Jenn Suen Chen | Dim Sum, Identity, and the Table of God: How Our Stories Shape Our Souls

The world is becoming increasingly proficient at telling stories that deny God. As such, we need Thinking Christian to become as natural as breathing. Welcome to the Thinking Christian podcast. I'm Dr. James Spencer. Through calm, thoughtful theological discussions, Thinking Christian highlights the ways God is working in the world and questions the underlying social, cultural and political assumptions that hinder Christians from becoming more like Christ. Now, on to today's episode of Thinking Christian. Hey, everybody, welcome to this episode of Thinking Christian. Today I am joined by Jen Swen Chin, and she is an author, a speaker, a spiritual formation leader. And she's written a book called Dim Sum and Faith, how our stories form our souls. I really I was able to read the book this week, really enjoyed it. And so I'm excited to welcome you to the podcast. How are you? I'm doing well. Thanks, James. Very good. Well, tell me a little bit about how how you got into maybe spiritual direction, how you got into and what led you to write this book, particularly. That's a good question. My husband and I served overseas for about 24, 25 years in Asia. And so the book was really a kind of a culmination of like my own journey into discovery of like how God doesn't waste anything of our stories, you know, just as a Chinese-American daughter of immigrants born and raised in the U.S. And then going to Asia where my ancestors are from and ministering there. I think it was just kind of a God bringing different layers of identity, more clear for me and helping me understand that as well as just walking alongside both. Our national friends as well as tons of people along the way from all around the world. You know, you describe dim sum. I thought I kind of knew what dim sum was, but in your book, I realized I had no idea what dim sum was. So can you just give everybody a sort of a brief understanding of what dim sum is and why you chose that as the title? Because I found that fascinating. You know, I I love the table metaphor that God invites us to the table, that he invites us and that we're all there's room enough. For all of us at the table, but the table that we imagine is really kind of our own cultural context, the table we grew up in or around. And for me growing up, I realized that I grew up around a round table and most of my white friends did not. And I grew up with a table with a swiveling center. And I'm not sure why they call it a lazy Susan. But anyways, that's what it was. And it was yellow. It was in the seventies. And we just grew up just always bringing more chairs around the table. So that's the picture of the table that I imagined. But also dim sum is, I also realized like as a kid really fast that that table was really different because we, they push out carts and you get to pick what you want to eat. And it's, it's a mix of small little dishes of like rice wrapped shrimp, you know, hagao or siumai, which is like pork dumplings or it's like egg rolls or it's egg tarts and it's barbecue buns. I mean, it's so amazing. And as a kid, it's a dream. You get to just grab the plate you want and the kinds of things that you want. And I still am that five-year-old that likes the same things. Like they serve everything from like chicken feet, which my kids love and everything. So it's like a, it's like an experience, which growing up, you don't realize like, oh, this is like so weird for most, you know, especially in the seventies. It was this, I know this is different than all of my friends, but I love it. And I think as I imagined this, this journey of spiritual formation that we are doing around the table where it's not just this individual journey, just me and God, but it's just together like for myself and many others coming out of collective cultures. Like when I think about my relationship with the Lord, it's been formed not just in this vertical space, but in very much around the table, listening to other people's faith journeys and how they're experiencing God and what they're learning. And so it kind of became this, I mean, I think the original title my husband was like Dim Sum on Sundays, which is what we did. Actually it was Dim Sum on Saturdays because that's what we do with, with friends. And then Sunday, because my dad's a pastor, and so we always had to eat lunch at church. So our Sunday Dim Sum lunch was moved to Saturday. And then when it came with IVP it was Dim Sum and faith, which I really love that. Yeah. So that's a long answer to your question. No, it's great. I, I wanted to ask a question because I had this sort of interesting experience with tables when I was growing up. So my family lived in a house. We had a small enough house. We didn't have a table. We ate on TV trays most of the time. And so you'd kind of go to the stove, serve up whatever was cooking and then you'd go in in front of the television and you'd sit, you know, wherever you wanted and you'd have your TV tray. And when I started dating my girlfriend, who's now my wife in high school, I went to her house for our first date and she was, she got there late. She was at a volleyball tournament. And so I'm, I'm like there for dinner. I think I'm there to pick her up, but we're going to have dinner