Episode 4 (Part 1) – “The Blueprint of Belonging” with the Wild Country Crew

Hey everyone, this is Caleb Hanshaw with the Finding Home Podcast. I'm definitely excited. This is a packed house this time. Uh, Christian and I, we just released the third episode focused on community and what that looks like. And it got some pretty interesting responses from that. A lot of people sent questions and a lot of people related to what we had to say. Kind of broke my heart at the same time, just finding out how people are lonely even in a room of crowded, crowded people. So want to unpack that from a lot of different perspectives. So we brought on the wives. All right, here we are. Christian, can you introduce your beautiful wife for us?

Candace Jones.

She do all the award shows.

Yeah, you definitely have to edit this because I was startled.

All right, I'll— so we have Candace used to be Harper.

Yes.

Now Jones. Um, we've been doing community together for a long time.

Yeah.

Welcome to the show.

Thank you.

Glad you're here.

I'm glad to be here.

Yeah. And we, we had to do it in the middle of the day because we have children.

Yes.

So where is Levi?

Levi's currently with his, his pap and his Grammy. And yeah, so we, we had the go-to babysitters available today. So he's there.

Makes me feel really old because we had to do a middle of the day podcast. Usually like it's fancy, it's at night and no, we have children. We had to get babysitters. And then my wife, fresh off gallbladder surgery.

Okay. Putting that out there.

Monus and organ.

Monus and organ. Now we're equal with organs. Which is awesome. No, no, no. We have a podcast I think you and I will do together just talking about that whole process. But everything's good now. But welcome to podcast, lovely lady.

Thank you very much.

So we have found out since we are pros at podcasts, like, I've done 7 now, so I feel like I know everything. Not really. This is nerve-wracking, especially when it's your first time. So we're just going to take our time and maybe it turns into a two-part episode, which is cool. I really wanted to move through the waters of the last podcast and we'll give you guys room to— I'm going to test you, see if you actually listen to it.

I did.

It's been a minute. Then we'll kind of use some of the questions from our listeners to unpack all the new things we want to talk about.

I think that a lot of people walk through, whether it's a church story or not, just this longing to find where you fit in and where you fit in as your most authentic self. I think we have all experienced trying to maybe portray this version of ourselves or this version of ourselves or pull back on some things so that we're accepted by whatever community we're trying to walk in. And it ends up being a very lonely road. And I think that's what stood out to me is just like to hear, I mean, I know both of you, but still it goes, it just to hear people use the same kind of language, it like hits home.

Like, wow.

We're all struggling with that to find the real thing.

Yeah. And I think one of the topics that has received a lot of questions was, and it was something like people didn't want to hear, was first though, you really got to get stripped away and learn who Yahweh is, learn about the function of the Trinity, and to have enough courage to step out into that, knowing that he's going to lead you to find your people at the end of the road, because you have to see what relationship and what community looks like through the Trinity, through how they operate towards one another. And that's always— it's always really, really hard at first because we're not used to it. It's unfamiliar. It's not having, you know, going to services and being around people and having the time to do prayer requests and praying prayer circles and fire tunnels. It's just like this really raw, this is who I am, these are the things that are hidden in me that I didn't even know they were there. And then there's this great exposure and then Yahweh kind of builds you back up with truth through Father, Son, and Spirit. And how they operate, how they love one another, and how they are divinely one yet divinely separate at the same time. It's a mystery. But I want to give you room to share kind of feedback from your husband's debut.

Right. You know, I mean, obviously, Christian's my husband. So the things that he said and the things he talked about, I knew. So I think the takeaway, the interesting part for me was to hear the things that you shared that would have been familiar to Krista. So to see the other side of it as well, you know, someone else that it's very similar. And yet there's parts of it that's like, oh, he just put words to what I was thinking and feeling by sharing what he was thinking and feeling. Maybe some places where I had difficulty putting words. To what it was. So I think that it was this multifaceted thing of remembering the woundedness of it. Because I can recall that when there's a lot of stuff wrapped up in your identity of who you think you are or who you've been told that you are, and there's this entanglement you know, that speaks to the very core of your identity, the undoing of that is very— you're very vulnerable. You're very— it's the part that you said people don't really want to hear about, kind of the stripped-down part. It's a necessary part. And I'm incredibly thankful for it. And even— I even get to be thankful all over again when I— like when I listen to the podcast and I remember sort of that vulnerability and that wounding of the undoing of those things that were wrapped into my identity that just weren't truth. I think that you all know this, and for the sake of like anybody listening, there was a time period after I left church that I would just sit with him and the The only two things I would say is, "I love you," and, "I know nothing." There was nothing beyond that for a big portion of time. And I was really okay with it. Because it's so easy to put our thoughts on things. And I'm guilty, the worst, of putting my thoughts on something, or even being in— it's unavoidable that maybe you were in an atmosphere where other people were putting their thoughts on you. Telling you who you're supposed to be, telling you who you are, telling you when to go, telling you when to leave, telling you when to raise your hand, telling you when to stand up, you know, just even into the tiny details like that. It's okay to sit with that and say, "I don't know who I am. I don't know who I am in you." And it's okay to sit with that and let Him peel back the layers. Which is always fun. Doesn't that sound like a fun process?

Having the layers peeled back.

And it's a vulnerable thing. But there is, we've talked about this before, a mutual vulnerability between yourself and Yahweh. There's a mutual vulnerability there if you lean into it, where he's showing me things about myself that I didn't know were there. And I have access to parts of him that I didn't have access to before.

Yeah. And that combats our need to manufacture, like human nature's need to create. Even though we're creative beings, we're like our Father.

