sharkologist doesn't really understand what's happening. Well, who actually is the expert? What's the guy with the lived experience? It's the, it's the, it's the guy boots on the ground. It's the local fisherman who figures the whole thing out and, and, and it's kind of the hero of the story. And so I think it's kind of the same way when, when Lewis is the way he's presenting this, what does he call it? I wrote it down here. It's called, he calls it knowledge by acquaintance. Yeah. And then, and then knowledge about. Yeah. And so the knowledge about that's the, that's the shark colleges. They know a lot about sharks, but they, they're not in the water. I mean, the guy who, like, even like Phil, I got to think about, Phil, one time I was out there on his land with him. And I'm thinking about how like most guys that I know that build like duck holes like he does, like they're going to bring in like experts, surveyors to build their dams and to build their levies and they'll have laser sites and all that. And Phil literally looks at the waterline on the tree. So yeah, I'm going to build that thing right up here in the water. Just like, it's just like, it's like, it's like wisdom of just like, being out there in the woods every day. He looks at it. He eyeballs and he builds his levies and it holds water. And he figures today. And I mean, like, why is he smarter about duck habitat than a biologist from, from the greatest, you know, school in the world that teaches duck habitat. Phil was, was an expert because he was living in it and it was, it was knowledge by acquaintance, not knowledge about duck hunting. It was, he was in it. And in the same way, what crisis, this is what we're being called into. We're not being called just to know about God. We're actually, what we're, the imitation is to know God and it's participatory. That's the big distinguishing probably word that he brought it up. I think he called it a participant. He had a, he pronounced it differently, but it's participatory. Like you're invited into participate into the inner life of God. You are invited into the dance. It's fun. Exactly. You talked about that with dad. So in any time you do, you have a wetlands. You have to, the government has to sign off on what you're doing because it's, you know, considered a federal deal. And so the Corps of Engineers come over and dad takes them, you know, to show him what always going to do and then this, that, and the other because you have to get a permabseure, you have to pay some money. But after a session with dad, they were like, okay, you're good here. We're never coming back because like they never, you could tell, they're used to people like you say they're trying to do the wrong thing and do things and they're like this guy, but I thought you portrayed that so beautifully in the movie, Zach, with the blind and that early scene when dad's just out there as a kid in the woods. And there was just something uniquely in him that connected to nature in a way that made him different. And it really did, it was the pathway of his whole life. It's what he loved to do. And so I thought you were going to say about the shark thing. You went a totally different thing that I thought you were going because when I watched Jaws, which just got the first big blockbuster, I was like 10 years old, 11 and we had to sneak in because it was right at our, you know, to watch the movie. And I was so scared. But I thought you were going to say because the way they film that movie, you went through 80% of the movie before you ever saw the shark, which was brilliant because it made it scarier. When you actually saw it, it was like a big fake shark and what even that impressive. But man, the tension of not quite seeing what the danger was, but knowing it was there. And I thought you were going to say that was this kind of this idea that he describes with enjoyment and the Holy Spirit who lives in us. There's so much depth there and not necessarily having to see it, but seeing the fruit and the result of it. And so that's what I took from the Jaws analogy. But I like what you said. When they thought it was super interesting about the story is that Dr. Ward said that he changed the story of when it happened. So this in real life happened in like the winter when Lewis goes to the zoo. But he changes it to the springtime when he tells a story to give this sense when specifically when the blue bells are underfoot. And the wallabies are out specifically to change the give it like a poetic spin. And it really does. Like if he had told the story, he goes to the zoo and there's snow underfoot and it's windy and cold, that does change the way you think about the conversion. But what Lewis was trying to say and write in this poetic way was that it was such a peaceful, idyllic moment that whenever I came to Christ and that's the point he was trying to get across, not what actually happened because he didn't want you to misunderstand his internal feelings. Yeah, I thought the finger point was a great way to kind of illustrate it was the longer your finger, the more prone you are to look at what you're pointing at, not the person pointing. So I thought that was helpful in the sense of that's kind of why he shared it the way he shared it. Yeah, this, I wanted to say this to kind of said this in the last episode, but I was, I thought about yesterday and what I said, when you read Lewis and you go back and read these books and if you're totally new to this, the thing I was trying to say in the last episode is that the way he writes is with this poetic and he's really focusing on these internal questions, not facts. And so when you read it, if you read it thinking this man is a teacher trying to relate to me facts about God, you're going to miss the point. Yeah, like just straight up. And that is a difficult way because that's not how we normally read any book, but specifically like a spiritual book that we're trying to learn from. That's not the way we read it. We typically read it like, oh, he's what the theological point is he trying to tell me here, but that wasn't his goal at all. His goal was really just, here's these things I'm talking with, I'm struggling with, here's my experience to provoke something to provoke something. In a matter of days, you now think about and that you and Jesus, they're the parables. Yeah, right. Yeah. And that's going to we're to talk about that next week is the parables as well. And it's interesting. It's the perfect segue because right at time, John Luke, that the only book of the Bible that he actually wrote about was Psalms, which is interesting because when you said that, I was thinking about that's kind of the way the Psalmist did. And I just David, asap, all of them is that same idea. Sometimes when you read them, they're just like, it's so different from anything as you read in the Bible. So it is interesting. That's the one thing that he takes on. So we're going to talk about that next week in the prayer and Bible scripture part of this. And so we want you to take this with us and look, Luke makes a great point. And because I haven't read many of Lewis's works. And so now I can't wait to dive into them. But I'm going to understand them so much better after having done this course. So we want you to take this course with us. It's free. Unashamed for Hillsdale.com. Thank you for coming along the ride with us hanging there. It's some really good stuff. And we'll hit it again next week. Join us every Friday for Unashamed Academy Power by Hillsdale College. Make sure to go to Unashamed for Hillsdale.com and sign up. It's no cost to you. It's Unashamed for Hillsdale.com. And don't miss an episode of the Unashamed Podcast by subscribing on YouTube and be sure to click the little bell and choose all notifications to watch every episode.