Dr. John Delony (Author of Redefining Anxiety)

The episode you're about to listen to was released back when the Mere Christians podcast was called the Call to Mastery. Now, if you love Mere Christians, you're still going to love these older episodes because the majority of each conversation focuses on how the gospel influences the work of our guests. With that disclaimer out of the way, please enjoy the episode. Hey everybody. Welcome to the Call to Mastery. I'm Jordan Raynor. This is a podcast for Christians who want to do their most exceptional work for the glory of God and the good of others. Every week, I host a conversation with a Christian who's pursuing world class mastery of their Christmas. We talk about their path to mastery, their daily habits, and how their faith influences their work. Today's guest is Dr. John Deloney. He's a mental health expert with two PhDs. One obviously wasn't enough for the over ambitious John. Today, Dr. DeLoney serves on Dave Ramsey's team as one of Ramsey's personal personalities. Prior to that, he was the dean of students at Belmont University. John and I sat down. We had a fascinating conversation about how the gospel alone gives us the verdict for our lives before we do anything, before the performance of our lives. We talked about how to adopt the practice of academic peer reviews for your own work and how the truth that God doesn't need you and I doing any specific, specific work is paradoxically freeing. I think you're really going to enjoy this conversation with me and Dr. John Delone. Hey, John, thanks for being here.

Hey, thank you so much, Jordan. You doing well?

I'm doing great. How about you, man?

Very cool, man. Doing good.

So I saw you speak at a Ramsey event, and back then you were the Dean of students at Belmont. I'm curious because you worked with college students for a while. Was it that experience that led you to your interest in anxiety and mental health?

That's a great question. No, probably my own experience with it, I didn't know beyond like an intellectual understanding. I didn't know what it was. I knew that people said they had a thing and I knew enough to read about it and they told me it was a brain disease. And so I just moved on with my day and helped students with it. It wasn't until I fell apart with it. I had stacked my life so obnoxiously above my ceiling, like what I could handle. And I had, I had connected an identity to some of these things that had no. That were unconnected anything else, just totally an untethered life. So it wasn't until I got laid low with it That I went on a spelunking expedition to try to figure out what in the world's going on in my head and my heart, in my physiology, what's happening. So it wasn't until I experienced it that I realized, man, we don't know anything about what's going on inside of us.

What's the backstory there for you personally that brought you to that low point?

I was just a one track minded guy. I had a wife, I had just a brand new baby. And man, it was all about I want to be a college president. Making my way through this, to that job, to this job. I want to make this much money. I want to make sure this group of people knows how wonderful and great I am. I'll say yes to every single thing that comes down the way. Not because I have anything to say, but because there's a microphone there and it's all about getting to the next thing, the next thing, the next thing. My wife is fine, she's got a great job. And I put all this emphasis in on where I was going to be next, all this emphasis on what's the next move so I can get to this imaginary thing that's going to make me okay from the inside out or from the outside in, really, the people in my life, the jobs in my life, everything became utilitarian. How is this going to help me get to my next thing? And man, you can only do that for so long before you know the, the floor starts to shake out from underneath you. And I remember at one point I was at a university where I was over so many things, so much stuff that I could have not gone to work for a week and no one would have missed me if I answered my cell phone right and I was walking to work and I just turned back around and walked back through the parking lot and got in my car and drove three hours to another city with a buddy who is a physician. I'll never forget walking his office and just said, man, I'm not, I didn't have an appointment, I didn't have anything else. Walk straight into his office. I said, brother, I'm not doing well. I need some help, man. And that started a long journey back.

Are you a three, a performer on the Enneagram?

No, I'm actually a pathological two. I say that Ian Craw tells me I'm a two. I think I'm a four. But I think I've got some pathologies about needing to help people.

Yeah, there's still that drive to need to Perform to need to be seen, to grab the microphone, whatever. I'm curious. So obviously you've gone through some healing here. You're helping others heal through this similar thing. I'm curious what the Lord taught you about ambition throughout this. I've always been curious about this question of is ambition good, bad or neutral? What have you learned about that through your life, man?

I think Bible studies can be a pathology, I think.

Yeah.

