60. Unveiling Our Desires: The Divine Love Story in Our Favorite Movies with Bob Wheatley

[00:00:00] Adam: the way that you explain the process of following God the best you can in, in light of this story, you're in a story framework.

. Is that the through line to the book , like you are in a story. Yeah. You love stories because you are born into one

.Take a breath

welcome. Revolutionary freedom. Today I am really excited about bringing you guys, somebody who is an expert at helping us get to our authenticity and break through deep seated frustrations and discontent. So we actually have a special treat. And this is Mr. Bob Wheatley. Bob's a bestselling author, podcaster, former professional athlete, which we're definitely gonna dig into because we got sports fans listening in.

He serves as a co-host of that single show, a singles ministry sponsored by K C B I Radio in Dallas, Texas. And his work has been featured on nationally syndicated radio outlets like way FM and the Fish. [00:01:00] After graduating from the University of Southern California, Bob played four years in professional baseball in the Toronto Blue Jays and St.

Louis Cardinals minor league systems. In his spare time, he likes to read, he likes to write, hike, and watch sports, and he lives in the smoking hot Nashville, Tennessee area. So Bob, my brother, welcome man. Yeah, thank you so much for having me. I know we've connected offline together off mic. Glad that we're able to do this.

[00:01:27] Bob: Put it to paper. 

[00:01:28] Adam: Yep, absolutely. So we're here. First and foremost is I wanna sh I want to be used today as a megaphone to and a spotlight to. Put some glory and some light onto this book that you've, that's come out of you, because I know it's more than someone who has an ambition to be an author that gets profiled on Oprah's show or some, some something like that.

This is more than that. And we're gonna get into that, but as a synopsis, as a, as an intro that you, maybe you like to give people let's get started there and [00:02:00] why that came about, and then we're gonna, we're gonna talk about you a little bit. 

[00:02:03] Bob: Yeah. So thank you for sharing that. The book is essentially the bible, the gospel through stories.

Yeah, it's called our heart's Desire, how our stories reveal the thing we want most. And I grew up in the church, grew up in Southern California, was always an athletic family who was also like Christian, but it was more so in name only, like praying before meals, praying before bed being law abiding citizens, like air quote Christians.

 Yeah. But in terms of our family dynamic I think we're doing the best we could. Based off of our surroundings. And it's a generational thing, right? If you have parents who are completely on fire for God, their children are gonna be exposed to different things, then if you're just lukewarm.

And so my parents were and were, and are very much believers and doing the best they could, 

I believe that we as humans, we're made in the image of God. [00:03:00] We have a master creator, a father who is not some sort of ethereal, distant. Spiritless force.

It's a person that you can actually relate to. And so what I believe is our stories, going back to the subtitle of the book, how our stories reveal the thing we want most.

Yep. I'm a dude, I've grown up loving movies, stories, things like that. And it wasn't until I really started to dive into scripture that I realized just how many parallels there are in my favorite movies is like The Dark Knight, the Hunger Games, saving Private Ryan, a bunch of Disney stuff, right? The original generation, lion King, and all these things.

As I started to read the Bible more and I moved to Nashville after I retired from professional baseball. Moved here in 2018. And upon arrival, I met a gentleman who's now a mentor of mine. He and I have read the Bible [00:04:00] cover to cover every year since I've been here.

So 2023 will be my sixth year in a row that I read the Bible. And that doesn't mean I'm an expert. But that does mean I am constantly reminding myself of the master story that the Bible lays out cover to cover, genesis to revelation.

 And so as I'm being reminded of that, and then I watch the Matrix, it's this is nuts. This is the same story. And you start in paradise. That paradise is quickly undone. Once the enemy arrives on the scene, you spend the next two hours or the next 200 pages trying to restore that paradise.

Yeah. And then ultimately in the books that we like, in the movies that we like, that paradise is restored and then you zoom out and you look at the Bible. If what the Bible says is true, that's exactly how world history will unfold. Started in paradise. That paradise was undone. We're now [00:05:00] stuck in the middle trying to restore that paradise.

And we have all these failed attempts with social agendas and praying for world peace and all this stuff. And by all means, like we are supposed to make the world a better place. While we are here, however, we're in the story, you and I are characters in the story. Like we, we can't dictate how the story macro level unfolds.