Yeah.

But the Father doesn't create in absence of the Son and the Spirit. Right. So you get into this place where I can't manufacture this. You're to the place like, I don't know much of anything, And like you said, Yahweh doesn't come and just show you everything like, "This is what it is." There's this entanglement where things are slowly pulled back and you are discovering each other in that. Because you look at his behavior in the past, look at the history, how he created the earth. Through him and by him, all things that were made was made. Through his Son by the Spirit. Like, there's this communal effort even in being creative. So why do we try to create relationships outside of that blueprint? And I think that's when we get in trouble, because as humans, we feel really, really safe when we have control and we can fix things. As a practical example, It's hard for me. It was hard for me. I'm learning when, you know, we're going through something personal to be vulnerable with other people because we just wanna take care of it. As simple as, you know, her going through her surgery and having to recover, Clay, who's behind the scenes here, said, "Hey, can we bring you dinner?" My initial thought was, "No, we're good." We're all right. We can handle that. Because I want to just create our own recovery because that's my human nature coming out. And I want to be reserved. I want to be private. And I remember our podcast. I'm like, well, crap. We'll bleep that out. Thinking, no, there needs to be this intentional of sharing, of exchanging. And thank God, because the cookies that they brought over, crazy good. Thank you, Destiny and Clay.

Shout out Destiny.

Shout out Destiny. But yeah, it just talks about there is this blueprint. And a lot of the questions that we receive from those that listen is around like, what does this look like? I know I've heard stories of wilderness. I've heard stories of going through things and learning about myself and finding myself and all of that, but what does it look like? And we're here to say there's already a blueprint. We follow Baxter Kruger, C. Baxter Kruger, if you want to Google it, and his ministry is called Parakrisis Ministries. There was a lot that we have gotten from him and his books, and the early church used this from the Greek, meaning Perry, like a round, and Corey, the choreography. It was this dance between Father, Son, and Spirit, and that the gospel itself is them inviting us into that dance very slowly because we're just now figuring it out too. Right? I mean, I don't think I've become a pro at this.

Absolutely not.

I mean, even the paint, because that such a hard thing. Even what you're talking about, to look back and see what we went through of wounding each other and on the other side to be able to— when you relive things, it's like PTSD. It's not for us. It's what a sweet lesson that Yahweh walked us through. Usually you talk about really hard because it's really hard. I mean, you talk about top 3 hardest seasons of my life. I can only speak for myself here, but to be able to talk about those specific things in a way where, what did Yahweh do in this? And I'd do it again. Yeah, I'd do it again.

Yeah. You were talking about finding yourself and I totally understand that question. And just me personally, I feel like that's an ever-evolving thing. You're never going to— just like you can't search out completely, you can't know him every part of him. I feel like he's built us sort of in the same ways. I feel like he's always going to be showing us more about ourselves, just like we're going to be finding out more about him. Because if he made us in his image, I think it's just like that. So to think if there's ever a point that you're going to totally find yourself is That's not going to happen, I think.

And there's a mystery there too, that is the Trinity still finding out things about one another? Is it just this vast— because we're not— koo, golly, it makes me shiver a little bit. Are there still this dance where this move is familiar? But man, this one is a surprise. So we're evolving. We're evolving in this. That makes this good.

Yeah. I think that when you said we talk about it and it's not this PTSD traumatic thing, we're all really thankful. It was such a necessary thing. We came together and we were trying to figure out community while we were being dismantled. Okay. On individual levels.

He's like, ask us how we know. Right. Do this on your own first.

Yeah. So we were, we had come together and there, you know, there was precious times and precious conversation and precious experience. But we were also in the midst of being dismantled. And what happened is there becomes this combination and this mixture of what I think as a human community should be. And I'm putting my thoughts on it. And this is what it should look like. And but I'm being dismantled and don't know things about myself. So it was a necessary thing that we went through where we weren't together anymore. And it was personally a very isolating time. That was necessary for me. I think we've talked about this before. Let me say this. When we did, when Jesus just mediated us coming back together. Okay. I think we talked about, we had a really good conversation about how we came back to the table, very, four very different people because of the dismantling that happened and the personal things and the things that we experienced and went through, that we came to the table, we came back for, you know, I can only speak for myself, a very different person. Even down to how I spoke even changed. You know, before I felt like I was a closer, you know, I was a closer, send me in and I could sell it and close the deal and sort of excelled in that area. And part of the dismantling, that disappeared. All of a sudden, I was a fumbling, like, I can't even put a sentence together. And it was this necessary instability. Because it goes back to that thing that was my identity was wrapped up in my ability to deliver and be a closer. And there was something about maybe what I said or how I said it that would draw someone in. And maybe I mistook that as anointing at one time. Can I say that?

Yeah.

Maybe at one time it was like, oh, that's just, you know, or maybe even other people said, man, she's, you know, that's just, that's the anointing. Was it? Was it though? Because, but I went through that very personal process where it's like, oh no, that's not, you know, that's not where you're going to find your sufficiency. And that doesn't identify who you are in me, and it's gone. You know, so I don't— I feel like I'm kind of all over the place right now, but it was just— I know for me, I just, I came back a very different person in some really huge ways and then in some really small, weird ways.

And that blueprint's even in scripture too. It's You walk with a limp.

Yes. Yeah.

And you're leaning.

Yeah.

