Where You're Going

John Liddle:

Welcome into the Where You’re Going Podcast. I’m John Liddle, your host. Thank you so much for being here. We believe so strongly that it’s not about where you’ve been, it’s not about where you are right now, even. It is about where you’re going and who you’re becoming. And we are just starting this journey together. Episode three of the podcast, and I’ve gotten so much awesome feedback from you along the way on the opening episode, of course, the Chris Mycoskie episode, Episode Zero, “Pray for Hannah. And then my friend Jeremy Baus talking about identity, talking about worthiness, talking about why it is so important. That is a difficult discussion to have. But, man, my friend Jeremy just does a great job of being undaunted by that and still stepping into it. And a lot of it, when we start talking about these subjects that are so difficult to get past the surface on, it just takes some vulnerability. And Jeremy is vulnerable, and I just want to praise that in him. I’m so thankful for him. I want to introduce you today to Eric Sommerhauser, another one of my friends who helped me so much as especially I was hit by that two by four of realizing my marriage was falling apart. And a lot of it was placed on my shoulders. A lot of it had to do with me. I did not know exactly where to turn at that moment, but I knew who to turn to. I knew to turn to God and need to turn to my relationship with Jesus, but I just was not in a great spot in that immediate moment. I was going to church at the time. I had a relationship with Jesus, but it was not submitted and surrendered. There were things going on inside my heart that I just was not giving up. And on top of that, you’ve got all these things that you’re not giving up, and then those become the cause of your significant other wanting a divorce. And it just absolutely hits the fan, doesn’t it? And so I called up my church. Love my church. It is awesome. I just wasn’t very involved at the time. I didn’t have many relationships, really any relationships whatsoever. And I needed relationships in a hurry. I needed to talk to somebody. I needed some guidance. And God brought Eric Sommerhauser into my view. We sat down. It was on a Monday night, right before I went to Circles group, probably the same day I met Jeremy. I met Eric just a little bit earlier in the day. And Eric just made space for me. He made space for me to cry. He heard what was going on in my life. He heard how I wanted to change it. He sat with me. He understood. And in this incredibly gentle but profound and specific intentional way, he started to turn my eyes to what really mattered. He started to turn my eyes toward the things that I could control in the situation. And that was my actions and my heart and how I was going to treat my wife as long as she was my wife and after she was my ex-wife as well. And also just got me to start thinking about some of these concepts about our heart and doing things with our whole heart. And whenever I think about Eric Sommerhauser, I think about the fight for my heart. So please enjoy this conversation with my incredible friend and I call him my mentor, Eric Sommerhauser. Eric, thank you so much for being on the show.

Eric Sommerhauser:

Of course, man. I’m super excited to get to do this, John.

John Liddle:

Oh, man, I’m excited too. And I just was kind of reflecting with Jeremy, and this is a great chance to just reflect back because the first time I met you, I am sitting there on a couch, literally in tears, just I don’t know what to do. And you are a pastor, you are a shepherd. You are somebody that speaks to people in their lowest moments. What are the things that you try to remember when you’re talking to somebody and they’re in that lowest moment?

Eric Sommerhauser:

We talk about something called a “ministry of presence.” What I mean by that is it says Jesus came into your neighborhood with grace and truth, that Jesus was called Emmanuel: God with us. That there’s this ministry that we get to carry that’s about just the ministry of being present, just being with someone when they are in their most broken state, when they are hurting the most, when they’re going through tragedy or a mess of their own making sometimes, right? A mess of their own making, which I think you, John, might admit you found yourself absolutely that you had created. And the worst thing, there’s nothing to fix. There’s nothing to solve. There’s really sometimes, John, nothing to say except to listen and to be present and to just remind someone that they’re valuable. And I think we do that just by listening sometimes. We do that just by sitting with sometimes to just literally sit three feet away from somebody, to have just the eye contact, just to have someone that’s with you that you know is for you. I mean, you can speak into it. But I know from my own personal experience, John, of my own low moments, that the things that have changed me the most is not something I can remember someone told me necessarily. It’s not advice that I got. It was the people that made me feel loved when I knew I was unlovable or I thought I was unlovable or I thought I’d messed everything up, or I thought there’s no way Eric Sommerhauser can come back. It’s the way that someone made me feel, not anything they had to say. I can’t remember sometimes all those things, but I never forget how someone made me feel. And so really, my priority with any person that’s going through something is just, again, what I would call a ministry of presence, of just being with and for someone. And if we go on a journey together, all the other stuff will come along the way, if that makes sense.