Serving other people, I think, you know, we were just talking offline. There's a. Rich Mullins is one of my favorite theologians, even though he's a songwriter. He once said people can be as proud of the things they don't have as people are of the things they do have. Right. It's all about the spirit of these things. And so I think ambition, it may lean towards man, you got to watch that and be careful. I don't think trying to be excellent and having goals is inherently evil at all. In fact, I think that's a good thing. I think if you think that whatever you accomplish is going to heal you, that's where you're misguided. If it's going to solve your life's challenges, that's where you're misguided. If it's going to somehow finally help you have value, that's where you're going to run into some major problems. Right. And when you make a destination, your ambition, man, you can really get in a mess there because you get that few cross that finish line, it feels good for about eight seconds and then you're. Then you're stuck figuring out who you are. Right. Whatever you were running from.

Yeah. This is a common story for a lot of our guests. I know, for me too. Right. Like finding that Jesus is the only ultimate answer to that question. Right. Of who am I? What's my identity? How do I have worth beyond what I do? Right. So speaking of what you do, you made this shift from academia to now you're a full time, what do we call you a professional communicator now? So I'm curious, what have you seen are the keys that are common between mastering those two pretty different crafts.

So something inherent in academia that doesn't get any publicity at all. In fact, the only thing that gets publicity at a higher ed is how expensive it is, which is super true. And. And how there's a bunch of intellectuals. Super true. What doesn't get a lot of enough press is the whole enterprise is you put an idea down, you do a study, you read, you come up with some theories, you Do a scientific inquiry. You put the study down, and then it is immediately peer reviewed, which, the moment you say something, you lay it down. And then your colleagues, your friends, they go to war against your idea. And it's this iron sharpens iron idea. Right? So a great example of this is right when Covid set out a college, laid a model out and said, I don't know what it was, we think 25 million people are going to die. The politicians and the media grab that and stamped it in concrete. You know, we're all going to die. And then they started yelling at each other for the next year over who's the liar and who wasn't. Scientists didn't see that way at all. It became data point number one. And then scientists around the world went, all right, sweet, now we got a game. And they jumped in. And then within a few weeks, they revised it down to 10 million and then revised it again.

And then.

Does that make sense? So it's part of it. Inherent in that ideology is humility, this idea that I'm probably wrong and I need my colleagues to help make me better. And so the same thing coming over here when you're working in the messy, ugly, gritty life of other people, if you ever enter that space thinking, I know exactly, fill in the blank, you're in dangerous ground, you're going to hurt people. And so inherent in this new job. Dude, I didn't have social media before I joined this. I had been on one friend's podcast. That's it. I mean, I just. I had. One of my life goals was to not exist on the Internet. In fact, I. Right before I moved to Nashville, one of my bosses, after working at a university for four years. Four years, she finally called me and said, I have to put you on our website today, please. So I always just. I wouldn't show up to photo shoots. I just didn't want to exist there.

Yeah.

And so inherent in this transition to this job is be really humble, surround yourself by people who are know what they're talking about, do what they say. Right. And make sure you're a joy to be around. Right. Make sure you are pleasant to be around. You're a person of integrity. And really, at the end of the day now, we're just exchanging ideas for one goal, and that's to help other people live better lives.

Yeah. One of the things we hear a lot on this podcast from people from a bunch of different vocations is the need for rapid feedback. And I've never heard somebody talk about the world of academia and peer reviews. But yeah, that's a beauty of that structure. It's built in to academic learning. So I'm curious, what does peer review look like for you now that you're this professional speaker, author, podcast or whatever? Like, how do you practically invite peers in to beat your work up?

Brother, you don't know awkward until there's a 60 inch flat screen with a speech you gave and there's a room full of people with pads and paper just pulling you apart. Why are you standing like that? Why are you making that face? Get your fingers out of your mouth. Look at your pants. I mean, and I initially started pushing back, right? It's like man hours are just the pants I wear until somebody connected. Hey, those pants don't fit. They were cool back when Limp Bizkit was cool and Limp Biscuit was never cool. Right? Back in the, in the mid-90s. And now fast forward. You look like a slob. And when you look like a slob, you look like you don't know what you're talking about. And if you don't know what you're talking about, you're going to say something profound and people aren't going to hear you. And so wear clothes that fit, for crying out loud. And by the way, when you stick your fingers in your mouth, you look like a. You know me just on and on and on. Every time I do a media hit, right? I'm on the news across the country in some shape, form or fashion. We actually have a worksheet and me and a couple of folks will sit there and watch the hits one after the other after the other and score them. Are you being kind? Are you being funny? Are you being entertained? So it's a craft, right? It is learning a whole new craft.

What's the secret to receiving feedback? Well, because it's one thing to ask for it, it's another thing to be humble enough to listen to it and purposefully practice getting better at that craft. So give us an example, like a practical example of how you've done that.

