Joshua Keith Craft

0:53 Right? Yeah, I mean I mean that that what you just said is is scriptural. I mean I always I was reading I'm reading through the Bible right now, so we're in Samuel. Yeah. And I always find it amazing and I'm I'll be honest, I'm a little jealous, man, that Samuel literally heard somebody call his name to the point that he thought it was Eli. I'm like, what would that be like? You know, at the same time I've had God speak to me very clearly, but then you you read about a guy like Joseph. Joseph had dreams, but he never had like the word of the Lord. Yeah. And that's just a simple thing. You could go through all through the Yeah, on and on you could go. So, what does that mean? Right? What that means for me is you have to embrace uncertainty. Yeah, for sure. And you have to embrace complexity as you grow and understand not that things will not be complex, not that things will be certain. You have to understand that you can gain the ability to navigate complexity. Yeah. You can gain the ability to become certain. It's not that life is uncertain and everything's uncertain. That's what scares people.

1:48 Yeah. Is they go, well, now everything's uncertain and I don't know what's true. The thing for me is there are things that are true. And when you when you step into when you understand that life is inherently complex, like our own and I don't in life in a macro sense, but also life in a micro sense. Like I'm sitting here and there's all these systems in my body that are not simple, that are that are very complex and they're all working together. Yeah. And you don't have to know about it. a cardiovascular system right now, my pulmonary system. I'm sitting here breathing. Yeah. Right? I have blood pumping through my body. I have a lymphatic system. I have all of I have muscles. I have a skeleton. I have all this stuff that's coming together to constitute my existence. That's that's very complex. Yeah. So so why would why would we live in a world that is less complex than our own physical bodies are? Now we don't think it's complex cuz we look at the outside.

2:42 It's like, "Oh, I'm got Oh, we take it for granted. I'm skin. I'm just have skin and I you know, have we don't you know, you don't see inside your own body and realize your complexity of how your like they don't know where the soul is and somehow my brain talks to my body and I have feelings. Where do my feelings come from physically? I mean, this is the kind of questions that people have tried to answer for for eons, right? The feelings one is an interesting one. I'm sorry cuz you jogged my thought process cuz so much of what you're talking about here and and why it's hard and people not looking for truth, I do think it's because you know what will get louder for you as if you drift away from any sort of intentional uh truth is your feelings. Cuz I I like the thing when I was depressed, you know the one thing that I wanted? Just wanted to be happy. I I remember I started Something simple. Yeah, that's exactly right. And I started I mean I started reading books and looking for like I remember asking my dad like, you know, what what what do you think the purpose of our life is?

3:33 Cuz I was like it was so eating at me that I had no purpose. And I remember I read this book called the I think it's called the art of joy. It was by all the Dalai Lama. Yeah. And I I really enjoyed that book, but at the same time it like did not answer my question. And what cuz what I wanted was I I somebody to be like, "This is Just tell me, man. Tell me what I got to go do." This Yeah, that's exactly what I wanted. Tell me the three-step process so I can just feel Like what I didn't realize was I just want to feel happy and not feel bad. And that's where I think a lot of people you can be reduced down to where And so much of that comes out of a desire to not be wrong, right? So like we so don't want to be wrong, but we so often are. Oh, yeah. Like I'm wrong all the time, but I just don't want to admit that. Like Like the thing that the thing that you know, people have to reconcile when they interact with truth is like the Ricky Bobby moment. I always talk about Talladega Nights when we talk about this stuff.

4:28 that he has so much truth from that movie. Well, to me it's the best example of it that I can think of. Being first you're last. What do you mean? There's so many different places you can be. I must have been high when I said that. Yeah. Right? And this guy lived his whole life based on this philosophy. And that's how it is interacting with truth. You can have stuff that you live your whole life according to. And then what do you do whenever you find out, man, that's been wrong for like the whole time? And this is where people come to they have a crisis of faith. Like people There are people that land on the And that's what people are scared of, right? Is they're scared of the uncertainty of what if this leads me to not believe in God anymore? Right. What if this leads me to no longer do the things that are acceptable to people around me? What What if this What if this puts me in a position where all the things I've thought are true my whole life just aren't true anymore. And that can be the fear or you know, with Socrates This is what Socrates did. What Socrates uh What Socrates you see in the stories of Socrates that Plato wrote was people were always scared of questions cuz when people start asking questions they think that there's no answers at some point.

