Before You Climb Any Higher with special guest Jonathan McReynolds

All right. I know there are some times in your life, there are some times in everyone's life when you feel like you're going through a valley and it doesn't always feel so good. Sometimes it feels dark, sometimes you feel alone. Feels like that dry and parched land that the Bible talks about. But I think you might get a different perspective on that valley when you tune into the show. So I'm so excited today because we've all been through Valleys, but I think that valley is going to look very different after today because I'm talking with Jonathan McReynolds. He is a Grammy Award winning artist, songwriter, producer, author, because he has this book before you climb any higher. And I absolutely was blown away with your perspective on Valleys because Valleys are something, Jonathan, we always want to avoid. But how did you come to this awareness about values? And first of all, tell us, tell us a little bit about your history. How did, how did you figure this out?

Yeah. So I am a supreme workaholic. I am somebody who, I jump out of bed when I have a good project or task to handle or something I can progress in. So I am the type that is very used to and feel most natural and comfortable with accomplishing and climbing and achieving and doing more and doing better and improving self and whatever it is, whether it's professional, whether it's personal, that's the type of stuff that gets me out of bed. Here's the problem though. A lot of times we have shifted into a very performance, performance oriented lifestyle. Everything about us is about doing more, achieving more, accomplishing more. So that even bleeds into our theology that God, he loves me most when I am doing more and I am more valuable to the world when I'm doing more, and I'm more lovable when I'm doing more. We really kind of turn ourselves into these performance robots and we forget this very human part of us that desires to be loved, to be accepted, to be taken care of, just without all of the extra performance. I think about Jesus and, and he was, you know, God said, everybody, this is my son, whom I well, please. And Jesus hadn't necessarily done anything, at least not that we known him for. He hadn't performed well, he hadn't done any miracles yet. He hadn't done all the things that became his claim to fame. But God was already proud of that guy. God was already pleased with him and so understanding that there is a, a place, mental, psychological, spiritual place that we can go that actually we're loved without the performance, we're Accepted without the performance. We're even progressing in a certain way without the. The intentional progress is just. It was a game changer for me, and it changed the way that. Not that I not only rest, but how I work as well.

Wow, that is so powerful. Because I know a lot of moms listen to this show. They watch this show. And moms, by default, operate in this belief that we're not enough, which I think is the core of the performance.

Yeah.

You know, that. That we're always like, we're trying to qualify ourselves. And honestly, sometimes when people are like, I. I just can't do enough, or, no, that's not enough, I'm like, what is enough? Like, how do we define it? Like, enough is actually never enough because we have no objective definition for that. Because as soon as we hit the mark, well, I could have. Could have done better. I could have done more. It becomes a qualifier on if we're happy with ourselves.

And, yeah, if I were running somewhere and I already passed the finish line a mile ago, I would never see the finish line again. I just be running and running and running, looking for enough. And I passed it a long time ago. And so a lot of times we don't see enough. We don't have a good standard of what enough is because we passed that thing a long time ago. God already declared us enough a long time ago. Declared us amazing a long time ago. He was proud of us a long time ago. And unfortunately, that doesn't make sense to us. How are you just as proud of me when I was three. Three years old? And. And, I don't know, spitting and slobbing all over the place and spilling my food. How are you just as proud of me then as you are when I graduated magna cum loud? And. And I'm. I'm doing all this other stuff for the world now. I have a child and a family that I'm raising. Aren't. Aren't you more proud of me now? And honestly, God, who saw your end before your beginning, God, who knew you before you knew yourself, he knew you in the mother's womb. Like, he's been proud for a minute.

Wow.

Probably won't pass that finish line because you've passed it a long, long time.

Ago, and you actually passed it the moment you received Jesus because you were made righteous. How do we improve upon that? Like, okay, Jesus, I know you died for me. And he rose again, but, yeah, I gotta. I gotta do a little more to add to it. Like, you can't improve upon that finish line. And he even said, joel, he even said, it's finished. Those words, you already crossed the finish line. So if we knew we were made righteous, would we really be seeking that performance and that achievement to validate ourselves?

And as moms, I think you see that in your own children all the time.

I think we teach it to our children.

There's nothing but. But there's nothing, honestly, you know, even for my. You know, I don't have kids yet, but I do have a nephew and a niece, three nieces. And honestly, there's nothing they can do that's gonna make me love them more. There's nothing. I mean, they've already maxed out. I'm happy when they're happy, and I'm proud when they're proud of themselves. And, you know, I really love it when they feel like they have gotten to a place where they can have more confidence, more independence and blah, blah, blah. But honestly, you know, as a parental figure for them and, you know, some crazy circumstances has made me a little more of that for my niece and nephew. Honestly, they can't do anything that's gonna. That's gonna up their status in my head. And so I think if we have that mindset as parents and realizing how we look at our own children, magnify that times 10. That's how God is looking at you. And he's proud when you're proud, but he's also proud anyway.

