Michele Davis  00:03

You are listening to the Created For Podcast.

We believe that everyone was created to make a unique impact in the world.

Created For is a podcast exploring ideas around purpose, calling and discovering how God is inviting you to influence the world in your own way right now. I’m your host, Michele Davis. In this episode, Chris Ghubril and I interview Rich Villodas. Rich is the pastor of New Life Church in Queens, New York. And he is the author of the book, “The Deeply Formed Life,” which is, no joke, one of the best books I read last year. And this is actually the second time Rich has been on our podcast. So we’ll link in the show notes that first episode from 2021. And here’s your warning guys, buckle up. Because like a roller coaster track, we are going to go deep, fast, into some really hard things. But I think one of the great things about this conversation is Rich helps us navigate difficult conversations and division and strife with an eye to how we can walk with Jesus and love our neighbor in the midst of all of that.

Rich, welcome back to the Created For Podcast. We are all so excited to hear more from you and are just really thankful. Thankful to have you back this year.

Rich Villodas  01:30

Well, thanks for the kind invitation. And yes, I look forward to talking about all things related to the spiritual life and then some.

Michele Davis  01:40

We’re going to go into all of that. But first I do want to hear a little bit more about what’s life right now. If you want to look out your window at Queens, how is life going out there?

Rich Villodas  01:54

Oh, Queens now … well, you caught us on a great day. It’s sunny, it’s mid-50s. We just had some really cold weather just a week ago … Which I’ve lived in New York all my life, and I cannot get used to it, the terribleness of the cold weather. But besides that, I mean, New York City in some ways … I mean, we’re recording this in the beginning of February of 2022, years after the start of the pandemic, and it feels like we are really far emotionally from where we were just a couple of years ago. So in a sense, I feel as if we are entering something new. There’s a hopefulness, I think, in the midst of still grief and tragedy and loss, and still trying to navigate a new reality where tensions are still before us, and not just in Queens, but seems like all over our country and different parts of the world. But today, it’s a nice day in Queens.

Michele Davis  03:05

Gosh! Isn’t that just life right now? We can choose to celebrate in the simple joy of a sunny day and what could be a terrible weather month, but also not too far below the surface is a lot of difficult realities?

Rich Villodas  03:21

Yes, well, when looking at what is happening globally in the world, in Ukraine and Russia. And I mean, that [crosstalk 03:28] global reality, the ongoing challenges economically that people are having. It’s unrelenting, and yes, it’s the simple joys I think that carry us from one day to the next.

Chris Ghubril  03:43

That’s good.

Michele Davis  03:44

Well, we are all huge fans of your first book, “The Deeply Formed Life.” In fact, when you were speaking at our live event last year, the Created For live event about two minutes into your talk, I just turned to Amazon and ordered it. Because the full story here, I need to know all the things that you had to teach us. But you recently finished a new book called “Becoming Whole in a Fractured World.” And obviously, even from what we just talked about already, you know, the world is really fractured. I get that. I see that. But what does it really mean to be whole? What is your definition of this wholeness? That is the goal of your book.

Rich Villodas  04:30

Yes, thank you. I think the title of it is “Good and Beautiful and Kind.” And the subtitle is “Becoming Whole in a Fractured World.” And the title I think, gets at the wholeness piece because it actually emerges that title from a poem from Langston Hughes, the great African American poet, and Hughes wrote a poem called “Tired” — it’s one of my favorite poems of Hughes. And the poem goes like this, he says, “I am so tired of waiting, aren’t you for the world to become good and beautiful and kind, let us knife and cut the world in two and see what worms are eating at the rind.”

And what Hughes does there, I essentially build the book out of … I don’t really reference the poem too much. But that’s the starting point for me. Hughes gets at the longing, the ache that we all have for a good and beautiful and kind world. And what He invites us to do is to … it is quite an image to take a knife, cut the world in two, and what he’s getting at there is not simply trying to create another category for divisiveness, what he’s trying to do is get beneath the surface. What are the worms that are destroying our personal lives, our shared lives together, the world at large? And so wholeness … The way I think about wholeness in a few ways, I think about it in terms of living lives of integrity, I think living lives of where we are of intimacy, and by that I’m talking about loving well, and I’m also thinking about holding together aspects of our lives that are often compartmentalized, often separated from one another.