before. And so I ended up sitting down with her entire family at a table. And, and trying to like channel every television show I've ever seen of people eating around a table to figure out what I'm doing there. It was such an odd experience because it was so different than what I grew up with. I mean, we're passing food around where, you know, we're dishing out different dishes and, and, you know, we didn't do a lot of creative cooking around my house. So there's food that I don't even really recognize what it is like little casseroles or whatever they were. And so my question is how did, how did people who came, like, it's interesting, you had the dim sum Saturdays. When you'd invite other people in, how did other people experience it? Like, did they have that sort of, yeah, how did other people experience those meals around your table with you as you were growing up or even as you were practicing it as you were a little older? Yeah. You know, I think if they were also Chinese, there was no explanation needed, right? There's like, you, you just know, like, there's this like intuitive, we swivel the table. We wait till someone's done, you know, grabbing their food and dim sum was often like outside at a restaurant. So it's just loud. It's chaotic. It's amazing. And long, but around our round table, I think there was this, I wrote about it a little bit. I actually have a copy of my book here, but I wrote about how awkward it felt to explain to friends. One, that we pray before a meal if they were, you know, not believers, but also just that we, we wait till elders get food. And if they serve the kids, like there's this, like, you read the room as a kid growing up in a culture and you don't actually even have words for it until you realize someone's at my table who doesn't understand. And I'm seven and I have to explain to you, like, take off your shoes. Please don't call my mom by her, her name. And, you know, like there's these things that maybe more might be more intuitive in different parts of the U.S. that might have like deeper rooted maybe rules of engagement in relationally, but in terms for Chinese culture, there's just the elder child relationship is, is definitely a thing as well as table manners, which is different. It's not just a way that we, they say, you know, napkin on your, you know, fork and knife and, but the chopsticks, it's spoons. It's, it's help yourself, but let me help you. And so there's, there was a, I think as a kid, I was, because I grew up where I grew up without any Asian friends, there was a lot of explaining. So I think I've, that cultural translator was born early. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's just, it's really interesting. I, I remember how awkward it was for me. And so I can imagine like from the other side of that, trying to help people understand all the different nuances of what's going on around that table would be really, really challenging. Yeah. So talk a little bit about how that analogy then connects with some of the things that you're writing about in the book, the idea of, you know, stories really shaping and using our whole story, God using our whole story, not wanting to leave any aspect of that out. How does that metaphor then connect for you? You know, I think growing up and perhaps this is for those of recent immigrants, you know, the story that we're wondering, does our story matter? You know, I've spent so much of my, my spiritual journey has been formed by a lot of white writers and pastors and, and grateful. But I think that there was a point in my journey where I realized like I am always translating. I'm always contextualizing what I'm reading. And I think it came when I was, when we were overseas in East Asia and one of, you know, a very well-known book on marriage was translated into Chinese. And it was like baseball analogies and like eating around a table with just three, you know, with like three people. And it's like, a meal is never just, you know, there's no baseball in terms of, it's not just

So I think that picture of around the table was like this God meeting us in our context. So to your TV table dinner self, that was your context and God met you there. There is no context that is better or worse. In fact, you'll laugh because I always dreamed that we could have those little TV dinner stands. I really wanted them. We didn't have them. It's funny, you want what you don't have, right? But I think that that piece of like that God meets us in our context, that God met Moses as a Hebrew growing up in Egypt. God met, like he meets us each where we're at. And if we believe God is the one who sees each of us, as in Psalm 139, that beautiful Psalm that just speaks to our identity being so known and seen by God. And he made no mistake for all of our stories. And so I think a lot of spiritual formation books have been written with like a very like individual me and God space. But I think I wanted it to be around a messy table where stories are shared and every part of our story. Yeah, matters. Yeah. How do you recommend, I mean, you do spiritual direction. And so how do you recommend people to sort of get back to that history? So especially in, you know, I've grown up, I grew up in the States. I knew my grandparents relatively well, but not really well. I think one of the most compelling