And there would be grief if we thought our children held the belief that they had to earn that. You know, there would be grief on the part. So I think. I think, grieve our heavenly father, when we're like God, I just want you to be happy with me. I want to work harder. I want to be pleased. Like, I'm already pleased. I will never forget, Joel, the day that my daughter had her, like, our first grandbaby. We're at the hospital, and little boy, his name is Roman. First grandbaby. I've had other grandchildren now, but I remember my husband and I are in the room, and my whole family, I have seven kids. They love them, they're married, and they, like. We have a big family. When we go to a hospital room, we fill up the hospital room, right? So it's like standing room only. And I'm in there holding this little baby who has done nothing to achieve anything, nothing to earn my love. And I look to my husband, and I said, how miraculous is it that he doesn't even know who we are, but he is in a room of people who, in A heartbeat would die. The lay down their life for him. That's good kind of love is what we are, is what is available to us. And so when you're like this achievement mentality, I think that's why we're talking about this because so many moms, like, I can't do enough. No, you can't. So turn that off.

Yeah.

And maybe you're already enough. But this valley mentality, that sounds kind of cool. Valley mentality? This valley mentality that you talk about.

Yeah.

We've all gone through valleys and our goal becomes I gotta freakin get out of this valley.

Right.

You know, but you and I even think like in the times that I've been through a valley, could be a financial valley, it could be an emotional valley. I remember when my mom passed, that was a dark valley for me. And I remember thinking like, I just want to get back on my feet. I want to like you say, achieve more, but you're like, before you climb any higher, there may be something in this valley that's a good for you. And you even called it in your book, Lush Valleys. I'm like, oh, I, I don't know if I would ever use that term. L. Get me out of here. God. But how did like, tell me about this valley mentality so that we can kind of refresh before we maybe not even, you know, step into that achievement mode again.

Yeah. So, you know, there is a reprogramming that I want to do for people when they're reading this book because yeah, poetically, we always think of mountains as great times, valleys as bad times. But when I was, I was living in LA when I first started this book and I was just looking up at the hills. Now everybody, if you go to la, everybody loves the hills. Everybody. I mean, that's where the rich folks are, that's where everybody wants to be. The higher up, the better. The higher up, the more, I mean, you can, there's. There's some houses you can see from miles away and you just wonder who's rich self lives, who's rich.

So.

Yeah, and so, you know, and, and so it's a, it's like a, it's like a hierarchy. It's like the higher you are and then, and then you have people, you know, kind of live on the bottom of it or live kind of in the valley or in the, the, the canyon. And you know, those are, that's the, the lower cost homes. And maybe those people aren't as, you know, interesting and full of celebrity as the people who live high on the hill. And so either way, I was looking and I was first thinking about how we as people, we all strive to move higher, like, especially in our culture. I mean, we're constantly grinding, hustling. We just 100% go higher. Where do we point when we talking about God? We always point up. God is up there and we want to get closer, whatever. But when you look at most mountains, you look at most mountain ranges. The higher you go up, the more rugged and thin and cold and lifeless it is.

Barren things don't grow.

Nothing. I found out there's like a jumping spider that lives up there. That's about it. That's all you got. Himalayas. And so. But as you go lower, as you look down, you start seeing more green, you start seeing more life. You start seeing. Seeing the rivers, you start seeing animals hopping around. You start seeing, you know, all of this lushness, all of this nutrition, all of the things that pertain to life. And so it's really interesting that when you kind of superimpose kind of our old definitions of mountains and valleys with this kind of new idea of mountains and valleys, you realize that sometimes in the moments where people profession isn't going as well and the climb isn't going as well and you're not feeling so high up on your perch are actually the times that you are nestled in a very lush valley. If you actually looked around, those are the moments where you might realize, or you can realize, and I pray you do realize, that God is not expecting just you to take care of stuff. He's also taking care of you. Even in this terrible moment, this moment that you can't even have handle it yourself. You've been fired, you're going through financial stuff. You're messing up here. You have taken the foot off the gas for whatever reason. That is the moment where you being a son or daughter can really kick in.

And you are preaching now.

Yeah, I mean, that's. That's the mindset that a workaholic like me needed to truly grab hold of that. I wasn't necessarily getting closer to him as I climbed. Actually, I was getting closer to my identity as I descended.

Oh, my word. That. Okay, everyone needs to like, rewind, press that little 15 second thing so you can hear that again because that's a mic drop moment. So I need to. I need to share something with you. I'm just gonna be super raw with you, Jonathan. We went through a season a while ago. It was a financial valley. Like, nothing I could do was changing anything. We were looking at bankruptcy. We were looking at, like, legal issues, and it just dried up. And I remember I was praying against that demonic spirit of scarcity and lack and poverty, and I was commanding it to get out of my life. And the Holy Spirit interrupted me. He said, hannah, this is not demonic. I am walking you through something. And he said this. You're going to be okay. And it's got a. It's got a finish line. You're going to be okay every day. You can either enjoy it or despise it. And I remember that moment. The only thing that could give me joy was knowing that I am loved by God and He cares for me. So every day, even when they're. When I. When I looked at scarcity, when all I could see was poverty, when all I could see was. Was potential threats and financial destruction, I was like, but you know what? God still loves me and he cares for me, and I'm okay today.