So there's things that we have propped up in us that we've called it our identity. It's our gifting, it's what we do. It's how we, again, back to our human nature to create and to force things. What Yahweh's done in all of us is strip that away to where we have to lean. Into our beloved. And then there's the invitation where you don't have to leave that place. There's this dance where they're leaning on one another. And that's a beautiful— we don't think— I've never thought about that. Because you think about the sufficiency of the Father, sufficiency of the Son, and sufficiency of the Spirit. You don't see how they are leaning into each other and how they refuse to do anything outside of that communion. So there's this blueprint that you're talking about. It's this very painful and scary place, this unstable place that's really jumped out when you said that. I remember in a previous episode, I said I lost my personality. I didn't know how to make a friend because I was really good at that before. Now it's this leaning on the filter of my life, which is in communion with Yahweh in this dance.

Yeah.

So there was a question that someone asked. They said, what does God's community look like? So I'm thinking, okay, that's a good question. So we've talked about a little bit, we've talked about the Trinity and how they prefer one another. They're in the, the perichoresis circle dance where there's this mutual indwelling into each other, but there's also this separate individual person that operates differently, but has the opportunity to invite the others into what they're doing. And you see that all through scripture. You see the Father in the way that he creates and the way that he gives. And you see, you know, Yeshua being the bridge being the sacrificial lamb, being who we— I like William Paul Young's description of Jesus being the one that we're most alike because we're in the flesh, we relate to him the most. And then the Spirit being the funnel. I mean, he's the comforter. It's the Spirit is the healer. So you see all these different dynamics of the Trinity, yet they're doing things through one another in this dance. So I'll ask you, what does God's community look like?

Okay. So if we look at, like you said, the Trinity, so by the council of a triune God, the decision was made for Jesus to come. And take on our nature and take on all that it means to be human. And that was a decision made by Triune God. Okay. So I think if Christian community, I think that we have to understand that we have access to each other. And we enjoy fellowship with each other, and we are in unity with one another because of Jesus, through Jesus, through this decision that was made for Him to come. And what that looks like too, I think, and I think we've talked about this before, what that looks like too is that we take on each other's weaknesses as if it were our own weakness. So, and I think that can sort of, when you're trying to build community or find community or figure out what community is, that's something that could be a stumbling block. I know that doesn't really answer the question, but I think that can kind of be a pitfall where you place expectation on people and you think it should look a certain way or, you know, it should be a certain way. And Kaleb, I think I heard you say one time that expectations are like landmines.

Well, that's William Paul Young.

William Paul Young. Okay, we're going to shout out William Paul Young.

It was one of the best quotes I've heard.

Yes, you had shared that with us and it has stuck with me that expectations are like landmines for people. So I think in this community that we were created to to walk in. We were created to actually want this, that not having expectation, not placing expectation on people and knowing that I hope, I'm hopeful that I can take on someone else's weaknesses as if they were my own. And I don't know, is that making sense? Does that make sense? I know that doesn't technically answer the question. But I felt like that was such a vital part for me to come to terms with that I only can enjoy fellowship with you all and with others. And I can only enter into this unity, this joyful unity through Jesus Christ, not because of any gift I think I operate in, or what I think I bring to the table, or what kind of platform it's going to give me. Is it going to bring me relevance? How many likes am I going to get? Or, you know, anything like that.

I want to piggyback off of that and jump in there. Well, before this morning, I was sitting making some notes just kind of on the topic, and one of the things I wrote down was, in the kingdom of Yahweh, true community is a reflection of his character, which is kind of what we're talking about. And if we're looking at how the Trinity works, I've heard Baxter Kruger— and I'm gonna totally botch it— the way that he explains it, but it is like a dance. And they're— who— like, it's like whoever is coming out, let's say, on top, because it's the three, like, it's like a juggling act, but it's like they prefer one another. You know, like the one that's higher comes low, just they're continuously coming lower and preferring the other one. So if community looks like his nature, it looks like any self-righteousness, any ego being completely out of the equation. It is this preference for one another, and it's what you said, it's taking on other people's weaknesses, you know, like with our strength, and it being this like back and forth, this give and take, this very authentic way of displaying that. And then I also wrote that a healthy community starts with humility. And it's not this holiness on display, it's hearts laid bare. It's putting yourself out there like, "This is who I am in this moment, the good, the bad, the ugly, like every single bit of it. And it's the only way to really operate in this form of community is through the foundations of grace. And I think a lot of times we think we understand grace, or we, in the way that we don't really operate in the fullness of what grace is, because when we don't, that is when we start to form, you know, these cliques, and when we walk in and we automatically feel like, "I need to prove myself to be, you know, in this community," or, "I need to be, I have to have this expression to be within this kind of community." But it all goes back to, it has to reflect his character, and it has to look like this stripping away of things, to bring ourselves to where it's just you and him and you're learning who he really is so that we can learn who we are. Because that's what that orphan spirit is, walking around thinking we know who we are. And we're not. And that's when communities feel very false.

We've sort of been led to believe that it would be a sign of weakness to admit I love you and I know nothing. When actually that's— I'm like, just keep me there. Just keep me there. That's a great place to be. I can remember having a conversation with you all at our house about after Levi's birth, you know, and maybe that's a whole other podcast too with Krista or something. But after Levi's birth and the way things went with that and how scary that whole situation was, that I felt very unstable. And I can remember Caleb saying, I think being unstable and instability is a really good thing, because if you're not unstable and you, you aren't feeling like there's this instability, then you're sort of leaning on your own understanding and you're, you're self-sufficient and you don't, you know, you don't need to lean like you said, you don't need to lean and be propped up in that. And that was another one of those. It's like the landmine thing that you shared. That's another one of those where it was like, oh, great, I want to be unstable. If that's where that keeps me and that's what's necessary. And I know there's people who may not agree with that and that's okay. But I don't have anything to prove. I'm disarmed. The whole thing is disarmed because I have nothing to prove. And failure is not even a factor or whatever word you could use there, failure, dropping the ball or whatever. It becomes a non-factor in community.

