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The Body Teaches the Soul: Habits for a Healthy & Holy Life with Justin Earley
October 16, 2025 · 47 min
In this episode, we sit down with Justin Earley — business lawyer, speaker, podcaster, and author of numerous books on habits and spiritual disciplines.
Justin shares his journey of walking through a season of anxiety and burnout and how God used it to reshape his view of life and faith. We dive into his new book, The Body Teaches the Soul: Ten Essential Habits to Form a Healthy and Holy Life, exploring common misconceptions about the body and spirit, biblical truths about embodiment, and practical habits that nurture physical, mental, and spiritual health.
This conversation is full of both deep theological insights and simple, everyday practices that can help you live a more grounded and grace-filled life.
Subscribe to the podcast and tune in each week as Haley and Dustin share with you what the Bible says about real-life issues with compassion, warmth, and wit.
So you have every reason for hope, for every challenge in life. Because hope means everything.
Hope Talks is a podcast of the ministry of Hope for the Heart.
Listen in to learn more :
(00:00) Body and Spirit Interactions
(07:22) Disconnect in American Christian Habits
(10:51) Importance of the Body Reflections
(22:29) Healing and Redemption of Bodies
(27:24) Restoring Mental Health and Spiritual Rhythms
(33:42) The Power of Kneeling Prayer
(37:23) The Power of Worship and Movement
(42:05) Family Rhythms and Habits With Kids
Justin Earley Resources
Learn more about Justin Earley – https://www.justinwhitmelearley.com/
Get his latest book, The Body Teaches the Soul – https://tinyurl.com/32ywu7xc
Hope for the Heart resources :
Order our newest resource, The Care and Counsel Handbook, providing biblical guidance 100 real-life issues: https://resource.hopefortheheart.org/care-and-counsel-handbook
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hopefortheheart
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hopefortheheart
Want to talk with June Hunt on Hope in the Night about a difficult life issue? Schedule a time here: https://resource.hopefortheheart.org/talk-with-june-hope-in-the-night
God’s plan for you: https://www.hopefortheheart.org/gods-plan-for-you/
Give to the ministry of Hope for the Heart: https://raisedonors.com/hopefortheheart/givehope?sc=HTPDON
Series Hope Talks
Hope for the Heart is a worldwide biblical counseling, coaching, and caregiving ministry founded by June Hunt in 1986. We’re passionate about helping people
October 16, 2025 · 47 min · Hope Talks
In this episode, we sit down with Justin Earley — business lawyer, speaker, podcaster, and author of numerous books on habits and spiritual disciplines. Justin shares his journey of walking through a season of anxiety and burnout and how God used it to reshape his view of life and faith. We dive into his new book, The Body Teaches the Soul: Ten Essential Habits to Form a Healthy and Holy Life, exploring common misconceptions about the body and spirit, biblical truths about embodiment, and practical habits that nurture physical, mental, and spiritual health. This conversation is full of both deep theological insights and simple, everyday practices that can help you live a more grounded and grace-filled life. Subscribe to the podcast and tune in each week as Haley and Dustin share with you what the Bible says about real-life issues with compassion, warmth, and wit. So you have every reason for hope, for every challenge in life. Because hope means everything. Hope Talks is a podcast of the ministry of Hope for the Heart. Listen in to learn more : (00:00) Body and Spirit Interactions (07:22) Disconnect in American Christian Habits (10:51) Importance of the Body Reflections (22:29) Healing and Redemption of Bodies (27:24) Restoring Mental Health and Spiritual Rhythms (33:42) The Power of Kneeling Prayer (37:23) The Power of Worship and Movement (42:05) Family Rhythms and Habits With Kids Justin Earley Resources Learn more about Justin Earley – https://www.justinwhitmelearley.com/ Get his latest book, The Body Teaches the Soul – https://tinyurl.com/32ywu7xc Hope for the Heart resources : Order our newest resource, The Care and Counsel Handbook, providing biblical guidance 100 real-life issues: https://resource.hopefortheheart.org/care-and-counsel-handbook Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hopefortheheart Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hopefortheheart Want to talk with June Hunt on Hope in the Night about a difficult life issue? Schedule a time here: https://resource.hopefortheheart.org/talk-with-june-hope-in-the-night God’s plan for you: https://www.hopefortheheart.org/gods-plan-for-you/ Give to the ministry of Hope for the Heart: https://raisedonors.com/hopefortheheart/givehope?sc=HTPDON ...more Show the full description Show less In this episode, we sit down with Justin Earley — business lawyer, speaker, podcaster, and author of numerous books on habits and spiritual disciplines.