Yeah.

And I think that actually sped up me getting out of that, because I started to enjoy the Valley. I started to be like, this is going to be fun to see how God shows up here. It changed my mindset. Not like I got to get out of it, but I'm going to find joy in it. And then when. When we were out of it, we're like, we were okay every day. We were okay every day. Our children were okay. Our ministry got. Got deeper, like you said, deeper into the. The identity, deeper into the real understanding. Because there's one thing in your head you can know that God loves you, but there's another when you're facing, like, I don't know how I'm going to be okay, but I'm okay. That kind of reality, that kind of truth is one that nestles into your subconscious. And I love that you said you want to rewire people. Yeah. It nestles into your subconscious. And you're like, I'm okay at the mountain or the valley. It really doesn't matter because I'm still in his hands.

Absolutely. Yeah. And I think for a lot of us, so much of life is clawing away, trying to climb higher just to avoid mediocrity, to avoid scarcity, to avoid the opinions of other people, to avoid reproach, to avoid feeling like you are, you know, average or below average. There's so much we do just to try to, like, outrun whatever is chasing you back there.

Yeah. And honestly, it's you chasing you.

Yeah. And, and, and, and, and, and you get up there and, and what was amazing to me is God, when it comes to this climb, when I'm, you know, start off with the career, started off with the music stuff. It started off with all that other, you know, the school and all the other stuff. God, when I think back, he gave me this mountain. Now, now, now this mountain is killing me right now. It's wearing me out. And it's cold and it's rugged and is barren. He's the one that started this. If I go back, he blessed me with this ministry, he blessed me with this career. I'm sure that you could say, look, God, some of this was not even on my radar. God blessed me with this. He even blessed me with this huge family, all this other stuff. The problem is, at some point, our own egos, our own fear of whatever's chasing us, it causes us to get even higher on a mountain than he was actually even asking for. There's a certain level of achievement, there's a certain level of accomplishment, there's a certain level of platform that he wanted us to have. But then it's our own ego that says, well, I need to get more because so and so has a million followers and I want 1.1. Or this guy has this amount of money and I want a little bit more or I don't know, I feel like that mediocrity is chasing me and I'm. I've learned that I am overachiever and I'm supposed to always be whatever it is, you, a student, you. It chases us throughout life to go higher up into those altitudes maybe than we were even supposed to be. And again, a lot of a human, A lot of human achievement is not, Was not on God's plan. A lot of it is just us adding to it, adding to the pressure, adding. And nobody wants to say that because everybody in our culture wants to say God wants us all to be great. Not the same way that we think of it. Honestly. God called us to goodness way more than he called us to greatness.

Let's.

That we've called great, the, the statues, the billboard type greatness have. He hasn't called half of us to that stuff, but he did call everybody to meekness and patience and love and, and, and self control and, and all these other things that honestly get compromised as you try to strive for greatness half the time. So it's. Once you realize that you've left a lot of what God asked you to do to now do what you just feel like you should be doing as a career entrepreneur, as a mom, you know how much stuff we Add on. Just even as parents, like, God didn't even ask you to do all that. He didn't ask you to supervise that. He didn't ask you to Hawkeye that. He didn't ask you to do all these things. That's you. That's your trauma, that's your fears, that's your whatever. That's your sense of identity that now you've taken some identity out of the daughter department and put into mom department. So now your Instagram says, I'm a mom. When God is like, but you're a daughter first and most. And it's that type of stuff that we have to always, like, crucify and try to remind ourselves, hey, you know what? I do love this kid. They do so much for me. They do something for my ego, they do something for my pride. They make me feel needed. They make me feel valuable. But also. And prior to. And afterwards, we have to make sure that our identities are grounded in being a child of God. And sometimes it takes a valley to pull us right back down to that.

And that valley is so powerful when we can sit in it and stop looking to the hills and this wistful nature, like, oh, if I were just there, up at the mountain. But realize the beauty around us is, no, this is where I want you to know me. I want you to know me more. I want you to draw closer into me. Because truly, in the presence of God, there is no lack, there is no fear, there's no trauma, there's no insufficiency. Yeah. And if we can get a grasp on that, I think sometimes we always. Not even sometimes, we always think it's going to be better at the other field because from far away, it looks greener.

Oh, yeah.

You know, but then when God says. When God says, draw closer to me. And in that place, we can come face to face with what we're truly called, to do is to just glorify Him. And that's where the joy is, Jonathan. We forget. We think it's going to be better over there for our happiness. We don't realize the joy is right there, abiding in his presence. And that's available right now at any time.

Yeah, absolutely.

Dude, I. I have so loved talking with you.

Oh, no, me too. This is awesome. Let's write the next book together.

Okay, let's do that. Absolutely. I love this. Yeah. Guys, I am so glad you were here. Please, please listen to this. If you're dealing with frustration, if you're dealing with overwhelm, if you're dealing. I just can't do enough. Then Jonathan's right. You already passed the finish line. Rest today and know who you are and you'll be blessed like crazy.