That's up to the author. Who has written it even before it, it hits the printer's press. So the author, he's already showed us the last page of the book. He says, all right, I'm on the same page with you, Mr. Or Mrs. Human. I want to restore paradise too, but we're gonna do it my way. 

I am gonna restore paradise. And so that's essentially the book., it's the gospel through our favorite movies, novels, Broadway shows. It was a [00:06:00] ton of fun for me to write. 

[00:06:01] Adam: Yeah. And of all my favorites the post-apocalyptic and you probably mentioned half of.

The ones that if I was ever stuck watching the same 12 movies for the rest of my life, it would be those. 

You're mentioning them and I put on here something that I wanted to ask. 

What does that timeline look like? 

[00:06:21] Bob: I started in May of 2020. This is like very fresh pandemic season. So I had a lot of time on my hands, no travel and stuff like that. I finished it right around Christmas that year, so eight months or so to finish the first sloppy draft.

 All in total, starting May of 2020 to my pub date this January 24th, it was about two and a half years. It was a long project. And I think like I'm right now in the process of writing my second book and it's gonna be significantly shorter. You're just, you have such a steep learning curve the first time you do it.

[00:06:58] Adam: Man. That's awesome.

And [00:07:00] that's good for people to hear in case they get a gist because you're still in this journey. Like you, you just made your, some completion lapse and when did you get your first inkling that you wanted, needed had to write a book for the first time ever? 

[00:07:16] Bob: Man, I think it started with reading.

I just I was just reading a lot that started when I was playing in the minor leagues. 'cause there's so much downtime in baseball. 

[00:07:27] Adam: So as a reader that evolved into these inklings to create something of your own. 

[00:07:35] Bob: Yeah. 

Started with reading eventually became journaling. If there's some sort of thing that I want to capture a prayer that's on my heart or some actual circumstance, I'll jot it down. So it started there and then I really took a liking to that.

I have this mind that just runs and runs. 

 As I started writing, just journaling more, my [00:08:00] thoughts didn't stop. 

[00:08:00] Adam: So how many total books did you start and not finish before Our heart's desire? 

[00:08:08] Bob: I'd say probably at least two, maybe three. Okay. And, I'm probably 40 pages in to those books. Yep. I did start and finish a couple of different kids books, but I want it to be a series and I don't have kids yet, so I just don't have the internal juice

Yeah, in total, Maybe half a dozen, 

[00:08:29] Adam: dude, yeah, like there, there's, I guarantee you there's people listening right now that have tried other things have started a business, invested a few bucks in another business to get started.

That's common in multi-level and network marketing, which has caught some real mainstream steam over the last decade. And then there's some hiccups or some adversity that came against those where they fizzled out and then that person might be stopping, they might be considering, lemme just hang it up for the long haul and just keep going in the commute every morning in the rat race when they're not supposed to be there.

[00:09:00] Because if you're supposed to be there, then it's not the rat race. But if you're not supposed to be there, then you're just a rat racing other rats. , nobody wants to be in that spot if you have something going on inside you. And what I know is that I used to call these couple other efforts that I began a few years back over my time starting in 2012.

That never went to fruition. And what I mean to fruition was actual setup, business producing revenue on an ongoing basis. Dude, there was like three, there's three or four that I would refer. I used to refer to them as failures, and then it became false starts, and then it became, then I got a proper perspective on things like you to bring this back into how many, the half a dozen attempts that you made before our heart's desire.

That was all an evolutionary process of growth, expansion, and gaining awareness

 I now know that those were all peace, those were iterations of the exact same dream in the heart. And as long as you don't stop and give that one another shot. [00:10:00] What is there to lose? Those were all growth moments. They weren't failure moments. And that needed to be said like that, that because there's so much nuance in the process.

Like it's not just you sitting here talking about a book or promoting a book to somebody, or the process, which some really are gonna connect to some of those sharings and others are gonna be like, dude, I don't really care. No, but they do care about that they've started something and stopped, and they're probably feeling less than they should.

Yeah. And that's an inappropriate response. 

[00:10:26] Bob: Totally. It'd be very easy on a surface level to say that I, and in fact, I would even say this, like the old version of me would say that my baseball career was a failure. I wanted to get to the big leagues, right?

And some people, the person who's trying to make me feel good is oh, but like you were a pro. Like you accomplished more than most, and stuff like that. It's okay, but I didn't train. Every off season, 2000 miles away from my family in New Orleans to be a minor leaguer.

