The Good News of Your Limits

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Collin Hansen
How many biographies have you read or seen about the driven individual who has achieved personal triumph? And how many biographies have you read or seen about the relational person embedded within community? Maybe that’s why I enjoy the novels and short stories of Wendell Berry because he features most of the ladder in Fort William.

Maybe that’s why I enjoyed the new book by Kelly Kapic, called You’re Only Human: How Your Limits Reflect God’s Design and Why That’s Good News published by Brazos Kelly is a professor of theological studies at covenant College in Lookout Mountain Georgia, where he has taught for 20 years this book aims to lift from our shoulders that sense we carry the weight of the world appreciate how Kelly situates theological truth in contrast with cultural expectations, you can see the goodness of God’s creation in the gospel of Jesus Christ when you consider the message we hear from the world.

Collin Hansen
For example, Kelly writes this, “What an irony that our modern age on the one hand exhausts us by its calls for complete self expression, and on the other hand suffocates us by its pressures to conform, we must constantly adopt ever changing fashions, humor and music, and yet keep up the appearance that we are independently minded. Love that summary there from Kelly, but he doesn’t just find problems with the world’s perspective. He also asks hard questions of the church, such as this, why do we pit compassion against success, Grace against growth, and tenderness against effort? It’s a problem in the church when contentedness looks like complacency. Kelly Capek, joins me on gospel bound to discuss the good news of limits living in the moment, the fear of the Lord, and their identity in Christ. Kelly, thank you for joining me on gospel bound.

Kelly Kapic
Now this is great. Thanks for having me.

Collin Hansen
Kelly, are you trying to solve a problem you see mostly in yourself or in others?

Kelly Kapic
Yeah, that’s a great, that’s a great question. The answer is yes. I really have learned that I don’t really know what I think about something until I have to write about it. And teaching is a similar kind of experience. And so this is something I’ve struggled with for decades, but also been theologically interested in for decades. And so this was finally my opportunity to, to work through some of these issues,

Collin Hansen
Some book writing as therapy, perhaps.

Kelly Kapic
It’s one of these funny things that you can tell the difference when someone’s thinks an issue is just theoretical, or when it’s personal. And so for good or bad, these things are personal for me.

Collin Hansen
It does make it makes for a better reading experience. I see this line, Kelly as a kind of summary of the book. You write this, if you don’t see your finitude as a gift and a way of appreciating the gifts of others, then all you see in others will be their problems, and the ways they could be better. Oh, man that was hit me in the heart. But how does that concept shape your argument? This book?

Kelly Kapic
Yeah, I’m deeply concerned that as Christians, and I’m a reformed theologian, so I come from a particular tradition. And so I think I see this in US acutely, but I definitely see a beyond just my circles. I think we confuse finitude in sin. And finitude is just a fancy term, we don’t tend to use it a lot these days. It’s really a fancy term for creature. It doesn’t we tend to think of finitude as death. But actually it doesn’t have to mean death. It just means limits. It means limited in how much you can know how many places you can be, you know, those kind of natural normal limits that are part of our good. And so I’m concerned that we are constantly feeling guilty about things that are not sinful, they’re just part of being a creature. And when we get confused between our finitude and sin, it actually distorts the Christian life. It distorts our worship, it distorts what Christian faithfulness looks like, in our relationships. So I think the the implications are pretty significant.

Collin Hansen
Could you give an example or two of something you might have in mind, there are scenarios that that that occurred to you when prompting you to write the book?

Kelly Kapic
I often think about, you know, when we, you know, we will psychoanalyze you can we can do me but when I put my head on the pillow at night, you know, I don’t often just think, man, I just I was great today. I really got I read it. And what’s interesting though, is when we think about our day and we judge it, what tends to happen including For us as Christians is it’s not about just how I treated people. It’s how much I got done. And I think the idea of productivity has so infiltrated into our understanding of Christian faithfulness, that what happens is, I don’t feel good at the end of the day, not because I’ve been unkind to people, because I didn’t get as much done as I think I was supposed to.