I think there's one answer. And normally I'm a kind of a wishy washy guy because there's so many, like, what could be this? Could be this? There is one answer to that. Are you ready for it?

Yeah.

My identity is not in this job.

Yeah.

If Dave Ramsey fires me tomorrow, I'll go, ah, man, that's a bummer. Right? And I've set my life up. Me and my wife have set our life up financially. So we live Way, way below our means. That means that we drive. My car is an 06, right? I park next to Anthony O', Neill, who drives in this rad Porsche, right? And I've got this 06 truck. I am more interested in playing a long game. Right? Well, Anthony is, too. He makes more money than me. But that's a whole other conversation. All to say is, if Dave fires me, that would really be a bummer. And then we'd go find the next fun thing. I've been a high school teacher, a college professor. I worked at Burger King for four. All my jobs. I've liked them. All right, I like this one more. It pays well. It's a blast. I feel like I'm. I'm in a great. I'm using my skill set well. But my identity is not wrapped up in a job title anymore. And it used to be. And what that meant was I had to be psychotic about keeping that job title, keeping everyone happy, keeping this appearance up. And now my identity is being a really good husband, being a really present dad. And then these assignments as they come up, all focus back to, I'm a guy who helps people. I guy who helps people have a better tomorrow than they did ahead of today. Right? And so that can be. Oh, not at Burger King. You're gonna have it worse tomorrow, Right. If you eat too much Burger King. But whatever that is. High school teacher, basketball coach, track coach, you know, host of a. We just crossed a million views last month on the Internet. So whatever Internet, YouTube. Right, whatever that looks like. My identity is not in this gig. And that means when somebody says, hey, you can do this better. Sweet. I'm gonna do it better. I can hear that now, because it's not. You're not insulting me. You're just helping me get better at my craft.

Yeah, I was just writing a devotional on this. Yeah. I think we Americans, I think this is true. Largely around the world today, we look to work to provide this ultimate verdict for our lives, right? We know that there is something deeply wrong with us. We as Christians know that sin. And we work crazy hard to prove that we are valuable and that we belong in the root, that our existence is justified. And when you do that, you're really working out of a sense of fear rather than freedom, right? Because you have something huge to lose. You have yourself to lose. If you lose the job, if you lose the job title, if you lose the promotion, your very self crumbles. It's only in Christ, as Christians, we get the verdict before the performance, right? Like that's radical.

Esther Perel talks a lot about the shift over the last couple of hundred years that we have systematically in our culture, withdrawn, Faith systematically withdrawn. And she's a secular author, by the way. Withdrawn, Faith, withdrawn. Community withdrawn. A singular, extended, connected family. And suddenly all we have left, we put all of this pressure to feed us, to fulfill us, to give us value, as you said, is our job. And dude, jobs are designed for that much pressure. Right. And we have dumped everything into it. And then we've got corporations that are feeding that. Right. And you never even have to leave. We will feed you here, you can do your laundry here, we got a gym here, we got all these things. Or we've gone the other way, which is, I mean work plays a, a significant part of our internal value. Right. We were made to work and we've moved to a gig economy. Like, man, I don't even value enough to give you a job tomorrow. You come work today and you. I'll. I'll let you know tonight about tomorrow.

Right.

So we've just bifurcated it all overnight. Yeah. And we, we've lost this. Tethered into a much bigger sense of who we are and what our value and purpose is.

Yeah, work is good. It's just not the ultimate.

Yeah, that's a great way to say that.

So I'm curious. We talk to top performers about routines, habits. What does a typical day look like for you from the moment you wake up to the moment you go to bed.

Oh man, I'm kind of a lunatic about this. Is that cool?

So this is great. I can't wait to hear this.

Oh man. So I am a nut job about my morning routine and about taking care of the things that I can control to start my day so that I'm in a place that can start my day. And I also hold. That is going to sound like I'm talking out of both sides of my mouth. I hold it pretty loosely. I'll explain that in a second. But man, I get up super, super early between 4:45 and 5:30 usually. And I will grab some coffee and head straight downstairs. And I've got a routine, man. Started with the meditation practice from a professor who's also a monk about 10 years ago. And I will go through a gratitude journal, go through. I copy parts of the Sermon on the Mount every single day of my life. Then I've got. I'll read it may be a secular author, but just some reminders about honesty and integrity and discipline. But I make sure I'M reading some of these things every day, make sure I'm in. You know, for me, it's scripture is an important part of that morning. I journal every morning, and then I head off and I've got a gym that I've built at my house over the last several years. Hey, man, all you got to do is wait for these CrossFit gyms to go out of business, and you can just pick up pieces and pieces. Over the last few years, man, I've created quite a cool garage gym. About 1 1000th of the cost, right?