John Liddle:

Of course it does, and I think that’s a perfect place to start, because Jeremy and I talked in Episode Two a lot about identity. And in our church, I mean, we’ve got three circles, and that’s the first one. If you don’t know who you are, then you don’t know where to go from there. And you just spoke into my heart, and you try to speak into other people’s hearts. “Listen, you’re seen, you’re known, you’re valued. Yes, by me, but also by your Heavenly Father as well. And that’s the first thing that you need to know.” And that’s how you started. That’s what you did for me. Like you’re saying, the ministry of presence is so big because sometimes we can’t believe how much we’ve screwed it up. t’s normally not in a moment. It’s normally ten years of a slide, and then all of a sudden, you can’t even recognize yourself anymore. And the one person you thought was in your corner…yourself…you’re not even in your corner anymore. You’re searching for anybody to be in your corner.

Eric Sommerhauser:

Yes, that is absolutely true. Yes. When I was in my most broken states, I found myself, John, actually trying to test and almost push the boundary lines on people to see who actually really did care about Eric. Who actually did, no matter what I did, actually did care about me. Really, I was the least in my own corner, I think. So I think we end up the least in our own corner… And that’s the whole idea of grace. Even the word grace, man, is when you’re at your lowest, when you feel most unlovable, when you are an enemy, man, that’s when Christ died for you! That’s when Jesus says, “Right there, that John Liddle, that Eric, that person right now, at their worst moment, that’s exactly when I want to go and I want to rescue them. I want to pull them up out of this situation. That’s right there where I see them as the most lovable, the sheep that’s that’s too far gone, that I want to go chase down.” That’s exactly when Jesus is like, “Okay, THAT’S the one I want. That’s the sheep I want. The one that’s most broken, that’s most hurting, that feels most unlovable.”

John Liddle:

Right. And I’m a little different, and obviously I remember how you made me feel in that moment, but I remember some of the things you said to me because I was taking notes, and I don’t know if that’s just the nerd in me or what. One thing I couldn’t find that I thought I wrote down, but I know that you said to me was for what I was going through at the time, again my marriage was ending and it was my fault. I felt like it was all my fault. And what you said was, “It’s not about the reclamation of your marriage, it’s about basically the reclamation of your heart. God cares about your marriage, but you know what he cares more about? He cares more about your heart.” And that helped refocus me in the moment from something I did not have control over, which was somebody else’s decision and the marriage to something not that I had control over, but I could give control over to God and say, “God, I give you my heart. It has not been yours, but I’m here to give it to you.” And I really feel like just that reframing made all the difference. It wasn’t about, all right, here’s the five step plan to get your wife back. It was no just, here’s all it’s about, John. It’s about you and God.

Eric Sommerhauser:

