Recent high school graduate Søren talks about the subtle shift to impressing people via faith, rather than the Lord.
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TRANSCRIPT
INTRO
This is the BeLED Family podcast.
SØREN
He is so incredible to be able to use such broken vessels, right? And I see that. I saw that and I still see it in my own life because I still struggle with things.
DANIEL
Welcome to the BeLED Family podcast, where we learn to become Light Entrusted Disciples that God has called us to be light. Know who you are in God. Be Entrusted. Who are you? What? I'm sorry. Be equipped in what he has called you to do and Be Disciples. Whom does he call you to live in community with?
DANIEL
On this episode we are talking with Søren. Now. Søren grew up in the church where we attend together. I was a youth pastor for many years. I don't know if it was a good experience or bad experience. You don't have to answer that.
SØREN
Okay, I'll hold back on that
DANIEL
Fair enough. Thank you for being kind in that way. And we have known each other for many years, and he graduated a number of years ago. And he's such a great kid; comes from a great family. Where he recently attended, a Bible school in Germany. And Søren and I, we just get together once in a while. When he came back, the things he was talking to me about, the things God was teaching him while he was there, and it was just awesome. I said, “hey, would you be willing to come talk about that on the BeLED Family podcast?” And Søren said.
SØREN
“Yes, sir. Dude, I got you.”
DANIEL
There you go. So sorry. Would you just give us a quick 60 second testimony of your walk with Jesus?
SØREN
Absolutely, Daniel. Well, first of all, I want to say thank you so much for having me on the podcast. It is an incredible blessing to be talking here with my post Youth pastor. I, I, it's true that I did learn so much from having him as a youth pastor back in the youth group days, and,
DANIEL
I did not. I'm not paying him for this. So…
SØREN
No, no, this is all real. This is all real. Yeah. No, I, so I appreciate all that you did for us back when I was in middle school. High school. And I'm grateful to be on this podcast with you now. Anyways, as for my testimony, I grew up in a Christian home. I went to a Christian school, went to a good church, had good Christian friends, and I lived in a sort of Christian bubble per se. And that was all great, and all because I know everything about the Bible, right? I know all the Sunday school answers and whatnot, but, by the time I was 17, I started getting really sick of being stuck in this bubble and being stuck, confined to my parents rules per se, and things like curfew and not being able to, date and, no screen time, no social media and all that. And as soon as I turned 18, I felt this sense of freedom like, whoa, I can do whatever I want now. But unfortunately, that led me to make a few mistakes. Throughout the first few months of my 18th year, I made some mistakes and that kind of led me to the season of depression. And I kind of thought, why? Why would God like, why would God? I mean, I know God forgives me, but can he still use me? I'm supposed to be like good Christian kid. And I messed up. Yeah, but through a retreat with Cru college community, it was just like a youth group for college students over at UWL. I went to this retreat, and I saw hundreds of other kids my age worshiping God so genuinely. And I just thought I want to have this, and it's okay that I've made mistakes and I will continue to make mistakes. But, I want to glorify God in this way consistently. And since then I've been to two Bible schools and I am still learning tons. And God is. I've seen God work through me and that's been an incredible experience. So. Well, here we are.
DANIEL
Okay, so let's talk about at least one of those Bible schools. Now, you spent the last year in Germany. Would you talk about what school you went to and kind of how God led you there?
SØREN
Yes, I went to a Torchbearer school. If anyone searched Torchbearer International, they have Bible schools all around the world. And I went to one called Bodenseehof over in Friedrichshafen, Germany. And this was a challenge. I went over there knowing nobody, knowing nothing. But within that six months that I was at that Bible school, we built this incredible community. We would wake up every day all living in the same building. We would eat together. We would learn about Jesus together. We would travel together. Me and a hundred different students, and the biggest takeaway? I learned so much, of course, from the material and the lessons, but the biggest takeaway had to be the community and friendships that were built out there. And the change that I saw in these people.
DANIEL
Right. And that at that point in your life, I mean, it was just recently, but you coming off the CRU retreat, God, really starting to mold you, reshape you, kind of like what we find in Jeremiah 18. Maybe that clay became a little softer. And so you went into Germany, right, with just to kind of like, God do whatever.
SØREN
Yeah, absolutely. There was this sense of, I don't know what my future holds. I don't even know fully who I am or who God wants me to be. So I went there with the hope of God giving me not only desires for my future, but a sense of purpose, right? Yeah. And he has given that to me. Desires mostly for him just to minister to others and evangelize. And I really appreciate that he's given that to me.
