Dr. Mike Voigts: The Fourth Degree of Prayer

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Today on the podcast, I got to talk to Dr. Mike Voigts, Professor of Spiritual Formation at Asbury Seminary. Dr. Voigts’ academic interests lie in personal and community spiritual direction and in drawing connections between spiritual traditions in the global church. In addition to several articles, he is the author of The Fourth Degree of Prayer (Cascade, 2022) and Letters of Ascent: Spiritual Direction in the Letters of Bernard of Clairvaux (Wipf & Stock, 2013).

In today’s conversation we’ll talk about calling, community and, of course, his new book The Fourth Degree of Prayer. We’ll link to in in our show notes. It’s available on Wipf and Stock and Amazon. So now, let’s listen to my conversation with Dr. Voigts!

*The views expressed in this podcast don’t necessarily reflect the views of Asbury Seminary.

Dr. Mike Voigts, Professor of Spiritual Formation

Dr. Voigts’ academic interests lie in personal and community spiritual direction, and in drawing connections between spiritual traditions in the global church. His studies in medieval spiritual direction, particularly through the Cistercian monastic tradition, have discovered connections with historic Wesleyan discipleship and in modern understandings of personal and community formation. He is a member of the Lay Cistercians of Gethsemani Abbey.

In addition to several articles, he is the author of The Fourth Degree of Prayer (Cascade, 2022) and Letters of Ascent: Spiritual Direction in the Letters of Bernard of Clairvaux (Wipf & Stock, 2013).

Dr. Voigts is married to Sheryl (Bonney) Voigts. They have two grown children.

Heidi Wilcox, host of the Thrive Podcast

Writer, podcaster, and social media manager, Heidi Wilcox shares stories of truth, justice, healing and hope. She is best known as the host of Spotlight, (especially her blooper reel) highlighting news, events, culturally relevant topics and stories of the ways alumni, current students and faculty are attempting something big for God. If you can’t find her, she’s probably cheering on her Kentucky Wildcats, enjoying a cup of coffee, reading or spending time with her husband, Wes.

Transcript

Heidi Wilcox:
Hey everyone. Welcome to this week’s episode of the Thrive with Asbury Seminary Podcast. I’m your host, Heidi E. Wilcox, bringing you conversations with authors thought leaders and people just like you, who are looking to connect where your passion meets the world’s deep need. Today on the podcast, I got to talk to professor of Spiritual Formation, Asbury Seminary, Dr. Voigts’ academic interest are in personal and community spiritual direction. And in drawing connections between spiritual traditions in the global church, he is also a member of the Lay Cistercians of Gethsemani Abbey. In addition to several articles, he is the author of Letters of Ascent: Spiritual Direction in the Letters of Bernard of Clairvaux. And his most recent book, The Fourth Degree of Prayer.

Heidi Wilcox:
In today’s conversation, we talk about Dr. Voigts’ calling community, and of course his new book, The Fourth Degree of Prayer, which will link to in our show notes, it’s available for purchase on Within Stock and Amazon. So now let’s listen to my conversation with Dr. Voigts.

Heidi Wilcox:
Dr. Voigts, it’s a delight to get to talk to you today. I read your book The Fourth Degree of Prayer. Absolutely loved it.

Dr. Mike Voigts:
Oh, thank you.

Heidi Wilcox:
Which just really gave me a lot to think about as I think about prayer. And you talked about the four degrees of prayer, which we’ll get into a little more later, because I want to take the first part of our conversation to get to know you a little bit, but just so grateful for this opportunity.

Dr. Mike Voigts:
I’ve been looking forward to this.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah, me too. So how did you experience your call to ministry? And then I’ll tag on a second question, which they say not to do in journalism school, but how did you experience your call to ministry and then come to Asbury Seminary the multiple times that you’ve been here?

Dr. Mike Voigts:
Sure. Yeah. I was raised in new Orleans and I was raised outside of the Methodist tradition. I was raised in the Lutheran church and I was 10 years old, going through the three year catechism they called it or confirmation class. And my German pastor Edgar Hammrik Alison, now that’s a German name. He just flat out, told me, he said, “You’re going to be a pastor one day.”

Heidi Wilcox:
Really?

Dr. Mike Voigts:
I was 10 years old and it’s the last thing I ever wanted to do. I had no confidence in my myself. I was a writer. I’d kept a journal since I was eight years old. And I loved to express myself in writing but not public speaking. So I absolutely ignored that until I was a college student at Baylor in Texas. And I started dating my future wife, Cheryl, who was at Texas A&M. And we worked at a summer camp called Sky Ranch in east Texas. And she told me, she said, “I always thought that I’d marry a pastor one day.”

Heidi Wilcox:
That’s at the [inaudible 00:03:07]?

Dr. Mike Voigts:
Oh, my mind went all the way back to the pastor’s living room in New Orleans, when I was 10 and I just couldn’t run from this at all. And I, again, didn’t think that I had any capacity to be a pastor. I’d much rather be behind the scenes than out in front. And I finished Baylor and we were attending First Methodist in Waco, that’s the church where I became a Methodist and the senior pastor one day told me, “Mike, I don’t really know you that well, but you’re going to go to Asbury Seminary. You’ve been called to be a pastor. You’re going to come back and be my associate pastor.”

