Foxhole Symphony
Foxhole Symphony
A Faith-Driven Journey of Discovery Toward Healing and Identity with Jeremy Williamson
Join us on a transformative journey with Jeremy Williamson, a seasoned counselor and minister whose life experiences are as varied as they are insightful. With over 25 years in leadership, Jeremy offers a narrative rich with personal growth, faith, and the quest for identity. From the quiet halls of a country school in Oregon to the vibrant mission fields of El Salvador and beyond, Jeremy's path is a tapestry of change and discovery. His upcoming book, "Not My Name," promises to shed light on the themes of self-discovery and authentic living, themes deeply explored in this episode.
We venture into Jeremy's world as he recounts pivotal moments that shaped his calling. The heart of our conversation lies in his profound relationship with his mentor Chris, who played an instrumental role in Jeremy's path to healing and self-awareness. This episode underscores the necessity of understanding deeper motivations and the transformative power of genuine friendship. Through Jeremy and Chris's shared journey, we witness the resilience of the human spirit and the enduring influence of faith in overcoming life's hurdles.
As we wrap up, we delve into a global movement where men confront generational trauma, striving for authenticity and better fatherhood. Jeremy's experiences in the Scottish Highlands illustrate the intersection of nature and soul work, shedding light on the distractions threatening men's identities today. By the episode's end, listeners are called to embrace their own journeys of healing and connection, encouraged by the constant and unwavering love of God that Jeremy so passionately shares. Subscribe, engage, and join us in spreading hope and healing through this powerful narrative.
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Welcome to Foxhole Symphony, a podcast about the transformational value of men in authentic community.
Speaker 2:In our foxhole. Men are equipped to build relationships that foster belonging, accountability and growth.
Speaker 1:Stop believing the lie that you can thrive in isolation and instead join us on the journey from broken to whole.
Speaker 3:Hello everyone. They call me the Maestro and we are back in the foxhole where we actively pursue belonging, accountability and growth through authentic relationships. No masks, no agendas, just iron sharpening. Iron Mark and Steve are in the foxhole and they are welcoming a very special guest today. No, I can't tell you who it is. You're going to have to wait. You know what time it is. Get comfortable, open your notes app and let's get this podcast started.
Speaker 2:Hey, welcome back to Foxhole Symphony Podcast. I'm Sarge here in the foxhole with my good friend Mark In the foxhole. I am in the foxhole in the flesh, my brother, I can reach out. I don't have to reach for the screen. I can actually touch you, You're warm Back for a moment. Yeah, your warm body under this sweater and this horrid snowfall that we're in Now stop. This is New Jersey. It's beautiful. I'll take it A little bit of flurries. It's a. It's very Christmasy.
Speaker 1:It's taking the ick off the top. It's coating everything, yeah.
Speaker 2:It's. It's good, it's good, it's good enough, hey, but it's great to be with you you too, Welcome back into the foxhole, but we would like to say welcome to Jeremy Williamson.
Speaker 1:Jeremy comes to us on a recommendation for someone we have come to love and trust, the author of the book Sage, chris Bruno. So I was talking to Chris and I said hey, chris, anyone you can think of you would be a good guest for us in the foxhole. And he I don't think he got a breath out and he said Jeremy. So for that reason alone, we're excited to talk to you.
Speaker 1:Let me tell you what we know about Jeremy as a passionate and kind leader with over 25 years of experience in counseling and ministry. Throughout his career, he served as a pastor, missionary, counselor and even international disaster relief director, bringing deep insight and compassion to each role. Jeremy is committed to helping others find hope and restoration in their lives. He and his wife live in Southwest Missouri where they're raising their three teenage lives. He and his wife live in Southwest Missouri where they're raising their three teenage children. He's the author of the upcoming book titled Not my Name, and Jeremy's blend of professional expertise and personal authenticity make him a sought-after voice on topics of faith, personal growth and men's issues. Yeah, welcome to the foxhole, bro.
Speaker 4:Bonus to whoever wrote that yeah, Sounds so good.
Speaker 2:I think it was chat GPT Maybe, I'm not sure.
Speaker 1:It's beautiful and look, there's topics of faith, personal growth and men's issues. You're in the right place, Amen. You know we are unfinished symphonies in all of those areas, just trying to figure out part of God's plan for our life. So, aside from your bio, can you give folks just a little background on Jeremy, where you are today, what you're about?