This makes me think of I was doing a study on marriage and why marriages end. It was for college. And one of the main reasons was not money, it wasn't unfaithfulness, it was being familiar.

Mm.

It was when we became familiar where we thought we knew everything about one another, that was the launching pad to welcome all these other issues. And we're thinking about how we're evolving as people constantly and how this dance that we're already invited into is a dance of evolving and finding out new things. And I'm thinking about the creatures flying around the throne and they see a different angle. They're just so overwhelmed. If we're getting to the point where we have something concrete, It's a tragedy. It's like I know for certain. Now there's things that I know. I know he's good, but I don't know the depths of that. And when I think I know the depths of that, what a tragedy. Yeah. Yeah. And I highlight one of the really important things you shared was this community does not exist outside of Yeshua. No, because it's what he came to do. I mean, you— yes, he died for our sins. That's awesome. But the biggest thing was to say, there's this dance going on and we have saved you a spot from before time even began. And this is my relationship that I have with my Father through the Spirit. And you get to dine in that. You get to feast on this. And we get to learn about each other.

Yeah.

In this process. And it makes me think he and I are one, and you and I are one, and this is the gospel. This is the gospel. Yes, you don't get to go to— you don't go to hell.

Yeah.

That was the goal. I mean, we've come to a place of being concrete. So my mission on earth is to not— for it not to suck and go to hell. Yeah, you know, that's my concrete thing. I got to win people so they don't go to hell. And I've come to this place of my concrete thinking of this is what this relationship is supposed to be like. And such a tragedy.

Yeah.

To know that first of all, I don't have to earn my way into this dance. Like, it's there. I mean, it is for me. Um, gosh. We're not outside of the dance.

And when we lean into what you just said, the thing that comes to mind for me is you're no longer coming to be a part of something as a demander. You're a thankful recipient. Um, that was the transformation that happened. We no longer came together as these people who maybe had demands of one another. We have come back together as just thankful recipients of this gift from him that is by and through him.

This is just question 1.

Okay.

Page 1 of 6. So we'll try to—

Oh Lord.

We'll just take our time. And it's, you're invited into a relationship where time isn't a factor. And that bugs people, but that's the most freeing thing.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Because when you take that away, you're not results-driven now. The results drive has to rest when you take time out of the equation.

It takes urgency out.

Yeah.

There's no urgent need to, we need to accomplish this, do this.

Yeah. And it sounds good. Until you realize your human nature is to have results, or you're results-driven. And you, like, if I'm gonna lose weight, I'm gonna jump on the scale at least once a day. I know for me, or once a week, like, okay, there's this, because that blueprint isn't the blueprint that's in our very DNA.

Right.

And so to transition into who we really are, I mean, that stuff has to be addressed. When you take time away and there's this steadiness that comes, there's not this urgency that's over you. We say that it sounds romantic. It's like, oh, that sounds awesome. That sounds like a vacation. We're jittery.

There's tension there.

We're like, what are we doing?

Yeah, there's tension there.

You ever been in a church service where you don't know who's supposed to be on the mic and you're just looking around or like, what we do now? Or like, what's going on? Or the worship team, nobody's singing anything and they're just sitting there and you see the pastor. I've seen it a million times. Like, what are we doing here? Let's get going. Because that's our human nature. We have to keep the flow going. And this is not that. This is the anti-Peter. He's like, this is that. This is not that. You actually have to— is that a rooster?

I looked towards the store.

I said Peter and I heard a rooster.

I realized the window was closed, so I couldn't Oh gosh.

Hey, Caleb Henshaw here from the Wild Country. Again, I wanted to thank you for all that are, that are listening and subscribing to this podcast. We really appreciate all the support. Did you know that we are launching a brand new community called the Wild Country Uncensored as an online platform? On this platform, we can talk about a lot of things that normally YouTube and other platforms would Censor. We'll have weekly lives, we'll have master classes, we'll have how-tos, we'll have a library of books and content that you can join. But most of all, we have accountability. People in this group hold each other accountable on our homesteading dreams, our homeschooling dreams, and our content creating dreams. If you're interested in joining this community, sign up in the link in the show notes. We are launching this community in summer of 2025, which is this year. It's getting close. Pre-register now and find out more. And I kind of added this one in. So the question was, what does God's community look like? We've kind of gone over that. We'll go over it some more. In what ways can the unity of the Trinity inform our approach to community and relationships? As an individual level, human level?

Can you put that in layman's terms?

By God, I can. How do you treat people and those around you in community based on the blueprint of what we just talked about?

And I think living in the dance, that's what the fruits of the Spirit are. Love, joy, peace, patience. You start to— that's his nature too. When you're living in that on your own, it begins to overflow into your relationships naturally. You're not having to try to love somebody. You know how to love them well just because that's who he is. That's who you are and who you're evolving and becoming, who you've been designed to be. And then that's what makes true community organically and authentically come together. And you're not trying to add people to your table through numbers and stuff, because numbers don't even become a variable in it. Again, that's one of those results-driven things too. A successful community looks like a lot of people wanting to come and be a part of it. And that would be the hope. That's the goal. That's what he came and he wanted to establish. Every tribe, tongue, nation.

I'll say, and this is where I'm growing in. And if you look at the functionality of the Trinity, it's in and through others.

Yeah.