Heidi Wilcox:
Wow. I’m kind of secretly jealous. I know that wasn’t the path that you thought, but to have several people just so clearly say, and then to have it confirmed as you took the steps too.

Dr. Mike Voigts:
Right. I was a writing major at Baylor in the English Department and I went to him to see if he knew of any writing jobs in Waco. And he said, “No, you’re going to go off to seminary. You’re called to be a pastor.”

Dr. Mike Voigts:
I think sometimes we really hesitate being that strong in saying things to people. But for me, I think God knew that I needed people to just come out and speak his words to me through them. And so it was these three folks. It was my pastor when I was 10, it was my future wife, Cheryl. It was Dick Freeman pastor at first Methodist in Waco who just flat out, said, “You can’t run anymore. This is what you’re doing.” He said, “There’s only one seminary that I want you to go to. And that’s Asbury.” So I checked it out and applied, was admitted. I had never seen the campus before we got up here. We had no money. We had to sell my Honda Accord to pay for a U-Haul, to move.

Heidi Wilcox:
Oh, wow, yeah.

Dr. Mike Voigts:
And three years later, Cheryl got a degree in Christian Education. And I got the MDiv in three years. I don’t know how I did that, but.

Heidi Wilcox:
Wow. You worked hard.

Dr. Mike Voigts:
We went back and I was the associate pastor in First Methodist Waco.

Heidi Wilcox:
Wow. Wow. So you came as a student, there obviously. And then you pastored for 24 years. Because I know you’re back here as the professor of spiritual formation now. Walk me through that time period?

Dr. Mike Voigts:
Well, I was a pastor in Texas and I was working on a Doctor of Ministry and I was on campus and Maxie Dunnam was the president and he just happened to come in and check on us in class and had a conversation with him. And after my conversation with Maxie, I had a conversation with the vice president for advancement and they asked me if I’d want to be the alumni director.

Heidi Wilcox:
Wow.

Dr. Mike Voigts:
I said, “Well, I’m a pastor in Texas.” I never thought I’d come back to this little town on a dead end road in Kentucky. And I just sensed through confirmation from others and just in deep prayer and discernment, this is what we should do. So we moved our family. We had two kids at the time, back here to Wilmore and we’ve been here ever since.

Heidi Wilcox:
Wow. So you moved from alumni director to then professor?

Dr. Mike Voigts:
Yes. I resigned the alumni director to do a PhD full time. And while I was doing the PhD, I was also a pastor and finished the PhD and was a pastor. I thought that’s, I love doing it. And then a position came open here at the seminary.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah. That’s awesome.

Dr. Mike Voigts:
And so here we are.

Heidi Wilcox:
That’s awesome.

Dr. Mike Voigts:
Yeah.

Heidi Wilcox:
When you talk about, you said through deep prayer and discernment, what does that look like for you? How do you know when you’ve discerned and what you’re hearing?

Dr. Mike Voigts:
There’s a great book by Dallas Willard called Hearing God. I use it in my life of prayer class. And he has a wonderful quote in there that if you tell someone that you spoke to God, they think that’s honorable. But if you tell someone that God spoke to you, they think you’re crazy.

Heidi Wilcox:
Right.

Dr. Mike Voigts:
And so having this discernment, is this God speaking to me or not, there are lots of questions we can ask. Do we have confirmation in scripture? Do we see any contradiction in what a decision would have on our life of holiness? Am I listening to the right people?

Heidi Wilcox:
Yes.

Dr. Mike Voigts:
And all of that, I think contributes to just knowing, without any doubt that this is where God is leading you. Now, ultimately God’s will for us, is that we’re holy. That’s it.

Heidi Wilcox:
Right. Right. It’s not a particular career necessarily, or?

Dr. Mike Voigts:
God wants us to be holy. And so I guess the main question is, would this decision, coming back to Kentucky, would that interfere with my capacity to live a holy life for God?

Heidi Wilcox:
Wow. Then I feel like it kind of makes the decision easy, right, or no?

Dr. Mike Voigts:
Well, I think it does because sometimes we can get so trapped into not wanting to step out of God’s will. We could look at a menu at a restaurant, “What is God’s will for me?” Well, it’d probably be that you eat a salad, not a burger, but we can become so trapped and I don’t think that’s what life in the spirit is.

Heidi Wilcox:
Right. That’s what I was trying to say, is that the answer to that question is freeing rather than, “Am I going to mess up my life by misdiscerning?”

Dr. Mike Voigts:
Right. Right. And sometimes when we make a big life changing decision, like we did coming back to Wilmore, it’s not always going to be easy. It’s going to be difficult and it’s easy to question, “Oh, is God telling us we shouldn’t have done this?” When we came to seminary the first time in 1989, when I was a student, our U-Haul caught fire in Hope, Arkansas, a tree fell on our car on Jasmine St, Road.

Heidi Wilcox:
No way.

Dr. Mike Voigts:
Within the first month. So it’s easy to say, “Well, is God telling us to get back to Texas?”

Heidi Wilcox:
Right, right, right.

Dr. Mike Voigts:
“Did we make a mistake?” But I think that’s the wrong question. I think the real question is, “Okay, what can we learn from this about perseverance? What can we learn about steadfastness, and obstacles in life?” And I just think that we set ourselves up for doubting God, when we start to see every little thing, as God saying, “Don’t do it, don’t do it.”

