All right, so some of you have sent me some questions and we'll see if we can get through as many of these as we can. All right, so this one is, okay, what instruction would you give to those, I assume maybe the 18 year olds and younger, is that what? In the context of not being your own, some young men here are preparing for college, career, and even ministry, so any particular words of advice for younger folks? Yeah, so I think one of the keys is One of the pressures that you're going to experience is the pressure to find the one right thing that you have to do. The one right career, the one right spouse, the one right friends, the one right place you're going to need to go to. And you have an expanding number of options. And what can happen is you get what's called choice paralysis, where you feel like, I don't know what the good major is. I don't know what the right career path is. I don't know what the right. And my counsel is, and this is connected to what I've been talking about, because if you are your own, then you really do need to find the right one. You really have that responsibility to find the exact one right thing. And if you don't, then your life is doomed. and you will be told that in one way or another. And what I would say is that God gives us freedom and there are lots of good options in this life. And my recommendation is to prayerfully look at the options available to you and pick one and do it. Whether it's in terms of, you know, marrying someone or pursuing a career or especially pursuing a career or choosing a major. Agonizing about choosing the one right one, and if you don't choose the one right one, your life will be over, is a lie that you've been told. So just pick one and do it. And if the career doesn't work, then you do something else, and you'll be fine. So that's the advice that I would have. All right, that's good. This is a question. This is sort of maybe related to young people, but maybe everybody else. But this is kind of looking at it from maybe as a father or something, managing social media for your children. And I don't know if you've seen the recent study that just came out just talking about specifically the harm to girls. And boy, that was, I think the statistic was maybe like one in three girls have considered suicide. just because of the social media. And it's not just like an opinion, this is all of the different studies all kind of looked at, and over 10 years of research, and it's the scientific fact that this is happening. And any advice to how to deal with that? Yeah, so our oldest is 13, and she's recently started asking for a phone, and we've recently told her no. And we're gonna prolong that as long as we can. I don't know, you know, she goes to a small Christian school, and they're not allowed to have phones at the school, and yet she still gets pressure. She's still out of the loop because she's not in the text group. But... Yeah, I think if you can prolong that. And at a certain point, while they're still at home, you want to be able to train them how to use social media and how to use texting in a safe and fruitful way. Because I think these tools can be used in a way that's meaningful. And you don't want to just let them be adults and then figure it out on their own. You want to guide them. But I think prolonging that as long as you can and providing some oversight even though they're going to chafe at the loss of privacy is necessary because the pressure there to compete, to create an identity, to brand yourself, to promote yourself is just overwhelming. So I think we have to be guardrails for our kids. Yeah, I know that's been a struggle at our house that we've been continually working through. All right, this is sort of changing gears a little bit. This question asks, I know you've talked a little bit about this, but maybe some other competing anthropologies in our culture, and specifically, how do you see churches sort of falling into backing those false anthropologies? Yeah, I mean, that's a great question. I think in the West, this is the main one for right now. My theory is that at different points in human history, there are different cultures, Western cultures had different false anthropologies. But I'm not a historian, so I'm not gonna make that argument. That's my theory. I think churches fall into this trap of teaching that we are our own and belong to ourselves all the time. It's easy for me because, or it's easy for me to lose touch with the fact that a lot of people who identify as evangelicals or Christians in America attend churches that promote the self, that promote prosperity, that promote self-growth, Affirmation, self, all the things of the self, right? There are massive megachurches that do this. And I lose sight of that because when I think about the church in America, I think about these small churches all across the country that aren't doing that. So I think there are lots of ways that we can do that, that churches do that. All right, sort of related to that, what happens next in our society, since they can't really deliver on these promises that they're making to us, so where are we going, and how especially are Christians and maybe pastors supposed to deal with that? Yeah, so society gives us this promise, you take these burdens, you use these tools, that we give you to carry these burdens, and then you'll live a fulfilling life. But it doesn't actually work. And so then what it does is it provides coping mechanisms. So it says, ah, you're feeling depressed, or anxious, or overwhelmed, or insecure, or inadequate because you're not achieving. Take these pills. Enjoy this entertainment. do this self-help program. And so the promise is always just a little bit further. Actually, you haven't quite done it. You just need to go a little bit further. You need to try a little bit harder, or you need to numb yourself a little bit more. In Oklahoma, we recently, a couple years, about six years ago, we passed a legal medical marijuana bill. And the, It is, I talk about this in the book, the fact that it's obscenely easy to get a medical marijuana card. And so effectively, we actually just, there was just a bill last week that tried to pass recreational marijuana, and it went down in flames. That might be a marijuana pun, but. It went down in a blaze, that's what I should have said. But part of the reason it failed was because we effectively already have recreational marijuana legally in our country. Not in our country, in our state of Oklahoma, because it's so easy to get a medical marijuana card. And I write about in the book all these billboards