That’s right. In the moments where you have those tragedies sometimes, especially when they’re someone that’s got that kind of has a recognition that, man, I’m the problem. I’m part of the problem of what’s happening in my own life is to really wake them up to what is of greatest value. What is of greatest value? Because usually if I’m counseling with somebody or someone’s going through something, you’re concerned primarily about your circumstances, the circumstances you want to see changed, the circumstances that you want to see breakthrough in, you want to be forgiven in the circumstances you want to see happen. But yes, absolutely. The reality is what’s of most value is not your circumstances. What’s of most value is your heart. The reality is we’re all human beings, so circumstances AND our hearts are both really important to us. But heart posture is more about who we are than what we can do, because we do realize very quickly we have very little control over our circumstances. But the thing we have a lot of control over is the kind of people we are going to be…the kind of people we’re going to be regardless of the circumstances that come our way. The kind of character, integrity, heart posture that we want to carry, regardless of good things or bad things or our own messes that we make or the messes that get thrown onto us in life sometimes that we didn’t go looking for. Really, we don’t have a lot of power over our circumstances, but, man, we have a lot of power over our hearts and the things that we choose to do with our hearts and how we posture our hearts. So, yeah, I think in counseling, it’s very quick for me to talk about heart over circumstance because I understand that the focus for them is going to be circumstances and what’s happening right now. But if you, John, had your marriage fixed in two months, you would have been happy for about six months, a year, two years, ten years. But the problem is, John Liddle’s heart wouldn’t have changed. And at some point, that same heart is going to create another problem, another issue, another another blow up in your marriage, another incident, another reality. And so when I looked at John Liddle in that moment, I was like, “Jesus wants his heart. And if he’s willing to give his heart, not just his marriage or the circumstance or the thing he wants to see change, if he’s willing to give his heart, Jesus will change every other part of his life for the better.” And that’s way deeper than the issue that’s at hand because you’re worried about your marriage. I’m thinking, if he gets this right, think of the leader he’ll be in our community. Think of the father he’ll be to his three girls. Think of the husband he could be one day if he gets his heart right. Not if we figure out this marriage problem. If he gets his heart right. Not if we figure out this sin problem even, right? But if we can get his heart right, if that makes sense. Again, man, it wasn’t even about the issue that caused your marriage to break up. It’s actually the heart is the thing that needs to be submitted and surrendered. And if you give that to Jesus, He’ll change every other part.

John Liddle:

I’ve lived it, friends. I have lived it. And you might have something that you’re thinking about right now, whether it’s something that you’ve done or something that’s been done to you or just this awful situation in your life, and you want that situation fixed, I get it. I was definitely there. Eric, I know you’ve been there in your life before, but the thing that didn’t change was the circumstance didn’t change. It was our hearts that changed. And it comes right back around to what we’ve been talking about lately, that success in the Kingdom of God. And you know what? I’ll be very selfish and human about this. I think this is just a great thing for life…or the Kingdom of God…or whatever you believe. Success is not about results. Success is about obedience. Success is about the process. And I definitely felt that because even though I didn’t have control over whether or not I was successful in getting my marriage back, like you said, I had control over whether or not I was obedient, and that gave me things to be successful at while I was going through the divorce process.

Eric Sommerhauser:

Absolutely right. Yeah. The weird thing is, I watched you, John Liddle, you were winning, but your circumstances didn’t look any different. It was so fascinating because you were getting healthier, but your marriage didn’t change at all. Actually, it got harder, I think you’d admit, before it got any easier, for sure. I watched you all every step of the way, get healthier and healthier, because, again, circumstances don’t determine who we are. Our heart determines who we are.

John Liddle:

And it’s just making that one next right choice and believing that in the end, that’s going to lead to the peace, the freedom that you’ve been seeking this whole time that you thought you were going to get based on the circumstance changing when in reality, it was just the peace that you were going to get from being submitted to where God wanted you to go. One thing you told me that day is when it comes to our hangups, and I know that I really appreciate what you said earlier was honestly more about the heart posture than it is about this or this or this, the things that you’ve done. But then also this could be just said for anything we’re trying to hang on to. (And that was my marriage in that moment) You said “There is no freedom until you lay it down.” There’s no freedom until you lay it down. And that could be the addiction that I was trying to figure out how to let go of, or my marriage, where I was just trying to hang on for dear life, and I had to lay those things down in order to get freedom. What does that mean to you?