Heidi Wilcox:
Right. Because I think in my own mind is going to, because I’ve done that. It gets hard. And so I’m like, “Oh, maybe…” Or it’s going to be hard to do the next thing or whatever. And I’m like, “Oh, maybe that means…” But I feel like in my mind, I just connected the dot of like, oh, that’s kind of the prosperity gospel of, if I’m going to say yes to God, that it’s all going to be easy. And I think I’ve unintentionally subscribed to that. And that’s not… Yes, God’s blessings come in goodness. But they also come in, perseverance is what I’m hearing you say.

Dr. Mike Voigts:
Right. And I think throughout history, we see there being a lot more struggle than blessed joy in the lives of the saints.

Heidi Wilcox:
That’s true.

Dr. Mike Voigts:
And we’re always seeking what’s good, what’s a blessing for us. What is going to benefit us? And that is following a prosperity gospel. And that has not been part of the consistent witness of the church throughout history.

Heidi Wilcox:
Oh wow. This conversation, we’re just a few minutes in, it’s changed my life already. I want to talk to you, because we’ve talked about the role of community in your life too, but you’re also part of a larger community, the Lay Cistercians of Gethsemani Abbey.

Dr. Mike Voigts:
Yes. The Lay Cistercians.

Heidi Wilcox:
Lay Cistertions. Thank you.

Dr. Mike Voigts:
Now this is one of the wildest events of my life. The focus of my PhD research was Bernard of Clairvaux, who lived in the 12th century. He was one of the founding fathers of the cistertion monastic order. Years later, 900 years later, Thomas Merton wrote in the mid 20th century, he was a cistertion monk. And he lived at Gethsemani Abbey in Bargetown. So when I was doing my PhD research, I would go out to the monastery and some monks would play detective for me and find these obscure articles in their archives. And so I started building relationships with these folks and I found out about a lay organization that’s out of that monastery that’s ecumenical, of people who are striving after holiness by living into the vows that the monks take, but outside the walls.

Heidi Wilcox:
Wow.

Dr. Mike Voigts:
And this intrigued me because the cistertion approach to spirituality of work and prayer together really attracted me. But I’m an evangelical holiness Wesleyan.

Heidi Wilcox:
I think, Yes. How did those meet?

Dr. Mike Voigts:
So how did these two go together? But I discovered that about half of the lay cistertions are Protestants.

Heidi Wilcox:
Really?

Dr. Mike Voigts:
Which made me wonder what is missing in Protestant denominations that makes these folks go to the Catholic church for spiritual nourishment. So I became part of this group and actually was part of last few years of helping to write the formation guide for new lay cistertions.

Heidi Wilcox:
Wow.

Dr. Mike Voigts:
It’s just laughable.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah.

Dr. Mike Voigts:
And so we meet once a month at the monastery and we go through books and we pray together and encourage one another. It’s been a huge blessing in my life.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah. How long have you been part of this?

Dr. Mike Voigts:
About 11 years now.

Heidi Wilcox:
Wow. So over a decade. How have you seen your spiritual life change as a result of your membership for lack of a better or your partnership with this community?

Dr. Mike Voigts:
Yeah. Well, there’s a two and a half year discernment period before you’re ready to make your full commitment. And in that discernment period, I found myself really questioning a lot about myself and my motivations, priorities. And it was a tremendous couple years of my life. It was difficult, a lot of angst in my life, but I think the Holy Spirit was just working and purifying, refining a lot of things going on. And so I think my involvement with the Lay Cistertions has really been to bring a Wesleyan voice to the group, not to convert them into being Wesleyans, but just to approach the Christian faith in a little bit different way than they’re used to. And of course they’re open to it.

Dr. Mike Voigts:
And that has allowed me to see the broader picture of the body of Christ, I think. Sometimes we can be so funneled in our thinking of this is the church, this is what we do. This is the task of evangelism. And we fail to see that the beauty of the body of Christ. For example, Wesleyans will focus on the importance of evangelism, witnessing. And what I’ve learned from the Lay Cistertions is that these monks have a calling to pray for the world. And as one monk told me, he said, “We pray in the throne room of heaven for the evangelists who are out on the street.”

Heidi Wilcox:
Wow. Yeah.

Dr. Mike Voigts:
So they have a role in evangelizing the world for Christ, but it’s the hidden part. And so they see themselves as the part of the body of Christ that’s below the skin.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yes.

Dr. Mike Voigts:
You can’t see it.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yes.

Dr. Mike Voigts:
And that has really helped me to appreciate just the vastness of the body of Christ.

Heidi Wilcox:
Right. That’s a beautiful picture. And just listening to a small part of your story, because you said you really just wanted to be behind the scenes.

Dr. Mike Voigts:
Yes.

Heidi Wilcox:
But your roles have taken you into pastoring and professoring, which are very public roles, but this lets you be part of both worlds and both worlds, they’re so interconnected and you can’t have one without the other.

Dr. Mike Voigts:
That’s true. I think my involvement with the Lay Cistertions, the inner life, really grounds me for the external work that I have to do. And I think what, what I’ve discovered in students and in pastors is that they put their whole focus into their external ministry and they neglect the hidden part of their lives. And that leads to nowhere, but trouble.

Heidi Wilcox:
That is very true.