5:41 They go, "Well, just questions lead to more questions." Yeah. Right? So So people get frustrated about these conversations cuz they go, "Okay, what do you mean we don't define good according to God's definition of good? And what do Well, how do we define How do we find God's that it just leads to questions and questions and questions?" Well, what you understand is that eventually, if you just keep asking questions, you'll you'll land on an answer. Now, that answer is going to be your answer. It might not be everybody's answer. So, people go they want the certainty. Yeah. Come back to certainty. They want the certainty of No, but what's the answer? Yeah. Like, what's the way to be happy? Tell me how to be happy and also better be in a 30-second reel. Yeah. Or or it better be something I can read in a 100-page book and just give me a bunch of answers. And the problem is there comes a time in all of our life where none of those answers work anymore because those were other people's answers. So, my my uh my solution to this problem, so to speak, right? Is you have to admit that life is just massively complex.

6:45 Right? If my body's as complex it is, it Well, if my existence My body's very complex, but my existence is way more complex than even my physical body. Like, and the physical world is a pretty complicated world. Right? Like we You know what's crazy? I read this and I I'm going to do a longer talk on this at some point in some kind of room, but we don't really understand how the sun operates. Yeah. We need the sun to exist. And I I I went down this rabbit hole cuz I watched the movie Project Hail Mary, right? too, man. Yeah. And so, it's like, well, could stuff like that happen to the sun? It's like, yeah, absolutely, cuz we don't really understand how the sun works. Yeah. So, we have this We live life every day. Everyone who can hear this, you're relying on the sun. Yep. There's this thing called the sun. We don't really understand how it exists and how it works and whether or not it's going to continue working.

7:39 Yeah. But we're completely relying on it If for our for our complete existence. If the sun did not exist, if the sun wasn't you know, there's all these things you can look up, all these like if the world wasn't exactly on its axis and if they didn't there would not be life. There would not be existence. That is crazy. We don't understand how our own brain operates. Yeah. Cognitive psychology, they've studied the brain as long as it's existed and they're like, how does this work? This is just a big piece of fat inside your head that somehow sends these electrical signals that constitute everything about your existence. Yeah, it's wild. Unbelievable, right? And so then we go so because we don't notice it, we think that life's really simple. Our whole Dude, the fact we're breathing oxygen right now is a miracle Yeah. of untold complexity. Trees and and the all the systems in the world that exist that just all of a sudden work and we create there's life that it's a that's an unbelievably beautiful idea.

8:40 And so to to to me to reject that and say life should be certain and life should be simple is like missing the miracle of existence. Dude, I I love this right now. I don't think I've ever seen you have the sparkle in your eye that you have right now. You're smiling so much. I think it's so like there's so many people that are so certain about so much stuff and they limit they limit I think you limit God in your life, you limit the mystery of existence when you do that. When you need uncertainty Dude, when you need certainty, you just you miss all of the things in your life that are never going to be like love is an uncertain thing. Yeah, for sure. So you embrace like this you love somebody you love your like why do I love my kids the way I love them, right? It's like there's a mystery to that. It's amazing. It's it's beautiful. So you embrace that but you also have to embrace the the fear that comes with uncertainty, you know?

9:33 You know? So okay, so first thing, my first challenge and and thing that everybody should consider as they listen to this podcast and I think we'll come back to this stuff a lot cuz I'm always reminded of that and this is what this comment reminded me about. The first thing is, man, just embrace the fact that you could be wrong. Yeah. Embrace the fact that life is uncertain. Embrace the fact that life is complex. But the second thing is understand that there are some things that you can be certain about and there's some things that actually are pretty simple. Mhm. Right? And those things are true things. Like things that are true are always things that are really true are always right, always good, always true. Talk about principles and all of that, virtues on this on this on this podcast. So, what do I have to do to navigate uncertainty, right? I become certain about myself. And I become certain what I'm certain about is the kind of questions that I ask, right? What I'm certain about is my search for truth.

10:28 Right. So, that's that's what that's what I tell people and like that's what I try to communicate and that's what I think that's what this podcast is about and that's what I think more people should do. Just become certain about the search. Like I'm If you go drop yourself into a national park today without a map, what you're certain about is that you're in a national park and you're certain that you're going to have an adventure. You can't be certain you're going to live. Yeah. And you should have a map. So, for me and for us, the map is the word of God. Like the map for me in my life the the the way as the Bible's not a science textbook, it's not a biology book, it doesn't doesn't answer every question that exists in the universe, but the Bible is for me is it's a map for me to navigate my life with. So, I don't always know I don't always know the right answers. I don't always know what to do in every situation. Life is filled with dilemmas. Life is filled with complexity, but in spite of all that, I can be certain about my search and I can be certain about looking at myself and I go, "Okay, like let me just zoom in on that." For to be clearer even than than I'm being than I'm being.