Speaker 4:Yeah, so these days I live, as the bio says, in Southwest Missouri. My wife and we have a house full of extroverted athletes, teenagers that are just it's crazy time. So my, my oldest child is about to graduate from high school and she's headed headed to college to play volleyball here next year, and so we're life is fun and busy and full, and you know, I actually think that that that might describe how my life has been since I was like 17 years old full and busy and fun. I um, I think it's worth saying like I actually decided I was 16 years old and I remember finding out that I went to this little country school in Oregon, uh, where everybody was a lumberjack or the son of a lumberjack, and that was true about, about me too.
Speaker 4:My dad and grandpa and great grandpa were all in the timber industry and and and. So I found out like, hey, you're seeing my senior year of high school. I was only going to have like one class I had to take, and I just had way too big of dreams for that. I was like, wait, wait, I'm gonna spend a year of my life in this little country school for an English class, and so that that day I became a senior, skipped, skipped my junior year, became a senior, ended up graduating early and and life has just been pretty full throttle since then. It's been a pretty incredible, pretty special journey, awesome.
Speaker 1:Wow, and you moved directly from Oregon to Missouri, or were there stops along the way?
Speaker 4:No, that's so. So Oregon to Colorado to go to Bible school, and then I moved to El Salvador in Central America Wow. And then to Texas on the Mexico border, and then to East Africa, in Malawi, and then back to Colorado and then here to Missouri. So just a short, just small Wow.
Speaker 2:That's wild. Where were you in El Salvador?
Speaker 4:I live just outside of the capital city of San Salvador and yeah little little community called La Cima.
Speaker 2:Okay, wow, that's awesome. How, how long were you there?
Speaker 4:Just over a year.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, had the opportunity to do a lot, of, a lot of ministry work, um, in in El Salvador, with compassion, with compassion international, and, um, yeah, I love it, just just love it there and love the people to country near and dear to my heart. It's cool.
Speaker 4:El Salvador does. It still has, my heart for sure. Still a bunch of friends there and my son, who's 15, my middle child, he, uh, he wants to go do what I did and spend a year, year and a half, uh, with that same ministry, actually in El Salvador, as soon as he graduates. So that's fun.
Speaker 2:That's awesome.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so I've been married for 19 years. It'll be. It'll be 20 years next October. Okay and uh, we've got a 17 year old daughter, a 15 year old son and a 13 year old son.
Speaker 2:Okay, awesome.
Speaker 1:So you've been a pastor and a counselor. Help us. Uh, so people can connect the dots back to Chris and re-story counseling. How do you fit there?
Speaker 4:Yeah, so I was. I was pastoring in Northern Colorado. Uh, my wife and I were leading a church there for about seven years and that's when I got to know Chris and my relationship with Chris. Chris began to invite me into some places that felt really familiar inside my own soul, inside my own heart. He started to invite me, just as a friend, into being curious about some places inside of me that as I, as I started to walk down those paths in the wilderness of my own soul, I also realized man I was. I think I was born to do this work, and so much of my life makes sense now, the way that I've engaged with God, the way that I've engaged with people, the things that I've been passionate about. I just had to go to some of those deep places in myself first before I realized that, yeah, this is. I think this is what I was made for.
Speaker 2:That's amazing.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:That's amazing. I love that and you know I love it for so many reasons, but I think, unfortunately you know I love it for so many reasons, but I think, unfortunately, you know, so many of us go through most of our lives and careers not knowing that, not sensing that, not feeling that that okay, wow, this is this is what I was made for, right Like, and that is so unfortunate.
Speaker 4:Right Like, and that is're. We're far from that today in one way or another. We're not. We're not living that, acting like that, uh, believing like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and that that, wow, that quiet desperation, cause that that's exhausting, that's exhausting, like it, that takes a toll and, um, you know it's interesting. What you said I want to go back to for a moment, cause you said you know what? What led to that discovery was the need to go deeper into your own heart, right, like, like Chris led you on that journey. It sounds like. Tell us more about that. What, what did what does that mean? What did that journey look like?
Speaker 4:Mm-hmm. You know, when I arrived in northern Colorado it had been already after a decade at least of ministry and what I didn't realize was that I had gone out into the world I mentioned. I graduated high school early. All fire, all passion. We're going to win the world for Jesus. We're going to like it's going to be incredible Revival, people getting saved. It's going to be amazing. That's all I knew.