Dr. Mike Voigts:
So I don’t think you can have an external ministry without that internal transformation that the Holy Spirit does.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yes. Yes.

Dr. Mike Voigts:
And the Lay Cistertions have really helped me with this.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yes. I think it’s just a beautiful rhythm of life. Yeah, yeah. So that leads us right into your book. Because your book is all about developing the internal, what you were saying that the internal has to be developed along with the external. So why was now the right time for you to write The Fourth Degree of Prayer?

Dr. Mike Voigts:
Wow. Great question. I’ve discovered over the years that lay people, even seminary students and even some pastors are very anxious when it comes to prayer.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yes. I am, for sure.

Dr. Mike Voigts:
And it was common when I was serving in a local church to, before meeting ask, if someone would like to open the meeting in prayer and everybody’s heads goes to the table. And I was surprised that same effect happens in a seminary classroom. When I teach life of prayer, which is really become a class that students from a lot of different degree programs come into this class. And I love it. I’ll ask for a volunteer to pray and everybody just looks at their computer screen. I can’t see them anymore.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah. Why do you think that is?

Dr. Mike Voigts:
People are intimidated by prayer. And I thought, “This has to change.” All we’re doing is having a conversation with God. Why is that so intimidating?

Heidi Wilcox:
Why is it?

Dr. Mike Voigts:
I’ve been married to Cheryl for decades now. And the only time I’m nervous talking to her is when I know I’m going to get in trouble.

Heidi Wilcox:
Right.

Dr. Mike Voigts:
See, the rest of the time, I just talk with her because I love her. And I don’t worry that I’m going to say something wrong. So if we have an intimate relationship with God, why are we so nervous to talk to him? And I think sometimes people are nervous to pray because there’s some shame that they haven’t prayed in a while. It’s like someone who doesn’t attend worship for a while and everybody wants them back, but they’re too ashamed to come back.

Heidi Wilcox:
Right. Right.

Dr. Mike Voigts:
But the opposite is true, and they show up, everybody’s thrilled to see them. And I think that’s the way prayer is as well. That we don’t have to feel shame for not spending more time with God, God just wants to hear from us. And so I wanted to write this book about prayer, not prayer in a prescriptive way. “This is how you pray.” That’s where a lot of folks in ministry and lay people want to know, “Just tell me how to do it.”

Heidi Wilcox:
Right. We want the checklist. I know, I do. I’m like, “Oh, I want to make sure I’m doing this right. Don’t want to mess this up. Kind of get outside the will of God here.”

Dr. Mike Voigts:
And so there’s none of that in this book.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah. No there isn’t.

Dr. Mike Voigts:
Because how do you tell someone how to cultivate a relationship with somebody else? It happens naturally, organically. And so I wanted to keep the book short. It’s difficult for professors to keep anything that has to do with words short, but I wanted to keep the book short, because I didn’t want a book on prayer to be just as intimidating as prayer can be for people.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yes.

Dr. Mike Voigts:
And I tried to have a style that was kind of a hybrid so that people who have no seminary training at all can glean from it. But yet those who have some theological training can go more in depth. So I think you can read it on different layers or on different levels and still get something out of it. So that was my goal.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah. I would say, definitely is on the lay level, because that’s where I am. That’s the only one I can speak to. You definitely accomplished that. I read your book and it’s truly beautiful. And just gave me a lot to think about as I think about my own prayer life. As you will talk about the four stages or degrees of prayer, but yeah, just kind of was thinking like, “Am I in this one, this one?’ And then like, “How do I live so that the next one comes naturally?”

Dr. Mike Voigts:
Right.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah. So before we go too much further, what is prayer? Because it’s this thing we’re intimidated by a lot of times, but what is prayer? Yeah.

Dr. Mike Voigts:
I think simply prayer is communication with God. It’s communicating with God, whether that is verbally, if it’s mentally, if it’s writing, I encourage people who don’t like to pray or are intimidated by it, just to write a letter to God, that’s prayer. It’s engaging our life with God’s life.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah.

Heidi Wilcox:
\.

Dr. Mike Voigts:
And why we make that so complicated? I don’t know. God created us, he knows everything about us. We can’t hide a single thing from God, so why are we intimidated to speak to God? Who’s already speaking to us. There’s no way for us to start a prayer because God’s already speaking to us. We’re just not listening, our ears are focused elsewhere. And so I think if we can just kind of tweak how we focus our lives, where our aim is every day, I think it would change the way that we even look at what it means to have a life of prayer.

Heidi Wilcox:
Right. Because I was reading your book and as I was thinking about it to prepare, I was thinking about why we pray. And a lot of times I find myself praying, like, “I need help.” Which there’s nothing wrong with that. And I will say, like this morning, it’s been a stressful morning. I had some appointments that I had to be late to work. And I was like, “I have this podcast going on.” And I try to pray just personally, before every podcast, just because there’s always a little anxiety. And I was like, “God, I’m so anxious this morning.” I’ve done this a lot, but I’m just inside my… And I really do feel like he answered that prayer. I know he did because we’re doing it right now. But what are some of the other reasons that we pray or what is the role of prayer in our lives?