Kelly Kapic
And so, all of a sudden, I’m feeling guilty, trying to lay my head down before Christ as I lay my, my day before him. And I am confused, and it’s hurting me because I’ve misunderstood what He expects of me what faithfulness looks like. And, you know, did he really expect me to pray for two more hours? did he expect me to whatever your particular job is to do that much more of it to spend not much more time with the kids, it just, we have such unrealistic expectations? I think it’s really hurting us.

Collin Hansen
Is that sense of productivity? Is that simply an offshoot of our capitalistic system and that mindset? Or does it come from something else? Is it is it more fundamental or more conditional to our culture and time?

Kelly Kapic
Yeah, I do think it’s pretty heavily cultural in ways that are very deep in us. It’s an it’s, it’s a confluence of things, right? It’s, it’s kind of the rugged individualism, it’s it is Western capitalism, it’s modernity, it’s the rise of certain forms of technology. So it’s not it’s not just simply individualism. It’s not simply capitalism. But it’s all of these things that I also think the churches just kind of, particularly in the West is baptised the whole idea of, you know, Ben Franklin saying, time is money, we may not always say the money part. But we really do when we you know, it’s it’s affects our exegesis, when we talk about Redeeming the time, and how how we kind of always assume this is about efficiency and productivity, and squeezing the most out of every second. And maybe that’s not what faithfulness looks like.

Collin Hansen
Another line that I liked in the book, he said, we have far less control of the world, and even of ourselves than we would like to imagine. I need you to explain why that’s good news. Maybe if you’ve been steeped in Reformed theology, and God’s providence, and all that kind of stuff, but I think you walk out on the street and you advertise this people are thinking, What in the world that time to panic? Yeah, I don’t have any control over things. And what do I have?

Kelly Kapic
Yeah, it’s that’s great. And I’m, I’m glad you’re asking that. It’s very interesting, because I don’t think we tend to come to terms with our finitude because we study it, we come to terms with it, because it hits us in the face. And, you know, parents quickly, we’re not so quickly, are forced realize, I can’t control my kids. Right, my, we were married nine years before we have kids. And so you know, now I have one in college. And the funny thing is, I’ve been for years asking older parents about parenting adult children. And one of the things they’d always warn me about or prepared me for was, they kept saying, just so you know, it’s going to be harder, not easier. And basically, the reason is, is you never had control over your children.

Kelly Kapic
But you could play with the myth you had control over them when they were small. And as they go out, and are adults, it’s less than less clear. And so all sudden, you’re like, Oh, I guess I need to pray. Right? Stuff like that. So the reality is, we never were in control, but we can feed the myth and and you can always tell in our hearts, how much control we think we have, by the level of anger we often have about things that we’re not controlling when we think you know, and this is where manipulation comes and all those kinds of things.

Collin Hansen
Oh, man, yeah, just definitely turning into the old therapy couch here. With my with my little kids, and thinking about things they’re, you know, it’s interesting, you bring that up, just to show you how relevant listeners how relevant the book is one of the most popular stories in the Atlantic right now is about this sort of breakdown between adult children and their parents. They just didn’t expect how little control they would have over their adult children.

Collin Hansen
And their and they’re in their adult children describing their entire childhood in ways that their parents would not recognize whether that’s right or wrong, as being full of trauma, and therefore their parents are toxic, therefore, they should have no relationship with them. Therefore, they can’t have any relationship with their children with their grandchildren. And just how hard that is, which is not to say there aren’t real problems on both sides. But that’s a common occurrence now, in ways that our particular culture in force reinforces that would not have been possible again, for better or worse in previous generations. But that’s a good way of putting it is that we think we think we have the illusion of control make our kids but my goodness, yeah, that that is

Kelly Kapic
That is yes. It’s interesting. Can I just build on that Do it. It’s interesting that my wife and I, for a long time have told people I’m sure it was my wife’s insight, and I’m just stealing it from her. But we’ve you know, for a long time, we’ve told parents that I think we take too much credit for the good and too much blame for the bad. And that is a that’s a manifestation of this, right? We don’t give kids enough credit sometimes for the good decisions and the hard work they do. But similarly, we think we’re too important sometimes and act as if it’s just pure. I’m all about agency. I think our actions matter. I think it matters. If you’re kind to your kids, and you’re not kind I’m not I’m not a fatalist your agency matters. But it’s not everything. human agency is really limited.