that you see throughout the I-40 that essentially the message is, is life too hard? get high. I mean, that's essentially the message. And I think that's one of the responses society gives us. So I think pastors, ministers, Christians have to push back and have to, by saying, look, the goalposts are constantly being moved. You're promised that your life will be fulfilled if you just do a little bit more. But then when you do that, you realize, actually, you have to, the goalpost is a little bit, there's a couple more yards. You gotta go a couple more yards, a couple more yards. And we've gotta call that out for what it is. Because people are exhausted and frustrated and overwhelmed. And they want an explanation for why. And I think we can offer that explanation. So that's part of what I think we need to be doing. calling out culture on its con jaw. It's a con jaw, is what it is. Now, let's see, there's another question sort of about ministry, and it says, we know that we are also prone to bow to the demands of productivity, ministering to people because of how they will benefit our ministry. I'll tell you a quick little story. I was going to post that little clip of you talking to Mike Cosper about something, and I was like, oh, this will be good, and then you were talking about how terrible it is to advertise for stuff. I couldn't post that clip to advertise for this thing, but how do we avoid that? Yeah, this is hard. Ministers are highly pressured to bow to efficiency. And there are entire companies whose job it is to create data so that ministers can maximize the butts in the seat and the dollars in the offering plate and measure their success according to certain metrics and these sorts of things. And I'm not opposed to metrics completely, but what I am opposed to is allowing those things to override what is good, true, and beautiful. you know, what I said earlier. you know, prodigality. So we have to be willing to do ministry and nobody shows up. We have to be able to do ministry and, you know, serving in a local community and we don't see immediate results. And we still keep doing that ministry because we know it's the right thing to do. We have to preach sermons that are true and beautiful and good, even if they don't attract people because people want to have their ears tickled. We have to tell people about the horrors of sin in their lives, even when it's hard and unpopular. Gosh, the faith doesn't allow us to be enslaved to efficiency. Efficiency and productivity will sink us, and it's insidious because you're gonna feel that pressure. The church across town is gonna be more successful because they use their time more efficiently, and they've got this system set up, and we've gotta be able to say, well, that's not actually honoring to God, so I'm not going to do that. I'm gonna do something Less efficient, but more beautiful, and more true, and more good. So, yeah, this often leads to minister burnout, because you just feel like you've got to keep competing. And it's not a competition. Your task is to be faithful to the work God has put before you. Preaching to myself now. Faithful to the task God has put before you. You do that work, And then you leave the fruit to God. The harvest is up to God. It's not up to us. That is counter to the lie of efficiency, to the regime of efficiency, I should say. Because the regime of efficiency says the harvest is literally up to you. we can measure it, we can figure out the metrics, and we have the best system. Everybody's selling you a book in ministry about the right system in order to minister to the right people so that you can be successful, so that you can feel like you can sleep at night because you're doing the right thing. And that assumes that the harvest is up to you, and it's not. It's up to God. And so, you know, the task that we have to be asking ourselves is, what is honoring, what is pleasing to the Lord? All right, then I'm gonna do that. One of my favorite quotes from poetry from my favorite poet T.S. Eliot is these lines from the Four Quartets where he says, for us there is only the trying, the rest is not our business. And I think that gives me the strength to write books, to do talks like this. If I start thinking about the rest, I'm going to get overwhelmed and I'm not going to try." But Eliot says, no, for us there's only the trying. That's our job, is to try. The rest is not our business. It's up to God. And thank God for that, because otherwise we would be overwhelmed, and we already are. Do you have any examples, maybe, of some community involvement that maybe looks less efficient or something, or any kind of stories or examples about anything like that? Ministries to communities, or? I don't have any specific ones that come to mind, but I think it's important to, you know, when you're working with at-risk populations, whether it's populations that are struggling with drug abuse, or poverty, or physical abuse, or you know, where there is racial discrimination or whatever, a lot of these systemic problems, they don't go away, you know, overnight. It's a long, hard fight, and so your task is to be present and to be faithful. And it's easy to grow discouraged because you wanna see growth. In fact, I have a, we sponsor some kids through, I'm not gonna say the program, but one of these child sponsorship programs overseas, right? And I just got emails, I'm just thinking about this right now, I just got emails, four emails where they gave me the metrics of this child's growth. So their physical growth, educational growth, their spiritual growth, and I don't remember what the fourth one was. I didn't open any of them because I was kind of just annoyed. I don't need to. I'm going to trust this ministry that they're ministering in their life of this kid. I know my kids. My kids don't grow linearly physically or mentally or spiritually. It's like this. You don't need to give me a chart to prove to me that my You know, but that's the world that we live in. And so, yeah, I don't have a specific thing in mind, but I would just say that a lot of the really good work that Christians need to be doing in our local communities, you might not see the fruit for decades, or maybe ever, maybe not in your lifetime. But that doesn't mean what you're doing is meaningless. To go along with the prodigality kind of theme, And again, that's just a very powerful image of the overflowing cup. How is that related to Sabbath, and what does a rich understanding of Sabbath look like? Yeah, I mean, ideally, Sabbath rest ought to be prodigal. It ought to be a time where we are resting. For