Christian Car Guy Classic Interview with John Eldredge 2016

Boy, do we have a treat for you today on The Christian Car Guy Show. You know, I've been doing my appraisal by The Real Black Book for years and years, and what an opportunity I have today to share something that honestly, if I could ask God for anything above your salvation that's listening today that you could have that God would impart into you, my passion has always been that you would have a conversational intimacy with Jesus. And something that I have enjoyed immensely has made all the difference in the world in my life, and one of the people that has spoken that into me in so many different ways over the last number of years is John Eldridge, the author of Wild at Heart. And he recently wrote a book on this conversational intimacy, which he calls Moving Mountains, praying with passion and confidence. So I want to welcome John Eldridge to the show today to talk about that very issue, conversational intimacy with Jesus, which I know John is a big part of your passion. Yeah, it sure is. I'm glad to be with you.

Love the opportunity. And the idea is, prayer is a place for so many of us that we struggle with it, even after we've been doing it for years and years. So here's sort of a practical guide that can help along those lines. Yeah, I wanted to, there's enough books on prayer out there. I didn't even want to write this book, but I feel like God said, you need to show people how. Like, there's enough theory, there's enough you ought to do this, there's kind of enough, I think everybody feels, you know, a tinge of guilt that, oh yeah, I guess I ought to pray more.

That's just not helpful. What I wanted to do is say, look, it's pretty simple if you break it down, kind of like, you know, what you're doing with folks and their cars. It's like, if you can break this down into some simple things for people in prayer. And one of the first big ideas you were just hitting on here was like, let it be a two-way deal. Like, it's kind of what we do is we make prayer speeches, right?

Oh yeah. We come in, we talk, we leave, right? I mean, like, try that in your marriage.

Like, you would not get away with that, you know? And so the idea is, whoa, whoa, whoa, hang on, like, let him talk back. Like, begin to open up the possibility that God's, he's got a desire to talk your direction too, you know? And even just that, that simple stuff can open up some really wonderful things. Yeah, you have a chapter on just listening prayer and what's involved with that, which is just awesome. One of the other chapters that just grabbed my attention, and I know it's also close to your heart, Third Graders at Normandy.

Now, that's the title of a chapter that you've just got to go, what in the world? Yeah, yeah, because that's kind of where we are right now, it feels like, with one of the really big ideas that, I don't know how this got lost for folks, is that we actually live in a world at war. You know, there's more than two million children every year that are trafficked in the sex trade. You know, you think about little girls that are being forced into, you know, having sexual things with men every single day, you know, for a quarter, for a dollar, and like, you understand, there's evil in the world. Like, you know, and you take ISIS had a new, last December, kind of one of their religious decrees that now they're executing handicapped children, and you just go, so you understand, folks, like, there's evil in the world. And a lot of times, like in the whole prayer equation, you know, people say, well, I prayed, I tried, it didn't work. And you go, wait a second, you're probably blaming things on God that have nothing to do with him. It's your enemy.

It's the evil one. The idea of third graders at Normandy, like you, you wouldn't want to hit the beaches at Normandy, you know, carrying your lunchbox. Right?

That's the point. Yeah, you want to you want to grow up in like, Whoa, teach me to pray, because, like, that's our secret weapon. That's one of the most powerful things we have. So let's, let's learn how to do this thing.

So we don't get taken out. No, wow. It's just, you know, we have a bootcamp coming up on the masculine journey. And I just this week, I woke up just totally my truck that I've had forever. And people that know me that, you know, it's got almost 400,000 miles on it, the engine went out on it, and I got another engine put in and in the harmonic balancers is gone bad on that engine. And I'm just totally defeated.

You know, like, really, you're the Christian car guy, and you can't get your own truck. And I got all these things going on. And I'm waking up and I'm not feeling any hope. And I know it's warfare.

I know I got all these things. And I was like, Lord, I really need something. And it hit me. John's prayers in there. He's got a daily prayer, which I've really, really enjoyed many, many times. I haven't got in the habit of doing it.

