Heart of Relationships: The Formula

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. K. So the the there's an equation that is not a formula. K. It's a way of behaving so that you can end up having the results. Alright? And they're they're guaranteed. Not because they're guaranteed because we figured it out. They're guaranteed the same way that a cut heals. We're organized and created that way by God. K. So this is how our inner world works. Willingness is allowing your heart to take the risk of hoping again. That's what willingness means. Allowing your heart to take a risk of hoping again. Great example is you get in an argument with somebody you really love, especially somebody you're married to and then you say, Okay. This time, I'm not apologizing. It's not this time, I'm not gonna be the one who's gonna say I'm sorry. But after a certain amount of time, you kinda come around to if you've got the guts for it, the heart for it, you come around to saying, okay. Look. I'm willing to try again or I'm willing to offer myself. I'm willing to risk again. So that's what willingness is, allowing your heart to risk hope again. The word patience literally means burden of hope, carrying the pain of hope. It it it's the capacity to wait while being in pain wishing for something. It's waiting upon. In fact, one of the words for in Hebrew that waiting waiting means a lot sort of a literally to be pierced or nailed into place. A woman in labor is being patient, which but she's in tremendous pain. So thinking so patience can mean everything from something just sitting still like a dog resting underneath a a in the shade waiting or a woman in labor waiting. It can be painful. It can be nothing, but it's it's the capacity to carry the burden of hope no matter what the cost. And then thirdly, work, w. It means work. Jeff said, you're you're old enough to return to how did you say it? Beautiful. You said, you old this is what we're talking about, something old, but you return to It's older than you, but not older than you. Yeah. Yeah. You go back to where you came from, how god made you, and work amazingly. Probably, the the most free you've ever been working in your life is when you're born. Children are born working. The very idea that they have to be taught to work is a form of misunderstanding what work is because work means giving your hands, your head, and your heart to what you're doing. If you don't grasp your heart, even when the scripture say do unto the Lord with all your heart, work for do your work as if it's for the Lord, you can't if you don't have a heart for what you're doing in terms of have your heart in what you're doing even if what you're doing may seem like drudgery. You know? So anyway, when a child is born into the world, the child comes out bringing it all. They give it all and they give it all to everything they're doing. Hands, head, and heart. Then when a child learns what labor is and they start and it's being called work, they get confused and start seeing work is not something good, which really they're being taught labor. They're taught how to endure without putting yourself fully in something. When a person gets wounded, their willingness goes away. They become unwilling. They'll give their body to something but not their hearts. Patience is something that just means having pain. So we don't want to have to wait upon anything. We do it ourselves, figure it out ourselves, perform a way, keep moving, keep going, keep going, keep going. Okay? We but become end up we become strivers rather than people who can abide while we're striving. So we're made to abide while we strive. We're made not just to survive but to thrive. And the thriving life is the internal being fully alive within no matter where you are. Okay? Anyway, so work means bringing your hands, your head, and your heart to something, and that's what defines an artist. A person who just does the job with their hands as a laborer, A person who does their the the work with their hands and their head is a craftsman. A person who brings their hands, their head, and their heart to life is an artist regardless what it is in their life they're doing. Even if they're just delivering the milk, if they do it without their their whole being, they're being artist. There's something wonderfully, magical, beautiful to see a person just doing what they're made to do with everything in them. And delivering the milk is a beautiful thing done on time, getting it done with a person comes with the delivery, where it's relationally oriented. You can depend on the person to bring it. There's something beautiful about that. So there's no work that is not noble, if you're all in. So allowing yourself to work again. And finally, time. If your heart is not alive, time means a ticking of a clock. If your heart is alive, time now means space. It means while the clock is ticking, you're taking up space. You're living in your life. I used to when I was, much younger and did not know that I was made to be like this, I I got up as late as I could to hurry as quickly as I could to get whatever I had to do over with as fast as I could to get out of wherever I was as soon as I could to get back to doing something that I really well, I don't know what I was doing except avoiding, just running running. So we we need to be able to abide while we're striving and we need to be able to move beyond surviving to thriving. Survival is not enough. And this is the equation that is the admission of it not being enough And moving on in, you practice willingness, are you? You practice patience, are you? You practice work, are you? And you actually practice asking yourself, am I living in my life? Am I just enduring or am I or am I living where I am? And that's gonna call us to struggle. And then struggle, we already talked about, means allowing your heart to have a voice again, talking to the god about the condition of how life works.