conversations I ever had with my grandfather was when he sat down and told me his experience from World War II, like fighting in World War II, which was fantastic. I mean, just a really interesting framing of him that I really didn't know that much about. It was great. But, you know, aside from, you know, sitting and talking to some of those older relatives who've had different experiences and really that really formed and shaped them and probably been passed down in some way, shape or form through the family. What are some things that you might suggest for people to get in touch with their whole story? Yeah, I think that, you know, Christian and non-Christian spaces, we talk about story work. So what makes the difference for us as believers? Why, you know, why do we do this? Is it just like digging around the past and like we've got some memorabilia and yay. But no, I think it's like there's parts of us that the unhealed parts that leak out, right? There's the stuff that in our stories, especially in our formative years that have really that really impact the way we show up in relationship. And I think that's what I feel most burdened for. I think as I do a lot of, we do marriage coaching and families, working with families and recently working with a lot of adult MKs like my kids' age who are in their mid to late twenties who are processing their stories of moving about, living in really hard places and having to juggle and wondering why am I still impacted? Why are goodbyes so hard for me? Simple. Why do, my husband and I, when we say goodbye, I am major closure girl and I need to like say goodbye like 14 times. And my husband's like, I'll see you in heaven. Like he's so like, yeah, we're good. That was amazing. And I remember thinking that is so cold-hearted. How do you live with yourself, you know? But our stories so impact, right, the ways that we show up. So I can judge that or I can be curiously compassionate and be like, oh, why are we both this way when we first moved to China? An example is, you know, my mom would, it was so expensive to make a phone call, but she would call me on like an MCI calling card and it was like $6 the first minute. And sometimes the phone would just, the call would just end like because we were being recorded. So the call would end and I didn't get to say goodbye. And that goodbye was so important to me. My mom knowing that would call me back and that $6 was to say goodbye. And you can laugh and you can be like, wow, crazy girl, which, you know, it's very debatable. But however, it's just like, where did this come from, this need, this fear of like loss or like fear of loss of connection? What is it that feels fragile? Or what is it that makes me show up? Why do things show up disproportionately, my emotions or my responses? Why do I get so mad about that thing? And I think our stories impact that. So I think it's paying attention, maybe as opposed to like, let's go and just do history work. But it's like paying attention in the moments and going, I didn't even fix it. You know, that interaction with a friend really, you know, the overuse of the word trigger, but let's just use it because everyone is. Why did that trigger me so much? And why do I feel those even basic feelings of like fear or anxiety around conflict or around whatever it is? And it's like, oh, but these things were laid out so early on, you know? And I think for me, finding words, simple words to describe like the going back in, like asking God, like, Lord, why? What is, what has impacted me so much that I would show up in a relationship like this? And what is so important about this? And so I think my encouragement would be like doing this with the Lord and doing it with companions. I talk about that having friends, sacred companions along the way and also having a mentor or spiritual director or someone alongside to do it. So I'm, what I'm talking about is not just like, I'm not talking about therapy work, but I'm really talking about like the story. And so sometimes the story is, is we don't have access to elders or we don't have access to anybody around us. And so what do we do with that? It's like, I'm having a memory, Lord, would you show me what to do with this? And I find that more often than not, especially as I've journeyed with people, cut shows up. And it's like being set free and it's being made whole, which is this whole transformation journey that we've been invited on to. Let me ask you a serious question. If something triggered a major market drop in the coming months, would your retirement be ready or exposed with inflation, market volatility and ongoing global uncertainty? More families are taking a closer look at whether their retirement plan is truly built to hold up. And many are finding that adding a layer of protection makes a lot of sense. Sanctuary Metals is a Christian owned company that helps families strengthen their retirement savings with physical gold and silver through a gold IRA. During uncertain times, many people look to precious metals as a way to add stability when other assets may be under pressure. If you'd like to explore whether a gold IRA is a good fit for your situation, Sanctuary Metals makes it easy to get started. Text guide to 94878 to receive your free retirement defense guide or call 888-958-6579 to speak with one of