Eric Sommerhauser:

If it’s about heart posture, not about circumstances…then when we think heart posture…I think usually in the world…if you hear me say the word “heart,” you might immediately think of your emotions. What I mean is, I think your emotions and your thoughts are come from your mind. Your heart is actually kind of the core of who you are. It’s your will, it’s your choices that you make. It’s what comes out of you. I just think you actually have to surrender your heart ultimately to Jesus, because here’s the reality is you just said it, John, but you’re going to end up being a slave to something. You could be a slave to good things, you can be a slave to addictions, to things that are killing you, that are destroying your life, but you’re a slave to something. And we think freedom is, “I get to do what I want to do, when I want to do it, how I want to do it.” But the reality is we end up more and more imprisoned and chained to all the things that we’re addicted to, we’re numbing with, we’re just trying to avoid and instead to actually surrender, to know what freedom feels like. Freedom is actually to be like, “Man, even my wife and my kids are on the table.” I love my wife. I have no control over her health, over her future, over her choices. I have influence, but I have no real control over anything my wife does, my kids do. So if I want to live truly free, I can’t pretend because I think we’re all going around pretending like we have some kind of control or trying to hold on as tight as we can to whatever we do feel like we have control on. And we think that that’s like freedom, but it actually sounds a lot more like bondage to me because we are holding so tightly on the things that we really just should release our hands and let go of. And then again, if you focus on yourself, if you’ll focus on YOUR heart, the things that you actually are empowered to make choices about, the things you’re actually empowered to live out. I can’t choose if my wife loves me or if she’s healthy tomorrow, but I could choose today if I’m going to lay down my life and serve her. I can’t choose my kids future. I can’t choose what my kids are going to do or if my kids are even going to like me when they grow up. But I can choose to listen to my kids today. Like, my son’s three years old. He makes no sense sometimes. But I can choose to humble myself, get down on his level and listen to my son. So I actually have a lot of power. It’s just not the kind of power we hold onto and try to control. We try to control people. We try to control circumstances. We try to control so many things that we really should just free ourselves and let go and then get about the real work of really empowering our own hearts to make the decisions we do have power in, because we’re not here to just live floating lives of being like, “Well, everything’s meaningless. I have no control.” No… I have no control over other people. I have no control of circumstances. But I have a lot of control of my body, of my mind and my thoughts, of my heart, of my attitudes. Sorry. I’m like almost I can get preaching here. But even the idea that’s not taught in this world of you have so much control over your own attitude. One of my wife’s love languages is acts of service. She loves to have the house cleaned up, everything put away. It gives her so much peace. And there is a huge difference between me choosing to clean the house but being, like, huffy and puffy about it, if you know what I mean. Like doing the, all right, I’m going to do this, but now everyone’s kind of knows dad’s kind of angry, but he’s doing the right thing. I’m doing the dishes, but I’m kind of angry about it. Or I can literally choose, “Hey, you know what? I’m going to serve my family right now.” And then right after it, I can make a second choice. I’m going to smile about it. Or you know what I do, John? I’ll put some music on and be like, “I’m going to do the dishes. And you know what? I’m going to worship and have some fun. I’m going to have a little bounce in my step as I actually do it.” And it’s the power to actually choose my own attitude. So we are so empowered at a level that I think the world is not teaching us, but it’s not to do the things that we always in our flesh try to do. We try to use that power to control people. That won’t work! We our power to control circumstances. That won’t work! But if we have the power to control our own hearts, our own decisions, our own minds, what we think about, what we’re going to pursue, what we’re going to spend our energy on, and we have so much power. We’ve been given so much opportunity to release blessing and life and goodness to people around us. And the world would be totally different if we all use that kind of power.

John Liddle:

But you’re exactly right. We’re talking a lot about families and significant others and relationships because those are so important to us. I am not here to pat myself on the back and say I was perfect at getting divorced and being great to my ex-wife after being divorced, but having those moments where I can choose to either be really bitter that this thing didn’t go the way I wanted to, or I can choose to serve her even in divorce. That’s the freedom. That is where freedom comes from. Not in being worried about what other people do, like: “I’ll treat that person well when they treat me well.” That’s giving up your power and control, which you shouldn’t do. No, you just treat them well because it’s the thing to do. It’s the right thing to do. And that’s where freedom lies. And the same thing, like, within our work and stuff like that. I’m sure you counsel people when it comes to their work all the time. “This work situation is getting me down. My boss doesn’t like me. My coworkers, I can’t stand them.” What is the power…and what is the value in going first and doing the things that are right, even when you don’t feel like it?