Speaker 4:And I didn't even realize then how the way that I was seeing the world and the way that I was imagining myself was through the broken lens of what I had come to prove, what I needed to prove to God, what I needed to prove to my dad, what, what, the, the, the worth, um, the presence that I needed to gain through the things that I could do. So I went into the world kind of aware, like, okay, I can do some stuff, like I've, I've got some gifts, let me just go bring those to the world and people are going to love me and there's going to be a place for me and everything's going to be fine. And then you get into the real world, like when I went to El Salvador, man, we had a 7.0 earthquake while I was living there. Wow, 7.6 or 7.7. And I was supposed to be there.
Speaker 1:That's life changing.
Speaker 4:It was life changing. So I mean there were over a thousand people who died just a mile away from my house in a landslide. Chris talks about in the book Sage that, like this persona that I've had, this person that I've tried to be so that I can find my place in the world, it's not working, and I could tell stories for hours about just ways that God invited me to to to scrape, scrape off that persona down to the bone and and come back to who I actually am as a son, so that those I could say so much more about that. But in general, that that's the road that Chris invited me down was to start naming what's what's actually been true about my story and what I've come to believe about myself as a result of that.
Speaker 1:Well, let's stay there. I don't want to. Let's peel that onion back a little bit. That down to the bone story is our favorite kind. We all have one. They're dissimilar but they're all faith-filled stories. They are ones worth going through. They are the traction, it's the Sisyphean feat right of pushing the rock up the hill, or whatever that metaphor is. Today, Tell us more about what that part of the journey was like, where you, you know, got raw exposed.
Speaker 4:If you can, here's yeah, if you would have met me when I was 18, 19 years old, you would have been like here's this confident, probably arrogant guy who's got some gifts and is probably going to do something with his life. What you wouldn't know is my mom's dad. Like you wouldn't know the family that I came from, but my mom's dad was a rapist and a pedophile and just a completely evil man and just a completely evil man. My dad's dad was a stoic English, scottish lumberjack who just had, like a lot of guys from his generation, had no words for his kids, no affection for his sons. And so here's the family that I'm born into A mom who had grown up in horrific abuse and a dad who never knew the affection of his own dad. I didn't know. That was my story and I didn't have words to say, to share about how I felt the abandonment of my own dad and how my experience with him over 18 years led me to wonder if I even belonged in the company of men. Like, I knew I was a guy, but like do I have what it takes to be a man, williamson at that, having no idea who I was or if anybody saw me or where I fit. So I take all of that energy plus my love for God and I think I'm going to find my name and I've got to go find it and I've got to go become something. And I've got to go because so far my name had been like unwanted maybe like unwanted but available for consumption available for consumption. And so God is using, like the earthquake.
Speaker 4:And then the team that I was a part of fell apart. So I joined another team and I'm the only white guy and Spanish is really important part of my life, so I felt really comfortable in that team. But we were supposed to take over the world. And then they start telling me things like yeah, jeremy, we hate you, we wish you weren't on this team, nobody likes you, and I'm just falling apart again and it goes on and on. Then my parents divorce and then just nothing. Nothing in my world worked the way that it was supposed to and I didn't end up being the person that I thought I was supposed to be. I never found the name I guess I could say that I was looking for. Does that make sense?
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It does so? If so, at that point, I mean it sounds like you know, I mean your world's kind of crashing down around you, right? I mean you know both literally, your world's kind of crashing down around you, right, I mean you know both literally and figuratively, right, I mean this earthquake. You know literally, and then, figuratively, you're through your, you know your family, this, this, you know this divorce and your team. You know almost this sort of I don't want to put words in your mouth, but like abandonment, what, what's going on at that point, right? Like I mean, is this, does this lead to a crisis of faith, or is it? Is it? Yeah, like I mean I'm imagining myself at that point. But at that point in your life, where, where are you at, like, what's, what questions are you asking him? You know where's God in that and you know what's that relationship like.