Dr. Mike Voigts:
We’re all created in the image and likeness of God, we see that in Genesis 1. And so I think we are wired, if you use that image to have a relationship with God, of all creation, of all of us on earth, with plants, animals, rocks, trees. Only we, are created to have a relationship with God, we and the angels. And I think when we don’t engage with God, I think our lives are restless as Augustine writes, “My heart was restless till I found it in thee.” And so we try to find fulfillment in lots of things in life. But until we find them in Jesus Christ, we’re going to be restless.

Dr. Mike Voigts:
And so I think that’s what prayer is for us. It’s a way for us to live into who we are as God created us to be. And really, I think the real secret behind prayer and that’s why I started the book the way I did, is answering the question. Do we really love God?

Heidi Wilcox:
Yes. That was powerful.

Dr. Mike Voigts:
Because if we love someone, we’re going to want to spend time with them. And we don’t even have to try to make it work. We just want to be with them. There’s an image in Psalm 131 of a wean child at his mother’s breast and a wean child doesn’t need nourishment from mother anymore. So the child just wants to be with its mother, without wanting anything in return. And I think that kind of love is what grounds our prayer. Because when we truly love God, not just for what God can do for us, but simply because we want to be with God, we can’t even imagine life without God. Then I think prayer will become natural to us.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah.

Dr. Mike Voigts:
So instead of trying to focus on praying, focus on answering the question, how deeply do you love God?

Heidi Wilcox:
Wow. What do we do if we don’t like the answer to that question?

Dr. Mike Voigts:
Oh, I’ve had to answer that question many times. Just kind of reassessing life every once in a while. And where are my priorities? And where’s the focus and is life getting too complicated? Do I need to simplify things in my life so that God doesn’t get lost in the clutter of life?

Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah. So those kind of external things are ways that we can evaluate our depth of love for God.

Dr. Mike Voigts:
I think so. We try to use the excuse that technology will simplify our lives. At least that’s what they tell us.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah. That’s what they tell us.

Dr. Mike Voigts:
But all that does is just take our focus off of God. And even if we say that we’re going to sit down and have silent prayer, we last for about 20 seconds and we get so distracted because we could be in a quiet room and there’s still a lot of noise going on in our lives

Heidi Wilcox:
Yes. There’s noise on the inside.

Dr. Mike Voigts:
But the noise is inside, right?

Heidi Wilcox:
Yes.

Dr. Mike Voigts:
Right. And getting rid of that noise in our lives, that keeps us from hearing that still, small voice of God. I used to be a children’s pastor. I used to lead a children’s worship service at St. Luke Methodist in Lexington, called God’s Backyard. And I learned pretty quickly that if the kids are going nuts and there’s chaos in the room, don’t try to out shout them. You’re very quiet and say, “Okay, as soon as you all calm down, I’m going to say something that is going to change your life. It’s going to blow your mind.” And they’ll quiet down because they want to hear it. And I think that’s how that still, small voice of God works. God is not going to try to out shout all of the noise in our lives, that whisper of God’s voice is going to be steady and present. And we have to have the desire to calm ourselves down and to declutter all the stuff in our lives that we think is so important. And then we can hear God speaking to us.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah. Yeah. That’s beautiful and very hard.

Dr. Mike Voigts:
Oh, it’s so difficult.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah. So what is the relationship between, kind of doing this organically, because it can’t be a checklist, but it does require some discipline. So what is the balance between setting our hearts toward God and engaging in practices that will help us get there. And that sense of striving and achieving and accomplishing,

Dr. Mike Voigts:
Oh, that achieving and accomplishing is so difficult, especially for us in a Methodist tradition. When we think about the means of grace, which is the term I like a whole lot better than spiritual disciplines. Because the disciplines, when we have that idea, that’s something that I have to do. I am disciplined. But the means of grace, it’s a means of experiencing God’s grace. So the focus is on God, not on the actions that we do. But I still think that we set ourselves up. We can be like John Wesley when he was at Oxford and say, “If I do this and this and this and this and this, then I’ll be a holy person.” And it brought him nothing but anxiety and depression.

Dr. Mike Voigts:
But again, I think if we focus on our love for God, if we truly love God in a multi-layered way, then we’re going to want to read scripture. We’re going to want to pray. We’re going to want to be in fellowship with others. We’re going to want to attend worship and the Lord’s supper, those things are going to come out of who we are. We can’t do all of those things in order to become. It’s who we are, leads us to what we do.

Heidi Wilcox:
Oh yes. Yes.

Dr. Mike Voigts:
And it’s that whole idea of being before doing. There are some religions in the world that focus on doing in order to become faithful. If I do this and this and this and this, Christianity’s different, our faith is different. It’s a 180 from that. Because I love God, because I’ve surrendered my life to Christ, because the Holy Spirit is living in me, then how I live my life is going to be different. So it all starts with who we are. There’s a beautiful verse in Colossians Colossians 3:3, I believe. Paul writes that, “We’ve died to ourselves and our lives are hidden with Christ in God.” I love that image because when you die to yourself, that means that you’re not living for yourself anymore, that you can’t improve your relationship with Christ. Because how can you improve that which is dead?

Heidi Wilcox:
Right.

Dr. Mike Voigts:
So if you’ve died to Christ, how can you improve? You can’t.

Heidi Wilcox:
You get to just be. Yeah.