I trained, I sacrificed to be a big leaguer and that [00:11:00] didn't happen. Dot failure. And now with more context, I'm five, six years removed from baseball. There's so much that I've taken from that time that now benefits me as an author or benefits me as a producer in sales. Like when it comes to baseball, there, there's different, there's pros and cons to every sport.

There's different things that you struggle with. With baseball, you have to show up every single day. It doesn't matter if you were the hero the night before or the guy who lost the game, there's gonna be another game tomorrow. What I've learned through baseball is just that resiliency, and I don't know if it is something that I was born with or something that was trained or just built into me, I'm a workhorse.

Like I, I am just, I'm a mule. I will show up day after day. And it's not always flashy. I'm not the race horse that's oh, [00:12:00] this is electric, but I will show up. 

[00:12:03] Adam: You mean Taylor Swift Every concert night? Every day. Yes. Every night. That check is lighting the world on fire for all the swifties around the globe.

[00:12:11] Bob: But that helps me to write a book. Yeah. That helps me to stay the course for two and a half years. Yeah. So yeah if you're listening to this and you're thinking of the failures that you've had, air quote failures, that's a perspective, that's a choice. You're choosing to call that a failure.

You have the ability to label it whatever you want. And it might be so fresh that it's I can't possibly see this as anything but a failure. I would just say if you give it enough time, it you'll start to see what you learn from that time. And it might be forgiveness, forgiving others, forgiving yourself.

It might be discipline, it might be learning the person that you don't want to be. 

I understand that not everybody listening to this is [00:13:00] gonna be a Christian, but I am, so this is just, this is how I see the world.

But it says in the Bible that we are God's workmanship. We are prepared in advance. For good works. There's good works that are already set in stone that we might do six months from now, six years from now, two decades from now. There are good works prepared in advance for us. And if I was making millions of dollars, throwing baseballs, having, a bunch of followers on Instagram I might not have written this book, which I believe is a God ordained heaven down good work that was prepared for me.

So we just don't know we're stuck. We're stuck in the present. That's all we have. We don't know what tomorrow holds. Yeah. So you could have all these dreams of, oh, I failed, I had this mission and now it's not gonna happen. It's there might be something so much bigger that you are right on the cusp of that you would be slapping yourself[00:14:00] if you only knew.

What was coming, that you are being prepared for those good works. You're being prepared to serve others, and your failure might be the way to do it. 

It's funny, just coming from the world of sports, like there, there's a huge difference between a bad thing and a painful thing, and I think sometimes we get that confused because in the world of sports, again, I, I've had a ton of coaches, a ton of professional personal trainers and people like that.

I am literally paying them to hurt me. Yeah. I say, Hey, Mr. Personal Trainer, Hey, Mr. Pitching Coach. Sounds like you're pretty good at hurting people and getting good results. Will you hurt me? Will you create a program that hurts me in the correct ways, the correct muscle groups, the correct mobility, different things like that.

Will you hurt me on purpose so that I can grow? [00:15:00] And yet we're totally fine with that. But then when God brings us some sort of painful situation, we kinda shake our fist at him or Hey, this isn't my day. Like you got, you're dropping hundreds of dollars, you're dropping hundreds of dollars with your personal trainer, right?

Like when your quads are shaking, when you're under the bar in the squat rack like that, that is pain on purpose to serve you. Yeah.

[00:15:26] Adam: My wife is a professional pain deliverer. People can attest to this. It's what she does. 

[00:15:31] Bob: Yeah. And she has testimonials left and right. Thank you so much.

Yep. For what you've done for me. Yeah. Yep. So what just need to, we need to zoom out and look at life the same way. And I'm preaching to myself like nobody likes pain. Pain is still painful, but it's just having the context to understand, 

[00:15:48] Adam: yep. That's a beautiful segue to this idea that I want to touch on in page 50 and let you expand on some. This is something that I struggled with so deeply for so many years, and that was believing in my [00:16:00] mind. I had this dream from God, and yet in some kinda weird, twisted way, I literally felt cursed in ways, but that many times I was just having my knees cut out by God, like I'm not supposed to do it, and I was just too stubborn or dumb to figure it out, but I wasn't like, I was opposed against, right?

[00:16:17] Bob: And I literally would use that language. So I'm gonna read a little portion off of page 50 maybe to 52 because it, this is straight outta the book.