Collin Hansen
Yeah, I think that point was also driven home when I had my third, we had our third child last year. And you know, you kind of you’re playing the odds with one or two. And you see, you’re like this, you’re like that. And you have a third and a third one’s also totally different. You’re thinking, What in the world is happening here that they all come with their own personalities? Yeah. Totally their own own people. Now, you this was an interesting part of the book, you don’t like our discourse around identity in Christ need you to explain why.

Kelly Kapic
Yeah, I Well, I hope people will read why I have concerns I, I do have concerns because what I have noticed in recent years, let me first be clear, I’m a theologian. I think in the New Testament identity and crisis Central, I think it’s central to what the Apostle Paul is doing with the Christian life. I’m not denying that. But having said that, I have now gotten very nervous, because I hear the jargon of your identity is in Christ thrown around, often by people that look like me white male, often in positions of power. And it says, And we tell people, Oh, your identity shouldn’t be that you’re an you know, Asian American Christian, your identity is in Christ, your identity, isn’t that you’re a woman, it’s in Christ.

Kelly Kapic
Well, the thing is, all of us have all kinds of identities. And what happens is, if you’re like me in a position of Norman power, we just don’t know how much of our identities were smuggling into the this right? And so I’ll sometimes I’ll find like, like, they’ll say, No, my identity is just in Christ. And they’re like, Well, what happens when the Republican doesn’t win the election, what happened, and all sudden you see all these other identities, but because if you have power, you don’t think it’s an identity, you think your identity is just in Christ. So that’s what that’s it. I actually think a strong view of creation is important. You need both identity in Christ and creation, to tell us our identities in Christ because it’s a Vertol other identities. But I don’t have to apologize for my genetic background, my history, my skin color, my experiences being male or female, and I don’t stop being those things. So I am a little worried how in our politicized age, identity with Christ has been used as a way to avoid hard questions.

Collin Hansen
Yeah, I think that’s a helpful clarification. And again, gave me a lot of insight when I hit that section on the book, you talk about, we don’t find happiness by focusing on it. But I’m trying to figure out if you found any effective way to actually convey that to Christians or non Christians, for that matter, because there’s a whole happiness industry that sells us on the idea that our whole goal is to be happy. I mean, that’s kind of embedded right there in the declaration. That’s it. So the pursuit of happiness. So how do we convey that countercultural teaching of Jesus that you, you, you may find true happiness, true joy, and you will find it in Christ, but you don’t find it by looking for it? It’s a byproduct, as opposed to a goal, I guess.

Kelly Kapic
Yeah, I mean, as you know, that that’s actually the hedonic paradox, which isn’t even a Christian idea. It’s, you know, the sanction idea that if you, if you look for happiness, you’ll never find it, you find happiness, not by looking for it, but by these other things. And Christians very much think of, you know, you we have to ask, what is happiness, but we think of it as you know, Shalom is communion with God as communion with neighbors as a right relation to the earth.

Kelly Kapic
So it’s a byproduct, and part of what’s subversive about Christianity is that life can come through dying, right? And that we can discover happiness by pouring ourselves out for others, these kinds of things. But I do think, and I know you get this, your, your writing contains this kind of thing. I think we convey it mostly by stories. Because we recognize something beautiful when someone lays out their life for someone else, and we go yeah, that’s what I want. That’s happiness. It’s not it’s not a materialistic thing or whatever. But it tends to come probably more through stories than simply statements. And I think probably in ministry and sometimes preaching we think if we just tell people rather than show people, they’ll get it. And it’s often more we see Through lives and through stories.

Collin Hansen
Yeah, I think in imagining how do you convey this, the difference between standing up as a 30 or 40 or 50, something preacher and explaining that. And as opposed to pointing to an 80 plus year old widow, who continues to serve and is known widely for her kindness. And I mean, and you can just you see that, in her tells is worth more than 1000 sermons on that.