DANIEL
Now, you told me that before you went to Germany. You know, you and you've already talked about that on this podcast, that you were living for Jesus. Yet at the same time in your 18th year, you made some mistakes and you did some things and you kind of, you know, turn back to the Lord. But you said it more specifically, looking back at your relationship with Jesus over the last few years, it was more of a show. Would you talk about that?
SØREN
Yeah. So one part of my testimony that I left out, this is a big part is I've always idolized people pleasing, impressing people with what I do, especially in high school. Like, I was a Christian in high school, of course. But if I could get a group of people to laugh at a joke, I told a group of people to come to my house. I would feel really good about myself. Like, oh, I'm popular. All these people like me. But as soon as I felt the slightest negative comment, or even in the smallest way that somebody didn't like me in some way that tore me apart, even if it was unreal, and it was just something I made up in my head that tore me apart. And you can. I mean, I've learned over time, you can't live like…
DANIEL
That when you say it tore you apart. What do you mean by that? Would you go in? You talked about depression earlier. Would you just go into a state of like, who am I? What am I doing? Why am I actually doing this? Would you talk about that?
SØREN
Absolutely. There were, there were days where I…things would seem to go so well for me. All my friends probably thought, oh, like he seems to be doing so well, but I would get home at night and I couldn't fall asleep because I felt like, oh no, in this situation I didn't say the right thing or this person said this slight negative comment about me, and that would just break me down. I, like, I couldn't get out of my head. I couldn't get out of my thoughts.
DANIEL
What was your motivation? What was your goal with that? I mean, if you couldn't sleep and you were like that, but like you said, it was people pleasing. But what was your goal in that? Was it just to draw attention to yourself?
SØREN
The goal was to receive those small snippets of satisfaction of people saying, oh, that's like, you're so cool Søren, or you're so funny. And that satisfaction maybe lasted for 10 seconds when I felt that validation or reassurance from others to you to some degree.
DANIEL
Do you think you were addicted to that?
SØREN
I would say yes. I think…
DANIEL
You couldn't get enough.
SØREN
I couldn't get enough and there was no ultimate satisfaction in that. It was just small snippets. And then it's like a drug, like I needed more every time, right?
DANIEL
Yeah. So then looking, thinking back, looking back at that, who were you living for at the time?
SØREN
Certainly not the Lord. I, of course, like I said, I was a Christian, but my ultimate goal was not to, to live a life pleasing to God, but to live a life pleasing to others and even to myself. Right.
DANIEL
Does that make you question your relationship with God then?
SØREN
Um, I know I had a relationship with God, and I don't want to discredit all of the learning I did and all of the praying I did then, but I certainly can say that my relationship then was not at the same place.
DANIEL
Because God certainly used you. I mean, yeah, so and he used you in my life. I mean, you were on our praise team at church. You're helping out with our youth group. You had a Bible study where my son attended. I mean, God was using you still, in spite of your bring it up focus on me mentality that, I mean, that just speaks to the nature of God, that he is greater than us.
SØREN
Oh yes, he is so incredible to be able to use such broken vessels. Right? And I see that and I saw that, and I still see it in my own life, because I still struggle with things.
DANIEL
So at Bodenseehof, this is, you kind of discovered it. Tell us, how did you start seeing that? How did you start discovering, looking back at the previous years of not being able to fall asleep, all this kind of how did it piece together for you?
SØREN
I think even before I started going to Bodenseehof, I realized that I was idolizing both girls and people pleasing, impressing people. These were idols in my life and I had realized it, but I had not weeded them out per se. So going into Bodenseehof, I was at this kind of spiritual high and you'd think, oh, well, maybe he's focusing on living a life pleasing to God now, but that wasn't really the case. Instead of trying to impress people by doing crazy things and making them laugh, I wanted to impress people by having Bible studies and by worshiping God with my hands and big exaggerations. And I wanted to impress people with my Christianity per se.
DANIEL
Do you think you were trying to impress God with your Christianity?
SØREN
Certainly. I can certainly say that when I prayed both to myself and, around others, I wanted to use as elaborate of language as possible. I wanted to quote scripture. I wanted to.
DANIEL
Impressing people.