Justin shares his journey of walking through a season of anxiety and burnout and how God used it to reshape his view of life and faith. We dive into his new book, The Body Teaches the Soul: Ten Essential Habits to Form a Healthy and Holy Life, exploring common misconceptions about the body and spirit, biblical truths about embodiment, and practical habits that nurture physical, mental, and spiritual health.
This conversation is full of both deep theological insights and simple, everyday practices that can help you live a more grounded and grace-filled life.
Subscribe to the podcast and tune in each week as Haley and Dustin share with you what the Bible says about real-life issues with compassion, warmth, and wit.
So you have every reason for hope, for every challenge in life. Because hope means everything.
Hope Talks is a podcast of the ministry of Hope for the Heart.
Listen in to learn more :
(00:00) Body and Spirit Interactions
(07:22) Disconnect in American Christian Habits
(10:51) Importance of the Body Reflections
(22:29) Healing and Redemption of Bodies
(27:24) Restoring Mental Health and Spiritual Rhythms
(33:42) The Power of Kneeling Prayer
(37:23) The Power of Worship and Movement
(42:05) Family Rhythms and Habits With Kids
Justin Earley Resources
Learn more about Justin Earley – https://www.justinwhitmelearley.com/
Get his latest book, The Body Teaches the Soul – https://tinyurl.com/32ywu7xc
Hope for the Heart resources :
Order our newest resource, The Care and Counsel Handbook, providing biblical guidance 100 real-life issues: https://resource.hopefortheheart.org/care-and-counsel-handbook
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hopefortheheart
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hopefortheheart
Want to talk with June Hunt on Hope in the Night about a difficult life issue? Schedule a time here: https://resource.hopefortheheart.org/talk-with-june-hope-in-the-night
God’s plan for you: https://www.hopefortheheart.org/gods-plan-for-you/
Give to the ministry of Hope for the Heart: https://raisedonors.com/hopefortheheart/givehope?sc=HTPDON
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0:00 Those dual process relationships, I think, are actually really good to think about how the body and spirit interact. 1 can move the other, and moving your body to move your mind is actually a wonderful0:11 way of spirituality, particularly in a world where I think we usually assume it only works the opposite, that the mind moves the body. But both are very true, and both ought to be true.0:23 Welcome to Hope Talks. We're your hosts. I'm Haley Scully along with Dustin Anderson, and we wanna give you every reason for hope for every challenge in life because hope means everything.0:35 Dustin, it is guest day on hope talks.0:39 I am excited for this guest today.0:41 Too. So tell us who is Justin Whitmull Early? We've talked about middle names a little bit this morning.0:46 We've talked about that, and we've talked about whether or not if he's a lawyer or a law lawyer.0:51 Law what? It's the word is lawyer. I am convinced, and both the 2 Ustens, Justin and Dustin, say lawyer. So Just confused by that.1:03 Anyway, first, welcome, Justin. Thank you for being here. A little about Justin for those who don't know. Justin Whitmell Orly is a lawyer, former missionary, author, speaker on habits, intentional living, spiritual1:15 formation in everyday life, a lot around helping families build sustainable habits to grow closer to the Lord and to 1 another. Author of a number of books, Habits of the Household that we have here, but also The Common1:26 Rule Made for People, The Big Mess. I believe that's a children's book that came out this year. Right?
1:31 You got it. You got it. I'm glad you snuck that 1 in there. That 1 is very dear to my heart.
1:36 No. I saw it looked really fun, so I'm gonna pick that up. And then a new book coming out in October called The Body Teaches the Soul, 10 Essential Habits to Form a Healthy and Holy Life. And then also, if that's
1:47 not enough, host of the Made For People podcast, and also a new podcast called Intentional Fatherhood. And then also a husband and a father of, I believe, 4 boys. Is that correct?
1:59 You got it. 4 boys. You got it. How old are they? They are between 7 and 13. My youngest turned 7 this morning. He was 6 yesterday.
2:08 Oh, wow.
2:09 Happy birthday.
2:10 Yay. Happy birthday.
2:12 Wow. Good job, Dustin. You you got all the things in there, including me being a lawyer. No, sir.
2:18 A lawyer.
2:19 Lawyer. Not lawyer. I'm not we're gonna come down hard on Haley for pronouncing it that way.