their knowledgeable team members. Again, text guide to 94878 or call 888-958-6579. Yeah. Do you find as you're doing some of this work that people tend to get disproportionately focused on a certain event or aspect of their story that begins to skew for good or for bad, the way they understand themselves? And so I sort of get, when I've had other guests on, we've talked about a little bit about this, but so much of these kind of, you know, the story aspects, it almost focuses on discovering things that you didn't know, right? But I'm also wondering, is there, that sort of narrowing focus, right, that you're so deeply focused on just this one aspect of your life that it becomes the controlling sort of pivot around which everything else happens. And it's like, no, if you expand it out of that, it would be more intelligible and you'd have some more breadth, right, to sort of navigate life in the moment. Yeah. That's a really good question because what I hear you saying is this, if are we going in like navel gazing and we're just going to be like focused on me and just, you know, but is this, is this to lift up our gaze to see a bigger picture? And I think, yes. I think, you know, Kurt Thompson, who is in a lot of work around shame and, and storytelling talks about how we heal in community. And I think if healing is we're, we're to be reconciling agents in the world, like we need our, our whole, we need to be healed, right? So, but is it just like the focus on self-healing that I'm after, but it's this healing brings about freedom, which allows me to love, right? This whole journey should expand out this, the call, which is the commandment to love the Lord, our God, and to love others as we love ourselves. And I realized like that part of like the loving ourself piece, haven't heard a sermon on that. And super, super uncomfy, right? Like that makes me like, that was never like part of the theology, right? It was just like scooped under, like hidden, you know, assumed, but we don't. And so we're, but we're.

Still more self-focused and more self-reference than we want to be, all of us are. I think in story work, we're all telling ourselves a story and we're telling the world a story. So it is, Lord, help me to tell that story more fully and more truthfully, more faithfully, about you being present with me. And I feel like in my book, I feel like I, I see this over and over again, like God is with us. It's the minute we forget that he is with us, that it is me facing the world by myself. It's me having to figure it out, me showing up. And if anxiety is like existentially my fear of being alone, and I'm doing a lot of that, facing the world, fixing the world, having this conversation. But when I remember, God, you have always been with me. So as I move into this story and I, I can ask God, like, where were you in this place? And hear God's heart and hear even just like experiences he healed. I cannot explain, like what happens when I can experience God's atonement with me and I can experience sharing that with others. There's like an unlocking. There isn't this self-protection that I'm so good at, that we're all so good at, but I'm free now. Oh, that little seven-year-old that was wondering if she was worth it, she's set free. She now knows. And it, I think it's just like, it's not a linear journey. I think it's what I'm describing is more just what could be, what we could experience. So I think that the fruit of it, the fruit will be a more wholehearted, free loving, free person to be able to show up and love. I think really the goal is to love. We can love better and love more abundantly. And I'm less worried when I show up if I'm seen or known because I know I am. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. You stop thinking in terms of, it kind of takes me to Matthew 6, which is one of my favorite passages where, you know, Jesus is teaching his disciples not to pray fast and give like the hypocrites. Because what they're doing is a performance. It's for other people. It's not really a genuine act of worship to God. And what he's encouraging them to do is to do this even if there is no reward. And particularly, don't do this just to get the reward. And so it strikes me that that's something very similar to what you're saying is that we're not doing this necessarily for ourselves, but we're not not doing it for ourselves. That's right. That's right. It's sort of like we're not just doing it to be selfish. There are good things that are going to come to us, but ultimately we're living into something bigger. Yeah. We're trying to recognize that God is with us in all these things and that pointing to and glorifying him is sort of our modus operandi. It's what we do. Yes, yes. And I think just to add to that, like in Colossians 1 where it says the gospel is bearing fruit not only in the world, but also in you. Right. The gospel is good news. It's got to be good news. And that means that I, I think we're like hurt people, hurt people and we see it in ministry over and over and over again. We see it in families. And I think my hope is that if we grow, which is what we're to grow up in all things in Christ and the maturing that we're called to, the writer of Hebrews talks about like, you, you should be on solid food, people, you know? So I think that the goal of story work for