SØREN
I wanted to impress people, but I wanted to impress God as well because like, hey, God, I, like you've allowed me to rededicate my life to Christ over at that retreat with CRU, and now, now look what I can do, right, right.
DANIEL
Right. So really, what we're boiling it down to is, Søren, it sounds like, you know, you said you were, you know, doing it for attention because the girls factor, you know, you know, wanting to have a girlfriend in a way, drawing yourself attention to your, you know, look, the way I pray to yourself in that way, you were idolizing kind of yourself, but it was almost as if you were using Christianity as the idol. Would you agree with that?
SØREN
I think I would. I like to compare myself then and now to the Pharisees of Jesus' time. They knew their stuff. They were the most religious people at the time. They prayed all the time. But when they I mean, Jesus said when they fasted, they would show people they were fasting. They were bragging about what they were doing for God, per se. I think that was a big thing in my life. Instead of doing things with God and with the Holy Spirit, I did them for God, the Holy Spirit.
DANIEL
That's a big phrase, even for me, that I've recently come upon. You know, let's not do things for God. Let’s do things with God.
SØREN
Yes.
DANIEL
Now, you mentioned the Pharisees, and obviously they were about their showiness and not the genuineness of God. You've said that you were living to impress people, not the Lord. What did God use in Germany that helped you understand that? Are there some specific stories or examples that brought you to that?
SØREN
Yes, there were. And just to start off going into Bodenseehof, I really thought, wow, I, I've learned so much at the last Bible school I went to because this is my second one right? I'm going into this, German Bible school with the mindset of I'm going to build a new community, and I'm going to show them that I know God, and I'm going to show them that if they want to know God, they need to come to me, and I'll show them how to know God. And I want it to be, per se, the top dog Christian, the wise guy, the guy who, if people had questions about the Bible, if people had something they were struggling with, a shoulder to cry on even, they would come to me because, oh, Søren's that good spiritual leader, right? That was my mindset going in. And whether that was subconscious or not, that was my mindset going in. And throughout the first month, I really tried my very best to build as many friendships and as many deep relationships as I could. But over time, I started to realize I'm not the only guy who knows their stuff here. There were people there who were not just older than me and wiser than me, but people who were younger there and were more humble than me and were just there to glorify God.
DANIEL
Was it something that you. It was just gradual, over time. There wasn't any specific moment where it hit you, but just realization over time, like, wait, hold on. I'm not. I don't need to be all that I am, nor do I need to strive for it. But that comes with a moment of humility for you.
SØREN
Oh, absolutely. It had to.
DANIEL
Did God break you?
SØREN
It was, I would say, many small, specific moments of time over time where I tried to push through with my pride. I would see, oh, shoot, this guy's like leading this Bible study really well, and I'm actually learning from him. I feel like the student, not the teacher. What am I doing? It was many, many moments like that where I tried to push through with my pride, like I said, and I couldn't. At a certain point it was like, wow, I really, I can't just rely on impressing people with my Christianity.
DANIEL
Did you find yourself jealous of the other people because you were, in a way, you were a top dog for a long time. Being in the community where you grew up, and all of a sudden you're thrown into a Bible college where there are people who are similar to you, but maybe their faith looks different than yours. Let's say it's different. You know, maybe, you know, they're not as showy. Whatever. Maybe some were. But was there a sense of jealousy for you as you saw that with your friends?
SØREN
I would say yes. And I would say that that jealousy part is a huge factor that just started to eat away at me, this jealousy of like, okay, I see these few guys who are maybe influencing people more than me. How can I, how can I get in the way and take those, take those people and influence that? And these aren't things that I thought about. These are things that I can see now looking back and I just, I’m ashamed.
DANIEL
Because it was just natural for you, it wasn't natural. I mean, just going from America to Germany, just the patterns that you've already talked about, just continued, right? And then that moment of brokenness, that moment of God just going, wait a minute Søren, you need to be humbled. How did you react when God started changing your heart? When he started showing you like, hey, you're kind of idolizing your faith, not, not humbling yourself before me? Talk about that. What happened when you started to break, when you started to be humbled?
SØREN
Absolutely. I would say that there is one specific moment in time where I realized that my idolization of people pleasing and wanting to socialize carried over from my high school self into my post-high school Bible school self, and and then the way that it changed from being about secular things to about Christian things of trying to impress people. And this moment came from one night while I was in the sauna at Bodenseehof. Now I can tell you 100% that the best conversations, all of them came from the sauna, because as soon as you got a group of guys in a tiny room revealing everything.