And so wholeness is about this interconnectedness, integrity, intimacy. At its core, wholeness is about how do we life well. And I think that’s something in each generation that we have to relearn and rediscover and reimagine: what does it mean to love God with our heart, soul, mind and strength, that’s language of wholeness, and to love neighbor as ourselves, and to not keep it in the realm of ambiguity and generalities, but to talk about it very specifically, for the particular time and place that we find ourselves in? And so that’s really the essence for me of what I think about wholeness and what I’m trying to get at with this new book.

Chris Ghubril  07:08

And that’s amazing. As I’m hearing that wholeness is other-centered, it’s like you’re considering others more significantly than yourself like that Philippians 2 passage, and then diagnosing that looking at the worms, what’s eating this alive? How do you talk about diagnosing the worms eating us without causing more division?

Rich Villodas  07:30

Yes, it’s often the case that to talk about the worms, it gets, we get to see more problems than the worms itself. And that’s what happens in the nature of our world, where to actually point out the problem sometimes becomes the deeper problem for some people. You know, when I, when I think about how to use the metaphor of the worms, of what’s eating away at our personal and collective life together, I could have gone in so many different directions. But what I wanted to do was offer a theological and a formational framework to address some of the forces that are behind the fractures of our world. There’s so many. And we could look at it in so many different ways sociologically, politically, but I’m a pastor, I wrestle with theology, I want to get a little bit more subterranean than that. And so what I’m trying to do is, look at three forces, really, behind the fractures of us, where are the worms eating away at our lives.

And what I do is I touch on the category of sin, the category of powers and principalities, and the category of trauma. And I think our inability to wrestle with these three aspects of the brokenness in the fallenness of our world actually has us addressing maybe more surface issues than if we were to get down beneath the surface, you would say, Oh, yes, the issue that we have here is a sin problem. But the way that I talk about sin is not simply about violating a moral code. The way I talk about sin in the book is a failure to love well, that if the greatest commandment is to love the Lord with your heart, soul, mind and strength and love your neighbor as yourself, then the greatest impediment to that must be sin. Therefore, sin must be a failure to love well. And that’s my contention. I think that sin at its core is about a failure to love, not simply about a failure to live up to a particular standard, a moral code or a command at the core, and the essence of it is love.

And so I think if we can begin to have fresh language for this ancient category of sin as well as to talk about the larger forces that are at work, you know, powers and principalities, that there’s something beyond us that’s at work in the world. And with our Western sensibilities and the more educated we get it seems the less we have a category for powers and principalities. But there are forces out there that are at work in the world that are causing lots of fractures. And I think we need fresh language for that. And then with sin and powers and principalities, it does create a traumatized world in which we become wounded wounders. And so because of the level of trauma that people are experiencing, capital-T and lowercase-t trauma, we find ourselves just increasingly fractured and broken. So those are some of the worms that I’m trying to get at.

Chris Ghubril  10:53

Yo, pastor, you are ministering to my soul. And just your definition already, man, this is challenging good stuff.

Michele Davis  10:59

Absolutely. Yes, I feel like we’re definitely going to keep talking about more things. But just those nuggets right there just feel so deep and profound to me and to even see how you’re teasing now that all three of those things are at work: sin, the powers and principalities, trauma, and in that it gets kind of tangled. Right? So, there’s some times where, you know, what’s the driving force of this issue might be a trauma, someone’s experience, and someone comes in and is like, you’re just in sin. Am I like, following the train of thought, well? Or is there more understanding about how these interwork or how we label them important in this discussion?

Rich Villodas  11:49

Absolutely. I think when we’re thinking about the fractures of our society, the polarization, the inability to love well, so much of it emerges from our sense of woundedness. And so we come in with various categories. But I often begin with our sense of woundedness. That’s because we live in a society that does not love well because of sin, because of the powers of the world. Much of our interactions are with people who have experienced some form of trauma and woundedness. And if there is anyone who should be really good at identifying this category of woundedness, it shouldn’t be Christians because we follow a wounded savior.

Salvation emerges through the woundedness of Jesus’s body. And so if, if there’s anyone who should be wrestling with this language, it should be Christians, which is why whenever I’m in a conflict with someone, and certainly I don’t want to say I do this well every single time, but I tried to be consciously aware, whenever someone wounds me, whenever someone is very emotionally reactive. My first question that I’m asking myself is, I wonder where is their woundedness and trauma emerging from this reaction? Because truly, I think our inability to hold space with one another, our tendency to be driven by emotionality and reactivity, flows out of some form of woundedness.