Eric Sommerhauser:

Why I’m hesitating on this question is because it doesn’t matter unless you really care about who you are. I guess I’m going to steal from your last episode. But that’s why, again, I think it’s so important is if you do not want to be a man or woman of integrity, if you don’t want to do the right thing or love people, then I don’t have a basis to help you at all, really, because you’re in the driver’s seat of your life. If you want to quit your job, you can quit your job. Genuinely, you’re empowered to do that. If you want to work hard, you can work hard. If you want to work half-heartedly and just clock in, clock out, make your paycheck and that’s the life you want to live. You’re as empowered as you want to of who you want to become. If you want to just walk through and get through life, you’re as empowered as you want to do it. But if you actually want something more, which, honestly, I’d argue it’s in your spirit. Most of us really are like, if you would ever sober mindedly look at your life, you’d be like, “There’s got to be more than this. There’s got to be more than my 40 hours a week and just my job and kind of just going through the motions and having average relationships or having an average workday.” It feels like most Americans don’t actually love what they do or just it’s just means to end. But the reality is, if you want more than that, then you get to choose to have as much significance as you’d like to have. And any moment that you live can be as significant as you make it. I’d really love as much as possible for anyone that’s listening to actually feel like “I’m as empowered to change my life, but also as empowered to make anything, literally anything in my life as significant as I’m willing to make it.” Doing the dishes can be as significant as I would like to make it. If I decide before I even do the dishes, before I even clock in at work that this doesn’t really matter anyway, that’s my decision. My boss actually probably very much hopes that I care about the job that I’m doing, but I have the decision every time I clock in at work, do I want to live like, today is significant and this matters, or do I want to live like, why bother? Who cares? It doesn’t really matter anyway. I would rather choose again, it’s your life, so you can choose either one. You can take option A or B. But I would rather choose to live in a way in which I try to see everything as significant and as present as possible with my whole mind, my whole body, my whole heart. To be fully available, to serve people, to help people, to be contributing to my society or to my workplace. But again, my point is you have to actually decide that you want that, want that kind of significance, and then realize and wake up to the fact that you’re empowered to walk that out to the level that you want to. You can go as far with that as you want to. You can serve as many people as you can in your own office. Your job might feel like it’s sitting at a computer doing mindless work, but I guarantee you work with somebody, you work near someone, and you can make it as significant as you want to engage the people around you at work. You can make it as significant as how you want to change just the joy at work place. Like I said, we are empowered to do more than I think we think we are. It’s often our own faults that we’re just kind of going through the motions numbingly and just trying to get through our work days.

John Liddle:

I mean, how many people do we email a day? That’s what I was I was kind of thinking about that today. Like, if we’re going to do everything with all our heart and we’re going to change the atmosphere around us, then we’re in a digital world. We can do that with email too. We can do it with the spirit in which we’re signing those emails. And it doesn’t mean we have to say God bless you and what can I pray for you about? No, it’s like, you know, when you’re just trying to get a task done or when you’re trying to connect with somebody…and that’s a way you can do it.

Eric Sommerhauser:

Absolutely. Right. Yeah. I got this picture of like especially when it came to this idea of can I do anything with all my heart? I got this picture of attending a knitting class because honestly, John, I could care less about knitting anything. And I got this picture of what would it look like to take a knitting class with all my heart. Because literally, it’s like, okay, let’s just admit up front I don’t like knitting. So use this thought experience for whatever your thing is. You may not like your job, you may not like your spouse, right? You may not like your kids, you may not like anything. But you know what I could do? I could ask all the questions I don’t understand of the teacher. I could actually engage the teacher every single time. I could get to know other classmates. I could actually ask and get to know them. I could actually ask their name, get to know who they are. I could actually try to learn a new skill. Like, I could actually try to just engage with something that I don’t know how to do and humbly just be like, I have no idea what I’m doing here, but I believe that this could actually help me learn something new. All these things I could actually do. Again, I’m empowered to choose to do any of those things. And the reality is, I think, is that every choice you make along that spectrum, all you’re doing is actually choosing more significance. I’m choosing to make this class more significant than it otherwise would be if I just walked in and said, I don’t really like knitting. Why am I even here? Why does this matter to me? But if I can walk in and say, man, I want to ask questions because I don’t like knitting. But I also have never asked a single question about how to do anything with knitting. I don’t like knitting, but I also don’t know any other person in this room or what they’re going through or what’s going on in their life. And I can make this as significant of an investment of my time as I’m willing to make it. And so I just think, again, oftentimes we’re just so tired, John, and somewhat apathetic. And we’re just going with this posture of “What does this matter to me?”