2:25 Will, and I'm surprised it's even a debate, honestly, because to me, it is very clear. Justin, you stay busy. There is a lot going on, and you have such a joy and such
2:37 a fun presence of sharing things. You know, 1 of the first questions that we like to ask people, and as I kinda shared in the beginning, we like to hear stories where hope is kind of made real. The theory of putting
2:49 our hope in Christ and you just need to trust the Lord and all those types of things, but kind of sharing some of those real life stories. So that's 1 of our first questions is when is a time that understanding putting
2:59 your hope in Christ was kind of what you learned? For some of our guests, it's been their moment of salvation. For a lot of us, learning what it meant to put our hope in Jesus or putting our hope in God came at a
3:11 different time. So that would be our question to you to kick this off, Justin. What is your hope story?
3:17 That is kind of the thing that kicked off all my writing in the first place. So I'll tell you that. I started my life after college as a missionary in China and did that for almost 5 years till
3:29 I felt called to go be a business lawyer, which is a weird thing to say. I get it. Separate conversation on vocation and calling and all that. But I moved back to the States at the age of 27,
3:40 went to law school at Georgetown in DC, married to my wife Lauren. We had 2 boys by the time I graduated. And I came out right around the age of 30 really, really excited to start my
3:52 new career in law. I was sort of at the top of my game, graduated really high in my class, got great grades, got a top law firm job in mergers and acquisitions. And so I thought
4:04 I was on the precipice of the best time in my life, and then the bottom totally fell out. I fell into a awful mental health crisis, anxiety crisis,
4:16 insomnia, panic attacks, even for a brief spat, suicidal thoughts. And I was so confused. This is you know, I've got 2 young sons. I've got a great new job. I'm a missionary from China. My theology, my worldview is good.
4:27 I know where my hope should be, and I thought my hope was in the Lord, at least in my head. And what the Lord did during that very difficult, but now I see so important phase of my life, was show
4:39 me that when your head is going 1 way, but your habits are running the other way, your heart tends to follow the habits. And I slowly in that season, thanks to God's grace, began to open
4:51 my eyes to the fact that while having a great worldview, I had assimilated to all the typical and weird practices of modern life, particularly of lawyering. And that was a
5:03 little bit more wild than the average population, but the similar sort of things that most people are doing constantly on their phone, minimizing sleep, not taking care of their body, always trying to do more. Busy
5:13 schedule is the center of your existence. And it tore me apart, body and soul. And the wonderful thing about that is that the Lord used it. Really, I call it my second testimony in my life to show me that to put
5:25 my hope in him was not just a head project. It was letting your habits being conformed to what your head believes so that your hope and your habits and thus your heart are all moving in the same direction. So that
5:36 was so so important for me. And it I don't know how to emphasize enough, Haley, it fundamentally changed how I experienced Jesus in everyday life. I think there was a lot of head stuff before then
5:48 that was important, and I would never minimize the importance of right belief and a good worldview. But my sense, my experience, even my bodily experience of walking with Jesus daily and thinking about what does it
6:00 really look like to put your hope in him while you're at a stressful day in the office? Like, what does it look like to make to say that Jesus, a stressful day, is gonna pull my emotions along? That was a long, hard
6:11 process, but 1 of the most important things I think I've ever learned. And all my writing has been about that sense on why habits are so important to our spiritual lives, and particularly in this new book about why
6:20 physical habits are so important to our spiritual lives. But I can't stop thinking and talking about habits in any area of life because the Lord worked a huge change in my life.
6:30 The thing that's coming to my mind just right away is why do you think there is such a disconnect for 1? Because we can be so convinced, and we are followers, and we
6:41 are on the team. We don't have a doubt of who Jesus is. But then like you said, there are habits take us in so many other ways where we're not living that way. You know? I would say it 1 of the
6:53 biggest transformations in my life is where it went from head to heart. You know? I could say everything and do the things, but where the holy spirit, I say now entrusted me to have that moment where I
7:05 realized it wasn't in my heart. It was a very painful time. I'm sure that was a very painful time for you. So 2 questions then. Why do you think that's so hard for us and there's such a disconnect? And then why do you
7:16 think that the Lord entrusted you to go through that experience so that you could share what you're sharing?