That's amazing.

Yeah, I've got a gym there. I'm got my cold tub that I've got. I've got my hang upside down thing, which is important. I'm real big into being outside even when it's 31 degrees outside with no shoes on and sometimes just shorts. And that's it. Making sure I'm grounding myself and feeling that discomfort of this cold or feeling that comfort because it's warm. Making sure I'm connected to nature. And then the morning is about. Now I'm being with my kids and making sure that's why I get up before they do, so that I can spend some fun quality time with them. Make sure me and my wife are on the same page. One question we ask each other every single day. What does your picture of today look like? Not, hey, what are you gonna do today? But I need you to paint it for me, right? And so that we are in sync together before the day gets going. And then I'm usually late to work like always. That's my big. That's my thing. I'm trying to work on, man, all the time. And I make sure every day I call at least one person that I'm connected and then I love. So I'm talking to somebody, Especially during COVID has been tough to see people. And so I'm making sure I'm connected to somebody and me. And then we get to work, and then I get home, try my best to unplug. I really try to not get on electronics in the morning. Sometimes I do just because I'm being lazy or a bum. But I try to stay off those electronics until I get to the office.

I love it. So you say you're a nut job about routines. I am too, but you hold them loosely. What does that look like? To be disciplined, routine, driven, but not to be married to it.

I think something that's been important for me is that discipline is a practice that you have to. You got to play. You're playing a long game here. Right. We get so going back to the ambition question. When you get so obsessed with. I'm going to hit this number on a scale, you can get there, man, you can starve yourself, you can cut off your foot, you can get to that number. Are you doing it in a way that is going to actually change your life for the better? Are you doing in a way that is sustainable? Right. So why are you doing all these things in the first place? Well, man, I'm in my early 40s now and my goal now is to make sure my brain is working in a way that I can best honor the people that I'm in contact with. I want to be able to roll around on the floor and be a good like grandfather ninja when I'm 90. So that means I gotta exercise and move my body in certain ways right now. Right. So I'm playing a 40 or 50 year game now. That also means like a couple of mornings ago my daughter got up, she just had this weird wake up that she doesn't normally have. She's five. She crawled into bed with me right before my alarm went off and dude, I reached over and shut that alarm off and we hugged for an hour.

Yeah.

Just curled up in there. I can go through all the neurochemistry, why that was good for me. I can go through all the. I've been working out for how many days in a row and a rest day is not going to hurt anything. In fact, it's going to help me. None of that matters because the most important thing was I don't. Those hugs are finite, man. Yeah. My 30 year old daughter's not going to crawl up in my. That's going to be weird, right?

So that would be odd. Yeah. Yeah.

And I take these moments and not be loose with it, but I'm going to be really disciplined and I'm also going to be a person of integrity, a person of a higher identity. Why am I doing this for. For them. I'm not doing this for. So that I can be whole man. Part of being whole of those. Those holy moments when your daughter crawls up in your lap and then I'm not gonna miss those. Yeah.

Hey, you talked about not wanting to be found online. I'm curious if the motivation there is because you know that these tools cause anxiety. Like is there a connection?

Oh man, yeah. As we've seen this stuff roll out, man, this comparative technology, this idea that we're communicating with one another but we're not connected to each other. We are melting from the inside out in really dangerous ways. And now you can see as we talk to each other, we talk to caricatures of one another and the way we treat people. We would never do this because there's so many other social signals like body positioning and eye crinkles and how your mouth moves and all these other things that make no sense in the real world. Suddenly it's okay to call somebody that on social media or a thumbs down or to make a rude remark or it just is this avenue for the worst parts of us. And so it's a necessary evil. As a part of this job, I'm trying to be a really smart steward of it. But even then, I'm challenging me and my team and all of us. Is this really the right way to be using some of this stuff?

Yeah. So I'm curious what that looks like for you. Practically. Like, what are some of the routines and habits you put in place with technology specific, specifically, that help you use these tools in a healthy way.