For a long time, I used these misfortunes as evidence that God was against me. Despite everything I read about God in his word. My circumstances told a different story, and that was the story I believed. And you do use some of your baseball journey to elaborate on there with a practical example,

the biggest danger I faced was not negative circumstances. It was that Satan's whispers were going undetected, this is good, man. If things ended that [00:17:00] poorly, he whispers. Then how can you say God is for you? How could you ever believe that God loves you when you're failing again and again? I continued this way for several years getting pummeled, like Satan's pinata.

I fall for the same trap. When my heart was intended, it was pure of intentions. I'm doing things well. Like I'm in the process. I'm screwing up. I'm dumb. I'm a sinner, but I'm just like human and learning to be gracious with myself. And yet I believed the very same thing. How does the person of faith.

Who might not have that perspective right now? What do you have for them? 

Yeah, it's, and I want you to please describe it using the book, like what they can expect outta here because I want 'em to get it, man.

I don't even get any cash off of this. There's no commission. It's, this is powerful and it's relatability. 

Thank you for saying that. [00:18:00] I would say that you and I aren't the only ones that have felt that way my circumstances are absolutely real. All this stuff about, oh, God is doing this for you, or things will turn around that kind of. Can feel like a pipe dream. And so what you have to decide is, okay, do I as a Christian believe in the God of the Bible or do I believe in my circumstances?

'cause you have a choice. And again, not, I'm not an expert on all things scripture, but I have read it cover to cover. There are a ton of examples, like a shocking amount, where it says that God intentionally tests people's hearts. It's like you sign up for this great relationship and then the other person disappears.

What? That's not how relationships work like we're supposed to be compadres. We're here together through thick and thin. [00:19:00] And yet you'll see examples in scripture where God will leave. He will like he'll vanish, he'll go quiet on purpose and it's a short period of time. There's a bunch of other verses in scripture that say, I will never leave you, I will never forsake you.

That's a macro statement. That's a long-term thing. But in a micro, like for a season, for a week, a month, sometimes a year, whatever it is, he might go dark, he might go quiet and you're then faced with, alright, what do I actually believe? And and it says that he's doing that to test and to prove your faith.

The person that actually sticks around says, no, I believe this to be true. I believe you're good. I believe you're with me even though I don't feel you. I believe, yeah, that's the person whose faith is genuine. 

And then on the other side, that same circumstance, God goes dark, God goes silent for an extended period of time.

The person that gets fed up is I was wrong. Or God, I guess you're [00:20:00] not good. I guess you're not close. Deuces. I'm outta here. That person's faith was never genuine 

[00:20:06] Adam: okay. So for the person whose faith is definitely genuine and that's not necessarily their struggle and I should have been a little bit more clear in the question because that is true.

Like that foundation I didn't even consider when I was asking you the question, but it's critical to understand it and be aware of the choice of belief. What, where you're putting your faith into kb, the rap artist says

when they hurt you, you are who you turn to. When they hurt you, you are who you turn to. And this is the context of what is in the song. But in this case, you're talking about a villain in the shadow. See, look, highlighter, red, yellow, I circled it in red. Yeah. A villain in the shadows. You tore that book up for sure.

I did. Where you haven't even gotten to the good ones yet. The villain in the shadows, because for a long time I would know we have an enemy who was sent here to kill, steal, and destroy from us. 

I would keep forgetting that. And in a story, there's always [00:21:00] a villain or it's not a story. But what part in your life or in, maybe some, how did you overcome and the how does the, how does this bleed into the book a little bit.

But the understanding of consciously going every day knowing you're opposed, you're not even failing. A lot of times you're just opposed. God may be testing your heart. But many of us who are already trying to do the best we can daily, we're opposed by a real creature who really hates us and wants us dead.

Yeah, 100%. There's having that awareness of knowing like we, when circumstances go bad, we're very quick to look to the sky and shake our fist at God. Like we're in tune with the spirit who's supposed to be for us, but we forget about the spirit who's against us. 

 Satan's greatest tool is lies. Deception going under the radar. And I hadn't planned on doing this, but just 'cause I have the book here. I wanna read something real quick from, [00:22:00] it's a CS Lewis tape CS Lewis quote from the screw tape letters.

