Heart of Relationships: Part 1

Transcript of a Sage Hill Live Fully Podcast conversation with Dr. Chip Dodd. Lightly edited for readability; speaker labels omitted.

This podcast is brought to you by Sage Hill, a social impact organization. Our mission is to help people be who they're made to be so that they can do what they're made to do. Find more resources to live fully, love deeply, and lead well at sagehillresources.com. This is the spiritual root system. Jeremiah seventeen eight talks about a tree. I did the spiritual root system before I ever knew this Jeremiah stuff. Okay? Jeremiah seventeen five seventeen five through seven talks about cursed, isolated from how you're made, who you're made to be, whose you're made to be, and also what you're made to do. Most amazing thing was that when Jeremiah said that this person would be like a tree planted in the wasteland. I did a word study on the tree into juniper, probably the same juniper, where Hagar left Ishmael. And she went away from him because there's not enough shade provided by this juniper for two people. So it's an isolated tree, grows straight up and offers like a pencil sort of shade. They planted in the desert or a parched land, its roots go out on the top of the soil, greedy for anything that comes. There's not enough room for anything to grow near it. So it's isolated, separated, stingy, greedy, self protective, defensive, and really ultimately, it really bears no fruit. It has pink ends to its little leaves that look like fruit or flowers, but it's just those tinge of pink. There's nothing really there. It's not a productive much of a productive tree. So in its amazing part was it says that even when prosperity comes, the person won't even see it. Like, they're not even available for prosperity. Jeff described his kids were, like, talking to him, pumping the pedal for the water, and he just resented them. The blessings of his life were all around him, and he couldn't be present with them because his heart was removed from his actions. And it's not like he knew. All it did was that their need of him insulted his availability. It insulted his capacity because Jeff at the time thought that he was the answer, should be have the answers or should know the this or should this and should that and should this and should that. All the shoulds, all the legalism, he didn't know that it was okay to not know. Because the not knowing leads us to asking questions. Asking questions leads us to answers. But if you gotta know, you can't ask questions. If you can't ask questions, you'd well, you have to find your own answers. Okay? So anyway so then the second part of the Jeremiah says Jeremiah seventeen seven and eight says, blessed is the man. Blessed is the woman. Blessed is the person. And Jeff showed us what blessed means this morning when he he got down. That blessedness really is a a process word. It means to be open to receiving. It means to be down on your knees and to be raised up. It's it's a it's a it's a movement, a meaning word. Just like I didn't finish with the word obey. Somebody asked me this morning. Obey doesn't mean just listen. It's a process word. It's a it's a word of growth and movement. It means to listen so that you will hear the words you're hungry for and act according to them because it's good for you. K? So it doesn't mean no action. It means you listen first, though. Like, Like, what am I doing this for? You ask questions so you understand what's happening. So anyway, it says that that the person who is blessed is blessed is the person who trusts in God, which means that their heart is available to God, who has confidence in God, which means that you're loyal with because of the experience with God. Like, hey, he'll show up. He'll be here. Just wait. He'll be here. And if he's not, we got a lot of talking to do. Like, where'd you go? Where have you been? What did you do? So in other words, you've got a relationship with God where you can say these things. You can it's it's better than a parent. There's no having to care take the parent at all. You don't have to care take God. God can handle your heart. He can handle your what the minor prophets were best at doing, complaining. And that's Habakkuk's complaint and Jeremiah's complaint. And then, you know, everybody's complaining. And God goes, yeah. Bring it. I'm gonna stand right here till you answer my complaint. These were called prophets. They were like they God liked them a ton. So he didn't they didn't get rejected. So he says, blessed is a person who trusts in God, who has confidence in God, who's loyalty with what they know. That person will be like a tree whose roots its roots go out into the waters and it drinks. So when roots are fed, they get fat. When fat roots deliver a lot of hydration and oxygenation to the tree and the tree gets fat and the tree gets a lot of fat fruit. Fat meaning rich and full. Lots of it. More than they can handle, which means they're rich, which means like, come get some of this fruit, man. I can't stand having all this. Come get some. You're giving out of your fullness. You're not getting out of your have to because you don't see it as a sacrifice. You see it as an opportunity to participate in sacred. And what is most sacred? A human being being fully alive to how God made them, which means they've gotten themselves, they've become themselves, and now they're giving themselves away. You cannot give what you do not have. You cannot give what you do not have. If you don't have heart, you can't give heart. If somebody comes over and they want you to listen to them and care about them, if you care about you and you don't even listen to your own heart, then how are you gonna listen to theirs? Pretend, act like, memorize stuff, give them the right words, say something scripted. You know, that whole thing, you know, where you you learn you read about learning how to talk to people so they don't know that you're not really giving them anything. That kind of stuff. You know, crazy stuff. Anyway, so these roots what was amazing was the roots go out into the living water and the living water is relationship with God and relationship with others. Okay? Now I want you to know that God talks to us, and I'm gonna move very specifically. God talks to us. Now based on my experience and some people I've been paying attention to for a long time, listen to them, But based upon what I've watched and seen, God talks to us in five ways. I'll tell you what those ways are. Okay? Now I'm not saying it's end all and be all. Remember, I didn't go to theology school, so go talk to them. But but take this to them and say, hey, this would, you know God talks to us through prayer, which means we're talking and listening. And when we're praying, we're sharing that which we hunger for, need, wish, want, the more the doctor can give the diagnosis and the any offering to be healed. You see? It's