John Liddle:

Yes, it’s self preservation, and it’s “What am I getting out of this? What am I getting out of this class?” Not “What can I bring to this class?” Not that we have any knitting capability or knowledge, but we can bring like a spirit that makes it a better experience for everybody else. So whatever you’re going to do, do it with all your heart.

Eric Sommerhauser:

And the fascinating thing is your feelings follow your heart, right?

John Liddle:

Okay, tell us what you mean by that, because I think this might be a new concept to some people.

Eric Sommerhauser:

However you feel about Jesus, again, Jesus has a really interesting saying where he says this phrase, “Wherever your treasure is, your heart will be also.” (Matthew 6:21) And He says “treasure.” I think we think like money, but I’m thinking treasure as in all the things that are the most important to you, which right now is a lot more than money. It’s your time, right? You treasure time more than anything else. I bet you treasure your comfort. You treasure your comforts, you said, right? Self preservation. You’re like, “What’s good for me? What makes me feel refreshed and good?” And here’s the reality, is He’s saying wherever your treasures are. So wherever your time is, your money, your comfort, your conveniences, wherever you place those things, your heart will actually start to follow it and grow in it. And so the reality is, if you spend your time actually TRYING…if I spent my time actually trying to knit, the funny thing is I’d actually start to fall in love with knitting! It doesn’t work the other way around. You don’t start by saying, “I love knitting!” Or even, “I love playing the guitar,” or anything that you’ve ever fallen in love with. If you really think back to it, even the spouse you married, the person that you love the most…at one point in time, you didn’t know what to think of them. You didn’t know what to think of that person. You didn’t know what to think of that thing that you’re so passionate about. Now, what changed is you started putting time into it. You started putting energy into it. You might have started putting money into it, and all of a sudden, you cared very deeply and you found that your feelings would follow your choices. Your feelings actually followed your heart and the things that you chose to do with your will. A very practical example is you could care less today about how Ford stock is doing in the stock market. But as soon as you buy that stock, you find that it’s very important to you now how Ford stock is doing. Or if someone is sitting on your car out in the parking lot where you’re working right now or wherever you’re at, you care very much about that. But if he’s sitting on some other random person’s car, it doesn’t really matter to you because guess what? Your money attached to a certain car. And now your heart very much cares about what happens to that car. It very much cares that kids are spilling Cheetos everywhere in the back because it’s your car now. You’ve put your money, your time, your investment into it. And look at that. Your feelings followed!Your feelings actually followed your choices that you made. And so the last piece, really of the whole idea of the heart posture and even surrendering your heart is if you’ll choose to surrender your heart to something good, even if you don’t like it, you’ll find yourself actually your feelings will follow You’ll start to actually fall in love with it! You don’t like your spouse right now? It’s like you actually start serving, loving, giving your time, talent, treasure, anything that you have to them…you’ll find you actually start falling in love with them again. This is just how the human heart and the human experience is. And so I think Jesus is tapping deeply into a human reality. Whether you believe in God or you don’t believe, it’s a human reality. Anything that we do with our time becomes something that we actually deeply care about. Are we putting our time in the right places, then? That’s the question, right? Are we spending our money on the right things? Are we pursuing the right things? Or are those pursuits still circumstances we’re trying to control, people we’re trying to control? Or are we giving our time, talent, treasure to become somebody better than who we once were or how we once were defined? Or whoever has defined us as insignificant or unvaluable or unlovable? Or we’re just always going to be unkind? Or are we willing to put all those things on the table and say, “No! I want to become someone more than that and better than that!”