7:22 Well, as to the first, I think there's 2 reasons at least there's such a disconnect. I mean, the answer is probably much more complicated than I can diagnose. But 2 things that I see often are first, just the
7:34 reality that is true for everybody but always needs to be named, and that is that you don't notice the habits you have. That's by definition why they're habits. We tend to not notice the water that we swim in. And
7:45 so it's very easy for American Christians to talk about the gospel and yet conform in their everyday life to the habits and practices of
7:57 American life. And I think that's partly because we think maybe that our culture is more Christian than it is. We think we're in less of exile than we actually are. I think some of that's actually rapidly changing, and
8:07 we're realizing how much that's not true. But it's just easy for anybody to not pay attention to their habits. And so we can make the same mistake that everybody does, which is you go with the flow. And you think hard
8:18 about the things that you're talking about, but not that hard about the ordinary rhythms of life. So I think that is 1 thing that's happening. I think another thing that is actually really significant, really, really
8:27 significant, is that we live in an age where a theological error is always waiting underneath the surface, and that is that our bodies actually don't matter that much to our faith. This is an old, old era. I mean, this
8:39 is thousands of years old. The New Testament was actually written to people who wrestled with this and has sort of a philosophical category called gnosticism, which is this idea that the real
8:51 life, like the real spiritual life, the real things that matter are in this sort of heady spiritual philosophical realm that we'll get to once we shed these awful bodies that are holding us back. And sometimes
9:03 that sounds Christian because we do know that our bodies are fallen and flawed. We do know that they're dying, and we do know that there's a world of eternal things that will happen after death. But sometimes I
9:14 just think we're not good enough at our own theology and really read the bible carefully and say, wait a minute, God made us with bodies. He redeemed us by the body of his son. He actually, yes, that we will die,
9:25 promises to raise us, resurrect us to new embodied eternal life. Bodies are not a side project of Christianity. In fact, it's a very wildly pro body religion. C. S. Lewis, of course, put it best. He said,
9:37 don't try to be more spiritual than God. Like, don't try to think that this thing doesn't matter. It's actually just like our salvation. It's through the body that our sanctification comes, just like Jesus came in the
9:47 body to save us. So 1 thing that I would like to point out is just that we actually do make a big worldview mistake. We think that our bodies are sort of secondary to spiritual life when the physical and the spiritual
9:59 are intertwined completely. That's how God made us to live. Now why did he entrust me with this message or teach me? I don't have a good answer for that, Hailey, besides I think he loves me so much. I think he loves me
10:10 too much to let me walk on in the errors that I was walking in. And so it was a hard lesson, but I am so glad he let me fall apart so that he could put me back together.
10:20 Amen. I hate the fall apart part, but I feel like it took a long time for me to consider it all joy. Looking at some of the difficult times that we go through and think, why
10:32 did God allow that? That's a lot of times 1 of our first questions. Why did God let that happen? Why did God let that happen? And I think when we don't run away from him, but we lean into him, we get the value
10:44 of seeing why he let some of those things happen, and then he uses it. Then it becomes a joy.
10:50 Amen. I mean, I can absolutely see the work that he did in my life through letting this happen. I would have never liked it at the time. I sort of knew in my head, oh, he must be working in this. I see so clearly
11:02 now, oh, did he work in this? And even to the point where I genuinely can't say I'm thankful for it at the same time that I never wanna go through it again.
11:09 1 of the things that you said I wanted to bring out and highlight because I think it's so good to just repeat it and just kinda emphasize a little bit because I think you're right. There's an odd lack of emphasis on our
11:21 body. It reminded me in seminary, hearing those kind of couple of core truths, God created our bodies, so there's like a world of truth and importance there. Jesus came in a body and is still in
11:33 a body and will forever be in a body.
11:35 Some people were today years old when they thought he will always be in a body. Like, that's a realization that I had in a seminary class, and you just said, Dustin, that is so important. So keep talking. I didn't wanna
11:45 interrupt you, but
11:46 No. It's good. But, like, no. I remember hearing that too because they're like, when you go to heaven or even further new heaven and new earth, is Jesus going to be in a body? And we're like, oh, yes. But it was
11:58 like, oh, yes. But then also, like, our end goal is not just a disembodied soul or spirit in heaven, but it's a reuniting with our body. So I remember a professor challenged us to say,
12:10 like, we kinda say things of, like, yeah, like, our our real self is like our spirit or something. He wanted to challenge us and say, like, think about you are your body. Just to kind of over correct it a little bit.
12:22 He's like, I don't wanna say you're not a soul or anything like that. You are a body and a soul. But just to kind of emphasize that a little bit more. So I say that just highlight that. But again, like, are there any as
12:33 you've kind of worked on this new book, Body Teaches the Soul, are there other misconceptions or just kind of, like, faulty thinking we have around the way we even think about our bodies?