And that's against what I naturally do. That's not a reflex for me. It's, I want to do something, I'll take care of it. It's easier because nobody can judge me or nobody can criticize, or I want it done my way. Like, my way's the best way. And that's a concrete thinking, which is a tragedy that we've learned. It's getting in the habit of— even think about business. And this is what's been a really eye-opener for me because I look— I try to get coaching and all that with certain businesses that are trying to do, and everyone is talking about how you need to do this and how you need to grow as a leader. Very rarely do you hear, how does— how would Yahweh do business? He doesn't do anything outside of the realm of the Father, Son, Spirit. So there's actually a better way to do this in community. So practically, just to kind of make this make sense, because I feel like I'm all over the place— like yesterday, Anna had a tick bite, and it's like 3 days ago. Yesterday it started to flare up like a rash. I thought we saw a bullseye, so like, okay, we need to take her to the doctor, um, and have them checked out. And I'm driving over there and I feel this nudge like, you need to text Christian and Candace to let them know to pray. I'm not begging God to heal Anna. That's not why we pray. We're not pleading like, please heal her tick bite. There was this like, okay, we all need to take Anna to the doctor.

Mhm.

And that was unfamiliar for me, where I had to just stop what I was doing, take out the phone, and send the text, cuz A natural me, I guess the humanistic side of me is like, just take her to the doctor. Don't even say anything. Live your own life. Be private. It's easier that way. And that's not the gift of community.

I think like, I can't bear your burden if I don't know your burden.

Well, and that's life together. That's what life together looks like.

Yeah.

Doing life together.

Yeah.

We hear that a lot. What does that really look like? I mean, it takes— you have to be intentional. Yeah, like you can. And this leads to another question, and pause me if you have something to share before I move on. But I wrote this: how does understanding the way that community is set up as a blueprint, how does that challenge our tendencies? How does that make war with my ability to hermit away? Like, what are the different things that are challenged in terms of community through that blueprint?

Okay, so I'll be really honest and say, and I know we've talked about it, I've told you all that I have this. I'm very adaptable. I don't, you know, some people think that's a superpower, but sometimes it's not. When you're, when you're an adaptable person, there can be something maybe that is uncomfortable or sad or traumatic, fill in the blank, something happens that sort of has an effect. And you might go through your time period of being sad or being affected by it or being maybe there might be a little spiral or whatever comes out of that event. Or situation. But then I'm able to adapt and move on. Now, the danger in that is what you've talked about. I think you call it lone wolf, the lone wolf thing, where I'm adapted, I'm good, I no longer need this, or it doesn't bother me, or it doesn't hurt me. So I can stay right here where I've adapted. And I think community, genuine spiritual, Jesus-led community is going to challenge your adaptability to say, to put your thought on something and say, I don't need this, or this doesn't bother me, or maybe I don't need to include them in this because I got it. Because, and I'm just speaking for myself on that about, so I feel like that in me had been challenged, the adaptability that sometimes does serve me well. In my line of work, you know, in things like that. But when it comes to walking and doing life together with people, if I can be honest, when we all went our separate ways and had our time period apart, it was very hard and it was very isolating. And it was, and there was, you know, there's loneliness and all the things that we've talked about. And then I went into that season of adapting and he yanked me out of it. Yanked, I mean, drug me out of that to the point that I look at my husband and say, you know, if you want to edit this out, you can. I just want to tell you all. I look at my husband at a certain point because it builds to this crescendo where I say, I need our friends and I'm suffering without them. And even if it takes a concerted effort on my part, I need them. And it was one of the most genuine statements I had made. He brought me to that place. He yanked me out of that adaptability where I was like, "I'm good. I've got this. If I can just keep going just like this, it's fine." He yanked me out of that and brought me to this really— I don't want to overuse the word broken, But that was a broken place, that admittance. I was admitting, "I'm suffering without them." And no matter what it looks like on my part, even if it takes humility and a concerted effort on my part, I need them. And he heard me and he saw my heart. And you texted me the next morning.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, because initially, because with community we've learned that it involves woundedness, involves vulnerability, involves a lot of messy things. So initially when there's this scapegoat to leave, relief comes.

Yes.

Initial relief and you rest in it and you justify it. Well, I feel better. I feel better. So this must be the right thing to do. Just go off and do your own thing.

Right.

Well, now we're brought to the place of where Yahweh was leading us. Relief is not necessarily a good feeling.

No, and putting yourself in a cocoon, so to speak, sort of, you know, that protective bubble that you've gone into that, you know, we sometimes will try to stay there as long as we possibly can. Because of what you said, it's relief. That doesn't mean that it's the right thing.

How many times when someone asks you like, hey, how are you doing? And you're not doing good, but you say, I'm good. How are you? I'm good. I've tried to do a better job when people text me that to say, be honest. I've had a lot less people text me from that. It's starting to drop down a little bit. But it's this, there's some people that really care about what's going on. And it's that defense mechanism where I'd rather be in relief and just do this on my own rather than have the opportunity. Like you had talked about the last podcast was when you're saying no to someone's help or someone inquiring even, you're saying no to community. That was a bomb for me because now it's etched in. Anytime someone is Hey, do you need help doing this? I'll think about Christian Jones saying like, okay, this thing. I think about it too, man.

I'm like, God, you better not be.

You better say, you know what I'm saying? So there's natural tendencies to go backwards, to recoil, to hermit. When in the blueprint, they're always moving towards one another. If you're looking at her, that was beautiful, by the way.

Yeah.

How they're always moving and preferring one another.

I stole it from Baxter Kruger.