I think about Stanley Hauerwas had a conversation, he wrote a book and from time to time I recognize the challenge of quoting people who have experienced moral failures. But he wrote a book with a guy named Jean Vanier, who sadly made some … who wounded a lot of people.

But in their book, a book on gentleness. Hauerwas said, which, in hindsight, sounds really bad. But I think the nugget here is really important where he said, where Vanier, where I would see an enemy to be conquered, he would see a wound that needed to be healed. And I think, let’s just look at that statement for a second and try to isolate it from the people who said it. It’s often the case when we’re in conflict with people, we see someone to be conquered as opposed to wounds that need to be healed, fears that need to be addressed, unresolved matters within our own souls that need to be tended to.

It was Robert Stolorow who’s a psychiatrist who said that, “Developmental trauma often happens because emotional pain cannot find the relational home.” And I think most of the times, we find ourselves wounding one another because we have not experienced that kind of relational home to have our emotional pain situated in, and so I often begin with talking or thinking about … as a pastor, I’m always thinking about trauma and the woundedness that people … I have counseled way too many people to not take that seriously, people are wounded and they’re hurting. And it’s often the case that because we don’t tend to these things, we just transmit it to others. But then sin I think is a starting place as well. I mean, I don’t think there is this right or wrong answer here, I just often think we need multiple angles to come against or to recognize the various fractures that we’re experiencing.

Michele Davis  15:38

That makes sense. And I like what you said about we should be able to identify woundedness, because we follow a wounded savior. And thinking about how complete is Jesus’s salvation to free us from all three of these things, from sin, from the powers and principalities, and from trauma. That makes a lot of sense. And it makes a lot of sense to me now as we’re talking in this environment, inside my house. But walk me through a scenario where I go outside to my actual neighborhood, and I see a triggering political sign, or I overhear a conversation on the playground that just something that makes my eyes get big, you know, I’m not going to get specific because I think we all have a thing out there, right? And so in that moment, what could I choose to do in that moment, to try to have this whole wound-to-be-healed more my category instead of enemy-to-be-conquered? Because to be honest, like my first reaction is to kind of conquer the enemy, because it feels so threatening. Right?

Rich Villodas  16:50

You know, when I think about trying to address the many different ways that we see the world, which often lead to the perpetuation of these fractures, I think there’s no one size fits all here. Because the way I addressed this interpersonally is different than how I might address it institutionally. And so if I see an institution, and the power is at work, they’re dehumanizing people, you know, I might respond differently than to my neighbor. So if I see a neighbor that sees an issue way differently than I do, my first response, I hope it to be … Sometimes it’s not, but sometimes it is … is curiosity, really.

I think in family systems theory, there’s a wonderful term called “Differentiation.“ And differentiation really works well in interpersonal relationships, and my definition of it, where I’m borrowing from lots of people who have been experts in this, but my definition of differentiation is the process of remaining close and curious to God, to my neighbor and myself in times of high anxiety, and resisting the polar opposite pull to cut people off or to fuse into them. There’s lots there. But those words, curiosity is really important. And most people are not curious.

Most people don’t wonder, Hey, I wonder how that person came to that conclusion. I wonder what has been forming this person for years? I wonder what sense of fears and anxieties and woundedness has driven this person to come to this conclusion about this issue? And I think if we interpersonally, if we were to begin with our family members and our friends in that way, with curiosity, with good questions, I do think we will begin to see some of the wholeness that we’re yearning for.

Now, when we’re talking about larger institutions in the ways that they’re wielding power in ways that are really causing harm, and damage, I’m not sure if I’m trying to think about curiosity. I think at that point, I’m trying to declare truth of what the gospel says, and try to expose the powers for what they are. But I think interpersonally so much of our challenges is because we have tried to approach people in the same ways that we approach institutions, and I think there’s something amiss there because the way I talked about the ways that larger institutional forces perpetuate the fractures in our world is different than how I talked to my neighbor. And I think our inability to discern the difference leads to the ongoing fractures in our society.

Chris Ghubril  19:56

Yo, that’s good. You got me thinking like that great theologian Ted Lasso, stay curious. Man, just stay curious.

Rich Villodas  20:09

One of my favorite scenes in Ted Lasso.

Michele Davis  20:13

I love a good pop-culture theology crossover, it’s so good.