Please do. It's one of my favorite books ever. I thought he did such a good job. And if you haven't read that book, basically what CSS Lewis did is he it's a fictional exchange where he acting as this demon named Screwtape wrote a series of letters to his, like understudy. His I think it's his nephew a demon called wormwood.

And it's, those are the screw tape letters and screw tape. This master demon is basically saying, Hey, this is how you properly torment a human. So this is from one of his letters. He says, our policy for the moment is to conceal ourselves. Of course this has not always been but in the meantime, we must obey our orders.

I do not think you will have much difficulty in keeping the patient in the dark. The fact that devils are predominantly [00:23:00] comic figures in the modern imagination will help you if any faint suspicion of your existence begins to arise in his mind, suggests to him a picture of something in red tights and persuade him that since he cannot believe in that, he therefore cannot believe in you.

So again, this is written by a man in the UK a hundred years ago. Not a real demon, but like the idea of, hey, Protege demon. You need to convince them that you're not real. You'll be most effective when they, it's the whole point of espionage and like going undercover and the stealth bomber, like that's the enemy.

You need to be afraid of the enemy that you don't see. 

I don't know who said the quote, but the great the devil's greatest deception was convincing the world that he doesn't exist. I don't know who said it, but Yeah. That's the whole thing.

 Don't forget you are opposed. And when I realize that [00:24:00] especially being built as a fighter and a protector, if any, if people know the sheep wolves and sheep dogs story like I was born to be a sheep dog took me a long time to realize that. I was just always told I was too aggressive and I didn't understand why.

So that, that is a big deal. And then when you're built that way, you're like, oh, I have an enemy. You can actually build your life in a mindset of the things that is required to put on the full armor of God, these types of things, to go out and do what we need to do. It's not like you're going everywhere ready for war, but you have the mindset, hopefully not after Afghanistan, that took a long time to wear off.

No joke. But at the same time, you can go prepared. You can be conscious of it, and when things do pop, you don't get bent because you understand, okay, good shot, I see you, and a lot of times it's our own lack of self-control and discipline and bring it on us anyway. But, I put this in here as as on page 74, I wanted to bring people into it because if people, you mentioned the matrix, you go through here a little bit [00:25:00] and you said, if we're all being honest, what lies behind a red pill decision usually is crazy.

It isn't a choice that the average man makes, and that's exactly what the author intended. Testing. Anyone can handle what's behind a blue pill. The role of the hero isn't bestowed. It's chosen. The hero must choose it within. There's someone listening to that right now who's battling taking the red pill when they know that their soul desires it and they're scared to death about to keep taking the blue pill because a mortgage, a phone bill, the neighbors, what their family would think if they stepped back in status and actually chased a dream and went broke for a little while.

The red pill in front of 'em. I'm talking to Westernized Americans here. I don't care what your race is, what your ethnicity is, this you go after it you're equipping in such a realistic, modern way. Using the film analogies and then the [00:26:00] structures of that even written in Act one, act two, act three.

I don't know if I even have a question in there, but do you want to give some thoughts on the red pill life? I just had two. Yeah. I hate when I see people get derailed. The bar in the spokes the stick in the spokes, they fly over the handlebars and they never go again. Yeah, a hundred percent. If you haven't seen the Matrix, just to, for little context, spoiler alert.

I, yeah. Spoiler alert. It's been out for a couple decades. You should totally see it. 

 The reader kind of falls in to the movie. You're sitting there with Morpheus and Neo, and to me, that moment is, it's where the hero ponders his choice. 

Morpheus is holding these two pills in front of Neo.

It's Keanu Reeve's character, and they're in the Matrix, which is this unseen, unknown prison that all of mankind is in. They're basically plugged into this supercomputer. And this, these machines literally suck the energy out of the human [00:27:00] body to fuel them.

It's like man has become AA batteries, essentially. So they're plugged into the matrix and Morpheus is like this prophet, this liberator. He is like, Hey, do you want to free your mind? You can take a blue pill and stay as you are. Have all the comforts of life and do your normal nine to five.

He's a computer programmer. Like you can stay here and be safe, or you can take a red pill, you can un unplug from the matrix. You can expose yourself to an untold number of dangers. Like this will get bad, but it'll be real for the first time. What do you think? And so he's faced with that choice, red pill, blue pill.

And I'll then use that analogy and apply it to us today. But also seeing it in scripture where God was faced with that decision too, in that God, as the author always knew what he was gonna [00:28:00] do, but God is the hero, the protagonist who's actually acting in the story and can feel sad or jealous or whatever.