Kelly Kapic
Yeah, it’s so fascinating. I love that example. Because I think, and I think some traditions are stronger at this and others. Again, my tradition is not actually great about testimonies these days, I think we’re so worried that someone’s going to pump themselves up rather than honor God. But I think it really hurts us not having those stories. One of the, you know, gentlemen, I’ve gotten to know pretty well in recent time, he had been homeless for 20 years. And in more recent years, he’s gotten married. And he’s heavily involved in this, you know, not high education level. He’s heavily involved started this on the side started this ministry, to homeless people. And it’s like, the guy can’t say four sentences without saying God is good. It’s just constant. And, and you’re thinking, What are you talking about, you know, but he is embodying happiness, but it’s different. It is so countercultural, and so being with him and watching him and listening to him, reshapes my view of happiness, for sure.

Collin Hansen
I like that story appropriate. Your description of humility, Christian humility is includes at least delighting in the gifts of others. I like that. How to others Kelly, help you see your gifts.

Kelly Kapic
You know, as you it’s a longer discussion, but in the chapter, I’m concerned that we’ve misunderstood humility and tried to base it on sin rather than the goodness of creation, delighting in others is a spiritual discipline. Because it’s, it’s actually like your earlier question about happiness. By not focusing on ourselves, we get reconnected with love and the delight of God. And we start to have eyes to see when you’re looking for what other people bring, you start to see it.

Kelly Kapic
It’s kind of like cultivating gratitude. If you start to look for things to be grateful for, it’s not that they weren’t there before. It’s just you’re finally seeing what is the case. But the flip side is, sometimes people tell me until you and tell everyone, you know, hey, we think you’re you have this gift. And sometimes it takes courage to believe them. Not, you know, just like we need the courage to believe people, when they show us our blind spots. It’s it actually can take a lot of courage to believe them when they say, Hey, you bring this to our community. And we would really love to see you do this, or exercise this gift. In that chapter.

Kelly Kapic
There’s a discussion of Magnum, Magnum minuty, and posta limiti. And this idea of, you know, a humble person can do what are called great things. But what makes them great is knowing that they are small, and they are dependent upon others. And yet God has given certain gifts, but there is a there’s a challenge with arrogance, they’re just like there’s a challenge from imagining you don’t have any gifts to bring. And both of those are sinful to imagine you bring all the gifts, or to imagine you have no gifts, they’re both problematic.

Collin Hansen
Let me let’s head back to the to the couch, and you advise me on parenting. You know, it’s simple. I just love that. Put this back in the context of finitude, the goodness of creation, God ordained limits as being for our good. It’s simple to say that I don’t expect my kids to be good at everything. Especially because they’re little and so they’re not really good at much of anything. But it is harder, as I’m sure as kids get older. You watch your child missed a cut, you know, on a team or fail an exam flub the piano recital? What’s a healthy way to show children that we do not derive our value from our achievements.

Kelly Kapic
One of the things that’s been important in our family, just to start off at the center is actually to cultivate sibling love. It’s amazing how often even parents without realizing it, cultivate competition between siblings. And we think it’s super important to say this one isn’t about you. Let’s watch your brother or watch your sister and delight in them and encourage them and come on and also, when it went really bad, you come alongside to and comfort them and strengthen them and that’s always been that’s just a way of starting and and imagining that but I do think they have to see it in us too. And they have to see us admit we’re not great at everything. to see us not do well, and to see us depending on others, and not thinking that’s a sinful or bad thing, but praising other people for their help and strength and those kinds of things.

Collin Hansen
Oh, that’s helpful. I love that love that concept of the sibling love versus sibling reality, it seems very difficult as a parent not to compare your kids to each other. And yet, that’s clearly not fair to them, for reasons that we already described, right there of how different they are, from one from one another. And I love just thanks for allowing me in this interview to just jump all over the place and all these little nuggets that I loved. Now, let’s, there’s another one, how do you prepare students for a vocational world where they’re no longer on the clock? They never leave the clock, another line that you had in there on our work?