Chris Ghubril  20:19

Rich, you serve as a pastor in one of the most diverse cities. In America, you have a very multicultural and multi-ethnic Church, which are two very different things: multicultural, multi ethnic, two very different things. And I think that your church website is talking about how you have 75 countries represented, which is amazing, I love that. But you must encounter a lot of different disagreements, some of them, you know, cultural values that just are both neutral, but just clash, some of them not so neutral. And that’s not just clashes. How have you seen like disagreements and differences played out in your community and have you shepherded people through them?

Rich Villodas  21:00

You know, I’ve seen it in three ways. And the three ways kind of outlined in that definition of differentiation, whatever conflict emerges, which is not a normal reality for every community, what makes it more complex in our context is, again, as you mentioned, we have 75 nations represented, it’s a multi-generational church. It’s a church where people from different income brackets, class, if you will. And so it’s very complicated. And then we have the political diversity of our congregation, where lots of people think, you know, New York is this liberal city. You know, Manhattan might be that, but Queens is much more diverse. So, you know, even for the last election, I would say probably 30% voted for Trump in our context, 30% voted for Biden, probably 20%, you know, another candidate, 5% probably wrote in Spider Man, because he’s from Queens, and so it is very complex.

And so three ways that I think people respond. Number one is by cutting off, there have been a bunch of people who left their church the last couple of years, and sometimes I knew they were leaving, sometimes I discovered it on Facebook, sometimes someone let me know, you know, so-and-so doesn’t come to our church anymore. You know, when I say, hey, why don’t we have so-and-so lead this ministry or what have you. Oh, they don’t come to our church anymore. Oh, when did this happen? You know, some folks cut off.  Other folks, they don’t cut off, but they fuse and they disappear when conflict emerges. I can’t tell you how many conversations I’ve had with people. And this is for many different reasons. Part of it is just power differentials. They don’t want to talk to the pastor or say anything bad about the pastor or disagree about the pastor. And in a church where, you know, 50% of Queens is foreign born.

So we have lots of first generation immigrants at New Life that hold the pastor in high esteem. So some folks are not going to speak truthfully to me about things that they might not see. And so they might fuse, or disappear. But I think the third way, and I like to think that a good portion of our congregation operates in this way in which they are able to hold on to themselves and remain close to others in relationship. A lot of that emerges because we have worked hard over 35 years of being a congregation to have our lives marked by emotional health. You know, my predecessors, a guy named Pete Gazero, and he wrote a number of books on emotionally healthy spirituality. And, you know, part of that is giving language and theology to our congregation about how to negotiate our difference as well. About how to pay attention to what’s happening inside of you, how to pay attention to language, and what are the kinds of skills and language that we need to love well, so we’ve worked really hard over these years to equip our people to navigate difficult circumstances. And so we’re not doing it perfectly. But I like to think we’re doing it pretty well over here in Queens and some, yes, have cut off, some have disappeared. But I’d like to think a good percentage of our congregation is navigating these tensions well because of the ways that we’ve tried to disciple and equip people over the years.

Michele Davis  24:44

I just want to clarify, I mean, I’m picking up that the cutting off and disappearing are both really not the goal and you want people to stay and be close. But I think I’m not sure is the disappear people who are kind of still around but they’re closing off emotionally or … do you know what I mean?

Rich Villodas  25:01

Yes, what often happens to use that kind of languages of a fusion, of disappearing, of another word for enmeshment, where you no longer have or give yourself the voice. Now, for some time, our job at New Life, at our congregation … multiple jobs … One job is to help people find their voice, to declare themselves, to identify particular values that live inside of them, hopefully shaped by the gospel. And to give them the freedom to articulate most things, hopefully, in ways that are truthful and filled with grace and all the rest there. But most people disappear, and one simple way of thinking about it is people who are fused, enmeshed, who disappear, never assert themselves or allow themselves to declare their opinion or their preference on something. And so “Hey, did you see that movie? It was great, wasn’t it? You know, you hated it.” “Oh, yes, it was fantastic. Oh, it was great.” As opposed to, “I didn’t like it, actually.” So that’s a very simple example. But how do we get people to begin to declare themselves? That’s one of our tasks at New Life and then at the other, we’re trying to help people to do it in such a way where it is going to promote wholeness and promote love and promote reconciliation and promote justice and kindness. So for some, we need to help them find their voice; for others, we have to help them use their voice in a way that’s going to be for the building up of the community.