12:45 Absolutely. And I had 1, so I don't blame anybody. So I say this with all compassion. Even in starting this book project, I chose a title, the body teaches the soul. It sort of implies there's kind of
12:57 a separation in these things. It's funny. I still think it's a very helpful title because it implies that the physical world informs your spiritual world and vice versa, and I hope people take it that way. But I realized
13:08 in the course of reading and research for this book that it's really not very helpful to think of the body or the soul as something that you have because then you separate it from
13:19 you. In both of them, really you should think about as something that you are, as sort of multiple sides of the diamond that is you, all these facets of what it means to be an image bearer of
13:31 God. And unsurprisingly, the Bible helped me so much with this. The Bible is such good news. It's it's so clarifying to life. And a lot of the study that I did, you can trace this from the clarity of
13:43 Genesis 2 where God this is the creation of Adam in detail. God takes dust, and that's the word afar in Hebrew. It's it's the idea of organic
13:54 matter. Like, we're literally, like, carbon and nitrogen and all these, like, elements. Right? And then he breathes the spirit of life into that dust, and that word spirit is, you know, throughout the bible, the idea of
14:05 the presence of God, the breath of God, the life of God. And so when organic matter meets the spirit life of God, we get something that for the first time in the bible is called a soul. And the Hebrew word there is
14:16 nephesh, which actually literally to the Hebrews connoted the neck, which is brilliant because it's the place where what your body meets the air. Right? So this living, breathing thing that you are and by the way, from
14:28 ancient times till modern times, we know that's literally what we are. When oxygen leaves our body, that's always the medical cause of death, like lack of oxygen to the brain and tissues. When when air leaves our body,
14:38 that's the end of us. That combination of spirit, we know that we're spiritual. Dust, we know that we're physical. That intertwining is actually what the bible calls a
14:49 soul. And so when we say soul, it actually always means the whole of what we are. And this was the great revelation for me. Of course, we know that when we die, something happens. Our spirit of life, which is
15:01 eternal, can't be killed, is separated from our body, which can die. And we call that death. Right? So when you separate the spiritual and the physical, we have a common word for it. It's called dying. It's called death.
15:12 And now I realize, oh, any theology that tries to separate these 2 things and say, let's only be attentive to 1 or the other is a theology of death. So when you get into a materialistic world of saying, hey, your body's
15:23 all that you are. You're stuck with the brain chemicals that you have. Any mental health issue is just medication or body work or brain science. It's, oh, that's a world of death. Because no, you need to address the
15:35 spirit as well. But any worldview, gnosticism, far out there, platonism, or just an over spiritualized 20 first century Christianity that says really all the problems that you have are
15:47 just addressable by saying the right things, like in the the head realm, top down truth. Well, that's also a theology of death because a lot of things can be wrong with your body that you also that God wants to bring to
15:57 shalom. But when you put these things together, you are in the biblical world of embodied souls or animated bodies. There's lots of different ways to say it, but the way you can just hang your hat on this and the bible
16:09 always talks about you as a dual thing. You are always body and you're always spirit. We're always meant to be. That's what God is gonna raise us to be. So any problem you wanna think through in life, you gotta think it
16:21 through the physical and the spiritual together. And that has been so practically helpful to me in my everyday life as well as eternally encouraging to me because that makes sense of the heaven that we long for.
16:32 Let me ask you. Because when you say the word body and taking care of body, I think that a lot of times where we are, and maybe this is in Western culture, but I think with where we
16:44 are, it gets mixed up with body image. And so body and body image are kind of 2 different things. So when you talk about body, tell us where you're going
16:56 past just the idea that we need to eat broccoli and we should go jogging in the morning.
17:01 Yes. Yes. I'm so glad you asked this because this was so helpful to me. I knew I felt like the Lord was pushing on me. Say, pay attention to your body. Think about your body. And I felt almost
17:13 wrong to dive too much into this realm because I was worried it would just be about vanity or longevity, some sort of error of self image, body image, materialism. I just wanna dwell on that for a
17:25 second. Why are we so worried about these things? We are. We are. But why? I mean, it's just worth pausing, whoever's listening. Why are we so worried about these things? Here's why. The body was made, we know,
17:36 as the image of God. We in our bodies are image bearers of who God is. We show physically something about who God is spiritually because we know God is spirit. Right? Now the son is incarnate. We
17:48 can get really deep into the theology here. But we all agree on this. We are image bearers. And what is God? Right? God is love. We know that central purposes of God towards humans and everything he is can be
18:00 summed up in love, which is why the great commandment is love God and love neighbor. And when I started to think about the image of God in terms of love, I suddenly felt so free to explore
18:12 the body through its intended purpose, and that is to go outward and love God and love others. And suddenly, made so much sense about why the enemy turns
18:24 every conversation about our body inward to what do you think about your body and how does it look, and how long will it live, and all your anxieties about it. And I started to just realize, oh my gosh. Of course the
18:36 enemy would do this. That's why we're so worried about it. Because when we get stuck in that cul de sac, we are not thinking about our body as image of God. We are thinking about self image, like image of us.