So I won't use Twitter. I found out recently I've got a Twitter handle that people take things that I say in speeches and things, and they'll just clip parts of them and put them out there. I will probably end up doing away with all of it simply because it's the most reductive of all. Right. It's so hard to communicate humanity in such a tiny space. Some of these platforms are more conducive or not conducive. I've committed to making one post on one thing a day. And I am fortunate in this space that there's a team of people who will take that and move it to another platform, into another platform. In that way, I do try to put out positivity in the world. The world doesn't need any more negativity, man. We've got it. We're good. And so can I help somebody rethink of something else? Can I help somebody laugh hard? And they haven't laughed all day? So I try to put things out that will spend somebody's day more positive than it was negative. And then here's. Here's just the me being vulnerable and honest. I taught about this stuff and also taught grad courses and education and counseling. I talked about the data about the addictive nature of some of these things, but I didn't have them. And, man, some of this stuff, dude, like, I find myself just scrolling mindlessly doing the exact thing that I know I shouldn't be doing. And it just this Stuff is in us. It goes below a cognitive level. Right. It gets us. Because I know the data. I know how dangerous it is. I know how every part of my life and legacy would be better served with me kicking a soccer ball with my son. But here I am in my bedroom with the door closed, just scrolling on something.

Right? But I think it's healthy to just recognize the exponential power that these services have. Like, I have an Instagram account. I love my Instagram account, but I have hard lines in the sand of where and when I use that tool. Pretty much the only tool I use. I was actually just writing about this for my next book. 2007, three things happened. Steve Jobs introduced the first iPhone. Second. According to the Bureau of Labor and Statistics, Americans started a 10 year, 59% decrease in productivity compared to the previous decade. And third, anxiety exploded. Yep, off the map. That's not a coincidence, is it? I mean, you've studied anxiety way more than I have.

It's everything, right? It. We landed in this place where we all thought the economy was going to go bananas for the rest of our lives. And then in 2008 and 9, we suddenly realized we're mortal, right? Like, oh, we can't control this stuff, or a few people. And we Learned this in 2001 and we forgot it over the next decade. A few people acting in a way that's not in the best interest of everybody can make everything go away for us, right? And then you take that and suddenly we're communicating with each other in characters, right? In zeros and ones, black and white text. Or we are talking to each other in these curated photos, right? We're talking to each other, not connecting. You're completely distracted. And we're talking to real humans. We're just nodding and scrolling, right? And suddenly you, you know, you find yourself in your spouse, sitting on a couch, and one of you got an iPad up and the TV's on. The other one's just scrolling on their iPhone.

And you are.

You're two apart, but you're 2,000 miles away from each other.

Yeah.

And, yeah, it just started this arc, so it doesn't take a huge one. Splinter changes how you walk. And then 20 years later, you gotta get a hip replacement. Right? So it didn't have to be big for us to completely get off the rails. And now I don't know anybody. I don't know anybody, Jordan who regularly hangs out with more than one or two neighbors.

Yeah.

Most, we don't know who lives next door to us.

Right?

And we keep talking about these grandiose, you know, Jesus is calling me to this. We don't know our neighbor.

Love your actual neighbor, the human who.

Lives next to you. And especially if they vote different than you, look different than you, act different than you. We don't know our neighbor, dude. But we have a bajillion friends on the phone and I got nobody to help me change a tire in my driveway, right? So, yeah, we have just completely become absorbed. We just swan dove into this little digital box. And so when you go back to asking for intentional things, I've got my Instagram on another phone. That's all I use that phone for. And that way when I get home, I can leave it in my car, right? And I can go inside and be a human being and be with intention with my family. I don't always do a great job with this, man. I just want to be honest, but.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

What's the intention?

I delete it every day.

Oh, good for you.

Because I find that it's a pain in the butt. Like I won't re download it every day, but I Download it about 3:00 clock when I'm done checking my email, I post something, I check messages, my assistant is flagged for me, and then I leave, I delete it. I want to go back to this idea of the neighbor thing. This is really. My wife and I were really convicted of this a few years ago because, you know, a lot of the content that I put out is all about how our work loves our neighbors as ourselves, our co workers, our customers, our whatever, our employers. But I was just convicted of. Yeah, I don't actually know my personal neighbors. And we've just been really intentional about that. And by God's grace, I mean, we built this great little community here on our street, or he's built it through us rather. But yeah, that's. It's super important. So I love that you called that out. You talk about Jesus, what Jesus would care about. You talked about your daily quiet time coming back to the Sermon on the Mount. I'm curious how that shapes how you think about your work day in, day out. Like, what are some of the things that Jesus said in. And the Beatitudes are otherwise in the sermon on the mouth that you think about as you're going throughout your workday.