Chris Ghubril  26:44

As you’re talking about creating spaces for people to feel safe, to feel heard, that, that’s refreshing. And in the same age, as we just observe what’s going on in the world around us, various institutions, various things happening. And then I don’t even think of, like, everyone’s got that auntie or uncle who … just say this nicely, they view the world with a certain shade of color to their lensing, and they define truth is not truth, or they define not truth as truth. How do you navigate that? How do you create spaces for people who differ over what is true?

Rich Villodas  27:31

Now, here’s the thing about it, if I can nuance a bit, coming back to that language, the differentiation is getting close and curious, to God, to others, to myself in times of high anxiety, or high disagreement. I’m not saying that there’s not a time to distance and create boundaries. But the issue is, am I doing it out of a place of reactivity and emotionality? Or am I doing it out of a place of careful, prayerful thought. It’s usually the case that when we notice difference of opinions with others, or we’re noticing, “Wow, this person is thinking about this and that they’re way off here.” The primary impulse in us is to do everything we can to distance ourselves. Whether that’s on social media, I’m going to block you, whether that’s unfriend you, whether that’s on that coming up over for Thanksgiving, whether it’s whatever, that’s the natural impulse.

But truth be told, there are times when, because there’s such a radical difference in how we see the world, and that you might be seeing the world in such a way that your value is my demise, or what you think or what you hold dear ultimately leads to me being injured in some way. And at that point, as an act of self-care, as an act of recognizing my own limits, I might have to create a boundary. But that is done out of … again, the key word is it’s not done out of reactivity, is not done as out of emotionality out of, you know … I’m making this decision. Have you thought about it? No, I haven’t thought about it. And why this, this is important that I create distance, it’s just, I cannot stomach this person anymore. And so love requires that level of thoughtfulness. And it might be that I have to create distance.

Listen — there’s some people, you know, from time to time, I see folks who don’t like what I say, some people just don’t like my book, and they’re creating a video on it and why this is terrible teaching or whatever it is. And they’re following me, and I remember seeing someone recently just following me on social media, and they’re putting together these videos about me. And at some point I was thinking, “Wow, these are some real hurtful things here, I am now going to create a boundary here with this person.” And that was done out of me, not just, Oh, I didn’t like it, I’m gonna … I gave it some thought. And I think that’s the key thing here. How do we step out of ourselves, out of our own reactivity and emotionality?

Sometimes it does require that, sadly, and this is a part of grief that I think we have to hold on to. There are some relationships, that no matter what we do, and how we approach the person, it’s not going to lead to the kind of relational wholeness that we longed for. And so the next step is how do we grieve well? How do we do our best to love even in that moment, knowing that love is not a … you know, the hard thing about love is we often romanticize it, and sensationalize it. And so it has to look this way. And if it doesn’t look this way, you know, there’s some problem. The reality is because of the sinful world we live in, there are always going to be fractures that are so deep, we’re going to have to wait for Jesus to figure this whole thing out at the end of all of human history. And so the work for us then is to grieve our losses, in so many ways where relationships that we thought had a chance that they didn’t. And that’s something I have to go to God with in prayer, reflection, and in grief.

Chris Ghubril  31:25

That’s challenging, that’s hard. There’s a lot to grieve, especially if it’s like a close familial relationship.

Rich Villodas  31:34

Which is what we’ve seen over the past couple of years, haven’t we, because of COVID, because of political idolatry, because of racial hostility and injustice, we have seen friendships that were so near and dear to us. People that we thought, wait a second, I mean, we had dinner together, our kids hung out with one another. And now we’re at an impasse where, how do we get beyond this, and then we come to a place where we realize it doesn’t seem as if this is can be saved here. And I think at that point, it’s painful. And I think this is where we need the language of grief and loss to help us navigate some of those spaces.

Chris Ghubril  32:16

Sure.

Michele Davis  32:18

I think that at least that brings to mind specific relationships and conversations and things. And it is hard to think about someone who I assumed for so long thought like I thought about all the things and through the past couple years, realize, we see this issue so differently. And so I like what you said about fracture so deep, we’ll have to wait for Jesus to figure it out. Because I think a lot of us do feel like we probably have at least one relationship or one situation that is like that.

Rich Villodas  33:04

I think all can account for at least one. When most people experience that level of disorientation and divisiveness, I think it either leads us to trying to deny our differences and try to make things work out with a kind of false peace. Where I’ll stay close to you here, but I’m going to do everything I can to not identify the ways that the way I see the world is different. And I recognize a lot of people do that. And some, you know, I don’t want to go into all the minutiae and the nuances of it, but I’m not sure how sustainable that is or the idea is, you know, I’m going to do everything I can to avoid this person at all costs. But again, the key thing here though, is back to that reactivity, and emotionality. How do I do it from a place of prayerful thoughtfulness and then recognizing some things just need to be grieved?