Speaker 4:I love that question. I remember one day our house was kind of on the side of a volcano since that was a volcano and during the earthquake and all the aftershocks smoke, and it just seemed like people were saying that the volcano might erupt. And so I'm sitting alone on the roof of this house looking out over san salvador, there's a big aftershock, and I look back behind me and the puffs of smoke start to come up and I remember just thinking like I god, I don't, I don't think you're there, and if you are, I don't think you care about me at all. Which was such. It was like a familiar feeling for me because I I remember being young, I was 16 and, uh, it was my turn. So, williamson, men hunting is a really big deal for us and I remember it was my turn.
Speaker 4:It's finally time for me to go elk hunting and carry my own gun, and instead of just going to camp but not hunting, I actually got to hunt this year. So we go to my uncle's house to pick up the rifle that I was going to use. My uncle like it's just me and my dad and I just can imagine us waiting outside his door. My uncle opens the door and he hands us this rifle and it's this old, like pump action, 300 Savage, and I noticed there's not a scope on it. And I look at my dad and I'm like there's no scope. I mean, if you're hearing this and you're not at the hunting, like ah, 16 year old is probably not going to go elk hunting without a scope.
Speaker 1:I totally get it.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I look over my dad, I'm like this, where's the scope? And I just catch my dad looking at my uncle and there's like this little smirk on his face that I think I wasn't supposed to see. And my dad looks back at me and he's like oh, it's okay, you're not, you're not really gonna need it. And so I say that because I felt the same way on the volcano of like okay, you don't see me, you're not here for me, I'm not a part of this, I don't belong here, I'm abandoned by you. And in in both of those situations, my, my unhealthy response honestly was cool, watch me like, forget you, watch me, watch how strong I can be, I'll show you Watch what I can do and not healthy.
Speaker 4:but that was my response.
Speaker 2:Wow, so that was your response even in that moment, on the side of the volcano.
Speaker 4:Both times, yeah, and I'll tell you. So I went and I killed an elk with that stupid gun. And in El Salvador I joined another team. I said forget this, I'm going to go do something even harder. And I joined a team that was going to travel from Canada all the way to the tip of South America, preaching the gospel sleeping on the side of the road. You know, it was called the last harvest and I went and did something even more intense, even more crazy, because my response to abandonment has always been cool I'm fine on my own, Watch me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like Challenge me. Yeah, well, when you were asking him your last question, what I was thinking was when things fell apart, literally and figuratively, in El Salvador, we often, at moments when things crumble around us, where do we look to first? Home, we go home. Yeah, home, safe homes, people we know, people who love us, people who protect us, provide for us, give us a place to sleep, and you have a divorce going on at home, so you find your. How old were you sitting on that roof, by the way? 18. Okay, I was going to say 19. Yeah, you're an 18 year old man and it's. You know, testosterone and adrenaline are a heck of a cocktail, right, which is kind of your. Your response is I'll show you, but you're really not going home. You go to last harvest.
Speaker 4:Which which home is exactly where I needed to be, and that's that's. That's what I've learned in in my journey of understanding that I'm a son, I'm a son, I'm a beloved son, and so for me to be comfortable coming maybe my physical home is never going to be that where my parents are, but that I'm a son of God who is well-loved and I can rest in Him that's where I needed to be. I didn't know how to go there, though I had no idea how to get there Right?
Speaker 1:Well, you had no role models that I'm aware of, not that you've talked about From home, from great-grandfather to grandfather, all the lumberjacks on one side, and then people who were abandoning you in El Salvador, where you thought you were called to be at that time, which is a heck of a calling. I mean, I I honor that. You picked yourself up from, I think it was, oregon and went to El Salvador not to visit, right, you moved in, yeah.
Speaker 2:You, you, you. Then you know, you run off, kind of forge out on that next journey, right, like uh, to to do it all for God, right, and what? What does that result in? Like? What does that then lead to Right?
Speaker 4:Yeah, it leads to more um pain. Okay, because that I just learned it'll never work. It's. It was not what I needed. There was adrenaline, there was goodness. Yeah, we slept on the side of the road.
Speaker 4:I got stories of, like spending nights on the tarmac in Mexico, like somewhere halfway between Texas and Guatemala, and, yeah, it was great and some of the hardest moments of my life, some of the like most intense tears I've ever shed we weren't actually made to be alone or abandoned as strong as we think we could be in that situation. That's not who we're meant to be. So, yeah, it didn't work and I found myself, you know, took a job right after that, took a job at a church in Texas that wanted to build a big ministry in Mexico, was already doing great things in Mexico and just wanted to expand it. And that's where I met my wife. But I kept running down that road of abandoned, alone but really intense and passionate well into my married life.