So one of the cornerstones, man, when I, when I ended up. There's a whole thing. We could do a whole other podcast on this someday when I recognize, man, I'm not. Well, I. My Anxiety alarms have spun out to the point that I'm incoherent. The life I am leading in my mind is not reality. And that came to me from close community, my wife, some friends that reached out to me, and that I ultimately had to take that step and go get well, start. Start a journey to get well. Part of that process was I got connected to a buddy who was a professor. We didn't get along very well at first, but he was also a monk. He's smarter than me by a factor of a hundred. When school was out, he would head to monastery and just be out, right? And then he would come back. And a very sound guy. One of the things he believed is, if you believe that Jesus was a human, then let's just go out on a limb and say he's probably the smartest human that ever lived. And if he's smart and he's going to just take some a minute and rattle off a way of life, maybe that'd be a good place to start, right? And so I know that there's all the history on the Mount and all the mosaic stuff. I get all that. But there was something clarifying about just sitting down and looking at the architecture of that talk. And number one, it starts out with talking to a group of completely broken, annihilated people. It doesn't start with, here's what I screwed up. Doesn't start with, let's go back, we'll get them, guys. It just started with, like, hey, you're loved. You're good, right? You're broken, you're busted. You're trying your best. You're really reaching for this. You're all good. You're good, okay? And people are going to stomp on you. I want you to know they've been stomping on us for years. You're loved. And then from there, out of that, like, right? So that's the anchor into the. Into the bedrock. You're loved. Now, you can't look at your local church leaders as the pinnacle, right? There's cool, sparkly jeans and lots of smoke machines and lasers behind you. Let's look past that. You want to know what it looks like? Here's what it looks like. It looks like, dude, don't even hate people. Somebody wants something from you, give them two of it, right? I'm thinking back. When a government asks you to do something crazy, do it twice as much. Stop complaining about. Just go, right? And then it works from some very tangible things to what I think is, for me, is the ultimate Message of this, of the certain amount, is stop worrying about everything.

Stop.

You are accomplishing nothing except shortening your lifespan and making the people around you an electrified buzz saw. Stop. It's going to rain on wealthy people and evil people, and it's going to rain on good, mean people and poor people. It's going to rain. Everybody chill out. Stop. You can't accomplish your weight of this thing. You can't fail your way out. You can't just stop. You're loved, you're good, right? And so there's this re centering thing. And for me, it's become a faith reminder, but it's become wisdom literature. It's become an action plan for the day, right? And it's become all of that in one for me. And it's really just a touchstone. That reminds me, hey, someone's going to say something to you today. Don't hit them back. Someone's going to say something today. And you're really smart and you're going to want to show how smart you are to everybody. Just shut up. Right? It's just this daily reminder. This isn't about you, man.

Yeah, it's not. And speaking of worry, I think this is connected. At least it is in my brain. We'll see if it's connected in your brain. I think in the church, I think one of the things especially young people maybe worry about the most is quote unquote, finding my calling in life. To the point in which we've elevated calling to idle status.

Oh, dude. So you got to get me all fired up. And it's like just the middle of the day here.

Please just go. I'm not even gonna ask the question.

So, yeah, a few years ago, I just kept hearing this phrase in faith circles of all kinds, find your calling. What's that one magical thing God wants you to do? It sounded very similar to when I was growing up. Who's that one person God selected for you to marry?

Yes.

And I kept thinking, there are billions with a B people on Earth who are trying to find enough food for today. What is their calling? Did God just leave out those billions? And then they just focused on me, right? And I get a good interest rate. And suddenly I was called to buy this house. Shut up. Right? I completely off the rail. So I actually went back to scripture and tried to figure out what. What is the thing about calling here? And can I tell you what I walked away with? The last thing on planet Earth I want to be is called by God for a thing. Because if you are called in scripture, your life ends terribly, and then they write about it, and 2,000 years later, people call you cool. It does not end well for you. Right. So I don't want to be called to. I want to live a quiet life in service to my community, to my God, and I want to live to be a humble person for the folks around me. And I want to make sure I. This obsession with finding this, this, and this. Here's the other thing. We like to duct tape God to something we want to do.

Yes.

We say things like, I got called to leave my job and go do. Just say, hey, I really want to go do this thing.

Yes.

That's okay.

Yes.

I guess you don't need this extracurricular spiritual backing.

Yeah.