18:47 We're looking in the mirror instead of the window. And so 1 of the things that I just really, really enjoyed in researching and writing and honestly practicing this book, because it is a book that's meant to be
18:58 practiced. The chapters are breathing and eating and sleeping and exercising. You know, you'll see a lot of practical things. Was that I realized all my concerns about how I eat, and I have a lot, are good concerns if
19:09 I'm thinking about them in terms of how do I live a life of love? And honestly, a lot of it is overlap. Like, realize I've, for a long time, eaten so that I can feel good. Just in the moment, I'm like, can I get some
19:21 relief from this stress? Maybe a huge burger and fries will bring me relief this evening. And there's this sort of selfish inward impulse there. And then I realize I have like a food hangover, and I'm yelling at my kids,
19:32 and I'm exhausted, and I'm not sleeping well. And I could say, oh, this is not good for my health, and this is not good for my weight and my longevity, and actually all that would be true. But what is actually the
19:41 concern that really finally got my attention is this is not good for my love. I wanna eat to be the best parent that I can be. I wanna eat to also live as long as I can as a parent, but that's also for love. I wanna eat
19:53 so that I can throw my children around and run around with them and and so that I can feel energetic in the morning and and rested in the evening. Suddenly and I could I could talk about this with sleep and exercise and
20:03 everything. Just suddenly, Haley, the conversation became reframed about, well, how about you eat in order that you can do what the image of God does, and that is love the people around you well. And that's been such a
20:13 helpful paradigm for me, honestly. It's totally changed the way I've eaten. It totally has. And it's been so freeing as opposed to worrying about I mean, I know my body is getting Like, I know in theory I'm getting less
20:24 and less attractive. But am I getting more loving? That's actually astoundingly more interesting and more important, and I actually think I am. As my body and this is what Paul's talking about. You know? The outer things
20:36 are wasting away, but the inner things are being renewed day by day. This actually can be true in our body that we we become more loving image bearers even as we age and even as we start to fall apart and even as we get
20:45 sick. And when we make that flip, everything about our bodies makes so much sense.
20:49 I really, really love that because it's almost like when it just feels like more shame heaped on. You're supposed to take care of your body, and it becomes a body image thing. Thinking of that as the temptation
21:01 that's coming against us from Satan. I love how you said it. If he can take us off the mark, then it's almost like, well, that's not fair. I'm gonna eat a pizza because, man, it stinks that my body doesn't
21:13 metabolize things or whatever. If he can shift it all to be a conversation about body image and about shame and about frustration and about why doesn't God do this or why didn't he make me like that or all of those
21:25 things that we struggle with so much. If we throw that out of the room, that's where freedom is. We're set free to consider food not based on our body image, but based on what is healthy for us
21:37 and what is good and wise and pure and lovely and all the things that Jesus says is the byproduct of experiencing him.
21:48 I found a lot of this stuff very hard to talk and write about because our words are so cluttered with bad ideas. So I'm very excited for people to get in the book because I really tried to refine the language
22:00 to stop thinking about body image and start thinking about body as image of God. And those are 2 really different things. And so anybody who gets the book will actually see a chapter end summary. And every single time we
22:11 get to the end of the chapter, we filter what we just talked about through body image. Here's the bad way to think about it. Body as image of God, here's the good way to think about it. Because our language is cluttered
22:20 around the body. It's very difficult. But I'm hopeful this can be a spark for people to think more healthily and more wholly about their bodies.
22:28 Yeah. I approve, Justin.
22:30 It reminds me of a small story in the gospels, what you had said about taking care of our bodies so that we can love well, where Jesus heals, I think, Peter's his mother in law's. She has a
22:41 fever. Yeah. And it's just such a small story, but he heals her fever and then it says, and then she got up and served them. And so it's just a small story, it always stood out to me as like, we're healed. We take care
22:53 of our bodies so that we can serve others, so that we can love others well as kind of you're saying. And I think that's just another little window into that idea as well. That's a
23:04 great little insight. I mean, of the things that has always perplexed me is honestly why Jesus went around healing so many bodies, and so often not really necessarily even talking to them about the spiritual reason that
23:13 he was healing them. Like, he seemed very concerned with just the health and the shalom, the redemption of bodies. And think that's exactly right, Dustin. When we see that everywhere Jesus goes,
23:25 healing comes with him, we see a sign that that God is interested in the redemption of our bodies and souls, like all things. So he's constantly
23:37 healing people and then freeing them back to go worship, freeing them to go serve, telling them go proclaim, you know, what I've done, or telling them, hey. Don't proclaim it yet because people are gonna find out about
23:46 me. But he realizes that this matters, and this is kind of at the center of things. And so you could look at any of Jesus' life, and suddenly all of this will pop into view and say, oh, wow. He really cared about the
23:55 body. Like, he really cared about it.