Kelly Kapic
Yeah, I think it’s actually going to take a ton of courage. In some ways there, it probably will be young people who are going to help young Christians who are going to help the rest of us learn how to live more faithfully, because what’s happened is you have a lot of us who are used to clocking in at eight and leaving at five or whatever. But then with laptops and cell phones and everything. Now, we can work all the time. So we just kind of never stop. And I do think it almost takes people who are native to these technologies, and have lived in a different way to reimagine, because we really do need to reimagine.

Kelly Kapic
And part of the interesting part of the research was all of us feel like we’re working way more. But what really interested me when I started digging into the research is there’s a lot of evidence to say we’re not. Yeah, it’s just that we’re constantly feeling like we’re on. Yeah, and so I do think I it’s funny, it used to be that the sign of of power in a fluence was all the technology you had. And now I’ve really become convinced it’s flipped the signs of real power and influence. Is you do away with the technology?

Collin Hansen
Yeah, well, it’s very similar to the broader technological transformation, that the sign of you being wealthy in the past had been that you don’t work. Now the sign of wealth is that you work non stop. Yeah, the sign of poverty has been reversed. It used to be the work all the time. Now it’s you that you don’t work. It’s just it’s amazing how those things flipped. But I think you’re probably right on that. It’ll be people who have the technologies and you expect them to be with it on everything and you find? No, they’re the ones who have seen the dangers of it more more clearly.

Kelly Kapic
And just also, I mean, some most of us, we have a boss who emails us at 10 at night, and they kind of expect something. But if you have enough power and influence, you don’t have to check your email, you don’t even know. But I do think we need courage is no, we’re not going to respond. We’re not going to play that game. And I, I think we present a different path.

Collin Hansen
As a boss, you also get to set the tone. Yeah. So don’t send your staff emails or call them or text if you don’t have to At those times, man, no, no, no, my staffs gonna hear me on this now they’re gonna hold them hold me accountable. To this. I try not to, especially on the weekends, but

Kelly Kapic
I was just talking with the manager. And he you know, this, all this stuff resonates. He’s so exhausted. He’s Oh, spent and everything. And so I just said, let me know, let’s explore a little bit. Let’s think about this. What does this look like? And he was very, this is a manager who has 35 people under him. And I said, Well, what if you actually said, everyone leaves the office at five? Or you do these, you know, however many hours, nine hours, whatever, Monday to Thursday, and then everyone gets Friday off, given certain things he was telling me? And he said, Oh, can’t do that. Because if not in the office, no one’s working.

Kelly Kapic
I said, Well, is it really about what if, what if you say, here are the goals? And if we get these done, everyone can have the extra time off? He said, No, because there’s people above me who won’t go with it. So it’s just fascinating because everyone thinks, if I just had power, I would, I would be more sane, but we’re all into this. And anyways, I just really believe productivity and efficiency are often the enemies of love. And so what Christians need to reimagine and when you’re in a position of leadership, I think it’s I just got an email I’ll leave it with this story.

Kelly Kapic
I just got an email just the other day great pastor you know, the pastor’s right me and guy said my wife wants you to come talk to me in the church leadership here at this church far away like you to but I told her if you come all the leadership is going to want to do less work. And but I get that I mean, I’m not trying to make fun of pat the ad is a panic, right? They don’t feel like they have enough help as it is. So someone to come in and say you don’t have to do so much. And so anyways, that that raises all kinds of interesting questions to think about what what it means to be the church and faithfulness but Yeah, it’s scary.

Collin Hansen
I’m sure I know there’s a wide range with churches. But I would say institutionally, I probably put churches on the end of the spectrum of being fairly inefficient. And we often see that as a problem. And you’ll hear that from business leaders often of how embarrassed they are about how different the church is. But I’m sure that’s true in some cases, but sometimes it is just love. Yeah, that’s right. The church is that place that’s dealing with broken people dealing with homeless people, widows, orphans, all those people who can horses? I mean, well, the thing is that yeah, yeah, they’re not efficient. If they don’t build your efficiency,

Kelly Kapic
it is I and I, I, I feel both for business people who are in the workforce, and they want to help out and I see this quite a bit actually experience it. They mean, well, they go into the churches, they want to help out the pastoral staff, they come in with it, and it just drives them crazy, because of the inefficiency, but you’re exactly right. I mean, what Pastor doesn’t know that what Pastor doesn’t make it to Wednesday, before their whole week has been blown up, you know, you know, because someone died, for goodness sake, you know, that’s not efficient. Or schedule. Yeah. And someone’s, you know, going through a relational crisis and a child is just overdosed. I mean, none of it is efficient.