Dr. Mike Voigts:
Right. But it’s abiding in Christ, as Jesus said, he said, “You must abide in me.” And when we try to improve our relationship with Christ, what we’re telling ourselves, “Okay. Maybe I haven’t yet died to myself. I’ve not taken up my cross. I’m not a dead person walking. I’m not hidden with Christ in God because I’m still trying to improve me.”

Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah. What does that look like to die to ourselves? Because we both, I’m guessing if we didn’t grow up, well, you grew up in the church. I grew up in the church. If we didn’t, these words might seem weird or unusual to us. What does that actually look like?

Dr. Mike Voigts:
Oh boy.

Heidi Wilcox:
I know. Because it might not look the same for every… So I’m not asking for a prescription, [inaudible 00:33:19].

Dr. Mike Voigts:
Right. It doesn’t work the same way for everybody. But I think the desires that we have become God’s desires for us. The pursuits we have in life are not about making our lives easier or better. Our focus is on other people. It’s not on our own comfort and it’s not like the desert fathers would do. They gave up everything in their life and they gave up food and they’d suffer. St. Francis has said he put ashes in his soup, so it wouldn’t taste good. So that all of his joy could be in God and not in the soup. I’m not talking about that type of existence. But when we wake up every day, our whole thoughts are on serving God. It’s not on what can I achieve today? What can I get out of this day? It’s what is God going to do through me today?

Heidi Wilcox:
Right? Yeah. That’s a completely different way.

Dr. Mike Voigts:
So it’s not always putting yourself. It’s not even having, God is the highest priority in our lives. We use that language sometimes, because if God is a priority, we haven’t died to ourselves.

Heidi Wilcox:
Right.

Dr. Mike Voigts:
See, this is difficult.

Heidi Wilcox:
It’s very difficult. It’s very difficult. One of the ways that you kind of help us navigate through that in your book is talking about the four stages of prayer. Because what I saw in those four stages, it’s a continual dying and moving to the next stage. Not because of what we’re doing, but because of what we’re ready to receive from God that he has done from us. So could you walk us through that?

Dr. Mike Voigts:
Yeah. And really, these degrees of prayer aren’t mine. I kind of adapted them from Bernard of Clairvaux’ text on loving God. And in this 12th century text, he says that there are four different degrees or stages in loving God. And the first one is that we love ourselves for the sake of ourselves. The second one is that we love God, but for our own sake. And I think that’s where a lot of people are.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yes.

Dr. Mike Voigts:
And I think even pastors today will get people to this level, give your life to Jesus and he’ll make your life better. But they don’t realize that there’s far more in a love for God than just that. And then Bernard says that we love God for the sake of God. And that’s like that wean child at its mother’s breast, where we love God, “Lord, I don’t desire anything for myself. I just love you because you are who you are.” But then he says, “The deepest degree of prayer is when we love ourselves, but for the sake of God.” And that seems like a step back, but it’s really not because we can’t even imagine ourselves existing without God.

Heidi Wilcox:
Oh yeah.

Dr. Mike Voigts:
And so I took those four degrees of love for God. And I thought that it would overlay beautifully with prayer. Because our capacity to pray, as I said before, I think is based on our love for God. And so I began to look at different depths of praying and saw how they lined up with these four degrees of love for God.

Heidi Wilcox:
Right. I really like, and yeah, I think you’ve mentioned it earlier in the podcast, a little bit, your relationship with your wife, Cheryl, but throughout the book, you kind of connected it to a relationship with another human being. And at least in my mind that makes so much sense because you start out with another person and you’re getting to know them. And then just over time, that relationship deepens because people who have been married 50 years have a different type of relationship than people… At least we hope they do, sometimes no, but yeah.

Dr. Mike Voigts:
Yeah. When I first met Cheryl at a summer camp in East Texas, and we started dating, I said, “This is really going to make my reputation with others step up because they see me with her.”

Heidi Wilcox:
Right. Right. But you probably intimidated at the beginning, right?

Dr. Mike Voigts:
Yeah. Right. And so I saw that, I thought, “Okay, I could date Cheryl. She’s going to be good for me.”

Heidi Wilcox:
Right.

Dr. Mike Voigts:
And it was absolutely true. But then as we fell in love, that began to deepen and I just wanted to be around her all the time. And we were at different schools and that was really hard, when she was a senior and I was at Baylor and that was hard because we just wanted to be together. And then our love just, just deepened and deepened and deepened. So now we can drive across the country to go visit our kids in Dallas. And we can go 50 miles without saying a word to each other and it’s okay, because we’re just together. We don’t have to say anything. She knows my mannerisms and what’s going on in my mind. I know what’s going on in her mind. And I think that really does correspond with our love for God and prayer with God as well.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah, for sure. The last degree is kind of where we all I think would like to get, is where I would like to get, is where loving God connecting with him is just part of my very nature so that people don’t necessarily see Heidi, they see God. Right? How do we get to that point?

Dr. Mike Voigts:
Yeah.

Heidi Wilcox:
That’s the question, right?

Dr. Mike Voigts:
And I’m not sure we can ever get there. I think the Holy Spirit has to do that work in us.

Heidi Wilcox:
For sure. Yeah.

Dr. Mike Voigts:
Because if we say, “Well, this is where I want to aspire to attain, this is where I want to go.” I think that our focus is not on God.