me, as I think about our formation journey is to move into maturity, is to grow as people of God. And as we grow, we become more childlike. We become more full of faith. We become maybe more simple and less concerned about what others think of us. I pray that that's the fruit. Yeah. You talked about, you mentioned, you know, it's not a linear journey. It's messy. It circles back on itself. But I think in the context of a book and probably in the context of just guiding people, it is helpful to have like your, you talk about a four phases of, of this. So shaping, undoing, awakening and reshaping. And so maybe let's talk through those and just talk about those phases of life and how they might help people grow toward that sort of conforming more closely to Christ. Yeah. I think when, you know, every, everything we write is an attempt to name, right. To name what's going on. And so this was just a, God gave me this picture as I've been walking with people and just, we're always sorting, right? What was that experience about? But I think that the shaping of our lives really includes just those pieces also that we had no control over. Right. We were so shaped. It's been said that kids are excellent observers, terrible interpreters, right. We're observing so many things. Oh, this is how we eat dinner at a TV, you know, on these TV trays. Oh. And you go somewhere else and you're like, what is that? I don't know this experience, but I've been shaped by this kind of table. And you realize how that impacted me. How did the TV dinner table impact how you show up James? Like, right. So there's these, So we're shaped. And I think that discovery is like, oh, that impacted me more. A friend passing away when I was eight. Gosh, that was really, that still, I realized that fears still existed through even in my thirties, you know, just remembering back to that moment, I can access that memory really quickly. So shaping and then the undoing spaces really talking about when we go through darkness, I think it's uncomfortable to talk about that. We love the, we love stories of victory. Like we love past tense, like, Oh, I totally, I went through that 10 years ago and here's how I, you know, but no one wants to read a book on like humility and 10 ways I achieved it. Right. It's like how I am growing in humility. How am I discovering Jesus when I can't see him? So that dark undoing spaces are where I think are really familiar, but we lack language around. And then as we're able to move through undoing and then into like the awakening piece where God begins to awaken our souls to more. Oh, I didn't realize there was more on the other side. I didn't realize that love means letting go again. Right. I feel like I'm going to still come back for control, but you know, let go just a little bit more and the awakening to new freedom and new joy. And then this like reshaping of our lives, which is like be more generous and I can hold out space for others. We love that phrase, like create safe spaces. None of us know how to do it, really, you know, We love that. We love the idea, but it takes a lot of work to get to a place where we become a safe person. So what does that even mean? I think this is the journey. If we want to use that language in this space, it's really letting God form us. But then I think we come back where there's new, new awareness. God shows me, oh, and yet again. And so I move like we like to think about like darkness or the wall spaces as like past tense. But some of us are very much in it. And I think often in the church, we don't know or not address those spaces well. I think we love to give prescriptive ways of what to do, how to pray, whatever you do in my book, which are good. The disciplines are necessary and they're anchor points for our faith. But what do we do when the storms come? Yeah, it's, it sort of strikes me as you're talking there. When you said the thing about what does it mean to be a safe person? If I think about that in the context of my own life, I think I'm safe in very particular ways for people. And I'm probably safe for certain people where I'm not safe for others. And, and so we're constantly dealing with this idea of just because I'm safe with my wife or my family or, you know, you know, some people I'm close to or whatever, doesn't necessarily mean I'm safe for everybody. And so how do we continually to, how do we continue to recognize those areas where we're maybe, we have rougher edges than other people can deal with. Right. That are, that are sort of creating an unfortunate friction for them. Yes. Yes. And how can we adjust ourselves to say, no, I'd like to welcome you in. I'd like you to feel safe around me. Not because I just want to, I'm trying to achieve this goal of being the ultimate safe person or something like that, but because you're, you're a person with dignity and I don't want you to feel not safe around me. Right. Yeah. I think that that safety piece is tied into love. I think it is really like asking the Lord and just growing in what does it, what does love look like here? Yeah. And I think the more I am aware of my, my stuff, which, you know, I am exhibit A, which feels kind of vulnerable, but Hey, the human experience, let's all find words, right. For the story. But I think becoming a safe person is really becoming a loving person.