Chris Ghubril  34:08

Changing gears just a little bit here, but you’ve mentioned prayerful consideration. And something that I have been blessed by has been, like, during the season of COVID, you facilitated online prayer teachings and gatherings, and I have loved your tweets or Instagram posts about, like, allowing for boredom in prayer, allowing for silence in prayer. What motivated you to disciple the church in this way through prayer?

Rich Villodas  34:39

Yes, I think it came first of all out of experience, and then out of experience, theology. Sometimes it happens with people where it begins with theology and it leads to experience, sometimes it leads to some kind of encounter you had with God, and then you identify the theology that coincides with that experience. And so for me, I mean, I think, number one: when I became a Christian, I was being discipled by my grandfather, who was a holy man of God, and just witnessing his life and prayer did something to me. You know, some things are taught, some things are caught, and thankfully he did both with me. I was able to catch some stuff that was on him just by watching him.

And he was able to help me to make sense of my life with God as a 19-year-old when I became a Christian, soon after that, having encounters with God at these monasteries, in college, you know, going to a retreat and having extended time with God in silence, which I would just say, it didn’t always feel good. And there were times when I was incredibly bored, and I’m crushing ants and taking naps. And I’m doing everything the professor said I wasn’t supposed to do at this final retreat, I was supposed to be paying attention to Jesus. And you know, there are times where I was just getting incredibly distracted. But I think having those extended periods of prayerful, guided silence, especially early on in my Christian journey, whet my appetite for more and more and more.

So I think it began in that place. And then just reading, whether it’s the Desert Fathers, whether it’s people from the contemplative tradition, whether it’s people who have prized solitude and silence and meditation and prayer, and then it really does help, I would just say this when I was 20 years old, coming to New Life Fellowship Church where I serve as the lead pastor now, it did help that my predecessor was someone who was writing extensively on this as well and creating a culture of it. And so through his discipleship, his mentoring and his modeling, that went even deeper in me. And so, you know, I feel like Eugene Peterson once said that “The primary task of a pastor is to teach people how to pray.”

And I think that makes sense, because that’s the only thing the disciples asked Jesus to teach them. They don’t ask him how to prophesy or preach. They say, “Can you teach us how to pray?” That’s the only thing they asked him to teach them. And I think my job as a pastor is to do the same, to train people, to have a life with God, to not live off of the spirituality of someone else, to not live off of these sermons, to not live off of the worship set. To have those things add to their already deep life with God.

So yes, I mean, my grandfather, some theologians, my predecessor at New Life, all of these relationships have really oriented me towards prayer as like my primary … listen this is my primary calling in life with God is to pray, and to teach others to do the same.

Michele Davis  38:10

That makes sense. I bet I’d never thought of it like that before about both in prayer, being a chief job of a pastor to teach that and thinking about what the disciples did ask Jesus to teach them about prayer. And so when I think about my own life, the external world just does come more naturally for me, it makes like the talking and the people and the showing up to the places and stuff, but I always thought maybe it was just my personality, but maybe it’s a common thing, but I really struggled to have, like, my inner world have focus or to have like depth in that. And when I hear you talk about the monastic tradition, that’s intriguing. And also, I don’t want to have to become a monk to get there. So where’s the middle ground that extroverted me can live?

Rich Villodas  39:05

Great question. Well, two things:

I would say that introverts don’t have it easier because people mix up prayer for introversion, and there are plenty of people who are introverts who struggle with prayer. Here’s the thing to struggle with. Prayer is not an introvert extrovert thing. It’s a human thing. No matter where you are on the spectrum. For me, I am an extrovert. I love being with people. I love having people over for a party. I love it. But I’ve known that I’ve needed to cultivate this part of prayer and part of it is there are a few things that are harder than prayer. And I think when Jesus says to take up our cross and to follow Him, I think that means a whole lot of things. But certainly part of that is about doing the hard stuff spiritually, and prayer is hard stuff.