Heidi Wilcox:
Right, yeah. Oh my gosh. How do we change that? Because it’s so built into me. I think it’s so built into a lot of us. And I know we’ve talked about this before, but how do we change that very thing in us that is like, “Oh, I need to get to this stage.”

Dr. Mike Voigts:
I know, I think we are so focused on striving towards something. We strive to lose weight. We strive to work out, to do all of these things for ourselves. And that jumps right into our relationship with God, unfortunately. And I think this fourth degree of prayer is a gift from God. And if we strive and do whatever we can to make sure that we get a gift for Christmas, it’s not that special when we unwrap it.

Heidi Wilcox:
No, it’s not.

Dr. Mike Voigts:
Because it’s what we wanted. But when something happens and we receive a gift that we’re not expecting at all, what a blessing. And I think that’s what this fourth degree of prayer is. Don’t focus on the fourth degree of prayer, focus on the depth of your love for Christ and let God lead you where he wants you to go in your relationship with him. Because this fourth degree of prayer is really not for ourselves at all, it’s how we become spiritual fruit for others. Because if we try to focus on a relationship with God to improve ourselves. That’s a very selfish endeavor. St. Augustine said, it’s a term Latin, incurvatus in se, it’s a curving inward upon oneself. And Martin Luther says that that’s a definition of sin, is when our lives are turned inward upon ourselves. So we need to be careful that any spiritual pursuit we have doesn’t end up just becoming a sin in our lives.

Heidi Wilcox:
For sure.

Dr. Mike Voigts:
And this happens when our focus is not on becoming spiritual fruit to nourish to other people. If we’re just trying to improve ourselves, bring peace to ourselves, contentment. It’s very self focused. And sadly, that’s where some of modern publications on prayer are. It’s how to improve yourself through prayer.

Heidi Wilcox:
Right, yes.

Dr. Mike Voigts:
But that’s just a turning inward upon ourselves, if it doesn’t end up as spiritual fruit for others.

Heidi Wilcox:
Oh, wow.

Dr. Mike Voigts:
So this is why I tell seminary students that this degree that they’re pursuing that seems to take forever sometimes, is not for themselves.

Heidi Wilcox:
Right.

Dr. Mike Voigts:
Every class they take is not for them, it’s for the people that they will encounter in ministry to help draw them closer to Christ.

Heidi Wilcox:
That’s a beautiful thing.

Dr. Mike Voigts:
So if that becomes their focus, I think it’s going to be easier to read all those textbooks and to write those papers, because it’s not a self pursuit, knowledge for the sake of ourselves, it’s just for pride, but we learn so that we can-

Heidi Wilcox:
For the sake of, yeah.

Dr. Mike Voigts:
… be in the lives of others and draw them to Christ. That’s why they’re doing this.

Heidi Wilcox:
That’s beautiful. I never thought about theological education and really anything that way at all, that it’s not solely for me. It’s for other people.

Dr. Mike Voigts:
Yeah. And when I was first a student here, I didn’t have that mindset at all. I’m very competitive with myself.

Heidi Wilcox:
Same.

Dr. Mike Voigts:
And I remember when Dr. Oswalt gave me my first B on a paper.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah.

Dr. Mike Voigts:
Isn’t that funny that I remember that it was Dr. Oswalt.

Heidi Wilcox:
Not in seminary, but I remember, I think I made a C in biology. It was life changing for me.

Dr. Mike Voigts:
Yeah. And so I got this B, it was on a test in the history of Israel class. And it just knocked me down. So I went home and I wrote a poem called, The Tack of the Killer B. And the first line, a killer B stung my pride today, look out for those bees because they’ll get you. But I needed to be stung because it completely changed my whole perspective of why I was getting that degree. So the Holy Spirit guided Dr. Oswalt and in grading my paper or had me write a paper that wasn’t that quality. Just to teach me this lesson. And I remember that my focus was not on myself or the grades I was going to get or how it was going to improve my knowledge of this or that. But on the people that I didn’t yet have an opportunity to meet, the Holy Spirit was working conveniently in me to prepare me, to engage them with the gospel.

Heidi Wilcox:
And that makes a lot of sense. Yeah.

Dr. Mike Voigts:
And so I use that hard lesson with students and I have to remind myself of that.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah. Yeah. As people read your book, they will likely want to engage in some, maybe new rhythms or reestablish some old rhythms. Do you have any, I’m not asking this as a prescriptive thing, because we’ve already established it can’t be that. But do you have any recommendations for people as they seek to establish a rhythm of prayer and a rhythm to receive the means of grace in their lives?

Dr. Mike Voigts:
Yeah. Great. I really think it goes back to just simply focusing on whether or not they’ve taken up their cross and have followed Jesus. What is the degree to which they love God? So in some ways it’s not even about the means of grace at all. It’s about their relationship with Christ. Now the means of grace can place us in a position where we’re able to receive from God. But I think if the delight of our lives is God, I think those means of grace are just going to happen in our lives. Because we are going to want to engage in the things that are going to keep us centered on Christ and connected with Christ.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah. Then it’s organic.

Dr. Mike Voigts:
Right, right. So it’s not focusing on all of these means of grace. It’s just focusing on God. It’s like, if I get Cheryl a cup of coffee in the morning, which I’ve done for all these years, I always get her cup of coffee. It’s just one of those things. If I fill it too full and I have to walk it from the coffee pot to where Cheryl is, if I walk and say, “Don’t spill it.” It’s going to spill. But if I say, “Okay, I’m going to walk to Cheryl.” It’s not going to spill.