And it's, I don't know, some of my dearest friends have been through experiences that I'll never know what it's like to grow up that way. Yeah, yeah. But as I have listened to their stories, as I sat in and carry them and the tears that have, you know, over the years, the decades of tears, it has allowed me to, it's taught me what it means to love in different ways. And so I think we don't have to be afraid that we don't necessarily understand everybody's story, but it's learning to be with each other and asking God, how do I show up in a way that is most loving for this person? So we're super uncomfortable with not having answers. And in these days where it feels like everyone's got an answer for everything, I think sometimes we just need to weep. We just need to weep. There's just, there's no way to face the madness except to come in with God and say, God, where are you? We need you again. And I think it's a call to the church to grow in love. And I love the spiritual direction space in that it is just being with another human, offering a space where we don't, we could just meander out with God and explore what he's saying and trust. He's so faithful and he will finish what he started in all of us. And he will transform us and conform us to his image. He will. Yeah. He told us he'd do that. And I'm believing that for us and for the church. Let me ask you a serious question. If something triggered a major market drop in the coming months, would your retirement be ready or exposed? With inflation, market volatility, and ongoing global uncertainty, more families are taking a closer look at whether their retirement plan is truly built to hold up. And many are finding that adding a layer of protection makes a lot of sense. Sanctuary Metals is a Christian-owned company that helps families strengthen their retirement savings with physical gold and silver through a gold IRA. During uncertain times, many people look to precious metals as a way to add stability when other assets may be under pressure. If you'd like to explore whether a gold IRA is a good fit for your situation, Sanctuary Metals makes it easy to get started. Text GUIDE to 94878 to receive your free Retirement Defense Guide or call 888-958-6579 to speak with one of their knowledgeable team members. Again, text GUIDE to 94878 or call 888-958-6579. I was at a workshop last week. It was like a writer's workshop thing. And one of the people in the room, one of the topics that she was going to be addressing was the Korean concept of Han. And it's this sort of deeply seated resentment, frustration, lament over, in the Korean context, things that are very specific to Korean history. But I remembered a book that I'd read during my MDiv called The Wounded Heart of God. And this author deals with Han in relation to sin. And it just strikes me as you're talking about the spiritual direction being there, not necessarily having the answers, just being willing to sit and lament with people. I think that concept has such a powerful message to say to us of sometimes we just don't have to be right. Sometimes we just have to sort of be present. I had Michelle, I'm blanking on her last name right now. She wrote a book on Job and trauma. And one of the insights she had was, you know, Job's friends did all right until they started talking. Absolutely. They were with him for seven days and it's like they just should have just kept their mouth shut. It went better for them when they weren't trying to figure things out. And I think that's something that all of us can learn from as we go through this. So, yeah, I just really appreciate that emphasis. I did have one more question about these four phases because when I initially looked at them, I will admit, like my mind when I was looking at undoing, all my mind went to was deconstruction. You know, the whole deconstruction movement and those kind of things. And then when I read it, I'm like, no, this isn't what this is. It's not exactly what this is. It is kind of part of what it is, but it's not, it's very much aimed at something different. So I'm wondering if you can kind of dive a little deeper into the undoing aspect because I found it to be pretty refreshing of like a refreshing way to think about questioning some of these assumptions, looking at some of these things that we maybe, that are holding us back and that need to be pulled down. So anyway, I'll stop there and just let you... Yeah. You know, I think in an age where deconstruction is scary and it feels like we're going to lose everything. Again, I think when we're doing it by ourselves and that's scary, I would say don't do it by yourself. But I think when we can trust the Holy Spirit, would you show me ways that I believed things about you, Lord, that are not true? Right? Gosh, I've walked alongside missionary leaders, mission leaders in their 50s and 60s who are, will say things like, I know cognitively that God loves me, but I really have a hard time believing that he likes me. And I think those very foundational pieces about our identity, where do we believe that we belong because we serve or our acceptance to God is based on our works? It's still, it's still in us, right? Ways in which we, you know, I love the Bartimaeus story. It's like, who said his parents? Like what happened here? Why is this man suffering? I think when we come to our explanation of suffering, we have such good answers for it. And I'm like, mystery. I have no answers. Even so I