Collin Hansen
Yes. Well, I think a lot of pastors resonate with Eugene Peterson’s work of those interruptions are your job. Yeah, not stopping you from your job. They are your job,

Kelly Kapic
which means as a congregation, we need to reimagine what we are expecting of pastors, so they have space for the interruption, quote, unquote, interruption.

Collin Hansen
Yeah. would be an example of that. What might we do to change our expectations?

Kelly Kapic
Yeah, I mean, some of it’s just not making pastors be at all, all meetings. I think it’s making sure pastors get time away. Very few people. I think, as congregations we have unrealistic expectations of pastors, but I find no one has more unrealistic expectations of pastors than pastors themselves. And so I think they, you know, I write about this, but I, I really, I, I, I can say this, because I can personally relate. I know that most pastors, when they’re talking about God’s grace and His love, they mean it, they believe it for you and me.

Kelly Kapic
But when we try and tell ourselves that and try and tell ourselves, it’s enough rest, you need to sleep, you need to pray, you need to walk, you need to go away. I think it’s very hard for us to believe that. I think it’s very hard for us to believe Christ as your good and faithful servant. And so I think one of the things we have to do is tell our pastors, it’s enough, you need a break guilt free. Because they can’t they can’t, you know, I this, some of my can, I like Lloyd Jones, and he says, preach the gospel to yourselves. But I think it’s an insufficient model. And we’ve given it too much power. And it’s, it’s, we need each other, that’s still an individualistic thing.

Collin Hansen
Yeah. Yeah. Well, the the theology has to be reinforced with habits to be reinforced with actual behavioral change there.

Kelly Kapic
And it needs to be reinforced with others who help us make it believable.

Collin Hansen
Yeah, embodied in a community. This is probably a good segue on this, you say that you’ve seen marriages fall apart, ministries, destroyed, children, neglected bodies, broken souls, whether because of the attitude of don’t waste your life. Alright, you need to explain what you mean about them.

Kelly Kapic
Zeal is a good thing. But zeal can can be really hurtful to people. We all have different personalities, we have different abilities. But I’ve had plenty of I’ve just seen, well, we all just listen to a whole series of Mars Hill, you know, rise and fall of Mars Hill kind of stuff. I think Christian faithfulness has to be reimagined in terms of being a creature who’s put in a particular place with particular people, and unrealistic expectations hurt us. And I think, well, meaning, sometimes the expectations we place on Christians start to make them misunderstand the expectation God has of them. And so is it enough for me to be faithful in my sphere, at my work with my children, with my spouse, with my neighbors?

Kelly Kapic
And and I think part of what’s happened with that is, it’s an underdeveloped ecclesiology to use a fancy term. It is looking to individuals to do what it takes the entire church to do. And so if we have a healthier view of the church and our need for one another, then I think we can situate that zeal in healthier ways. But otherwise, I do think it it feeds into the every minute must be used in a particular kind of way. That I think can be fairly inhumane. And that’s not how God made us. God’s not embarrassed that we’re human creatures put it that way.

Collin Hansen
might have even been his plan. Yeah. You know, you can see that through different waves of evangelical history, you’ll see times like the first Great Awakening, like the mid century, mid 20th century of angelical rise there as well. You’ll see a lot of the heroes when you dig into their family life, their personal life, it’s not pleasant, like he said, and you can also see that in some of our own data as well. Yeah. I

Kelly Kapic
mean, you take a W. Tozer whose wife said, yeah, he loved Jesus. I’m not sure he loved me. You know, and I don’t, that’s a problem. It’s just Yeah, I mean,

Collin Hansen
you look at that from Bob Pierce, World Vision, then you go back to Wesley’s with field, people like that, again, you celebrate them for these amazing accomplishments. But it’s just interesting when you reframe it a little bit, and you wonder, what exactly is God calling us to? And yes, the expecting of us.