But I just sat down and I just went to that. And there's no explaining what the end of that daily prayer does for me. It talks about things that I really never had thought about asking in prayer, like calling angels to come help me, and the Spirit of God to lift up other people to pray for me, and things that, I mean, it's just awesome. And not to mention, you know, just bringing Jesus into your whole situation, that daily prayer is huge. David Tompa Yeah, it's real helpful, too, because, again, like you were saying, folks, you know, want to kind of get a prayer life going, maybe, but don't know how. And the daily prayer is just something that we've kind of done over the years, and it gives you some handrails.

It kind of gives you a starting place. I don't think prayer is always, you know, following what someone else is praying, but sometimes it is, sometimes that's helpful. And it's become such a natural part of what we do. I mean, I actually pray it like even before the morning cup of coffee, like it's the first thing of the day. Because if I can dial in, you know, if I can reconnect with God and the power of what Christ has done for us, like if I can dial back into that every day, like it makes a massive difference for the rest of the day. You know, it changes everything, my marriage, the meetings I'm in, and the decisions I'm making.

Like, it's super helpful. So yeah, I put that in the book just because I thought, well, you know, let that be a place folks can go to lean into something that's already put down on paper and learn to kind of pray something like that would be really helpful. Darrell Bock Yeah, and you kind of get spoiled, because once you've had that connection and you wake up and you're not feeling that, it's like, I can't face this, no way I could face this day. I've got to figure out how to get you back here, Lord.

We've got to get our union back together, because I can sense that is not what's going on here. So another one of the really things, and you've written about this in several of your books, which I've enjoyed so many of them, but is the idea that if it doesn't work the first time, and Elijah's prayer for the rain is just one of my favorite things that you talk about. Would you share that with our listeners? David Schawel Yeah, I think, you know, if we can look at prayer, it's like chopping down a tree. You know, you've got something you're trying to change through prayer, whether it's, you know, your kids or a marriage or your finances or something's going on.

Like, you don't just chop a tree down with one whack at it, you know, and drop the axe and walk away. You look at the story of Elijah, and in the Old Testament, Israel had been in a three-year drought, and then God comes to Elijah and says, I want you to pray for rain. I'm going to bring the rain, but I want you to pray for it. So some folks who've been in Sunday school remember the lesson. He goes up on the hill and up on the mountain there, and he prays, and then he sends his servant to have a look. You know, if you see any change on the horizon, anything in the weather, the servant comes back and says, nope. And Elijah goes, okay, I'm going to go at it again. And so prays again a second time, sends his servant, the servant comes back, nada. And he goes out a third time, sends his servant, the servant comes back, nothing there, boss, I'm sorry. And like, by that point, most of us just give up.

Just go forget it, it's not going to work, you know. Elijah sticks at it eight times, right? And he stays with it, he doesn't give up, he doesn't lose heart. And finally, he sends his servant back the seventh time, and the servant comes back and he goes, yeah, actually, there's a cloud. It's not very big, but there's a cloud on the horizon. And Elijah's like, bang, that's it, we got it, we got it. Here's our answer. So like, just learning to, like, hang in there with it.

Don't, don't lose heart. Like, you know, prayer's not a, it's not like sneezing, you know, you don't just kind of go, amen, you know, and that's it. All right, the book is called Moving Mountains. It's by John Eldredge. We've got it up there at our website, christiancarguy.com, as well as links to Ransom Heart Ministries, which just has some phenomenal resources. You want some really cool stuff, I just got to tell you, if you belong to the tribe, you can see videos of John doing live bootcamps, you can read all these articles.

There's so much there, so many resources through that ministry, Ransom Heart. And so we're going to have that all available because, again, it's a big part of our lives here at The Christian Car Guy Show. John, thank you so much for being on with us. It was more than awesome. Oh, yeah, I love it. Thanks for having me on.

I've been looking forward to it. Thank you for listening to The Christian Car Guy Show today. Remember, slow down, Jesus walked everywhere he went, got it all done in 33 years. And how about this week, spend some intimate time with the Lord. Thank you for listening to The Christian Car Guy Show.