think in the undoing places, it's like, I thought I knew, like, even when we think about mental health, we think about depression. We think about, I have a very dear friend who has bipolar and he, he's so honest and it's such a suffering. And I think, I don't know how else other than just to be with you and to so honor how you love Jesus in the middle of your, of this pain. So I think in the undoing, it's, I think that when we're young, we need a really good, strong, there's like this, this container, right? Where we're just like the container is tight and we learn about God and the Trinity. We learn about theology, but then I think as we grow, it's like in some ways, those very boxy, the boxiness maybe of our faith begins to like take form, but not in a scary way of like, I'm creating my own sense of God, but this like, maybe perhaps just letting God be the mystery that he is. Right. We're so from the West. I think we're, we're so uncomfortable with that. And it feels scary when someone, when we don't have answers, right? So if I can trust God to come and meet us and to reveal himself to us, he is always revealing himself to us and through his word and by his spirit. So I think the undoing places is perhaps naming the darkness, naming the ways in which I've coped without God, my strategies to make it in the world, to be seen, to be known, to find belonging. We're all doing it and it came from somewhere. So I think this letting God kind of take those pieces out and say, You don't have to do this anymore in this way, that I am far more faithful. You don't have to make me look good. We don't have to, like, God looks good. Yeah. He is. So I think that without, I don't remember the word I used in the book, but like maybe that we're not disassembling everything, but perhaps letting God reveal to us, here's where the lie that you've believed about me and also with that, the lie you've believed about yourself. Yeah. That's what I'm talking about. Yeah. The emphasis on naming is really interesting. Again, I was, I was having a conversation with a buddy and he does a lot in the sort of, I don't know, the, the deconstruction kind of space, the whiteness sort of space, the, you know, theologies of social justice and those kinds of things. But he said something. He didn't use the exact language that you did, but I, I found it really interesting when he said it. He was like, yeah, you know, I need to be able to identify these areas where I'm making choices based on a whole lot of assumptions. Yes. Yeah. But if I, when I identify them and he said, you know, as he's gotten older and he's had, you know, he has a family now, he has kids and all those kinds of things. He's like, I name them.

But life still has to work. And so I'm identifying these things almost just so that I know that this isn't reality. This is just something that I'm doing at the moment to make, you know, to do this. And he didn't say this, but I got the sense and just having known him for a long time that these are things that I think he's sort of parking to revisit later, you know. It's like, it's got to work right now. I don't have time to unwind all of this at the moment, but naming it gave him something that he could sort of park it and then come back to it later. Park it, come back to it later. And I'm wondering what you think about that. Like, does that resonate with you? I love that picture. I love it. I think I love it because it means I don't have to understand everything right now. Yeah. Right. There is, and I think it, it lends to that, the use of the word mystery. Like, I don't, I don't know, but I trust God that you can hold it for me. And parking it not in some, you know, crazy space. I'm parking it with you, my questions. I'm bringing to you, God. And, and I think there's, I heard someone say once that they just pray like every day, like, Lord, do not let me be deceived. And I just love that because I think, okay, so I can pray that. Lord, and it solved it to me. Like creating me a clean heart. Let me, let me walk purely before you, but I'm gonna trust you. And then I'm just gonna run. And I'm gonna let you be my guardrails, Holy Spirit. I'm gonna let you show me where I'm off. And I think that this, the call for us as believers is to a greater, wider spaciousness. And, and this isn't a forming of my own faith, but this is like with Jesus, the abundant life that he's called us to. I was with someone last week. We were doing an intensive marriage coaching. And she said, you know, I'm, I'm sure about three things. It's just more just like, I used to be sure about a thousand things. And now I'm really sure about three. And I think that that's it. It's just more like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna trust God. Like he is, he is God. And he's sovereign and he is good. And all these things I don't understand, but I, and within these three things that I'm called to live a certain way. And at the end of the day, I think we're going to be asked how we loved, how we loved like him. And yeah. So I think that the freedom that is to emerge, I think, as we grow up in Christ, grow up in him into all things, like grow up in that person, but just that in all things we're growing up. And I think it helps me show up better too, as I'm doing my work, story work, letting God naming it, releasing it, arcing it, how as you said, releasing it to him. It's allowing me to show up to my husband. We've been married 30 years. It's like the