23:57 Another question, because it sounds like there's been just a lot of freedom and joy since you've developed these habits. When you first started, was it a struggle to, like what did you have to unlearn? What were the
24:09 first couple that really started making a change in your life? I love how you said earlier that we have a lot of weird habit.
24:16 Yes. Yes.
24:17 So like, what did you have
24:18 to unlearn and then, like, what were the first couple that really started making a difference? Oh, man. That's such a hard question because there was nothing that I didn't have to unlearn and restart. And I think it
24:29 actually is helpful to emphasize what I am talking about in this book is really a decade of what the Lord has done in my life. Nothing was sort of sudden and quick in my brand new life within 2 months. It really it
24:41 just really wasn't. The first thing that I think the Lord started to do was to help me unlearn patterns of tearing apart my mental health. There are a lot of things here.
24:52 Right? But the way that I used technology in my early lawyering days were very conducive to mental breakdowns. And this is no surprising part why we see such an
25:04 epidemic of mental unhealth right now. Because mentally, when you put your attention first thing every morning in all the tragedies of the world, all the anger of the commercial
25:16 news, all the self conscious body image stuff of social media, you are conforming your mind to the pattern of this world. I mean, you are literally putting your thoughts in the way of just rampant
25:28 errors. Right? And at the same time, your body is tired. It's bent down. It would rather be sleeping or waking up to sunlight, but you're in bed scrolling and waking up and scrolling more. And both this
25:40 bad spiritual land of errant truths that we find on the Internet, and this bad physical land of always being hunched over blue light screens is just a recipe for falling apart. I mean and I think
25:51 I previously, again, thought, well, as long as I get like a quiet time or know the truth that God matters more than what's happening out there in the world, then that'll seep down into my body. And now I see that I was
26:03 sort of doing the error that the bible warns against, and that is that, you know, even the demons know that God is 1. Right? But the the fact is they don't alter their lives accordingly. They don't accept that truth as
26:14 meaningful to the rest of their life. And so I started to realize, hey. If the gospel is true that God loves me no matter what, and he's gonna redeem the world out of all this brokenness, maybe my swiping patterns and my
26:26 waking and sleeping patterns should change in light of that. And 1 of the things that I I started doing were 2 simple habits, and they have profoundly changed my life. I mean and I'm gonna tell you them, and you're gonna
26:36 be like, this doesn't sound that important. I started doing an a kneeling prayer before bed every night, and I started doing a habit of scripture before a phone every morning. And they were both to displace the
26:48 problematic rhythms that had crept up in my life of scrolling in the evening and laying in bed and just worrying and being anxious and then scrolling first thing in the morning. And 1, it changed my mentality so much
26:59 because I was resting the day on gratitude that God had brought me through another day and beginning it in gratitude and hope of what he might do in the scriptures. And unsurprisingly, like, Bible talks about this a lot.
27:10 Prayer and the word matter. They change you, body and soul. It was starting to protect my sleep. It was starting to protect literally my my frontal cortex from spinning thoughts before bed. It was starting to calm me
27:22 down. It was so I think I started to realize early on 1 of the first things that changed were that those physical and spiritual habits were gonna go together. Lots of them were gonna be centered on technology. There's a
27:32 whole chapter on technology in this book and why it tempts us to live disembodied. And let me try to put this carefully because I think it's helpful for people. It started to give me the hope that I could work in the
27:43 garden of my mental health and slowly grow it back to a place of edenic flourishing shalom. I gotta tell you, I was in the bad lands that so many people I think do
27:54 find themselves, where they think they're stuck with the mental health they have. It's become a desert in there or a jungle. I mean, and with that materialistic error that's floating around in modern life, we often
28:06 think, oh, it's just brain chemicals, and this is what's happening, and I I am this way. I am this diagnosis. I am this trauma. And so much of my life started to change when I realized, no. God has built
28:17 grace into my brain in the form of neuroplasticity. And working along with him to change my spiritual rhythms and physical rhythms means that I, like a gardener, like the original vocation in Eden,
28:30 can bring shalom to the place of my body called my mind, and that God actually wants to work with me towards redemption there. And, oh gosh, that was just so encouraging for me because I thought I was stuck. And so
28:41 first, it was mental health, and then it started really to trickle down into so many other places.