DANIEL
Sweatin’ to death.
SØREN
Physically, per se right? Yeah, it's being as vulnerable as possible. Yeah, physically you start to become vulnerable mentally and emotionally and spiritually as well.
DANIEL
The heart of disciple-making is in the sauna.
SØREN
Absolutely., that's what it seemed to me to be. So, I'm going to talk about my friend Caleb. He's, he's actually from the cities. He's one of the closest, closest friends I made there and the closest physically. Now, to me, everyone else lives in Canada and all that.
DANIEL
Nothing wrong with Canadians, aye.
SØREN
Well, now, certainly not. Maybe most things aren't wrong with them, but most they're all right.
DANIEL
We're not here to talk about that.
SØREN
No, no, no.
DANIEL
Because everyone on the podcast, everyone who's listening, knows exactly what we're talking about.
SØREN
Precisely.
DANIEL
Yeah, aye. That drama.
SØREN
So this Caleb guy, I was talking to him in the sauna about some pretty good spiritual things, and he revealed to me that he was feeling the same things I was. And this was a guy who I thought was maybe the best spiritual leader at Bodenseehof. And he thought like he, revealed to me that he was getting jealous of some of the other students as well, like he wanted to be that guy everyone could go to, and he just wasn't. But he told me about how he was. God was helping him change his mindset from jealousy to overwhelming joy that there were so many incredible spiritual leaders there, so much wisdom in the school.
DANIEL
Okay, so you've had these conversations with Caleb. You're starting to realize you meet somebody who's like, wait a minute, this saint, he's going through the same stuff. It's the same thoughts. Starting to realize that you're idolizing Christianity. God's humbling you. God's breaking you. Where did your relationship with God go from there? How did it change?
SØREN
A question that the Holy Spirit put on my mind during this time was, if you were alone in a room and this grand worship music was just playing in this room, would you worship me in the same way you did as if there were 100 people watching you? Because the immediate thing that stuck out to me is that when we're having a worship night or we're just singing a few songs before church on Sunday, I love to stand in the front and lift my arms high and sing really loud, sing these intricate harmonies. Right. I would do everything to show people like, oh, that guy's really feeling the heat at night.
DANIEL
Oh, wow, look at that Søren, he is, he is. He and the Lord are tight.
SØREN
Right? Yes. That's exactly the mindset I had. And I thought to myself, or the Holy Spirit gave me this thought of, would I do that if no one was watching? Another thing, if I were praying by myself in my room out loud, would I think about it as hard as I did if there were a bunch of people listening to my prayer? Am I just trying to impress people and God with my words, or am I genuinely from my heart, crying out to God with these prayers?
DANIEL
How did you wrestle through those questions?
SØREN
I wrestled through those questions with answers like, I don't know, maybe I need to test it out. So it was, this seems like a very contradictory statement, but during things like prayer and worship, I would practice things like praying to myself, worshiping to myself. Am I able to just sit in the back during a worship night and not let anyone see me and be genuine about my praise? And worship God.
DANIEL
Was that difficult?
SØREN
It was, I'm a social person even during those events. And I thought, well, I feel like, am I wasting my time worshiping God by myself? And of course, the answer to that is no. No worship of God is a waste of time. But it felt like that in a way.
DANIEL
I mean, it sounded like the Lord was just stripping you of all the earthly accolades that come with a relationship with him. And he was going, Søren, do I have you? It’s just you and me, you know, just you and me do I have you. And so, as your relationship with God started changing, let's bring it up to today. Now, Søren, you know, where is your relationship with God now? I mean, you weren't it wasn't that long ago you were in Germany. But where are you with the Lord now?
SØREN
I think that I struggle with people pleasing just as much. If not, maybe just almost just as much as I did at Bodenseehof. And that may seem like, oh well, was any progress made, but idols like girls and social pressure and things like that have been consistent throughout my life. But the things that have changed is how I react to it and how much conviction I allow. I allow the Holy Spirit to give me instead of just ignoring it. And now I find myself thinking every time I'm singing during worship or praying in a group, am I doing this for God or am I doing this with God?
DANIEL
I'm glad that you recognize that today. Like the struggle is still there. You know that that draw to be idolizing what I do rather than the Lord is still there. But you know, you did a great job saying, but you're aware of it now, right? You know what to look for in that question, that constant question of like, am I the Lord's going, Søren, am I good enough? Just just me. Right? So are there practices that you do, what are some things that you do today to help yourself, make sure it's just you in the Lord.