me, one of the things I learned from a good friend was the beauty of spontaneously inviting people over to your house on Sundays. And your house is not perfect. It's kind of a mess, because you've got kids or you've got life going on. And you don't have an agenda. You don't have a Bible study plan. You're not networking. You're not trying to make sure that they don't leave the church. But you just, hey, why don't you come over to our house? Have a meal. I don't know what we're going to eat. We'll figure it out when we get here." But you have that vulnerability, and it is prodigal. It is leisurely. So I had a friend who would do this to us. They would just call us up and say, hey, why don't you come over for lunch? We've got some beans and cheese and tortillas. Why don't you bring salsa and sour cream and olives, and we'll throw it together? And we were like, OK. All right. I guess. But that meant so much to us. Speaking of loneliness and fighting that sense of loneliness, that was a powerful witness to us of what Sabbath feasting together could look like. And part of the key there is there wasn't a whole lot of foresight on their part. There wasn't a whole lot of planning or orchestrating or stressful work. It was leisurely being together. without a specific agenda except just to love, just the beauty and the pleasure of company. And that still is, yeah, a powerful witness to me of what a good Sabbath looks like. Kind of in a different direction on prodigality is maybe the world's idea of sustainability. Is that kind of an efficiency that kind of goes against that? Have you thought anything about that? Yeah, you know, sustainability, yeah, is just another word for productivity, right? So you want to be sustainable so that you can keep working. And I think we can, I think, It's useful to talk about unsustainable lifestyles. I think that's important to be able to say that some of us are living unsustainable lifestyles. So I don't want to get rid of that phrase at all, entirely. But if sustainability is your goal, it's like saying surviving is your goal. But as Christians, surviving isn't our goal, because sometimes we're called to be martyred. And sometimes that's a literal martyrdom, a physical martyrdom. Sometimes it's serving so much that we die to self. So sustainability can't be our goal. We are called to more, we are called to more service than the world asks us, but we're also called to more, leisure than the world wants. And that's a paradox, but I think that's where we are. Okay, so this person says that he understands that ours is only to try, and it's up to God to fulfill, but how do you rest feeling that you've tried hard enough, or how do you deal with that idea of not knowing? Yeah, I mean, I think it takes time, and I think it takes community. I think you have to have people around you who can remind you that it's not ultimately up to you. I know, I'm just speaking from my own experience, because I have a very hard time resting. I have a hard time taking naps, for example, because I feel guilty. I feel like I should be doing more. And I require a wife, I require friends who can tell me, Alan, it's not up to you. It's not up to you. I require a therapist who says, Alan, I want you to go do something pleasurable. And even if it feels bad, even if you feel like you should be doing something else, just do it. Watch a basketball game and just enjoy it. It's a great time for basketball right now. Just watch it and just enjoy it. And I actually have to put into practice And it doesn't happen overnight, but it takes habits. You have to cultivate habits of depending upon God for His faithfulness so that you can delight in the good life that He's given you. For some of us, I think that comes easy. For others of us, it's almost work to learn to rest. But that's what we're called for. A lot of my books, they come out of my own personal, I'm often preaching to myself. I love this phrase in your book that's sort of towards the end. You say that we must agree not to do all we are capable of. Now, as a substitute teacher, I'm imagining this poster in the school. It doesn't seem to have a place there, but maybe it should. Yeah, so that comes from Jacques Ellul from a little article he wrote called The Ethics of Non-Power. And when he's talking about the regime of technique and the way it invades our lives, he says we must choose not to do all that we can do, which is counter. So for example, we must choose not to adopt all the technology that we could adopt. We must choose not to be on all the social media platforms that we could be on. We must choose not to do all the work that we could possibly do, because society is going to tell us, do everything all the time. And so part of our response has to be learning to say, no, I'm not going to. And that feels irresponsible at times, but it's not. So yeah, we should have that posted. I think that would be awesome to have those in schools. Choose not to do all that you can do. Choose not to do all that you can do. I definitely want my son to not do everything he can do. That's not how I get off. We're rounding this down here. We have several questions about your beard. Okay, good. By the way, you have won the beard contest here at the Men's Retreat this year. Sorry to all you. You had several honorable mentionings. This is great. I'm just going to read this to you. Dr. Noble, your beard is glorious. It is a mane of magnificence, a man garden of greatness. How long did it take you to grow it? How do you maintain it? Would you consider your beard a prodigality of God's goodness to you? It overflowed with opulent power. Thank you. Thank you. That's great. Yeah. I had a spinal fusion back when I was in grad school. I had a herniated disc. And they had to slice this open, my neck open here, to get to my spine. I know this is gross, and you didn't ask for this. But after that happened, I had this deep incision here on my neck. And I was horrified with the idea of shaving. Because even after it healed, I was just like, I didn't want it. So I just started growing, and then And then during COVID, my daughter was like, Dad, I want to braid your beard. And I was like, well, it's way too short for that. She's like, well, grow it out. So I was like, all right. So it's been growing since COVID. And I do trim it quite a bit, but it keeps going. Oh, man. OK. All right, well, we're going to end it there. So thanks for... I can't think of a better way to... Yeah, that's true. End on a high note. Oh, man. So once again, just thank you for being with us. Thank you guys. It's been wonderful. Great questions.