Speaker 4:There was even a guy who warned my wife when we were engaged. He said, rachel, I just I want you to know that Jeremy runs a million miles an hour and he lives on his own island and nobody really knows that guy Like he's passionate, he gets stuff done, but find out if anybody has ever actually known who he is Doesn't exist. So he literally warned my wife about what she was getting into. Wow, she didn't listen to me. It was a wake up call. But I still didn't do the work until I until I met Chris, like so many years later, in Colorado.
Speaker 2:Wow and so yeah, so that that's interesting and so, as you, I guess, what led to that meeting. I mean, how did you, how did you connect with Chris?
Speaker 4:Yeah, my wife went to a meeting for mothers of preschoolers at a church and Chris was speaking that day and I think he was being young and scrappy and trying to build his counseling practice, and so he was saying yes to every opportunity.
Speaker 2:I was going to ask.
Speaker 4:That's hysterical.
Speaker 2:That's how he found us. That's hysterical though I'm sorry, I look, cause I could picture him up there, in front of these mothers of preschoolers Like I, can only imagine what he talked about that day and I have no idea.
Speaker 4:I have no idea. But she came home and she was like I think you need to meet this guy.
Speaker 1:That's awesome, and so.
Speaker 4:Chris got at work. Chris and I start hanging out and and I'll maybe this whole story kind of in some ways, comes to a head. There was one night it was probably one o'clock in the morning and I I was, I was with Chris and we were at a men's retreat and we just happened to find each other. We're sitting up in the loft and he's sitting across from me and he just starts being curious about me and where I'm at. And we arrive at this place where I'm finally able to name.
Speaker 4:I've been by myself my whole life because I'm terrified to trust someone to hold me. I'm terrified that. I'm terrified of what it would be like to trust that somebody would be strong enough that they wouldn't abandon me, that somebody would have the ability to actually hold me. And Chris and when I say that I am holding all of the wounds from El Salvador, from my childhood, from Africa there's so much we didn't even talk about from my whole life up to that point I'm feeling all of it. I'm just saying, yeah, I wish there was somebody who could hold me. Chris, he gets down on his knees and he opens up his arms really wide and I just like in 20 minutes later and his sleeve is covered in my tears and snot and I just felt for the first time what what it's like to be a son and what it's like to be a brother, who, who can be uh, weak and held and um and young. So, yeah, I've been really grateful for Chris's influence in my life, for sure, wow.
Speaker 1:That's. That's such a great story. It's awesome.
Speaker 2:That's so awesome, man, thank you. Thank you for sharing that and um, yeah, and just being transparent about the pain and um, you know, you know I'm just I'm loving that God. Yeah, just what he orchestrates, you know and you know putting people in our lives through circumstances like that. You know, and you know I got to imagine. You know Chris is talking to these mothers of preschoolers. You know these young, young women sitting there and he's probably asking them questions about their husbands and like you know, like I mean really right, and uh, ah, it's so cool.
Speaker 1:That is so cool. So you and Chris now, uh, you met him first when roughly what year? Probably 2012. Okay, so your 12 year relationship and you and Chris and, I'm guessing others, but you're part of the team that's going to skull and tell us a little about the adventure you're going to go on in three weeks.
Speaker 4:I love that. So I get to work with Chris both on the counseling side of the organization through restored counseling and also through restorationoration Project, which is the organization that's specifically toward men. So I love getting to do work on both ends of that organization. And in a couple of weeks we're taking a group of men there's 18 men plus Chris and I and another incredible guy named Drew who's helping us lead going into the highlands in scotland in january uh, intentionally into the cold and bluster.
Speaker 4:Last, last year, actually this year, 2024 when we were there it was like 100 mile an hour winds, crazy storms in the time of our lives. Um, we go there because we just, we feel like the backdrop of the scottish highlands in january mirrors, mirrors, the backdrop and the atmosphere of a man's soul, especially those of us who are in the middle of our lives, and there's so much about that space that feels like it's easy to meet God there, it's easy to confront the wounds that we're carrying there, and so we'll go see some beautiful places that are all kind of specifically chosen to the backdrop, and the place or the hike that we're doing that day or the place we're going invites us deeper into some of those places into our own souls and stories. So it's one of the many really cool things I get to do as a part of my job.