marriage just keeps getting deeper and richer and sweeter to my kids. We're expecting a granddaughter any day. And it's like, it allows me to show up more freely to my kids and to own like, yeah, yeah. I used to think this was the most important thing. And now I'm realizing here, here are the most important things. And yeah. Yeah, no, it's good. I, I, I went through a really difficult time career wise, probably seven years ago now. And one of the things that I had to come to was just this very simple statement that I always revisit. And it's Christians are not responsible for fixing the world. We're responsible for living faithfully in a world so broken, only God can fix it. Yes. And that, that, that isn't meant to be, it's not inspiring passivity. It's not inspiring isolation, but the reality is that it, it's helped me to grasp that the best possible thing I can do in any given situation is follow God in obedience, responding to him as opposed to responding to these situations as if he's not there. Right. And so it's, it's recalibrated the way I think about these things in a, in a way that has forced me away from understanding it all. Right. And so that, I think that aspect honestly really came out for me in your book, probably most prominently. I really appreciated the, I'll call it the looseness that you suggest this, this, you know, this freedom from artificial constraints, we might say, things that are too binding, that don't let us sort of breathe in the Holy Spirit. And, and what we need is to release some of those constraints so we can live a little bit more freely. Yes. And so I thought that really came out beautifully in your book. Thank you. Yeah. Well, I'll give you, I usually ask my guests, we're getting up kind of close to time. And so I usually give my guests one final question to sort of think about and you can answer it however you'd like. Okay. What do you think the church needs to be doing today to be and make better disciples, more faithful disciples for Jesus Christ? Oh, that's such a good question. That is where I'm swimming right now, honestly. We are attending a Gen Z church here in our city. And you have to look hard to find people our age. There might be five of us. And I love it. I feel the heart, like discipleship just being like, what, how do we, how do we walk alongside these amazing young adults and help them grow in their faith? And I think holistically, so I think it really, when I'm, when I teach Bible study, it really is like, it's a holistic, like it's every, it's every part, right? So it's not just like what you're learning in scripture, but it's like, how does scripture that apply and apply to not only my life, but then how I live. I think that it comes, I think, us knowing who we are. And this feels really basic, but I, I think this is where we have to head is like grow in our understanding of what it means to be loved by God. Yeah. My husband says, when you know who you are, you will know what to do. And as a beloved son or daughter of the King, then how do I show up? I'm already loved. I'm already seen. I'm already known. And I think this is the life of discipleship. Then if this is our message that we, how do we help shape a generation who knows who they are and then knows how then to show up in the world? There are so many places where we can get. Yeah. So many places for conversation. I think as we didn't really go there, but I think as an Asian-American, what it was like, how to bring my faith into everything that it leaks into. Yeah. How I show up with, um, in my Chinese American spaces, as well as in these multi-ethnic spaces that we now swim in. And that is, yeah. I think the question is how do we love? And I pray that the church would, rather than like us worrying about having to defend God on everything and to have the right answer, we just, we ask him, what does love look like right now in this conversation that we're having? And in the one that we're going to have, you know, as we step out of our offices and into the world. Fantastic answer. Really appreciate that. And God bless you for going to a Gen Z church. I have three kids who are Gen Z and I feel like I live in a Gen Z church. I love them. Me too. For sure. They're amazing. Well, that's, that's the time that we have. I really appreciate you being on the show. Um, everybody dim sum and faith. We're going to put the link in the show notes. Uh, IVP always generously gives us 20% discount codes. So if you go to IVP, uh, their website and buy the book off there, you get 20% off the book. So I'd encourage you to do that. That link and code will all be in the show description. And I just really want to recommend you to go out and get this book. This was a fantastic conversation. I really appreciate you being on and just a lovely, lovely conversation. Thanks James. Yeah. Thank you. And thanks everybody for listening. We will catch you on the next episode of thinking Christian. Take care, everybody. Just want to take a second to thank the team at life audio for their partnership with us on the thinking Christian podcast. If you go to lifeaudio.com, you'll find dozens of other faith centered podcasts in their network. They've got shows about prayer, Bible study, parenting, and more. It's a crazy world out there. Moms and dads. I'm Catherine Segers, host of Christian parent, crazy world. The podcast that tackles tough topics to help you be a godly parent in an ungodly world. Subscribe at life audio.com.