So for me, whenever I take time to pray, and I would just say, the vast majority of the time that I pray, I don’t want to pray. It’s not like … I’m like, Ooh, Oh, I just feel like praying right now. I can’t think, I mean, 5% maybe of the time. I go, I feel like really praying right now, usually, my prayer is out of two things. Deep necessity because I find myself so irritated or so moody or so triggered by something as I realized I better get to God in prayer. So it’s either out of necessity, or out of a sense of obedience. I know I’m called to a life with God and prayer. And so I want to give myself to that. But prayers, rarely, I just feel like praying today. That’s what I normalize. I rarely feel that yet. I know to be a follower of Jesus calls me to it. And so as an act of obedience, I want to give myself to that kind of life with God.

Michele Davis  41:20

That’s helpful.

Rich Villodas  41:22

So you don’t have to become a monk, but I do think there are some monastic elements that we need day to day to sustain our life with God.

Michele Davis  41:36

Okay, this analogy pops in my mind, for example, like, I might learn something from the training regimen of an Olympic athlete, but I’m just not going to be an Olympian. That’s okay.

Rich Villodas  41:52

To learn to be an Olympian, I mean, I’ll never become an Olympian. But there are certain things I want to glean from. And you don’t have to become a monk to learn and benefit from the riches of the monastic life.

Chris Ghubril  42:06

That’s good. I think that’s the principle. That’s good.

Michele Davis  42:10

I really like that.

Chris Ghubril  42:12

Yes. And I resonate deeply with … sometimes my deepest prayers come out of being triggered or something that I go to the Lord often be like, Lord, give me patience with my four-year-old.

Michele Davis  42:22

Oh, my Gosh.

Chris Ghubril  42:23

I got to get this. I can’t react out of my emotions.

Rich Villodas  42:26

Yes. I get it.

Michele Davis  42:31

Yes, okay, this has been a such a deep and encouraging conversation. Rich, thank you so much. Before we let you go today, I do want to ask you one final question that we are actually asking everyone this season on the Created For Podcast. And that is, I’m wondering if you have an invitation for our listeners, if they’re wanting to take their next step related to discovering what God created them for, like what He created them to be or belong to, or all these things like, the element of finding your next step. What might your invitation be for our listeners?

Rich Villodas  43:12

Yes, I think … Okay, two things. Can I get two next steps here, two ideas?

Michele Davis  43:17

Sure. Yeah, totally.

Rich Villodas  43:18

One flows out of the life of John the Baptist. And John the Baptist is one of my favorite characters in Scripture, because he had a really clear sense of who he was and who he wasn’t. And I think part of our journey of discerning what’s next, what does God have for me, requires us to wrestle deeply with that. Who am I? And who am I not? That comes out of the Gospel of John, where they go, “Hey, Are you Elijah? Are you this? Are you that?” He goes, “I’m not that, I’m not that, I’m not the Messiah. I’m a voice crying out in the wilderness.” And so I think, to take the next step in our own journeys with God requires us, and that’s takes work. Because it’s often the case, I want to be something that I’m not because it’s more attractive, it’s flashy, It’s sexier, it’s nicer. I want to be those things. But I think it requires us if we’re honest with ourselves, to live with integrity: who am I not, and who am I?

And then, secondly, ever since I heard, I remember there’s a guy named Robert Barron. He said,

“When we’re trying to discern what’s next for us, we’re trying to discern the will of God.” A great question to ask ourselves is, which path makes me most generous? And I’m not just talking about money, talking about my life, my time, my energy, which path makes me most generous, and I think that those people are trying to figure out what’s the next step in their life with God? Where are you moved to more generosity? I think that might be a good hint about where God might want you.

Michele Davis  44:52

Woah! You guys, I am just still struck by what Rich described as fracture so deeply. We will have to wait for Jesus to figure it out. And holding that intention with the reality that we are called to love, to love our neighbor, to love our brothers and sisters in Christ, and that God has told us that the world will know we are Christians by the love that we demonstrate. So I’m just so thankful for Rich’s prophetic word and his mission and helping us to be people who can be good and beautiful and kind and loving. You can preorder his next book, which is called “Good and Beautiful and Kind: Becoming Whole in a Fractured World” today. It’s available for preorder and will be delivered in July. And we are re-releasing his talk that he did for the Created For event in March. It should be up on our website right now. Just go to cru.org/createdfor/watch.

Created For is hosted and produced by Cru. If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe, rate or review it wherever you listen. For more resources to continue your journey to living out your impact. Check out the show notes on our website cru.org/createdfor and follow us on Instagram @_createdfor.

Thanks for listening.