11:32 For me, it's being certain about the truth that I live by. Mhm. So, how do I navigate the uncertainty of relationships? And how do I navigate the uncertainty of um society, the uncertainty of success? Like, I don't know if I'm going to be successful. I don't know if I'm going to win in life, right? How do I navigate that? I become certain about my criteria for making decisions. Mhm. So, I'm going to my life, the sum total of my life is going to be all the decisions that I make. Like, if everything in my life is just a product of decisions. So, life is uncertain. There's a lot of complexity that we're navigating. The great thing is we can look to the past and say, "Okay, like, what have great people in the past done?" Like, people that have lived good lives. This is why I love history so much, cuz I can literally look back and go, "Okay, independent of time or culture, there's some things that are always right, always good, and always true." And those things always work, because there's laws that govern the universe. The The universe is not completely random.

12:30 Right. And that's what I would call principles. That That's what I think when you have a knowledge of principles, cuz the world is an orderly place, and principles dictate outcomes. So, and you can discover principles anywhere. You can discover principles in nature. Romans chapter 1 says the invisible attributes of God are clearly seen. You can discover principles in nature. You can discover principles in philosophy. You can discover principles all over the place. Um the great thing is that we have something called the word of God that I believe is filled with principles. And everything that I hear that seems to be true, the reason why scripture matters to me so much is because everything that I hear that seems to be true gets measured against a standard. Yeah. So, there has to be a source of truth. So, for me, the source of truth is God himself. God created the universe. I look at the complexity of life, and there's no way this could be accidental. I Yeah. Right?

13:20 In my lowest moments, I could never doubt there was a God, cuz I was like, "This did not pull itself doesn't mean, you know, and this is where I'm willing to be wrong, right? And I don't have an I don't you know, Marcus Aurelius I think we're talking about a lot of deep stuff on this podcast. So, this is probably going to be a double double episode. done the shallow episode, bro. But like that's where like so people go, okay, yes intelligent design I believe that. Then they go, well no like Charles Darwin was wrong evolution's not real. Evolution could be real. Could be the way God used could be the thing God used to bring humans about. Now, do do I personally portions of it maybe None of us were there. This is the whole thing, right? So, it's embracing the I don't have to have an opinion about that is what I'm saying. I don't know. So, like Josh, what do you believe? Do you think we evolved from like a single-celled organism? I don't know. Were you there? I wasn't there. I have no idea.

14:12 Yeah, but that that logic doesn't really hold up, man. Cuz now anytime you say somebody says something like were you there? Well, no I wasn't there. No, it's just more like I don't there's no way for me to be certain about that. So, I just embrace the uncertainty of I don't I'm not really sure and cuz the question for me is back to principles. How does me knowing this affect how I'm practically living my life? Right. Well, that that's where it probably doesn't have as much impact. I would argue very much about the word of God is pretty clear about the days that God created I'm just saying the the even even if you sit down and you execute and you have the discussion, you go, well what is it you know, if the Bible says a day is as a thousand years to God. What does it actually mean? Seven is it seven literal days? Is it seven thousand years? Is it seven million years? Who knows? What what's true is that we're here right now. Yeah, I was going to say I don't think that the the timeline has as much But but so many people that's what they want to debate. That's what they want to sit and have the discussion on is where do you land on this? Like you talk about the So, you talk about the beginning of time. You talk about the end of time, too. And you are well you pre-trib, are you post-trib, are you amillennial, are you premillennial, are you postmillennial? And they want to talk about all this stuff about the end of the world. So, my question is how does knowing that affect what kind of parent that you are. So Jesus comes before after the rapture.

15:27 Right? Or if the rapture is even a thing or whatever, how does you having that knowledge affect uh the spirit of excellence you bring to your work today? Yeah. Or whether or not you take care of your family, or whether or not you're emotionally available to your spouse. I mean, it doesn't. But we need certainty. Well, it will. I mean, I just spent some time with John Bevere, and that's what we were talking about. So I mean, it's very much if you really believed that Jesus was coming back. Yeah. And you really did have an you know How would you live? Yeah. I mean So So then that becomes the question. Is it all comes back to how does it affect how I'm living my life? Right. Right? So if it does, I want to talk about it. If it doesn't, why do we need to fight about it? Yeah, great. Believe whatever you want to believe, man. Like So because where I have certainty, where you have certainty, where we want to encourage people to have certainty, is in principles. And what you do every day that determines the flow of your life.