John Liddle:

That is so good, I think about how in order to get good at anything, you’ve got to put time into it, and you’ve also got to know exactly what you want your heart to be filled with as well. And so if you can get clear on that and then just reprioritize your life and say, “You know what? I care about these five things: Jesus, my family…” whatever your passion is…”music, and those are the things that I’m going to fill my life with.” Then that’s the magic formula, but it’s more of a kingdom formula. I love it, man. We talk a lot about on this show about where you’ve been, what you’ve learned. And so where you’re going? I know recently for you, you’ve just had some revelation about where you are going and where you spend your time. You’ve been a Jesus follower for a while now, but there’s even been some reprioritization for you. What have you been learning lately?

Eric Sommerhauser:

It’s in line with our conversation. I have really been leaning into and learning that I just do not know how to be present. And what I mean by that is I don’t know how to be fully anywhere that I actually am. Sometimes I find myself deeply distracted. I find that I don’t, let alone do not know how to be always present with God. I don’t just know even how to be present with myself. I didn’t even really know how to not have a TV show on, music playing, a podcast that I’m listening to. To actually learn how to sit in my own bedroom by myself…even for like 15 minutes, John, just like literally 15 minutes…quiet…I just didn’t even know how to do that! I didn’t feel comfortable with it. I would try it and I’d be like, “Man, this is weird. I don’t even know what to do.” And it showed me that I am way more addicted to things than I realized. I’m way more addicted to TV shows, to my phone, to scrolling, to all kinds of things that all I can really say are just distractions that are really, like I said, stealing my ability to just be present, to just be somewhere to breathe. And then I shouldn’t be shocked that the lack of a skill to be present has led to me feeling like everyone else does. Tired, drained, not getting enough sleep, not ever feeling like I’m fully energetic, alive, rested. And so in the last month or two, I’ve just cut. I’ve tried to just as much as I can just say, like, “I need to simplify my life and tear down all the things that are distracting me, all the things that keep me from being able to be present with myself, to be present with my kids, present with my wife, present with my family, present with people, present with God. I need to strip down my life of all the things that the world chases and the world numbs with.” Really changing my framework on a lot of different things. John, to be honest with you, it’s not only helping me say “no” to things that I think I should have been saying no to. Again, nothing bad…TV shows aren’t innately bad, they’re just distractions and they’re stealing from me being able to do other things, to be able to breathe, to be able to sleep, to be able to do things that used to be very important to the human experience, just they’re not as entertaining. Sleep is not as entertaining as the next HBO show or whatever. And so I’m just trading a lot of the entertainments to get back to health, to get back to being healthy, get back to where I can be present, where I can just enjoy my life, my kids. And it’s hard. I found myself in the last six weeks since I’ve kind of started this journey, that it’s very difficult to learn this skill. But if you cultivate it, man…I’m sleeping better than I’ve ever slept in my life. I’m having so much more fun with my kids than I can remember having. My kids are hard. Like, my kids are toddlers, and man, they test me in every way. And I’m having so much fun with all of it. I’m having so much fun with my wife. I’m having so much more fun dreaming again! Am I right? It’s so hard to dream, to have just even a dream for your life when you’re just tired and you’re just going through the motions and you just don’t have energy. So if you want all those things…which I think in the heart of who you are…you were created for it. So I know anyone listening is like, “Man, I want that. I want to be able to dream. I want to be able to do something new and amazing and I want to love my life!” Then I think sometimes it just starts with we got to cut out a lot of the good things that are just distracting us and keeping us from being healthy. That’s a longer answer, but really it’s just been this idea of when I just want to learn to simplify my life, to not be distracted, to not even always chase sometimes again. We’re also always just reaching for the next thing, like reaching for the next hobby, reaching for the next second job or income stream or way that I think in my brain that this is going to make my life better. But it’s me just striving for more achievement. And really just to be like “I’ve learned the secret of being content and being present in whatever situation, circumstance person I find myself with.” It’s already…in the six weeks…it’s already just a way more peaceful way to live.