Like he's actually within it as well. He had to choose. He had to choose this path to. Ultimately sacrifice his own life for humans and things like that. And yeah. And that illustration, the red pill and blue pill, what's behind the red pill usually is crazy. And Adam sounds like you're a matrix guy.

I think it's in the second movie. In the second movie, there's like the opposite illustration where, I can't remember the name of the character, but he turns a bad g like a bad guy. He's like a Judas type. He's a, he's supposed to be good, but then he betrays the guys from within. 

 There's this scene where he is he's in the Matrix and he's aware of it, and he's cutting a steak. He's cutting this juicy, beautiful steak. And he like, he holds it up on the fork and he is I know that this steak isn't real. [00:29:00] I know that when I put it in my mouth, And I taste, its salty, juiciness.

It's really just my mind and synapses firing and telling me to taste a certain thing. And then he says, but ignorance is bliss. And he keeps eating the steak. And he's basically saying, I want to stay in the matrix. I want to stay in this comfort, the outside world, the real world where I might actually die or hurt or whatever.

I'm not on board with that. I'm taking the blue pill. And so it's just such a good contrast where Neo as the hero he did the crazy thing. He did the difficult thing, the courageous thing. And the reason why they're heroes is because they make that choice. The common man does not do that.

That's why we don't tell stories about blue pills. 

Ooh, now we're getting tough. Let's go coach. Major leagues right [00:30:00] there. That's a major league comment. I like for, a lot of times I've seen with that tender filet right there on the end of that fork that I know it's not real. There are people, I think most are probably asleep, that the masses people listening to this are forward thinkers, they're awake, masses are asleep.

And that stake in this country is typically job status. It's putting material gain or a bank account or an investment as the heart's priority. And yet they know it's not real. It won't last it. We all know we can't take it with us and I don't wanna keep preaching on that because we all kinda get that.

 Someone's going to, maybe they choose the red pill, and if they're gonna start, they're gonna go after the dream.

They're gonna try the thing, ask the girl out, whatever, go for the promotion . Maybe give up a lawyer career to go paint canvases. [00:31:00] Oh my gosh, how irresponsible. But when you look at that, as soon as we step out, You talked about the pain and the hurt and the danger you get smacked.

Maybe a massive tax bill comes that you weren't expecting or something breaks down in your life and that was supposed to be the thousand dollars to put into your product to start. Who knows what that thing is. But that's the thing, like when you understand the way that you explain the process of following God the best you can in, in light of this story, you're in a story framework.

That's the mess. Is that the through line to the book to use bb g language, like you are in a story. Yeah. You love stories because you are born into one. 

 Man. And, you're saving the best for first. You're letting 'em know. I think one of the most valuable things is we're coming to a close 

you just said you gave an expression of the gospel, the Bible given in a framework that we [00:32:00] can understand that is similar to the movies that we all love and that you are in a story to live your life every day in that framework of knowing you're in a story, you're playing a part, you have guides, there's heroes and there's villains and there's love, interest and all these things.

And then as my daughter says, so I don't get angry at people on in traffic anymore. She goes, dad, they're just NPCs. They're non-player characters. They're not even real. My daughter's 16. She loves Jesus. And she's they're not real. And she lets me know this because she's thought of that analogy because of high school.

She feels like it's a seeping, throbbing matrix of just fakeness. And that's what, that's her thing. So NPCs . Give us a sendoff in that light as we go to tackle, dinner tonight when our spouse comes home irritated and, we're trying to be positive and then one of the kids lights us up and then they're fighting.

And when real life chicken hits the fan, how do we keep in mind this idea that you're [00:33:00] in a story and keep our heads straight and keep moving into the storm go so we can get through it. 

[00:33:05] Bob: I liked what you were saying there this isn't some sort of cutesy, let's create, some sort of parallel and that was something that I write about and something that I was very cognizant of as I was writing what I didn't want to do.

Is write some sort of book. Hey, let's go to Christian kindergarten, and here it is. And really we're just talking about movies and making it fun. Let's make this fun for people. That's certainly an aspect, but that's definitely not all of it.

Like what I wrote and what I believe. And really the ultimate question is, do you believe that the Bible is the word of God? That's what it comes down to. Because the Bible does tell a story very similar to the Matrix, very similar. The Matrix has never claimed to be, Hey, this is divine inspiration from God.