Speaker 1:And your job. Just what is your vocation? A vocation, what do you do for a living? So, with Restory Counseling.
Speaker 4:I'm a I'm a story work coach, so I I offer care to men and women. I work with a lot of couples, a lot of people who are ministry leaders, so I work with a lot of pastors who are burned out or wounded missionaries who are in the same boat.
Speaker 4:I work with men who are wrestling with sexual issues, so guys who are addicted or stuck in unwanted sexual behaviors. With Restoration Project I'm the director of experiences, so that means, like all the cool trips whether it's to Kenya or Scotland or Colorado or Utah or California all the ways that we take men and their sons and daughters out into the wilderness. All the cool trips whether it's to Kenya or Scotland or Colorado or Utah or California all the ways that we take men and their sons and daughters out into the wilderness to go deep with each other and with God and in their own hearts. I get to oversee all of that good work.
Speaker 1:Okay, all right. So that leads me to your bio. Ends with. You're a sought after voice on men's issues, and that's what we're about. We are men in community. Authentic community is our goal, right Finding-.
Speaker 2:I thought you were going to say we're men with issues which we are, we are. Everything he mentioned right, it's like a poo-poo platter, One of each.
Speaker 1:But men's issues are really important to us. We have been dealing with those in our own way. We are not I told you this, but I love to say it we are not certified or trained in counseling, in theology, in giving advice. What we have is life experience. We also have a lot of experience leading men to try and find their authentic community. So I'm going to ask you a two-part question it's a good and a bad and that is you're dealing with all these men. What are you seeing in men today or recently that lifts you, that buoys you, that you say yes to the gods that work in men's lives? And this is what I am seeing in your experience. I'm going to ask you the converse question in a minute. Mm-hmm, I'm going to ask you the converse question in a minute.
Speaker 4:I think so. One author said that pain, trauma, is passed down from one generation to the next until someone is brave enough to feel it, Until someone's brave enough to do something about it. That's my story. It's been passed down to me and it ends here. I'm not passing it down to my sons or my daughter, and I see that in this generation, more than ever before, a willingness to go into the wild and untended and painful places in our souls, a willingness to be honest, more than I've ever seen before, get with a guy who's got a lot to say, and the degree of of willingness to go to hard places and to say hard things and to do the work is incredible to me. And so what we see as a result of that is family trees are changing.
Speaker 4:I see men my age who are kneeling down and I'll see in a couple of months at our father-daughter camp in Colorado see men my age kneeling down in front of their 10, 12-year-old daughters, like holding her hands and offering her a blessing from the pit of his soul, endorsing her loveliness and her fierceness and the image of God in her. And that wasn't even a thing when we were growing up. But there are hundreds of men, thousands of men all over the world. I sat in a room in Kenya two years ago with men who live in the slums, who were sitting with Chris and I. There was, there was 25 men in a tiny little classroom saying how can we be better dads to our kids? How can we be better men? It's, it's all over the world. I think men are ready to engage, to remember who they are and to acknowledge their wounds and do what it takes to be whole, and that's changing generations Absolutely.
Speaker 1:I love that, thank you. So, conversely, given your experience with so many men over the last few years, what are you seeing that concerns you? What real life examples do you have in your empirical evidence? You have things in men's community that are just not headed in the right direction.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I think that evil has always been about the work of getting us to forget who we are and to hide the image of God, like when Jesus said you're the light of the world.
Speaker 4:The city on the hill cannot be hidden. No one lights a lamp and puts it under a basket. Evil has been after getting men to do that, to hide our strength and to hide the image of God in us forever. I think today it is so easy for man to get swept into something like pornography online, or even just like mindless scrolling, which are the enemy's tools to take our masculinity and our strength and hide it away somewhere secret and isolated and covered in shame. And so I think today, like the numbers of men who are addicted to pornography are probably higher than ever in history, evil has always been getting us to abandon, like bringing our strength into the world instead of into porn. He's always been trying to get us to step away from the image of God on us as men. Now it just feels particularly acute the number of men who are stuck in addiction, whether that's just with pornography or, like I said, just scrolling mindlessly on their phones.