We steal a lot from Baxter, which is okay. But if you're looking at even the dance, they're moving towards one another. So there's this intentionality there. If you're not doing that, you're out of order.

Yeah.

You may feel relief from that. Because community kind of not forces you, but you can't last in community being an individual. Just doesn't work.

I thought about that feeling of relief. This is just my interpretation, is it's sort of like I don't have to work so hard to protect myself now. I can breathe now. I'm not having to work so hard to protect myself, if that makes any sense.

The second is self-righteousness. I mean, in community, you will write somebody off because they're different. Like, well, and it's funny because I have really good friends that are Muslim and they're a lot nicer than most Christian friends that I have. And you know what I mean? So, and it's like we have a lot of friends that aren't into homesteading. I don't think Clay, correct me if I'm wrong, I don't think Clay's gonna milk a cow anytime soon.

He just rolled his eyes.

That's not a prerequisite. And if you're flowing through self-righteousness, you can really get abusive in that. Like, oh, well, I wouldn't raise my kids that way. Yeah. And what you do is you put your way the only way. My way's the best way. My way's, you know, I— homesteading's the only way to live on this planet. No, it's not. There's other expressions there. And my natural tendency is to be self-righteous in that. You about to say something?

I wrote something like that in my notes.

I read it and copied it.

Oh, did you? No, I wrote a lot of notes on self-righteousness because to backtrack a little bit, that when you back away from community, that feeling of, like, quote, relief, it's really you having a good excuse to not be vulnerable. It's a good excuse to not lay yourself bare. And then what you do is you create your own set of standards for what things should look like. So self-righteousness, what it does is it replaces grace with judgment. And so you look through this lens of— and you can say it's not judgment, but it is all day long. Is what it is. It creates this culture. You are creating a culture around yourself, around this comparison and this criticism, almost. So when you walk into a community where that is the foundation of this self-righteousness and these egos and all this, you feel watched instead of welcomed. Mm-hmm. You know, but then you start to think, well, something's wrong with me because everyone else seems to be okay. And I'm not, but if that's the community that you give yourself over to, everyone's appearing okay, but it's like the mask is up. It's like they are actually not acting like themselves. They just don't realize it.

Okay, so after you leave a church or an organization or whatever, like after you leave and you sort of grieve maybe the community that you thought you had, or you grieve sort of that support system that you thought you had. Because the moment you're away, whether it's because Yahweh called you away, which is precisely what happened to me in the middle of the night, it's like you're leaving. And it was so real. I was living with my parents at the time. And it was so real that I woke my dad up at 3 o'clock in the morning and was like, hey, I'm leaving church. And he trusted Holy Spirit. Yeah. He trusted Holy Spirit in me. There was no panic in him saying, "Are you sure about this?" Or, you know, "Is that the right decision?" And I'm sort of going on a little trail there, but he trusted Holy Spirit and me that that is what I heard. And that was what I was supposed to do. So you go through that time period where you come to these realizations, sometimes difficult realizations, that maybe the support you thought you had was a little more superficial than what you knew. Or even the community. Yeah, the community that you thought you had, whatever takes you away. What if you have a sick family member and all of a sudden you're just kind of absent and not as involved as you were? What if Yahweh calls you out, thrusts you out? What if that's what— no matter what it is that sort of pulls you out of that, I mean, this has remained. Look, you know, this has remained. But you have to come to terms with maybe the truth that some relationships and some things that seemed like community or support system were very superficial. You can look at it and say, I'm not going to grieve something that wasn't real. I'm okay. Because I'm not going to grieve something that really didn't exist. And like I said, I'm just speaking for me, that that was part of the process for me was recognizing that.

It brings up the cycle of business as usual in church is so vicious. Yeah. And you have individuals that one, have the theology where I have to serve God at all times. Like my schedule has to be full. I have to continually be doing something. And there's this self-righteousness even in that of I have to earn my spot at the table pretty much.

Yeah.

That blueprint is not the blueprint we see in the Trinity. So when someone, let's say, like you said, is absent because life is happening.

Yes.

It's almost impossible for someone in that vicious system to like, oh, I need to reach out, or I need to like, am I reaching out because that's just what I do as a pastor or minister? That's a part of my 9 to 5, or do I honestly care to where my schedule is less important that I can go and contact this person? I just, I wanna say it because that cycle is so violent to be on that treadmill. That it's, it's— and, and, you know, I've walked in offense before of things happening in my life, and I didn't hear from so-and-so, and then I get mad at so-and-so. Even some of my friends that we've had since we've left the church, like, we're in constant communication because people want to come preach on your pulpit and they want to ride that wave or whatever, to not hearing anything. Oh, we got ghosted by a lot of people, and a My initial thought is I'm mad at that person, but now seeing how vicious that cycle is and that they honestly believe that they're doing what they're supposed to do, there's grace in that.

Yeah.

Well, and it sort of tracks with the necessary dismantling because what you thought was maybe real community or maybe what you thought was a real support system, that has to be dismantled in order for him to mediate real spiritual community and real life together family. Like in order for him to take you into that with him, that dance, the invitation into that dance, not only— listen, this is going to be an eternal thing because of Jesus and because this is mediated by Jesus Christ. This is an eternal thing that we're doing right now. And it's only possible because of him. So the dismantling was a necessary part. And like you said, there's such— I don't know, like, let me just throw out there, the more quickly you embrace that, the more quickly you embrace that dismantling of, okay, this is not what I thought it was. And let him break those bones and reset them. When you let him do that, the quicker you are about embracing that, let me tell you something, the next time it happens, because it will happen again, it's this ever-evolving thing that he's going to deconstruct and maybe break a bone or crush a bone here and reset it. The more quickly you're willing to embrace that, the next time around, it's there. You almost are gleeful in it. I know that sounds crazy. I know that sounds a little, but it almost, it lends itself to what you said about how we're so thankful for that time period. We actually, if we had to do it again, totally would. Sign me up. I would do it all over again.