Kelly Kapic
It’s interesting. So I teach a class on Christian spirituality. And we often go over to Rome. And anyways, and one of the things that students were reading about was all of this missionary work. And some of it like you’re alluding to, and these incredible missionaries who’ve done all these things, and the devastating effects on their families. And one of the things that was so insightful, I was so happy with my students to this. But one of the things I said is, some of this work is really good and should be done by single people.

Kelly Kapic
And anyways, it was an example where here’s a bunch of single people who said, our failure to honor, the vocation of being single, has has made this even more problematic than it potentially is. Right? And so it’s, it’s an example of Christians can’t have it all. No one can have it all. I mean, there are legitimate questions to raise about some of the endeavors that were taken. But yeah, it’s not great if you don’t see your spouse for 14 years. You know, and I in the story in the book, I give examples of this right, and it’s, but it’s called Radical Christianity. That was, that’s not a that’s not a 20th 21st century think that was a 19th century thing, you know, Radical Christianity. And it was devastating.

Collin Hansen
Well, I mean, if if we’re surprised by the comment about maybe should be single people doing this, then we just need to go back and read Paul, and ask why, oh, maybe that’s why Paul made that point. And maybe that’s why Paul did what Paul did. Jesus and Jesus Himself, of course we can. I mean, there’s a lot of room for speculation there about all the different reasons. But But absolutely, it certainly fits well, because Paul cites him, of course, as an example there. Man, I got a lot of questions I otherwise want to ask, but I want to get to my final three with Kelly Capek. We’re talking about your only human how your limits reflect God’s design, and why that’s good news published by Brazos, I’m going to get to the final three here with with Kelly Kelly first how do you find calm in the storm?

Kelly Kapic
Hmm, that’s a good question. For me, probably two things in particular to be honest with you mornings are quite significant for me extended quiet mornings in prayer and scripture. I’m a Presbyterian but I’ve actually come to believe that God actually active and working and and guides us and directs us and so anyways, I that’s been meaningful. And for me spiritually, some of the hardest times are when I’m on vacation, and different rhythms and stuff. So that’s important, but I’ve also as I’ve gotten older, have really learned to value walks and being in nature just the other day. Feeling frazzled with a lot of work and other things. And I just found myself sitting in front of a pond. And yesterday on Sunday night, it was it was so good for my soul. So anyways, I I do think for me some physical movement and the quiet mornings.

Collin Hansen
Good one there. Second. Kelly, where do you find good news today?

Kelly Kapic
I think I find good news by being with actual Christians on the ground who are doing things. I just not in the news, not in the Christian political pundants or otherwise. Like I mentioned, Markel, this guy had been homeless for 20 years, I find good news being with him and his wife and the ministries they’re doing. Being with someone who’s in prison, who’s become a Christian, being with my children, being with students gives me some hope. Stuff like that. Those who weren’t jaded those who were actually seeing Christ work.

Collin Hansen
Now Got a chance, last fall just to meet with number of your students, which was a wonderful, memorable experience for me lasted the final three, what’s the last great book you’ve read?

Kelly Kapic
The last great book I’ve read is actually an old book. Because of a project I’m working on right now, I was going to hold it up, but I guess your listeners can see. I can see it, you can still hold it up to me. But it’s called worship. It’s it’s theology and practice. And it’s by a Dutch theologian in the first half of the 20th century. And it’s just a stunning book on what we’re doing in corporate worship and liturgy. And, but that takes us into a whole nother discussion. What’s the what’s the name?

Collin Hansen
Who’s the author?

Kelly Kapic
JJ Vaughn Allman.

Collin Hansen
Okay. All right. Well, a future appearance on gospelbound. So my guest here, and my friend Kelly Kapic, and we’ve been talking about his book, “Your only human, how your limits reflect God’s design and why that’s good news.” It’s new out from Brazos. Kelly, Thanks again for joining me on gospel bound.

Kelly Kapic
Thanks, this was fun. I appreciate it.