28:46 The phrase you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink is coming to mind. Because I think when we hear messages like that, and it's the royal we,
28:58 I'm really quick to allow the Lord to transform and change my habits just to be totally upfront, Justin. But I think a lot of times, a lot of us, we will hear this, and then we
29:09 downplay our habits. Yeah. It's okay. I mean, like, I'm just scrolling for a minute, whatever. And we don't see the changes that God's word says are possible, that the testimonies that we
29:21 get from you and from others saying, hey. These practices have really changed my life, and you can do these too. Why do we downplay it, and why do we
29:33 kinda stiff neck and avoid the practices and the habits that can really be soul and body and life changing?
29:42 I mean, if you're like me, I think most people think that the ordinary things are just too small to matter. And it wasn't until I started to take ordinary habits seriously that I realized that extraordinary
29:54 lives are created out of attention to ordinary moments. Most of us won't be put to a moment where it's like your whole life and your whole legacy hangs on this decision right now. Most of us will live lives
30:06 where, as the writer Annie Dillard put it, our days become our lives. And I don't know why. I don't know why we think like this, but I do know that we do. We tend to think that the small stuff doesn't matter, and we sit
30:17 around waiting for the big stuff. And when the Lord drew my attention to the extraordinary power of ordinary rhythms in everyday life, I have just felt so free and not to mention empowered to build a
30:29 beautiful life. And, really, I like to emphasize this. This is sort of my central concern because people can hear this stuff and they think, oh, Justin must be a type a guy. He must, like, you know, be a corporate lawyer
30:38 with all this stuff together, and and I hope I've dismantled that. Like, I write about this because I struggle with it so much, not because I'm so good at it. But also, I'm not really interested in anyone life hacking
30:48 their way to the most productive and organized and healthy life. I'm interested in living lives of beauty that are on display to the creator who made us for goodness and for beauty and for wholeness
30:59 and not fracturing our lives into unspiritual and spiritual and ordinary and extraordinary. I'm interested in saying, well, the Lord gave me this 1 beautiful thing called a soul, like a body, a spirit, and they're all
31:10 here together, and we get to live beautiful lives of love when we stop fragmenting them and start putting them together and saying, turns out it all matters. Turns out he loves it all.
31:22 And why we do the opposite, I don't know. But that the call of the gospel is to that beautiful whole unified life lived out towards God and love and thus towards love and for others. I'm just so romanced by that that I
31:34 want everybody to think about it.
31:35 I think that's so good. Like, oftentimes in the counseling room or kind of in that process, I think, again, we have this temptation to believe that everything is bigger and harder, that the
31:47 simplicity sometimes of both the gospel, the gospel of forgiveness, the gospel of redemption, the gospel of everything that comes with that, it sometimes just seems a little bit too easy, too good to be
31:59 true, and, like you said, not even gonna mess with the small things. There's no way that dealing with some of those small things I love that scripture before, phone and
32:10 kneeling at night at prayer. There's no way those little things can make a big heart change or transform my life in some way, and so we don't even try it. We miss
32:22 the everyday graces that can really change our lives because we believe it's gotta be harder than that. It's gotta be more than that. There's gotta be more to it. So I'm just gonna keep doing what
32:34 I'm doing, and that's part of the big deception, I think.
32:38 I think so. I think so. I think that small faithfulness is so much of life, and it's freeing to see that those little things matter so much. And by the way, I've learned so much about how the body teaches the soul, and
32:49 I'm not just trying to repeat the title over and over. I mean, literally, that is also how our bodies change. Right? They don't change because we do 1 magnificent healthy meal that we're finally gonna eat. They change so
32:59 small and incrementally over time. And we can learn so much about the growth of our spiritual life through the growth of our physical life. For example, if you wanna get healthier, 1 of the best things for you is to go
33:11 into this weird thing where you you hurt and you get nauseous and your heart races and you get sore and you, like, sweat and it's called exercise. Right? As it turns out, going through difficulty is 1 of the best things
33:21 for us. And you start to notice all these little places in our lives where God made us basically a a living storybook of how our spiritual life works. And in the body, as in the soul, the the small things are the big
33:32 things when you accumulate them over years.
33:35 Yeah. Yeah. That's really good. Really good. Yeah.
33:38 I'm thinking about feeling a little convicted because I'm being reminded of when I was in seminary, there was this, like, building kind of off campus, but they had, a prayer room in it. And it was just a simple room. ItShow more
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