You're actually in the matrix. You're eating a [00:34:00] juicy steak. No, but the Bible has only claimed to be history. There's been thousands of people, different countries, different continents that have said, yeah, this is real. This is real. And so I guess the prereq, like the ticket into the door is you have to make a decision on the Bible.

What do I believe about that? And if you believe it is the word of God, then you were born into a story, not a make believe story. Not a fiction, not Frankenstein. You were born into a narrative. We're on page 2023 right now, and we know how it's gonna unfold. Like it what is a story?

It's just a narrative. It's a plot played out. And so the reason why we can say it's a story is we also see the ending. 

The reason why the Lion King, you start in paradise. You have a separation from the father. You have a [00:35:00] son that returns from the wilderness to destroy evil and return and restore paradise like the Bible. 

They sat down and said, Hey let's tell an awesome story. Okay, what do awesome stories look like? Hero, villain, love, interest, paradise to paradise.

If what the Bible says is true, that's the story we will live. That's why we love it. That's why we tell it in a thousand different ways. 

Yeah. And just to be clear for people, you wanna rattle off a handful of other movies that are involved in this because it's not a structural breakdown of the matrix combined with the gospel.

That's not what this book is.

So it's it's the Dark Night, the Hunger Games, the Matrix Saving Private Ryan, the Sandlot, miserable 13 going on 30. I talk about Rachel and Ross and friends, A few Good Men. Animal House. Star Wars. Star Wars, several times. Indiana Jones, Thor. It's like I said it was, I couldn't find it.

[00:36:00] Anyway, it was awesome for me to write. Yeah. 'cause I, I believe these things to be true. 

Yep. Look, before we head out and we let people know, let's do that. I have one more, one more piece of very practical strategy for people to put into their mindset in their heart that you give them under a sectioned, under a section described or recorded as the endings we seek.

We all have endings that we desire, which are results or outcomes we'd like to see, right? We don't necessarily think of them as endings, but I'm gonna give the, you have a very clear three step process that will help somebody relax, have a little bit more hope and optimism in their step. And, maybe understand that God's word is the lamp to their feet with this model.

But before we do that, where do you want people to find you? Where can they get this book? Because I left you a review on Amazon. I do that for people I don't know. And I do it for people I do know when I'm impacted significantly. And I believe that I, I feel like expending the energy to let other people know.

And I do, I'm a [00:37:00] believer in this book. And so give us some touch points that you wanna plug right now. Yeah, I'm happy to go there. I'm just curious, just 'cause I haven't seen the review in, in two sentences what did you take from the book?

What stood out to you? 

Oh, you're asking me right on the spot, huh? 

Yeah. I'm flipping this. This is my interview now. Now, I just I'd love to hear what stood out for you. I love it. You know what? I'm gonna give a little teaser in this manner right here, and that was whether you're young in your faith, whether you're mature in your faith, but whether you don't have faith, but you're truth seeking, I'm telling you right now, Bob Wheatley is a fresh take thought leader.

And here's what I mean by that. You will never, I don't care how long you've been following your faith, we'll go all the way and give you the benefit of the doubt you've never heard the gospel, you've never received the gospel message, the story of what Jesus has done from eternity to our life in the way that Bob portrays it here in our heart's desire.

If you're not shredding this book apart, trying to [00:38:00] understand a better part of what you're doing in this world, your place, in this world, your place. The way your life is going. If things seem confusing, I am telling you the fresh take on this, on the gospel for fresh ears, for our time to understand it.

We all love movies. This is your resource. It helped me see myself in a different light, the way that God intends when so many times we go into things confused or why does this happen in my life? This helps us understand the picture that we've been living on this planet all these years.

And I can't encourage you enough to get Bob's book, soak it in, and learn how our stories reveal the thing we want most because this little gem can change your life. Man. That, that is awesome. Do you charge by the hour? I need you to, I do. I need you to introduce me and every podcast and every speech.

That was awesome. 

That was off the cuff. I was obviously stuttered for, stuttered a little bit there, but that was also from the heart [00:39:00] in the moment. And I didn't, none of that was pre-planned. It just came outta my heart, my impression, and that was what I wanted to share. And I gave, I put that on Amazon 

I'm just so grateful that you gave it a shot and are connecting with God in a deeper way. And to go back to your original question, how can people, I.