16:24 And that's what we're talking about, and those are the kind of discussions we should have, and we get hung up on all this other stuff. And so like, where does that come from? A desire for certainty. And the truth is we're just not going to be certain about life. But I can look at truth that I interact with and be certain about how well I'm trying to apply truth to my life. And I And I And I'm not scared of the complexity, and I don't have to be scared of the complexity because the discussion can be So like, sitting down for us one day, when you know, we have real real big-time guests on this podcast, the conversation is going to be we're going to be willing to admit we're wrong because we're looking for truth. I don't think God is not there. I think God is truth. It Augustine said that if if truth is the highest thing, which is what philosophers like ancient philosophers believed, if truth is the highest thing, then truth is God.

17:21 And if truth is higher if if something's higher than truth, then that's God. So, that's what I believe. Like, I think I think truth reveals itself in the person of Jesus in terms of Jesus says, "I'm the way, the truth, and the life." What does that mean? How can a person be truth? Jesus represents the most true and right way to live. Literally, everyone who reads the story of Jesus, atheist, agnostic, Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, whatever goes, "Oh, that's a great way to live as a human being on the earth." So, they go, "Wow, you know, Jesus was not God, but he was a great moral teacher, and his followers later deified him." Okay, but he's still truth. He's still truth in that he still represents the truest way to live. And this is how God wants me to approach my life. So, then so then why would I spend my time doing anything else than trying to seek that out? And what people want to do in the world that we've lived in, and I don't blame I don't blame like an individual for this.

18:19 Like, what people do is they want to make the conversation about everything except that. They want to make the conversation about why you're saying what you're saying, why you're doing what you're doing. When really it's like, man, we could sit on talk about motivations and intentions and reasons why all day when the real discussion that we're having is what's the best way forward. And human beings are not we're not the final arbiters of truth. I'm going to live my life being wrong, and I admit that, and I, you know, I've said this on this podcast, I got it from uh Erwin McManus that, you know, uh I reserve I reserve the right to change my mind cuz I'm going to change my mind cuz I'm going to learn new information. So, my encouragement to people is just don't be scared of that. If you interact with something, you know, I had a humanities professor in college who quoted Aristotle, it's not an Aristotle quote, but it's a great thought that the mark of an educated mind is to entertain a thought without accepting it. So, if I hear something I disagree with, my response should be, "Okay, well, tell me more about that."

19:17 Right. Like, explain to me where you get that from. And if it's false, and if it's a false belief, that person might still hold on to it, but it won't produce fruit. So, my goal in my life is to produce fruit, right? So, the thing is about about whether or not a person and I'll come back to like the initial conversation we're having to start the podcast, whether or not a person agrees or disagrees with tithing or thinks that I'm greedy and just trying to justify love money, is not relevant to me because I'm I'm 38 years old, I've tithed for almost 20 years as long as I've had a job, and I've just seen it work. I've seen God work in my life. I've seen God build the church. I've seen miracles happen. I've seen amazing stuff happen. So, I know that this is the right way to live. And I've seen it in scripture, and it's reflected in scripture, but also I've seen the amazing fruit of living a God-first life. So, I I have deep conviction related to that. So, if you disagree with me, show me the fruit of your life, and let's and let's talk about that because I feel like up to now, this has been the most truthful way to live that's produced amazing fruit. And when you step into those kind of conversations, you're not like personalizing it Right.

20:25 you know? Yeah. Like, the stuff you and me disagree on is not about whether or not we like each other. Right. It's like, well, is that really the best way to be, or is this the best way to be? And if And if you prove me wrong, I'm happy to be proved wrong. Like, and that's and that's what I think we should recapture or we that's how we should all be in life is I'm happy to be proved wrong because if you sit and you prove me wrong, then what you've done is you've helped me live a more truthful life, which is going to lead to me being more certain about principles than I've ever been. Thank you for listening to The Dialog. Make sure to like, share, and subscribe. And also, if you think someone else would enjoy this, please send it to them. If you want to get in touch or learn more about me, what I think, speak, and write, you can go to joshuacraft.com, or you can also follow Nick and I on Instagram. Our handles are in the show notes. We'll see you next time.