Yeah. Hey, Caleb Panchaw here from the Wild Country. Again, I wanted to thank you for all that are listening and subscribing to this podcast. We really appreciate all the support. Did you know that we are launching a brand new community called the Wild Country Uncensored? As an online platform. On this platform, we can talk about a lot of things that normally YouTube and other platforms would censor. We'll have weekly lives, we'll have masterclasses, we'll have how-tos, we'll have a library of books and content that you can join. But most of all, we have accountability. People in this group hold each other accountable on our homesteading dreams. Our homeschooling dreams, and our content creating dreams. If you're interested in joining this community, sign up in the link in the show notes. We are launching this community in summer of 2025, which is this year. It's getting close. Pre-register now and find out more. So there's a lot of questions around the topic of loneliness. A lot of people feel lonely and isolated. Even in crowds of people.

Okay.

Um, so I'm trying to take all of the questions and make them into one that hits all that stuff. Uh, question I have is, what are the emotional and physical impacts of prolonged loneliness? We'll start with emotional first. Spiritual, emotional. What happens to an individual that stays in loneliness a long time?

Oh gosh, you can get really bitter. You can get— am I answering this right? You can get angry. Um, I mean, depression can come in. Just when you're lonely, it's the feeling of having nobody. It's the feeling of having nobody on your side. And I would if you're not in community with people, and yes, like, you have you and Yahweh, but if that loneliness sets in and you are looking at your loneliness from this lens of people, you start to see God as being far away too, and it's hard for you to reconcile that thought if you are not around people who are also bringing you in, if that makes I think inevitably you are going to start reaching for something.

You're just going to start reaching and grabbing and trying to create your own something or trying to— I've had really great conversations lately about loneliness and time periods in my life where I was lonely or felt isolated or felt— and our human nature and our knee-jerk reaction is to just reach for something. And let me tell you something. 100% of the time when that is why you're doing it, then you are reaching for the wrong thing and you are reaching for something that's not for you.

Especially those that like to hermit and do things on their own. They come to this concrete place where this is how it's supposed to be and they start defining good that way.

Oh yeah. Like this is what he's called me to.

Yeah.

He's called me to this. Yeah.

And then you're blind to what a more beautiful path is, because this is now your concrete definition of what good, what your calling is, what the path before you, that's what God's called me to do. And that's an issue. And I go back to the importance of the Trinity. It's not just the importance of their relationship, but that it always was. That there was never this— the Father didn't create Jesus out of loneliness. And there are theologies that say that, and he didn't create— why that's important is it means that our existence wasn't created out of a void. There wasn't this lack of within the Trinity to where loneliness propelled him to create the human race. It was the fruit of their relationship. It really makes war on the law of separation.

Yeah.

On I have to earn my way to God. And that's a really lonely place to be when you feel like God's away from you.

Mm-hmm.

That prolonged loneliness is a really hard place because it can be, like we talked about before, it can bring this sense of relief to where you like, this is where I'm supposed to do.

Yeah.

That's a very dangerous stability.

Lay my life on the altar.

Very false stability.

Stability. Yeah. There's no leaning in that mindset because he's not— who do I lean on?

And I think it's a— I'll call it a theology of distance. It's a theology of distance where I'm down here and He's up there and He's, and maybe He's aloof in this season and He's not near and He's, you know, there was a, there was a very marked moment. The day after I gave birth to Levi, the next morning, I was in the room all by myself and waiting for somebody to come stay with me and Christian was down in the NICU with Levi. And I noticed the next morning when I woke up, there was distance between myself and Father that I put there because things went sideways and they did not go how I thought they should, what I pictured. And I heard Holy Spirit very clearly say, "You can use this to put distance between us, but you can also use this to draw nearer to me than you ever have." That's what I chose. And the product of that was even in the midst of disappointment and questions that I will probably never have answers to, or the things that I felt robbed of in that experience, even in the midst of that, I saw and recognized his nearness and his dominion. His nearness, His being right there with me in the wind. There's so many times, myself included, you know, I'll throw myself under that bus too, where we would rather just be like, we would rather believe the distance. We would rather believe the theology of distance, that He's just, this is what He wanted me to go through because for some reason, and you know, you want something to make make sense. We need it to make sense.

Yeah.

And it's a powerful thing to, to be in a situation that even now doesn't make sense to me, but still recognize that he's good and that he— that, that his dominion was there. Yeah.

It's, it's really dangerous when the separation that you feel, you think is a result of your behavior, right? Because that's when you start getting into me and God are not on the same page. We're not good right now. So I need to somehow find myself back into his good graces to where that we can now commune again. You're not going to do that with other people. You're going to hermit away. You're going to take that path of loneliness. And what we have found out, even what we talked about last episode, is wholeness is not found in an individual state. There are things hidden in you, in you, in you. That's for me, that I find out about this dance. I mean, there's things in the dance that Father finds out because it's through the Son, it's through the Spirit. That's the blueprint.

Yeah.

So this separation, it causes fatigue of the soul. That's what I, I call it, where you just get to the point where you're just tired, and then you want it to make sense of why you feel the way that you do, because God cannot be here It can't be this bad and he still be here. Well, maybe he's in the room.

Yeah.