Speaker 1:Yeah, two very real examples. I'm sorry to know I walk around with my badge on about. I don't do social media very much. I have a Facebook page because of this podcast, but that's all it takes because I'll get stuck in there. I'll get stuck in the reels every 10 second video, and mine, truthfully, are mostly sports and a couple of movies. I don't venture very far because I guess if you click like, you get more of those right in the algorithm. I don't know how it works, but I've. I've only. It's been six months, but I can tell you there's more time than I'm comfortable with where I'm just scrolling through. Yeah, they just play one after another.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, mindless scrolling is a is a an addiction for sure.
Speaker 1:I feel like my brain is rotting a lot of times.
Speaker 4:And what? When we're there, when we're stuck there, where are we not Right, like when, when all of ourselves is being absorbed into that screen? Where is my strength and my tenderness, a kindness, where am I not engaging in the world? Yeah, which I think is a part of how evil wins, is he gets all of the sons of God to be busy about other things.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 4:And and the goodness of God in us is not present in the world.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know it's interesting. I wanted to share, share something real quickly, as you were sharing the. You know the story of you and Chris and that loft and and you know the, the holy moment, moment or moments that took place there and the and the healing that began there. I, in some of my mindless scrolling on uh on LinkedIn, I came across a post recently, about a week ago, and it was uh, there was a video of um, uh, of men. I don't know that this was a Christian gathering or not, but it was certainly an intensive men's gathering and there was work, heart work going on, there were tears, there were, you know, men holding each other. I mean, this is, you know, similarly to what you described and similar, similarly to what Mark and I have experienced countless times on intensive men's weekends over the last 15 years that are every single one of them is is transformational and life-changing um, both for us just to witness what God's doing in the hearts and lives of men, as well as as participants.
Speaker 2:But the, the vitriol from the poster about what was taking place in that video was so shocking to me, and the comments, um, and it just, it just broke my heart. It broke my heart as I read it and I haven't come across that very, very much. I really haven't. I've been so dialed in on the incredible work that God is doing through ministries like Restory and the Restoration Project and countless others. I mean it's so encouraging to see God move in the hearts and lives of men all over the world in a way that I don't know if it's ever, it's ever taken place in history and, um, it's unbelievable.
Speaker 2:And I come across this video and I'm like man, like it is so heartbreaking to, to hear and to see the, the, the, the public shaming of what was taking place in this video, as you know, uh, feminine and weak, and you know all these other things, and I'm going no, like, no, no, you know, and and I just, and I just thought like I had to just stop and pray, and you know I, I started to write a comment, like I started to cut, and I'm like no, no, no, this isn't for this is not like my battle, this is not for social media, and I just had to bring it before the Lord.
Speaker 2:But it was interesting because I, like I said, I have not witnessed that very much and probably just from a lack of awareness. You know, it's just not. Those aren't the circles I'm in anymore, right, like it's been decades, and so praise God. But boy is the enemy still at work, right? I mean, boy is the enemy still at work, and the enemy was just all over that. I'm thinking man just praying for every person whose eyes you know were set on that post, and praying against the enemy having a foothold there.
Speaker 4:But yeah, I just wonder, like the guy who posted that, yeah, you and I know, yep, the guy who posted that actually needs that.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 4:There's a little boy inside of him who needs to be held inside of him. Who, who, who needs to be held, and there's. I would just be so curious about what, what was actually going on inside his heart, and I'd love to spend some time with him, the guy who posted it, because I think there's, yeah, there's, a cultural american, and it's not just american, but it's kind of macho, like we don't do that and yet we all want to, if we're honest, right, right, but it's just hard to get there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is hard to get there. It is hard to get there, which is why you have intensive experiences like you guys facilitate and like we've facilitated many times, because without that intensity, you guys aren't gonna just you know, get there right Like we need to be. I need to be, you know, shaken right, sort of awakened out of my slumber.
Speaker 1:Yeah, to your core right and that's and please take this the right way. You can go to Scotland and do that, or you can go to a Mark Menden phase one experience right. There's many opportunities that God provides for us to do that. So I just had a small epiphany After about a half hour with Jeremy. I feel a lot like I did after a half hour with Chris.
Speaker 2:And that is.
Speaker 1:I want to talk to him again, a hundred percent Right. So, jeremy, if you don't mind, you don't have to answer now, but we would like to have you back again and maybe take a specific topic coming out of your Scotland trip and dig deep on that. We'll plan that together sometime in 2025. Before we go, though, I'd love for you to spend a minute telling folks about your upcoming book. Not my Name is the title. Get a chance to tell folks what you're going to do.