Right. Am I saying that? I hope I'm not sounding sacrilegious here. I think we just super glue God to whatever it is we want to do. And here's where that's dangerous, because sometimes it gets way outside the bounds.

Yes.

And I have much of my friend in network community are not believers, Jordan. They aren't into this. They love me. They love my family. They are not believers. And then they ask me, your Jesus says to do what? And I'm like, no, bro.

Nope. He didn't. He didn't say that.

That's not accurate. And I'm sorry, but the more you start trying to figure out ways to shove that puzzle piece of Jesus into whatever it is you want to do, man, then you get into some really messy, messy territory, and that's when you see Jesus turning tables over. Right.

I've come a long way, I think, in. In my thinking on this topic, because I do think I've been thinking about this more lately, that calling is an adjective and not a noun. It's not a thing. And I use the marriage analogy. No offense to my bride, but there was not just one magical person on earth that I could have been a good partner with.

No. Y' all picked each other.

We picked each other. We made a.

Every day you gotta say, she's gonna be up for me, and she's gonna look at you and be like, jordan, I picked you up.

I picked him. Yeah, that's exactly right. But it's not this magical thing. Calling is this adjective of I'm doing this work that I think based on how God has designed me, I could do exceptionally well in service of others. But inherent in that, because it's not a noun, we have great freedom to choose, so long as we are not out of line with biblical commands. We have choice. I don't think God cares at all, all what specific work I choose to do in the world. He doesn't need me to do anything.

Nope. He cares who you are on the journey.

And he cares deeply that I think God cares deeply about us doing everything for his glory. I mean, that's crystal clear in Scripture, 1 Corinthians 10:31. Do everything for the glory of God. So I think that part of that is trying our best to do our work, whatever our work is, is dads, mothers, husbands, fathers, entrepreneurs, whatever, with excellence. But the specific work we choose, I really don't think he cares. He has this great big mission for his church, his glory, and in his grace has said, hey, you have freedom. Go choose how you're going to go do that. You said something. I could be misquoting you, so forgive me, John.

Hey, bring it on, dude.

I'm putting words in your mouth. I heard you speak at that Ramsey influencer event we were both at. And. And you said something like, God doesn't need you. Don't need God to approve your plans. And you kind of, like, moved on from that. I was like, I think this is where he's going with this. Is that where you were going? Is that what you're trying to say?

Yeah. If you are living a life of your particular values. Let me put it this way. One time I was in Las Vegas and I was walking through this lobby and I ran into Chuck Liddell. I am a lunatic fight fan. I love professional fighters. They are just a other class of human, and I think they're extraordinary. I did some training with them for you. They're just incredible. Chuck Liddell, at the time, was the light heavyweight champion. He was the baddest dude on earth when it came to fist fighting. You know what he didn't do when I met him? He didn't tell me how tough he was. He didn't flex for me at all. He didn't shove me or swing. He didn't have to. He had nothing to prove. You know why? Because he knew that maybe two or three people on planet Earth could beat him up in a fist fight. It got nothing to prove. Got nothing to prove to you. And so I feel like when we walk into rooms and announce all of the time, hey, I'm doing this for me. And you are reminding everyone in the room that you're probably not right. Any guy who'd walk into the gym and be like, I want to really know how tough I am, it would be a line of people to welcome them to the gym. Right? Because you're not very tough, right. It's the folks that, you know. Jesus would heal somebody. He'd say, hey, don't tell anybody about this. Right. The point here isn't to make for myself a big name because we could have done this whole show a lot differently. I wouldn't have been born in a manger. We could have done this thing with lightning bolts and neon signs. They didn't have neon signs. And we could have made some. That's not the point here. And so there's something about that announcement. So, man, you don't. If you want to go be a singer, go be a singer. Do it the best you know how to do and get around people who will help you be a good singer and will tell you, hey, you're not that good, you probably shouldn't be a singer or you got something special or fill in the blank. You don't have to attach it to this other thing that's going to make it more cosmic or more give you more internal approval. I think that comes from a sense that we're not actually tethered in and so we are desperate for labels to stuff, to give credence to our actions. Go be man, be a great husband, go be a great father, go be a great community member, be a good church member, whatever that thing's going to be. You don't got to attach all the stuff to it. Right?

Yeah, that's good. All right, John, that's a great note to wrap up on, but real quick, three questions we love to wrap up every conversation with. Number one, which books other than your own, of course, do you find yourself recommending or given away to other people?