Heidi Wilcox:
Right. Yeah.

Dr. Mike Voigts:
And I think that’s the way it is with the means of grace. If we say, “Okay, I have to do this and do this and do this.” We’re going to find our lives spilling a little bit.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yes.

Dr. Mike Voigts:
But if we say, “Okay, I love God and my life is completely centered on God.” Then I think we’re going to walk and is not going to spill. Now, that may seem idealistic, but in my own life, I’ve discovered that that’s been the case because there’ve been some dry times in ministry, especially, when I thought that my relationship with Christ was part of my job description as a pastor. And so I had to pray, I had to have a quiet time. I had to be in a small group because that’s what I had to do, rather than, I love God with my heart, mind, soul and strength. And because of that, I can’t wait to engage in these things. It’s just a change in perspective, I think sometimes. It’s not a complete life overhaul for those who are already following Christ. It’s just a little tweak sometimes, it’s all that it takes. Just a little tweak.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah. And changing perspective can change everything.

Dr. Mike Voigts:
Yeah. Yep.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah. Wow.

Dr. Mike Voigts:
If I get writer’s block, what I’ll do sometimes is just take my desk and my study at home and just move it to a different wall.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yes. That helps so much.

Dr. Mike Voigts:
It’s the same room. It’s the same desk, same chair, same computer, but it’s just a different perspective. And sometimes I think it’s as easy as that for us.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes it is. Dr. Voigts, this conversation has been a delight. I have one question that I ask everyone who comes on the show, but before I do that, is there anything else you’d like to mention that I didn’t know to ask you?

Dr. Mike Voigts:
Oh my goodness. The only thing about the book is that I wrote it with a hope that this could be used by small groups, Sunday school classes, because I think this book would be really helpful with discussion.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yes, yes.

Dr. Mike Voigts:
And processing it with other people. And I’ve had opportunities to teach this in a couple of settings and I’ve just discovered that the discussion people have had, have really brought some depth. And so that’s just the only last thing I’d like to say about the book.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yes, for sure.

Dr. Mike Voigts:
I would love to see this in small groups, or in classes. I think it could be a real blessing to folks.

Heidi Wilcox:
Definitely. And we’ll link to your book in the show note so that if people want to purchase a copy, it’ll just be right there for thanks. So the one question we ask everyone who comes on the show, because the show is called the Thrive with Asbury Seminary Podcast. What is one practice that is helping you thrive in your life right now?

Dr. Mike Voigts:
One practice that’s helping me thrive. I think it’s the word simplicity.

Heidi Wilcox:
Ooh.

Dr. Mike Voigts:
I try to keep my life uncluttered as much as I can. Because to thrive with God means that we are with God, God is with us. And if we have a lot of other things in our lives that are getting in the way of that, it’s going to keep us from really thriving with God. So I try to keep out things in my life that I really don’t need.

Heidi Wilcox:
Okay. Say more about that. Because you’re a professor, you’re very busy. Because sometimes I think of simplicity and uncluttering as like, oh, I’m doing nothing.

Dr. Mike Voigts:
Right, right. No it’s if there’s something in your life that doesn’t draw you closer to Jesus, why would you want it in your life?

Heidi Wilcox:
For real.

Dr. Mike Voigts:
That is the simplicity for me.

Heidi Wilcox:
Okay.

Dr. Mike Voigts:
So I’m a big sports fan. Okay. I love sports, but sports doesn’t draw me closer to Jesus. Sometimes I get angry. That’s the opposite. So I have to put limits on that. It’s easy to sit down and just binge watch a show and then hours have gone by, it’s 3:00 in the morning. It’s like, “What in the world, I’ve wasted all that time.” If that doesn’t draw you closer to Jesus, why do you spend your time doing that? Why do we invite something into our lives that’s going to be a hindrance to our walk with the Lord?

Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah.

Dr. Mike Voigts:
And so for me, that’s what helps me thrive.

Heidi Wilcox:
Wow. You’ve given me and our audience so much to think about Dr. Voigts. Thank you so very much. Thank you for writing this book. Thank you for taking the time to talk more about it with me and just thank you for the work and who you are in the world.

Dr. Mike Voigts:
Oh, I’m just so thankful to be at Asbury Seminary, training up these folks and it’s been great being with you today. Really enjoyed this time.

Heidi Wilcox:
Thank you so much.

Dr. Mike Voigts:
Thanks.

Heidi Wilcox:
Hey everyone. Thank you so much for joining me for today’s conversation with Dr. Voigts, I felt like today’s conversation was such a gift to me personally. And there were so many nuggets of truth that he shared that really changed my perspective. And I hope you found it helpful as well. If you haven’t already, be sure to pick up a copy of his book, The Fourth Degree of Prayer, it’s available for purchase on Within Stock and Amazon, the links are in our show notes. And if you know Dr. Voigts, just be sure to tell him thanks for being on the podcast today. Really appreciate who he is and the work that he is doing in the world. As always, you can follow Asbury Seminary in all the places, on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram @AsburySeminary. Until next time, I hope you’ll go do something that helps you thrive.