John Liddle:

I love that. And I even want to call out the podcast here because you brought up podcasts and I think about that. I’m like, as good as other people’s thoughts are sometimes. And that’s why I listen to podcasts. That’s why I’ve got into them, because I didn’t feel I wasn’t satisfied with what was going on in my life. So I reached out to somebody else to say, hey, tell me what to think.

Eric Sommerhauser:

Yeah, that’s a great question, man.

John Liddle:

So with that, the podcast is over? No, I’m just kidding.

Eric Sommerhauser:

No, the podcast isn’t over, but how about after listening to this, take ten minutes and be like, “What do I want to do with my own heart? What do I want to dream about? What are my dreams and the things that I want to pursue? What am I actually empowered to do in my own life?” Because, man, that’s great for John and Eric and anyone else, but, man, I don’t care about listening to either one of us talk. I want to see people’s lives change. I want people to discover this is what it feels like to be fully human and fully alive. That’s what I want. I want people to discover…and this is what most of us I don’t think we can even believe what that would feel like or understand what that would feel like…THIS is what it feels like to be fully human, fully alive, man. That’s available. Don’t leave the podcast. Take ten minutes and just really think about your own life, because sometimes we just need to stop and not hit play on the next thing and just stop and reflect and think and pause and be present.

John Liddle:

Now you’ve given me a great idea of just, like, ten minutes of silence at the end of the podcast, or it just fades to a black screen on YouTube. This is great. Or just, like, peaceful music or something. This is reflection time. I love this. I love this. This is why I love Eric Sommerhauser. He’s always thinking about something new. He’s always going deep, even when he says he was distracted. I’m telling you, God works through this man’s heart. And I so appreciate you, Eric. I appreciate what you’ve meant in my life and what you meant specifically in that season of my life where I thought I was just completely lost. And I know you’ve met something similar to a lot of other people along the way as well. So thank you for letting God use you, and thanks for being on the show today.

Eric Sommerhauser:

Of course. John, man, seriously love you, man. I love what you’re doing. It’s not about the podcast to me, man. I just love your heart, man. I love your heart and the journey you’ve taken. Not everyone is willing to get up and say, “I’ll take that journey. Even if it doesn’t all work out, I’ll take the journey of the heart. I’ll take it.” I’m proud of you, man. Seriously.

John Liddle:

Thank you. And I really feel like God used you, and that was a pivotal day for me to reframe all of that. And you know what? I know God’s not done with me, and I want more, and I want more for my kids. And that’s why we talk about what God has done in our lives because we know it can spur other people on to better things than we’ve done. So please, friends, everybody listening, everybody watching. Don’t be afraid to talk about what you’re going through. Don’t be afraid to reach out for help. Don’t be afraid to be the hope for people in your lives. And if you need hope, absolutely reach out to people, because there is always hope, and there is always more. Hey. Thank you again, Eric. I so appreciate it.

Eric Sommerhauser:

Yep. Love you, John.

John Liddle:

Love you too, Eric. Sommerhauser. That guy is the best. And I say, that guy is the best. And then I think, “You know? God is the best!” Just a quick aside, I didn’t know what kind of podcast this would be when I started it. I thought it might be more of like an ideas podcast and then little Jesus sprinkled in there. But just can’t deny it. We serve a great God. We serve an incredible King. And what binds together the significant relationships in my life and where I was to where I’m going is the fact that there’s always more in my relationship with Jesus. And if there’s always more in one of my mentors, Eric Sommerhauser’s relationship with Jesus. There’s always more for me as well. And there is definitely always more for you. Please, if you need help, if you need prayer, if you need somewhere to turn, please, I just invite you to reach out. My email address for this show is whereyourgoingpod@gmail.com. Whether it’s right now in 2023 or years from now, where you pick up this show, just email me whereyourgoingpod@gmail.com, and I promise I’ll respond. Remember, it’s not about where you’ve been. It’s not about where you are right now. It is about where you’re going!