Talking to, they're like, dude, you gotta like tell people about your book easily. The book I give away the most is a book by Terence Real called I Don't Want to Talk About It. It's probably the most eye opening book of the last decade for me. It's about male depression, female depression, but it's. It's about how we have lived relationally and how this stuff has just shifted on us overnight. It's easily the book I pass out the most to folks. Probably the second book, in fact, I just had to buy another one because my wife was looking for it and I was like, I think I gave away the other one too. Is the Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolt.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It was just an eye opening read for me. And probably the most recent book that I've Picked up that. I thought, man, I think everyone should read. It's a little bit of, man, I can just do this one all day. Jordan, I'm kind of dork. I like to read books and give them away. And give them away and give them away. Johan Hari wrote a book called the Lost Connections, which is a masterpiece. And dovetails with that nicely is a deepest well by Nadine Burke Harris about aces adverse childhood experiences. That's just a masterpiece as well. So, man, there's some great books out there. I'm a nerd. Read too much. I'm sorry.

No, me too. Me too. Story of my life. You guys can find those books, as always, at Jordan Rayner. All right, John, who do you want to hear on this podcast? Somebody who loves Jesus and is great at what they do. They're probably not a pastor. They're just a really good, I don't know, banker or plumber or whatever. Like, who do you want to hear on this podcast talking about these topics?

What I'm most interested in is what you just said. I think there has been a, for lack of better terms, my literally online job description. It says personality. There's been an obsession with these cults of personalities.

Yeah.

I am much more drawn. Oh, this afternoon on my show, I'm gonna have two counselors who just go day in and day out who are doing hard grindy work. They have no podcasts. They've got no show. I'm interested in talking to people who wake up every day and do it again and again and again and again.

It's my favorite get. No offense. They're my favorite guests on this show.

Absolutely.

I just recorded an episode with a middle school principal.

There you go. That's it.

It was awesome. Yeah. All right.

Danger for personalities is that we stop doing the work and we start talking to people who do the work. But we talk about it as though we still remember. And you forget real quick, man. So it's important for me that I'm always back in the community, always having these hard conversations, and I'll never give up working with people individually because of that very thing. So good for you. Yeah, I want to hear from people who are just grinding out every day.

That's really good. All right, last question. One piece of advice to leave this audience with. They come from a bunch of different vocations. Some of them are entrepreneurs, some of them are plumbers, some of them are writers, whatever. What they share is a love of Jesus Christ and a desire to do great work to serve other people. Well, what do you want to leave them with in terms of advice.

Man, if I had to sum that up in two statements, it would be this. God doesn't need you.

Amen.

But I do.

That's good.

I've stopped asking the world, where's God? When bad things happen, I've started asking, where is God's people? Where are these people who are claiming this? They show up. And so God doesn't need you, but I do. And you are the hands and feet. And the second thing I would leave people with is every vocation is holy. Amen. Period.

Me and my buddy Luke Lefever, who, you know, talk about this all the time.

Every vocation is holy. And unfortunately, we have turned some into. I need to be doing this full time because I'm a minister and I'm a painter, man. Everything, whether it's gardening or bricklaying or cleaning somebody's toilet. Hey, when I was at university, the senior leader at a university, I could not go to work, Jordan, for a week. No one would know. But the people clean the bathroom. They quit showing up for a week. That place shuts down, right? So who's the most important person there? Right? So, man, every job is holy.

I've said it once, I'll say it a million times on this podcast. Jesus spent 85% of his adult life as a carpenter. And when he decided it's time to start building the kingdom in his three year ministry, and he didn't call Pharisees, he called tax collectors and fishermen. Right? All of us matter in this massive kingdom building project. Hey, John, I want to commend you for the important redemptive work you do every day. Thank you for helping us ensure that, like Jesus, our burden is light. Brother, I hear that undertone in everything that you do, and I'm so grateful for it. Hey, John's got a great book that I skimmed when it came out, but back last November, Redefining Anxiety. It's terrific. You can find john@john deloney.com John, thanks for hanging out with me, dude.

Thanks, brother. Jordan, appreciate you and take care.

That last part on calling the Idol, we've made a calling. This is something I've been thinking a lot about lately. If you want to hear me go deeper on that topic, by the way, in a more structured, systematic way, shoot me an email@jordanrayer.com I would love to hear that feedback. Hey, if you're enjoying the show, do me a favor. Take five seconds right now. Go search for the Call to Mastery and Apple podcasts and rate the show. Thank you guys so much for listening. I'll see you next week.