SØREN
As a kid I remember learning this kind of good but also childish lesson of like if you like, if your mom tells you to clean your room, go do it. But sometimes you can go clean your room and not even tell your mom that you did it. Just do it. And that's all that it is. You're just doing the right thing, and you don't have to show your parents that, hey, I did the right thing. And I think this is, in my mind, a child is a lesson, but also a lesson that big childish me needs to learn to this day. In a spiritual sense.
DANIEL
That's a great example. Søren, because I want my children, the chores that they're responsible for, I would much rather, as a parent, just have them do the chores without me having to remind them to do the chores. And I've told my children, I said, my goal is that you do these chores without dad or mom asking you to do them, but just because that's what you know you're supposed to do and part of who you are and you're saying, you know, I just I want to take care of my faith and worship and pray because that's who I am. That's what God has made me.
SØREN
Yeah I think yeah. Exactly. You're right on hitting the… Wait what's the phrase, hitting the nail on the head? That's what I'm trying to say.
DANIEL
Hitting the nail on the head.
SØREN
Yeah yeah yeah yeah, absolutely. Daniel, you hit the nail on the head there. That's exactly my mindset now. And I think one practical way I've done this is don't I try not to talk about the things I do. And that seems a little counterproductive now because I'm talking about on the podcast right now.
DANIEL
Well I invited you.
SØREN
Telling the whole world? Right. But, I think if I am going to go, you know, go on a prayer walk and go evangelize to people or go get coffee with someone and or go do a worship night. I don't think I should have to feel like all right, or I should feel like I have to tell everyone that I'm doing these things. And I think it's been a good and healthy practice for me to just do it and let it be that, yeah, I don't gotta go tell my mom, like, hey, look what I did today, or tell my friends like, hey, this is what I'm working on. Pray for me for this. Now, I don't need to go and do that afterwards. I just got to do it and make the glory, the glorification of God, the center.
DANIEL
It takes a lot of humility. You've talked about that to do that, to just live your faith out and to do the things and do it in such a way that if no one ever knows about this. You have to be okay. Not just you have to be okay with it. You choose to be okay with it.
SØREN
Right. Yeah.
DANIEL
You choose to go. My reward is not on earth. My reward is in heaven as God is fully stated.
SØREN
100%.
DANIEL
Søren, last question for you. We like to close our podcast with this question, but how has God been glorified through your journey of learning that you're idolizing Christianity, your realization that you need to start changing and that even today, the struggle’s still with it? How is God glorified through that?
SØREN
I think this realization I've had, that literally anything can be a god, right? All these gods in my head are at war, trying to take the first spot and there's only one who should and can have the first spot in my life. And I think God is glorified through that, because I have, I have learned to that it is a daily struggle to be fully reliant on him and not reliant on, validation from friends or from girls or the, the social like satisfaction I get from telling people about the good stuff I'm doing, or having people pray for me or whatever. I need to completely just rely on God.
DANIEL
Wow, well. Søren, I’m so thankful for your willingness to come on and talk about the Idolization of Christianity. It’s such a crazy topic.
SØREN
It's an interesting topic for sure. I never thought that this would be a lesson that I'd have to learn ever.
DANIEL
But I think a lot of us probably deal with it. Some of us are probably aware of it, some are not. So I appreciate your honesty, your transparency, and your willingness to go still struggle.
SØREN
Right.
DANIEL
To this day and, and things. And, just appreciate your time Søren, and thank you for being here.
SØREN
Absolutely. Yeah. One thing I'd like to say is I just encourage everyone to look at your own life because I never would have thought that this would be something I struggled with, like I said, but it was. And I think some of us can become uptight to the idea that maybe we need to take the log out of our own eye spiritually, like we need to humble ourselves before God, before we go telling others how sinful they are and how good we're doing right.
DANIEL
Thanks again Søren.
SØREN
Absolutely. Thank you Daniel.
DANIEL
Thank you for listening to this week's BeLED Family Podcast episode. We appreciate you taking the time to tune in. Help us by sharing this podcast with your friends. Support the BeLED Podcast and BeLED Family by visiting us at our website, beledfamily.com and follow us on Facebook and Instagram until the next episode. Be LED in all that you do.
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