I think we're told sometimes, and I don't think it, I know we are. I know we've been told that we just need to contend with the suck. I don't know any other way to put it. We're told that we just have to just, it's not great now, it's going to be great on the other side. And You just need to be okay with how it is now. When that's the opposite of hope. And that's the opposite of what he's waiting for us to tap into, what he's waiting for us to discover about him and about the Trinity and about how that translates translates into relationship like this and now when he's waiting for us to just tap into that. Like you said, sometimes it's just easier.

Yeah, it's a lot easier. It's a lot. You don't want anybody seeing your mess either.

No.

Like, why would I want to be in community when I feel like I'm an idiot right now?

Well, and then there's that expectation you place on yourself of I need to have it all together. I've got to have it all together before I can do this.

Because you want the invite to the table. You think that you're not invited.

Well, you have to earn it.

Right.

You think you have to earn it. Sort of like when we talked about superficial, maybe the superficial community or the superficial support group that we had. So within that, it's not okay to come to somebody in honesty and like expose your neck and say, I need a break, or I'm struggling. Or, "Hey, I feel Holy Spirit sort of revealing some things to me that don't quite match up with what I'm hearing." That's not okay. Yeah. There's just this immediate response of like, "Oh no, you've got to keep on keeping on. You can't take a break. We gotta fight the good fight. You gotta finish the race." And those statements and those phrases have their place. I mean, absolutely. I'm not— I'm not discounting that. But within sort of that superficial, where it becomes works-driven, like you said, where you're all of a sudden you have to earn your place at the table, or there's distance between me and Father. So obviously, I'm going to have to do something to get back in. You know, it's sort of that works-driven mentality.

So you have the emotional side. Of loneliness. And then you also have a physical effect. Yeah. It actually influences your physical body. We've had many conversations about this. One example would be, I think, the Amish around COVID and how, and this is quoting an article that I read, that they would rather die in community than have to be in isolation. So that's why they wouldn't go to the hospital so that they all got COVID at the same time. You take communion together and you've got it. And they ended up building herd immunity in like 4 months. But it was beyond the data that was collected. It was the language that really stuck. I would rather die in community than have to go to the hospital and receive treatment in isolation because that's what it was. You couldn't have a room full of people in the COVID era. So I'm thinking of like, we can get really weird here, like frequencies. It's that there's frequencies that we're walking in that, and there was a study, can't remember the study that it was from, Sayurji, one of his books talking about, it's actually a podcast he was on. And he was talking— they had two— what's the scientific tubes, flasks, or test tubes, whatever? And they had DNA in each one, and one was developing a disease and the other was completely healthy. And through the tubes, the one that was healthy was transmitting and healing the other one in separate tubes. And I'm looking at even my agricultural background of trees and how even the trees are communicating with each other. If there's a pest that's entering into a forest, they will then communicate to the other trees like, hey, this is what's coming. So there's something happens to me when you guys are in the room that cannot happen unless you guys are in the room. Shouting, that means I'm starting to preach.

There's this aspect. It's like wholeness. It's aspects of this inner healing that you can't put your finger on and you can't point and say, this person did this, or I did this to myself. There's no self-effort, if that makes sense, to make it happen. And so we come together and even our DNA is communicating to one another. And healing things like maybe generational things we did not even know were out of order. And it won't even matter, like we don't have to sit and like dissect it and analyze it and like, you know, what's easy for us to believe that we can make people sick.

I don't know why it's so hard that we can make people well, right? Through presence, through just being in the room, through someone touching the robe of his garment. But that's Jesus. Well, we're invited into that realm. So what he can do, we can do.

Well, when you said that earlier about time and how nobody really likes to have the conversation about time isn't a factor and there's not an urgency anymore, but that goes against our nature. I think that what Christa just said about there may be generational things that's been across generations that through this community, because he is the God who inhabits eternity, because time isn't a thing, that right now in this community, in the present, he is correcting things across generations within me. We were meant to operate in that. We were meant to— it's almost one of those things that's that is so up there, I get frustrated when I think about it. Because I want it. I want to grasp this. So it's like you said, there can be— it's not that you're sitting down and listing it all and talking about it and dissecting it and, you know, but just because we are doing life together through Jesus Christ, there are things across generations that are being healed. And changed. And that blows, that blows my mind. That, I'm sure it'll, I mean, that whole concept is mind-blowing in terms of past, present, and future not being a thing.

Yeah. Yeah. In terms of physical, like you hear people like, I'm gonna go find myself.

Yeah.

Can't.

Yeah.

You can't do that. Community is there for you to find yourself because you are attached to the body of Christ. You're in that relationship with the triune God where you're moving towards one another. So it's a dumb statement to say you're individual in that. That just doesn't work. So you're not going to find who you are and be the best version of you and then go find community. No, there's this invitation for you to be intentional right where you are right now in the mess that you think that you're in and allow people to see behind the curtain.

Yeah, I think we had a discussion one time, this, and this has been several years ago when you all lived at your at your other house, where it felt very— there was a weightiness to it. And I think that I had shared with you all that I knew that our destinies were, were intertwined. This is just our— we're moving forward. I know that our destinies are intertwined. So you fast forward to that time period when we aren't together, we're not hanging out, we're not spending time time together. We're not doing life together. There's no community. But I still knew that and held to it because I was stuck. I was stuck because of exactly what Caleb said about there's something in you, Christa, that brings some wholeness to me. And there's something in this spiritual community that he has given us access to and gifted to us that brings a wholeness. And I knew that, and I held to that even in the really tough times and even in the times where I thought I had adapted. And there was a relief there because I knew, I knew that to be true.

It's hard to know, to know you.