amazing. My exposure to the doctor is a direction towards my healing. So God talks to us through prayer. God talks to us in our circumstances. And he doesn't give you things to figure out. He gives you things to ask about. You hear the poetry? You gotta kind of feel it. But I would say actually, I was dressed more hip hop because I thought about what I need to wear before I went. So I had on striped pants, brown pants with a white stripe, a little bit kind of loud, right? And then I had on a check shirt. Conflict. Do you see? A man in conflict. And my hair and everything was the same. You know, it's like because I didn't wanna say I was, like, trying to, like, get approval or anything. Like, you know, I still me. And I I said to Dashi, I thought about coming here because I wanted to do, you know, let you know I'm I'm hip hop too because I'm I'm with you, you know. Dashi is a gigantic man. He's every bit of three fifty and wears it beautifully. He says Samoan, African American. I mean, guys, just I mean, he's cool. And as you look at him, you go, okay. I'm I'm looking right at cool, right here. There's a mountain of cool in front of me. He goes, man. I'll be like, I know I was in trouble right there. He goes, man. Like like, that's pitiful. Like, man, you gotta tell me you hip hop, man. You mean hip hop. I'm like, I know. That's alright. But I thought I just wanna see what he'd do if I told him I thought it was. I knew I wasn't. Okay? But those guys are really cool, and they are really doing this. They've taken in the whole spiritual root system stuff. The Cray, Tadashi, with pros with them, Andy Mineo. I mean, they're just like this is so into Jeff. I mean, they're just like really interested in us, and they this is a workplace that's taken into this stuff. So it's not about church. It's about home. It's about couples. It's about relationships, families, work, everything. K? So circumstances, God's God talks to us through our circumstances, not things that we have to figure out, but things we ask about. You're not your job is not to figure out why God's doing something. Your job is to ask God what he's doing. Why are you doing that is demanding a defense from God. Like he's your personal apologist. No. You need to find out what he's doing. Like what are you doing? And that means that you're actually questioning in doubt. You're questioning in pain. You're questioning in fear. You're questioning and thinking maybe he's not God all of a sudden. I remember when William, this, you know, son I was talking about, I said we pulled into the driveway and there's a he had had a pretty tough injury. And right at the midst when he and tennis were gonna be playing together in this great extraordinary moment of their lives, and he got hurt. He was out for six weeks of the only probably ten, eleven, twelve weeks they were gonna play together. It's gonna be an incredible story in the back of the perfect law is chapter eight. Phenomenal story. It really happened. But I'm pulling the driveway. We've been to youth group, and he said, Dan, all I ever hear is it's gonna be okay. God knows God's doing this, or this is why God's doing that, and God's doing this for this. And he said, dad, look. If God did this to me, if God did this to me, then he's bad. He's cruel. If God couldn't stop it from happening to his weak, if the devil did this to me, then God didn't even matter. Like, okay. One, two, three. I think I'm out of stuff. You covered it all. And so I didn't have an answer. We pulled in the driveway. He was like, you know, just really letting it letting it out. And I remember we got it out of my truck he went to his car. They called his car the Beagle. It's a Buick Regal. And he went and locked it. I'm like, you're locking that that 1991 Buick Regal. There's nothing in it, and I wish somebody'd take it. I mean, it was just a bad car. I had two by four holding up the front seat. He loved it. But he locked his car, and I was getting out of the truck. And he walked from the darkness into the edge of a light that we had right outside our garage. And I walked from the darkness fully into the light to the edge where he was standing. Isn't that a metaphor? I just remember that so distinctly. He was on the edge of the light. I walked through the light to go to him. And that's when he said, hey, dad. And he had his head just shaved for baseball stuff. I said, dad, look. Listen. I don't really mean what I'm saying, but I know you can I know you can take it? And I said, look, son. I don't have all that. I just know I'm with you in them. I'm just with you in them all the way, no matter what it takes. I don't care what it takes. That's our God. I don't think he can give us all the answers, but he's with us in them. That's what that Emmanuel thing didn't seem like enough. God with us, like, it's pretty good because we're relationally based creatures. Alright. So God speaks to us in circumstances we need to ask him about with our heart. God speaks to us through, the bible, the the the big, big book. He actually talks to us through his word. God speaks to us through other people. God can deliver some serious information to us through other people, but we're not paying attention to them because we're waiting for direct verbal revelation from him. You know? I can't listen to you. I'm waiting to hear from God. God sends people to be his voice, not just his hands and feet, his voice. I literally God had experienced a relationship with God back through other people. They showed me a God that they could be with. And I'm like, this is really good. I learned God from people. It was really beautiful, wonderful. I didn't say those people were God. I learned God again from people. I watched them trust and care and give their hearts and so on. So other people and then we also learned from I was told not to say this word, but I I'll write it, and then I'll write the word I was told to say. We also learned from God, hear from God through revelation. But I was told I need to use the word illumination, so I'll put that down too. Okay? I'm not sure how come, but I'll do it. Okay? Because I'm obedient. K? So in other words, God will enlighten us. He will he will give us an intuition recognition of what to do and where to go. And I believe in that with all my heart. K? I believe I found an illumination, revelation, and finally recognizing what I've been doing all these years was helping people do what they're made to do so they see what to see who they're made to be so they can do what they're made to do. It's like, I've been doing that my whole life kind of thing. So, well, now there's a name for it. Alright. So God speaks to us as we show up. Okay? This is how God's gonna talk to to you when you bring your heart to God. So this is how you can take a look at possibly experiencing more of God. And and this bible study that Jeff and Phil have done is gonna help that happen.