Speaker 4:Yeah, thank you, man, not my Name is a book about sonship. It's a book about what it like, who we actually are, and the reality is we we kind of like Jacob in the Old Testament have all of us have grown up and have been given names that God never intended for us to have, and those, those words and those things that we pick up on, they live in us and they actually ruin our lives. Jacob was, was never intended to be named Jacob, which means deceiver, manipulator, heel grabber. God always had something different in mind for him and uh, and so not. My name is all about what it's like to to rebel against the words that are ruining our lives, to to name them, to understand the ways that we've picked up those false identities and uh, and to take him to Jesus and to let him speak a better word over us.
Speaker 1:Amen Love that. Yeah, we do. That's awesome. When can we expect to see that?
Speaker 4:I springtime. It should be spring or summer of 2025.
Speaker 1:All right, cool, cool. We're looking forward to it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so take, keep your eye out for Not my Name. We'll be sure and keep our eye out and pick it up and, uh, and promote it when it comes out. And um, it'd be a good time to have Jeremy back. Absolutely yeah, that would be. That would be awesome If you would. If you would do that, we'd love to have you back.
Speaker 2:And and um, yeah, I just want to remind our listeners that you know God is still writing your story. God is still writing your story and, um, you know, if, if you're in a place where you're not even sure what that means, or the story that's been written you need to be rewritten, I would just encourage you to reach out to Jeremy and to Chris. You could visit Restorylife to learn more about Restory Counseling or the Restoration Project. We'll put it all in the notes, yeah, and check it out. These are good, godly men doing good work and so many different ways that you can interact with and engage with them as an individual or even as a couple, as a married couple as well Some great marriage resources, and so I just want to strongly encourage that.
Speaker 1:So, jeremy, you and your lovely wife and three kids, and I just wanted to pass on our blessings to you and your family and say thank you yeah.
Speaker 4:I feel the same way you guys. It's so good to run into other men who are doing the same work that God's put on our hearts, and what an honor for us, like you said it a second ago, to watch, to bear witness to the incredible things that God is doing all around the world. It's an honor to be a part of it, so I appreciate your invitation.
Speaker 2:Awesome, amen. God bless you, brother. Please give our best to Chris and enjoy your trip. Enjoy your trip and be sure to let us know how it goes.
Speaker 4:All right guys, I sure will.
Speaker 1:I'll check in.
Speaker 4:Peace Thanks.
Speaker 3:What a great opportunity to get to know our brother Jeremy. It's incredible to see God's fingerprints all over his life. You know, something that I've been spending time thinking about is the connection made between Jeremy and Chris. Thing that I've been spending time thinking about is the connection made between Jeremy and Chris. It took Chris to be faithful in many things, including speaking to that mom's group that night. Jeremy also had to step out into faith to pursue that relationship with Chris and they both had to take a leap of faith. That night they decided to dive in headfirst into Jeremy's brokenness and begin to journey on the road back home to his perfect father in heaven.
Speaker 3:I have the sense that many out there listening to this may think that was okay for Jeremy, but I'm different. My brokenness goes deep. My pain is more than I can ever talk about. Or nobody knows the weight of the things that I have to carry where. Nobody knows the weight of the things that I have to carry.
Speaker 3:Well, god's Word says this. I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God's love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow, not even the powers of hell can separate us from God's love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below, indeed, nothing in all creation, will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Authentic relationships will get you one, lord. Please continue to use this podcast to impact the lives of all who listen. I ask that you would bring hope and healing to each and every one of them. Meet them right where they are and reveal yourself to them like only you can do, in Jesus' name amen.
Speaker 2:If you enjoyed today's episode, please share it and invite others to the Foxhole. You can find us wherever you download your favorite podcasts. Be sure to subscribe so you know when new episodes drop, and please rate us and comment there too, as it'll help us get found by others who could benefit. Find, follow and like us on your go-to social media networks by searching Foxhole Symphony or visit foxholesymphonycom to make it super easy to find us. Drop us a line with feedback, questions, topic requests. Who knows, maybe you'll be a guest on a future episode. In the meantime, prepare to move, embrace discomfort and just be you.