Find me. How can we connect? So I'm most active on Instagram. It's at Bob Wheatley. As far as where to find the book it's available on Amazon. You could also go to my website. Bob wheatley.com. You'll be able to find more resources there. If you do end up purchasing the book, just right here in the first couple pages, there's a QR code, you'll get the audio book for free.

 We love listening to that at the gym or in the car or whatever. So I wanted people, if they actually, bought the book, I wanted them to have both. So don't go, don't worry about, making purchases left and right.

You're gonna have both either way. So yeah, Amazon or bob wheatley.com. Alright, beautiful. So here's the last part and we'll send 'em off. Here's the Promise three part framework, three part perspective. [00:40:00] This is about the endings. We seek, again, the results we want, the outcomes we desire. These are the visions of our hearts.

Steve Harvey. I love Steve Harvey. He says things in a way that I like to hear. And the one of the ways that he says the dreams of our heart, are what God has put in our hearts to be the previews of our own lives, coming attractions, and go with the film theme here.

The dreams of our heart are like God's previews of our life's coming attractions. And when you start thinking about that, you can't, if you start believing his word and think about these encouraging ways, you can't go day to day thinking that you're cursed and that God's against you, you can't you'll neglect those thought processes, consuming these, and you'll begin believing that he's actually for you, even in the pain of the hurt.

And here's the way we do that, to get the ending that we seek, you say on page 180 4. And I'm gonna give a little [00:41:00] bit away because I want people to get this . First, we need a desire. The hero of the story must want something specific, and the audience must want that thing too.

We need a desire. Number two, we need a delay. If the hero gets what he wants on the top of page one, then that makes for every, that makes for a very short story. Without delay, there's no elation at the end. And I love that you expand about that. You talked about catharsis. It's wow your thoughts on cathartic effects.

Powerful. Number three, we need a delivery. After all has been lost and the miracle arrives. We see the hero's desires come true. Proverbs has spoken loudly in my life. I believe it's Proverbs 13. The desires of the diligence are fully fulfilled. The desires of the diligent are fully fulfilled. This has to do with walking, turning our faith into works [00:42:00] for those of us who believe, for those of us with ears, for those of us who would seek.

So with that being said, do you have any thoughts on anything, on a practical, daily little basis that we can practice to understand that we need a desire? So that would be my parting words, if you feel like you're in the delay on a micro level, Hey it's coming. That might be something that's either intentional by God or definitely intentional by your enemy who hates you, like he's just trying to mess up your day.

You might be in that delay, the delivery's coming. I would also say even if that micro delivery comes, you still have that macro problem of you're not in paradise yet. You're just not. You are made for something more. That is the desire of your heart. You will never have it here on earth. Nobody will until the end of our story comes.

That's what we long for my friends and listeners where this message is in their ear right now, that[00:43:00] what you're describing, I can easily say. When you gain some understanding and the proper mindset around that, and you change some of the stories in your head, which is a different type of story, but the ones that we're repeating about ourselves that come from our conditioning, when you get into that place, you can live and experience what I put in my tagline.

You can experience revolutionary freedom. This is what we're discussing. These are my language for it. This is what, how God's speaking it through me. You're bringing it through how he gives it to you so we can reach a wider audience. And what I specialize in, my genius that the Lord has given me a spiritual gift to do I most things are not my gift or my skill sets, but one of them is helping transform the mind so that you take that delay part wi within the delay part you have a lot of choices and where your attitudes and your conditioning play a part on what actually happens in the delivery.

Your mindset in the delay will determine your fruit in the delivery, what comes back to you. And so if somebody's interested in overhauling that [00:44:00] mindset, I want 'em to go to either Adam Kasix dot com or revolutionary freedom.com. Doesn't matter, get a free call with me. Let's talk for a half an hour.

If this message with Bob is resonated with you today, I want to help you. If you like the way Bob delivers more than I do, check out the show notes page and get dig up Bob's resources and find him where you can and ask him for his help. This isn't about scarcity and come to me or come to it's, this is about who we're reaching right now and who you're resonating with because this message is powerful.

Bob, I love you for your time, man. I love you for what you're doing, your obedience, your brotherhood, your attitude. You're staying loose when I sent you 16 different freaking links I'm honored and we'll see you next time. Awesome. Thanks everybody. Yeah, thank you for having me.